Totally Mysterious Monster

Velios couldn't feel his body. He knew he was in his mind, only capable of thinking. He couldn't see or feel anything around him. It was like a giant, vast and endless black void all around him, leaving Velios all to himself. He didn't know where he was, what he was doing, how much time was passing. He began to think to himself, was it all real? Was everything that was happening real? Or is Velios just living out fake memories from the past? He hadn't really thought about it too hard before, but all of the events that had happened, with everything, just seemed different to him somehow. That got him thinking. What if I actually died that day? Maybe that reaper is just letting me live out a life that I'll be contempt with? What if nothing of this is real? ...that sovereign or whatever would be seriously messed up if he did something like that. Well, I guess this is still better than whatever I had before. But still, how long am I gonna be here for? I just wanna train. Velios remained in the black void for a long time, but he didn't care. He had been trappen many times before so it was nothing new to him.

Velios heard people speaking all of a sudden, but their voices were incoherent. It was like he was underwater. He still couldn't see anything, his eyes refusing to open whenever he tried to open them. He didn't know how many people were around him, but when he opened his eyes, his vision was still blurry. He could hear a single voice getting louder and louder, but he was unsure if the person was speaking louder or just coming closer to him. "Wake up." Velios couldn't hear what the person had said, his eyes were still close and the sensations and feelings in his body hadn't returned yet. He didn't even know if he was lying down or not. "I said, wake up." The voice was more serious before and it was clear that the person speaking was growing more impatient. Velios was however still sound asleep, not yet having returned to his conscious state. "Won't you wake up already?!"

Velios eyes opened slowly at the sound of a scream. His eyes quickly adjusted to the dimly lit room, his ears slowly regaining its former ability of hearing. When Velios' whole body seemed to return to its normal status, he noticed that he was not lying in bed, nor was Yotsuya anywhere to be seen. Velios was tightly tied down to a chair, his hands behind his back and his feet tied to the legs of the chair, only his upper body free. Velios looked around in confusion, not paying any mind to the individual in front of him. Velios didn't care about whoever it was. He had already determined where he was thanks to his sixth sense skill, Velios being able to see basically everything around him for several kilometers with good detail. So I'm in the basement of that giant castle in the center? I guess the city wasn't too damaged. Still, I didn't know they made cities so big, most of it seems to be damaged but some areas look fine. Anyways, why am I down here? Should I escape now? Maybe kill her? 

"Finally, you're awake." The women's voice echoed throughout the small room, made purely out of stone, metal and concrete. "Do you know why you're here?" She asked, her voice stern without any sign of uncertainty. "You're the knight captain, right? What am I doing here?" Velios recognised instantly who it was. Although it was a brief encounter, Velios was good at remembering who someone was based on facial structure on body composition. "Just who are you?" She asked fiercly, trying to force Velios into answering the way she wanted him to. "You know, I thought it was weird. How is such a normal-looking, average guy capable of using mana? None of us have ever seen you before, yet every magic user in the entire world is known to some degree for their strength. So how did you go unnoticed? Who truly are you?"

Velios sighed in relief, glad that she wouldn't try and make him pay money for all the damage he caused, or try and kill him for the matter. "I'm sorry to disappoint, miss, but I'm just a guy that likes to train and fight." Velios answered honestly, but shortly, leaving the rest of it up to her imagination. "Are you affiliated with any guild? Do you have an adventurers guild liscense?" She looked far too serious for what she was saying. Velios could understand the importance of being serious, but ever since he joined the game, he had enjoyed experiencing different emotions by talking to most people in the same way. He didn't care about ranks or wealth or status. He never did. Instead, Velios was the kind of person that judged someone based on if they were a good person or a bad person through solely his own logic. 

