Jester had several misgivings about attending the Finale as Alisa’s date. He had to dress fancy. He had to listen to a rabid crowd scream his name and fight the urge to run away. He had to let the paparazzi take pictures without breaking their limbs. He even had to stop scowling.But the Finale was important to Alisa. She had asked him to come, and he knew if he did, it would mean the world to her, so how could he refuse her?At first, it wasn’t so bad. The suit was surprisingly comfortable, and though it was fancier than what he was used to wearing (it had a cape, for crying out loud) at least it was in black and grey, and not—gods forbid—egg-yolk yellow or neon green (like what he saw some of the other guests were wearing). Their red-carpet entrance was also quickly over with, and like what Aisha had said, all that was left to endure was the small-talk.It only took a few minutes after Alisa left, though, for Jester to realize he could only bear with this situation in her presence.
Jester swiped his hand to the left. The wall before him tore itself up and crumbled to dust before being sucked into a void known as Jorus, exposing the figures inside.Only two people remained standing. One was a familiar figure, tall and broad, with a white mask covering his face. The other was leaner, smaller than the masked man, with a handsome face and cold, dead eyes. This man held in his arms a woman with golden hair in a fancy red dress. The features of her beautiful face were obscured by the blood seeping from her head, and around her slender neck was a fiery tattoo, like a necklace of thorns painted on her skin.A curse mark, in its most potent form.Alisa. His Alisa.Everything in Jester fell still, and whatever rationality he had left was burned away by fear and fury.*****An explosion of black—an oppressive, all-consuming darkness surrounded them in the blink of an eye. This darkness was unnatural. It wasn’t a darkness born from a lack of light, rather, it felt to him li
As embarrassing as it may be to admit, it was love at first sight.Go ahead and laugh.But it's true.The moment he came crashing through the trees, I knew that he was the one for me.My sister (who is a trauma psychologist and a part-time Potioneer) says that I was disillusioned because I met him in a situation where my life was in danger so I naturally clung to him and developed some sort of attachment. Not uncommon in people who develop admiration for their heroes or idols. She says that I'm probably suffering from PTSD and she wants me to book an appointment with her. I told her there was no way I was going to book an appointment with my own sister, and that if I ever need a shrink to look after me, I would choose anyone but her. She said that I'm in denial of my own condition and that means I seriously need help. That made me hang up the phone and temporarily (she's still family, after all) block her number. 
Thirty seconds.That was how long I've been casting barrier magic around myself against the Anomaly beast's attacks.Thirty seconds may seem like a really short time but if your life is on the line, it feels like eternity."Miss, we've contacted the nearest Anomaly Guard on duty--"BZZZZZTTTT!!!"... standby and keep a safe distance..."BZZZZZTTTT!!!"Tell them to hurry!" I gasped out as the Anomaly Beast reared back for another charge. "I can't keep my shield up forever!"That was true. I'm a licensed Mage (Rank A-2) but I was a civilian. If my opponent was another Mage, then perhaps I wouldn't be feeling so desperate. But Anomalies have a high resistance to magic, and to take one out required you to use combat spells of Rank B and above. And as a civilian, I don't know any combat spells strong enough to kill one, and neither do I have
So that we're all on the same page, let me do a quick introduction with a little bit of a history lesson added in.Around five hundred years ago, Earthlings (normal human beings and all manner of existence on the planet) discovered that there are parallel worlds very much like Earth that have existed as long as Earth has. By worlds I don't mean planets. I mean, they exist in a different dimension altogether. I'm sure there's a very comprehensive scientific explanation for this, but it's way to complicated for me so I won't bother. But the point is, these worlds were able to coexist without interfering with one another for ages. Which is why there was a point in time in human history where people believed aliens and extradimensional travel was nonsense (stupid, right?).This was proven false when one of the said parallel worlds imploded with enough force that it created several dimensional rips. Earth, being a younger and bigger world tha
3 days after our Fated Encounter.'The number you are calling is not in service. Check the number and dial again...'That was the twelfth time I tried to call Jester Lee. I didn't want to admit it, but the truth is hard to ignore. Either the number he gave me was false or he was blocking my calls.Realistically speaking, why would anyone bother to hand out their number if they were planning to block you anyway? So it's most likely he gave me a wrong number on purpose so I couldn't bother him in the first place.I smirked. He's got pluck, I'll give him that. Most men (and women) would be pushing each other out of the way in order to get my attention (I am not exaggerating, I've seen it happen) and there he was, nonchalantly giving me a false number and treating me like some sort of fangirl who would only waste his time.There's a chance, of course, that he thought that way precisely because he
Mister Louie got back to me while I was on the drive back to the hotel."I double-checked and I can tell you for sure that the number you gave me was a burner," he said, amused. "Now why would anyone be giving you a burner, Alisa?"I held back a sigh. "Maybe because they don't want to talk to me?""Who in their right mind would wanna ignore a sweetheart like you?" Louie laughed. "Is this someone dodging a debt or something? Coz you seem pretty determined to catch him. You don't usually ask me for a favor this big."That made me smile. "I wanna keep things a secret for a little while, Mister Louie. And you could say I'm the one who owes this person a favor and you know I always pay my debts. So I have to be able to contact him so we can talk it out, you know?""Hmmm... well, whatever your reason, I hope you know that whatever I come up with using my methods, it won't hold in court? This is kind
"If it's in two years...there's not much time."