Chapter 1 - In Another World, Getting Visited By A Girl At Night

I was brought into this dungeon with my head covered so I don't really know where exactly I am. I can only tell that's it's not that far from the hall where the accident... I mean incident happened because it only takes less than thirty minutes of walking and riding something slow to arrive here. 

Today is the second day since I was thrown into this dungeon. By now I already realized that things aren't quite normal. If this was really a prank by Azeez, the event should be long over by now.

After rethinking the situation at the cathedral like room, the Azeez back then was actually slightly different, he was... older, I think. At first I still make denial, thinking that it probably was just a make-up. But after a day has passed and the situation hasn't changed, I begin to accept the reality that the situation is too weird. I recall what one was said by the Azeez look-alike, am I really being summoned? To some kind of other world? Isn't this some kind of supernatural things like being spirited away?

Talking about supernatural, it's actually pretty believe-able for me. I have an acquaintance who is an esper, or as common people call as freak of nature, back in Earth. At least that much proves that although very rare, supernatural things do exist to some extent. About the possibility of getting summoned to another world, although not impossible, the timing was really great huh. I don't know whether to consider myself lucky for surviving a fall or unlucky for getting imprisoned here.

Although I'm not a big fan of supernatural stuffs and that I don't exactly know why am I suddenly here, I still feel relieved that I'm still alive. I'm still wearing my pizza delivery pants, that means I was transported here wholly. I survived a fall from six stories building, what a miracle. 

The dungeon cell I'm currently in right now is pretty small, probably only around 3x3m with a thin cotton-filled bed atop a stone slab as my place for me to rest. Since it's most likely an underground dungeon, there is no window, the only air ventilation is the cell bars which is also the door. There is also no mirror or toilet in here. I have to get to a latrine room while being guarded to relieve myself, not to mention I haven't even allowed to take a shower or clean myself for the last two days. The lighting is from outside on the wall facing my cell. There is an old lamp-like thingy with some kind of stone that emits dim light in it. Definitely not a normal lamp because it doesn't look like a light bulb, LED, nor a candle.

In these two days, I've actually received a pretty hospitable treatment despite the bad lodging. They actually give three hot meals a day. Although the taste is pretty bland, it's still a proper meal enough to fill a man's stomach.

I'm not sure how long a single day is in this world, so I'll only call it a day after a full cycle of day and night. And talking about days, day three at the dungeon is almost over, it's already night now since the guards have brought the dinner for today a an hour ago.

There is nobody to talk too, the guards are all grumpy and barely reply to my question, not even when he took me to the latrine room. The guy literally stand just 3 meters from me. He was watching over me while I take care of my business. That was pretty awkward for both of us. I tried to start a conversation to break the ice but he mostly ignores me.

Oh did, I mention that the toilet is pretty pseudo-medieval? I don't know whether it is because this is a toilet in a dungeon, but the place is terrible. It's a small room that's just slightly bigger than my cell with only a single pit with a cover to be used as the toilet. Although I must say the place doesn't appear to be dirty, it still smells a little.

There is a pseudo fabric-tissue thingy for wiping purposes. It's a relief that it's not a multiple-use kind of wiper or sponge. There is also a clean water in a bucket to be used too. At least they have the bare minimum for being hygienic.

Back to the current time. As said before, it should be night now. I'm not sleepy yet, I barely do anything that can make me feel tired. All day long just lying on a thin bed made out of cotton. I wonder how long will I have to stay here. Since this is most likely another world with different kind of science, there are too many unknown factors to be prepared against. So I've decided to gather more information before trying to break away from this dungeon.

I recalled that one of the man in the room where I was summoned said something like insolence and a king.

If this really is some kind of another world and that old man really was the king, did I actually slap a real, bona fide, royalty? That was a new experience. I've faced many big figures before, but this one is new. An actual royalty huh? A king to be exact.

While I'm lazily lying around. I can hear a sound of footsteps nearing my cell.

There shouldn't be anymore meal today. Have they finally decided to let me out? Has the verdict on my lese majeste came out? No, wait, if it really is that, it can't be in the middle of the night like this.

The footsteps are now really close. I can already see a silhouette of someone in front of my cell.

It's a hooded figure. A figure of a kid to be exact.

I'm still laying down on the bed. Pretending to be asleep while stealthily taking a look.

The little visitor is standing in front of the cell bar, looking at me. I can't figure out his/her appearance due to the dim light and the hood.

"Mr. Hero..."

It's a girl's voice. What the hell is a little girl doing in a place like this.

