All Asta and Noelle knew was that they had been given a mission to find a devil or something related, but they found nothing and even though they felt something, they only found a dead end at the edge of a cliff.
It was then that the area they were in broke, and they both fell towards the bottom.
They thought they were going to crash into the ground, but for some reason, a bright flash enveloped them, forcing them to close their eyes and the next thing they knew they hit something hard, causing them to be knocked unconscious.
Asta let out a slight groan as he felt himself regain consciousness.
He sat up on the ground and rubbed his head before opening his eyes, being able to see that he was in an alleyway.
"Huh? That's weird. Wasn't I on a cliff just now with…?" asked Asta before realizing something important. "Wait… Noelle, where are you?!" asked Asta getting up quickly and with concern for his companion.
He looked around quickly before noticing Noelle near him and unconscious, so he wasted no time in approaching her and kneeling down to lift her up a little from the waist up with his arms.
"Noelle, are you okay? Wake up." said Asta hoping she didn't have anything serious.
Noelle let out a small groan before she started to open her eyes.
At first, she saw it all blurry, but soon after, she could clearly see Asta giving her a smile.
"You're all right. What a relief." said Asta.
Noelle was a little confused until, then, she realized the situation they were in and how close Asta was to her, which made her blush quite a bit.
"Get away from me!" exclaimed Noelle as she shot Asta a stream of water that sent him crashing into the wall.
"What was that for?" asked Asta.
"I-I'm sorry. I just got scared and… I…" began Noelle nervously and blushing, as she was embarrassed about what she had done.
"Are you all right? That was quite a fall." said Asta as he stood up.
"Yeah, it wasn't as bad as I imagined." began Noelle as she got up. "Speaking of which. Didn't we fall off a cliff? How come we're in an alley now?" asked Noelle realizing where they were.
"No idea. I have the same questions." said Asta with a shrug.
At that moment, the two heard civilian noises mixed with other sounds and being curious, they made their way to the exit of the alley, but the moment they did, they were completely dumbfounded at what they were seeing.
They were in a huge city totally different from anything they knew. Buildings reached high up, there were metal cars driving themselves through the streets, strange flying things in the sky, but there were two things that caught their attention more than any of the others and they were that besides humans, they could see beings of various shapes and sizes, and that there was a huge pillar of light of infinite height somewhere, but it could be seen from where they were.
"W-W-What is this place?" asked Noelle in complete amazement.
"It's amazing!" exclaimed Asta with stars in his eyes. "What's that?" asked Asta pointing to the cars. "What's that?" asked Asta pointing to the blimps. "What are those creatures?" asked Asta pointing to the spirits. "What is that?!" asked Asta pointing to the pillar of light.
"How should I know, Bakasta?! I know what you know!" said Noelle.
"I didn't know there was a place like this in the Clover Kingdom!" said Asta.
"No, Asta. I don't think we're in the Clover Kingdom!" said Noelle.
"Huh? Why do you say that?" asked Asta with an arched eyebrow.
"It's understandable with you due to the fact that you were born in the Forsaken Realm, but I'm royalty and if there was a place like this in the kingdom, I would have found out long ago." said Noelle.
"So where exactly are we?" asked Asta.
"I don't know, but it's clear that we are no longer in the Clover Kingdom or any of the others. I can sense that some of these people have a strange energy different from magic." said Noelle.
"Yes, I can feel it too with ki. In fact, I feel a great concentration of energy in that right there." began Asta pointing to the pillar of light. "It's quite similar to that of these creatures around." said Asta looking at the spirits.
"Great. We're in a city we don't know where there seems to be no magic. What are we supposed to do now?" asked Noelle.
"Well, we could explore a bit and find out more about this place. as well as the wonders here!" said Asta with excitement and stars in his eyes.
Noelle could clearly see that Asta wanted to just explore the place so she could see everything like someone who was at an exotic flea market, but she couldn't help but see the logic in his suggestion.
"That's fine. In fact, we could go find a library with information about this place." said Noelle.
"Great. Let's go." said Asta before extending his hand towards her, much to her confusion.
"What are you doing?" asked Noelle.
"Well, this place seems really big and with so many people, we could get separated and get lost, so, to avoid that, we could go holding hands." said Asta.
In the next instant, Noelle's face turned tomato red at the thought of walking around the city with Asta while holding hands like a…
"D-Don't talk nonsense!" exclaimed Noelle violently pushing Asta's hand away. "No way is someone royal like me going to go holding hands with a commoner like you! And I'm not getting lost that easily! I'm not a child!"
Despite the clear insult, Asta wasn't offended in the least and continued to smile at her.
"That's fine. If that's what you want." said Asta acceptingly, for he knew what his companion was like even though he knew nothing about how she really felt.
With nothing more to say, the two set off to explore the city and try to figure out where they were and how they could get back.
For a couple of hours, the two members of the Black Bull were walking through the streets of the city and neither of them could help but look around in amazement and curiosity, as they had never seen a city like that.
Everywhere they went, there were still many of those non-human creatures circulating around alongside the humans, who acted as if that was completely normal.
