Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

Time flew by quickly. Kit never came by to train with Prota, and John didn’t question it. If Prota wasn’t bringing it up, then there was probably no reason to question her about it.

She seemed happy, at least. The days spent in relaxation were, well, normal. Prota, for once, was living a relatively average life. John still took quests from the adventurer’s guild, but that was mainly to keep up appearances. Besides, some of them were good to break the monotony of life. It wasn’t like they were necessary to keep from getting bored, though.

Most of their free time was spent showing Prota new things. They tried various local restaurants, ones without the slaves. John took her to a play and promptly fell asleep, but it seemed that she enjoyed it. They stopped at various buskers along the street, listening to folk tunes and self composed music. They visited a library and checked out the local books, but John found that the stories saved in his system were a lot more interesting, so he never went back.

Time was also spent doing things that didn’t exist in this world. John taught Prota chess, for one, and she picked it up very quickly. It was a little scary how quickly she’d picked it up, actually. John knew her intelligence was incredible, but there just hadn’t been many opportunities to remind him of that. He cooked more food with her, showing her how things like hamburgers and pizza were made, and she greedily devoured them all.

It wasn’t really super exciting for John, but seeing Prota satisfied was enough for him. She was acting like a child. How she would’ve been acting had she had a normal life. Had she not been on the streets.

Had she not met him.

However, he still couldn’t shake the feeling off. These peaceful times wouldn’t last forever. This wasn’t a slice of life story. This was a story with a goal, an ending, and they’d need to suffer to reach said ending. It wouldn’t be a story without suffering.

But he didn’t want to suffer.

He knew. Someday, he’d look back on this month with longing, knowing that it’d never come back. Knowing that he’d never get to have that feeling again. The night before their third dungeon dive, John was awake in bed. Prota was fast asleep, but John found that rest eluded him. Thankfully, he had himself to keep him company.

“You know, some people say that the curse of loss just means that you had the privilege to experience something. It’s better to experience something and lose it than to never experience it at all.”

“Oh yeah? How about I just don’t experience the feeling of loss? Is that so hard?”

“People experience loss in the real world too, John. Why is this any different?”

“Because I know someone is writing this shit, Zero. Because someone is making me go through all this for the entertainment of others.”

“...yeah, a little, I guess.”

“What do you mean?”

Zero just shrugged. John grimaced in response and rolled over in his bed to face the wall.

“You know, John, you shouldn’t cry because it’s goodbye. Smile because it happened.”

“Kinda hard to do when it happened for the sake of saying goodbye.”

“Your understanding of the world is a curse and a blessing, John. Why don’t you use it to your advantage?”

“I do use it to my advantage,” John grumbled. “It doesn’t make my life any less shitty.”

“You enjoyed the past month, didn’t you?”

“...”

“Then remember that. John. You can’t keep everyone. You can’t save everyone. Real life is like that, too. You have to say goodbye at some point. It’s impossible to hold on forever.”

“Yeah? This isn’t real life. What if I can save people? What if it’s not necessary to say goodbye?”

John paused. “What’s a relationship, Zero? What does it mean to have a family? To have friends?”

“...that’s up to you to decide.”

“Then what? You keep bothering me about all this shit. Then tell me. What do you want me to do? Huh?”

“Cherish the moments you have. Each person is a story, John, even [Characters]. When you tell that story, you keep them alive.”

“Didn’t realize we had a poet over here. Master yapper incoming.”

“Since when was the truth poetry? John, just because the world is fake doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy it. Prota really cares for you, if you couldn’t tell. She enjoyed the last month. You know why?”

“...why?”

“It wasn’t because of the things you did. It was because you were the one doing them with her. So maybe… give it a try?”

John closed his eyes and went to sleep, but it wasn’t like Zero was judging John’s state of consciousness based on his physical appearance.

“John. You know I can tell when you’re asleep, right?”

“Shut up. Let me rest in peace.”