I still keep on pretending to be asleep.

"Hey, Mr. Hero."

Who is Mr. Hero. Why the hell is she keep calling me that.

"Mr. Hero. Hey, I need to talk with you. Hey."

She seems a little desperate, let's try to tease the kid a little and see what is she up to. This might be a chance to gather information.

"Mr. Criminal, you will be hanged tomorrow and I can help you get out from here."

I jumped right away from the bed and rush to the cell bar, my face bulging out between the bars.

"HANGED?! THEY GONNA HANG ME?! GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

"Now you talk, huh."

"Hah?!.... huh?..."

"..."

"..."

Our eyes are staring at each other. This kid, she actually tricked me. And I actually fell for it. Well, who would not be intrigued when the topic is about your execution. I just had my life saved from a falling to death, can't lose it again so soon like this. This kid, she's going to be a smart one in the future.

"Haaaah..." I let out a heavy sight, pull my face away from the cell bars and turn back to my bed.

"We need to talk."

She keep insisting on talking with me.

"...What is it?"

I just lazily reply while lying down on my bed, facing the ceiling.

She looks at my attitude and wait a little before continue speaking.

"I just want to see what kind of person the hero is."

What kind of person am I? And by the way, I'm not a hero, please don't call me with such an embarrassing name.

"I've heard that heroes are noble people of great character. My sisters have always told me stories about how they will save the world from bad monsters and evil."

The usual heroic stuff huh? Sorry to shatter your dreams, kid. But I'm not a hero material. Blame your sisters for giving such a false hope. Monsters and evil? Does this world have that kind of things? More reason not to rely on me, nuh-uh.

"But seeing you now, it's more like a criminal thug without manners. I'm disappointed. You even hit lord father despite his benevolence."

"Say what you want, kid. I heard that I was summoned or something, for your information, I didn't ask to be brought here, that was a forced kidnapping. A breach of my right. If you want to call someone a criminal, look at those who does the summoning." I retort against her claims. I'm grateful for being miraculously saved at critical moment, but they don't need to know that for now. 

Did she say 'lord-father'? Is she the princess or something?

"Silence, you who easily hit people even after being shown kindness must be a bad guy."

"I admit that it was my mistake to slap the old guy. He really resembles someone I know after all, and that somebody is in a need for a beating."

"...."

She seems surprised after I suddenly apologized, did she think I will keep denying her statements?

"You actually have some heart. I almost lose hope on you."

What the hell is this kid saying to her senior.

"Oooh, I have a big heart indeed. In fact, I'm the most heartful person you've ever met. Tell that sisters and father of you that the 'Hero' is actually a really nice guy." I say that with a ridiculing tone to tease her a little. I shifted my gaze to her while still laying lazily on bed.

"Hmph. I commended you a little and your head actually gets this big."

The little princess snorted and takes off her hood. She appears to be just around 11-12 years old. She is one cute little lady. Way different from her nasty father. Long chestnut colored twin-tail hairstyle all the way to below her shoulder, with a wavy part by the end of the hair. Fair skinned and with face like innocent little angel if she isn't frowning and didn't make such an unchild-like remarks just now.

I can't believe it. If she's really that Azeez look-a-like guy's daughter, then the mother must be one hell of an angel.

She can already speak like that at such a young age, I'm afraid on what her future will be. She's like a little angel that acts like a little devil.

"Well anyway, I'll talk a little with you, but be sure to put a good word for me. I might actually be hanged if the whole royalty is like you."

"Don't worry about that, lord father is busy with something else. Your matter is already unimportant to him."

Hey hey hey, does that mean I'll be forgotten and have to rot in this dungeon?

"Then try to talk with your sisters, royal princesses sound like a position with some influence right? Tell them that the hero is a good guy and was just confused back when he was summoned or something."

She paused a little on my words, her gaze which is still frowning fall straight on me. Am I being too demanding?

"My sisters are not in the castle. They are in a faraway place, don't expect anything extravagant from them. Hmph!"

Not in the castle? I see. They must be either on some distant places for education or political purposes. By politic, I mean getting marriage and stuffs. I'm not much accustomed, but I figure that this kind of thing should be common in such type of high society, especially since they look like in pseudo-medieval era. High class ladies sure have it cruel, huh? Well, not like it matters much to me anyway.

"I see. I understand. I'm sorry for not noticing."

I apologized once again. The looks on the little princess' face shows that she is also against forced marriage. Seeing how intelligent she is, she must have known that she too will have to do the same thing in just a few years from now.

