The Reason Adell Came To The Future

[2,000 Years Ago]

Adell stood in front of the Menelo-Renast, grinning from ear to ear as he waited behind the short line of people here to attend their reservations. Adell tried to dress in the best clothes he owned, but they were still rather simple, especially when compared to what the other guests of the restaurant wore. Clothes made of rich, fine fabric, tailored to suit their body, matched with various jewelry and accessories adorning their ears, necks, wrists, arms, fingers, and more. They looked like they belonged here, while Adell figured he looked more like a delivery boy sent on an errand for someone that did look like they belonged here. But no matter. He had waited an entire year to get the chance to eat here, and he wasn't going to this feeling of being out of place ruin his fun. Did it matter whether he ate there, as long as he could pay for it?

All of a sudden, an old man with white hair and the flowing, fine robes of a top scholar came and passed the entire line. He came right up the lady at the reception desk that managed reservations, and said, "Good afternoon. I am here for a table at the Menelo-Renast."

The lady gave him a polite smile. "Good afternoon, Great Scholar. May I know the name for your reservation?"

"My name is Leon Regaard. I don't have a reservation, but I was wondering if you could fit me in regardless."

The woman's smile dropped a little, but it still held. "I-It's a great honor to meet you, Mr. Leon Regaard. However, you still need a reservation to eat at our establishment. All of the people lined up here have been waiting for many months, if not years, to get a chance to eat here, and it wouldn't be fair of them for someone else to take their spot."

Leon frowned, then looked back at the line. His gaze fell on Adell and he said, "Even that shabby kid there has a reservation? Can't he give up his seat for me, the man that saved the world from the catastrophe? Right, child?"

Adell grimaced and glared at the man. Who did he think he was? He saved the world from the catastrophe? Adell had heard the sort from various sources lately, but he had a hard time believing it. If this man saved the world, then Adell was a prince of a rich empire. "I booked my reservation a year ago and have been patiently waiting to get my chance to eat here. You have no right to judge whether I look 'shabby' or not. You don't know anything about me. You have to wait your turn like everyone else, no matter how oh-so-important you are."

Leon scowled and met Adell's glare with his own. "If it weren't for me, you, and everyone else here, would be dead right now. I should think that makes me 'oh-so-important' enough to not have to book a reservation."

Adell was about to retort with an even more scathing reply when the young woman at the reception desk nervously tried to break up their fight. "Mr. Regaard, young man, please refrain from causing a disturbance for our guests. I will go bring the manager to sort this ordeal out. Please wait here for a few minutes."

With that, she scurried inside. Leon and Adell stopped arguing, but still shot glares at each other.

After a few minutes, a tall man with graying hair appeared in front of them, wearing clothes even more fine than the guests in front of Adell. He glanced over Adell and settled his gaze on the scholar. "We are so pleased to have you dine at our establishment today, Mr. Leon Regaard. Please do come inside, we have a table waiting for you. It's only right that we allow him to be an exception to our rules. It is only because of his efforts that our establishment can continue to do business and receive guests, after all."

He turned to the line of people waiting for their reservation and said, "Do not worry, guests. There are still tables reserved for everyone here today. Please wait a few more moments and we will be back with you shortly."

With that, the manager escorted the scholar inside the restaurant, Adell glaring at him as he did. Whether he saved the world or not didn't mean he could trample all over everyone that had been waiting for so long just because he didn't want to wait his turn. It's not as if the people that dined here were small figures within the world. Adell knew that a restaurant like this attracted all sorts of important, huge figures from all over, but even they still booked reservations and waited until the alloted day and time came. This Leon Regaard fellow was just a shallow, arrogant, selfish excuse for a scholar.

Still fuming, Adell waited his turn. He ended up waiting a lot longer than he anticipated, but was seated eventually. The lady at the reception desk looked doubtfully at Adell, and Adell in turn showed her a statement from his bank that showed the amount of funds he had in his account. Her eyes had widened and any traces of doubt vanished when she did. Adell had to suppress the urge to smirk. He was glad he opened a bank account. He earned a lot of money from his job guiding people through the Laria Jungle, and didn't trust himself enough to not lose it or allow it to be stolen. He was glad that anyone had allowed a kid like him to open a bank account in the first place, but all he had to do was show the man he met with how much money he had, mostly in the form of checks but also some bags of gold coins, and he readily made one. At the Menelo-Renast, the lady guided him inside the restaurant, and as they walked to his table, Adell looked around in awe of the beautiful interior.

