He couldn’t get over the feeling; it was a taste he wasn’t able to describe; it just felt cold. Luca had used a mix of coal and soap all his life to clean his teeth, but the shop didn’t have that, and the clerk said that the paste of herbs and something else was even better. He didn’t have any reason to believe them, but at least he wouldn’t find little grains of coal between his teeth anymore, so that was a benefit he accepted; it felt nice not suddenly tasting coal as he ran his tongue through his teeth; all of this he thought as he made his way from the dorms to the fortress.

  Getting near the ptform, once again, his legs trembled; he could go down fine, as long as the ptform made it halfway to the ground, Luca felt safe, but when lifting? He still found it difficult, just as he found everything difficult; he didn’t like feeling like a coward, and yet there was no other way to describe it. As he stepped closer to the activation button, he hesitated a bit, but before he could step back, heavy footsteps arrived from behind him.

  A bright red hand more than twice the size of his pressed the button as he stumbled forward, pushed by the arm of the hand owner. Regaining his footing and holding onto the button stand for support, he prepared as the ptform started going up. He gnced at the people he was riding with.

  They were both huge, but one was still taller than the other; the tall one had red skin, white hair, and a dark yellow horn that stuck out from the middle of it. His face was half-obscured by the messy and unkempt mat of white hair; one could see half of his convex nose, his mouth from where two big tusks stuck out, the tip of his pointed faced-down ears, and his cheeks, which were covered by some white mutton chops. Due to the facial hair, Luca assumed they were a man, he knew not every race had such rules for gender differences, but these two were at least two meters tall, so they most definitely weren’t dwarfs. The clothing of the red man was peculiar; while not shoes seemed odd, the occasionally bck-striped yellow fur he wore for pants really stuck out, probably even more because of the fact that he didn’t wear anything else, instead presenting his muscur yet chubby white-haired covered red torso to the world. He had a physique simir to Luca’s, except by the fact that he also had twice the muscle he did. Luca looked down at his belly and pressed his hand into it slightly, his hands partially sinking into it, he wasn’t fat, was he?

  Luca shook his head; he wasn’t about to compare himself to other races; besides, he had muscle, and it showed in most pces; he was fine.

  “Mm huhuhu…” A quiet ugh made him look over the red man, focusing on his companion; an almost equally rge blue woman stood beside him, a deep cobalt blue woman. Her eyes, unlike the man’s, weren’t covered by her white hair; instead, two horns erecting from her forehead held some of the hair back; the horns were the same color as her skin, and some of the hair seeped through them and around it, the rest was tied up in a big ponytail behind her. Her eyes were focused on him and were most peculiar to Luca; they were slender, and the part of it that was usually white was bck; her iris was a golden color, and the pupil remained the same as usual. Her face looked strong, which contrasted with her dainty nose; her mouth also had tusks, but they were smaller than the man’s, and on her cheeks, instead of mutton chops, were four lines of a darker blue, which reminded him of the ones Kenzie had. Luca forced himself to not think about her; he wanted to focus on the training. Her attire was also peculiar, but to a more common degree; still no shoes, but her pants were longer; they were white and baggy and wrapped themselves just below her belly button, Luca thought they were particurly cool and seemingly comfortable. Her top piece was what gave out to Luca that she was a woman, assumedly; a short bck sweatshirt that covered the bottom of her breasts and that had a fishnet-like net that covered the top of them, showing the cleavage to the world; it was an almost-bck-grey, and it's sleeves were shorter than even those on Luca's t-shirt. She was definitely shorter in a few pces than the man, but she beat him on the fact that her muscles were very defined, and Luca surprised himself when, before tearing his gaze off of her blushing, his eyes lingered on her marked blue abs, as much as they had on her breasts, which, to be fair, was but a second.

  “...” These two had to be together; obviously they were of the same race; they both had horns and white hair, which made Luca think that perhaps they were siblings, but then again, maybe they were just of a race with horns and white hair; their colors completely contradicted each other, so it didn’t seem likely. Instead of saying or asking anything however, he simply stood next to them, controlling his breath as the ptform rose more and more. The red man nudged the blue woman with his elbow and pointed to Luca.

  “...?” She leaned forward, and while the man was standing there with his arms to his side, she was standing on one foot with a leg raised up and her other foot on her leg. Behind her head was a long metal club that she rested her arms on. Leaning forward in an impressive show of bance, she saw the human man with his eyes closed, breathing deep and slowly, intrigued, she decided to speak up. “Yo!”

  “Huh?” The voice took him back to the ptform. Looking to the side, Luca saw the woman eyeing him up and down with her peculiar eyes. “W-What?”

