A Dull Life

[9 years later]

"My name is Arthur Vangence. Currently, I've been living in this amazing village that's called 'Erast Village'. I live with my mother, father and grandmother. Though we may not have much, we always manage to get through." He said as he reminisced about a particular time in his life.

A few weeks ago, you could see Arthur walked up to his mother and asked her if she needed any help with the loads of clothes that she's carrying. "Mom, can I help you?" But she replied back to him with "It's fine, you should go out and play."

Knowing that she's trying to put on a farce to protect him, he couldn't standby and watch. "B-But.." Right before he could say anymore, he suddenly felt a pressure on top of his head, and when he looked up to see who or what it was, he saw his dad face. "You're a kind son aren't you Arthur."

"Dad. I just wanted to help mom out..." he said with a depressing look as his face faced downwards to the ground. Something you usually see in anime when the main character heroine or soon to be heroine looks when their blushing, shy, or about to cry.

Soon after, his grandmother walks into their conversation, "come here child, let grandma tell you a story." She said as Arthur rushed to hug her, hearing a familiar voice he loves to hear. "Grandma!"

"Hoho. You certainly gotten bigger and more energic since the last time I saw you."

"But you saw me yesterday." Said Arthur in a happy tone.

"Did I? I don't remember." The tone of grandma's reply suggests that she was joking, but the expression on Arthur's parents face suggests otherwise. It's as if their hearts sank the moment their mom said those words.

As Arthur looked up at his grandma while still embracing her, he said to her in a fantastically happy and kid-like tone, "hehe, silly grandma."

He then waved goodbye to my parents as they both went into their home.

"I have friendly villager and friends including my best friend Ken Salazar... The other one is none other than Lisa Raymond. She's really famous around the village for her superb skill in defeating the village knights. But whenever she has the chance, she would always want to play knights with me, because not once have I lost to her, or anyone in the village." Yet again he thought to himself before having another flashback to the time where Lisa asked him to play knights.

Arthur was picking flowers on a hot sunny day when Lisa kicked his flower basket and stand before him. "Let's play knight!" She shouted at him with excitement as she places her hands on her hips.

Without hesitation, Arthur answered her "Okay." With a bright smile on his face before going to the arena with her.

As they are in a 10 by 10 circle curved into the dirt ground with a weapon of their choosing, Arthur using a wooden plate hand armor, while Liza is using a heavy wooden sword. They say a very cheesy line. "I the knight Liza is always ready for a fight" she said as she grips her wooden sword and got into her stance.

"I the knight Arthur will not lose!" He shouted with an exciting expression. Without a second of delay, Lisa dashed at Arthur while screaming excitedly "I'm coming!"

when Lisa made it right next to Arthur and finally within her strike zone, she continuously doing vertical slashes at him.

"She's faster than before." He thought to myself as he parry each of her attacks by hitting the back of her wooden sword with the back of his wooden plate hand.

After a few seconds, Arthur decided to try something else. He didn't parry one of her vertical downwards strikes; instead, he simply dodged it by moving his body slightly to the right, but what he saw next would surprise him.

Right as her sword was about to touch the ground, using her momentum, she brought her sword up in almost a U shape performing an upward vertical slice to him. The technique looked sort of like Tanjioho sword technique he used to cut down the arrow and ball demons.

But Arthur was not surprised for too long, as he immediately countered within a split second.

He jumped over Lisa before she had time to execute her swing, and right as he was above her, he grabbed her hair and just as he land, he threw her out of the ring. (AN: Damn that got to hurt, man was not playing.)

"Huff huff huff" She huff in exhaustion before crying as she yet lost another battle against Arthur. "Why can't I ever beat you!?"

As her saw her frying face, his heart started to ache. So he walked up to her and held out his hand, "It's ok. You're effort wasn't wasted, because you gotten stronger, and I can tell since I was battling you. So won't you play knights with me again?" Arthur softly spoke to her in a somewhat, soothing tone.

As she wipes her face with one hand and hold her hand with the other, she responded to him by saying "ok." with a bright smile. *BORING!*

"I couldn't be more happier with what I have. I have loving parents and family, I'm always having fun, and, I get learned valuable skill everyday. Truly, amazing..." 'BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING!'

