Fantastopia: The New Life (Part 1)

Challenge accepted

I still had no idea what Aria’s father wanted to talk to me about, but I went ahead and followed him into a nearby room which I assumed was his room because, by the looks of it, it looked like it came straight out from ‘The Hobbit’ or ‘Game of Thrones’ or something like that. But what really caught my eye were the many knives that hung on one side of the wall, they were all rusty but still sharp, and also some were stained with blood.

“Wow” I chuckled astonished “You know normal people don’t have a bunch of knives hanging on their walls.”

"Hey, I’ll have you know that every one of these knives has saved my life at least once.”

"Really?" I remarked astonished "What about that sword over there?"

I pointed to a nice-looking sword that hung over his nightstand.

“Oh, that? That’s just for decoration.”

Uh, what?

“So-” he changed the subject while leaning against his bedpost “You’re interested in old Defender eh?”

“Defender?” I remarked, “Is that what that sword is called?”

I was expecting it to have some kind of cool name, but Defender sounds kind of... what’s a word? Simple? I don’t know, I guess I’ll go with it.

“That sword hasn’t been used for many years” Hardwin stated.

“Why is that? And how come I’m not allowed to use it.”

“Oh, you can use it.”

“I can?” I gasped.

“But I should warn you.”

“Oh no,” I muttered.

“That sword may be an ideal weapon to use because of its powerful strike and strong surface, but that sword has a mind of its own.”

A chill went down my spine “What do you mean?”

“It was created by a powerful sorcerer many years ago, and because of that, the weapon has the capability to take control of its user and make him or her use it for dark purposes such as revenge, anger, and jealousy instead of using it for defense.”

Oh God, chills were now running through my whole body.

“Although-” he added in a more positive tone “It can be prevented, as long as the user never uses the sword to kill anyone for all those 3 objectives and only for defense and any other noble purposes, then he can be safe.”

“Oh okay, sounds simple enough... right?”

“That depends on you.”

“But uh, what happens when the sword takes control of the user?”

“He can do terrible things” he breathed “And the more it happens, the more he will be a danger to others and himself.”

“So he will like, turn evil or something?”

“You can say that.”

Whoa, I don’t like the sound of that. Though it did sound like one of those cliche TV show tropes which I had to admit, I don’t mind watching.

“Have you ever seen it happen before?” I asked.

“No, but I’ve heard stories of it. I once heard a tale about a lad who wielded Defender, and one day he got so angry about something that he used the sword to kill his whole family.”

Gasp!

“I don’t know what happened to him, but he was never heard from again. But you see, that could have been prevented if he hadn’t let the sword control him, but he didn’t listen. But maybe you can, unless of course, you change your mind about it and chose a different weapon.”

“You think I should choose a different weapon?”

“I’m not going to make decisions for you Jesse, it’s your choice. You think you can handle Defender?”

Okay, time for some serious thinking. Am I gonna be able to control myself and not let Defender overtake me? I mean I am able to control myself from eating so much and staying on a diet, but this is a sword we’re talking about, not food. Although I feel like food would be harder.

“You know what?” I declared “I’ll give it a shot.”

“Very well” the king gave a small nod, “But before you use it, you know you have to practice with a training sword, right?”

“So I was told.”

“Well then, you go on ahead to the arena, I’ll probably show up later to see how your first day will go. And don’t worry, you most likely won’t die today.”

“Um, thank you for those words of encouragement” I replied with a nervous smile, hoping he was right about that.

“But uh, before I go-” I pointed to the knives on the wall “How exactly did all of these knives save your life?”

He chuckled.

“Seriously I wanna know.”

__________

Whoa, now those were some interesting stories. This king is just as cool as my grandfather. But since I needed to go to the arena, I began down the hall which I assumed was where Aria took me last time. Or was it this way? Oh crap, I’m already lost, great.

Damn, if only they had cell service here, I could easily call Aria and ask her where to go. But no, they just had to keep it medieval.

“Jesse?” I turned to see the one person I was hoping to find.

“Oh, thank goodness,” I breathed in relief as Aria walked up to me “Sorry um, I was trying to find my way to the arena, but I don’t seem to remember how to get there.”

“I get it,” she nodded “This is a big castle, it’s easy to get lost in here. Even I still get lost every once in a while, but I pretty much know my way around.”

“Is there like a map I can use? Or better yet, two maps? One for the castle, the other for the entire land of Fantastopia?”

“Well um, I can get you a map of Fantastopia, but there isn’t one for the castle. Although, I think I can make you one.”

“That’ll be great,” I smiled “Thanks.”

“Though I should tell you, my art skills aren’t that great, so-”

“Why would you need art skills to draw a map of a building? Don’t you just draw a bunch of boxes and lines and just label them?”

“... Right. For a moment I was thinking about adding trees and mountains, but then I realized this is a map for inside a building which doesn’t have any of those-”

“You know, you don’t actually need art skills to draw a map, right? I mean if you wanna draw mountains you just draw haft triangles bunches up together, and I don’t even have to explain how to draw trees.”

She just stared at me with a look of embarrassment. I was actually trying not to laugh at this moment, seeing how Aria can actually be pretty goofy, and not on purpose.