This remind me of some of the people I met back then. Back when my 'odd jobs' are still a little on the extreme side.

If I was still the same character as before, I would offer my assistance to at least help her run away from home. But this time the situation is different. Since I'm most probably in some kind of different world (If I'm not in some kind of dream), I don't even know what the world outside looks like. Much less helping her, I'm the one being stuck behind bars and needs help.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She stares at me silently with her eyebrows knitted. Really, don't pity me like that, I feel like I'm the one that need to pity you instead.

"You have decent understanding after all. I thought you were just an ignorant savage."

Ah there she is, she's back to her previous attitude. Does that mean my value has rises a little in her eyes?

"Well, I'm a totally 'good' guy after all."

"Yeah right..."

She no longer gives big reaction to my joke. She's quick in getting used to this stuffs.

"So, what do you want to know? Something about what my world is like?"

"No, such thing is unimportant. I'm just curious to what kind of person the legendary hero is like."

"Only that? You only want to know things about me?"

"Yeah, although you might think it's nothing, it means a lot to me."

I smiled a little. I have to do it right, got to make my image good so I can plead for a help. Now then, how much should I tell her?

"Okay... So, uh, from where do I start? People call me Axl. I should be 31 years old soon. I don't know how does your world's time system work, but you can think of it as a young adult."

She gives this disbelief look when I say young adult. Hey, no matter what, I couldn't have looked that old right?

"I think I'm most likely half western and half Asian. I speak English, a little Spanish, a little mandarin, and some other languages, just enough for everyday communication."

...I paused for a moment. Now that I think about it, how do I understand the language of this world, or at least, the language of this country. In my ears, they speak English with a little bit of foreign accent, almost unnoticeable. I also noticed that sometimes the movement of the little princess's lips are inconsistent to the words I heard from her. There's nothing to do with that, let's just be grateful that there is no language barrier for now.

"I don't really understand, but does what you mean is that you are a descendant of different races? You also speak our language fluently, how do you that?" 

She's also a sharp one huh.

"You can think of it like that. As for the language, I don't really know about it myself."

"Hmm, that's probably one of the Goddess' blessing." She crosses her arms while making a thinking posture.

Goddess' blessing, I remember something like that being said at the summoning event.

"What Goddess? I heard about it back then, am I supposed to receive a blessing of some sort?"

She pauses a little and gives me glare. Did I say something bad?

"The Goddess is the one that oversee our kin! The protector and the deity of our great Kingdom of Gloumell Altaire! The lore stated that when a hero is successfully summoned to this world, the said hero will receive great blessings from the Goddess. That's the one thing that differentiate a summoned hero with the one from this world. They wield great and mysterious power, powerful enough to vanquish the evil and protect the just!" Wow, she says it with great spirit, like how a teenage girl explains her favorite boyband to someone. Anymore than that her eyes will begin to sparkle. Her inner self is flooding out, she is still a kid deep inside after all. Now that's a more familiar look. That's how a kid is supposed to act.

"I see. But I don't feel anything different with my body though. I don't feel stronger, healthier, or smarter in any way. You sure the goddess gives blessings?"

"That can't be. The legend tells that the summoned hero will always receive a blessing. It was recorded that one time there was a hero with super strength, another has flying ability, there was even one with an exotic charm ability. The record stated that they get to ask for what kind of power they want."

"There were other heroes before? So I'm not the first and only one huh." Apparently hero summoning might not be a rare thing.

"The hero summoning ritual has been done for ages. There were many recorded cases and also many that were done in secret."

"They summon so many people, does the being you called as demon lord is so strong that they can't defeat them or what?"

"The demon lord... is... he has been defeated long ago. It's just a new one will rise from the remaining demon tribe. So heroes are always necessary to suppress the demon kin."

So it's like that huh, an repeating loop of hating each other. I've guessed at least that much. Even if the variables are different, the situation is the same. Even on Earth we can state various similar cases if we compare a demon lord and heroes as a two group with differences, whether in term of race, religion, political view, or even just favorite sports team. This so called demon lord from the so called demon kin is probably just another race of this world.

"Wait there, missy. that sounds like a never-ending cycle. Why were you at war with the so called demon kin anyway." I ask her with serious tone.

"It has always been like that. History shows that the demon always try to harm our kin and we have to fight back. The only solution to end the war is to exterminate the other party." She replies with a straight forward reason, as if quoted from a book.

"Harm the human kin? Are they some kind of monster? What do they look like?"

"The book shows that they are mindless beast with horns and spikes. Unnatural being that devour everything on its path."

