The shadows of the narrow alleyways stretch and twist, black ink bleeding into the damp cobblestones of Flora City. Aldo's chest heaves in ragged, shallow gasps. His boots strike the wet slate with heavy, frantic rhythms, kicking up droplets of stagnant water that glitter briefly in the torchlight of the main thoroughfares before vanishing back into the dark. Behind him, the shouts of the royal guards echo off the high stone walls—a metallic, sharp clatter of armor, boots, and iron-tipped halberds.
He rounds a blind corner, his shoulder slamming hard against the corner of a timber frame house, wood splintering under the impact. He doesn't slow down. He plunges directly into an unlit passage, running frantically through the night.
Snap.
Aldo collides head-on with a broad, solid chest. The force of the impact sends them both staggering back, boots skidding against the slick moss growing between the cobbles. Aldo drops into a defensive stance, his fists clenched, knuckles raw and scraped, his eyes wild as he peers through the murk.
A familiar, nonchalant figure steps out of the deep shadow of an overhang, brushing dust off his tunic with a slow, deliberate flick of his wrist.
"Ouch, where are you rushing off to?"
Aldo lets out a harsh, rasping breath, his shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch as he recognizes the voice. It is Comtois, who was out for a stroll. Comtois stands there with his hands casually resting on his belt, his head tilted slightly to the side, his face half-shrouded in the twilight gloom.
"I was ambushed at Saguine Lotus, probably by rebels," Aldo pants out, his breath rising in pale, brief wisps in the cool night air. His hand stays near the grip of his dagger, his knuckles white.
Comtois tilts his head back and lets out a quiet, rhythmic chuckle. His chest swells, his mouth curling into a lazy, amused grin. "Yeah, rebels, rebels," Comtois says, waving a careless hand through the damp air. "In this medieval world, rebels are everywhere. You've encountered a different group already."
Aldo narrows his eyes, his brow furrowing as he wipes a smear of grime from his forehead with the back of his hand. "The incident in Carravin was one group, the one in Flora was another. Is that what you mean?"
Comtois shifts his weight, leaning his back against the damp brick of the adjacent wall. "That's right," Comtois replies, his voice dropping into a low, smooth drawl. "But we don't need to get involved; it'll only waste our energy. Let's head back to the PCA early, complete our missions, and then leave. I have a feeling there are too many rebel groups in this Duchy of Thromium."
Aldo looks back over his shoulder toward the main street. The distant clatter of boots is fading, moving down a parallel avenue, but the tension in his spine remains tight as a bowstring. He nods once, a short, sharp motion.
The two men touch the wall, following the corners of Flora. They move with the quiet, practiced caution of seasoned infantry, their boots sliding along the stone margins where the shadows are thickest. The city around them dies down into a suffocating silence, the laughter of the taverns fading until there is only the sound of their own rhythmic breathing and the drip of condensation from eaves high above.
"What time is it?" Aldo asks softly, his head turning side to side as he scans the dark doorways they pass.
Comtois shrugs, his dark outline moving fluidly against the grey wall. "Who knows?" Comtois replies, a dry, faint sneer in his tone. "This world has no clocks. Oh, I mean, medieval people lived by the rhythm of the sun. Did the moon exist? Did the stars?"
Comtois pauses at a gap between two storage halls, tilting his chin upward toward the oppressive ceiling of the sky. "It's very cloudy today... I can't see the moon or the stars anywhere. I'm clueless. Well, I'll rely on my experience from my grandfather's hometown: clear water is water, muddy water is road. Listen carefully, squint to see clearly."
Aldo follows Comtois, stepping carefully in his shadow, and the two men walk into a deserted, silent place.
The high stone walls of Flora slowly give way to low, crumbling turf dykes and wooden fence-lines rotten with age. The packed dirt underfoot softens into uneven earth, thick with tall, coarse grass that swishes against their shins. The urban hum of the city vanishes entirely, replaced by the vast, hollow stillness of open land under an overcast sky.
Comtois stops, looking back at the darkened, featureless silhouette of the city walls behind them. He lets out a sharp snort.
