Excerpt from an interview with -*-*-

Yeah, those weren't the bestest times. Still, we kicked their asses real easy! Mina was all proud of us, too! -*-*- we saw him was... I dunno, I think it was Leanbox? Before the concert, after -*-*-

Cold. Freezing. Snow. A sea of white. A never-ending Hell.

Let's be clear, the cold never really bothered me. I kinda like it more than the heat, to be honest. You can put more layers, but you can't really remove your skin. Trust me, I tried.

But Lowee's landscape made me reconsider my choices. I never noticed how hot Lastation was, but now that I'm in this snowy hell, I can notice that my outfit was designed to help me survive a Summer day close to the beach, and not Winter in the middle of the mountains. Add in the injuries and the torn clothes, and you get a horrible experience.

Still, I walked forward. With a bit of luck, Lowee will not know what I have done. Which means a clean start, provided I don't encounter the wrong persons. I've been trying to make horrible scenarios in my head, and I think the worst would be facing the remaining supersoldier from ASIC- I think she was called Nepgear, or something.

I don't know what happened with Uni, and when I think about her, there's a pit forming in my stomach. No matter her beliefs, no matter what side she was on... I threw her out of a tower, through a window. Not just a story or two, more like four or five.

She was my opponent, but nobody deserves such a horrible death. And she was dead, of that I was pretty sure. I wouldn't survive a fall half as big. Hell, I barely managed my landing, at the top of the Megastore Nowa.

Even if she's not dead, she's crippled for life. On one hand, I have robbed ASIC of a great weapon. On the other...

Can I come back home a murderer, as if nothing happened?

More snow, more white, but strangely enough it wasn't getting colder. My fingers felt like they would break, don't get me wrong, but it didn't really change.

Still, there was respite from this monotone background. Finally, I laid my eyes to something that wasn't white. And it wasn't a tree either.

It was some sort of temple, made of ice. I don't know what I expected, but it makes sense, in a weird way. The front entrance looked quite majestic, what with the giant arch, and the four towers were shining in the sky, so much that it hurts to watch. It was, in a word, beautiful.

It also was beginning to snow, so I left myself in there. The entrance was every bit as majestic as the outside, if one omitted a slight detail.

The floor was made of ice.

Now, of course, it made for a beautiful scenery; lights were reflected perfectly, making a rainbow dance across the floor, and the snow piling up in the corners of the room made it look less like a square and more like a homey sphere.

And then, I slid off the ground and fell with absolutely no grace.

So yeah, I was stuck in a clearly ancient building made of a slippery material, alone, while outside it was snowing, all of that while wielding summer clothes. It would be terrible, but strangely, it was almost hot inside the temple. Compared to outside, at least.

So I started to work towards securing a small part of the hall to make it my base. I had gathered what little sticks of wood I could find out there, and put them all in a little stack. I started searching through my meagre belongings, when the cause of my current suffering fell on the ground.

The primal Sharicite. Taunting me with it's blueish color, and rainbow hue.

Nevertheless, it made a perfect substitute for flint, and with several tries, I managed to make a fire. After checking that the ice didn't melt (and it didn't, because magic I guess), I sat close to it, and waited.

It helped a bit, and I fell asleep close to the fire.

When I woke up, the fire was gone, but the heat it generated was still there. I almost didn't want to go out, and brave the wilderness again. The cold. The snow.

I got up, grabbed my lance, and started walking warily towards the exit, before stopping. This place was definitely a dungeon, same as the two Resorts and Midcompany back in Lastation. So why weren't there any monsters? And most importantly, was there something at the end of this place?

It was a dumb thought, and yet, when I looked outside, I saw that the snow was still coming. And then, I looked towards three closed doors at the other end of the hall (that I didn't remember seeing yesterday), and my choice was made.

Going out is a big no. So I figured I might as well explore. I tightened my grip on my lance, and started slowly, carefully walking towards the door at the far left of the wall. The floor was no less slippery than yesterday, but by taking my time, I didn't fall once. I slid a bit, true; but nothing more than that.

Once there, I tried to examine the door. It was, surprise, made of ice. But there wasn't a handle, and it didn't feel like these doors that you need to push to open. There was an intricate design graved on the door, and when I looked at the two other doors, I saw that they didn't have the same drawings. I looked back at the door in front of me, and tried to understand the drawing.

It was some strange, square-triangle hybrid, atop a line. Three parallel lines seemed to make it looks like whatever the drawing was, it was supposed to be moving fast; and there was a circle surrounding the main object. It looked kinda like a botched attempt at making a representation of those attacks in JRPGs, where you throw your weapon and it comes back at you full speed.

