Returning (1)

"Congratulations! There are only 100 of you left now! We welcome you all to the world of Gula and The Rising Sun of The East, Aarush Kingdom!"

Those were the last things that Lucas heard before he once again felt his world turn dark and his body was transported elsewhere.

He laid face up before when the unknown woman welcomed him and the other survivors, but when he opened up his eyes again, he was now standing on his two feet.

Lucas' weakened body still felt weak, but it wasn't anything like what he felt before.

Lucas could stand just fine without his feet wobbling.

He had regained control of his body as he could move his limbs and other body parts just fine.

Curious, Lucas tried moving the mana in his body and he found out that they were still there.

'Maya? Did I just regain my mana? Is this supposed to happen this fast?'

Lucas expected Maya to explain everything to him just like before, but she cut him off.

'Wait, not now Lucas. Hold off your questions for just a little bit more and we can talk as freely as we want.'

Lucas had enough questions for her piled up now and he didn't even complain or say anything when Maya gave him such answers again.

He just nodded his head and observed his new surroundings.

Lucas found himself in yet another different environment again.

He wasn't in a completely white room or a green grassy field.

This time, Lucas stood in the middle of an enormous rectangular hall.

The carved wood walls, tall red pillars, the murals and decorations, they all reminded Lucas of Asian-style castles he saw in popular Asian dramas.

And just like before, Lucas wasn't alone in the huge hall.

Standing all around him were other people, precisely 99 of them. 

A few people looked familiar in Lucas' eyes as he even saw the men who had their feet broken by him.

Their rugged look from before had disappeared as they all now, including Lucas, found themselves in the exact same get-up and condition back when they were on Earth.

The ones that got their feet broken were standing upright again, the ones that had their hands covered by blood were now clean again.

Everything returned back to normal as if what had just happened to them was all a dream.

But the dead, blank stares.

The uncontrollable shaking of limbs.

And the look of horror some men gave to a certain high school boy.

They all were proof that all 100 people remembered exactly what had just happened and it wasn't only a dream.

The 100 survivors looked at each other with their guards up. 

Some of them were still in fight or flight mode and a few still had their hands in front of their chests, ready to punch anyone that dared to get close enough to them.

Fortunately, the suffocating atmosphere didn't last for long as they heard a familiar woman's voice.

"Once again congratulations! All 100 of you deserve to be here!"

The large door on the end of the hall then opened, revealing a woman that befitted the owner of such an alluring voice.

Standing about 1,7 meters tall, or about the average height of men from all over Earth, the woman was anything but skinny despite being quite tall.

Skipping her hourglass figure and her lush, smooth-looking black hair that draped down to her back, the indescribable light in her eyes was the one that drew everyone's attention towards her.

Just one look from her was enough to make the majority of people completely forget about their fears as their minds were filled with the thought of her.

And that almost included Lucas.

'Hey, you're the student of the best illusionist who ever lived. I will disown you if you ever fell for a cheap charm spell.'

Pouring a bucket of cold water to his heated body, Maya woke Lucas up as he could now stare at the woman who had just come in without his mouth slightly gaping down.

'It's really hard to get my eyes off of her…'

Even without the charm spell, Lucas still found the woman very, very attractive.

It was at a level where he would stop moving and turn his eyes towards her until she went out of his sight if he ever spotted someone that beautiful on the street.

However, a certain fox girl doused Lucas' thoughts once again by using yet another single sentence.

'Remember that very beautiful woman was the one who told 300 people to kill each other using their bare fists and exploded people's heads if they didn't do what she wanted.'

This time, all thoughts of attraction towards the woman disappeared as Lucas remembered the boy that died last from the punishment, the boy that he tried to protect.

His eyes stared sharply at the woman's face, thinking how someone so cruel could even exist.

To Lucas' surprise, the woman noticed him and gave him the sweetest smile he had ever seen in his whole life.

It almost made Lucas fall for the charm spell again, but he resisted it on his own this time as he kept staring at the woman.

The woman's smile froze for a second when she saw Lucas was unaffected, but as if she remembered something, she just gave him one last smile before she floated up to the ceiling.

"Greetings mortals. I once again welcome you to this new world. 

My name is Esme. And I will be the one who's in charge of you guys, soon-to-be immortals from another world.

You all are the strong that defeated the weak, and that must be acknowledged."

The woman snapped her fingers. The ground beneath the 100 people then rose up a few meters above the ground, splitting the ground in the hall into two levels.

After the platform stopped rising, the woman snapped her fingers once again and people started appearing on the lower level of the hall.

One by one, people kept on appearing all over the first level until about 200 of them filled the hall.