1 Risking my life… for a stick?!

"Where is that damn thief?!"

Loud voices and heavy footsteps echoed throughout the corridor in the crypts, hundreds of feet beneath the Pyramids of Giza. Outside the Pyramids were hundreds of soldiers surrounding the area. Helicopters circled around the skies, making sure that no one leaves the premises.

An archaeologist recently discovered a map that led to a treasure room, which was hidden deep underneath the pyramids. The entrance to the maze was hidden well behind one of the walls in the crypts, as stated in the map.

As the map was about to be handed over to the government, it was stolen. The officers were knocked out by sleeping gas. When they woke up, the map was gone, and all that was left was a post-it note that said:

"The Great Thief Kudo"

And now, that great thief was being chased around in an unexplored corridor by the military.

"I'm not quite sure if this is going to work, but I sure hope it does."

Kudo finished installing the last tripwire he had. While following the map, he left behind dozens of trap, all of them non-lethal of course. Despite being a criminal, Kudo had principles, and one of them was to never commit murder.

Just as Kudo stood up to wipe the sweat of his forehead, a soldier appeared at the end of the corridor.

"Over here!", the soldier called out to his comrades and started shooting his gun towards Kudo.

"Crap!", Kudo let out a small yelp while rolling towards another pathway to avoid the bullets. He looked at the map and ran towards the room as fast as he could. The soldiers have already infiltrated deep within the maze, and it wasn't long before they fully explore the area.

As Kudo ran, he heard a loud click from behind him.

"Oh crap! Already?!"

He pulled out a gas mask from the backpack he was carrying and wore it. A loud pop came from the area where the click was heard, and smoke quickly filled the corridor.

"Sleeping gas! Everyone, be careful!", a loud shout could be heard echoing around the corridor.

"Idiots! Those aren't the only thing I installed!", Kudo shouted back towards them. The location of where his voice came from was masked by the echo.

Well… he was lying. All of the traps he installed only let out sleeping gas when activated. He didn't have enough time to gather materials before looking for the treasure since the government was quick to follow his trail.

"It should be around here somewhere.", Kudo looked at the map and tried to remember the path he took. If he wasn't wrong, he was really close to the treasure room. He ran as fast as he could, but he had a horrible gut feeling that he made a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

It turns out… his horrible gut feeling was right. According to the map, he was supposed to be right in front of the treasure room at the end of the corridor. All that was in front of him were three other corridors.

"Well… crap.", Kudo couldn't help but curse himself for having a bad memory.

"I can't believe I called myself a 'Great Thief', yet I can't even follow a map…", he sighed.

He tried to assess the situation. He was being chased by the military, and he was lost… wait…

The area was eerily quiet. The sound of footsteps and the voices that echoed around the area were no longer there.

"Did I lose them or something?", he muttered to himself. Well, whatever. After all, he now had a bit of a breathing room. Getting chased by the military was no joke.

He put down his backpack and took out a few biscuits and a water bottle. He sat down and started eating. He felt that he had to replenish all of the energy he lost doing all that running and dodging.

As he was munching on his snacks, the eerie silence was broken by a growl. First, it was just one growl, but as time went on, more and more growls came from everywhere around him.

"What is it now…", he quickly packed up and got ready for whatever was coming. Behind him, a pair of eyes started glowing, then it became two pairs. The two corridors on his sides also had growling coming from them. The only safe place to run to seemed to be the corridor in front of him.

He pointed his flashlight behind him and saw a pack of wolves, looking at him as if he was a delicious snack.

"Wolves? Here?", Kudo became confused, but he had no time to think about why this was happening. He had to get out of this sticky situation, and the wolves seemed to be ready to attack him at any moment.

He slowly reached towards his pocket, where he hid a grenade that contained sleeping gas.

*BARK*

The wolves moved quickly towards him. Kudo unpinned he grenade and ran towards the safe corridor. He dropped the grenade as he ran. Smoke from the grenade quickly filled up the space behind him.

As he continued running, he took a glance behind him to check if the wolves were still following him.

To his surprise, he couldn't see anything following him anymore. He stopped and took a moment to catch his breath, but just as he let his guard down, the wolves leaped past the smoke and ran towards him.

"Damn it!", he started running once again. He had equipment that could deal with humans, but who the hell expects wolves to be in a crypt hundreds of feet underground?!

As he continued running, he could see light coming from a room in front of him.

"The treasure room?", Kudo muttered under his breath as he continued running. He ran as fast as he could, but he could see that the wolves were closing the gap. Hopefully, there was something in the treasure room that could fend off the wolves.

As he entered the room, the only thing was a stick that was on top of a pedestal. The area was lit by torches placed around the wall. He took one of the torches and pointed it towards the wolves, which made them stop and keep a distance.