I tried to see more of the drawing, but I accidentally touched the door, which, somehow, opened it by making it go up. I entered the next room warily, but there seemed to be no enemies, again.

At the center of the room, there was some kind of pedestal, with a sign next to it. The ground was no longer covered in ice, and instead was made of bricks; the walls, though, were still made of ice, and there was snow piling up in the corners of the room.

As I approached the pedestal, I could see that there were discarded armors and weapons, all around me. I didn't know if it was intentional or the last remains of dead adventurers. And I did not know which one was the scarier idea: needing to leave my weapon, or people with obviously more experience than me lying dead on the floor.

Finally, after what felt like ages, I was close enough to touch the pedestal. The sign at its side was all but inviting, however.

'Chosen Hero, leave your weapon at the base of this dungeon. Only when the need arises shall you be able to request it back.'

I wasn't much of a Chosen Hero, (not even much of a Hero I guess) but I guess they just needed to make it interesting? I doubt I'd stumble into some legendary temple where the destined savior of the world was supposed to get his power up, like a new weapon or something. So I, reluctantly, put down my lance on the pedestal.

I didn't need to wait for results to appear: my lance was absorbed into the pedestal. I waited a bit, and, feeling that something wasn't right, decided to help myself to one of the weapons lying on the floor. I held up a rusted sword, heavy, but not so much. And suddenly, a voice echoed through the room.

"Intruder detected. Postponing the test. Danger Level: High. Starting Project Guardians."

The armor pieces and weapons started floating, and arranging themselves to make golems, wielding their rusted weaponry. There were eight of them, and even through one of them was weaponless, I don't think he needs it to hurts me.

I gulped, but I lifted my new weapon, and decided to swing it against one of the guardians, and to my surprise, the guardian exploded, and its armor fell to the ground. My victory was short-lived, however, as another guardian tried to skewer me with his own lance. Key-word being tried, as, surprisingly, those "guardians" weren't really good at fighting; at least, they were worse than Lastation's guards.

So I dodged his weapon, and countered with a jab of my own, which made this guardian explode, too. The others, however, didn't seem keen on waiting, and were all rushing me, so I did what I seem to always do lately, and ran behind them to run towards the exit- or what looked like the exit.

Like before, the door opened when I put my hand on it, and closed behind me fast. In front of me was nothing but an empty corridor, leading to another door, so I took the time to catch my breath, and check that I didn't lose anything. I still had the most important item, the Sharicite Shard, and a little food to survive a day or two. Sadly, I couldn't allow myself to take a hit, as I exhausted all my healing pods back in Lastation.

I opened the next door, which led me to a big, rectangular room. On the left side, there was a massive hole, dividing the room in two, with another pedestal on the other side. On the right side, there were, not surprisingly, more guardians; three were cut off from the others, by another hole dividing the room again, and wielding ranged weapons; one of them had a staff, one of them had a bow, and the last one some sort of rifle. On my side, two guardians were already rushing me, each one wielding a massive sword.

I dodged their first attack, but couldn't manage to dodge their second strike, so I tried to block. Unfortunately, the rusted sword I was holding couldn't take the blow, and broke, sending pieces of iron everywhere. I felt something on my face, and by the time I destroyed the two guardians with a hit from my broken sword (which was still effective enough to kill them in one hit, seriously how weak were they?), I was feeling hot liquid rushing through my face.

I wiped it off, noting absently that I would now probably have a scar just below my left eye, and looked at the three remaining guardians. They were not moving, not even looking in my direction.

Wiping the blood off from my face once again, I tried to look around, before noticing a sign, near the massive hole on the left side of the room. I approached it, hoping it would tell me how to escape this temple, while still keeping an eye behind me, to make sure the remaining guardians didn't sneak up on me.

'A warrior can't fight without his weapon of choice. If the Chosen Hero loses his legendary weapon, then all hope is lost. The Hero shall defeat the Guardians with the weapon left behind; and calling the weapon shall make it come back.'

I couldn't help myself but snort. Seriously, 'calling the weapon shall make it come back'? What did they think would happen, that my weapon would magically...

"You lucky piece of shit, not even a week of training and you already managed to build your first skill."

But my weapon could magically repel projectiles, so... why wouldn't I be able to call it back?

"Anyone can do anything, or at least they can try to."

I tried to see what was on the pedestal, and sure enough, I could make out the glint of my lance, just sitting there.

