“You’re the prophet, aren’t you?” I nod. The cult leader has his mask off, his face is older, but not too old. “Well, I’d love to hear what The dark god has told you to do, but you probably don’t want to disclose your mission. The dark one hasn’t talked to me in years.” He pours himself a glass of wine. “Just an old puppet, tossed aside. It’s the fate of all his minions, which is why I don’t follow him. Suppose that angers the dark one?” I scratch my head. “I don’t think he cares.” He offers me a glass of wine, but I decline, Kree comes out from behind me and snatches it, chugging it down. “But do you care? You’re the one who can summon an unlimited power from him, while I, a used toy, can only summon this.” He holds his hand up, black smoke trickles out of it slowly. It drips like a stalagmite from his hand. He grabs it like a dagger. I don’t know what to say so I revert the conversation to his first sentence. “Unpronounceable wants me to find a key to free him. Something about humans hid it so only a human can find it.” He nods. “Yeah, I didn’t think he was really in the center of the planet, but it makes for one hell of a spectacle when that black shit comes out of the ground.” I nod agreeing, despite the obvious concerns to health and safety, my mind drifts back to how the room was lit with glass lamps, it was a very good show.

“Anyway, how much do you want?”

“For what?”

“To not rat me out, many of the members are bored nobles, they donate their money to me. They pay for the spectacle. I have a very nice setup here, don’t want the actual prophet to ruin it for me---”

The door is kicked open. A man with japanese facial features and white hair points an ivory sword at me. His white armor glistens in the light, unstained by the oil in the previous room. The two people behind him, one in grey knight armor and one holding a scimitar did not make it through the oil as cleanly. They are covered in oil and blood. The blood coming from the cult members who lay dead behind them.

“You, it was you!” The white knight yells.

I point to myself. “Me?”

“Not you. Him! The leader of this cult. He stole my daughteru’s crush and sacrificed him to your evil god. I’ll kill everyone in this cult. They killed my future son in law, prepare to die!”

The guy with the scimitar tugs on the white knight’s cape. Wait a second, I recognize this guy. He’s the mercenary I half assed tried to save. I give him a wave and his entire body locks up. IT would appear that he has PTSD from me. He whispers to the knight. “Sir Hiro, this guy isn’t someone we shou---

Bang

I shot the white knight. There is no use in talking to this guy, he came at me with a sword drawn. The smartest play is to shoot first and ask questions later. “Did you just shoot me?” He asks with a voice full of shock as if that was the last thing he would have expected. I shrug and he keels over. “A gun! How did you get a gun!” I shrug. He drops the sword. I shrug and pick up Kree. The mercenary is already fleeing and the grey knight’s sword is shaking in his grisp. I walk past the white knight. He grabs my legs. “Who, who are you?” I look at him, with my usual amount of emotion and give him my name. “Autumn Mystic, and you are?”

“Mark my words, Autumn Mystic, I will be the holy knight to end your evil ways.”

Irked about him not answering my question, I shoot him again. I think two shots to the stomach should be enough to kill him. My ears ring from firing a gun in a enclosed room so I don’t catch what else he says as I walk out.

Hiro, the true hero of this story(as hinted at by his name), was not currently being treated like a hero. He layed in chains inside the back of a cart intended to carry prisoners. He knew the cart was intended to carry prisoners because he was a prisoner now. It was fulfilling its intended purpose. Hiro thought that he was once fulfilling his intended purpose. He thought he was fulfilling his purpose as the hero until six hours ago. After having his wounds treated by the mercenary he hired. He brought the cult leader to the guards. He wanted to turn the leader over to the police, have him face his justice, but to Hiro’s surprise he was arrested as well.

The verdict on his court case reads as follows.

“While we understand that the title of hero bestowed upon you by the kingdom does grant you a sense of autonomy in the eyes of the law. In The Democracy we have freedom of religion. It does not excuse human sacrifice and you were right to bring in the cult leader to the police. However, when you took it upon yourself to kill the people who were not actively participating in the sacrifice you went too far.”

His punishment was banishment with penalty of execution if violated. Due to the royal blood of some of his victims he was being sent to The Kingdom, the place that had summoned him a few days ago. Hopefully they would be lenient in his sentencing. Those royals were obviously corrupt and evil. They were in an evil cult. The king will surely go easy on him. Maybe even reward him for draining the swamp.