Kudo waved the torch in front of him, trying to scare off the wolves. He looked at the only thing in the room while trying to fend off the wolves. This wasn't a treasure room at all.

The pedestal looked incredible. It seemed to be made out of gold and was adorned with hundreds of gems around it. You'd think that the pedestal would be holding something incredible, but the only thing that was on top of it was a stick. A plain, old, wooden stick. It looked like it was a branch snapped off a dead tree.

Kudo slowly approached it while trying to scare away the wolves. The wolves simply kept a distance from him, as if they were biding their time, waiting for the right moment to strike.

As Kudo approached the stick that was on top of the pedestal, he hoped that it was something valuable that couldn't be noticed if examined from afar. Now that he was close, he examined it and noticed that…

"It really is just a stick…", he muttered to himself as he picked it up. The moment he lifted up the stick, a draft of wind came from the corridor he was from, extinguishing the flame from the torch he was holding.

"Shit."

The wolves immediately jumped at him. He kicked the first wolf that lunged at him. The corridor where he came from was the only way out of the room, and It was filled with wolves that looked incredibly hungry.

"I should've brought a weapon or something damn it!", he cursed himself for not bringing any deadly weapons. He really didn't want to accidentally murder someone else, but animals that were trying to kill him should be okay to eliminate.

He had to quickly think of a way to get out, or else he would be a delicious snack for all of the wolves. He had no weapons. The only thing he had was the stick, which looked like it could break if he tried to hit anything with it.

It wasn't long before he was cornered. He was slowly retreating while fending off the attacking wolves, and the room wasn't that big.

The wolves growled as they knew that they had their prey cornered. The wolf in front didn't have the patience to wait and jumped towards Kudo, who instinctively swung his stick and hit the wolf as strong as he could.

Surprisingly, the stick didn't break from the impact, which was quite strong, but that wasn't the most surprising part.

As soon as he hit the wolf, a bright blue window popped up in front of him. Kudo was surprised by the sudden pop-up. The wolves seemed surprised as well since they jumped back as soon as the window appeared.

[Activated: Meteor Storm]

At that moment, the ground beneath him started shaking violently. The wolves started to whimper, and so did Kudo. An earthquake while underground seemed like certain death to him.

Suddenly, a bunch of large flaming rocks fell from above them, crashing straight to the ground in front of him. Kudo hugged the corner of the room, hoping that none of them would hit him. The wolves retreated as fast as they could back towards the corridor as the room was being assaulted by rocks.

All that Kudo could do was close his eyes and hope that none of it hits him. The ground continued shaking for a while, but after a minute, it stopped.

Kudo opened his eyes. The room was littered with large rocks. It seemed to be over, and thankfully, he didn't get flattened by one of them. The room was now bright as the sun shined over him… wait… the sun?

He looked up and saw the bright blue sky. The weather seemed great, but Kudo was pretty sure that he was really, REALLY deep underground.

"What happened?", a voice came from above him.

"I don't know… meteors suddenly started raining from the skies. Did a mage cast meteor storm or something?", another voice responded. Their voices slowly started getting closer.

He looked up and saw the silhouette of a man of a woman.

"Hey! There's someone down there!", the woman exclaimed as she jumped down towards the room and made her way towards Kudo.

The woman was extremely beautiful. She had long, silky black hair. Her eyes were jade green.

"Hey! Are you okay?", the woman asked.

Kudo was still stunned by her beauty. He continued staring at her face, until suddenly…

*SLAP*

"Ow!", Kudo felt the left side of his face throb as the woman slapped him. The strength of the slap was no joke, as his vision started becoming blurry.

"Oh… he's fine.", the woman sighed out of relief. Kudo felt dizzy from the strong slap, his vision doubled. He felt that he was about to pass out.

"Why did you slap me… beautiful… woman…", Kudo managed to mutter those words before his vision turned black. He was still conscious, but he could feel himself slowly passing out.

"I was just checking to see-", the woman was about to respond to Kudo, but she saw Kudo suddenly fall down to the ground.

"Wait… Brylle! Quick! He's not okay! Not okay!"

Those were the last words that the Great Thief Kudo heard before completely losing consciousness.

------------------------------------------

"Do you think he's an adventurer?"

"No… he doesn't have a license or any kind of identification at all…"

The sound of a man and woman conversing filled the ears of Kudo, who had just regained consciousness. He quickly sat up. He was just in a dangerous situation, and after getting knocked out by a slap, he felt that he wasn't in a good position, and he had to escape quickly, but as soon as he got up, his head started to hurt and he felt dizzy once again.

"Woah! Don't move so much!", a man who was sitting beside the bed he was laying on quickly stood up and ran towards Kudo to prevent him from falling.

"You've got a concussion… because of that woman over there…", the man glared at the woman with whom he was conversing with.