There was a moment when they had a problem crossing the street, as they didn't know about the traffic lights and the cars ended up beeping at them, startling them and making them flee the place quickly to avoid being run over.
Needless to say, Noelle let out some rude comments about it.
Their walk took them to an area where they saw that the buildings were partially covered by giant roots.
However, both Asta and Noelle could sense that they weren't normal roots but were related to the non-human creatures and the giant pillar of light.
Asta suggested going to investigate that, but Noelle said they should inform themselves first before jumping into something like that, which Asta agreed to before they continued on their way.
That's when…
*Groan*
"Jo. I'm hungry." said Asta.
"Well I'm sorry, but you'll just have to suck it up." said Noelle before her stomach let out a small growl, causing her to blush slightly in embarrassment.
"Looks like we're both hungry." commented Asta before noticing a food stand near them. "Hey, there's food over there." said Asta before running over to the stall, which had an assortment of meat skewered on a stick. "For two, please."
"That'll be 10 yuan." said the vendor.
"Yuan? Do you have those, Noelle?" asked Asta.
"Of course not!" said Noelle with a frown, for it was very obvious that neither he nor she had the official city money.
"Well…" began Asta before looking at the vendor with a nervous smile. "We don't have any money."
"Then why are you here? Come back when you have the money." said the vendor.
Seeing that they had no way to get money, the two left.
"I never thought I'd say this, but I wish Vanessa was here. I'm sure she would have 'convinced' him to give us the food for free." said Noelle.
"Well, that's okay. This place is really big. I'm sure we'll find a place to eat. In fact, I've seen a park with a river not too far from here. We could catch some fish." said Asta.
"No way. I may be used to foraging in the middle of nature, but I refuse to do something like that in a park." began Noelle before tossing her ponytail behind her shoulder. "Someone royal like me would never do something only a hobo would do."
"Okay. Then let's keep looking around." said Asta before the two continued their exploration.
It had been a while since that, and the two Magic Knights still didn't get much information from the place.
"I think we've looked around enough. We should go to a library." said Noelle.
"Sounds good to me." began Asta before he looked at an old lady who was smoking in the street next to a store with a sign hanging with a picture of a teapot and approached her. "Excuse me, ma'am, could you tell us where the library is?"
"Sure. Just keep going down this street until…" began the old woman before noticing a black vehicle with yellow stripes approaching from the other direction. "Oh, no." said the old woman with slight trepidation.
Asta and Noelle were confused at the change in the old woman's demeanor before looking at the black vehicle with stripes that stopped in front of them.
Out of that vehicle stepped three men. One was pale skinned with a mustache and red suit with stripes; another was dark-skinned clean-shaven with a tattoo on the right side of his face; and the last was a man taller than the others and muscular, as well as a bow on his head.
"Mrs. Yun, I have recently seen that you have been late on a couple of payments, so I have personally come to collect it." said the pale-skinned man.
"I-I'm really sorry, sir. Business hasn't been good lately and I don't have the money right now, but if you can wait a couple of days, I'll be able to give you… uh… half?" asked Yun trying to be able to extricate herself from the situation.
The pale-skinned man was silent for a few moments before he put his hand like a gun and shot a fireball from his fingers that impacted against the sign, burning it and causing it to fall with a thud on the ground, scaring the old woman.
Both Asta and Noelle were in shock at the sight.
Was it magic? No, it wasn't, as they could clearly feel that it was no such thing, plus they could see that he had no grimoire on him like every mage in their kingdom, including Asta.
They didn't know what it was exactly, but it was clear that the situation didn't look pretty.
"Look, lady, I consider myself a patient man and in other circumstances, I would have said 'yes', but my patience has a limit, so either you give us the money right now or I take no responsibility for what might happen to your store." said the pale skinned man as he generated a flame in his hand.
"P-Please, sir, don't do it. Just give me a little more time." said the old woman approaching him to plead, but he pushed her brutally, causing her to fall to the ground.
"Hey, you!" exclaimed Asta with a scowl, drawing the attention of the three men. "Leave her alone, you bullies!"
"Hmm. Judging by the looks of you, I'd say none of you are from around here, are you?" asked the pale-skinned man.
"So what if I am?" asked Noelle.
"Then let me give you a lesson about this town. Some areas are the territory of some gang or triad and this place is the territory of the Triple Threat Triad. Any locals here will have to pay a 'special rent' and those who don't meet the quotas will get a 'punishment'." said the pale man.
"She told you she would pay you! Be a little more patient!" said Asta defending the old woman.
"Children, you shouldn't meddle in other people's business. It's like fire. If you meddle in it too much…" began the pale man before generating a flame in his hand. "You can burn yourself very severely."
"Hmph. Something like that doesn't scare me in the least." said Noelle tossing her ponytail behind her shoulder before folding her arms arrogantly, for that power wasn't much different from Magna's magic.
"That's right, we won't let you keep messing with her." said Asta.
"As you wish." began the pale man extinguishing the flame in his hand as he closed it. "If you aren't going to learn your lesson this way, I think my companions will have you do it another way." said the pale man as the other two men prepared to fight them.
