The early hours of a school day, one of Zalroth's favourite occurrences, getting to watch people from all walks of life sharing in a unified similarity, frantically hurrying in the fear of being late for who knows what. While Zalroth had no such concern for himself, he did have to participate in the early morning rush when taking a kid Chronia to primary school in the past.
Zipping across the many surrounding marble garden walls, Zalroth booked it through the suburbs at blinding speeds, catching the attention of the many kids on their way to school. As he ran with Chronia clinging to his back, Zalroth could hear the distant cheers from the kids, talking about how they'd brag to their friends that they were the ones to see Zalroth in the morning.
Although he tried, he couldn't hear what the kids were talking about, but given their giddy expressions, he assumed they were teasing Chronia for being carried by him again. The source of his trouble in hearing was the obnoxiously loud, turned up to the MAX music blaring from his stolen headphones.
"...you cannot kill me..."
Having commandeered Zalroth's headphones and planted them on her head, the vocals of the music blasted directly into Chronia's skull, quietly murmuring the heavy metal/deathcore song lyrics as she subtly headbanged to the beat.
"You sure have a taste in music? Or would it be more correct to say you don't have a particular taste for any music, this playlist of yours is all over the place, Zalroth; I mean, Mujikaku no Tensai, Subhuman, Crossing Field, and something... about berried delight?"
"If someone were to turn a blind eye just because of a song's genre, their life must be very bleak... or only knows how to search up stuff using tags," Zalroth retorted as he frontflipped over the street, shooting cheeky fingerguns at the suprised kids on the ground, before landing on the garden wall on the other side of the path and continuing on his way.
"Are you intentionally taking a path to the academy so you'll pass all the kids in the neighbourhood?" Chronia asked teasingly, plopping her chin on the top of her guy's head, allowing the vibration racking her brain to flow into Zalroth. At her retort, Chronia felt a subtle shift in the tempo of Zalroth's movements, and a sinisterly endeared smirk sprawled across her youthful face. "Heh, you are, aren't you? You big ol' softy."
She continued to pester and tease Zalroth, a fuzzy feeling of endearment fluttering through her from the memories of Zalroth displaying similar overprotective tendencies in the past, particularly towards good-natured children and especially with the duo's children from their past lives.
"Oh, we should see if they'd like to join us in this world in a few... Zalroth?"
Finally returning from her train of thought, Chronia finally noticed Zalroth had come to a complete stop, looming ominously on top of a lamppost. His eyes were trained on the two kids passing by, concern etched into his expression as he repeatedly took a head count.
"There's normally three of them around this time," Zalroth uttered under his breath, causing Chronia to slump her shoulders as she knew her free ride was coming to an end.
"I suppose this is where we part ways, then? Try not to get into trouble," Chronia stated, mildly disappointed Zalroth wouldn't get the privilege of seeing her off at the academy. Sighing weakly as Zalroth plucked his headphones from her head, she released her grip from the guy, briefly patting him on the head during the fall, and dropped down to the ground. Refraining and forcing herself from making a cheeky comment, knowing the guy had entered his serious mode, Chronia simply passed a playful finger wave to Zalroth before she skipped on her way.
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Meanwhile, in the cold, stone-bricked halls of the E-Ranked dungeon. An eerie, otherworldly pressure loomed through the air, like a snippet of another world had been ripped through space and time just to be transplanted into the current one.
Walking through these very halls were a trio of teenaged Players, quietly marching their way through with the leader of them dragging a little girl by the wrist, paying no mind to her pleas to be let go. A silent animosity fluttered between the three, most of which was directed at the little girl for her incessant complaining.
"To think this dungeon would have such a stupid trigger condition to reach the secret loot room. I mean, really? A child being required to open the door?" the female enchanter player complained, clicking her tongue as the little girl whined that she was going to be late for school at this rate.
"Would you shut it?"
"You shouldn't talk to me like that. If brother Zalroth heard you, he'd beat you up like those mean high schoolers."
"Oh, so scared, as if some brat who hasn't even been in a dungeon before could hu-"
"I suggest you let go of Suziea."
Under the influence of the sudden speaker, everyone froze. The air became dense like tar around the trio, neither of them nor the air daring to move under the weight of such murderous hostility. Unlike the Players, Suziea didn't feel even a hint of pressure against her; on the contrary, she felt utter glee as she recognised who it was.
"Big bro, Zalroth!" Suziea exclaimed in utter glee, easily escaping from the player party leader's grasp thanks to his frozen state. The party leader, snapped out of his mental lock from Suziea's escape, swung around to regrab her, but staggered back when he was face to face with an assertive Zalroth.
Not even giving the leader the opportunity to think, Zalroth pulled a lightly clenched fist back and socked the party leader in the shoulder, shattering every bone in the general area of the guy's shoulders. Luckily for him, the influx of pain slapped him straight into an impromptu nap as he collapsed to the ground like a wet noodle. The other two players jumped back in shock, unable to believe a non-player defeated a C-Ranked Player in one shot.
"Be grateful you lot are only stupid, and not bad-natured."
With that, Zalroth scooped Suziea up off the ground and carried her on his shoulder, leaving the conscious players to help their leader. But to their shared confusion, their leader's status said the most contradictory of things, his Health was at a hundred percent, which made no sense as the leader had bumped his head on the dungeon entrance prior to entering. And upon checking his shoulder, not even as much as a bruise was present, let alone a broken bone, almost as if he hadn't just been punched, leading the two to consider if the dungeon had sprung an illusion on them to free the girl.
A little bit later...
"Thanks, Big Bro Zalroth," Suziea said cheerfully, giving Zalroth a tippy-toe-enhanced, overhead double handwave before skipping over to her preschool. Seeing her off, Zalroth couldn't help but chuckle, in part to the sound of jealous kids complaining that Suziea got Zalroth to walk her to school, but mostly from imagining how much more jealous Chroina would be than all the kids put together if she were here.
On the topic of Chronia, Zalrth focused his attention on the undeniable silhouette of the academy building a little off in the distance. Itching the back of his head, he found it odd that he had never really noticed its presence despite its grand and almost obnoxiously looming presence against the rest of the city.
"If Chronia were here, she'd be calling me old for being so blind," Zalroth joked, adding a spring to his step as he made his way towards where Chronia hurried off to.
Amidst his musing on how Chronia would most definitely ace the entrance exam, for obvious reasons. Both from her commitment to becoming a Player legitimately, and her being a reincarnated person, but mostly the first one, probably. But his musings were so prevalent in his mind, Zalroth failed to notice the small sphere of light fluttering around him, twirling around him like a ballerina with conceptual glee.
"One is glad things are back to how they were originally, only The Arbitor can see One again~."
