A PATH, A FRIEND

After sometime, Kuramoto decided to leave the town, while he was packing his stuff he heard a heavy sound of someone falling down from the stairs..

Kuramoto went to check it out, Turns out it was a girl around his age, He quickly ran downwards and asks "Miss, are you okay?!"

The girl replied "Yeah I am okay, I can walk on my own"

Kuramoto replied "There's blood flowing from your knee, are you sure you're okay?"

The girl looks down to her leg to see if it actually is bleeding and when she saw it was, she screamed as if she got hurt a lot!

Kuramoto then stood up and asked her to quiet down a bit as he knew quite a bit of healing magic himself.

Kuramoto bend down again as to treat her leg as she was sitting on a chair and activated healing to heal the leg..

The leg slowly recovered but it still hurt, So Kuramoto told her to wait a bit as he walked upstairs to his room.

When Kuramoto came back from his room with a piece of torn cloth to tie on her wounded leg, To his surprise, She was long gone...

Kuramoto was worried for her so he used his second God gifted ability "Eyes of God" To search for her.

When Kuramoto finally found her, he quickly ran towards her, but the girl kept resisting and kept trying to run away..

Kuramoto asks, "Why do you keep trying to run away? I'm just trying to help you!"

To which she replied, "I don't trust you!"

Kuramoto replied to her as "Do what you want, I shall not help you anymore!"

The piece of cloth he had in his pocket fell down when he walked back to his room to continue packing to leave the town.

The girl saw the cloth fall and thought "Maybe he was just actually trying to help me, maybe he's not a bad person at all..."

As Kuramoto was walking back to his room, The girl suddenly came and grabbed his hand tightly and said "I apologise! I did that as a survival instinct! I hope you will forgive me!"

Kuramoto replied, "I understand your problem, I have forgiven you, Might I ask what's your name? Pretty lady"

The girl replied "Shinoma Chinatsu, you can call me Chinatsu, What's your name by the way?"

Kuramoto replied, "Kuramoto Katsuo, you can call me Kuramoto"

"Alright then Kuramoto, where do you plan to go?" Said Chinatsu

Kuramoto replied "I'm planning to go on an adventure, what about you?"

"Same here! Want to go together?" Chinatsu replied

"Sure, if that's okay with you..?" Answered Kuramoto

"That's great with me! Let's go to the adventurers guild to register as team members!" Said Chinatsu

Kuramoto agreed.

Both of them went on to the adventurers guild

"What shall I do for you?" Said the Guild's recruiter

"Add him and me as a Duo!" Said Chinatsu

Kuramoto slightly lets out a laugh while he looks at Chinatsu's happy side.

"Heyy what are you laughing at!?" Said Chinatsu

"Just admiring someone." Answered Kuramoto while letting out a small laugh

"Alright then, If you say so" Says Chinatsu

"You guys sure look friendly with each other" Says the recruiter

"Here, sign this and you guys will officially be a team"

Both of them sign the paper...

"Here you go, you guys are officially team members now, here's your insignia. " says the recruiter

"Well now that it's taken care of, Let's go pack our things and set out on an adventure tomorrow morning." Says Kuramoto

They both walk to the Inn and go back to their rooms just waiting for tomorrow to come.

"Sleep well, Chinatsu" Says Kuramoto to Chinatsu

"You too!" replies Chinatsu.

The night passes by as they wake up at the morning to the sound of a Gang Of Powerful Bandits rebelling across the streets..

Kuramoto quickly dresses up and activates berserker Armor and jumps down from the window!

Dressed up on his shiny golden Armor, all of the attention of the bandits directed towards him, they thought "If we kill him, we won't have to rob anyone for the rest of our lives"

But who knew what will become of them.

Kuramoto set his hands on his Katana as he slashed it just once and half of the bandits were gone..

"Guess I still have a long way to go." Says Kuramoto while the bandits are horrified at this sight.

Chinatsu, Who was looking outside from the window saw Kuramoto do something that is almost as strong as a Vampire (The top level entity in the world) She felt amazed!

Kuramoto then told the other bandits to get lost or they would get killed like their friends too.

He looked up at the Inn and realised, Half of the Inn was gone because he couldn't control his power...

He quickly took his items and told Chinatsu to come with him as quick as possible so the inn owner couldn't find him.

Kuramoto grabbed Chinatsu's hand as tight as possible and activated his Fly ability and flew away for quite a distance...

His energy was almost at it's limit now, so they landed on the ground and rested for a bit.

Chinatsu asked "Kuramoto, What do we do now?"

He answered, "I don't know anymore, what's the nearest nation from our place?"

She replied "The nearest nation.....? It's the Astral Kingdom, it's security is quite tight, but I know one of the guards there, he can let us in."

"So that settles it! Off to Astral Kingdom!"

They get up slowly and start walking..