I, Autumn Mystic, do not know why I suddenly felt like voicing my whole name in my inner monologue. Perhaps it was so whoever is reading it can understand this change of perspective. Either way, people are still racist. Every single hotel of good repute in The Democracy has an unwritten rule against kobolds. Even the ones of bad repute are starting to turn me away, I offer more money, but they either placate me with calming words or complain about how kobolds will steal. I continue walking into any building that looks like it has a lot of rooms and ask how much for a bed. Medieval AirB&B style. I turn a corner to a large white building. It’s three stories tall and contains many rooms. A semi-industrial setting. White sheets, suspended like shower curtains, seperate most of the building. I approach the lady on the front desk. “Are there any beds here?”

“Many beds, actually.”

“Perfect, how much for a bed for the night?”

“Are you sick?” What does that have to do with renting a bed?

“No, I just need somewhere to sleep tonight.”

“Sir, this is a hospital not an Inn.”

“My bad.” I mumble then leave the hospital looking for the next building.

The next building has a downstairs containing a bar. The bar side of the room is full of many rough looking people in shabby armor. They bare their teeth at Kree as we enter. Their weapons chipped almost as chipped as their teeth. A gang? I follow the banister with my eyes. Uptop there are quite a few rooms. The other part of the downstairs was a receptionist desk and a bulletin board. It’s relatively empty of patroens. Only one little girl with snow white hair and bright blue eyes. She has Uggs on and is wearing a very fluffy white cloak. She is badgering the receptionist. As I approach I hear. “I wanna go on a kill quest!” The receptionist sighs. “You need a party to go on any extermination quests, and little girls should be out doing herb runs.” I approach the receptionist, interrupting their conversation. “How much for a room?” She smiles at me. “They’re free for adventurers.” I bite my lip on purpose to show that I am feeling disappointment. “Are you not an adventurer?” She picked up on my expertly executed social que. “Well, you can become a adventurer here, this is The Adventurer’s Guild after all.” Ah, this is the trope that normal isekai protagonists fall into. A four story arc about either raising in the ranks by the bootstraps, being fussed over by the receptionist, and becoming stronger than even the guild leader. This is an arc I do not want to partake in. I will simply join this guild for the free room. “Alright, sign us up.”

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

“Us?” I point to Kree.

“Is that thing not your familiar?” I shake my head.

“A summon?” I shake my head.

“A pet?” I shake my head.

“Then what is it then?”

“She is my friend.” I don’t like using the term friend, friend is someone who you care for, I try not to care for anyone but myself. I get hurt less that way.

“Interesting, so she’ll be registering as a adventurer?” I nod.

She grabs a few books from under the counter. She checks the table of contents then flips to the required page. I lean over and read it with her.

“The race of the adventurer doesn’t matter. The Democracy has ruled that race, be it elf, human, dwarf, or other may become an adventurer as long as they agree to the rules.” She closes the book and looks up at me. “Well, it’s certainly odd.” That rule seems to be applied to humanoid races, calling a kobold humanoid is stretching it, but I won’t say it if she doesn’t ask.

She places a crystal ball down on the counter. “Just place your hand over this and it’ll print out your adventuring card.” I nod and do so. The ball gets a faint glow then prints out a business card.

automn stats [https://i.imgur.com/3qC3hGz.png]

Blue and white, how cliche.

Kree places her claw atop the crystal. It gives off a green light that compliments her scale tone then prints off her card.

kree stats [https://i.imgur.com/gIF7p6D.png]

The receptionist reads my perk and her hand begins to shake. She consults the rule book again. This time on the page about religion. “The adventurer’s guild can not discriminate based on religious preference.” She hands me the card. “Well it’s certainly odd.” She then looks at Kree’s card, her perk has the opposite effect on the receptionist. Instead of making her nervous it puts her at ease. It is concrete proof that she can trust Kree.

“So we can use the rooms now?”

The receptionist smiles. “As soon as you complete your first request off the bulletin board you will be able to.”

I have been tricked. “I don’t want to be an adventurer anymore.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, the cancellation fee is ten gold each.” Twenty gold? That’s outrageous! That’s like 30% of the gold I took off that slave merchant. I have been actually tricked and it begins to fill me with anger.

“You!” I look around, the little girl is pointing at me. She has interrupted my growing anger. I point to myself. “Me?”

“Yes you Onee-san! You need to complete a mission, and I want to go on a wet work mission. For that I need a party.” I nod. That is what I eavesdropped on earlier. “Form a party with me pretty please with a cute slime on top.” She demands. I shrug, indicating that I need time to think it over, but the receptionist takes my shrug as agreement. The girl places a piece of paper off the bulletin board onto the counter. “Clearing out a cave of goblins, does the entire party agree to this?” This time my shrug meant that I don’t care either way. Kree nods. The girl nods eagerly. The receptionist stamps it and we head out.