The building itself was rather large for a restaurant. Along the walls were thin collumns that ran from floor to ceiling, where they sloped up from the wall to meet in the middle. Ceiling itself wasn't flat, but a bit curved, a little short of being a dome. The effect made it look a strange, blooming flower on the ceiling, which was accentuated by actual flowers growing from vines that adorned the walls and ceiling in tasteful amounts. Most of the restaurant, other than the vines and flowers, was colored in white, or shades of white. The tablecloths were shiny and reflective, made from a white fabric of some kind. The walls were white, as was the ceiling. Lanterns hung from the ceiling, colored gold and white. It wasn't too brightly lit, but had a nice, quiet, peaceful air.

The lady sat him at his table, a small table in the corner of the restaurant that had a good view of the back of the main seating area. Adell liked this area. It was a good place to observe everything else. The lady left, leaving Adell a menu, and Adell perused it until a waiter came and took his order. Adell ordered whatever he wanted, not caring about the price, since he could afford to pay it and still have quite a bit left over. As he ate, he wondered how often the other people here could eat at this restaurant. Did more important people, with more money to spare have shorter times to wait for their reservations? Or did everyone have to wait months, at least, to get a chance to dine here? Either way, he figured it was worth it.

The food here was perhaps the best he'd ever tasted, which didn't say much since he's never been to any other expensive, fine restaurants like these. He mostly just ate whatever was on the way to wherever he was going, or whatever was in the town he was staying at. Growing up an orphan, he hadn't always had money to spend so luxuriously. His frugality from those times left a deep imprint on him, making him reluctant to spend too much money on any one thing, such as food. But he'd worked hard these past few years he'd spent working as a guide! He deserved this, didn't he?

Well, it didn't matter all that much. He was here now, and he didn't regret it. He was happy to have gotten the chance to taste such wonderful meals. Now, having finished his meal and paid for his food, he walked out of the restaurant happy and satiated, thinking about how much more money he could earn in the future from guiding people through the Laria Jungle. As he left the restaurant, however, he saw the selfish, arrogant old scholar from earlier, that Leon fellow. He was about to walk across the road, but a carriage was incoming from far down the street and didn't seem to be on the verge of stopping. Adell didn't like the man, but he knew he wouldn't survive being hit by that, which, by the pace he was going, was a certainty. He didn't want to see someone's organs splattered on the road right in front of him after such a wonderful meal, so he raced forward, shouting to get his attention.

"Hey, Scholar! Old man! Step off the road!" He kept shouting until the old man finally turned his head, but when he saw who was shouting, he grimaced and turned back around, heading across the road again. Adell groaned and cursed, wondering why the old scholar had to be so stubborn. "Old man! That carriage is going to hit you!"

He grabbed onto the scholar's robes, having finally reached him, but the old man just tried to shake him off. "You, child, I've had enough of you! I tolerated you earlier, but how dare you grab my robes like that? Do you know who I am?"

Adell's anger spiked. "I don't care who you are! Just listen!" He pointed down the road, to the carriage that was now much, much closer than it was before. Adell quickly glanced at the driver only to see him staring not at the road, but at the Menelo-Renast, where a crowd was gathering around a young woman. Adell cursed the driver out, wondering who ever gave such a man this job, but turned his attention to the scholar. "That carriage is going to hit you! It's going to hit us! Get off the road!"

The old scholar didn't appear to be listening, however. He was trying to pull Adell's hands from his robes, but Adell refused to release them. He kept trying to pull the scholar off the road, having given up on trying to reason with him, and was successful at first, until the carriage wasn't just near them, but on top of them, hooves appearing in Adell's vision before everything went black.

Adell woke up on the road. Nothing hurt, surprisingly. He was still gripping the scholar's robes and trying to pull him off the road, not convinced the danger had passed, but some commotion appeared in front of the scholar, some purple and black hole in the air. The scholar was being pulled into the hole, and Adell panicked, trying to pull him away even more desperately. Adell was no match for the force of this strange spherical anomaly, however, since the scholar was quickly pulled in. Adell, having not released the scholar's robes, was pulled in alongside him, into the black abyss.