"Wait, there are other guilds except for the adventurers guild?" Velios sounded confused. He had no idea that such things even existed. It was in moments like these when he really understood how out of touch he was with the rest of society. "Huh?" "Huh?" They went back and forth, until she eventually realized exactly what he said. "You don't know what guilds are?" She asked, her face full of confusion. "No." Velios responded simple, trying to instead imagine what that would be like. "Wait, do you at least have a guild liscense?" She asked him, getting closer and closer with each question, her own mind racing with thoughts. "Well, the thing is, I was going to sign up but they thought I was joking when I said what I was capable of so they threw me out... and banned me from it." Velios didn't realise how bad it actually sounded when he was explaining it. In the end, he didn't even care about it. In fact, he didn't even really know what it was. But he could easily see that something was wrong because of her facial expressions.

"So what have you been doing all this time? Just... training or what?" For some reason, the women started feeling bad for Velios. "Well, that too, but I actually visited a city which my friend recommended me." Velios had already got impatient with the questions and had already started manipulating and playing around with his magic as training. He wanted to just go and do his own thing but realised that it probably wouldn't be the best option, considering that he didn't want to cause any unnecessary trouble. "Can you tell me what city it was?" She watched him closely to see what he would answer with. Velios didn't know what to do. Would he answer truthfully? He couldn't just say that there was an entire city of dragons that nobody knew about. "Y-yeah, it was a city of humans, but I don't remember the name. I wasn't there for too long."

"Of course it's a city of humans, why do you even have to point that out? You're quite weird, aren't you...? What's your name again?" She asked in a calm tone, much less serious than before but yet still with her guard up. She had no idea what made the person infront of her feel terrifying in some way. There was something about him that put her on guard, a similar feelings she had experienced many times during dungeons. "My name is-" Velios couldn't finish his sentence before the iron door was slammed open, almost breaking it. "Velios!" Yotsuya came bursting into the room, instinctively jumping towards Velios, but the knight captain stopping him, holding her arm out. "Yotsuya." Her voice sounded more commanding and more serious again. "You may be a guest of honor, but don't barge in on private investigations held by the royal knights."

Yotsuya easily slipped by her arm before she could notice, walking besides the chair before turning around while behind it, looking at her before looking down at the rope and chains that held Velios to the chair. "Don't even try. Those are magic sealing chains, strong enough to bind a black scorpion without brea-" "It's already broken." Yotsuya responded before she could finish her sentence, his three words shattering the confidence in her phrase, she didn't even believe it until Yotsuya threw the broken bits of the rope and chain at her. "Yotsuya. You're really alive..." Velios looked up at Yotsuya, rising from his seat as if he wasn't the person responsible for the broken chains. "Yotsuya. You know this guy?" She asked confused. They seemed so friendly and Velios seemed to be so much more talkative than before, it was like his face lit up at the sight of him. 

Yotsuya was almost about to burst into tears, barely holding it in. Memories of that day flowing through both of their brains, reminded of how weak they once were. "Yes, I know him very well actually. Velios is the guy who saved my life, twice. The second time was a dungeon. It was looking desperate and if anything, I was holding Velios back. He decided to sacrifice himself by fighting the monsters alone while allowing me to try and escape the way back. I almost didn't make it out. When I eventually got to safety, they sent a party to look for the dungeon but it was gone alongside Velios. I didn't want to believe that he had died but over six months passed without any trace of him. And now, out of nowhere, I found him in the midst of the battle from two days ago, alive but unconscious. But there is something that still bugs me..." 

She remained speechless as of this confession. If what Velios said earlier was true, then he was training so much so that he was stronger than Yotsuya in the past. Then how strong could he be now? "Yotsuya. You said there was something that you found weird from two days ago, correct?" She got curious as to what it could have been. "When I arrived at the sight of that massive explosion, I found an incredibly strong monster basically standing over Velios' body without doing anything. Not only that... Velios, it was the same monster that you killed from all those months ago. My memories from that fight are still foggy... So I don't really remember what happened to it afterwards. It may still be out there somewhere." Yotsuya looked towards the knight captain, solidifying the monster's existence, making sure that she heard off it too. The knight captain couldn't refrain herself anymore. There was still too much she didn't know and she was simply too eager to find out. "Face me in a duel, Velios."