“Anyway-” she finally changed the subject “Let me show you to the arena again. But before I do, I actually need to stop by a classroom real quick.”

“A classroom?”

“I just need to pick something up, you can even meet the warriors in training, they’re already talking about you.”

“What?” my eyes widen, “What are they saying about me? Did they already start a rumor?”

Of all my time of being in school, I know that whenever someone talks about me, it’s usually not a good thing. I know that from experience, don’t ask.

“Relax,” she held up her hand “They’re just wondering what you’re like. Although, I think I heard someone wonder if you were secretly born in the underworld and was raised on earth by humans while you’re actually a demon in disguise that no one knows about.”

Blink.

“Uh... what now?”

“I don’t know,” she shrugged, “Everyone thinks crazy things.”

“But-”

“Never mind that.”

But I wanted to know, why would someone think that of me? Do they think I’m evil or something and just playing nice?

“Let’s just go meet them,” she motioned to follow her so I did.

But seriously, I needed to know why someone would think that? You know what, just shrug it off, everyone has crazy thoughts these days. When we walked up to a door, Aria gave a knock as she opened the door and stepped inside. I decided to stay out in the hall until I was allowed to come in, I don’t know but, after what Aria told me, I think I should stay away from these students.

“Jesse, get in here,” she suddenly called out to me.

Having no other choice, I stepped into the classroom where I noticed that all of the students had their eyes on me. Now, I’ve gotten used to having eyes on me whenever I would do a presentation, but for some reason, I was actually feeling a bit nervous, mainly due to the fact that everyone was muttering to each other about me. I noticed that I was getting a lot of flirty looks by some of the girls and there was this one guy who was eyeballing me with a questioning look on his face, that doesn’t look good.

“Everyone,” Aria began to speak while pointing to me “This is Jesse, our new hero in training. I expect you all to be on your best behavior when you’re around him, and by that I mean don’t be rude, give him chances, no pranks, don’t tease him, and whatever you do, do not try to kill him. Please.”

Uh, that just got me worried. Did the students in the past try to kill my grandfather when he was chosen? If so, why?

“Jesse, huh?” the teacher or I guess professor or something got up from his seat and walked over to me.

I immediately noticed that this old man didn’t have pointed ears and he wasn’t dressed like the other elves. He was wearing some kind of wizard’s cloak, maybe he was a wizard.

“This is Professor Orhan,” Aria introduced “He’s the Math professor, and he’s also a wizard.”

“Oh cool,” I gasped amusedly, I guess I was right.

“Yep,” Professor Orhan nodded, “I remember meeting your grandfather, he was an interesting lad.”

“Oh, you’re immortal too?”

“No, he’s the same age as me.”

“... Oh.”

“Not every wizard is immortal you know, do you even know Merlin?”

A suddenly heard someone snicker as I turned to see one of the students smirking at me before he looked away. Once again, I keep embarrassing myself, damn this curse.

“Um...” I tried to think of what to say to change the subject, oh wait I got it “So you teach math huh?”

He gave a small chuckle before answering- “I do. Even though these students here deny that they’ll ever use math in combat.”

“Well,” I smirked, “They’re wrong, math is everywhere, it could even save their life one day.”

“Are you good at math?”

I felt myself grinning, here comes the brag.

“A+ student” I grinned.

“As if,” I suddenly heard someone scoff under their breath as I turned to see that it was the same guy who snickered earlier.

“Excuse me?” I demanded him.

“You’re an A+ student in Math?” he doubted, “Really?”

This wasn’t the first time anyone has doubted that I was an A+ student in math. If only you could’ve seen their faces when I proved them wrong. In fact, I have a feeling I was going to do it again in a moment.

“You don’t believe me?” I frowned at the elf guy.

“I’m just saying,” he shrugged, “Every new hero that was chosen attends the academy, and there can be only one A+ student in Math, and at the moment, it’s me.”

“Oh,” I replied, making sure my amusement sounded fake “You’re an A+ student huh? Is that in every class?”

“Just this one, but I got A’s in all my other ones. Now if what you’re saying is true, why don’t you prove it? In fact, why don’t you go ahead and try to solve the impossible question?”

I could hear all the oohs from the students who began to mutter at each other. I then noticed that Aria was standing nervously in the corner, not knowing what to say about this.

“Let me guess-” I continued to frown at the guy “You’re the only one who was able to solve it?”

“Not to brag but- yes,” he sneered.

Damn that sneer, I always get that sneer from braggers who claim that they’re smarter than me. I could even tell from this guy that nobody wanted to mess with him by his appearance. I had to admit he was pretty good-looking with his handsome features, dark brushy hair, and toned body, but at the same time, I could tell he was an asshole.

“What’s your name?” I demanded him.

He scoffed, “Flint.”

“Well, Flint,” I smirked, “I’ll take on the challenge.”

The students once again oohed with a look of surprise on their faces. Now I gotta be honest, I had no idea how this math question was going to look like, for all I know, fantasy math is probably different from the real world. But hey, I gotta try at least so I can rub it in Flint’s face.