Dimensions Collide: Destiny Bond

Prota had died 17 times so far. Each time, she’d spent longer and longer in the reset room, and each time, she was getting more and more tired.

Of course, it wasn’t like her efforts were meaningless. There was a significant improvement each and every death. Through trial and error, Prota had learned to use her mana more efficiently, resulting in better spells. Her situational awareness had also skyrocketed, allowing her to read the field and plan her next move.

Her capability of reading intent and bloodlust had begun to show itself, an ability vital to surviving in battle. It was something all skilled warriors had. Well, with the amount of bloodlust she was facing, it was probably more unlikely for her not to gain such a skill.

Despite all this, she was still incapable of dealing with all the bandits alone. Now, it was inevitable that, eventually, Prota would win. It didn’t matter how strong the opponent was because as long as it was “possible” to kill them, no matter how slim of a chance there was, she would be able to come back over and over until that possibility was realized.

Moreover, a key aspect of the battle was now gone. Decisions that had to be made, decisions that would decide whether you lived or died, those didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered was making a plan and following through. If it failed, you tried again. You kept trying until you won.

[Reset] truly was a cheat ability. John kept emphasizing how much of a curse it was, but that didn’t make it any weaker when it came to strength.

“Hey, Prota. You can stop, you know. You’re, ah… never mind.”

At least, it would’ve been had the penalty of the slow but inevitable deterioration of the mind not existed. John was worried. Was Prota ok? He tried to distract her.

“Didn’t the old lady- uh, Jinae, teach you how to use mana reinforcement or mana recovery? Mana breathing… actually, I’m not sure if that exists in this world.”

Prota ignored the last one, but the first two sounded familiar. “Mana… reinforcement? Mana recovery? Um… no, I didn’t…”

“Hm. Unlucky.” That was all John said. Prota stared at him.

Unlucky? That was it? Unlucky?

“Well, I can’t teach it to you, but… ah, whatever. I’m sure you’ll learn it eventually, either naturally or through instruction.”

Prota stared at him. “Can’t John teach me?” she pouted.

“Eh? No? What?” John said. “I just don’t know what those things are. I just heard about it somewhere. Something about being the fundamentals of combat magic. I can’t use magic, Prota. What do you want me to do about it?”

“...” Prota just stared at him. For the first time, she felt the urge to slap him.

“Really. I can’t help you with this,” John sighed. “What do you want me to do?”

Prota nodded thoughtfully. John sounded genuine about it. He really had no way of helping.

Even though her body wasn’t actually tired, she rested for what felt like an hour before nodding to John, who walked over and pressed the button.

