As he slowly opened his eyes, a new place greeted him.
Looking up, the first thing he saw was a wooden door, on it was a simple sliding lock.
It seems he was in room, one he wasn't familiar with. But one thing stood clear, he wasn't in the middle of some field. He was safe.
'Right, it was just a nightmare.' he thought hoping that was the case
To his right was a simple one person bed and to his left a simple desk.
But he wasn't alone, on the ground next to the desk were two people sitting trying to keep themselves awake.
One looked a short in height and his head was a similiarly short hair, assumingly either brown or black. Next to him was someone with long lustrous hair, it glew nicely in the moonlight.
It seemed they were waiting for something, but at that very moment the two looked at him and the one with the long hair started talking.
"Oh, you are awake, it was about time."
The man was confused, he had no idea why they were waiting for him.
He tried to get up, but then he noticed, he couldn't move.
"Hey now...don't try to move or we can just knock you out again if that's what you want."
Hearing this memories of his nightmare resurfaced, he had seen these two before, even if it was just briefly.
As he was trying to climb out of the stack of bodies, these two knocked him out. The nightmare he had hoped didn't happen was actually reality.
"You killed everyone!" The man shouted in anger
"Don't say that as if you wouldn't done the same were we not here." Helios retorted
"...Maybe."
"So half assed. If you were going to kill everyone, atleast own up to it and don't act like the victim! Anyways Jack take it from here."
"I'm shocked Helios I didn't know you cared this much about this little village."
"It's not that, I just hate how this guy acts like the victim when they were the ones who invaded."
"That is true. Either way I'll take it from here."
Jack closed the distance between him and the chair tied soldier and asked his first question.
"How did you get in?"
"What do you mean?"
"How did you get through the barrier, your commander wasn't strong enough to open it."
"You killed the commander?"
"Yes, you are the last one, you can either talk or follow them to the afterlife"
"So you want to know about how we got through the barrier?"
"Yes, don't leave out any details."
"So we were just patrolling the barrier looking for cracks, as we were ordered by the higher ups."
"Wait the barrier weakening, got leaked out?" Jack mumbled under his breath
"Then someone appeared, and they just passed us with no concern and headed for the barrier."
"Then what?"
"We tried to stop them, but were unable to, it was as if a force was keeping us from approaching them."
"Then they finally arrived at the barrier and touched it, and in that moment a large part of it was brought down, in the next moment they disappeared."
"What did they look like? Did they wear anything that could be a clue to their identity?"
"They were completely distorted."
"What?"
"It was a person, but they just looked like a walking sentient shadow, there is no clue, no defining feature nothing."
"So then?"
"We notified the commander of what happened, and after getting permission we marched through. And you can probably figure the rest."
In the next moment Jack turned around and headed for the door.
"Helios, look over this guy while I'm gone. I have to notify HQ of this."
"Okay, you can count on me."
Soon as Jack left the room Helios walked over to his bed and laid down.
While he was laying the soldier asked him a question.
"What's gonna happen to me?"
"I don't know, you should ask that guy when he gets back."
"I thought you were teammates."
"I'm not his "teammate". To be frank I'm just a Newcomer, there is no way I would know anything about procedures."
"Wait, you are a Newcomer." the man said with a slight hint of hope in his voice
"Yes, I am, but don't go being hopeful, I have nothing to do with the Gait Empire, and I won't free you out of some sense of kinship either."
"I figured that, but it's still fun to talk with someone who's from the same situation as me."
Helios somewhat interested in what they may talk about tried his best to seem sensable.
"Hey, what's your name? I'm Helios, or atleast now I am Helios."
"I'm Ash."
'Nothing else?'
"Nice to meet you "Ash"."
Once they were done with their introduction, Jack came back to the room with the news of his report.
"Our job is done here, someone will come from the church by morning to fix things. We should also leave in the morning."
"And what, will happen to me?" asked the tied up Ash
"You will be handled by the officials from the church. They might take you in for further questioning, and then they will decide what to do with you next."
