The Alleys of Xerxes

"How?" Kaalsuo said, wondering about what he had done to be in this situation. He was honestly impressed with the fact that this whole situation had even happened in the first place.

Etrus was completely stuck on the ground. His entire body was buried under the ground. Not even his neck was spared from getting buried. In a way, Etrus somewhat resembled like a pumpkin in Kaalsuo's eyes. A pumpkin that made him feel slightly more irritated.

"Oh hey, Kaalsuo! Good question! I don't know!" Etrus said in an incredibly positive attitude. He didn't even feel distressed at his situation. He even seemed to be enjoying his experience as a seed in the ground.

"Do you want me to drag you out?" Kaalsuo simply asked with no expression at all. He could simply just leave him to do his shenanigans. It wasn't like Etrus was going to be endangered by experiencing what it felt like to be a plant anytime sooner. Kaalsuo was fine with either outcome.

"Yes! Drag me out please!" Etrus said as he prepared himself for the dragging that'll commence shortly afterwards.

"Alright." Kaalsuo said, mustering all his strength to his arms to lift and drag Etrus out of the ground. He expected that it will take a short while to lift Etrus out. However, he didn't expect for Etrus to be completely immobilised.

"Did it work?" Etrus said, asking Kaalsuo whether the plan succeeded or not. Even so, Etrus didn't even think twice to observe his own body.

"Obviously, not. Did you fall into concrete or something?" Kaalsuo replied. He had no clue as to why or how Etrus managed to get stuck in the ground. He thought that Etrus had simply fallen into a ditch. Not a god damn pit of concrete.

Nonetheless, Etrus had little to no chance at getting out the ground. Kaalsuo just wanted Etrus to accept his fate and become one with the earth. Become what he was likely destined to be. A pathetic human head plant.

"Well, you should figure this out yourself. I'm out of here." Kaalsuo said, immediately running off to find Syra. He knew that the girl wouldn't wander off into the dark alleys and unnecessarily endanger herself. Thus he knew where to find her.

Using his earlier observation of their arrival at the town, he figured that Syra would probably be curious and explore the town's market.

Additionally, there were a lot of markets around the town and they were far apart. Even farther apart than a strained relationship between a dad that went to buy milk and some random traumatised kid.

It would've been extremely difficult to find Syra throughout the tens of markets around the town. However, that wasn't the case since it was Kaalsuo that was found instead.

"Hi! Want a bite of the apple?" Syra jumpscared Kaalsuo from the shadows of a random abandoned stand. She then took Kaalsuo's hand and put the apple on his hand.

"..Sure." Kaalsuo wasn't spooked by Syra's sudden outburst. It only made him particularly confused. Nonetheless, it wouldn't hurt to take a bite of an apple. Thus he simply chomped half of the apple in one go.

Kaalsuo was enjoying his apple. It's been a while since he had a chance to eat an apple. For some reason, apple trees don't exist or rather appear near his village. Thus he continued to appreciate the taste until he saw it.

A bite on the apple that he had bit.

Every available neuron activated inside Kaalsuo's puny brain and one sole result appeared. That result suggested that the bite on the apple was Syra's.

His primal instincts told him that something was definitely wrong. There was nothing wrong with his surroundings nor was there any danger.

"Shit.. There better not be FBI in this world." Kaalsuo regretfully said. His brain finally pieced the puzzles together. The apple that he had biten was a indirect kiss.

Kaalsuo truly regretted what sinful action he had just done. He gave a kid, barely above the age of 5, an indirect kiss.

Just like how Etrus was likely destined to be a plant, Kaalsuo started to think that he was likely destined to befriend certain people like EDP445.

"I'm a monster."

That thought was the only thing that rang throughout the entirety of Kaalsuo's head. There was no going back. He now had to live with the guilt for the rest of his life.

"Hi, guys! I'm back!" Etrus said, with traces of dirt and dust on all of his clothes and skin. It seemed that he was successful in getting out.

"Oh hey Etrus! Wanna sword fight?" Syra said, grabbing a long stick and tossing one to Etrus.

"Sure!" Etrus said, neatly fetching the stick and imitated a sloppy sword stance.

"Here I come!" Etrus said, clumsily running towards Syra and thrusted his sword towards her abdomen. However, since they were just playing, he half-assedly used his strength.

Syra anticipated it and quickly ran towards the hollow barrels to avoid the attack. She then threw her stick towards the wall which led the stick to bounce off the wall and hit Etrus at the back of the head.

"I got outplayed again?" Etrus said, quickly laying on the floor to pretend to be dead.

"Hey Kaalsuo! Do you wanna have a try too?" Etrus said, lending his stick to Kaalsuo whilst still laying on the dirty floor.

"Huh? Uh, sure." Kaalsuo said, snapping out the particular thoughts he was having earlier.

"Well, it's no use unnecessarily using Earth's logic here. From an outside perspective, I'm just a fragile looking kid."

Kaalsuo thought. He figured that it would be useless to think that he was now classified as a certain person with questionable sexual tendencies. Obviously, his current age was just 5.

