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

Chapter 378 What to do first

"Oh my god!"

Alan's face contorted as if he'd seen a really shocking scene.

"Um..."

Kairen hurried to his feet with an awkward face.

"It's been a long time... I guess?"

Kairen didn't know how much time has passed in this world.

"What the fucking hell!", Alan pointed his finger at Kairen. "I... I felt some vibration from here but... Are you for real?"

"Pardon? Yes? I'm real!"

Kairen wasn't sure what Alan meant but everything about him was real so he answered confidently.

"My goddess!"

"Ahem!"

Kairen cleared his voice and smiled even more stiffly. Before Alan, who was dumbfounded to the bone, could make any proper questions in his mind, Kairen opened his mouth and began to talk.

"Look, that day, just before I died, someone came and saved me and took me to another place. I was there until now and came back after I was healed."

"..."

Alan blinked a few times, his face still contorted.

"Ah?", He took another step back. "That... doesn't make any sense!" He paused as soon as he said that. "Well, it might make some sense..."

The golden-haired, golden-eyes man blinked again and inspected Kairen.

"I might've mistaken you as someone faking a dead person and beaten your ass if I couldn't sense the same strange aura around you as the one that Kairen dude had before."

"I'm the same Kairen dude..."

"Yeah? Yeah... Wait a minute wait a minute!"

Alan still couldn't accept Kairen's explanation.

"Ah, god this is crazy! Crazy! pretty crazy!" He moved around as he mumbled. "What should we do now? What should we do? Boy, aren't I accepting it too easily? But damn, what the hell?"

Kairen watched as Alan went in circles and talked to himself. The whole time, he had an awkward expression and a stiff smile on his face. He never expected that the first one he'd meet would be Alan, but now that he thought about it, it was one of the best things that could happen. It was way better than being captured by SMF or having to walk around until reaching a village. Alan was also involved in enough things to accept Kairen's words easier than the others.

"Alright!"

Alan finally stopped moving around after a few seconds.

"I guess I can accept it now!"

"...You are fast."

He nodded his head with a confident face before pointing at Kairen with a finger once again.

"But are you sure you are for real? I won't take any responsibilities if it turns out otherwise."

"....I am pretty much real, real to the bone. What do you mean by responsibilities?"

"You see..." Alan came closer and patted Kairen's shoulder. "If you are not real and are faking things and then you get found out by anyone and especially by this dude's bro, you'll sigh, it's too painful to even think about."

"...."

Even as the real Kairen, Kairen got chills all over his body.

"Ah, right! My brother, can you take me to my brother?"

"Hmm..."

Alan folded his arms and stepped away from Kairen.

"Just like that?"

"Then how?"

The golden-haired man clicked his tongue and shook his head.

"Imagine, your brother who died in front of your eyes suddenly appears in front of you after two years saying, "Hi, that was all a misunderstanding! Hehe!", how would you react?"

"...I'd faint."

"Yeah." Alan nodded his head. "You'd faint, I'd run away, I'm not sure what Aaron would do."

"Hmm... Wait, two years?"

Kairen jolted up.

"Two years? It's been two years?"

"Yeah, bro."

"Eh! Eh? That's too much!" Kairen grabbed his head in frustration. "Maybe not that much but it's still too much!"

When thinking about the time that must've passed when he was staying in The Void, Kairen had thought about various scenarios when he'd go back home when 100 years had already passed. 2 years wasn't too long compared to them, but it wasn't a short amount of time either.

"Hey, you are the one who came back from life, you shouldn't be panicking! We should!"

"...."

Alan's words weirdly calmed Kairen down. He looked at the man, who was too relaxed for someone who was meeting a dead friend after two years and asked something else.

"You said you'd run away if you were in Aaron's shoes, yet you didn't."

"You are not my brother!"

"Oh!"

Kairen thought that the conversation was actually strange, and it was moving in an even stranger direction. This wasn't what two normal people should talk about after seeing each other for two years, is it? Shouldn't Alan at least ask if Kairen was okay? But he could see that Kairen was safe and sound, so why would he ask anything about that? Still, they talked about too random of things at the moment that it was out of the ordinary, yet Kairen couldn't think of anything proper to say.

"So, can you take me to my brother?"

"Just like this?"

"But what else can we do?"

"It's your brother how would I know?"

"Maybe you go first and tell him "Hey, have you ever thought of the possibility of Kairen still being alive?", or something like that."

"Well..."

Alan tilted his head from side to side with a thoughtful face.

"Actually, yes. He kept saying that his brother was alive unless he finds his corpse."

"Eh?"

"Yeah!"

Kairen closed his mouth shut. He'd heard something similar not too long ago, about how that brother of his didn't want to admit the fact that Kairen was dead saying that he wouldn't accept his brother's death until he saw his corpse.

'So he's doing the same thing even in here...'

Not that it was too unexpected, but it still left Kairen bitter and guilty.

"So he mustn't be too shocked to see me. Take me to him!"

"Dude, are you stupid or anything? It's just not right doing it this way!"

"I might be stupid."

"...Argh, alright I'll take you there and won't take responsibility for anything that happens after that."

"Alright, you don't need to take responsibility for anything."

Alan glanced at Kairen with a pitying gaze and sighed before grabbing his shoulders with both hands.

"Close your eyes if you don't want to throw up."

"Okay."

Kairen would've done that even if he wasn't warned.

A strange feeling engulfed his whole body before he felt the ground under his shoes fade. After some time that couldn't be considered as half a second, his feet touched the ground before losing touch again. The process repeated itself time and time. Kairen thought that it was quite different from teleporting. It was as if they were jumping from one place to another at a fast speed.

"Here we are."

And after jumping around a few more times, Kairen opened his eyes upon hearing Alan's voice.

"Ah..."

They were still in the middle of nowhere, but this nowhere was different from the nowhere that Kairen landed on. There was a mountain, something that looked to be a previous mountain, and a lot of smashed stones.

"Hey, Alan!"

Kairen and Alan both turned to the familiar voice. They could see Darren stomping towards them while shouting.

"Where the fuck did you run off-"

Darren's words got cut off in the middle. That was because his eyes had landed on the person standing beside Alan. Behind him, Carlson, who was about to say something, froze on his spot with his mouth half-open

"...."

"...."

"Um... Hi...?"

Kairen hesitantly waved his hand.

"...."

"...."

"...."

"...."

Among the four people standing near each other, no one could say anything.

"Ahem. So, where is Ron?"

It was Kairen who managed to break the silence. After a brief silence, Alan poked his back and pointed at somewhere with his other hand.

"There."

"Thanks!"

Kairen started to walk in that direction without wasting any time. He could hear some muffled conversation happening behind his back once he walked a distance away from the three men.

It didn't take him long to see the silhouette of a man beside a huge boulder. The man with long light brown hair that was loosely tied together was sitting with his back facing Kairen, busy poking a dead monster's body with the tip of his spear.

Apparently feeling his approach, the man turned back to look at him, his face annoyed and furious.

"Where the hell-"

The rest of his words couldn't leave his mouth.

"..."

"..."

For some reason, Kairen was so tense that he couldn't do or say anything. He couldn't even say hello to him, unlike how he greeted the others just now.

"...."

Plop

The spear he was holding fell out of his hand and rolled on the ground. The frown was completely gone and his eyes looked blank and vacant.

"R-"

BOOMMMM

Before the only word that Kairen managed to utter left his lips, a loud noise resounded in the area. The ground shook, boulders broke, and Kairen's body was slammed to the ground without him being able to resist at all.

A firm and large hand was pressing against his neck.

<nulli>"Who are you?"