“...alright.”

~~~

“Alright. Everyone here?”

Everyone was in the dungeon, ready to take it on. John was yawning, having slept rather poorly the last night, but for the most part, everyone was ready and prepared.

“What’s the point of this one?” John said, stifling another yawn.

“...point?”

“You know, there was a point for the last two. Something like that. This one?”

“Oh. There’s no point. We’re just challenging the dungeon.”

John nodded. That was a good enough explanation for him.

“In terms of goals, there are three of them. The first is to find more resources for Danjo.”

Danjo nodded as he pulled out a notebook and took out three sheets of paper.

“If you guys could keep an eye out for these materials, that would be useful…”

Danjo had used up all the materials they’d gathered on the last mission, but had gotten some pretty good tools in return.

The first and probably the most useful tool was a bracelet that let out a gust of air that would knock back everything around the user. It was a one time use, but as an emergency escape tool, it was pretty good.

The second was upgraded communication tools. Danjo had taken the old ones and touched up on them, and they were now similar to earplugs in design, making them much more compact. He’d also made a fourth one, making it so that everyone could have one.

Third were items similar to flashbangs. Danjo had made some balls that utilized light magic, emitting a bright flash when thrown that would blind anyone looking at it.

Finally, he’d brought a tool for himself.

“Hey. Can anyone use those?” John said as the group walked down the tunnels.

“What?” Danjo said.

“Those gauntlets of yours.”

In Danjo’s bag were two large steampunk gauntlets. He’d explained that they had the effect of augmenting one’s strength and speed and even had jets on the back to allow the user to dash in the direction they were punching.

Apparently, he’d had the blueprints for them for a while, but had lacked certain materials that would’ve been impossible for him to get if not for the dungeon. They were, in a sense, a direct upgrade to his old gauntlets.

“Erm… technically yes, but they’re customized for me…”

“Oh.”

“Sorry…”

“No, no. I’d probably just die if I tried to fight with those. They can stay with you.”

Fate continued. “The second goal is to extract the dungeon core and return it to the guild. We’ll be paid pretty well if we do this. Of course, that’s just a cover. Are we ready?”

John nodded. This was probably going to be an uneventful few days. Hell, this probably wouldn’t be going into the story. Why would it? What could happen?

~~~

Draco was walking around his mansion, getting ready to go out. He’d told his attendants to take a break, which they’d done after a bit of arguing, but he didn’t want them knowing about what he was going to do.

He took a sheet of paper out of his pocket and reviewed the instructions on them one last time, just to make sure he wouldn’t mess things up.

“What the-” Danjo gasped as someone bumped into him, but it was just one of the slaves.

“You! Do your job right!” he yelled, slapping the slave to the floor. It wordlessly fell over, and got back up similarly without a sound.

The Wynton household had employed a numerous number of slaves, and had gotten quite a few at a discount as well.

The discounted slaves were all children.

Unknown to most, there was a secondary, hidden slave market. Here, anyone was sold. While all of the slaves on the primary market were criminals, all of the slaves in the secondary market were people of any sort. Beautiful women, strong young men, children… anything one could use to satisfy one’s desires. Children were typically cheaper due to the fact that they could do less, but since they still had some uses, they were sold at a discount.

Draco had never stopped to think about that fact. It wasn’t like he needed to. His father was the one who had purchased the slaves. And besides, he didn’t see the slaves as people. They were things that cleaned and cooked for him. He didn’t need to care about anything else.

Picking up his staff, Draco prepared to head out, but stopped as he heard his attendants talking. He quickly hid in a nearby room, not wanting to be seen, but put his ear against the door as he heard the contents of the conversation.

“...we have told him about the girl?”

“Marcus. Chantless casting. Fifth Circle spells. Those aren’t normal things. Besides, that boy-”

“Our duty is to the young master, not that imprudent-”

“He saved our lives, Marcus.”

“...we should at least tell him about the masked one. How he’s a battle mage.”

“Marcus. We made a promise.”

“At least let me tell him about the other one. His strange ranged weapons. They were like handheld cannons, Elena! He blasted the head off that savage! What kind of weapon is that?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

Their voices trailed off, but Draco was busy fumbling with the piece of paper. He unfolded it again and read the line at the bottom.

“If there is anything you wish to tell us before we go out, please come to this spot.”

There was more writing, but that was enough.

