Life didn't get easier, even in another world.

Chapter 377 Return

The small ally was crowded and noisy. Young children were moving around, talking to each other, conversing with friends, searching for their parent's cars, and eating light snacks. The area was buzzing with the energetic voices of the children who had just exited their school after a long day of studying various subjects.

Amongst the crowd, a young boy who was shorter than the others around him was walking slowly toward the other side of the alley, where someone was waiting for him.

"Hey! Walk a little bit faster, will you? I'm starving!"

Seeing him approach, the young girl put her phone in her pocket with a grumble.

"I've told you before that I don't need you to pick me up after school."

The little boy, with the mixed hair color of gray and brown, retorted.

"I'll only do whatever the old man says, and he's ordered me to escort you home!"

"So dramatic..."

The young boy shook his head and increased his speed.

"What do you think we have for lunch?"

"No idea."

"Hmm...", Claire smiled at the thought of food. "I hope it's something delicious."

"All of the granny's foods are delicious."

"Well, that's right."

The two of them walked past the crowded streets while conversing from time to time. The atmosphere around them was peaceful and warm, unlike the cold weather of the late fall.

After walking for about 15 minutes, they were about to reach their destination when all of a sudden, the little boy paused, stopping in his tracks.

"Huh?"

With a slight frown, he raised his head and looked around.

"What's wrong, Ariyan?"

"Mmm..."

Ariyan stared at somewhere far in the distance with a blank gaze.

"I don't know...", he tilted his head. "Something felt strange just now."

"Strange?"

Claire also began looking around. She couldn't find anything that might be out of the ordinary.

"...Yeah."

The little boy's dark gray eyes were oddly sparkling.

"I don't know, but it feels nice." His lips curled up into a smile with no proper reason. He looked happy and excited. "Something good might happen!"

Ariyan looked back at Claire expectedly.

"...Uhh..."

Claire took a step back with an iffy look.

"I'm not sure...", she was looking at the weird kid with a vary expression. "I-I hope the lunch is super good... Yeah, that's it! Haha!"

The young girl turned away from Ariyan and resumed walking. She didn't want to think about the kid's strange behavior.

. . . . . noVe.Lb-In

Fwoshhh

A light breeze tickled his cheeks. Kairen opened his eyes which he'd clenched shut due to the bright white lights that were swirling around them when they left that world. Once feeling the air around him change, Kairen finally opened his eyes to look around.

"Uh?"

He didn't have the time to consider the question of where he was.

"Ahhh!"

Before he could activate any powers or think of a way to help himself, his floating body plummeted down to the ground.

BOMM

"Argh!"

He landed on the ground, face first.

"Owie..."

Kairen raised his body while rubbing his nose. Why was he floating anyway? This didn't happen the last time. Kairen cursed the ground in his mind and finally looked around.

"Uhh... So where am I..."

He was in the middle of nowhere! Quite literally, he had landed in a wasteland.

"So... How should I find the way home?"

Kairen sat up straight as he considered different answers. He didn't even have a phone to call anyone for help. Did he have to walk around for a while in hopes of encountering a city or a village by chance? He doubted anyone would live around this area. The place looked like a desert.

"I don't know..."

He didn't have the energy to walk around and search for a city.

"Should I try to signal them? I'll blow up a small area, enough for them to notice that something is amiss here and come find me. I'm sure SMF will react fast enough and come to... capture me..."

That wasn't the perfect idea either.

"I can do that if I don't find any other way. They'll carry me back to the capital for sure if I get caught by SMF, but how can I explain things to them?"

They wouldn't find any problems with him except for his power at first as Kairen wasn't a famous agent. But then, after digging up his past, the organization would find out about him and his death. He didn't know how he was supposed to explain to them the process of coming back to life after experiencing death.

He had thought about it before. If it was the commander or even the team leader who he met first, he could talk to them and persuade them that he was mysteriously saved but he had to reveal a lot of facts in the process to make them understand this point. However, he couldn't do the same with the other agents who weren't involved with him. He couldn't just expose the hidden facts of the world to some random. It was certain to cause a lot of problems.

If Kairen caused a commotion here and got caught by SMF, sooner or later, the commander or the team later would come to meet him. Yet he was unsure how much time would he spend in prison or how might the others treat him in the meantime. He didn't want to be interrogated by other people, but that would happen for certain. After all, the commander wasn't so free that he could be reached easily and brought to talk to someone that was found in the middle of a desert, and it would take a lot of time for the military and SMF to take him seriously.

'But it would be easier to explain it to Ron, I guess.'

Someone who'd also switched worlds and had seen a lot of bizarre events would be easier to convince, plus, he was his brother so of course he'd believe Kairen.

"Hmm... So what else can I do?"

He had to consider different ways before deciding on doing anything.

"It'd be nice if Reynold also came. He'd come in handy. Ah, wait, am I even in the right place?"

A scary thought struck him all of a sudden. What if he was sent to another place once again?

Just when he was about to stand up and try searching for any clues, Kairen turned his head to look up, at a place where he felt a small vibration. It wasn't a vibration of the ground but a twist in the flow of energy. After spending days dealing with gates and universal powers, Kairen could easily sense if any powers, and especially, if any unnatural powers, were being used near him.

"Uh?"

Just as he looked up, a small torrent of light flashed before his eyes, and in a split second, the figure of a man appeared right in front of him.

"Ah?!"

Kairen let out a confused gasp as he watched the golden-haired, golden-eyed man. The man, Alan, frowned visibly as soon as his eyes landed on Kairen, who was still sitting on the ground. His lips parted and his eyes opened wide as he took in a breath.

"Uh..." Kairen socked and at the same time happy to see a familiar face, smiled at the face of the old man.

"H-hi?"

"...."

Alan took a step back.

"Oh my god!"