Chapter 17- A travelers definition

Opening the door, they were greeted by a dark room with lights only coming from monitors and the small luminous lights connected to the floor.

Entering the room, Arisa looked around as if she was looking for something while Riyoko looks at the place with amazement.

"It's so dark in here as always…" Arisa said, walking toward the light switch she found in the corner.

"Hey, mister! You're in here, right!?" she shouted as she switched on the lights.

Suddenly, a man with thick and large glasses came out behind the shelves, "who is it?"

As the man approached them, he fixed his glasses and took a good look at both of them.

"Ah! Arisa, it's been a while!" the man said.

The man was tall, wearing thick circular glasses and a ragged lab coat.

"Jeez… you stink, how long have you been here this time!?" Arisa said as she covered her nose.

"Now that she mentioned it, there's this funny smell that's gotten stronger the moment he went near us," Riyoko thought.

"Ah! Sorry about that, let me fix it right now!"

The man grabbed a spray bottle from his lab coat and sprayed himself with some sort of liquid.

As the liquid made contact with him, his body emitted a yellow light for a short moment.

"W… what was that?" Riyoko said in surprise.

The man let out a smug smile, "curious? Why don't you check what changed first!" the man said, pulling his face closer to Riyoko's.

"Eh? Umm…" after a short moment Riyoko's eyes enlarged in surprise, "the smell is gone! And in fact, you smell good!"

The man giggled smugly, "hehe! That's thanks to this recent invention of mine! I call it the… whatever it makes you smell good for now device!"

"that definitely wasn't a name, was it?" he thought.

"Anyway!" the man said, filled with energy, "as the name suggests, this thing can make you smell good instantly for a temporary moment!"

"So that was the name!?" he thought.

"That's amazing though, how is that possible?" Riyoko thought with genuine amusement as he looks at the bottle with eyes filled with interest and excitement.

"HOHO! I like you already! Those genuine eyes… then let me tell you!" the man handed Riyoko the spray bottle, "that miracle liquid is thanks to the mixture of foreign elements from the world 1 in a mixture to our scientific elements here in our world!"

"A mixture… with a different world?" he mumbled in amusement.

"Yes! And the interesting thing about it is…"

Suddenly, Arisa kicked the man in the side, making him fall to the ground.

"EH!? Arisa!?" Riyoko said in shock.

"You can flex on your inventions another time, for now, can you explain to him the basics of our mission? He's a rookie,"

"Eh…? Uhh, a rookie, huh? wait my glasses," the man said, searching for his glasses on the floor.

"Why did you kick him…?" Riyoko thought as he walked over to the man.

Grabbing the man's glasses, Riyoko handed them to the man as he continued to search on the floor.

"Umm, mister. I found your glasses…" suddenly Riyoko was stunned, seeing the man's full face.

"Thanks, I really don't know why Arisa acts out like that sometimes…" the man said grabbing and wearing his glasses.

With a blank expression he nodded, "This man is straight up handsome!!" he shouted in his mind.

"It's because you start to get annoying and begin to waste my time…" Arisa said with threatening eyes.

"Eh… but this man seemed interested!"

"He did… but we're on to something important right now and I'm in charge of taking care of him… you wouldn't happen to not learn anything from your past mistake, now do you?"

The man shivered, "as I thought it's still because of back then…!" he mumbled.

"I didn't hear your answer…" she said threateningly.

"Yes, ma'am!" he sat up straight and answered clearly.

"I've noticed it before… but Arisa can really be scary at times," Riyoko thought, looking at the situation with a blank expression.

"Still, this is quite rare," the man said, "I didn't think you'd help out fellow traveler,"

"Well, this and that happened and now we're here," she said with a lazy tone, obviously not wanting to explain anything, "anyway, I'll be handling something quick upstairs, so can you explain to him what's going on for a moment,"

"Eh? Upstairs… is there a big mission for you?" the man asked.

"No, I just want to show him how things work as diligently as I can," she said, standing in front of the exit door.

"I see you're being serious about this…" the man then stared at Riyoko with curiosity.

"Y… yes?" Riyoko asked in confusion as he stares back.

"Anyway, he seems to be the type to understand things quickly but please explain things to him properly while I'm out," she suddenly stared at him with threatening eyes once again, "when I get back, he better know a thing or two, If not…"

"Yes ma'am!" the man stood up straight and answered with a salute, "I'll tell him everything that he needs to know as clearly as I can,"

"Good…" she then looked at Riyoko with a harmless expression, "he might be hard to put up with sometimes but he can be relied on when you need it, so put up with him, ok?"

Riyoko nodded with a slight feeling of pressure.