  “You uh, you doing good, little man?” The name-calling seemed unnecessary, but to be fair, to them he was probably tiny.

  “Oh, y-yeah thanks.” He redirected his attention to the docking ptform above them. “I just… I’m not fond of the whole ‘Rising from the ground’ thing.”

  “Ooooohh, not a fan of heights eh?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Hah! Well, then what business do you have to do in the floating fortress, you dummy?” The red man chuckled, a deep, low, rumbly chuckle out of a nightmare. What were these people?

  “A-Ah well.” He was out of control, how did he find a blue woman attractive? She was blue, and DOUBLE HIS HEIGHT... Still, Luca wouldn’t lie to himself; the woman was attractive; however, thinking of her as a woman, just like he did with Tomoko, the fox-woman, relieved a lot of tension suddenly; did he find the trick to not be flustered? Basic respect and empathy? “I’m actually new to the guild, so.” Her face turned to shock, and the man finally gnced over to him, though Luca still couldn’t see his eyes.

  “Really? Huh, that’s funny; we are too!”

  “S-Seriously?” He still found himself flustered; the trick didn’t help with whatever issue he always had with hot people, but at least he wasn’t getting aroused just from seeing her, a win was a win.

  “‘Cha” She straightened again, lowered her foot, and smirked at Luca. “Man, you must really be some good stuff if you got in being...”

  “Being…?”

  “You know, a human!” Ah right, prejudice, Luca had forgotten. “I mean no offense, but you don’t seem that, you know, extraordinary.”

  “I mean, I’m kinda not.” She tilted her head, and her companion returned to looking straight to the horizon. “I got invited, but I didn’t go to uni or anything.” He knew he had to expin it to them, but hopefully he wouldn’t have to expin anymore soon.

  “Huh, cool!” That was the most tame reaction he had heard yet, refreshing. “Anyway, if you are coming up, you must also be in the dungeon crawler group, huh?”

  “Hopefully.” He giggled nervously. It was good that he saw the back of the itinerary; if he hadn't, he wouldn’t have learned that the training grounds were where the fighters and delvers would be receiving those csses. Lots of work seemed to be done in the training grounds. He wasn’t doing bad on smalltalk, for the first time, he felt like he was actually getting better slowly, only at talking to people maybe, but still a victory, no matter how small. Luca cleared his throat. “Uh, Luca! I'm Luca; nice to meet you both.”

  “Bad name.” The red man’s voice at least wasn’t as deep and nightmarish as his ugh.

  “Excuse me?” Luca was genuinely confused, but the woman slid the club that rested on her shoulders to the side, bumping the man in the head.

  “Heeeey!” The man compined.

  “Ignore him, please! He’s just having a hard time adjusting to the new culture; we are from the eastern continent.” Luca opened his eyes wide. Peaceful retions with the east continent started only a couple years ago, and yet here were two easterners standing besides him; furthermore, Tomoko Kyushutsu also sounded very eastern. Luca was meeting many different people today; he might’ve ended up thinking it was weird when he met another human. “Which, I imagine, isn't a problem?” She always spoke confidently, but this time it had a hint of worry in her voice.

  “Why would it?” He shrugged and she sighed rexed. “I don’t know much about other continents; which part are you from?”

  “The far south-west; not many people live there; it’s close to the isnds, which means we could get here easier than most.” Luca had heard that easterners were very reluctant to travel to the mainnd, all except for a region composed of isnds that was eager to share and obtain new resources. “We live basically at the edge; you can even see the isnds from where we are from!”

  “Mountains.” Good insight from the man.

  The ptform arrived at the docking station; Luca had forgotten about it till now, distraction was apparently a good method.

  “I’m Towa!” Said the woman; she then spped the man’s chest with the back of her hand. “This big idiot is En, we are the Kyojin siblings.”

  “From the demon caverns.” The man added.

  “Official title! We are big shots, as you can tell.” She had a smug attitude that didn’t bother Luca too much; she was fun, though he had never heard of them. ”Nice to meet another delver; wanna show us where the training grounds are?”

  “Sure!” He started leading them inside the fortress, the two knocks he did didn’t work once more, luckily, En’s knocks were strong enough. “Didn’t you get a tour of this pce?” He said as they walked to the agreed location.

  “Yeah! But we got here a week early, so you know, we forgot already.” She ughed and scratched the back of her head.

  “She never pays attention.”

  “You wanna get a club imprint on the dick En?” Luca chuckled at their interaction; they really were siblings, it brought good memories.