Draco ensured that no one was in the corridor and ran out, taking a robe and throwing it over his head before running out of the mansion.

~~~

“You taught her chess?”

“Yeah? What’s the big deal?”

“That’s… it’s a pretty hard game, isn’t it?”

“Well… I guess? It’s not that hard, though, is it?”

It’d been about a day since the group had gone into the dungeon, and they were getting ready to set up camp for what they could only assume was the night. Bored, John had started a conversation with Fate to find out what everyone had been up to the previous month. It hadn’t been much.

Fate had spent time training and preparing for whatever might come their way, but he’d taken a break as per his instructor’s demands. Danjo was curious as to who this instructor was but never asked, and so nobody told him.

Danjo, obviously, had been working on his tools, but he’d also been practicing a little earth magic in secret as well. For the most part, it was just useful for his blacksmithing, but it seemed that he’d be a little more helpful in fights as well. His growth rate from when they’d first met him was incredibly impressive. He could already be considered a part of the team. Of course, it was nowhere near the level Prota or Fate were growing at, but those two were irregulars and didn’t count.

Finally, John’s turn had come to describe what he’d done, which had led to the current conversation.

“I remember it being really confusing. There’s a lot of rules, right?”

“...did you learn when you were five? It can’t be that hard, right?”

John shrugged and pulled a chess board out of his backpack. Everyone stared at him except for Prota.

“Did you bring that just for the sake of bringing it?”

“I guess it could be used as firewood in the case of an emergency,” John shrugged. “Come on, don’t question it. Let’s see you play against Prota.”

Prota flinched as she was brought into the conversation. She looked at John angrily, although to Fate and Danjo, it just looked like she’d turned her head to look at him.

“Come on, don’t give me that look.”

“...”

“It’ll be fun! Please?”

“Food.”

“What?”

“Give me food.”

“...fine, I’ll make something for you later.”

Fate leaned over to Danjo. “Hey, do you know what kind of look she’s giving him? Why did he respond that way?”

“Um… she looks the same as always, doesn’t she?”

“Yeah…”

Apparently Prota had given in, because she went to sit at the chessboard. John smiled and started setting up the pieces.

“Come on, Fate, you know how to play, right?”

“...you really want me to do this?”

“It’ll be fun!”

Fate looked at John’s overly large grin suspiciously. “What are you planning?”

“Planning? Nothing,” John said, but his grin didn’t get any smaller.

He wanted to watch Prota absolutely stomp Fate. It was possible she would lose, but… no, there was no way, right? Especially since the reincarnator wasn’t all that familiar with the game himself. Fate sighed and sat on the other end, taking the black pieces.

“What… is this?” Danjo said, staring at the board.

“Oh, just a board game. Here, this is how it works…”

Danjo watched with interest as John explained how each piece worked, the rules of the game, and added commentary as Fate or Prota would make a good move. Interestingly enough, both players played rather conservatively, not wanting to sacrifice any pieces. Twenty moves in, and only a pawn from both sides had been taken.

“Haah… seriously, you guys, are you gonna do something interesting?” John said with a yawn.

“I’m playing to win,” Fate said seriously.

Prota, too, looked intent on the game.

John looked at the board. Prota’s position was clearly better. However, she wouldn’t be able to capitalize on it based on the way she was playing. He’d taught her the basics, but he hadn’t taught her how to capitalize on them.

Prota’s turn passed. Then Fate’s. Then Prota’s. Finally, John couldn’t take it anymore.

With a grunt, he got up and walked over to Prota, whispering a few things in her ear. She gave him a dissatisfied reaction, not that anyone else could tell, but she finally nodded.

“Hey,” Fate complained. “That’s cheating.”

“This is like watching paint dry. Just finish the game before I actually play for Prota.”

The game continued, but it had taken a drastic turn. Prota sacrificed pawn after pawn, technically losing in pieces, but in John’s eyes, she was winning the game.

Fate wasn’t playing rashly either. He was still taking time to think and move, but he didn’t see it coming. Prota had one last pawn left. With her position, it was impossible to stop it from reaching the end of the board, and with that, she promoted it to a queen, resulting in a checkmate.

“That was you winning,” Fate complained as he looked at the board.

“Skill issue,” John snorted. “You lost to a child. Deal with it.”

Fate looked at Prota, who looked the same as always, but somehow, her expression seemed more satisfied than usual.

“...yeah. She’s good.”

“You guys are both cowards,” John complained. “Seriously. You’re never gonna get anywhere by playing purely defensively.”

“Isn’t winning determined by whoever has more pieces?”

John looked at Fate. “Do you have more pieces?”

“...yes.”

“Did you win?”

John crouched down and pointed to the promoted queen.

“You gotta sacrifice things to make things happen. There’s probably some deep chess quote about even useless pawns having the potential to be the most powerful piece, but really, while it’s just a pawn, it can’t do much. It can threaten to become something better, but it isn’t something better yet.”

“But-”

“Don’t wanna hear it. Look, I’m no chess grandmaster or anything, but typically, if you’re gonna lose a pawn or a better piece, you usually ditch the pawn. Do you get what I’m saying?”

He pointed to the chessboard. “The least important pieces can get lost first. As long as you’re not just throwing pieces away blatantly, you can afford to trade pieces. Seriously, no good player wins a game with a gourd full of pieces.”

Fate and Prota both stared at the chessboard.

“The readers are gonna complain about this one,” John muttered under his breath. “Wanna play again?”

Fate looked up at John. “You want to play another one? We should eat.”

“Eat… oh, yeah.”

He picked up the board and put it away while Fate got the food ready, but Prota continued to stare at the rock the board had been on.

Sacrifice pieces. She wasn’t really a fan of that, since she always felt like she was making a mistake when she lost a piece. She knew it was necessary. Hell, she’d just watched John prove that sacrificing pieces was sometimes the winning move.

“Hey,” John said, walking over to Prota. “Thinking about the game?”

Prota nodded.

“Great,” John sighed. “Another chess to real life analogy. Thinking about sacrifice?”

Another nod.

“...I’ll let it slide just this once,” John grumbled. “Look. Chess isn’t real life. Real battle doesn’t have rules. There’s no king to capture. Real combat is a lot more messy than chess.”

He took a pawn out of his pocket and fiddled around with it.

“In chess, sacrificing pawns is usually just part of the game. Stories will make all sorts of analogies about this. A pawn can become a queen. Pieces need to be sacrificed to win. The threat of a piece can be worse than using the piece itself. All sorts of stupid junk that was deep and wise at one point before it became overused and boring. I sacrifice pieces all the time. In chess and real life. But that shit’s boring.”

John threw the pawn over his shoulder.

“I don’t give a fuck about any of that. Prota. Victory in chess is defined by capturing the king. However, your version of victory can be whatever you want it to be.”

John poked her forehead. “If your version of victory means you don’t sacrifice anything, then don’t sacrifice anything. If your victory is the utter defeat of the opponent, no matter what, then sacrifice everything. You need to decide what ‘victory’ is to you.”

He got up and stretched. “Come on, let’s go eat. I don’t really wanna talk about the metaphorical implications of chess anymore. That stuff’s boring.”

John suddenly stopped and knelt down, holding Prota’s shoulders and forcing her to look in to his eyes.

“Prota. Then, for me, you can’t die, ok? No matter what. Unless you know, for sure, that I’m dead, you absolutely cannot die, alright?”

Prota nodded hesitantly.

“Seriously. Don’t die before I do. I’ll… I’ll do my best to do the same.”

Prota slowly nodded as John got up, acting as if nothing had happened, and watched as he grabbed a bowl of food. However, she didn’t follow him. Instead, she silently got up and picked up the pawn he’d thrown away, looking at it with curiosity. After a bit, she stored it in her cloak.

Victory. She didn’t have a definition of victory in her mind. She just did what she was told to do.

She didn’t know what to think.