"Damn, we're out of Flora's sight," Comtois says, and chuckles.
Aldo stoops down, his boots sinking an inch into the spongy soil. He reaches out, his fingers brushing against damp blades of grass and dead weeds. "We should find some firewood to make a torch so we can see better," Aldo suggests, his hands groping the ground in sweeping, arc-like motions.
He feels around in the pitch darkness, his fingertips meeting nothing but slick, rotting vegetation and wet clay. He pulls his hand back, sniffing his fingers, his nose instantly wrinkling in disgust.
"Great, there aren't even any trees here, and the smell is quite strong," Aldo says, standing up and wiping his palm against the side of his trousers.
Comtois bends down, pokes a finger into the dark earth near his boots, and snorts again. "It's probably just a meadow with cow dung. Where do we go now? We're lost."
The night around them is an endless wall of velvet black. The wind rolls across the open field in low, mournful sighs, rustling the heavy stalks of wild grass like distant footsteps. There are no landmarks, no roads, no stars—only the dense, wet gloom that smells of damp earth and manure.
Aldo reaches out, his fingers finding Comtois's shoulder, and pokes Comtois. "Do you know how to use magic?"
Comtois doesn't move, his dark shape standing motionless against the gray backdrop of the overcast horizon. "I heard that only nobles in this world can use magic," Comtois says, his voice flat.
"But some commoners can," Aldo insists, his voice carrying a slight edge of desperation. "Maybe you have the potential. Cast a light spell!"
Comtois shakes his head, his shadowy outline making a sharp gesture of refusal. "Not me!"
Aldo takes a step back, raises one hand toward the sky, extends his index finger, and frowns deeply, concentrating with all his force.
"Abracadabra, Photon out of my hand!"
Silence. The grass rustles in the wind. Nothing happens.
Comtois clears his throat, clears his posture, thrusts his palm forward toward the empty dark like a hero in an old comic strip, and shouts with theatrical confidence: "Abracadabra, Light!"
A cricket chirps somewhere in the cow dung nearby. Nothing happens.
Comtois drops his hand, his posture instantly collapsing into a slouch. "Oh no, oh no, Aldo, think of something! Our path of magic is ruined!"
Comtois turns, his silhouette gesturing wildly toward the left and right into the black expanse. "Let's split up," Comtois suggests.
Aldo shakes his head violently, his voice dropping into an emphatic whisper. "I heard that every the main characters in horror movies split up before they die..."
Comtois turns back to him, throwing his arms out wide in a dramatic, expansive gesture. "But we're in a big field now. If a killer comes out, we'll turn into kangaroos and run away, leaving him in the dust!"
Before Aldo can answer, the darkness forty paces ahead of them tears open.
A sudden, blinding beam of white light cuts through the gloom like a spear. The harsh radiance flashes across the tall grass, illuminating thousands of tiny mist droplets suspended in the air. Figures emerge from the void within the glare—men clad in grey steel chainmail that glints sharply in the magical beam, carrying long wooden spears with dark iron tips and broad hunting knives buckled at their waists.
At the center of the group stands a stocky man in high-collared velvet robes—the Royal Buyer.
Aldo's eyes widen, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks in the sudden glare. He raises a hand to shield his eyes, his heart slamming against his ribs.
"He's an imposter!" Aldo exclaims, pointing a finger at the velvet-clad figure.
The Royal Buyer steps forward into the light, his heavy face illuminated from below. His mouth twists into a hard, aggressive snarl, and when he speaks, his voice is coarse, guttural, and heavily accented, rolling through his teeth with a distinctly Russian cadence.
"C-Capture those Royal soldiers!" the Royal Buyer shouts, waving a thick, gloved hand forward.
The intense, blinding flash of light does more than reveal the men; it strikes the side of a overgrown stone embankment, illuminating a low, arched drainage tunnel overgrown with heavy ivy—a passageway that appears for a fleeting moment, carved into the side of the field's raised perimeter wall. It is visible for only a fraction of a second before the spell's beam shifts, but it is enough for Aldo to remember.
A back way out—a storm culvert leading under the outer ramparts.
