Weakness.

Some mumbling woke Azar up, he just took a glimpse and closed his eyes again. Then fell asleep again. His head was spinning around because of all the alcohol he drunk yesterday. Someone picked him up, but Azar couldn't react. He was nauseous and if he tried to open his eyes he would for sure vomit.

They were going up the stairs he immediately realized where they were taking him. His brain couldn't work and his current situation wasn't favorable. His hungover was painful so he couldn't even focus any strength to speak.

He heard a door knock , he felt an immense fear going through his spine. He had to sober up, but he was unable to.

The door opened , someone spoke... a calm voice... such a calm voice that Azar had started sweating from fear. Then that sweet and calm voice said:

"Yea, just throw him down there. Thank you."

As instructed Azar felt the light breeze hitting his body as he was falling down from a small height. He hit his head , but no one cared.

"Are you gonna play the sleeping beauty forever, or am I the one who will wake you up?"

He was scared to answer, he had to play dead which was easy because he felt like it.

"So , I must wake you up, huh? How much more sleep can you get?"

Every inch of his body felt like burning , but... he felt like he was sobering up, his headache was immense but bearable.

"Ok then, you leave me no choise..."

"Huh? Lina?... Where... where am I?"

A sudden pain to his face.

"If you ever wake up you will understand!"

"Ok you don't have to slap me!"

"I must slap you, otherwise you will fall back to sleep!"

"Whatever, why am I in your room? What do you want?"

"Justin is here too, how about explaining us, what happened down there?"

"Oh, that's what you want... To be fair , I just have some assumptions, but if you want me to explain them to you I don't mind."

"Just do that then."

So Azar started telling them that someone was indeed following them, he didn't know why but he knew it had to do something with this kingdom and someone for sure is trying to hide the truth about something.

"But, that's all I know. I also think that there are some more hints about it in the dungeons, so we must go there again. Also i feel like the restricted areas inside the city has something to hide as well. For now , I will go back to the library and search some things. But before we head back to the dungeon we must get a little bit stronger. So go and upgrade your equipment."

And as he said , he went to the library, in the same time testing out the spy, will he follow him or the other two?.

*Keni? I need you with me now.*

*W-what did you say?*

*I said I need you with me now.*

*O-ok.*

*Are we getting spied on?*

*Yes. Someone is following us.*

*Are we in danger?*

*I can't say for sure. But he doesn't have any killing intentions right now.*

*Ok then, there is a restrcted area down the road , should i test it?*

*No, you are far too weak, if you even listened to me for once, you have to get stronger, you surely are not a match for the guy that follows you.*

*We won't know if we don't try.*

*For f@ck sake NO.*

Without listening to Keni, Azar turned left instead of right and headed over to the restricted area.

*STOP, AZAR!*

Azar then suddenly stopped, and then slapped his forehead while saying:

"Wrong turn!"

*That was some intense killing intent, right there.*

*If you felt it, why didn't you stop!*

*I want to know what are we up against to.*

*You f@cking , useless, weak , ignorant , reckless kid! Listen to me! YOU ARE WEAK, YOU ARE NOTHING , A ZERO! YOU MUST GET STRONGER!*

*I know, ok! I just can't think, anything. I must learn how this world is working and then I could be able to make anything!*

They were arguing for the whole trip till the library, then, no one spoke to each other. Azar were looking up things about this world , while the other two were shopping.

He caught himself trying to thing anything to tell to Keni, but he were getting interrupted all the time, thinking his friends. He missed them, and now that he found them, he wouldn't lose them again.

Keni's voice was playing inside his head... Weak... Weak... He knew he was weak, but he also couldn't do anything about it. He couldn't just bring out technology from his age, not only it could just lead to war later on, he wasn't even sure if it worked out. He knew he had to build something with the data he gathered from this world , but as he thought, his head was stuck.