She then turned around and opened the door, "oh, and don't let him get distracted by inventions while he explains things to you, I'll be right back," and so, she left.

As the door closes shut, the male stood up and wiped his glasses as he let out a sigh.

"She's as scary as ever…" he mumbled.

Wearing back his glasses, he then looked at Riyoko with a serious expression, "I still have a lot of things to live for so do you mind if I just get right to the explanation?"

Riyoko nodded, having complicated feelings toward the man's statement.

The man then took a remote out of his lab coat pocket and pressed a button, making the whole room dark as the large screen behind him showed slide presentations.

"First of all, my name is Akito Hayazaki. In fear for my life, I'll leave the introductions at that,"

"couldn't you have finished it in that same sentence?" Riyoko thought with a blank expression.

"Now, what is a traveler? Do you perhaps already know? Please answer as quickly as you can,"

"Ah… it's people who can travel to other worlds, right?"

"Precisely! Now, what do you do?"

"Um… I don't know,"

"Ok! The job of you travelers broadly regards saving world one from destruction,"

"H… huh? world one… is it the one with magic and stuff?"

"Oh no… you don't even know about that… No worries!" he said hastily as if trying to conserve time.

"There are a lot of parallel worlds out there and the main reason for our travels is world one, please learn about the rest regarding world one on your own later on as I continue the explanation of the basics, ok?"

"Umm, ok," he nodded.

"So basically, World one is supposedly a great and convenient world. However, they have the corruption of their world and the growing number of monsters or demons depends on how you want to refer to them, to worry about,"

"Corruption? A growing number of monsters?" Riyoko mumbled, feeling anxious and somewhat intrigued.

"The corruption is the dying land of world one, nothing on average means are able to live there, such as plants, trees, and regular humans, and it is infested with tons of monsters," Akito said, switching the slides of the presentation, showing images of the ruined and lifeless lands where no grass was growing and with trees that seemed to have been sucked out all its life.

"There are plenty of ways to suppress this problem, such as executing the number of monsters going out of the corruption zone in order to keep them in low numbers, those jobs are for adventurers or executioners which a Traveler can be a part of,"

"I see…" Riyoko nodded with a curious look, seeming very interested.

"The other ways are… get stronger or do anything that you think could contribute to the suppression or possibly execution of the corruption zones," Akito said blatantly.

"Huh?" Riyoko replied with shock as he was baffled, "what do you mean…?"

"I know it's broad, but a contribution to that world can be done in multiple ways due to the nature of the travelers being able to travel worlds,"

"Sorry but, can you elaborate?" he asked respectively.

"Well… Ah! A great example would be finding a rejuvenating crystal in other worlds and giving it to the higher-ups of our department in world one. It is said that rejuvenating crystals have the power to not just suppress but also fight back against a corruption zone,"

"I see, so finding one of those crystals is a crucial job, huh?"

"You could say that," Akito scratched his head, "but unfortunately, that crystal is very rare to find, even the top among the travelers has only retrieved 1 or 2 through more than a year of searching.

"eh!? So it's very rare…?"

"Extremely! Some travelers even thought that maybe only one of those exists per world,"

"I see…"

"Anyway, you can think of plenty of ways to contribute to world one, though the most common one is strength and knowledge. They can never disregard any new knowledge and talents since they could be useful in taking back a whole corrupted zone,"

"Once they have a rejuvenating crystal, can't they just use it to cure the corrupted zone, you said it's capable of that,"

"Yes, the rejuvenating stone is incredibly powerful and is highly capable of eradicating a whole corruption zone, how their going to use it is the problem,"

"What…?"

"I told you one of the common things you can contribute is strength, right? That's because if you're exceptionally strong, you are going to be needed to fight against monsters to break through the zone,"

"Huh? why do they need to go through?"

"Because in the middle of the corruption zones are detected high ominous energy levels which are said to be the likely cause of the continuing corruption, travelers need to place them and activate the rejuvenating stone there in order to assure victory. Also, they have to clean up the remaining monsters in the area which can be quite troublesome since those can be really strong. Also, there are plenty of corruption zones out there,"

"So…"

"Wait a minute!" Akito said, interrupting Riyoko as he was about to ask in concern, "my job today is to tell you the basics, if we go deeper into this topic which we already did, by the way, it'll be advanced. So, forgive me but do you mind if we go through the rest of the other basic topics now? It should be quick now that I told you this much,"

Feeling somewhat hesitant to agree since Riyoko's head got filled with questions and curiosity, he thought it should be more fun to learn about it at a different time and way.

"Umm, sure" he nodded along with the concern for Akito's safety upon Arisa's return.