Death's Door

"Hold it right there!" one of the guards instructed Nur, causing him to freeze in place.

"No horns" the other guard who was a tall woman with grey hair said after ruffling through Nur"s hair.

"Alright then, he can come in." The male guard said as he gave his approval.

"Sorry to ask but what"s up with "No Horns"?" Nur said while tilting his head sideways.

"Oh, you haven"t heard, have you? Our kingdom"s knights have managed to capture an important enemy, who is being held imprisoned. We can"t have anyone a.s.sociated with him get anywhere inside the city, so the check is necessary."

"Ok, but what about the horns?" Nur asked, feeling like he missed out some crucial information.

"Well, horns are the defining feature of demon-kind, that much should be obvious! After all, the one who is imprisoned is none other than one of the Demon Lords!" The female guard said proudly, with a fist on her heart, in a rather pa.s.sionate display of patriotism. "It just shows how humanity shall strive, while the other kinds shall be eliminated, and the demons are the first to go!"

"Right…" Nur nodded, obviously confused.

"Aw, before you go, there is going to be witch trial in two days, it would be nice if you could witness such a magnificent event! It will be a display of power for all of humanity to see, the moment we destroy the evil and…." She found out that Nur was already walking away.

"You might have scared him off with your pa.s.sion" the male guard told his colleague, who responded with a slight smirk.

"Those are sure some chatty guards" Nur remarked.

He proceeded to walk through the city, admiring the buildings, but strangest of all were the inhabitants. Not all of them were human, some had some demi-human features, some had elven looks, but as he guessed no horns. Apparently the horns were a racial trait of demons and they clearly were a taboo inside the city.

"Regardless, ants from yesterday are not going to be enough for me to last" Nur sadly remarked. The last "meal" he ate was yesterday, consisting of insects and lake water. Now his stomach begged for food.

He tried to visit places that seemed to have food based on their smell, but the minute he told them he had no money he was violently thrown out by a host, a tall demi-human with dog head.

"Don"t come back unless you can pay!" The host said with a bark.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch" Nur rubbed his neck; the dog man had thrown him out while holding him by the collar of his clothing. "Tough luck. It seems like I am all flat broke here, huh" he sighed in frustration.

"Heck, I am not even sure what kind of currency they use here…" then his eye caught a sight of a golden coin on the ground, along the road.

"But I bet I could use that!" he jumped on the road and proceeded to pick up the coin from the ground. "Not like any coin I have ever seen, a picture of a sun, I think?" the coin had a pattern of the sun with somewhat angular features. It was most likely the local royalty"s emblem. "I might have some use for it."

Just as Nur was about to put the coin in his pocket, he heard a shout.

"LOOK OUT!"

But it was too late.

The road is made for carriages to go through, carried by horses.

So by being on the road while the horses were galloping while pulling the carriage, Nur ended up being trampled over by horses in an instant. His head was subsequently crushed under the wheels of the carriage. The last thing he saw was the image engraved on the coin, the image of golden sun.

"No horns" The lady guard finished examining Nur"s hair

"Alright then, he can come in." said the male guard.

"Eh?" Nur stood there dumbfounded. "What just happened? Didn"t this already happen? Am I dreaming? I was just trampled over by horses…"

"Hurry up, I said you could go in!" the male guard said with an annoyed expression.

"I am sorry, but haven"t you seen me already, earlier today?"

"Nope, never seen you in my entire life."

"I see, then I must be dreaming, a déjà vu, just a déjà vu…" Nur mumbled before walking into the city.

Then he proceeded to walk towards the exact location where he found the coin. Now he quickly plucked the coin off the ground and proceeded to get away from the road.

Less than ten seconds later, a carriage carried by strange armored horses quickly sped through the road. It was a white carriage decorated with swans.

"The horses really are weird, they have scales and horns, if not for the fact that they had three horns, I would have mistaken them for unicorns!" Nur exclaimed before realizing a crucial fact while he was looking at the deep hoof-prints left by the horses. "Dream or not, this is fishy. If I didn"t move out of the road just now, my head would have been right there…What the h.e.l.l is going on?" he remembered the painful sensation of having his skull crushed by the hoofs and the carriage wheels. Now that exact carriage ended up going away without even harming him. "Who knows, I might have foresight!?" Nur made a silly suggestion to himself and laughed out loud.

He was looking forward to finding out more about this city.

"Is everything going well, your eminence?" Mrakus took the tray one of the lady servants pa.s.sed to him that had a tea on top of it.

"Everything is going perfectly. The counterclockwise time turn has worked perfectly, just as I would expect of my great self!" She said pridefully. "Her servant has experienced his first death and he has gone back in time, exactly as planned. But, his reaction upon reviving was not as intense as I expected." She sulked slightly. "Usually they go mad from the revelation, but maybe given enough time…"

"Your eminence, I believe letting him experience more deaths would be the best way to break his spirit."

"That is my plan, Mrakus. Don"t be so presumptuous as to think that I have not thought through everything!" She angrily took the tea and sipped it, and then she ended up spitting it out. "It"s too hot, d.a.m.n it!" She splashed the hot content of the tea upon Mrakus, who just calmly stood while his suit and his face were covered in hot liquid.

"If you are going to serve tea, do it the right way! You foolish angel!"

"Yes, your eminence." Mrakus slightly bowed with his head.

"Well, what is the best way to use the coin?" Nur wondered.