Aldo doesn't hesitate. He spins on his heel, his boots digging deep into the soft earth, and bolts toward the position of that briefly seen passage.
Comtois jumps in surprise, his eyes wide as he sees Aldo already five yards ahead of him. "Slow down, don't leave me behind!" Comtois shouts, throwing his knees up high as he frantically gives chase.
Behind them, the shouts of the men in chainmail erupt into a chaotic roar. Spears are leveled, metal links clink loudly, and heavy boots begin to pound against the muddy soil.
A chase ensues, generally quite tedious, as they quickly shake off their pursuers.
The terrain works entirely in Aldo and Comtois's favor. The men in chainmail are heavy, their iron coats rattling loudly with every stride, their long spears snagging constantly on the tall grass and tangled briars of the unmanaged field. Aldo and Comtois, wearing light cloth tunics and flexible leather boots, dart through the pitch-black meadow like stray dogs. Aldo uses the rhythm of his memory to guide them straight into the dark mouth of the stone passageway. They duck low, vaulting over fallen drainage stones and plunging deep into the black dampness of the tunnel, their footsteps echoing off the wet brick.
By the time they emerge on the far side of the embankment, the shouts behind them have grown distant, muffled by stone and distance. The other men and the fake Royal Buyer are left far behind.
Aldo and Comtois run across another open stretch of high weeds, panting to keep their rhythm. The cold air burns in Aldo's throat, his lungs working like bellows, but beside him, Comtois begins to grin.
Comtois throws his head back and lets out a boisterous, loud laugh that rings across the dark field. "Hahaha! I get to eat well every day, and I'm forced to run every day because I'm a slave soldier! You're just slaves from the fields, mines, and forests; you eat little and skip leg days—how can you compare to me, hahaha!"
Aldo doesn't slow his pace, but he shoots Comtois a flat, sidelong glare through the gloom. "It's not nice to call others slaves when you yourself are a slave," Aldo says between ragged breaths.
Comtois snorts, waving a hand dismissively as he keeps stride. "Give me a break. There are different kinds of slaves: Slave this, Slave that..."
"We all come from the same Earth," Aldo says, his boots thumping steadily against the turf.
Comtois scoffs loudly, rolling his eyes as he glances at the sky. "Earthling sounds too general. If it weren't for the fact that we were summoned here and enslaved by this Mikhland, I'd be Korean, you'd be Vietnamese, and that royal buyer, who's actually a rebel, seems to be Russian. Earthling is just a term Mikhland uses to lump us all together."
Comtois's breath suddenly catches in his throat. His pace slows, his legs wobbling slightly as the exhaustion of the sprint catches up to his muscles. He reaches out and pulls Aldo's hand, yanking him toward a high, overgrown patch of tall ditch-reed and thick pampas grass.
"I'm tired," Comtois wheezes, his face slick with sweat. "Let's hide in the grass and avoid them."
They both drop to their knees, sliding flat onto their bellies into the damp, tall grass. The blades of grass, heavy with night dew, press against their faces, cold and wet. Aldo pulls his arms in tight beneath his chest, his mouth pressed against his forearm to stifle the sound of his heavy breathing. Beside him, Comtois lies flat on his back, staring up at the gray, featureless clouds, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow waves.
They both hide and wait, wait, wait, wait, wait...
The silence of the field returns, absolute and thick. Minutes bleed into one another. The wind dies down, leaving the tall grass motionless. A cold dampness seeps through their tunics, chilling them to the bone, but no sounds of heavy boots or shouting reach their ears.
They waited endlessly, but no one came...
Comtois turns his head sideways in the grass, blowing a stray blade of weed off his lip, and complains in an annoyed whisper, "They've given up."
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the black sky above begins to turn a dull, bruised shade of purple-grey. The first rays of sunlight appear, faint and cold, bleeding through the thick blanket of clouds on the eastern horizon. The dark shadows of the meadow peel back, revealing the vast expanse of gray mud, clumps of wild reed, and scattered cow dung surrounding them.
And suddenly, they are all around.