After walking a while, Chinatsu spoke up,"At this pace, we're not going to reach the kingdom even if we die.."

Kuramoto replied "hmm, yes you're right, but what can we even do, do you know any short cuts to this path?"

She said "Yes, There is a shortcut, but it's a really risky one, it's from the mountains of the dragons..."

He replied "No matter how tough the dragons are, I will definitely defeat them, let's go then."

She looked worried but remembered how he performed last time and almost half of her worries were gone..

He uses the fly ability to fly away to the shortcut..

They finally reach the place.

Chinatsu said "Ah, here is it! Land here!"

He landed down and deactivated his wings.

"Get prepared for a fight!" He said

They both rush forward while trying to camouflage with the nature so that the dragon cannot notice them.

But suddenly there is a loud scream and a stream of fire energy firing into the sky!

She felt shocked and she screamed..

He told her to calm down or we'll be found out.

But it was too late, The dragon already found them and was already flying towards them before they could flee the situation.

Kuramoto quickly went into the God formation sword style and told her to stand behind him.

She felt scared, she felt terrified because the dragon was 10 times bigger than a normal dragon, she thought they wouldn't be able to leave the forest alive..

But it was the first ever time Kuramoto actually felt scared...

He had put on all the buff effects he got while fighting previous enemies!

He activated Berserker Armor V4

He used up all the strength buffs he bought while in the previous town.

He activated infinity darkness.

Got into his fighting stance with the Kuroka in his hand tightly gripped.

The dragon fired his first attack, it almost killed Kuramoto, He barely managed to guard it even though he got got some fatal wounds.. (SFX:CLANG)

Chinatsu managed to heal his wounds because of her abilities from a distance!

Kuramoto dashed forward, Activated Stealth, Lucky for him the dragon couldn't detect him at all.

The dragon stomped the ground once and it made Kuramoto jump onto the air so that the dragon found him.(SFX:BAM)

His life was in danger now as the dragon's attack were really fast.

His last thoughts were "Dear Father, Hope I will not disappoint you in my rebirth.."

But then, There was a strong light infront of him, the light stunned his vision for a while...

When he could see again, It was a woman in shining golden Armor defending him.

She was saying something but Kuramoto couldn't hear anything..

He fainted mid air and collapsed to the ground..

The girl kept fighting with the dragon and after various attempt, She was cornered by the dragon, But Kuramoto woke up at that time and quickly activated stealth to go above the dragon and slashed it from the sky and cut it's head.

But to his surprise, It was a 5 headed dragon and the other 5 quickly used fire breath and cornered him to a tree. (SFX:HUSH)

Kuramoto quickly yelled, "QUICK! HEAL ME!" As he ran towards the dragon's core with just one shield ability left to guard him..

She said "DONT! YOU'LL DIE!!"

He replied "IT'S OUR LAST CHANCE, I HAVE TO DO IT!"

He ran towards it and barraged it with swords and fist attacks almost infinitely in a fast pace.

But the dragon didn't even feel anything and just said "That tickles" and used his second ability "Gravitational Push" To throw him away.

Kuramoto flew high up in the sky and he was in a similar situation as last time, but this time he had no one to save him..

He thought "Guess it's my end now, I'll miss you, father.."

"Wait, I still have one last thing that I can do before I die!"

He quickly came back to his senses and used a tree branch to divert the trajectory of the fall and saved himself from the attack.

"I DID IT!"

But it was not over yet, Kuramoto was almost at it's limits.. but the dragon still had 4 more lives before he died..

Kuramoto then fell in deep state of relaxation as though the grass swaying through every attack of the wind and dodged every attack of the dragon as he was grass and it was wind.

The only thing that came to his mind was "I have to kill the dragon and save the people even if I die."

He used his reflexes to get closer to the dragon to use his final ability which will cost his life.

He screamed, "THIS IS MY LAST CARD UP MY SLEEVE, LET'S SEE IF U CAN WITHSTAND THIS!!"

He activated his rage transformation and began furiously barraging through the tight Armor of the dragon, The dragon thought "This mortal has quite some potential, but too bad it's wasted now.."

Little did he know, Kuramoto wasn't trying to break through his Armor, He was trying to throw him in the valley that has no return..

After 10 minutes, Kuramoto finally did it and used one final ability to pierce it's wings so it can never come up again.

"THE DRAGON HAS BEEN KILLED" popped up infront of his eyes as he led his final minutes in vain of using too much magic energy.

"You won't die! I swear on my name!"

The mysterious woman that saved him before, did some kind of strange magic that could convert her own life energy to Kuramoto's energy.

After some hours, Kuramoto wakes up to find himself laying on Chinatsu's lap.

"Wh-what happened!?"

"Wasn't I dead!?"

"Yeah, you were, but a mysterious lady saved you."

"Thank God!"

"Anyways, let's just keep moving on to Astral Kingdom."

"As you say!"

To be continued.