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"W-Where am I? What happened to the others? Am I dead?" Naoto's adrenaline rushed trough his body as he frantically tried to make out what just happened. One second he was at the Library with everyone else, staring at a glowing book, and the next minute, he was struck with a light so bright that it blinded him.
"I can feel my body touching the floor, so I guess I'm not dead. But this doesn't feel like the school floor." He thought to himself, his eyes still closed from the bright light. He waved his hand across the floor, feeling grass all over the place. "Where am I?" He asked himself.
After a few seconds, he was finally able to open his eyes. From what he could tell, he definitely wasn't in school, maybe not even in Japan. He simply seemed to be on a small hill of grass. The surrounding was filled with trees, Small ponds and lakes, and from the distance, he could make put what looked like a town.
It didn't look like any regular town, however. It looked more...ancient, having an almost medieval look to it. From what he could tell, the 'Town' was covered behind a big stone wall.
"Now I'm even more confused. What is this place?" He wondered. "Glowing book, engulfing light, medieval town, different location..." as Naoto thought deeper and deeper about what was happening, the puzzle started to click more and more.
There was no way. No we he could've been teleported to another world, right? This had to be some sort of dream, like the one he had that one time. Naoto wanted to convince himself this, but as far as he could tell, this was no dream. He could feel, see and hear clearly.
Before he could think more about it, he heard a voice from afar, which he instantly realized belonged to Nagatoro.
"Senpai!"
Quickly running towards where the voice came from, Naoto found nagatoro at the bottom of the Hill. Before directly approaching her, he quickly noticed that she was holding a stick while swinging it around. When he saw what she was swinging at, his theory was confirmed.
It seemed like a tiny, blue blob of Gel. It was bouncing around, getting closer to Nagatoro, who was still trying to keep it at bay with the the stick.
Seeing that she was apparently in trouble, Naoto flimsily ran down the hill, nearly tripping on his way down. "Nagatoro!" He yelled to get her attention, as he crouched down and picked up a slightly larger stick than Nagatoro's.
"Senpa-" Nagatoro was about to respond to his calling of her name before the slime jumped at her, tackling her stomach and throwing her on the ground. Seeing this, Naoto panicked, picking up his pace down the hill.
He didn't have much time to think of his next move, aware only of the fact that he had to protect Nagatoro, he quickly swiped his 'Weapon' at the slime. He ended up hitting his target, sending it flying at the floor.
Instead of attempting to finish it off, Naoto ran towards Nagatoro. "Get up, we have to go." He said with a shakey voice, holding out his hand to help her get up.
"T-Thanks, Senpai." She quickly grabbed his hand, slightly blushing, as they both ran away from the small creature.
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After a few minutes of running and stopping for breath, Naoto was satisfied with their distance from the monster, holding onto his legs and laying down from exhaustion. Both him and Nagatoro had calmed down enough for them to discuss what was going on.
"Senpai. Do you know what's going on? Knowing you're a loner, you probably read a lot of animes with similar stories." Nagatoro spoke with a worried tone. Despite being tossed onto this new environment, her teasing apparently didn't stay behind in the other world.
Naoto didn't really feel like playing along with her jokes, getting straight to the point. "The only good explanation I have is that we were taken to another world by that book in the Library. It's the only way to explain the slime and this environment, along with the medieval town in the distance." He stuttered, sitting down to rest.
"I guess there's not really a way to deny your claims. But what happened to the others? They were at the Library as well." Nagatoro said with a worried tone while wiping some of the slime on her clothing that stuck from when it tackled her.
Naoto sighed, not really able to give a comforting response. While he understood the basic premise of these type of stories, he didn't really know how it would pan put if it was the real deal. After all, he was just a plain student, just like Nagatoro and the others. As far as he could tell, he didn't have any abilities yet, let alone a class or role.
"Since they were not that far away from us when we were brought here, my guess is that they must not be very far. The only thing we can really do right now is look for them." He said, standing back up and picking up the stick. It wasn't really that efficient as a weapon, but it was better than having nothing.
"Well, whatever happens, at least we found eachother." Naoto said, his cheeks slightly red from how cheesy his phrasing sounded. Nagatoro smiled, having regained a bit of optimism. "That's creepy, Senpai." She smacked his head with her palm as she always did as they stood up and began to explore their surroundings.
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Nagatoro and Naoto had been walking around for a while now, not really finding anything. The most interesting thing they found was a few tiny slimes, which they either ignored or ran away from.
Nagatoro sighed, exhausted and bored. "This sucks! Where are our friends?" She said in a whiney voice, seemingly getting tired of walking around.
Naoto wasn't off much better, staggering behind at the pace of a snail while sweating like hell. "You're telling me. At least you're athletic. My legs are beginning to feel number with every step I take." He cried out.
"What the hell are we even supposed to do here?" Naoto thought to himself.
Right as he finished spouting those words in his head, a massive screen which resembled a hologram appeared in front of him, causing him to jump and getting Nagatoro's attention. "Whoa! What's that?" She said, approaching Naoto as they both started to read what the screen said.
At the top of the screen the word "Status" appeared bigger than everything else. The screen itself was divided into multiple sections ranging from Statistics, Skills, Quests and Missions to Equipment and personal Data.
Nagatoro was a bit confused as to what it was, but not for long. Even someone like her, who didn't play videogames that often, could tell that this was simply a Status Bar which represented all of your characters attributes. Naoto was quick to get it as well, reading it carefully.
His intelligence was pretty high, his strenght and Agility however were rather low while the rest of the stats were somewhat average. The top of the Stat bar simply said "Level 1" seemingly implying that Naoto was at the lowest level for now. To his surprise, he had already accumulated a few experience points for leveling up, seemingly from 'fighting' the slime previously.
"I've read trough it, but how do I close it now? I don't want this up in my face all the time." He said, before thinking of something. He held out his thumb and index finger and put them togheter, before making a pinching gesture with his fingers as if zooming out on a device, which closed the screen in front of him.
Nagatoro was watching all of this unfold, and decided to repeat what Naoto did. In order to open it, she put her fingers in the same position as Naoto's, before opening her fingers as if she were zooming into a picture, opening the screen.
Compared to Naoto, her skills were slightly higher, with her Agility being the highest, and her Physical strenght being second in line. After giving it a read-trough as well, she finally closed it, before looking at Naoto, who had been reading her stats alongside him.
"Senpai, you creep. Why are you lookin at all of my Statistics? Are you that desperate to know more about me? Creepy!" She giggled, to which Naoto simply went a bit red.
"It's not that. It would just be more helpful if we knew eachothers Statistics." He said with a nervous tone, worried than even here, Nagatoro would tease him as much as she did back at school.
After sitting down for a while longer, both Naoto and Nagatoro stood back up, ready to continue trying to find their friends.