The time passed, he got nowhere, the library had nothing commendable, it was all about the greatness of this kingdom. That was also something that ticked his mind. There were zero signs about the history of the technology, of this kingdom. Someone was suppressing this topic and kept it hidden.

*Could this be a hint? Is it related with this mystery or is it a complete another one?*

He was trying to think, but keni's voice kept interrupting his course of thought. So he went home. Took some pieces of paper and begun trying inventing anything.

The sun rose , he didn't manage to get any sleep, but he still tried to invent anything. His head felt numb and empty, he had nowhere to start nor a midpoint and neither any basic ideas. He was just weak. Something kept getting mixed with his motivation. He felt safe, but he knew he was in danger.

He got too fed up, so he decided to clear his thoughts with a walk.

*My fundamentals are way too weak, I can't understand anything about this world, there are so many things my mind can't comprehend. If i want to make anything I must first learn what magic is, then I must learn how it works, like what are these magic circles , why can magic create water , fire , earth etc. If i want to be called an engineer and not a magician, I must understand the way something works and then make it work for me.*

"Azar? Are you ok?"

"We were just heading to you, you seem... tired."

"Lina, Justin, I... am ok. Listen, i think we should stop this."

"Stop what?"

"Stop pursuing this... mystery. It seems it's something way bigger than what we expect."

"Azar... did you find anything at the library?"

"No. It's not that."

"Then what is it? If you don't speak to us how are we supposed to understand?"

"We are far too weak to be messing around with this world."

"Azar, tell us what happened."

"Nothing happened, let's just stop ok?"

"Ok, just explain to us, why should we stop?"

"As I said, we are far too weak to be playing the detectives. We are messing with something big."

"Azar, with what are we messing with, you sound like you found something, reach out to us, stop being a loner and speak to us. You are not alone anymore!"

Azar felt too fed up, his own friends wouldn't listen to them, he couldn't even explain to them that he was nearly dead. So he just passed between them. And continued his walk.

His body was on auto mode, his brain was empty, he was just randomly walking. His emotions were a mess. He knew he was weak and he had to grow stronger. He was alone and he learnt how to survive, but then his friends miraculously appeared and now he must protect them.

*How am I supposed to protect someone when I can't even protect my self.*

His life felt a complete misery, every time something good happened, it could never last. Just the previous day he was at the guild partying and drinking with his precious friends. Now he took a good dose of reality. He is weak, he must grow stronger.

While he was randomly walking, a huge amount of pressure made him wake up. His fight and flight mode just hit red, adrenaline was rushing within his body reaching every part of his body. His head tried to understand what's happening, but there was no need to. He already knew where he was.

A clapping sound echoed, the darkness of the night surrounding him made everything worse. His brain now understood where the sound was coming from as it was getting closer and closer.

"Good job on finding out my intentions, you did the same thing this morning but still, it's too naive of you to come back after feeling that. Does my presence feels heavy?"

"W-Who are you?"

"Me... nobody, just a spy. I see you are struggling a little bit. Also, you are a little weird, an enemy approaches you and you haven't even took your weapon out."

*Keni, Keni wake up!*

*...*

Azar took Keni with his hand and got ready to fight, but Keni wasn't there.

"I see, you think you can fight me with this 'demonic' weapon, the demon doesn't even want to help you. But this morning it helped you. Of course , who would want to fight for a helpless kid. It's just like you said earlier, you are messing with something that you are far too weak to be messing with."

"What are you planing?"

"You think you can ask questions? KID, don't think you can do anything. You need at least a hundred more years to reach my strength, this time, i won't be just spying on you like this morning, this time, is the time you lose something, your head maybe? No it would be way too easy, how about loosing your mana?"

As he said, Azar felt a sudden pain right next to his heart, he fell down and screamed in pain. His enemy was laughing and he said something to him, but Azar couldn't understand anything, something was blocking his ears. As he tried to understand what just happened, he found out that he couldn't listen because he was still shouting from the pain.

After that, he just watched his enemy disappearing in the shadows before he faint.