The snow's falling harder than usual this winter. It's fine though. Our bodies are so used to the cold that we venture into even snowstorms poorly-clothed to hunt and return with little damage to our bodies. If you didn't get used to it, you were one of the poor folks who died earlier on during your stay here. It's tragic, but true.

Given the poor weather, I'd say about fifty of us will die this year. I would also say that forty of us will survive the coming trial but will require immediate medical attention. That leaves the remaining ten of us to actually clear the trial unscathed. Whoever those people are, they are definitely the lucky ones.

Despite all of this doom and gloom, I'm actually pretty excited. After all, I just have to do is hope that I'm one of the lucky ten. That's all. If I succeed, I return to our home village, Velka. I pray that the goddesses keep me safe, but hey, I am feeling kind of lucky today. I can feel it! Today, I will at last be free of this frozen hell.

At least, that's what I thought back then. I didn't have the slightest inkling that on that fateful day seven years ago, my life would never be the same. I had no idea that this particular incident would make my six years on Mt. Dragnor seem petty in comparison. My name's Jacob Dahlgrun and on this particular day, I went from your average village knight in-training to being known as a weapon sought after and feared by the gods and mankind- a Synchronizer.

シンクロナイザー

- Synchronizer -

Book I: Overture

Arc I Opening: Kuroi Hana

Level 1 Act I: Just a Regular Snowy Morning

[Guardian Era, Year 20XX, Seven Years Ago]

I remember that morning clearly. It was as dreary as ever up here and the snow seemed to have no intentions of letting up for today. It was just a regular snowy morning to me. I guess most people would consider it cold up here, but it's not that big of a deal to us. After being stuck here for six years, you kind of get used to it. If anything, it helps get you up in the morning.

I looked over my attire once more. I was clothed in a dark-red, sphinx hair tunic with black sphinx hair pants lined with orichalcom threads. I may look like I'm wearing a normal dark-red shirt and pair of black pants, but trust me, it would prove a quite difficult task to kill me with magic in these clothes. Clothes of this caliber are close to magic proof, and in some cases bullet-proof. Dragon fire however is a different story.

At the time, I was slipping on my armored gloves and boots. They were nice and warm, but they were also relatively useful for slicing my targets since my gauntlets were equipped with small blades.

After that, I slipped my hammerspace pouch onto my belt. These useful little bags are able to hold virtually anything because they're enchanted with dimensional distortion magic. Despite barely being larger than my fist, I could stick a sword in there and it'd fit just fine! No one in our village can actually use dimensional distortion magic though, so we import these from our neighboring country Chronos; however, they are incredibly expensive. My folks got me this before I left to train on this mountain, so it's one of my most prized possessions.

Okay, I should be good. Just one last thing, I thought to myself. Shuffling over to a small box next to me, I pulled out the Neowulf, my personal magic-gun, and slipped it into the gun holster on my belt. Looking back on my time on that wretched mountain, I was a lucky guy to have gotten this gun. It had a well-placed knife towards the end of the bottom side of the muzzel, similar to that of a bayonet's. I took one last look at myself; I was ready to go.

Suddenly, the sound of footsteps reached my ears. Tap. Tap. They were light. It was made obvious that someone was trying to sneak up on me. If I hadn't been listening carefully to my surroundings, I probably wouldn't have heard them. Turning towards the sound, I smiled at what stood before me.

"Olivia, it's pretty early you know. Are you sure you should be out of the girl's barracks yet?" I asked quietly.

The blonde girl before me grinned. Her emerald-green eyes were almost shining with glee. "What's a matter Jake? Scared of getting busted by the teachers again?" she teased.

I rolled my eyes with a hearty chuckle. Olivia is always like this. She's the daughter of the first-ranked noble of our land. It wasn't too surprising that she was so carefree with all of the special treatment she got. To be honest, it used to seriously piss me off when we first got here.

Despite that issue, Olivia and I were surprisingly good friends. She kept me on my toes, and she was my equal in almost everything. There would be things I'd excel in, and there would be things she would excel in. It was a constant struggle between us to see who the better knight was.

Olivia preferred her hair long, which in our village was a symbol of confidence. It's simple really. It showed that even if the girl had long hair, which is really easy to grab in a real fight, they were confident in their ability to prevent their hair from becoming a weak point in real-time combat.

"Well? What did ya come for?" I asked, "I know you didn't come here just to tell little ol' me good luck."

It was Olivia's turn to roll her eyes at me. "Oh please," she said, "I'm sure it'll be easy as pie! You're taking this too seriously," said the blonde reassuringly.

"Don't blame me when you get hurt, Olivia. Even your dad isn't allowed to interfere during the rite of passage," I told her stiffly.

I had a reason to worry I guess. Olivia was dressed in a similar garb to mine, just without the blades on her boots. I still hadn't put my barrier jacket on yet, but it was clear to me that Olivia had no intentions of wearing one. Seriously, this girl was way too overconfident for her own good.

"Oh don't be such a worry wart. I never knew you cared so much," she replied.

I sighed.

"Ugh, Olivia, Jake, you both know you're not supposed to be hanging out this early in the morning. Geez, I figured you two would have that in your heads by now after getting busted for it for six years. Continuously," a voice complained.

Turning to the owner of the voice, I tilted my head. I was actually pretty surprised. It wasn't a teacher, lucky us. A boy about the same age as myself stood before us. His hair was black in contrast to my auburn hair and his eyes were green in contrast to my blue ones. This boy was completely covered in armor and chainmail. I had actually forgotten to put some on myself.

I had him to thank for reminding me. "Thanks a bunch, Clow, I would've completely forgotten about that if you hadn't reminded me," I said, ignoring the boy's complaint.

Seeing me dive back into my tent to fetch my own shirt of chainmail, Clow snickered at me. "Now that would have sucked," teased Clow.

I laughed with him. "So sue me," I said back. "It's early in the morning and I'm still sorta waking up."

Clow shrugged his shoulders as he uneasily gripped the handle of his weapon: a large, red halberd. "We're going to be the first group to run this version of the trial in an entire century. Aren't you two the least bit worried?" Clow asked us.

Olivia shook her head. "No sweat, I'm wearing my best gauntlets today!" she answered. "Besides, I've been training hard. When I go back, I'll only need to grab my chainmail and I'll be set to go."

"No barrier jacket?" I asked.

"The tunic and chainmail should be warm and safe enough. Sides, a barrier jacket'd only add weight hiking up the remainder of the mountain!" she explained.

I nodded. "Hmm, makes sense."

We were all sort of on edge this morning. The last time the nobles let the proctors run this trial, more than half of the children who underwent the trial died. It was a huge incident and it left our home with few new youngsters to help out around with the village wide trade- mercenaries for hire. Deciding it was to our benefit, we ventured off to breakfast from the boys' barracks. I had no idea at the time, but in a few minutes I was going to wish that I had never woken up this morning.

Level Music:

1) "The Immortal Land" by BrunuhVille - Introduction

2) "Celtic Music - Guardians of the Woods" by BrunuhVille - Chapter 1 Act I Background Music (BGM)

Author's Notes:

So aside from the heavy grammar edits, I've changed some details around, and am using a new name for the protagonist. This is not a reboot. It's a tale of alternate events and can be seen as an alternate canon. The storyline will be similar up until this story's second arc. Both plot lines are connected, but it is the reader's job to figure out how when the stories reach a certain point.

Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed the first act of Level 1!

With the best of regards,

~ KaiserSchwarz