"Oh, what do we have here? Hmm?"

A bunch of people that seemed like gangsters appeared from a shady narrow alley. The alley was so dark and shady that it was camouflaged like the surrounding walls.

They were all carrying weapons such as clubs and daggers. All of them were also wearing edgy looking gothic attire with spikes and chains all over them. Though, they unfortunately didn't have ridiculous makeup on their face.

"What the hell? I didn't know these type of punks existed in this medieval world. They're also carrying some nasty weapons."

All their weapons had some kind of modifications on it. Ordinary clubs were modified to have spikes and steel wires and the cross guard of their daggers were even blades.

Kaalsuo also had an uneasy feeling when looking at those gangster's daggers. The blade of the gangster's daggers were sharpened to the point it felt like it could even slice the air itself. The daggers simply had an ominous atmosphere around it.

Kaalsuo glanced at both Etrus and Syra to see them also feeling quite uneasy at the situation. Both of them were having some kind of conversation and nodding each other. It seemed that they were making a particular plan.

"What are you guys whispering to each other?" Kaalsuo joined in the conversation and whispered to them. He knew that they were making some kind of plan judging by their obvious behaviour.

"Um, Kaalsuo.. Let's run." Syra nervously suggested. Due to her nervousness, Kaalsuo figured that she must've been warned about this very situation before.

Kaalsuo knew that this situation was inevitable once they were close enough to a dark alley. Every town has it's negative and they had just encountered it.

"Leader, -----..."

"..----, Yeah. Let's do it."

"Shit. I have a feeling things are about to go south." Kaalsuo had a more intense uneasy feeling. He couldn't eavesdrop much of the gangster's conversation. However, he knew that they weren't gonna let them go so easily.

"Kekeke.. We'll get fucking rich after this!" One of the gangsters had a huge scar on the side of his left arm. He readied his dagger.

"Shut up, we're gaining attention. Celebrate later instead. For now, wreak havoc on THEM." The biggest and brawny out of the gangsters commanded all the gangsters.

"Holy shit! Run!" Kaalsuo shouted, grabbing the two of them and ran towards the crowded streets of the town as the gangsters followed them. Their movements were chaotic yet swift.

"We gotta hide in the crowd!" Kaalsuo shouted to the two of them.

Both Etrus and Syra were too shocked and scared to say anything. Instead, they nodded at Kaalsuo's words.

"Come on, kids! Your parents has been worried sick. Let us bring you back home~" The gangsters said with a huge menacing grin on their face.

"Ignore them! They're probably trying to frame us for running away from our nonexistent home!" Kaalsuo said.

"Fuck! I'll gonna try to kill them. I'll probably just mag dump but it's better than nothing!" Kaalsuo said, hurriedly loading his C96. He ended up dropping a few rounds as a result of them clumsily running away from the gangsters.

"What the-!?" A random man yelled.

"S-sorry!" Syra apologised. She had bumped the man during their escape from the gangsters.

"Let's head towards that alleyway! I can see the gate from up the hill here!" Kaalsuo quickly suggested to the others in which they nodded.

"Hah! You kids just cemented your doom!" One of the gangsters said, throwing a dagger towards Kaalsuo. However, the dagger missed Kaalsuo by a inch.

"Damn, that was seriously close! You two! You guys go ahead and run to the gate! I'll catch up later! For now, I'll try to hold them back!" Kaalsuo said as they reached the halfway point of the alleyway. The alleyway was narrow enough for Kaalsuo to concentrate on the individual gangsters.

"But.." Etrus said. He was hesitating to leave Kaalsuo alone and run towards the gate. He just couldn't help but feel guilty about leaving a friend alone to deal with the danger.

"Just go!" Kaalsuo said as he finally got the gun loaded with ammo.

"Oh? You seriously think you have a chance against us? Well, prepa-" The gangster was in the process of talking when Kaalsuo shot the gangster's jaw.

"Fuck.. That's disgusting." Kaalsuo said, looking at the bloody mess he had made. The gangster's mouth was filled with blood and the blood was all dripping out of it. Pieces of the jawbone fell on the ground and the look on the gangster's face was horrified.

"There's no good contemplating about morals first in a life and death situation. I'll think about it second. For now, it's time to start blasting." Kaalsuo thought. He knew that just shooting mindlessly was more than useless. Thus he attempted to log out the gangsters from reality by aiming at their head.

"You! I was thinking of sparing you and your friends but this? That's no longer fucking acceptable!" The brawny gangster was enraged. He was done fucking around. He was about to go berserk.

"W-wait, leader! You'll attract attention here!" One of the gangsters said, trying to stop the brawny gangster from going out of control. However, it was useless.

"You dare question my decision. Die, you useless bastard!" The brawny gangster shouted, crushing the other gangster's head to the wall in a matter of seconds. Piles of flesh, bones and brains scattered throughout the alley as a flood of blood painted the floor dark red.

