Naofumi dashed up the stairs to his little brothers bedroom to see if he was home. He wanted more then anything for his little brother to always look up to him as a role model. The last thing Naofumi wanted was to be seen by him in the state that he had woken up in. Wild-eyed with his pants soaked. This reminded him to shower before heading to the library. He hadn't been asleep for more than half an hour. There was still plenty of time for him to make it to the library.

 He closed the door behind him very tightly and locked it before working up the bravery to look at himself in the bathroom mirror. What he saw bothered him but he wasn't going to let it scare him. The Naofumi that he saw looking back at him in the mirror was grey skinned like one of those fabled Grey Aliens he had only heard about and never seen. Although, he usually had dark circles under his eyes do to his unhealthy sleep patterns, the ones he had now looked serious. They were burgundy rather then purple as if he had created them using Amber Heards famous bruise kit. However, he didn't feel as if he had the time to worry about his reflection. His head was ringing from from the buzzing sound the bathroom lights were making which he normally wouldn't have been able to hear. Naofumi knew that he had to find that book his friend had told him about and cross over into the isekai world as soon as possible for he could no longer exist outside of a mental institution in this world anymore. 
 
Despite the loud noises he had to endure just to complete the simple tasks of taking a shower, getting dressed, and leaving the house, he found himself standing on the sidewalk in the evening air ready to embark on his journey all the while managing to hide the fact that there was something seriously wrong with him. As he stood there for a while congratulating himself in his mind the train rattled by on the above ground track a few blocks ahead. It was then that Naofumi noticed that the sound didn't  bother him at all. In fact nothing, from the group of school girls giggling loudly as they walked passed him to the honking of cars on the street, did.

 Knowing this, he now ran towards the train station without hesitation at all. It was an above ground train station and, although the train did take one stop in an underground station before reaching his final stop, he was sure that was not going to be enough to cause him any real discomfort for long. He made it to the platform with just enough time to grab himself a can of iced latte from the vending machine on the platform before his train arrived. He hadn't brought anything other then pocket change, a train pass, and his library card. Where he was going the money he had along with anything else that tied him to this world would be useless. 
 

 When he entered the train he was relieved to see that it had plenty of seats to sit on and handles to hold onto. There were also other passengers inside and the conductor, from what he could see of him, was just a little old man who looked to be about eighty. He decided to sit down on one of the seats rather than hold onto the handle bars. Although this train bared no resemblance to the one in his dream both inside and out, the idea of holding onto the bars bothered him. Before long, the train door slid closed and he was on his way. Naofumi didn't look back at his home stop thinking that it was the last time he'd see it. Instead he looked down at the can of iced latte in his hand so as to not give to much thought to what he was doing. When the train entered the underground tunnel that would take them to that one dreaded underground stop, the ingredients list on the can changed in a flash the minute the train car he was in was below ground level. Rather then the usual FDA approved list of flavourings, sweetening, and what little substances the drink contained that might account for something edible, the list read like this:

                        Radioactive, glow in the dark water, dried up milk dust(also tainted heavily with Fukushimas nuclear fallout), bleached          
                        Sugar, ester that tastes like coffee, ester that tastes like caramel, caffeine, soy.

Naofumi's heart sank at the sight of this. When he looked out the window and saw nothing but darkness, he knew that this was just another sick joke the princess, as he liked to call her, was playing on him again because the train was now underground. For some reason, she was able to bother him the most when he was in a confined space underground and he couldn't seem to figure out why. As he looked around at the other passengers in train he noticed that they, like the ingredients list on his latte can, had changed in appearance. Although, ugly, bloated and deformed from the constant exposure to water and food that was heavily contaminated by radiation, they all were just going about their day to day lives as if nothing was wrong at all. Naofumi didn't dare look at his reflection in the train window in fear of what he might see. Instead, he went ahead and popped the top of his latte can and defiantly chugged it down. He wasn't going to let her intimidate him especially not when he knew was so close to meeting her in person. The drink, however, didn't taste the same as he remembered it to. The milk was greasy and left a chalky residue on his tongue, the flavourings and sugar didn't do anything to improve the taste either.

 By the time he had finished his drink, the train started to move again. The drink burned in his guts. It was the first thing he had consumed after having woken up from the dream. Even though he wasn't quite sure why, he just knew that his condition was effecting not only his hearing but his since of taste, as well. He closed his eyes as the train started to speed up for he was sure he was going to throw up if he was made aware of the motion of the train.