  Walking through the hallway, Luca had his eyes already glued on the small painting he noticed earlier in the day. As they reached the already open doors, he stole one final look before entering. Inside, the stone brick arena was already full of people, some chatting, others alone and looking around; all of them had a very strong presence. Luca recognized a couple faces in the crowd of around 30 people; the white dracon that taunted or teased him yesterday was speaking with a couple of individuals, like the half-orc that accompanied him and Alyska in the first group to enter the fortress. On the other side of the arena stood the blonde elf woman, the one who was yelling at the Dracon dy st evening; she stood alone and quiet, seemingly scanning the pce. In a simir fashion to the elf, the older human man was doing the same thing. As Luca inspected the crowd from afar, the siblings stood beside him. The hour for the training to start was close, so whoever taught the css was probably about to arrive; suddenly, Luca met eyes with a young man, a blonde man with short hair that fell down to under his ears; he looked sophisticated and elegant. When he met his gaze, Luca awkwardly raised his hand to wave at him, but the blonde man smirked, looked him up and down, and ughed, turning around to merge with the crowd. Rude.

  “Should we uh, get on there?” Towa spoke up and pointed to the arena; Luca shrugged.

  “I guess, I don’t really know what to expect.” As soon as he said ‘I guess’, En walked towards the arena; however, Towa accompanied him and got on it when he did.

  Suddenly, the chatter grew quiet, as the crowd slowly turned to look at the doors, so did Luca. A figure stood, imposing between the two open doors;

  Luca jokingly thought to himself before, ‘it would be weird when he met another human’, because of all the unusual individuals he had met that day. However, that joke to oneself turned somewhat prophetic; in walked an older man, muscur and tall, with dark and full of scars skin, with messy rowdy brown hair and an equally messy rowdy beard that fell into a short braid. He wore an eyepatch and a red headband that fell to his side; for clothes, he wore dark red leather armor with no sleeves, exposing his toned arms. With silver bracelets on his wrists and dark gray pants with traveling boots, he silently walked towards a little scenario that had been pced to the right of the arena, where everyone was; when the man stood above everyone else, Luca clearly saw a sheath to his side, for a sword it seemed like. There was no shadow of doubt in Luca’s mind that everyone had reached the same conclusion; this man was an adventurer, and the Zenith’s symbol on his silver bracelets decred he was also, most definitely, in the guild.

  The man stood straight and proud on top of the scenario as he scanned over everyone, his face a permanent frown by the looks of it. After a minute of nothing, finally he spoke up, with a ragged, booming voice.

  “Welcome, my name is Carlos Domahnua1Pronounced KAR-loss Doh-mah-NUUA. I am the leader of the adventure and dungeon exploring guild, as well as the general of the army of Zenith and member of the council.”

  The room fell silent, and Luca’s mind filled with questions, though perhaps not the ones everyone else was thinking. While the rest of the people (most of them at least) seemed in shock at the revetion of the name, which helped Luca ascertain the obvious fact that this man was a big deal, Luca instead wondered about the man in more specific ways.

  How old was he? He seemed to be in his fifties or forward, but his hair wasn’t gray in the slightest, and he moved without any type of issue. What retion did he have to the older man among them? They both dressed in the same kind of red leather armor, and the man was one of the few who wasn’t eye-pted while looking at the man. What was that council he kept hearing about? He had heard a couple people mention it already, and everyone acted like it was important, but what exactly was it? Luca didn’t fully understand the concept of a council; how could multiple powerful people decide something? In his experience, powerful people were arrogant and selfish, and their opinion was the only one that mattered, multiple of them making any sort of ruling together seemed like cheap writing in the stories to him. Finally, the question that bothered him the most; had he heard that st name before? Domahnua…

  Looking at the scene, the man was in silence, probably letting everyone digest the incredible information he just wasn’t getting. Gncing around the crowd, his eyes met with Towa’s, who shrugged confusedly and pointed to Carlos with her head. Luca simply raised his eyebrows and shrugged back, decring that he also cked information, both of them shared a quiet ugh before the booming voice brought them back.

  “Anyway, that’s that. Let’s not waste more time; I want you all to divide yourself into three different groups.” He signaled with his hands as he expined. “You are all here, cause you want to go to the dungeons, so go to the right if you want to be a mapper, to the center in front of me if you want to be a collector, and to my left if you want to be a fighter. Now!” With that everyone started shifting; Luca walked to his right, in order to join the group of fighters, of course, to his surprise, almost everyone he recognized went there: the dracon, the half-orc, the Kyojin siblings, and even the guy he locked eyes with before, who stood smug with his arms crossed looking at the guild leader. Only the elf and the old man were in other groups: mappers and collectors, respectively. The guild leader grabbed a small bottle from a back pocket of his and took a drink, then wiped his beard with the back of his arm and sighed. “Good, now, are you all sure that’s the role you want to take? There’s still an opportunity to change it.” No one changed positions for the 5 seconds he gave to decide. “Okay then, let’s make something very clear.” He crouched and looked around once more; maybe he was memorizing who went where, but to Luca, it just seemed like he was making time to think of what to say now. “You are all in the same group; I don’t care if you are a mapper, a collector, or a fighter; you are all delvers; you are all here to go into the dungeon and hopefully get out; get that into your heads.” He stood back up and jumped off the stage, though some among them were taller than him, no one matched his presence. Luca started to understand what everyone was fascinated about before: the leader of the guild, the highest ranking member of it.

