A Country Boy Can Survive

Why am I not surprised.

After spending the afternoon being guided around the school by Louise, they arrived at her room. He was apprehensive about sharing a room with the young girl, but had been informed that an unused storage room was being cleaned and furniture was ordered to arrive sometime the next week. He was even less impressed with the pile of hay on the floor. 

     "I enjoy a good joke on occasion, but this—" he accentuated by pointing at the floor with an open hand and crossed arms-this isn't funny." Louise pouted, placed her hands on her hips, and hotly exclaimed. 

     "Well, I wasn't expecting to summon a commoner. I expected maybe a dragon or a manticore or a griffin. How was I supposed to plan for this?" The pinkette hoped to summon something impressive or perhaps a manticore like her mother had. However, she was entirely unprepared for Dante. She added the comment about him being a commoner to try and see if he'd deny it or try and claim some noble status, but he scowled at it instead. 

    "I suppose you can't be blamed, but did you expect to fit a dragon in here? And those other two exist as well?" He had already seen a dragon and nearly had a heart attack over it. Fictional depictions of the creatures didn't do justice to seeing one in person. It wasn't as big as he expected, but it could be young. He didn't know enough about them. Manticores and griffons were also common enough in mythology, if not as common in fiction, but he didn't want to know just how far this rabbit hole went until he knew what he was getting into. Louise looked at him as if he'd grown a second head. 

     "Of course they exist. The Griffon Knights is a prestigious order of knights that serve under the queen directly, and all their members include triangle class or higher mages with familiars capable of flight." Dante thought they equated to some paratrooper or something. They didn't sound like a general air force. 

     "I think I get it. They're some special air unit." Louise looked like she was running out of patience with Dante but took a deep breath. After she collected herself for a second, she crossed her arms and asked her own question.

     "How can you not know who the Griffon Knights are? Have you been living under a rock or something?" It was Dante's turn to look at her oddly. 

     "Have you not paid attention to anything since I got here?" Her mouth flew open, but he raised his hand to show he wasn't finished. 

     "Look, do you recognize my clothing or my truck at all? Have you ever even heard of anything like them?" Lousie looks over and thinks about what he said before shaking her head and responding. 

     "I may not be able to explain every odd thing about you, but it's preposterous to claim—" Dante interrupted her—that I'm from another world? That's exactly what I'm claiming, and I don't need you to believe me." He opened the window to reveal the last piece of evidence he'd ever need. Two moons shone brightly in the night sky, begging him to try and say it was a dream. 

     "My home, Earth, we only have one moon. We don't have mages and nobles or magic. There's no way either of our nations wouldn't have heard of the other by now, so I'm left with only one logical conclusion. I'm in an entirely separate reality now, and I have to adapt to survive." Louise stared at his back before she shook her head. He's out of his mind. At least, that's what she wanted to think. She didn't get to doubt him very much until he turned around and walked out the door. She hadn't heard him shout out that he was grabbing something from his truck, and she assumed he was upset with her so she took off after him. However, she failed to realize he went left and not right until after she found the dead end and took off for the stairs.

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     Dante got to the bottom floor and glared back up at the giant spiraling staircase. Whoever designed this place must've thought that people didn't have knees or something, and he felt the need for so many floors was unnecessary. The good thing was that he'd only need to climb those stairs to see the headmaster or go to bed, so he figured the exercise would be good for him. Until he saw a student with a black cloak float to the bottom, and his eyebrow started twitching dangerously. The student looked like he would say something, but when he saw Dante's glare and the gun on his waist, he chose life instead and ran off to wherever he was going.