"Shit.. I gotta run away. This is seriously gonna affect my dreams." Kaalsuo said. He knew that realistically, he had no chance facing the berserk gangster. It was too much out of his league. However, he decided to shoot one more bullet at the guy.

"I gotta live! To live, I gotta take away this person's right to live!" Kaalsuo said. His hand was sweaty and it was shaking. He felt the utmost desperation, fear and anxiety for the first time in his two lifes. No matter what, he wanted to live. Thus, he pulled the trigger.

"Argh!! Damn you!" The brawny bastard said, trying to block blood from spilling out of his bullet wound. However, it was futile. The bullet wound was at his heart. Due to Kaalsuo's shaky and sweating hands, he had accidentally shot the man's heart. Instead of his head.

"I have to run now. Any later and death awaits me." Kaalsuo said, hurriedly trying to run as fast as he could from the alleyway.

"You bastards! Don't- kugh!.. let the bastard run away!" The brawny gangster shouted, commanding the other gangsters to chase after Kaalsuo.

"You injuried Leader! We're gonna lead you to the grim reaper as a prize for that!" The gangsters shouted and dashed towards Kaalsuo with all their rage and vengeance filled in them.

"I need to run to the gate now!" Kaalsuo thought. He felt really tired and fatigued as a result of running constantly through the streets of Xerxes. Even so, his life was on the line thus he just couldn't stop. No matter what.

"Shit! I almost tripped at that pebble!" Kaalsuo said. He had almost tripped at the pebble in which could've costed him life. However, due to that mistake, the gangster got one chance to attack him.

"Attack him! He's vulnerable!" One of the gangsters told to the others. Immediately after he had said that, the gangsters threw several daggers at Kaalsuo.

"Fuck!!! It hurts so fucking badly!" Kaalsuo shouted in utter pain. Almost all of the dagger narrowly missed Kaalsuo. However, one of the daggers did hit Kaalsuo at the shoulder of his left arm. Miraculously, the dagger didn't penetrate too deep and fell to the ground.

"I need to resist the pain. I must run!" Kaalsuo said, limply sprinting as fast as he could away from the gangsters.

"Stop right there, criminal! Your action will not be tolerated! Sur-" Before the guard could say anything more, his throat was sliced in half by the gangsters. Instantly killing him.

"I'm almost there!" Kaalsuo said, running as fast as he could towards the staircases of the Gate. However, there was another obstacle that Kaalsuo had to break through.

A pair of gangsters with the same edgy attire blocked the path towards the gate. They were also holding daggers with them. However, none of the guards stationed there were doing anything to stop the gangsters. It seemed that they were too scared to stop them after seeing one of their comrade instantly sliced to death.

"Fuck it! I'll probably die from blood loss and bacterial infections. So, I might as well just kill you bastards while I'm at it!" Kaalsuo shouted at the top of his lungs, instinctively aiming towards the gangster's head.

"You think you could pull that trick on us again?" The pair of gangsters were suddenly nowhere to be seen. As Kaalsuo looked behind him, he saw one of the gangster's dagger heading straight for his chest.

"You idiots! Are you guys really going to sit there and watch as your town dissolve into a battleground for gang wars? Fight!" Kaalsuo shouted at the frightened guards shaking in fear. However, he knew from the eyes of the guards that they wanted to fight back and protect the town. Thus, he added one more encouraging quote for them to raise their morale.

"If you're going to die to these gangsters one day, you might as well bring down one of them with you." Kaalsuo said. As he finished saying that, the dagger from earlier had stabbed his shoulder. Unlike the first stab wound, the wound he had was very severe. His blood poured out of the wound like a waterfall.

"How'd you like that, huh?-" The gangster said before shortly dying to a headshot. The death of the gangster had slightly increased the morale of the gate guards which allowed them to stop shaking in fear. Even so, they were still hesitant to head into battle.

"Fire the emergency cannons! We got to call reinforcements to stop these gangsters. Mostly importantly, this kid is bleeding to death! Quick. Fire them!" One of the guards stood up from the rest and ordered the others to call reinforcements. The leader of their division was actually the guard that had been sliced by the gangsters.

"Don't worry, kid. We've fired the cannons which means healers are about to head here to heal you. We've just got to wait a few minutes." The guard assured Kaalsuo. He ripped off his tunic underneath his armor to bandage the wound.

"Thanks, but I don't think I can make it though." Kaalsuo said. He knew that at the rate of blood loss, he would likely die a few minutes later.

Kaalsuo didn't feel sad or anything. He was just disappointed that his time of the world was cut short by some random gangsters or bandits. Disappointed that he couldn't make it in time to explore the world.

His vision was starting to slowly blur out as the world around him slowly lost it's blooming colours. He looked towards his wound and saw that it wasn't enough to stop the loss of his blood. His blood was slowly leaking out, dropping onto the floor.

"Well, it's been a great run. I hope I get reincarnated into another world as an overpowered creature." Kaalsuo thought as the last thing he saw was the healers rushing towards him trying to heal him with their powers.