(You can skip this one it is just the draft of the chapter before this)

 

"Eri!"

The girl that was calling was green haired and chubby (sentenced to mob) and the girl that was called Eri was suffering the fate of getting her shoulders shook till the earth stopped spinning. [She has brown hair and this is important enough to mention]

"The bell has already rung!"

"The bell rings every hour."

"Guess I’ll have to drag you out!!"

“Take your...TiMe!"

The green mob (hulk now) grabbed Eri's hand as Eri flopped out of her sleepy reading position as if she had forgotten to drink her daily morning coffee, shoving the textbook in her bag

Eri had just barely managed to grab her bag, which served as her pillow, before slowly being dragged out of her class against her own will by the slowest person to ever roam the class.

"You promised me to come visit the bookstore with me!” 

“I can’t believe you have forgotten” Her never visible eyes glittered, while still keeping a strict tone in her always loud voice

“When?”

Eri rubbed her eyes with her hands and let out a big yawn, held by the hand like a child. Yet still ignored by the chubby girl who’s height was at Eri’s chest.

…

“This is the book!”

The now wide awake Eri inspected the book slowly.

The book was thicker than a dictionary and the papes were larger than the usual sized book.

A shiny gold colour wrapped every edge of the hard cover, down to the outline of individual pages. It felt like a percentage of the budget was spent purely on designing the actual book.

“Don’t you remember waiting for this book since three years ago?”

Eri kept silent, she continued flipping the book observing the design. 

The book was presumably designed to look old and tattered, as she compared the book in her hands to the books on display, the spine of the book was more worn out than the rest of the book. 

The cover of the book featured a black haired man wearing a crown loosely and two ladies seemingly in competition for the man, tugging both sides of the man’s sleeve like a life or death tug of war. One had striking rose red hair, in contrast to the other one with hair of a silky white and a hint of blonde, both seemingly important to the story.

“The white haired one is probably going to be the one who will win the man’s heart, but since it took a few years to make this, so there’s definitely going to be more time to reach that conclusion”

She flipped the novel over to the back, 

“The heroine will venture to save the hearts of the people around her in this magical quest of love and redemption as she travels across mountains and oceans to find peace and resolve to everyone around her”

She then flipped it to the front noticing that she had missed the title

 

~Welcome to Arthland~

 

“Are you done inspecting it?”

Eri was snapped back to earth by her words, returning the book back to the shelf and pulling a quick sigh.

She was unable to get it just yet… but today was her birthday, and a copy of the book was definitely waiting for her.

“Yes…”

“If you aren't spending any money, treat me to ice cream!”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please?”

“No, use your own money”

Eri clenched her head as if a terrible headache just hit her.

“See you tomorrow”

Eri left her friend without another word, a gesture that she normally displays when she is irritated.

The relatively cooling sun shined down to the earth, providing warmth to those under it. The trees were casually hanging their brunches above the pavement. It was so cold that it was comparable to sub zero. The cold tickled Eri as she left the mob behind to continue the path home. 

 

“Ka-nee!” 

the door slammed open so hard one would think that the fbi had just paid a visit to onii-chan, a bigger ‘Eri’ sat surprised with a tub of half finished taiyaki ice cream in hand, eyes open like she was that “onii-chan”, she gulped her like a goldfish, and it seemed like her memory was the same. 

(no editor-sama, this is not cannibalism, how did you reach that conclusion?!)

[Y E S]

“Erm… happy birthday?”

“Eh?”

“I’ll s-send you the novel later… hahahahah”

“Kameko?”

Her sister quivered guiltily, the sister she put on a high pedestal was asking for the book she had used to bribe her into studying and putting aside all her other activities, but used the funds meant to acquire the book on her half eaten ice cream, 

“Eri-chan, just wait in your room~”

Plastic smiles, pure chaos and pent up stress was all that could be observed from kameko who is obviously eri’s older sister, but eri dismissed this as she thought of it as nothing and went into her room.