The room was enveloped in a white light once more.

~~~

Another 33 deaths later, the effects of [Reset] were really starting to show. Her eyes were starting to grow empty, starting to look like John’s, and it was concerning him.

“Hey, Prota. You sure you should keep going? Even I wouldn’t go this far,” John frowned. For someone like him, 50 deaths was nothing, but when he’d first started out, even he hadn’t pushed it this far.

Prota nodded, but there wasn’t nearly as much energy in her nod as there had been before. Just a little tilt of the chin. Each death had pushed Prota a bit further. Her magic would improve ever so slightly, her reaction time would be faster, just by a few milliseconds, and while it wasn’t a lot, it was adding up.

However, the biggest upgrade was that she’d naturally learned how to use mana recovery and mana reinforcement. They were techniques she should’ve learned when Jinae had taught her, but it might’ve been better that she had learned through battle. It also saved John the trouble of having to look for a teacher, although he’d also been displeased with the fact that a problem like this had been resolved so easily. In his mind, abilities shouldn’t be gained so easily, but he also firmly believed that the [Author] was a human trashbag, so it lined up.

Mana recovery was simply using up mana to speed up the body’s regeneration. It was a simple technique but an incredibly important one. On top of this, its efficiency improved with the amount of mana used, so Prota had no problem with this.

Mana reinforcement was simply strengthening the body with mana. It made the body faster, stronger and more durable, once again improving with the amount of mana used. It also increased the amount of stamina one had, almost as if converting one’s mana into energy.

These two spells could be called the fundamentals of combat.

Prota’s technique had spiked with the knowledge of these two skills. They were fundamentals, and now that she had a solid base on top of her spells, there was a good synergy between the two. Since she’d learned them through battle, her foundation was now set, but it still wasn’t enough for her to take care of all the bandits.

They, too, knew how to use mana reinforcement and mana restoration, so it wasn’t like Prota was overpowering them in any way. However, that didn’t mean she wasn’t doing better than before.

Her ability to see her enemy’s cores had evolved into being able to see the flow of mana that came out of the cores, and so she could see the movement of magic as well as the physical movement of her enemies. It didn’t really matter, though, since her brain couldn’t keep up with so much information. So far, it was just a bunch of colourful lights and lines. It was just something useful for later.

However, the main factor in her success was the resets. While the bandits felt like they were fighting Prota for the first time, she knew their movements, mannerisms, attacks, everything, since she’d fought them 37 times already. They also underestimated her since she was a child, although they always focused when she killed one of them.

With all this, she’d been able to take care of four of the bandits, but there were always two left. In another 50 resets or so, she’d probably be able to take care of all of them, but she was still a child.

For someone like John, who was completely unfazed, this was nothing. But for a child, who’d never experienced continuous resets before…

“Prota,” John said. “We’re gonna stop here.”

Prota looked at him. She was tired, but she couldn’t stop here.

If she stopped here, how could she call herself a protector? If she stopped here, that meant she was still too weak. She wasn’t weak. She was strong. She just needed to push herself a little more, just a bit further and she would-

“I’m sick of it. I can’t watch this anymore. You’re killing yourself! Do you understand that? What’s so important, huh? Why are you pushing yourself so hard?!”

Prota unconsciously took a step back. John was raising his voice? He almost never did that. Not even to enemies. She felt a shiver run down her spine.

“You took care of four fully grown men, all on your own. Do you know how incredible that is? There are six of them, Prota. You’ve protected me more than enough. In reality, I just wanted you to understand what [Resets] are all about, but you’ve far exceeded my expectations.”

Suddenly, to her surprise, he knelt down and embraced her.

“Is it cause you’re trying to protect me? You’re a child, Prota. You’re a kid! You don’t… you don’t have to suffer like this…”

His voice trailed off.

“You’re good, Prota. You did a good job.”

Her eyes went wide. She… did a good job? She shook her head, then looked at John again.

“I… I protected John.”

“That’s right,” John said, releasing her. He held her shoulders and looked her in the eyes. “You’re doing great.”

John went to go press the button, stopped momentarily by Zero, a smug smile on his face.

“Aw, look at you. You do care,” Zero smiled.

“...” John closed his eyes. Did he? Yeah, maybe he did. He just couldn’t feel it, even as he held Prota in his arms.

If that was the case, then did he really care?

~~~

“Fuck off already,” John grumbled as he shot the first bandit without a shred of hesitation.

Initially, he’d been annoyed at what he’d called an “unskippable cutscene,” where he’d listen to the bandit pretending to be someone in need, but then he’d discovered that he could skip the cutscene by shooting the man in the head. That was as good a skip button as any. The two of them dodged the knives that would come out next, and the battle began.

“Here we go.”

Prota immediately unleashed a flurry of attacks, her control over her magic quite proficient. It was only fireballs and icicles, but they used a minimal amount of mana and were thrown with deadly accuracy.

The first volley caught the bandits off guard, and one dropped dead immediately. John didn’t waste the opportunity and fired his gun, killing another, leaving only four left.

“Fuck! You bastards!” a bandit cried out, throwing a handful of knives toward John.

“John!” Prota cried out, but to her surprise, he dodged them calmly and returned fire, killing another bandit.

“Don’t worry about me, Prota!” John said. “Just focus on them!”

Prota nodded and fired off another volley, cleanly dodging an attack from the enemy mage. A swordsman rushed towards her, and she leapt back while returning fire. Flicking her hand upwards, a few icicles rose up from the ground, impaling the swordsman and finishing him off.

The same attacks. The same movements. She was used to them all. There were only two bandits left.