So... Why not? At worst, I'll humiliate myself in front of monsters that are probably not sentient and an AI that already wants me dead. I held up my hand, and willed with all my mental strenght to make my lance come back to me.

I could see my lance was shivering, before it launched itself at me. I yelped, and jumped to the side, narrowly dodging getting hit by my own weapon, and it rolled on the ground.

I looked at my hands, and then at the lance again. Raising my hand again, this time with more confidence, I shouted "Callback!" and my lance jumped towards me. True, it managed to hit me in the stomach, and did not land in my hands; however, I was happy nonetheless.

I managed to do something, and learn something, and now this dungeon would be a breeze. I threw my lance at the guardians at the other side of the room, before calling my weapon back, all while holding a smile. This dungeon would be a breeze now.

This dungeon was definitely not a breeze. The quality of those guardians may have been lackluster, but they more than made up for that by being in high numbers, and they always tried to overwhelm me at the beginning of each room. I still got through them, but I could add more scars to my ever-growing list. Luckily, that was all they were: scars.

I took some time to make sure, once again, that I didn't lose anything, before entering the next room. As expected, this one had even more guardians just waiting for me. Except they weren't waiting for me, exactly- they were looking in the wrong direction, away from me.

I moved a bit, to see what they were looking at, and to my surprise, the guardians seemed to be trying to fight two people. Two short people. One of them wearing a pink coat, and the other wearing a blue coat- twins, by the looks of it.

I could see they were exhausted, they probably fought all the way from the entrance to here, and they didn't seem to have a bag, so no items, no food or supplies of any kind. And so, I couldn't help myself but help them.

I ran towards the guardians, before I started stabbing them as fast as I could. Like always, they didn't survive past the first hit, but their sheer numbers made it a pretty annoying task. The guardians were more focused on the two girls, though, so I didn't have to dodge many attacks. On their side, the girls were using their staves to summon ice spikes and trap the guardians that came to close.

Once all the guardians were defeated, I tried to take a better look at the girls. They were probably around 9 years old, but they were mages, and I've read enough stories about witches reverting back to a younger form by a botched spell or potion to assume they were that young.

They were looking at me warily, though, so I made a show of looking around, before asking them "Got any idea of where the exit is?"

The pink one raised an eyebrow, while the blue one hid a bit behind her sister. And I think my theory about them being older is a bust, and I've really stumbled upon two young children in an abandoned temple in the middle of a snowstorm.

At least they don't want to hurt me, I guess. Joy.

Author's footnote

So, I had like half the chapter written come Monday 21st. Then it got deleted because I had an electrical blackout and lmao I didn't save.

And then, suddenly I remembered "hey, you've got like... 2 essays and a big project for next monday, the 24th and 25th are off-limit because Christmas, and you need to find an internship for April" and my life suddenly ended.

I don't even think this week will be more free, tho. Still, here's a chapter because I really wanted to write it! And it changed completely from its original version! I'm excited for Lowee's arc, where I'm going for a different route than "let's become an enemy of the whole world". And it starts with, obviously, a power-up.

Review Time ~

flitterflux : I still don't know how I'm gonna write the reveal that he's been helping major bad guys, but I hope to make it good anyway.

Porpol : Thanks for reviewing! I know I'm swimming in cliches, but then again many of the best fictions out there are cliches done well. If I'm able to make it at the very least decent, then I'll consider this a job well done. For the characters, I'm not really sure they're less OOC than before, and I'll be introducing more of them, starting with, of course, Rom and Ram, so it's probably going to go downhill for a bit. But hey, I'll be improving all the way, and that's what matters! (Also, it's less liking ASIC and more enjoying their company, but shhh)

And yes, I've always had a problem of not managing to write long scenes. I tend to just write the bare minimum. I'm trying to make them longer, but that's how I've always done it before, so it's going to take some time before I grow out of that. And, case in point, battles suffer from it, as does many of the more emotions-heavy scenes.

Thanks, and have good Holidays too! (real late but hey, such is life)

Guest : And here I thought I had them all... You won't believe how much I wrote 'yound' instead of 'young'. It should be fixed when this chapter uploads. Same for the transitions, I do agree that they are confusing, so they've changed a bit.

The other OCs are not really explained because they're not important in this scene, even in Linda's mind. They're going to be more developped through Gyone's POV. As for the journey, I'm going to follow RB2, and then maybe a chapter or two to settle things down. Maybe I'll do a sequel for RB3, with an even flimsier plot, but I'd rather finish this one first before thinking of the far future.