Out of the morning mist, dozens of dark figures materialize from all directions, sweeping across the field in an organized line, searching, which silences Comtois instantly. His mouth snaps shut mid-breath, his body going rigid as iron in the mud.
A pair of heavy leather boots crunches through the frozen grass just ten paces to their left.
"What's that noise?" one man asks, his voice low and coarse.
A second voice, closer this time, responds with sharp discipline. "It's the Royal Guards we need to capture around here, comrade. Split into teams of two and go search."
There is rustling everywhere. The tall reeds around Aldo and Comtois sway as the searchers push through the field, the sharp tips of iron spears occasionally sweeping through the tops of the vegetation like harvesters cutting wheat.
Aldo shifts his gaze sideways without moving his head. Through the crisscrossing stems of the pampas grass, he sees the stocky, velvet-clad shape of the fake Royal Buyer moving alongside the searchers. The Royal Buyer is also with the rebels searching.
One of the chainmail-clad rebels steps up beside the Buyer, leaning on his spear. "Comrade Volkov, we've heard the name of a Royal Soldier recently, but we haven't found him yet."
The Buyer—Volkov—stops, his dark eyes scanning the low turf with a sharp, predatory focus. "I understand, comrade," Volkov says, his hoarse Russian voice carrying clearly across the quiet meadow. "Continue with the mission."
Beside Aldo, Comtois grumbles in an microscopic, barely audible mutter, his lips barely moving against the dirt. "Comrade, comrade, are these Russians addicted to Socialism?" He pauses, his brow twitching. "You could pick Democracy, Fascism, Monarchy, Theocracy, or Republicanism."
Aldo finally spoke up, turning his eyes toward Comtois with a look of pure, murderous intensity, his voice an invisible whisper. "Silent, silent, bro. Don't say anything while you're hiding."
At that exact moment, the grass directly above them parts.
A chainmail soldier comes slashing at them, sticking his backside out as he pushes through a dense clump of thistles, his broad hunting knife drawn and sweeping low through the roots. The rusted iron tip of his knife passes barely six inches from Comtois's nose.
Comtois looks up at the man's rear end, his eyes narrowing. "Capture this guy," Comtois whispers suddenly, preparing to spring up.
Aldo reaches out, his fingers digging hard into Comtois's thigh to pin him down. "No, step back," Aldo whispers urgently, his teeth gritted. "Let's go back to Flora to find Onaga, then to Blumenau or Carravin to find Hano, then report to the PCA, and then leave Thromium soon."
Comtois ignores him completely. A look of sudden, reckless madness lights up his eyes. He pushes Aldo's hand off, plants his palms in the mud, and Comtois stands up abruptly.
The tall grass falls away around him as he rises to his full height, dusting his trousers off with an insanely grand gesture in front of the startled rebel soldier.
Comtois shouts loudly, his voice echoing across the entire misty field, directing his words straight to that fake Royal Buyer, that North Korean communist:
"I know where your Irina Sokolova is! I defeated her and Aldo Patriot in Erika...or Erikas, I don't remember anymore. I've set up an ambush; you'll be defeated. Surrender soon to receive the mercy of society."
The entire field goes dead silent. Dozens of rebel soldiers freeze in place, their heads turning slowly toward Comtois.
Volkov's face darkens instantly. His jaw tightens, the veins on his neck bulging against his velvet collar as his eyes lock onto Comtois with raw, violent fury. "Irina? Irina? What did you do to her? Where is she?"
Aldo lets out a long, agonized curse under his breath, realizes the cover is completely blown, and Aldo also gets up, brushing mud off his knees. He glares sideways at Comtois. "Why provoke him?"
Comtois shrugs casually, leaning his hands on his hips. "I tried PSYOP him, it didn't seem to work."
Aldo sighs deeply, his shoulders slumping. "It really didn't work."
Volkov takes three heavy steps forward, drawing a heavy, double-edged broadsword from beneath his velvet cloak. The steel rasps loudly against the leather sheath. "Speak, Imperial dog, or I'll flay you where you stand!"