Prota felt killing intent behind her and ducked, immediately raising her hand to fire off a fireball, and as the dust cleared, she saw another dead bandit. There was only one left.

Where…?

“Die!” she heard and looked over to see the final bandit rushing towards John with his knives out. She raised her hand, but with John so close, she didn’t want to risk firing.

“John!” she cried out again, but then stared in amazement as John sidestepped the man, then grabbed his head, smashing it into his knee. He threw the bandit back, then delivered a mighty kick to the bandit’s chin, snapping his head back and causing him to fall to the ground.

He wasted no time in pointing his gun downwards, emptying the four remaining bullets into the bandit’s head, immediately killing him. With a fluid motion, he shook the empty shells out and pulled six more bullets out from the inside of his hoodie.

“See? Easy,” John shrugged. He looked down with a frown. “Huh. They weren’t even that strong. Were they relying solely on the trust of others? How did they survive for this long?”

“S-strong,” Prota stammered as she stared at him. She could feel no mana emanating from him. He’d dealt with a bandit all on his own, without magic. “John is… strong.”

Would she ever be able to do something like that?

She was still weak. If John, who was without magic, could deal with a bandit so easily, then why was she, who had mana, struggling? She’d forgotten that she’d dealt with four of the bandits on her own. She could only focus on how much more she had to grow, just to catch up… She just wasn’t strong enough.

It wasn’t enough.

John didn’t notice her concerns and started walking away.

“Come on, Prota. Did you forget our original goal? I know it’s been, like, a whole month for you, but come on. I can’t wait to sleep in a bed…”

Prota stared at John. Wasn’t he fazed by what had just happened?

“Zero was right. Maybe it would be good to let loose a little… Hey, Prota, you good? Want me to carry you?”

Prota shook her head and ran after John.

~~~

“What the hell happened here?”

A large, tough man with muscles the size of tree trunks surveyed the battlefield in the moonlight, chewing on a freshly lit cigar. A large scar ran down his face, over his eye, giving him the look of a veteran soldier. He took it out and spat out some tobacco juice, then put it back in his mouth, still pondering the scene before him.

“It looks like there was a fight, boss,” a smaller man beside the first one said.

“I can see that, you idiot! The question is, who are these bodies, and do we need to be worried about it?”

The smaller man’s eyes lit up, and he began scanning the area for traces of mana residue, but nothing was found.

“Seriously? You’re telling me someone killed seven men without using a single bit of strong magic?”

“There are two sets of footprints, sir. Two people, not one.”

The larger man looked down and grunted. “Huh.”

“One set of adult’s footprints, another set of children’s footprints…”

“A child, huh?” The larger man frowned and rubbed his chin. “Maybe these were bandits?”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

Albert walked over to the body, his senses on high alert. It was possible this was a trap or an ambush.

“Cover me.”

The corpses were mostly cold but retained a bit of warmth, flies buzzing around them as no one had taken care of them. One body even had a bite taken out of it, likely by a passing wild animal.

“They died within the last twelve hours. Most of these bodies have blast or pierce marks. Earth or ice magic, fire magic too. Probably one of them was a fire mage, and the other was an ice or earth mage. However, this one…”

He pointed to the body of the first bandit John had shot.

“We can see a single hole, right in the head, deadly accurate, unlike the other ones. It’s an unusually small hole, too, and it appears in two of the other bodies. It’s strange…”

Bren looked back towards Albert. “Maybe it’s something related to that?”

Albert frowned. “I don’t think so. We’ve yet to see bodies left behind.”

“Then…”

Albert stomped over, tossing his cigar aside. He looked carefully at the body Bren was holding, then lit a fire in his hand. Staring carefully, a look of recognition appeared on his face as the body was observed in a better light.

“I think I recognize this guy. He had a bounty on ‘im. Not the strongest, but…”

He stepped on the cigar, snuffing it out entirely.

“I should’ve just looked at him from the start. Bandit bastards. Whoever took care of these guys did us a favour.”

“Still, sir. Is it not suspicious? At all?”

“Maybe they got lucky,” Albert shrugged. “Look, it’s late. Let’s go back. We have a lot more pressing matters on our hands.”

Bren nodded and followed his boss toward the town they lived in.