~~~

“So you’re telling us that the coreless boy is really a threat?”

“Yes, precisely.”

Draco was meeting with a group of hooded figures. He’d spilled everything he knew about Fate’s group. How Fate was a battle mage, how Prota had fifth circle magic, but most importantly, John and his strange weapons.

“Hm… the girl and the masked one are definitely powerful opponents, but we had already accounted for that. We had already planned to take out the coreless one first, but to think he had some secret weapon up his sleeve… that is some very useful information.”

The hooded man put his hand on Draco’s shoulder. “Our organization thanks you greatly. Without your information, they might have slipped out of our grasp once more.”

The hooded man whispered a few things, and his men nodded and dispersed.

“I’m sure you remember your role.”

“Yes, I’m supposed to go in and distract them. Can you guarantee my safety?”

The hooded man snapped his fingers, and another appeared silently, startling Draco.

“This one will follow you stealthily. You can trust this one. He will do his job quite well.”

Draco stared at the man suspiciously, but he had to admit that the man was probably quite skilled if he hadn’t been able to notice him.

“They will likely not attack you first, seeing as how you know them. Take this opportunity to cause chaos. Attack them, mislead them, whatever you want. It would be best if you could lead the coreless one away first, but any of them will do.”

“The coreless one…”

Draco grit his teeth as the image of John barging into his mansion and humiliating him filled his mind. Not only was that commoner bold enough to enter his house, he’d done so without a drop of power.

No. That couldn’t be allowed. A grin slowly spread on Draco’s face.

“No, the coreless one will do just fine. I look forward to what we will do together.”