Meeting.

4months later.

Lena has gotten used to her new life, mostly consisting of hiding and sleeping in the woods. She would go from one slum to the other never entering real towns or capitals. Her wanted poster has probably made it around the world, she thought of changing her looks so that she would be at least a bit less recognizable, but all she ended up doing was removing her eyepatch, and even that didn't help much as now she just spends her time with her right eyelid closed.

She didn't want to cut the hair she had kept for so long and taking off the gauntlet at this point would be the death of her. She had tried slightly sliding it down and all that did was make her regret it terribly.

Her progress on finding Octan was stagnant as she has been following the same method since she had started and not once had she felt close. She knows if she keeps at it eventually she will reach him, but how long will that take.

Lena wakes up as she always does in the middle of some woods with tons of bugs crawling all around her body. Quickly raising her torso, she starts running her hands all over her body desperately to get rid of them. She was sleeping while using her left arm as a make-up pillow, so she didn't have anything to pack. Sitting there staring at the tree in front of her for 2mins after waking up was like a daily routine, after that she finally stands up and once again starts moving. If she keeps it up she should be able to reach the next run down village in a day.

Leaving the wild forest, she starts moving along the paved path. her left hand in her pant's pocket while her right is slightly swinging back and forth, she moves. Eventually the path leaves the forest behind as her surroundings become long green plains. As she keeps moving straight with her legs, she goes to look around with her head rotating. In front of her with a good distance is a lonely tree standing all by its own. She squinted her good left eye, so that she could see the tree, but it seemed empty with no one there as should be expected. As she got closer she could make it out more and more. She turns her head to the green plain on her left, taking in the view of the lush green fields she is taken by surprise by the sudden ear-shattering scream.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" A scream suddenly raided Lena's ear.

Panicking Lena turned her head towards the sound, There a kid was screaming and shouting with both of his hands holding his head. Lena ran towards the boy as he slowly fell to the ground screaming.

As she got closer she could make out more of the boy, he was still holding his head as his whole body trembled under the tree. Then out of nowhere he got up and started shouting at the tree.

"TAKE ME BACK! TAKE ME BACK NOW! THIS IS A WRONG! I WASN'T TOLD ANYTHING ABOUT THIS! YOU CAN'T JUST THROW ME HERE! HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!" The boy screamed as he banged his right hand into the tree's trunk.

Lena was still walking towards the boy slowly making out more of his image, his hair was all messed up from his hands, but his cloth were surprisingly tidy, not only that but they also felt out of this world. The patterns on them felt impossible for a human hand, even his shoes had taken Lena by surprise.

Finally reaching the boy Lena caught his hand right before it had banged the tree's trunk again. The skin on it had torn off, as the tree's trunk looked as if it had bleeding it's own blood. The boy turned to face Lena which was the first time she had seen his face, A young looking face with Green eyes and smooth looking black hair. His face had become a waterfall as he continued crying. Looking at the boy Lena stopped herself from throwing herself at him, as she quietly held his bleeding right hand.

"W-w-where a-am I?" the boy asked sniffling.

"In the middle of nowhere." Lena answered as she had not memorized the name of that specific place.

The answer had worsened the boy's condition as his eye widened.

"T-then... who are you?" The boy asked.

"Lena." Lena answered.

"And you?" Lena asked.

"M-me...? I... I am jack." Jack said still trembling.

"Well nice to meet you, rack." Lena said half-jokingly.

"..." the boy didn't reply to Lena's terrible joke as he frantically kept turning his head.

Lena let go of the boy's hand as it had seemed, he calmed down enough not to tear it off.

The boy then asked a confusing question.

"L-lena... this might sound crazy, but by any chance. Do you know where lotrik high is?" The boy asked looking up to the towering woman.

"Lotrik...high?" Lena said slightly tilting her head.

"It's a highschool! It should be around here! I wasn't that far from it!" The boy claimed.

"A... highschool?" Lena's head tilted even more confused.

"Haha...hahaha....hahahahahaha!" the boy laughed as he moved his right hand to cover his face.

"Where the fuck did I end up." the boy said with a crazed face.

He then suddenly raised his face and as if reading a script he said.

"Welcome, jack."

A while has passed. Lena and jack are sitting around a campfire by the side of the path. None have passed them since meeting so it did feel lonely. Lena was preparing a meal while the boy sat there moving his iris's around as if he reading something off of the ground. Lena wondered the boy was reading but the ground was just your average dirt.

"So kid, what've you been looking at?" Lena asked.

"Oh uh! n-nothing! j-just the manual." The boy jumped in surprised as Lena's voice had taken him back to reality.

"Manual? I have not understood a single thing you've said up until now, kid, are you by any chance not from here?" Lena said.

"I-I'm not a kid! I'm 17 years old!" Jack said.

"You sure don't look like any 17 year old I've seen..." Lena said.

"Hahaha..." Jack laughed nervously.

"You must be the son of some noble to look like that, so how did you end up here all on your own?" Lena asked.

"Noble? I come from your normal average family, I wouldn't call my life anything noble." Jack said.

"Sure doesn't seem that way." Lena replied moving her gaze back to the meal she is preparing.

"So... um... Lena? Can you tell me more about this 'world'?" Jack asked.

"?" Lena was once again confused.

"What do you mean?"

"Like how it works... what people do... stuff like that...?" The boy said sounding confused himself.

"Hmmm I guess I would have to start with mana and magic." Lena said noticing the boy jump.

"M-Magic!" The boy said something in an excited tone for the first time.