‘Ping’

Her phone rang from a message from kameko linking to a *PBF file of the story, it was 2 hours after she had told Eri to wait in her room. Even so, it was worth the wait.

[*Not affiliated with PDF files in any way]

“Read it tomorrow, you have to do work now.”

‘Eeeeeeee, click’

Eri closed her room door as quietly as possible but ended up making more noise than she would otherwise instead.

Her room was clean yet stuffed to the fullest with objects. Her bed was just an inch away from her desk and on top of it rested an arc of boxes that haven’t been opened, resembling something like a cave entrance. Resting behind her door was a bag more stuffed than the stereotypical teddy bear.

That bag was nicknamed the “Dumbbell Of Doom” by everyone who has met Kameko, and for good reason. The bag weighed as much as a professional wrestler, and was twice as intimidating. Kameko has been urging Eri to carry it around for her for the longest time. Eri looked at it and an idea sprung up in her head. “If I would to help her carry this bag that she has always forgets when she goes to work, she would be sure to give me some leeway later on, and I would be able to skip studying today”

“You win ka-nee…”

‘Ziiip’

‘Splash’ 

‘Zip!’

‘*grab*

*lift*

*jump*

*splat*

(An author’s onomatopoeia filled explanation of how Eri prepared to go out without actually saying anything) 

It seemed like while jumping out of the window [because doors are for losers], Eri squished an umbrella of ka-nee’s yellow flowers below the window but she didn't care.

‘Click’ ‘clack’ ‘click’ ‘clack

After putting her slippers on, she rushed down the pavement, but her face quickly turned red from the weight of kameko’s bag of ‘necessities’, which pulled her down closer to the pavement with every step. Slowly, Eri lessened her mobility till she was comparable to a land-bound whale.

Right after reaching the seemingly unreachable bus stop, she threw down the “Dumbbell Of Doom” and the sound that it produced could have been easily mistaken for a car accident.

 

*beep*

*squeak!*

[*Arms dislocates*]

*poooof*

*sigh*

“ahhhhhhh”

(an author's lazy onomatopoeia of how eri gets on the bus without making it a gore without blood)

Eri sat on a seat next to the bus door, sweaty and sore from her exercise. Her arms were practically broken. 

Eri took out her phone and downloaded the PBF

After a short while, Eri reached her stop and dragged the “DUMBBELL OF DOOM™” like an  oversized luggage missing wheels.

She dragged herself towards the nearby park and lunged towards a bench, huffing and puffing as if she was an obese sloth that just went for a 10m walk. She took a while to shift the weight of her body on the bench.

 

 She held her phone up and started reading her otome novel but over time her face radiated (toxic) disappointment. The novel that she has been waiting for betrayed her expectations. The main characters were shells of non-existent personalities, and the story was so fleshed out, one would think the author died midway.

 

Eri’s blood boiled with anger and hatred towards the world, because she had spent the better part of her junior years pleasing her older sister and her bizarre ways of life. (rip jojo jokes that never made it past editor-sama) [I am not ok with this alias]

Although the story was infuriatingly boring, she had managed to spend enough time on it for it to be sundown. The madness that she felt could not be measured as she pondered whether she should throw her phone on the ground to relief herself of anger.

She looked around before locking her sights on the only thing that could cool her head - a strangely placed water cooler across the road. She stumbled towards the road while a kid ran from the other side. The kid kicked a rock into her path, which in turn, tripped Eri over. 

Eri tried to get up but found that her legs were stopped by the “DUMBBELL OF DOOM”. She looked back towards the dreaded “DUMBBELL OF DOOM” and looked back at the road to see a pair of lights in the distance that came closer every second. She stared back at the “DUMBBELL OF DOOM”, as it shortened the distance between her and death.

Soon enough, the lights were revealed to be one of a truck’s. It seemed to have no intention of stopping as it travelled closer to Eri. A horn blared towards Eri, as if it would suddenly give her the strength to get away from the approaching truck.

All Eri could do was to accept her fate as she closed her eyes.