Elkend snaps into the waking world from his nightmare, heavily sweating from his bed, he sits up and takes shaky breaths in order to calm himself. He inhales for 4 seconds, holds it in for 3 seconds, and exhales for 5 seconds.

It's a calming technique from his past world, one he distinctly remembers reading on a research article one particularly boring afternoon later. Huh, who would've thought it would become useful now?

Shaking himself from his musing and the memory of torn throats and crimson blood, Elkend slowly slips out of bed and goes to the kitchen to prepare himself some breakfast.

At times like these, Elkend thinks while whistling a tune, he's kind of glad for his mother's chaotic job schedule, as it means that by the time he wakes up from a particularly hellish nightmare, she'll already be on her way to work.

After all, it wouldn't be good for her to learn that her first-born child—the only person she has in this world since her husband is dead—is literally suffering every night and day under her nose.

It would be too cruel, Elkend decides.

Luckily, his mother taught him how to make himself breakfast, already deeming him at the plausible age of ten-years-old to be independent.

Putting the plate filled with boiled eggs and bacon on the wooden table, Elkend sits down and starts eating, and somewhere in between, his thoughts stray to the magic shop that he saw in the caravan while on the way here.

He's admittedly curious himself. After all, who wouldn't be? Here he is, a past sixteen-year-old Japanese boy, in the body of a ten-year-old in another world where magic and unearthly beasts are the norms.

It's once in a lifetime opportunity—to observe a literal real-life magic shop, that is.

So Elkend promptly decided as he finishes his breakfast and starts washing the dishes, today he would try and squeeze himself sometime between sword training, physical training to at least try and get a peek at the magic store.

Besides, it'll be a good learning experience to familiarize himself with this world's standards of magic.

[x]

The perfect time comes after he finishes practicing his swordplay for an hour or so. It's four in the afternoon, so his mother should finish her work in an hour or so, which would give him ample time to explore that magic store.

Quickly slipping on his shoes and changing his sweat-soaked tunic to a fresh one, Elkend starts walking to where he thinks the general direction of the magic store is.

It takes about twenty-five minutes or so to reach the store, and he got lost more times than he can count, but luckily a quick question to a stranger on the side of the road kept him on track.

Elkend stands before the magic store and observes Its exterior with curiosity.

It's admittedly bland—even for this world's standards of what a shop normally looks like—the walls are colored beige, and from the outside, it almost looks abandoned, but that can't be true, right...? Right.

Stepping up to the door of the store, Elkend pushes, and it doesn't budge. He tries to pull and it opens with a click, quickly stepping in with an embarrassed blush, Elkend really hopes no one saw that.

Shaking himself from his embarrassment, Elkend looks up to

The exterior made the shop—or store, really whatever—look like it was abandoned and was the hideout of a cliche villain from a C-grade story written by a hermit who lives inside his mom's basement.

But the inside? 

The inside of the store was huge. If not for the objects strewn upon shelves and not books, he would've thought he accidentally entered Oxford's library from how large it is.

His shock turns to childish excitement at the prospect of experiencing actual magical swords and wands that would've been legends and myths from his past world, and so he takes an eager step further inside the store with a grin that splits his face from ear-to-ear—

Only for a large, black hand to stop him in his place.

Confused, Elkend looks up and swallows at the intimidating form of the muscular, dark-skinned man that's no doubt the security of the magical shop.

After an awkward staring contest between them, Elkend breaks out the tension by raising a shaky hand and waving an awkward hello at him. "Uh, h-hi? C-Can I pass? Please?"

The man grunts in response and he pulls out a sheet of paper stapled on a small thin wooden plank from somewhere and Elkend would rather not ask where the fuck did he get it from. "State name and age." he then raises an examining eyebrow at Elkend. "Make it quick, boy."

On an impulsive decision that'll no doubt bite him in the ass later on, Elkend lies to the man.

Why you may ask? He has absolutely no fucking clue.

"U-Uh, my name's Elk—I mean, Z-Zephixo Therion, sir! And, uh, I'm eleven years old...?"

Elkend mentally berates himself for lying to the man as he looks up at him nervously. For all he would know, the security could have had a spell that would let him know if someone was lying. At this point, with his limited knowledge of this world? It was too risky lying to a potential authority figure of any kind whatsoever. 

Fortunately or unfortunately, the only thing the man does is crouch down to Elkend's eye level—perhaps to lessen the intimidation?—and raises a questioning eyebrow at him.

The security man drawls out slowly and methodically. "Oh please, do tell me, Mr.Zephixo, why are you, an eleven-year-old, without adult supervision inside our magic store? Where we store items that could annihilate a small district?"

Elkend shuffles his feet nervously, looks down on the ground, and lies again—well, in his defense, he's already in deep shit by lying about his name and age, so all he can do is go along with the mess he made. "M-My mom, sh-she's an adventurer and needs a, uh, I think it was called a h-healing t-trinket..?"

The man blinks in surprise, stands up, and waves at him to go inside while grumbling about something that suspiciously sounds something along the lines of 'shitty parents' and 'unresponsible idiots'.

As it is, Elkend doesn't waste a second later before bolting away from the security man.

Elkend sighs in relief as he confirms that, yes, he's out of sight of the security guard, and yes, he now thankfully no longer feels threatened as if a hungry leopard is breathing down his neck.

Shaking that little fiasco with the intimidating security from his thoughts, Elkend stares up besides him in great wonder and excitement at the magical swords, axes, and heck, they even have bows!

And so, Elkend spends a little over twenty minutes inside the store wandering about from left to right, soaking up the impossible sight of magical things that were literal myths and legends from his past world.

And then there was even a point where he stumbled across a woman who was testing something and she conjured up a fire in the palm of her hand! Literal fire! For real!

It isn't until he stumbled across a teenage girl who was fumbling with a golden necklace—likely enchanted with something, going by the slight sparkle that's attached to it—that he had the good sense to ask her what time is it.

4:40, she says with a smile. He asks her to repeat it again, surely thinking he must've heard her wrong. 4:41, she says now with a curious tilt to her head.

Elkend freezes in trepidation. His mother will be home in twenty minutes.

...

....

...

Blurting out a quick thank you, Elkend practically sprints like a cheetah whose tail's on fire to the exit of the store. He doesn't spare the security man a glance other than a haste explanation of a badly woven lie.

The sight must've been a weird one for the normal citizens willing about in the streets, Elkend thinks distantly.

A ten-year-old running down the streets like a possessed maniac as if he was currently being chased by a group of assassins, and maybe, in another universe, that very well could've been true, but in this one, he's just a simple boy who's scared of his mother's anger and disappointment.

And as they say, hell hath no fury like Veanda.