"Wait, history this, book that. Have you even seen the real thing?"

"Well, uh, I... I haven't. I've always been in the imperial city and the demon kin mainly stays at their own continent to the east."

She's getting fidgety when I ask her that question. Let's push her a little bit more, maybe I can establish a higher standing here.

"So how can you say that they are bad. Saying that those so called 'demon' as mindless beast."

The little princess lose her words on my rebuke. She looks down and doesn't argue back as if acknowledging of being wrong or maybe thinking about something

A moment later she speaks again, "So it's true. She was right, you really are different. "

She looks back at me straight on the eyes. The previously down look on her is nowhere to be seen. She has this glimmering eyes full of happiness and hope. I wonder what is this about.

"Now then princess. Tell me about this world. I haven't seen the outside world, but it's most probably different compared to my world. I need a major picture of what is going on if you want me to do something."

I'm trying to extract information from her. Now the situation is more like I'm the one interrogating her instead of her asking me questions.

Till now, I've concluded that this world has different level of technology, or simply saying, different era. They still use spear and swords for weapon, metallic armor instead of composite materials for defenses, there doesn't seem to be any tools that resemble high-tech machine around or at least being carried around. The only unusual one is still the lighting method which is from a flashing stone, or at least that's how it is here in the dungeon.

My assumption should be correct, even if this is some kind of backwater jail, the least they could have is electricity as a source of power. At most they should be at medieval era right now.

Am I gonna stuck in this world forever? Is there a way for me to go back to earth? That kind of thoughts are swimming around my mind right now.

"I don't know when you will be able to get out, so be grateful, the kind me will be telling you things about our world." She says it with a prideful look, really similar to when a senior employee acts superior toward the new employees , as if they own the company.

"My, what a kind little lady you are. Not only cute, but also kind and knowledgeable."

I teased her a little, let's see how she react to praises. If she's easily pleased, I may be able to get even more benefit. Might even be able to ask her for the cell key.

"..."

Hmm?

"What do you think you are saying to a kid. So you have that kind of interest, huh?"

She puts on a looks of disdain while stepping a back a little.

"Wha-, what?! Hey, who is what. No, you misunderstand!" I immediately change from laying down position to sitting position.

Oh no, things are going the wrong way, I didn't expect her to be knowledgeable on such a thing, is she really a kid? I'm in no way a pedo. I like boobs, and I like 'em big!

"Hahaha, look at yourself!"

What's this? Is she....

"You must have thought that I maybe an easy girl because I'm still a kid, praising me a little and expecting me to help you more."

It really is.... is she an esper? Can she read my mind? Or is she really that mature in the inside.

"Let me tell you this, don't expect to get anything more from me. You lecher."

Ugh, that last word hurts. I should just use a joke as a reply.

"Whatever are you saying, I, in any perspective, am a noble-hearted man. Such a thought never crossed my mind." I say it with my eyebrow raised and my index finger pointing up while firmly looking at her.

"Yeah right." She chuckled.

"Enough joking, so kid, can you tell me about this world?"

"Is that how you ask for a lady for help? Such nobility, I'm impressed, if you ask with the 'magic word', then I may consider telling you."

*twitch*

If only there is no cell bars separating us I will pinch her ear and drag her around mercilessly.

"Alright then your highness, the one blessed with an unparalleled beauty and kindness under the blue sky, would you PLEASE share a small part of your great knowledge with this lowly humble man, as a pure act of nobility?"

This time I go without limit. It might be a little bit sarcastic, but so be it.

"*Che* Well, I planned to tell you from the beginning anyway. Just be sure to tell me about your world too." That prideful snort, she's not intrigued by the sarcastic remark at all. I had hoped for her to be at least a little angry. Getting her flustered is simply impossible after all. She has yet to tell me her name... Not like it matters. 

Also, did I hear it wrong? Tell you about Earth? I thought I heard you say that you are not interested on what the world where I come from is like just a moment ago.

Anyway, that's how the night ends up. We talked a lot about each other's world. I learned a lot about this world. 

As expected, this world has a limited technology, but there seems to be other kind of energy that power things up, so it might be not that inconvenient in here, I look forward to seeing it. The little princess is really fascinated when I told her about how far ahead the technology of our world is. She really did put a big front when she said that she wasn't interested before.

As expected, this world has a limited technology, but there seems to be other kind of energy that power things up, so it might be not that inconvenient in here, I look forward to seeing it. The little princess is really fascinated when I told her about how far ahead the technology of our world is. She really did put a big front when she said that she wasn't interested before.