Walking through the shopping district, Ken made his way towards the train station. He was fascinated by everything he saw, from the different types of weapons that were being sold, food that he had never seen before, to animals that he had only read about in books, but Ken forced himself to continue past them all, so he could make it to the train station.
The station itself was huge, with several train tracks. The place was swarming with pedestrians entering and exiting the station.
"Let's see, when is my train arriving."
Looking up, he saw multiple monitors that displayed timetables. It didn't take long before he spotted the timetable for Belthon City, lucky for him there was one coming soon.
"Looks like it arrives in twenty minutes. This means I can explore a little."
Ken made his way out of the station and back into the Market District. He made his way to a nearby food vendor and brought the most intriguing thing on the menu for a little over 5 gold. It was a burger of some sort, packed with a mix of vegetables and topped with an unhealthy amount of shredded meat.
Ken had eaten before leaving, but this burger was for the experience of being in a new setting. Taking the biggest bite he could, he began to chew, each bite was an experience of its own.
“Amazing!”
Ken continued his tour, carefully analyzing everything, even if he didn't have the money to buy any of it. He even stopped to look at a blue horn Gecko, a small lizard no bigger than 5 inches, its most notable feature being the overgrown horns on its head that it uses during mating rituals.
"Hey! Someone stop those bandits!" An old man shouted as he ran through the crowd of people while pointing up "They stole my belongings!"
Ken looked up, and so did everyone else. In the sky, a group of bandits rode on what looked to be brooms. They flew in the sky above the crowd looking to escape with the goods they had stolen from the poor old man.
"Someone please stop them!" The old man shouted once again.
Ken took the final bite of his burger, wiping leftover crumbs from his mouth, “Hmmm, should I get involved?”
"Look over there!" One of the onlookers shouted while pointing ahead of the bandits.
Several buildings ahead of the criminals, on top of a tall building, what appeared to be a young girl around Ken's age, stood firm facing the incoming robbers. Her long midnight black hair danced in the gentle wind that flew by. Everyone watched, being witness to what was about to go down.
The girl held her hand to the side, summoning a bow, but no arrows? She pointed her weapon at the group of outlaws. Pulling back on the string a magic arrow made out of blue manna appeared attached to the string. Seeing this amazed Ken, even if it didn't seem like anything special, it was Ken's first time seeing Magic outside of Zen Island.
Taking aim, the girl released the arrow. The arrow soared through the air at high speed, before splitting into four separate arrows and taking out 4 of the 7 criminals. The arrows were blunt but packed enough force to knock them off of their brooms and onto the ground groaning in pain.
Seeing their friends get shot out of the sky, the three bandits that remained retaliated and started casting destructive spells such as Firebolt, lightning bolt, and ice shard. These spells were basic ones, nothing that would impress the average mage… but Ken wasn't the average mage.
"More mages!" Ken gasped.
The black-haired girl was easily able to avoid all the spells by leaping from one building to another. She was like a leaf dancing in the wind, moving around swiftly and effortlessly.
The bandit's destructive spells soon started going stray, endangering the onlookers. Ken quickly snapped out of it, and immediately took action. Jumping high out of the crowd, he landed onto a building, before immediately leaping in front of the incoming spells. Ken held his palm out towards the stray spells.
"Reflect!"
The stray spells seem to hit some invisible wall that Ken created, causing them to bounce off and go back the way they came from, but with even more speed and power.
The bandits saw this and were only able to dodge it by a hair, almost making them fall off of their brooms.
"Everyone seems to be fine, '' Ken said, landing on another rooftop.
Looking at the criminals, Ken released a bit of his mana in the form of a wave of pressure. His mana release struck the remaining bandits in the air, instantly rendering them unconscious, and making them fall to the ground, thus the bandit problem was over.
“Hopefully the Academy has people stronger than them.”
Seeing what just happened, the onlookers started to cheer. While they cheered, Ken made his way to the young girl. Standing in front of her, Ken started the conversation by saying.
"That was a pretty neat spell."
The bow in the girl's hand vanished. “...K-Ken…” She looked upon Ken with a look that conveyed both surprise and confusion.
Hearing the girl say his name puzzled him "How do you know my name?"
"It's me…you don't remember?" She took a step towards the young man in case he needed a closer look.
Tilting his head to the side a little, he replied, “Have we met before?” but that couldn't be possible, Ken was raised on an island his whole life.
“Your name is Ken Granfold, is it not…?”
"It is… but I still don't know who you are. How about you try telling me your name, maybe that'll help.”
“....Claire Ullastrea Vaylinmoor, does that ring any bells?”
Gripping his chin the Young Man answered “...Claire Ullastrea Vaylinmoor?... Hmmm, thinking about it, I have heard that name.”
Claire’s face lit up with joy, “So you remember Me!?”
“No, not exactly, but I have read a little about Zereph Vaylinmoor, the Grand Wizard of Vaevalon Queendom, his your father right?”
“So you don't remember me personally… which also means you don't remember the promise we made as children…” Claire’s voice filled with deep disappointment, and her facial expression changed to match.
“A promise? What the hell are you talking about?”
With a sigh, Her disappointed gaze turned to a cold distant one, “So be it, you might not remember me or our promise, but I do, and I’ll make sure to see it through.”
And just like that, the strange woman known as Claire vanished from where she stood.
“What on earth was that all about?”
“That's definitely not how I expected my first interaction with someone my age to go… still tho, she seemed to be very convinced about us knowing each other" Ken didn't know what to make of the situation that just unfolded, the whole thing was so sudden and perplexing to make any sense of.
“Hmmm… oh well.”
Ken jumped down from the building and onto the ground. Approaching the nearest person, and politely asked.
"Excuse me, sir, would you be so kind as to tell me the time?"
"Sure, it's 10:49."
"Oh okay…. wait, what!" he came to realize that he had less than one minute before he missed the train "Thank you Mista!”
The Young Wizard sprinted through the crowd of people, heading towards the train station as quickly as possible. Rushing into the station, he made his way to his platform where a long train stood waiting, the train was long and slim, resembling that of a bullet.
Leaping into the train, Ken made it just in time, a wave of relief falling onto him.
"Made it!"
[The train will now be departing. Please stand clear]
The doors of the train slowly began to close as the train was ready to take off.
"Wait! Please wait! Someone, please hold the door open!"
A girl with flowing pink hair and two short horns protruding from her forehead, came racing towards the train in distress.
"Someone please hold the door open!" She desperately shouted once more.
Just before the doors could close, Ken quickly forced the door to stay open for a few seconds, letting the pink-haired girl slip in. Ken let go of the doors and they quickly slammed close, allowing the train to take off straight away, into a tunnel.
The pink-haired girl had tripped on her way in due to being in a rush. Ken went to help by pulling her up by the hand, but something happened when he caught a glance of her up close.
All of a sudden his heart skipped a beat….