He visited the food place managed by the dog-headed owner. There he found out that the gold coin is equivalent of ten silver coins, which is equivalent of hundred bronze coins. Of course, before he could spend the coin for food, Nur was chased out of the café because the food place had many demi humans who disliked having a human being there. They chased after him nonstop while he was running for his life. Apparently they were angry due to the fact that human had a golden coin in his possession, it attracted so much unwanted attention, resulting in this situation.

"Over here! Hide over here!" Someone beckoned to him from the corner of the building. That place was covered in a tent.

He listened to them and entered the tent to try to avoid his pursuers. His luck didn"t last long. He was kicked from behind, causing him to fall head first into a cage.

"Well, well, well. We got ourselves a human today!" A demi-human with a head of a fox said triumphantly.

"Uhm, what is going on?" Nur asked, confused.

"You are going to be sold on an auction, of course!" Another demi-human with face of a frog said with a strange frog-like guttural noise.

What followed could only be described as tragic. They planned to sell him in the next three days. They gave him moderate amount of food in order to keep him alive. Desperate to survive, Nur ate what they have given him, but ended up choking on a bone and died a day before he was going to be sold.

"LOOK OUT!" it was the voice of a girl, that was for sure.

The moment he heard that, Nur rolled forward, barely avoiding being crushed by a carriage.

"Whew, that was close!" Nur looked at the hand that held the golden coin. "Again! Ok, now this is getting ridiculous, is this coin cursed or something? I keep getting into weird situations and keep coming back to the places, that"s definitely no coincidence!" he looked at the coin with a grimace. "Hey coin, do you have a problem with me?"

"Uhm, excuse me, are you ok?" a concerned voice of a young woman caused him to turn around. She looked rather ordinary, wearing plain-looking clothing, most likely in her late teens. She had a hat on her head that hid her hair.

"Yeah, I am alright." Nur said after realizing he must have looked quite stupid arguing with a coin. "By the way, do you know anywhere I can get coin exchanged?" he now thought that the smartest way of getting rid of the coin was to get its exact worth in bronze coins.

She told him of a certain location where she herself goes to exchange coins, it was located few blocks away.

"It"s a building with a sign of an apple on top of it." she said.

After thanking her, Nur went exactly by her directions, now face to face with a building that had a faded out card board cut-out of a giant apple. It must have been red once upon a time, but the rain had made the color look more yellowish, but Nur had to admit it did make the apple to look more natural. To make it even more hilarious, it had a sign underneath that said "Apple Shack."

"Well, at least the language is still the same" Nur remarked. Somehow he knew the language the books in Desolai"s domain were written in, it was a huge relief that this city operated on the same language.

When he entered, he saw that the shack filled with many cloaked figures. He hesitantly approached the counter, where a drunken looking fat person with a beard sat. "Welcome to Apple Shack, how can I be of service?"

"I would like to get this exchanged." He handed him the golden coin.

"Oh, how generous. It would be my pleasure" he proceeded to count out ninety eight bronze coins and put them in the pouch. "One bronze coin for the service, I have also added in the pouch which is an additional bronze coin."

"That is fine by me." Nur replied.

"Pleasure doing business with you." The fatso said with a grin, showing off his gold plated teeth.

Nur proceeded to exit the place.

"Well, at least now I don"t look so suspicious with copper coins. Now then, I need food, that scary demi-human place is out of question, so what do I do? What do I do…?"

"Hold it right there!" a person wearing a mask, somewhat shorter than Nur by about three inches, with a knife in hand, said threateningly. "Hand over all your valuables!"

"Valuables, I got nothing of value…"

"Don"t lie! I saw you give that crone a gold coin, you obviously are rich, so hand over your money! Or else…"

"C"mon, I don"t have time for this" Nur tried to walk past the masked person, but the masked person thrust forward with the knife into Nur"s chest.

"I, I killed him" the masked person said with a nervous voice. "I was supposed to rob him, not kill him…"

"What the h.e.l.l is going on…" Nur mumbled as his consciousness was fading away.

"LOOK OUT!" a voice that sounded like an alarm to him, had made him regain his senses.

He proceeded to roll over backwards, this time catching glimpse of the pa.s.senger inside the carriage. A woman with lovely light violet hair, very young, wearing elegant robes. The carriage went by fast, but he was able to catch a glimpse of the person inside the carriage.

"Are you ok?" the girl who saved his life once again asked of him.

"I am fine, but who was that person in that carriage?"

"Oh, you don"t" know? Are you not from around here?" When Nur shook his head she continued. "I see, that was the carriage of the n.o.bles, the person inside is most likely a n.o.bleman."

"I see." Nur nodded, with his hand on his chin. So the cla.s.s systems existed here as well. He realized that it wouldn"t be so easy to live in this place.

"Oh my!" Chronos said with a slight laugh. "I can"t believe he got himself caught up in such deaths in such a short time! He must be the most unlucky human being I have ever seen! I didn"t even have to cause any accidents to happen in order for him to die!"

Mrakus stood there with his head down, thinking "He is neither the first nor the last person cursed by the G.o.ddess of Time to suffer like this. At this rate he will go mad even without Chronos"s involvement!"

"Mrakus, can you just imagine the look Desolai would have on her face when her servant"s will would be so completely broken? When he will reach the point of abandoning his ties to her, I can"t wait for it to happen!" She said with a slight jiggle. She may look like a young girl, but she is a terrifying G.o.ddess who has played with human lives for eons.

Mrakus couldn"t help but feel somewhat sorry for the human.