A/N: Before the chapter, I just wanted to show you guys the crazy art skills of MangaStoryFan who drew this picture of Karia, I was gonna shout him out before but, I thought saving it for new years would be more suitable.

Last chapter, Karia finally woke up after having an intense nightmare, and proceeded to leave Dahai's shack to let off some steam. Meanwhile Seric, Dahai, and Suzie were coming down the Volcano via a gondola, and after some shopping they return back to the shack. Dahai then examines Seric's body like promised, to find out that he has no organs whatsoever, and that he is a whopping 116 years old.

Seric's P.O.V.

"Get them!" The soldiers yell, all of them running while wearing heavy steal armor from head to toe, and armed with the same futuristic guns we saw in Vegahold.

The soldiers at Vegahold looked much more civilized with their uniforms, however these ones looked like knights trying to save a princess from a castle.

"AH!" I yell as they shoot a lazer next to me, making me start to run as well.

"Hey, what are you doing! Did you forget the commanders orders?!" A soldier yells as he tries to punch the others head, but only hurting his fist on the metal.

"Tch!" The man who shot his gun angrily responds.

We keep on running, and I'm somehow moving at the same pace as the soldiers. I guess I'm faster than I thought.

Also, the soldiers are shooting their laser guns at us, but the shots are pretty far off from actually hitting us.

Somehow, I find the time to think to myself while running, "Wait... Couldn't I just cover my head and be invincible? Never mind, the laser would just burn through anything on my head. And even if they shot my legs I would still fall down, and get captured."

"Hey, Seric! Hurry up or you're going to go back to that cell!" Karia yells as she's a ways away from me now, snapping me back into reality.

I start to pick up my pace, but still even when I'm fully running I'm faster than most of the soldiers but still slower than Karia. Then again, Karia is probably slowing down for me. Hopefully.

"Hey, uh, do you know where the boat is?" Karia asks.

"Huh?! If you don't know than where have we been going this whole time?! I remember I think, didn't we go straight the whole way other than the one left turn?" I ask, frustrated but trying to be rational since our lives are on the line.

"Ok, just making sure." Karia responds innocently.

"Wait so you actually knew?!" I ask.

"Yeah, obviously." She replies.

"Why did you scare me like that then?!" I yell out.

"Eh, I was bored." She says with a careless tone.

A second later another lazer hits a few metres away from me, "Ah! Why the hell are we arguing right now let's just keep running!"

Suddenly, from two metal paths to the left and right of ours, two more giant groups of soldiers are running towards us.

"We're almost there, let's keep going!" I yell as I see the staircase out of the Volcano, or Inner Magthera.

You know maybe I shouldn't of said that out loud, but whatever.

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Finally we reach the staircase. Suprisingly for the entire run I stayed at a safe distance from the soldiers behind us, even with the few additional groups that tried to cut us off from the left and right.

We then start to quickly descend down the blue steel stairs, in which I almost trip down a few times trying to catch up to Karia and reach the scolding hot rock.

Luckily, the soldiers don't seem to be coming down the stairs. I wonder why though, there's still lots of time to capture us. Something isn't adding up here.

I have a mini heart attack(although I don't even have a heart), when I realize that our feet will burn on the brown rock, but then I remember how the aluminum like shoes we're wearing are already heat resistant.

My theory is proven as we get off the descending staircase and head to the direction of our docked boat in the steamy cove.

I have a sigh of relief when I see our boat sitting in the water, exactly where it was before hand by the shore.

"GO GO GO!" We hear from far above, most likely the soldiers who are at the top of the staircase.

We then speed up a bit and clumsily run into the hot water to our way out of here, some of it splashing on our legs but it only burns a little.

"Hah! Let's-" Karia says with confidence as she's about to jump onto the boat, until her face turns completely pale with her jaw dropped.

"What are you doing?! Let's-" I say with confidence as I'm about to jump into the boat, but my reaction is exactly the same as hers.