"Erm… sorry about that…", the woman awkwardly apologized.

As Kudo's dizziness slowly faded away, he looked at his surroundings. Outside the window was the view of a bustling city, but it was different from what he was used to.

There were no cars. The streets were filled with people walking around, and there were a few horse-drawn carriages here and there. This definitely wasn't somewhere he's been before.

"Where am I?", Kudo asked the two people.

"Wait… before that… who are you, people?", Kudo realized that he was in a room with two strangers, and one of them literally knocked him out. He could still feel his left cheek throbbing. He had to be wary of the two.

"We're adventurers from the north. We're really sorry about what happened earlier… my sister doesn't know how to control her strength.", the man bowed his head at Kudo. His sincerity made Kudo feel a bit awkward, but Kudo continued to ask questions. He had to make sure that he wasn't in any sort of danger.

"Adventurers, huh…? Which country sent you? Are you from the C.I.A.? Or the Egyptian Armed Forces?", Kudo pressed on. From an outsider's perspective, the situation looked ridiculous. The injured man was interrogating the two able-bodied people.

The man looked at the woman behind him with a confused look on his face. The woman shrugged as if to tell him that she didn't understand what Kudo was talking about.

"Uhh… we're from Pran… a small town far north from here.", that was all that the man could respond.

"Pran? I've never heard of that place before. Is that in the Middle East or something?", Kudo asked.

"No… it's well... um… north.", the man felt lost while conversing with Kudo. He started to think that his sister hit Kudo too hard and made him crazy.

Kudo sighed.

"This conversation isn't going anywhere…", he muttered.

"Well… where are we?", he asked the couple.

"We're in Norbury.", the man responded. The injured man finally asked him a question that he fully understood.

"Norbury? Is that in Egypt?", Kudo asked.

"Egypt? I've never heard of that place before. Norbury, as in the one in Garthram.", the man responded.

Kudo looked even more confused than before. Did the two of them live under a rock or something? How could they not have heard of Egypt before?

"Where the hell is Garthram? Is it somewhere in Africa or Asia?", Kudo asked once again, but the man in front of him looked at him weirdly.

The man had never heard of all of those places before. The man he was conversing with spouted words that he did not understand. C.I.A.? Egypt? Asia? Africa? The man in front of him is most likely crazy.

The man stood up and sighed.

"I think you hit him too hard. He's become stupid.", the man talked to the woman behind him. The woman nodded in agreement.

"Wait, what?! No, I'm not crazy!", Kudo reacted immediately.

"Look… we're adventurers from the north. You can call us the Sutton siblings. I'm Brylle, and she's Margaret.", the man gestured towards the woman behind her.

"We're incredibly sorry for what happened earlier. We'll pay for the room for compensation. If you need anything, you can find us at the Adventurer's Guild in front of the inn.", Brylle stood up and bowed towards me. Margaret did the same and they both left the room.

"Is he crazy or something?", Brylle's voice could still be heard. The walls seemed to be thin enough to hear the voices outside.

"Probably… I hope I didn't cause it.", Margaret responded. Their voices slowly became inaudible as they got further away.

Kudo shook his head and tried to piece everything together. He looked around and saw his backpack on the floor. It looked untouched, other than the dust that was sprinkled on it from the falling rocks while he was fighting the wolves.

He looked outside once more and saw that there were people carrying around various weapons such as swords, staves, and bows, but none of them were carrying any modern weapon such as guns.

The town looked somewhat like a town from the medieval ages. It didn't look like he was in modern society. The siblings earlier talked about places he has never heard before, and they seem to have never heard about any of the places he mentioned earlier.

"Am I… in another world?"

Kudo stood up. He's read a few novels about the protagonist going to another world, and they always had some kind of power.

He thrust his palm forward. He felt energy surge throughout his body.

"HA!"

As his palm faced towards the window, the most amazing thing happened... well… nothing actually happened.

"Do I have to cultivate or something? HA!", once again, he tried to force out whatever power he had.

The door behind him suddenly opened.

"Sorry... we left something here…", As Brylle entered the room, he saw Kudo, who was stuck in an awkward pose.

"S-sorry for disturbing…", he slowly closed the door.

"He really was crazy!", Brylle's voice could be heard from behind the door.

Kudo felt extremely embarrassed.

"Can you two come in? I'm not crazy…", he asked the two people outside. The door slowly creaked open.

"Are you sure you're not crazy?", this time, it was Margaret who peeked through the small gap.

Kudo sat down and nodded.

The two of them slowly went back into the room. They still seemed suspicious of Kudo being a lunatic.

Kudo cleared his throat.

"Actually… I'm from another world-"

"Let's go.", Brylle quickly cut him off and left the room. Margaret hurriedly followed after him.

"Wait! I swear I'm not crazy! WAIT!"