 Before he knew it, he found himself in the library. He rushed to the bathroom, found the nearest empty stall, and puked into the toilet until he felt completely empty inside. Afterwards, he left the bathroom without washing his hands to avoid looking at himself in the bathroom mirror. As he looked across the vast library he wondered were to start searching for the book. It could be anywhere in any one of the many sections. However he trusted that the book would find him, as his friend had told him earlier, and so he followed his gut feeling. To his surprise, his gut feeling led him to the high school textbook section. There he found it just as his friend had described it - a plain red book without a title just the words Orange Tree embossed on its canvas cover in gold. Bursting with excitement, he opened the book to find that the first few pages consisted of nothing other than a few angry, frustrated journal entries by some nobody. There weren't any pictures or tales of heroes or heroism either. He was starting to feel as if he'd been fooled until he reached the pages that were left blank and did get in. 
 

                                                       Princess Maltys POV:

  When the four heroes arrived she could easily tell which one was the Shield Hero, her target and the key to her freedom. Although, she had a originally planned to accuse him of due the fact that she still carried the vague hope with her that the people of Melromarc would be on her side, she knew from her first attempt that that wasn't true. Now she had thought of something much better and this time things were going to go her way as they should've in the first place. Once her new plan played out, she could claim that Naofumi had her as much as she wanted and nothing could ever be done about it. Over her years of studying in magic school were she had supposedly lost her ity, she had learned how to create portholes into different dimensions through the dreams of people who were summoned from said dimensions. Through Naofumi's friend in Chicago she had actually travelled to Naofumi's dimension before. She was originally from Naofumi's dimension and hated it and that was why she had created the magic book which contained the kingdom of Melromarc. It was originally intended to be a safe haven for her to escape her horrid life. It was a beautiful kingdom where she alone was the princess. There wasn't any king or queen and she didn't have a sister at all. However, it seemed that this book had now fallen into the wrong hands and, from what Malty could see, meant that the book should simply be destroyed along with the kingdom of Melromarc because these people were not going to leave willingly. This is what Malty planned to do as soon as she crossed over into Naofumis dimension.

  The party the king was throwing to celebrate the arrival of a new set of heroes was catered by Maltys Grandmother. She was a fine cook and knew many odd dishes to cook for special occasions such as this one. The main course that she had prepared was a large roast duck the size of a pony with a pig sewn inside served on a well polished silver platter. It was duck pork. It was dork. Naofumi was helping himself to the food with gusto. As she watched from afar, Malty wished that he would also at least try the red wine. She needed him as drunk as possible for what she was about to do. Instead he wasn't showing any interest in it at all. Perhaps if a pretty lady convinced him to drink he would do it. Malty was desperate and this was the only thing she could think of right now. However, she wasn't going to go over there herself and do it. The thought of that made her skin crawl. Instead, she elbowed whats-her-face the two-faced backstabbing weasel who had stabbed her in the back when she was fighting Naofumi in her first attempt to get rid of him. .
"Go over there and get him drunk at once", she told her. The weasel looked at the Princess with confusion and the Princess could not tell if she was pretending to be all coy and innocent of such things or if she was just plain stupid. "You heard what I said. Now go!"

 For what seemed like forever, Malty watched from a distance as the weasel played with her hair and flirted with the disgusting pig, Naofumi as she so skilfully got him to consume a whole bottle of wine. She was better at this then Malty had thought. Before long he was sloppy drunk and trying to dance with the spear guy. Malty had always thought that there was something extra going on between those two but she didn't really care. As the party died down, she was careful not to lose sight of him in the crowd. She needed to be there when he passed out. It didn't take long for him to do so. Maltys Grandmothers red wine was famous for being very potent. 
   
   He passed out in front of the fireplace somewhere down in the tavern. As Malty stood over him as he slept, she kicked him in the head as hard as she could for all the sh*t he had put her through. She wished she could kill him right then and there but she needed him alive for now. Cautiously, she listened for the sound of anyone coming down the hall. The hall seemed to be dead quit so she started the spell to open the porthole she needed. The spell was completed successfully and she passed through the porthole with ease. The porthole closed behind her and, like that, Malty S. Melromarc was gone.

                                                      To be continued.