21 >Chapter 20<

In a faraway castle, inside of a room, five youths were peacefully sleeping. The soft breath of the sleeping boys is the only sounds reverberating throughout the otherwise silent room.

A second later, a change was brought by fluttering eyelids. After that, the person's eyes fully opened. He looked at the unfamiliar ceiling. A hint of panic flickered through his eyes.

Tim sat up and looked around the room he was in. It was a very big room, around 200 m2. It was made from completely white bricks, stacked on top of each other. The floor was covered by a brown carpet, which brought along with itself a feeling of comfort. There were small plants here and there, giving the room a peaceful feeling. There were also four other beds with people sleeping on them.

Looking at his friends, Tim couldn't help but sigh in relief, seeing as he wasn't in this place alone. He just hoped that they would wake up soon.

As if listening to his prayers, they all started to wake up one by one. They were also unsettled by the fact that they just appeared in a room.

Who brought them here?

Why did they bring them here?

Where are they?

What do they want to do with them?

All these questions echoed within the boys' minds. This would be a normal reaction from the people who would find themselves in this kind of situation. The reaction of the boys would actually be considered weird, seeing as they just got into this world. They were way too calm for someone who just got practically kidnapped… or not since they already had the honor of having such an experience.

All of a sudden, the door, that was in the middle of the room on the opposite side of the beds, opened. The boys became wary, so they started circulating their magic particles through their bodies and prepared to attack at any moment necessary.

The now fully opened door revealed a dark-skinned man, he had a few wrinkles on his face but it certainly wasn't detrimental to his handsomeness. He had short grey hair and a grey curled moustache. He was wearing a black suit with a swallow-tail coat on top and a white shirt underneath. He also had a monocle, making him look like a sophisticated gentlemen.

But what caught the attention of the boys wasn't the fact that a butler just came into a room they suddenly appeared in. No, what interested them were the sharp and pointy ears on the sides of his head.

The butler ignored their gazes and just quietly looked at them. "Hoh…" He muttered before fixing his posture and saying.

"Sir Caedis wishes to meet with you. He is giving you one hour of time to clean yourselves up. Once you're done, he will be expecting you on the highest floor." He paused and took out a pendant from his pocket. "If you get lost, then just tap on this pendant three times."

Throwing the pendant into the grasp of one of the boys, he then turned around and walked out of the room while closing the door behind him, leaving just the boys with stunned looks on their faces.

"Did we just get jumbled up in some mess?" Tim asked.

The rest just looked at each other and then gave a simultaneous "Hum" as an answer.

"Haah, whatever happens, happens. Anyway, I'm going to take a shower." Tim sighed before getting up and going to the other door that probably led to a bathroom.

The rest just waited for Tim to finish up before going to shower as well.

30 minutes later…

The boys were now all clean. They even found new clothes prepared for them, on their night tables, next to their beds.

Right now they were wearing a uniform of some kind. If the boys were to name it then they would call it a military uniform because it certainly looked like that.

They were wearing knee-high black boots with pearly-white trousers. On top they had pure white jacket with a black shirt underneath it. There some golden chains coming from their shoulder to their breast pocket.

"I never really understood what this is for." Tim complained as he played with the chain to calm his mind.

"I wonder what this is though." Patrick made a comment about a badge that was on their other breast pocket. It had the shape of a pentagon with one black line on the outer part and a flame print in the inner part.

The badges were different for each of the boys. For example, Tim had the print in the shape of a water droplet, Jacob had a purple lines spread out in the shape of a tree, David had a rock and Phillip small tornado.

"It looks like those badges represent our element." Phillip spoke.

"Yeah but… how did they know what element we have?" Patrick asked.

"That's for them to know and for us to find out…" Tim joked.

"Should we go now or should we wait? I know we have 30 minutes until the meeting but we don't know how far we have to go." Jacob said.

"Hmm… Now that you mention it, why didn't they just lead us there instead of telling us where to go?" David said with a voice laced with suspicion, while holding the pendant and observing it.

"Indeed that is very weird." Tim said while rolling around on the bed.

"But they don't really have any reason to do anything to us unless they like play with random peoples' feelings and I very much doubt that someone picked us up just to do that." Phillip mused.

"But you never know. Human beings are unpredictable beings… Speaking of humans, did you see that guy's ears? He looks like a dark elf that was described in the novels I used to read." Tim replied.

"Maybe it was just a unique characteristic of that person…" Patrick said.

"Well, we are now in a place where a wolf man and a giant serpent wanted to kill us for no reason." David said.

"Well, let's not dawdle any longer and just go. The Caedis guy is probably waiting for us." Jacob said as he got up and started walking towards the door.

The rest followed right after him…