'Guess he's going to prison'
"Hey...mmfh...I kinda want to sleep. Can you handle this guy for tonight?" Helios asked while yawning
"Sure I can do that, but on the way back to the capital don't expect me to keep you company." implying that he would sleep in the flying carriage
With that Jack took the tied Ash back to his room, while Helios was getting comfortable in his bed.
The next moment Helios shut his eyes and quickly fell asleep.
In the morning he was woken by the sound of banging on the door. Though reluctant he got up from his bed and walked to the door, behind it stood Jack with bags under his eyes.
"The church is here, they've taken the captive. We are leaving NOW."
Jack was seemingly really tired and Helios didn't have the will to argue with him so he quickly got out of his room and went downstairs with Jack.
As he didn't have anything with him, he didn't have to pack his things, he could just leave. This was something he couldn't do when he was going around traveling in the past. He didn't have to check out either, but he still felt it was best to say goodbye to the people in the village and to the Wallace couple who've taken care of him for the last few days.
Once, they've arrived downstairs they were greated with a warm welcome, but not from one of the villagers, but instead from a church official.
"I'm happy to meet you in again Mr. Phoenix." he said as he bowed before Jack
"It's great to see you too, Cardinal Razan." Jack reciprocated with a bow as well
"And who is this gentleman next to you if I may ask?"
"He's Helios, a Newcomer. He played a major role in fending off tonight's ambush."
The Cardinal looked at Helios as if to evaluate his worth.
"It's a pleasure to make you acquaintance Cardinal." Helios said so while trying to replicate the bow the two just did before
"I'm pleased too Helios." the Cardinal aswered with a slight slime and walked away
"You got lucky, it seems he took a liking to you." Jack whispered to Helios
"Is he a big deal?"
"Yes, he is. He's second only to the pope."
"Why would someone so important come here personally?"
"It seems, only those at Cardinal level or above are able to solve the issue with the barrier."
Jack looked around and said with a tired expression.
"Should we go now? I want to sleep."
"Sure, let's go before another important person shows up."
But before they could leave they were stopped by a voice from behind.
"Helios, you can come visit again if you want to! And, you too Mr. Jack!"
The one shouting was the village chief, old man Wallace.
"Sure if, we have time maybe, also give my regards to Mrs. Wallace, and everyone else in the village!"
Helios anwered Wallace's question while walking out of the front door.
The outside of the tavern was riddled with people wearing robes, they were people from the church.
But the two weren't interested in chatting with any of them, their number one priority was getting to their carriage and going to the capital city of Rem.
On the way to Jack's carriage Helios took one final look around the village, and as he looked a thought surfaced in his mind.
'Even though I said I would, I never actually went to look inside the village, guess I'll do it next time.'
Arriving at the carriage the two sat down in it and quickly took off.
But just as Jack was about to fall asleep Helios had a question.
"Hey how does this thing work, won't we fall if you fall asleep?"
"We won't, don't worry."
"How can you be sure?"
"Helios this thing is driving by itself, you can think of it as a sentient flying machine."
Having said his piece Jack couldn't stay awake any longer and instantly fell asleep.
'Guess this also has something to do with this worlds magic system.'
As they were flying through the sky, with nothing to do, Helios had a great opportunity to look outside.
Right infront of him was the infinitely tall Renis Mountain range. From the ground, it already looked tall, but the fact that even in the sky he couldn't see the top of one of the mountains left him truly astonished.
'That's one insane mountain.'
As they went on he was able to see many breathtaking sights. Lakes that seemed to emit a strange light, forest of varying sizes, and in the distance a desert.
That desert seemed dead, deader than a desert usually is, in parts of it were seemingly patches of lava flowing. That place looked like Hell, there was no better way to say it.
As they got closer to the capital Helios slowly noticed changes, in his surroundings. The light was slowly starting to dim as if the sun was going down, but the sun here didn't move and it was also still daytime, or atleast it should have been.
As complete night overtook everthing a new source of light appeared from behind a mountain.
It was a shining city, with different layers of with marbled architecture, and a miriad of flying vehicles.
This didn't look like the city Helios was expecting, this was closer to something one would see in science fiction, not in a fantasy world, but here it was.
At that moment Jack got up from his sleep and looked at Helios while trying to wake up.
"Well...Helios..hmmf...welcome to the city of Rem."