"Who am I'm kidding. No matter how many times I sugar code it, this rundown of a so-called village and everyone in it will always be, boring...." Arthur got up from my bed and went to head outside, but as I was about to leave my room, he herd a small thud.

"What was that?" He cautiously shouted so not to wake up his parents and grandma from their slumber, and brought up his guard.

He looked through the room and saw an unusual placement of a book he hadn't seen before, lying flat on the surface of his broken down bookshelf. In spite of the fact that his entire room is filled with books strewn about, this book was unusual as it had a color he had never seen before, and looked as if it was glowing.

In order to see what the book was, he got closer to it. Once he got close enough, he picked up the book and looked at the cover. Seeing it was a child's book, that's when he realized it was book his parents used to read to him when he was little.

"'The End Before the Begging'. The book my parents used to read to my when I was younger. I completely forgot about it." Said Arthur who was just speaking to himself. "How did the story go again?" He opened the book as he began reading it to himself.

"There once was a kingdom so full of life, that you could hear people singing and praising the glory of the kingdom and their king at every corner. One day, the 6th prince Alzihine, one of the 13th princes, disliked his way of life, he hated it. He hated seeing the citizens happy and singing at every opportunity, he hated seeing everyone's face lit up with joy, and he hated the love and kindness everyone showed towards their neighbors, friends, family, and even strangers. So he devised a wicked plan with the evil witch Salvphin. In return for the power to destroy and rebuild the kingdom to his liking, he would have to give up his humanity. He accepted it without a second thought, since he considered it a small price to pay for the destruction of happiness in the kingdom of hearts....

It took Alzihine no time to use his newly acquired power to make the heart kingdom's citizens miserable. As Alzihine continued to destroy the once peaceful kingdom as screams and destruction could be heard throughout the country. Even the best knights of the kingdom could not stop the madness of Alzihine. As a result, the king was forced to send 12 of his other sons, who were all guineas in their assigned fields, to stop the rampaging prince. It was a long and fiery battle that lasted 5 years straight, but in the end, the 12 princes won.

As they used pieces of their very own souls, and bound them to Alzihine, they broke the villian's soul into 12 pieces, preventing him from resurrecting and bringing destruction and despair to anyone ever again."

After reading it, all he did was sigh in disappointment and called it boring. It was not generic, because something about heroes was something new in their time, but it just didn't math up to his standards, so it was boring.

As he closed the book and placed it back on the shelf, Arthur begins to think of his next move from her on out, hoping to finds something that excites him. It was just then that he remembered something he had somehow forgotten.

"How could I forget about the 'Maneater Forest'. There's a legend that the villager talk about saying that no one has ever returned from the Maneater Forest, and anyone who mentions the Maneater Forest is said to vanish the day after. I'm not sure how I forgot about something that important, but perhaps the village chief, or even a Kijin did it to me... The only way to find out would be to conduct my own experiments, and the first would be to enter into the Maneater Forest."

After thinking of something that may add some excitement to his life, Arthur prepares for his leave by bringing a notebook and pencil, as well as other useful things in a leather waist pack.

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Just like that, the time passed. In Maneater Forest, a place where there are abnormal thick and large trees, but on the outside they just look like any other tree, is a young boy who is 136cm (4 feet) tall with medium, green, wavy hair that spikes down at the ends and big red eyes. here is also one lock of hair near the middle of his face that ends at his nose. In addition, there are two more that have a very small curve near the front edges of his face. That young boy is Arthur.

Arthur strolls casually through the infinitely large trees of the Maneater Forest, not giving a thought to them as he walks between them, he noticed a distorted human figure two or three miles ahead of him.

He crept closer and closer, trying not to make any noise as he did. Once he got close enough, and sill keeping his distance from the distorted humanoid figure, he saw a young boy who wasn't much taller than him, drenched in animal blood, and surrounded by their corpses. The image of the boy covered in animal blood and surrounded by their corpses would normally make one run in horror, but not for Arthur.

Instead, Arthur's heart was racing so quickly that he placed his hand on hs heart and began to squeeze it, only to grip onto the shirt instead. Contrary to what many people might think, Arthur is not afraid. In fact, he was beaming with joy.