As our lips parted, I realized: This was my first kiss.

I always wondered whether my first kiss would happen with a guy or a girl, but actually I wouldn’t have thought it would be as good either way. But why did he have to do that tongue thing? Gross.

I was definitely blushing, especially, when he gave me his confident smile.

“Sorry, I had to lend some power,” he said, looking me into the eyes, which got really creepy after a few seconds.

Then he turned away from me, facing his sister. She was already preparing herself to be attacked. In the mean-time Aster got Shelly onto his shoulders. No-one knew what would happen next. And no-one seemed to care about the machine. Too many minutes already have passed, and I don’t really want to know, what would happen if the machine overflowed. The controls were totally overboard.

As Raven jumped towards his sister, she hadn’t the time to do anything, since she got knocked out from behind. The sound of metal hitting the ground could be heard as a plate hit the ground. It was the one covering Princess Abc’s mitts.

“Shit.”

“Did you really just swear?” I asked her.

“What? Of course, I did. To have those reattached would cost … something.”

“Why did you do this?” Raven suddenly infiltrated our conversation.

“Because we have this machine about to explode and having you two fight would definitely last too long. So, I seized my opportunity.”

“Soo- Are we running?” I asked. And we did.

Well, at least I did. The Princess, Raven and Aster took themselves some time to pick up the unconscious. By that time, I’ve already reached the stairs.

Dust fell down from the ceiling, as I climbed up the stairs. Though I was the first to run, I just managed to get out of the cave behind Raven and the Princess, followed by Aster, whose stamina was maybe as bad as mine. Though, without the extra bodyweight of Shelly, he would’ve also been faster.

Probably.

I was touched by the warm summer sunlight when I left the cave. The others were already quite a few steps ahead of me. Though Princess Abc, interestingly, was coming back my direction. She ran in huge steps, before finally jumping off just a few inches in front of me. As she leapt over me, the sun was briefly covered by her panties. As I ran forward, my gaze followed her trajectory, causing me to stumble and fall over.

She smashed against the rocks behind me, and though I wasn’t really able to see anything, I heard multiple hits. Then something crumbled. From her point of landing on, dust and even rocks fell down, as she continued smashing the mountain. Probably with the help of her magic. She must have been really careful, as she also could have smashed that mountain in one go. After being on firm ground again, she leapt back, in order to not get smashed by the following rocks. Next, she crossed her open palms and took a few steps towards the fallen rocks, pushing them inside the cave, like a cork.

Then she ran away.

Picking me up from the ground, we reached the others, who already were some distance away from the cave. The ride was really unpleasant, as I was hanging in her arms, being shaken the whole time. At least I managed to get some words out. “Pr-inc-ess … Care-less…” I managed to say within a hundred meters of being shaken, although I highly doubt, my words reached her.

She let go of me, when she reached the group, and I was about to join the circle of the unconscious, when a loud explosion shook me awake. Followed by some weird colored light, the machine exploded, and due to the Princess’s improvised cork, the explosion didn’t manage to do any bigger damage.

“It’s over.” I exhaled.

“Yes, it is.”

“Probably.”

“It seems so, yes.”

“Sooo, are we going back?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Probably.”

“It seems so, yes.”

“Ah, good to know.” I turned and attempted to follow the road.

“Wrong direction,” Aster said, who was already going the other direction.

“Shit.”

Our walk took quite a while, and I decided to check, whether any changes happened to my grimoire. As I opened it, I was greeted by a sight I have already forgotten. My name written on the first page, my stats on the next. But then I realized, some of the letters were blurred, and moved around weirdly. And then …

[Level:] >>2<<

[HP:] >>105<<

[MP:] >>100<<

“What the-” I accidentally spoke out loud.

[You have gained experience.]

[Your capability of taking damage has grown by 5 per cent.]

[You are now able to use spells.]

Spells?

I opened the next page.

It presented to me a selection of skills.

[Choose one skill to learn.]

What but … the selection was ginormous. Anything from simple healing to mind control was listed. And I was free to choose.

[I contain all knowledge of this world.]

Yeah, you said that before, but …

[Please keep in mind, that you might not be able to use all skills available at the time.]

When I looked on the mind control spell, my head was flooded with information, from how this spell works, to what it costs. It would be 1000 MP.

Why does everything look like a video game?

[I figured this would be the easiest for you to understand in your language. Shall I translate it differently?]

No, actually it’s okay. Though somewhat irritating, considering this is a fantasy world.

I decided to postpone the choosing of a skill until later. The possibilities were to huge. I closed the book.

[I am a Grimoire.]

Shut up.

[My apologies.]

Though my adventure didn’t turn out to go the way I imagined, I definitely couldn’t wait to explore this world more and more.

Growl.

But for now, the only thing I considered was the culinary delicacies this world would bring.

This is fine.