"So this thing wasn't talking bullshit!" The boy said looking at the air in front of him.

"Thing?" Lena asked.

"You know! This weird blue thing floating in the air! this system like thing!" The boy said as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"..." Lena kept silent as she had felt too stupid.

"You... You can't see it?" jack asked hesitant.

Lena shook her head.

"D-don't you have one of your own?" jack asked still hesitant.

Lena again shook her head.

"H...huh...." Jack sat back down as his face had a shocked look on it.

"T-then can you tell me about magic?"

"Well I'm not much of a magician myself, but I can give you the basics I guess." Lena said as she continued cooking.

"Firstly, Mana. Mana is basically what someone would call your life bar. The moment you are out of mana is the moment you die. You can not live without it. Now, Mana pools. Everyone has a mana pool, but the size is different for everyone. The only way to increase your mana pool by hand is by continuously using it, other than that it will increase in unalterable factors such as age, and heritance. Now finally, Magic. Magic is the way you bring your mana to life. For example." Lena said.

She then left her free left arm and a small orb of fire appeared on top of her palm out of nowhere.

"This is called fire magic, There are 4 ways of basic magic. Fire, water, air, and earth. Fire, air, and water magic are made by your own mana while earth magic is using your mana to control the earth around you into doing whatever you want it to. Of course different levels of people can do either more or less with magic." Lena said waving the fire orb away.

"Is there any other types of magic?" Jack asked.

"Well, different variations exist. Such as, iron control magic. Using iron control you can willingly change the size, and appearance of anything made out of iron. You can either make it smaller while taking out the extra iron, or make it bigger by adding your own metal or using a ton of mana." Lena said.

"Oh, and that is close to earth magic." Jack said

"Exactly." Lena said praisingly.

"Then can I use magic?" Jack said.

"You are alive, right? As long as you are alive you should be able to use magic, no matter how minimal." Lena said.

"Alive..." Jack said as he slowly raised her right arm.

He opened his palm and tried to mimic Lena.

"By the way, how do I exactly use my mana..."

"Simple, really. Just will it. Think about using it and imagine yourself doing it, and boom." Lena said.

Jack's expression looked quite pained as if he was forcing something to come out of his hand.

yet nothing worked.

"That's weird..." Lena said judgingly looking at jack's palm.

"Hahaha... guess I should've expected that..." Jack said defeated.

"You will pick it up eventually." Lena said.

After a while the sun had long gone down and the moon had reached it's peak. While Lena had planned to stay up it looked like jack wasn't going to sleep.

"Are you gonna sleep?" Lena asked the boy.

"On the ground? don't you have any camping jackets or something?" jack asked.

"No...?" Lena answered confused.

"O-of course... W-well don't worry about me I want to stay up for today. Too much is on my mind..." Jack said lowering his gaze.

"Well then, I will go to sleep instead then. Just keep your head high, this area is full of monsters so them attacking us shouldn't come in surprise. I'm trusting you to keep watch." Lena said laying down on her left hand.

"M-monsters?! I'm not a kid, Lena, I can't trick me like that." Jack said.

"*sigh* just don't get too far and scream if you see anything intimidating." Lena said closing her left eyelid.

"Y-yeah..." The boy said.

"G-goo-..." Lena could hear the boy almost say something before swallowing his own words.

Sleep. Something Lena lacks. While she might look asleep, while she might be in a state of what one would call sleep. It was nothing, but torture. Her mind playing the same scene for everyday it got repetitive, but even then she couldn't just play it off. The scene of a parent passing moments after talking about their child. Such a thing can't be gotten used to. The faces of those she left cursing her, for she had most likely turned their life upside down being their acquaintance. Sleep wasn't fun nor relaxing. It was merely a must, and in the middle of it all suddenly a loud sound ripped into Lena's ear.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" A scream could be heard.

Lena's torso quickly raised a 90 degree angle as she frantically looked around with both her good and blurry eye. No one was there.

She could still hear the boy screaming.

"That dumbass!" Lena said jumping.

Her body felt like a mess. She had just woken up and yet she was running as fast as her body could, but even then her body had gotten considerable weaker. Her speed was nowhere near where it was a year or two ago. She continued sprinting as fast as she could while boy's scream could be heard every now and then.

"WHERE ARE YOU JACK!" Lena screamed, but no response came.

"G-GET AWAY FROM ME!" Lena could hear the boy even further away scream.

"That dumbass! I told him not to get far!" Lena said her legs moving as fast as they can.

As she ran she remembered the scene from hell, a fountain of blood in the middle of a luxurious room showering Lena as she stood there weighing the life of it's previous owner to her acquaintances. She had played god and chosen a life over another, or is that what humans were supposed to do? was that what living was?

'Live'... such a simple task, but even that she felt incompetent about.

Suddenly she heard a shout from the boy.

"FIRE!" the boy said.

Lena confused continued moving towards the voice, only this time, for whatever reason the forest was burning in front of her.

She continue running forward until she was finally able to see the boy's silhouette with her left eye under the moon light. In front of him were 2 large ogres slowly catching up to him while a regular goblin's corpse laid burned on the ground.

And without the passing of a second Lena had cut down both the ogres. Even though her body had weakened an ogre or 2 are still nothing to a gold adventurer. The boy was on the ground shaking in fear while the forest around them was slowly burning

Lena picked up the boy, carried him on her back and quickly dashed out of the forest.

"This is not our problem." She said carrying the boy away leaving the burning forest behind.