It turns out, that our boat had a little leakage while we were gone.

What do I mean by that? Oh, just that the entire floor of our boat had completely melted.

"...Oh yeaaaaah. I forgot. The guy I bought this boat from said not to put it in heat..." Karia says with a depressed laugh.

"WHAT THE HELL DO WE DO NOW THEN!?" I yell shakily and angrily in the moment.

"I don't know! Stop sitting around and think as well!" Karia responds back.

I look around the cove area we're in, and see nothing but a few casual boats that wouldn't be nearly fast enough to get us out of here, and plus we would probably need a password to start it up.

"Karia, we're-we're screwed!" I yell on my impulse of fear.

"What are you a two year old? There's gotta be something..." Karia then seems to be thinking about something, but her face doesn't seem all that concerned. I think that should make me concerned at this point.

"Wait... That's it!" I yell out with a sliver of hope.

"Hm?" Karia tilts her head in confusion.

"Hey, announcer guy, my boat! Are you there?!" I think to myself, remembering the boat I used there beforehand against the inkcicle squid.

"..."

There's no response.

"He was petty about it last time, so maybe..." I whisper out loud to myself.

"Hey, um, you alright there?" Karia asks even more confused, stifling a laugh as well.

"Hey... Best friend? Ca-" I think to myself until-

"HEY HEY! WHAT'S UP PAL?!" I hear the blaring voice in my head.

Karia doesn't seem to hear anything but is still laughing at me, probably thinking I'm insane.

"Please, can I use you as a boat again?! Best friend?!" I think to myself smartly, adding that last part to appease him.

"Hm... But last time... You kicked me! You... You're a jerk!" He responds, crying a bit at the end.

"You're the one who told me to do it in the first place! Hah, I mean I'm sorry, I promise I won't kick you again so please!" I think to myself hopefully.

"Please who?" He asks smugly, although he doesn't even have a face.

"What?!... Oh! Please, best friend!" I think to myself, gritting my teeth.

"...Oh alright! I guess pals have to help each other out eh!" He says happily.

I then have a sigh of relief and a big grin on my face.

...

...

"Um... Hello? Best friend?" I think to myself, as nothing was happening.

"Hey!" He responds.

"Why aren't you transforming?" I think to myself worryingly.

"Well, that's because you didn't call me dummy! Shout out my name!" He replies like I should have known.

"HEY, BEST FRIEND!!" I yell out from the top of my lungs(oh wait) as I'm mad at how long this is taking.

Suddenly, once again out of thin air the same small pure white boat appears out of thin air overtop of the shallow water.

Now that I'm not zoned out, I take a look at my surroundings and see Karia laughing her ass off, not seeming to care about our situation like I thought. Looking back the soldiers for some reason still haven't come to chase us yet.

"Yeah yeah whatever, but come on Karia let's start moving our stuff over!" I say as I run over to our old boat and hop in the hole, starting to pick up some of our soaked clothes and bags of food.

"I didn't think being scared would mess up someone this much! What the hell was that?! AHAHA! You should of- you should of seen your face! And then suddenly a boat comes out of thin air?!" She continues to laugh as she finally starts to help me move over our stuff.

🌋🌋🌋
FUN FACT: Seric's name was originally going to be "Ciro", but I decided to change it because I felt it was too similar to Hiro from Big Hero 6.
🌋🌋🌋

A few minutes later, we finally finish moving all of our soaking wet belongings to "My Best Friend", luckily discovering that what was inside of the control room on the front of the boat is empty space, in which we shoved all of our stuff into.

We we're going to leave a bit sooner since we're being hunted down, but Karia insisted that she wasn't leaving anything behind.

Finally I head to the joystick to start turning the boat around, and Karia sits down on a seat that formed on the boat, made of the same white substance.

"Hmph, I guess you can do something after all." Karia snickers.

The soldiers are still nowhere to be seen, even after all of this time. Somethings off.

