The Mage & The Warrior

- First Meeting -

Ash's POV

"So. This is one of the strongest strongholds on this continent? I thought it would be bigger "

I've finally arrived in the small kingdom called 'Ragni', and I'm looking forward to starting something new and helping others. Just the corpse piles of zombies at the front gates excite me. But, I do have one problem.

"Where the hell do I start? Do I just randomly go to people and ask if they need some help with lifting heavy things or killing anything that needs killing?"

I tried to look around, to see if anyone looked stressed or was struggling with something. Then I noticed a few people walking out of the small kingdom. Maybe they were killing some zombies, that sounds fun. I picked my sword up and followed the strangers, who ended up stopping right in front of the gate and all appeared to be talking to a knight. A few minutes passed, and the few people were gone now. I was the only one left with him.

"Hey sir, do you need some help with something?"

"Yes! My name is Enzan, and I am now a retired knight. I've spent most of my life fighting for Ragni's army. Are you new here by any chance?"

" Great! I know how hard it must be to be a recruit at this time, so I've got something that could help you! Well, I don't have it, but my brother does! Follow this road, he's just past the item identifier, you can't miss him. Just head to the big set of stairs, past the item identifier. Tell him I sent you! He can be such a jerk to strangers sometimes, especially when he's focused on his stairs... "

"What?"

"...don't question it."

"I see."

With nothing better to do I left as Enzan waved me goodbye and yelled good luck. A few minutes later, I saw the 'stairs' that Enzan told me about and looked around to find his brother. I didn't notice anything aside from a hole next to the stairs until I saw a few warriors in the distance come out of a house nearby screaming and running away telling someone they're sorry about something. I looked over and saw another knight that had features of Enzan's.

"That must be him. Though, I wonder why those knights ran off. Were the monsters down there that bad?"

I started walking over to him until someone ran past me and beat me to him. I was about to tell this asshole that he should wait since I was clearly first to him. But, the person turned around and looked at me. It was a girl. She had long brown curly hair with white taking over half of it. Her eyes were like an icy blue color and had light skin that brought out her bright eyes. All of her clothes were like matching ice and snow, she must have lived in a cold area. Maybe even close to my home. I looked into her eyes and noticed she looked upset. Great, I don't have time to deal with a drama que-

"Oh, I'm so sorry! Were you about to take this guy's quest too? I didn't mean to cut in front of you, I can just wait. "

" ... "

"Um, you alright?"

I guess I was wrong

"Yeah, I'm fine, thanks. But you seem in a rush, so do you want to come along? You don't have to, but maybe it'll be easier if we helped each other down there with all those creatures that are going to attack us."

She stood there thinking for a bit, but as I looked more closely at her, I noticed she had a wand on her belt. She must be a mage, an ice mage maybe. I wonder how powerful she is, maybe we could have a fight after this to see who's stronger. That'll be fun

"I mean, sure. I don't see anything wrong with that. But I want to take the lead!"

"Oh? And why is that? Think you're strong enough to handle whatever is down there?"

"No, I've just been locked away in my hometown and want to start killing all the bad creatures around here and explore all the cities and towns I've never been to. "

"Well, alright. If you say so. Take the lead then, ...?"

"Oh, it's Elm. My name is Elm. What's your name?"

I walked ahead of her and started walking down into the hole. On the second step, I stopped and turned around

" It's Ash. Nice to meet you Elm. "

...

As we walked down the rocky path, we saw other knights fighting off small mushroom creatures that didn't seem that dangerous. If anything, they were kind of weak to me. I wanted to fight them off, but remembered Elm wanted to take care of this by herself. To be honest, I don't think she can handle these things by herself, especially since she just said she's been stuck on her home land for so long. She has no idea what other monsters will come her way.

"You stay here, I'll kill them and you can go get the mushroom once I've killed most of them off. Does that sound alright to you?"

"Sure, sounds fine to me."

I lied. I know she's just going to fail at this. And it'll honestly be funny to watch. Does that sound mean? Eh, I didn't think so. I watched as she took out her snowflake-like wand and tried to do some kind of spell. From what it looked like, it was like a small meteor? Hm, maybe I was wrong. Maybe she will pull this off.

"Die you evil beings!"

She waved her wand and tried shouting her meteor-like spell at them, but instead of hitting the creatures, she hit...

"OW... WHAT THE HELL, HOW IN THE WORLD DID YOUR TERRIBLE SPELL HIT ME WHEN YOUR WAND IS POINTING DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF YOU???"

Me...

"I-I don't k-know! I've never actually used this spell before, s-so I guess that was my first try...heh..- "

I just slapped my face at that. I guess I was wrong. Again. I sat up and took out my sword as I walked up to her.

"I'll take things from here. You clearly have no idea what you're doing, so I'm just going to take the lead. Maybe practicing your spells before you start attacking creatures that are dangerous and could hurt you."

She just looked at me with a down face and pulled her hoodie up to cover some of her face. No response. Is she that embarrassed? Or did I accidentally hurt her feelings?...I don't have time for this, I have to get that damn mushroom for us. I took out my sword and decided to use my first spell, Bash, on all the monsters in front of me. Just a few seconds into the attack, all of them died. I've fought much worse than this. I looked around for a second and saw the mushroom just a few feet from me. I walked towards it and picked it up. Now that was easy. Turning around, I noticed Elm was already getting up and leaving.

"You can go take both of those to him...now that I know I'm much weaker than I thought, I should probably go back home and forget all about adventure and getting to save Wynn.."

I felt bad, I didn't mean to make her feel like she needs to go back home and never explore the world and save it at the same time ever again. I was about to speak until I noticed she was starting to leave. I grabbed her arm.

"You are not weak, you're inexperienced. You're just having a hard time with your first spell. If anything, you wanting to charge down here proved you aren't weak. You just need practice with magic, that's all. And, hey, I can help you out if you want."

She looked surprised, yet, sad? Is there something she's not telling me? Or does she just feel bad that she made a mistake? Before I could ask if she was alright, she gave me a hug. A tight hug. Well, at least she's strong when it comes to hugs.

"Thank you, and I'll love some help. But, don't expect it to go well immediately. I'm kind of clumsy "

She giggled. It was honestly adorable, I can't lie. I smiled.

"Alright then, let's head back to Ragni and I'll help you. I promise I'll go easy on you."

"Yeah! Thank you!!"

She smiled and then we started walking back to Ragni. This is where our adventure started, and how I'll later get to know more about my future soulmate.