Asta and Noelle also got ready as they saw that a fight was going to happen.
The muscular man used earthbending to raise a rock which he sent as a missile towards Asta, but he raised his arms and parried the attack, though he was dragged back a bit before stopping.
The others were surprised to see a boy stop a rock with his bare hands.
With a slight yell of effort, Asta sent the rock flying aside, hitting a store window in the process.
With another shout, Asta quickly charged towards the earthbender who started throwing rocks as he made stalagmites emerge from the ground in an attempt to stop him, but Asta managed to avoid all the incoming rocks as well as move out of the way of where the stalagmites appeared and in no time, he reached the earthbender.
Before he could react, Asta punched him in the face so hard that he sent him flying into the old woman's store window.
"My store!" exclaimed the old woman in horror.
"Oops. Sorry." said Asta with a nervous smile.
Both the pale-skinned man and the brown-skinned man's mouths dropped open as they saw that their companion, who was bigger and stronger than them, had been knocked down in one blow by a boy who was shorter than them.
That made it clear that the boy was much stronger than he appeared.
That's when the brown-skinned man saw Noelle and taking her as the weaker one, he used waterbending to launch water bullets at high speed, but Noelle rolled to the side to avoid them.
"You want to fight me using water? Fine by me." said Noelle pointing her wand at him and then, she shot a large ball of water as a bullet that hit the waterbender, sending him crashing into the vehicle hard, causing a dent in the process.
The firebender was shocked to see how his companions were easily defeated and imagining what the others would think when they knew they had been knocked down by a couple of children filled him with so much rage that he didn't hesitate to start throwing fireballs at them.
Asta and Noelle moved quickly to avoid the attacks and when she saw the opportunity, Noelle shot another water ball, only for the firebender to vaporize it with a fireball.
Then, he felt something approaching and turned to see Asta lunging towards him with a recoiling fist.
Fortunately, he was able to jump backwards to avoid the punch and before Asta could do anything, he launched, with a horizontal kick, a wave of fire, which Asta was able to block by raising his arms in X position, but the resulting explosion sent him backwards.
Without thinking of giving up, Asta recovered and charged towards the firebender, who started throwing fireballs and waves of fire, but Asta moved quickly from side to side to avoid them.
Asta managed to get close to him and threw a punch that knocked him down, but he recovered quickly, though somewhat sore from the force of the blow.
Asta prepared to charge towards him again, but then, he felt with his ki something incoming and jumped backwards to avoid a pillar of earth that suddenly emerged from the ground.
The firebender turned his head to the side to see the earthbender partially recovered.
"Boss, let's get the hell out of here." said the earthbender.
"Ugh. I agree." said the waterbender getting up with a groan.
Despite the fact that he really wanted to get back at those kids for humiliating them, he knew that, due to the current situation, it would only be a matter of time before the police arrived or worse, THEY arrived, so, without further hesitation, the three men got into the vehicle and sped off.
"Ah, no. No way. You're not going anywhere." said Noelle before shooting a ball of water from her wand that hit the ground right next to the vehicle.
The resulting explosion sent the vehicle flying off to the side and crashing hard into another store, shattering much of its window display.
"Well done, Noelle." said Asta.
The two Magic Knights approached the scene to see the three men lying on the ground and recovering from the crash.
Before any of them could go to do anything, they heard something over their heads and looked up to see an airship above them.
"Police, freeze everybody!" someone said from the blimp over the public address system.
"Police?" they both asked at the same time.
However, because of what he said, they had a feeling it was the city's security forces, in the same manner as the Magic Knights.
It was then that a couple of police vans arrived on the scene and out of them came a couple of policemen.
"Are you the city's law enforcers?" asked Asta.
"That's right." said the policeman.
"Great. There you have the culprits. We've already taken care of them." said Asta pointing to the three men.
"Arrest them." said the policeman.
One of the policemen threw metal ropes that wrapped around their arms and torso, preventing them from moving at all while the other policemen led them to one of the vans.
"You are under arrest too." said the policeman pointing to the two Magic Knights.
"What? Why? It's crystal clear that they are the criminals." said Noelle.
"Exactly. They were bothering that lady, and we decided to arrest them." said Asta.
"Yes, but in exchange for that… You smashed up my store!" said the old lady angrily as she pointed to her store, whose window was smashed.
"Not to mention you caused more property damage." said the policeman referring to the wreckage caused by the fight.
"Oh, we're so sorry." said Asta.
"Sorry isn't enough. You'll both be taken to the police station." said the policeman before throwing a pair of ropes that wrapped around their wrists.
"Wait! You can't do this to me! I'm royalty!" said Noelle.
"And I'm Lord Zuko's second cousin!" said the policeman.
"Stop this! We're Magic Knights!" said Asta.
"You can tell all the stories you want during the interrogation." said the policeman.
Asta and Noelle looked at each other nervously, as they didn't expect their exploration to end with them being arrested despite doing something good.
They could only hope that things would get better for them, or they would have to be the ones to make things worse for themselves.