The Last Legendary System

The footsteps got closer.

"I don’t know... I don’t know..." Her head snapped left to right for what to hold. She spotted the revolver around his belt.

Benign froze when he felt her hand move to his belt. He remembered the signal. "Shoot upwards twice."

"What! The soldiers are ahead!"

"Just do it! The Firewing!"

Her eyes widened. She tilted the revolver upward and fired. The shot clicked. "Is it empty?" She tossed the weapon down and pulled out her steel rod.

Her weapon revealed an arrow mouth. She shot the only arrowhead in it. A small red sun lit up in the sky for three seconds. Her throat hitched when another arrow pointed at her.

"Th-They are here..." she squeaked.

SCREECH!

Benign let out a breath, "He is here..." He couldn’t miss that stubborn cry in his sleep. He felt the wind as the Firewing descended upon the weakened soldiers.

It flew towards them, and Benign grabbed his sword before he was lifted off the ground.

Zina’s screams informed him how high they moved. The Firewing landed on a hilltop on Benign’s orders. His eyes were already closing up.

"Zina, tell him where to go when you’re calm..."

Her panicked breathing was the last thing he heard before his consciousness drifted off.

___

A dozen mirrors stood at the sides of a dark hallway. There was an unspoken invitation to stride down to the door at the end.

Benign stood at the entrance, unsure if he should take it. He touched his sides and nodded. It was a dream.

He hadn’t gotten one of those since being in another world. "How cliché would it be if the last few days had been a dream and I woke up in the barracks."

He chuckled lightly. "I’ll probably retire and become a writer." That was his dream if nothing worked out.

Write great stories of adventurous men and women if he never got to have his own adventures. Inspire the next generation to be braver than he was.

He stepped into the hallway. It remained silent.

Step. Step. Step. Step.

He waited at one mirror, looking back at a reflection he knew was his but couldn’t understand when he never looked that... way.

He ran his hands through his hair until he ran out of hair to take his hands through.

The reflection continued down, and pushed hair behind their ears from habit.

"Huh." He continued ahead. The last mirror he passed made him return. His reflection never walked past. He hummed, and continued moving.

"What a dream."

___

White light overhead. A soldier’s nightmare.

Benign rolled to his side and pulled the softness under his head to cover his face.

It took him a minute to realize that the peace he felt wasn’t because of proximity to death again. He lifted himself off the bed.

His eyes scanned the large white room for any threat. The red box on the table seemed like the only uncertainty. He reached for it. A badge and a uniform were the only items inside.

He caught his blade on the ground a distance from the door. He didn’t wonder who left it there, as long as it was close.

He returned his back to the bed, and lifted the box to his stomach. He raised the badge against the light in the room. A silver-plated badge with a purple ridge. The symbol of an axe and a sword crossed in the middle.

The name of the league written in foreign symbols. Benign dropped the badge on the bed. He raised the clothes above the light. Breathable materials since the light still pierced his eyes. The trousers had kneecaps he planned to remove.

He dropped the box and everything with it on the ground. Being sure that his sides were still bruised, he gradually stood up from the bed, being alert for tearing. He couldn’t trust the medical skills of Zina.

There was no pain. He tapped under his arms to find tightly secured wrapping, and the soreness disappeared. "Oh..." I might be in the headquarters and not the shelter." He looked around again.

If the location wasn’t another shelter opened by the portal, then he wasn’t expected to leave his bed immediately. Especially if he’ll be facing Lady Alana, who he still didn’t know what she expected of him when she dropped him at the shelter. He found a mirror etched to a wall.

He spun once. "I lost weight." His eyes dropped to his legs. A pain tore through his chest. Those immaculate calves built from extensive running and jumps. He looked away from his lanky legs. "Gone."

Along with the loss of weight in the right places, weight gained in wrong places couldn’t be overlooked. He touched his face and sighed. Water stored in his cheeks for fear of dehydration. He patted those cheeks softly. "We’ll work on that later."

Overall, his appearance never made a drastic change since his arrival in this world. Hence, the reflections he met in that dream left him more confused. He shook the thought off and returned to bed.

[Congratulations on becoming a Protector!]

"Didn’t you say that already?"

[A little premature since you haven’t gotten your badge then,]

[You have now.]

[I’ll outline the benefits of a Protector’s badge]

"I’m not interested. I just know to flash it if I need something from a government. Like Ashold used to do." He sighed as he reached for the blanket by his feet. "That guy really pissed off a couple of people that want to get at me."

In the book, Ashold was revered as the first Hero in a while, so the past enemies of the former hero were long dead. In Ashold’s case, he never defeated a general nor the warlord. Nor the villains who started the disruption of the realms.

That guy had only killed a villain’s sidekick important to a grand plan and called it a day.

"If I remember correctly, there was a prophecy of a scary awakening. The fated villain."

Remembering that sent a shiver down his spine. The events that existed for the past Hero. The events that will unfold with his own existence. He had to be ready for all of it.

"I just need to grow stronger quickly, right?"

[Yes, Benign. Quickly.]

"Alright..." he snuggled into bed. "After this little nap. Health is wealth, they say."

There was a hum above him.

The chills sped down his spine as he lifted his head. A pair of blue eyes dug into his brown ones.

"No. Get up. We waited enough."

The brutal coldness of her tone couldn’t be mistaken. His sword remained on the ground, while she towered over his bed with a piercing stare.

Benign blinked. "Rox...?"