“Execution.” The king decrees.

“But…” Hiro tried to protest, but the king cut him off. He was working for the best interest of The Kingdom.

“You, of common birth, killed multiple nobels, no matter your potential as a hero this is an unavoidable sentence.” With the king’s final words he was dragged off. Out of the building, through the castle front courtyard, and down into a small holding cell with two bunks. His roommate, a man in a jester's outfit watched the guards as they left. When the door to the outside closed he cursed under his breath. The bells on his shoes jingled as he kicked the wall. “You!” The jester screamed and pointed at Hiro.

“What do you want of me?” The jester got up close to Hiro. Lowering his voice he spoke to Hiro. “You ruined my escape plan.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry? You better be. I mean,....” The jesters eye’s light up, recognizing who I am. “How’d you get here anyway? You’re supposed to be the summon hero.”

Hiro sighs “I killed an evil cult.”

“Well that’s not punishable--”

“The cult had many royals in it.”

“That explains it.”

“What about you?”

“Defaming the king, the old coot asked me to tell him the rudest joke. When I said ‘you’ in response. He took a great offence.”

Hiro laughed then asked to confirm. “You called him a joke?”

“And rude.” The jester laughed as he retold it. Hiro nodded, “Well he is rude, killing someone over a joke is very rude.”

Through their common bond of being screwed over by the king their kinship formed. “You’re not a snitch are you?” Hiro looked at the jester with wide eyes. It was jarring for a medieval character to use american slang words. Hiro shook his head through his shock.

“Good, I’ll let you in on my escape plan. From years of working at the castle I have a maid who is sweet on me. She’ll come tonight with the key. Now, I only have a cart with enough seats for me and the maid. You can get out of this cell, but you have to find your own way out of The Kingdom.” Hiro agreed, it was an amicable deal.

Hiro jumped over the city wall. A sharp crack is heard as he comes down hard on his ankle. He bites the side of his mouth to stop him from screaming as the guard on the rampart above walks closer alerted by the noise. The torch gets closer. Hiro drags limps towards the tree line. The torch is now at where he jumped off the wall. Hiro throws himself into the bushes. The guard looks at where the sound of leaves rustling came from, but quickly shrugs it off as being from a wild animal.

Hiro limped along. Using a long branch as a staff to walk along. His ankle was swelling and the pain would be unbearable if not for him being a summoned hero with a mission to accomplish. His mission was to defeat the demon king. It was why Eris blessed him with amazing powers.

After a day of limping he had upgraded his equipment. He improvised a splint and found a rock to sharpen his staff into a spear. The sound of a fire and drunken men. This far out in the woods it was an odd sound. Trouble is afoot. Only bandits would camp this far into the woods. Hiro switched to a crawl. Moving silently. He watched as men with axes talked to each other over dinner. They had a horse drawn cart loaded with a cage on the back. In the cage were two elfs. Scum. Using such cute girls as slaves. Hiro walks out from the bushes. The men look at him, leaning on his spear. They slowly stand up and grab their axes. “Slave traders, huh?” Hiro asks. One of the three axe men steps forward. “Yeah, it’s a side gig. We’re actually lumberjacks, but turning in escaped slaves that fled through this forest makes money too.”

“Scum!” Hiro yells. “How dare you oppress women like that! Only scum commit slavery!”

The lumberjacks take up fighting stances. “Why don’t you calm down, buddy. You’re really angry about something that is fully legal.”

“Limit break!” Hiro yells out his skill’s name. A surge of vigor surges through him pushing his body beyond its limits. The skill allows him to break through his limits. He rushes forward, no longer feeling his sprained ankle. Stabbing his wooden spear into the chest of one lumberjack, while spinning in mid air to knock another across the head. Both fall to the ground. The last lumberjack swings his axe for Hiro’s head, but in the last second Hiro blocks the axe with his wooden spear. The spear is cut in half, but the few seconds the block bought allows Hiro to dodge the follow through of the attack. Hiro bends down low to the ground, holding the point half of the spear with both hands. With both feet he pushes himself off the ground. Flying like a torpedo the spear slams into the final lumberjacks chest. He checks the UI in the corner of his vision tick down. Limit break has 15 seconds left. With that time he frees the two elfs from the cage. “Our hero, thank you for saving us. We’ve been locked up for days, how ever can we repay you?”

“How’d you know my name?”

“Your name.”

“It’s Hiro.”

“Hero?”

“Yes, Hiro.”

“What a fitting name. For our hero.” The blonde elf catches Hiro as he falls to the ground. He had pushed his body past it’s limit. The skill and the adrenaline had worn off. His vision fades.