"Alright, let's go!" I say while standing, pulling back the long white joystick, which causes the boat to head straight to the open gate we came through.

Get your mind out of the gutter if that's what your thinking of.

"Damn, this thing's fast!" Karia replies with an amused smile.

"I know right! But anyways, what's up with the soldiers?" I ask as we enter the gate.

"Huh? What do you mean, they were chasing us and we lost them didn't we?" She responds.

I look off the side of the boat around the control room, and see that the gate to get inside is open as well.

I then realize that driving in this tight corridor could be a bit tricky.

"...Never mind let's talk after, I just want to focus on driving right now." I say not wanting to distract myself as I'm still not perfect at using this.

"Huh? You just asked." Karia replies.

I cringe at how awkward I made this, but still focus on driving nonetheless.

We finally get outside the gate, speeding by the border security into the open ocean on the way out. You would assume they would be concerned about us, but still there's no guards with their guns pointed at us.

"Ah... fresh air! I can actually breathe!" Karia says as she dips her hand in the cooler water next to the Volcano, splashing it on her face.

"No kidding, the heat didn't make me uncomfortable because of my body, and plus I even had some heat resistant clothes. That must of been terrible for you." I say with a laugh as I look over at Karia in her worn out purple t-shirt and blue jeans.

"Huh?! Where the hell did you get that from?" Karia asks as she just notices my aluminum like clothes now.

"Dahai and Suzie gave me it for free, even though it looks kinda weird it is comfy." I say as I feel the material.

"Yeah, it must of been nice... eh?" She says with a angry tone.

"Heh, yeah. Anyways, do you want to know what I learned today, you young'n?" I say with a smug face.

"Young'n?" She says with a confused face.

"Well, it turns out that I have no organs, like at all. Which is uh... Pretty... Weird..." I say as I start to have a mini existential crisis.

I shake my head as I barely put it in the back of my mind, "Anyways, according to Dahai I'm 116 years old."

"Eh?! 116?!" She says with a shocked and interested face.

"Yeah." I say proudly.

"Well shit. All I know for sure is that you sure don't have the maturity of someone that old." She responds, taking this rather easily.

I start to take this in, and realize that she's probably right.

"Anyways, let's get some more distance before we fully relax." I say as I pull the joystick back more, continuing to drive out into the seemingly endless ocean.

🌊🌊🌊

"Karia... about Aeko... do you think he's... really dead?" I ask her nervously.

"Well, who knows. Maybe he landed on a platform above the lava, or maybe he didn't. Like I was saying before, we're probably going to have to fight a lot of people during this "quest", and of course means that we may have to kill them as well." Karia says in a laid back but serious tone.

"I don't like this... I don't... I don't want to be a murderer..." I say meekly with concern as I start to break down a bit.

Karia actually seems to have a empathetic face for once, "Well... we won't always have to. We can always just knock them out if they're not a big threat. But, for the sake of both of us, you need to be able to take this stuff better. If you get paralyzed in fear when we need to move... It's over." She replies seriously.

Although I don't agree with being okay with murder, I understand her point to an extent, and so I lower my head to think about myself more, standing and continuing to pull back the joystick and driving into the endless blue while Karia gets the tablet shaped map prepared.

A/N: There you have it! The last chapter of The Five Kings of 2018, as well as the conclusion to the Magthera arc.

I can't believe this is already on chapter 20, I still remember back in late August when I was still deciding whether or not to release the first chapter or not, and finally uploading it and constantly looking to see if I got any more views.

I've met so many people on Wattpad these past few months, like MangaStoryFan, and ImAKawaiiOtaku as well as other people I've talked to through stories that I never thought I would, and I'm glad I did!

Well anyways, I hope you guys will continue to support me through this coming year!

And so, for the last time of 2018... Be sure to consider voting or commenting if you enjoyed, and see you guys next week! and see you next year- (I mean week).