Comtois raises both hands in a placating gesture, holding his palms out, and says, "Wait, let me repeat, Volkov, we are actually preparing a socialist party organization. I am the President, Aldo beside me is the Prime Minister, we are aiming for a Free Market, Separation of Powers, Human Rights, and Free Multi-Party Elections."
Volkov, or the fake royal buyer, sneers, his upper lip curling in disgust as he spat on the ground. "You are full of filthy bourgeois tendencies."
Aldo sighs again, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Stop talking, Comtois."
Comtois jumps in place, waving his arms hysterically at Volkov. "BUT WE ARE FORMING A SOCIALIST PARTY against the feudal order in Heilop!"
Aldo reaches over, his fingers clamping down tightly, and Aldo pinched Comtois's ear, yanking it hard. "You're describing a standardized, mass-produced Liberal Democracy!"
Comtois winces, rubbing his reddened ear, but then Comtois smiled, thought for a moment, then said, putting on a dramatic, tearful posture:
"Huhuhuhu, Volkov-senpai, we are all people from Earth, we all came to the same planet. Didn't Karl Vladimir once say, 'This Earth is ours'?"
Aldo chuckled despite himself, a short, involuntary snort escaping his nose.
Volkov's face flushed red, his cheeks burning with pure rage. He points his trembling broadsword directly at Comtois's throat, shouting that Comtois was lying, a typical example of a wicked capitalist distorting the truth.
In the heat of the moment, as Volkov ordered his comrades to point their weapons at Aldo and Comtois, who was still shouting rhetoric about human rights, Aldo rummaged through his pockets. He shoves aside several glass vials of healing potions, ignoring the potions, pulls out a rough grey flint stone, throws it away into the grass, takes out another, then pulls out a brilliant, glowing blue one.
Without a word, Aldo presses it hard against Comtois's chest.
WHOOSH!
A violent, sudden gust of wind blew from within the stone, erupting outward in a swirling vortex. The blast hits the surrounding rebels like a battering ram, making Volkov's hair fly back wildly from his face, his velvet cloak snapping in the gale. The light fractures into a blinding blue flash, and the two men vanished.
In another corner of Flora City, near the central stone plaza where the public fountains flow with clear spring water, Onaga was enjoying honey cakes while complaining about not liking being called a femboy when he heard the noise. He holds a half-eaten, sticky pastry in one hand, chewing thoughtfully, his brows furrowed in mild annoyance as he glances towards the fountain.
CRASH!
A massive geyser of water explodes into the air from the center of the broad marble basin. Water splashes violently over the carved stone edges, soaking the cobblestones for ten yards in every direction.
As the spray settles, two drenched figures materialize right in the middle of the deep fountain pool, thrashing frantically.
Aldo and Comtois were engrossed in their task of surviving the sudden plunge, Comtois coughing up water and thanking God for His saving grace, shouting aloud to the heavens. Around the plaza, the people of Flora stand frozen in shock, wondering where this guy had come from.
A small child holding a wooden toy approaches the edge of the pool, laughing aloud and asking cheerfully, "Are you guys performing magic? Show me again!"
Townspeople begin whispering and gathering around the edge of the fountain, pointing at the two dripping soldiers.
Onaga walks over slowly, taking another small bite of his honey cake, and stands at the basin's rim, teasing Aldo with a smirk. "Captain, Captain, what's wrong?"
Aldo, soaked to the skin, his hair plastered flat against his forehead, flails his arms, "I...I...I need to call Hano, we need an urgent meeting, quickly..." he stammers out, while still gurgling in the water, coughing up another mouthful of fountain spray.
Onaga looks down at the two of them, shaking his head with a sigh, and says, "You two, etou, get out of the fountain!"
Aldo wipes the water from his eyes, glaring up at Onaga from the knee-deep water. "Why did you leave your orb in the fountain?"
Onaga taps his chin with a honey-glazed finger, looking innocent. "I put it away neatly..."
Meanwhile, Comtois crawls out onto the wet marble edge on his knees, wringing out the hem of his dripping tunic, his face turned upward toward the cloudy sky with solemn devotion.
"I will convert to Catholicism today to repay your godly salvation, Lord!" Comtois announces loudly to the crowd.