~~~

“John. John,” Prota said over and over, sitting on John’s sleeping body. “Wake up. It’s late.”

“Mm… just another hour…”

“It’s the afternoon,” Prota insisted. “Wake up.”

John rolled over, forcing Prota to jump off of him, and John kept rolling until he fell right off the bed.

“So much for being part god, huh?” Zero smirked as John slowly blinked his eyes open.

“Shut up,” John grumbled back. He was pretty out of it, but it seemed that he was preprogrammed to retort against Zero.

“John!” Prota exclaimed in a monotone voice, jumping on him again. “Make the… uh… cake in pan again.”

“Mm… you want pancakes?” John said as he got up, his overly large shirt slipping off his shoulders.

“Pancake!”

John looked at her with his head cocked to the side. Although her voice really didn’t raise past a conversational level, she seemed more energetic than he’d expected her to be, considering she’d just killed four men. He shrugged. There was no point in bringing it up if she didn’t want to.

It was curious, though. It was possible that her lack of feeling about killing was simply [Lazy Writing], a phenomenon that occurred when the [Author] failed to write properly, resulting in conflicting or poor aspects of a story, but…

John refused to believe it.

“Prota. Are you really ok?”

“...?”

“Those… those men from earlier. You’re ok with it?”

Prota paused to think. However, it didn’t take long, and she turned back to him with a happy look on her face. Well, whatever could be defined as happy on a face such as Prota’s.

“I protected John. So I did a good job, right?”

John nodded. “That’s good to hear.”

He meant it. She was still a child, after all. If her mind could focus on something else, then it would ignore the fact that she’d killed some men…

No, it was better to leave the issue alone.

John looked around, getting ready to cook as usual, but then realized that something vital was missing.

“Uh… Prota? We’re not home. At the bar, I mean. I… I can’t exactly cook.”

Prota looked up at him. Her eyes were brimming with disappointment.

“Ah, come on… don’t look at me like that! What do you want me to do about it?”

~~~

In the end, John ended up purchasing skewers of meat at a nearby stall on the way to the adventurer’s guild. Prota was munching away happily as the two of them opened the door, revealing a large, spacious room with a few tough looking men sitting at various tables, some of them drinking beer.

“Ah, hello,” a lady behind a desk greeted them. “What may I do for you today?”

“You’re the receptionist, right?” John said.

“That is correct.”

“I’d like to sign up for an adventuring license.”

“Understood. Your name?”

“Ah, well… it’s not for me. It’s for my little sister,” John said.

“Your… little sister? Sir, while it’s technically possible, are you sure-”

“Just do it,” John sighed.

He was annoyed as it was for going to the adventurer’s guild in the first place, but he really didn’t have a better idea. Since they were in a story, they’d run into the [Protagonist] at some point, and this place was hopefully one of those places. Technically, the odds were low. If this was the real world, the odds would be near impossible. After all, there were probably hundreds if not thousands of guild buildings.

But this wasn’t the real world. This was a [Story].

“There’s probably going to be something involving freeing slaves, too,” John thought to himself. “If it’s really a fantasy world.”

“All right, sir, here are the forms. Bring them back to me once you’re done, and we’ll get you all set up.”

“Thanks, uh…”

“Katheryne,” the lady smiled.

“Katheryne. See you around,” John said, turning around with a grimace. He’s just been reminded of a certain game.

She smiled and waved as the two of them prepared to leave the place. John reached out to open the door but failed as someone else opened it instead.

“...!”

It was a boy, maybe around ten or eleven if John were to guess, although it was impossible to tell. A black mask covered everything but his shining golden eyes, which matched well with his silvery hair. A thin sharp sword hung on his back, which was covered by a well worn cloak.

A pink nine tailed fox was curled around his neck like a scarf, but it was clearly alive since its head looked around the room before resting again. The boy seemed unbothered by this and hesitated only a moment before walking by John to get to the receptionist.

“Hello. I’d like to register with the guild.”

“Alright. May I get your name?”

John slowly walked out the door, but he wouldn’t leave just yet. Not until he heard the boy’s name.

“...Fate. My name is Fate.”