  “Then why are we divided?” Asked a rogue voice as the man walked around.

  “Because my csses focus on general training of the dungeon, but for the most part you’ll be training with each other. Look around people; the group you are with is the people who you’ll train against for the most part of your novice career.” A couple murmurs went around, and some quick gnces denoted that the air was filling with distrust, the vibe had changed a bit, and some aggression was added. “But not today though; no, you’ll compete for the best another time, today I see how good you are, how much you can train, and all that. So c’mon, get out of the groups and form into lines, arm distance apart.”

  The next couple of hours melted into a blur. The leader made everyone do various exercises with little rest: pushups, jumping jacks, running in pce, sit-ups, squats, and others Luca would forget. Finally, with little time left, everyone was forced to do a pnk until failure, which many reached quickly because of the tiredness from the previous exercises.

  Luca was sweating, sore, and tired. He tried his best to control his breathing, but it was still difficult, he wasn’t used to training, but even the ones who were had fallen, so he didn’t feel too bad about it; few were still standing, at a minimum, he knew En was still there; it was hard to miss him. After a few minutes, a thud, signifying another person falling, broke the silence in the space.

  “Fuck!” A man yelled.

  “Hey, shut up, go with the rest, and wait in silence.” Looking with his head hanging, Luca saw the blonde man he locked eyes with before walking away and thought he would attribute it to his imagination, Luca distinguished the man looking at him with an angry gre. He was losing strength and feeling tight in his stomach when some footsteps approached. “You are Kreaspell’s kid, right? He recruited you.”

  “Y-Yes!” Even talking was hard for Luca.

  “How much do you weigh, son?” Thinking also wasn’t easy.

  “81 or something?”

  “Hmm…” He seemed to crouch in front of him. Luca wanted to raise his head to see him, but his arms were trembling, and he thought he’d fall soon enough. “Alright, I’ll get your check-up papers ter, just one thing.” He started whispering. “Don’t let for a second the fact that the old man invited you, get to your head alright? You are at a clear disadvantage compared to anyone else, and any victory you have will be miles away from whatever these other people can do.”

  “...”

  “If you wanna survive here, and most importantly in the dungeon, you are gonna have to work every day more and more, more than everyone else, and I don’t mean just training; studying whatever they tell you will also be important; you think you can manage that cadet?”

  “... Yes… sir.” He spoke through gritted teeth as he struggled to stay up.

  “Good, and remember, you aren’t better than anyone else here; you are in fact worse.” He stood back up and walked to his side. His entire body was shivering, and every muscle in use was screaming for mercy. “Now go rest.” A light kick to his side made Luca lose bance. He wanted to continue, but in truth this was better; he panted against the stone bricks of the arena. “Third!” Yelled the man as Luca struggled to stand up and waddled to the crowd of people in the grass, all resting from the effort.

  Luca sat down on the grass and rexed, feeling his breath come back to him. Looking around, everyone seemed to be in the same state, and only two people remained—the siblings he had met on the lifting ptform.

  After a few more minutes, En was the one to hit the ground.

  “Second!” Yelled the general. En had only started trembling a minute ago, and Luca didn’t keep track of time, but still, what were these people? Finally, after less than a minute from his brother falling, Towa fell as well, panting and ying face down for a few seconds, like Luca had done. “And first, alright people, you now have free time to go eat and shower; don’t dilly dally, there’s not that much free time.”

  Luca turned to go, but before doing so, he saw the older man and the general exchange a few words before the old man joined the group of people leaving, and the general calling over En and Towa to say something, waving from a distance at Towa, who waved back weakly. Luca decided to shower after eating and to just get on the lifting ptform and go towards the university’s canteen. When he finally descended and reached the ground, his vision fully unblurring from the excessive effort, he gnced to another ptform that descended and locked eyes with a light-purple-haired woman of his age.

  Alyska smiled excitedly when she saw him, and suddenly, Luca didn’t feel tired at all.

  Time: 12:47