The boss of the Karvash Brotherhood was prostrating.

It was the first the Agravain saw when he entered the room.

Coming through the door after him, Iranon confirmed with a nod.

Yup, that was him, alright.

The feared crime boss who had been lording over the livelihood of the townsfolk for months or even years until now, who commanded the thugs who had assaulted them on sight, and who had kept the ogre as a form of perverse entertainment. He was prostrating, quite neatly so, back bent and head ground against the floor, not even looking up as the bard shut the door behind him. Jophiel, of course, just phased through the wall.

“My, talk about anti-climatic,” the barbarian said, “where’s your pride as a boss?”

What he called anti-climatic was a blessing, since his rage bar had already been depleted. If there had been another fight with a creature on the level of the last one, even he was not confident he could come out of it alive. Still, this was boring.

His rage having subsided, he was not thirsting for another fight as much as disappointed.

Still without lifting his head, the crime boss said. “I’m not the boss of this place anymore. It’s you. I saw you fight the ogre. There’s nothing at all I can do.”

“Quite a sensible guy,” Jophiel remarked, “maybe that’s why he became a boss, by being the only one with his head screwed right on his shoulders?”

The angel did not seem as let down by the lack of another fight or a chance at loot. A testament to how pitiful this crime boss looked. His slick hair was pressed on the floor, his back bent. He did not look so frail as Iranon, but in his current state and thanks to his meek voice, the man could not incite the will to fight in Agravain either. In that sense, one could say that he was doing a rather good job at being submissive.

“All right, Mauven, now that you have known your place...” On the contrary, the bard was doing his best putting on a bossy attitude, “Give me back my harp and I will consider telling this guy to spare you!”

The crime boss, Mauven, glanced sidelong at the bard. If he was angry, he did well not to betray it, but saying in a diplomatic voice, “Why, of course, I keep it with the rest in the shop. Pick whichever you like, there’s several like it in there.”

“You still don’t get it? And I already told you so many times, too! It is nothing like your average--”

“Shut up,” the barbarian cut him off, “You brought a girl here last night--one in a wheelchair. Where is she now?”

To his surprise, the crime boss already anticipated the question. “Of course, of course, that one. She’s waiting for you just beyond that door. I untied her as you were fighting down there. She’s been treated well, she has, just ask her yourself. I even prepared some food. I didn’t have the time to get her friends out of the cell, but they are all healthy, you can rest assured.”

The guy was too clever. But how he already knew he was coming for her, Agravain could not say.

The answer was simple enough.

As soon as the door opened, the young princess, who was sitting at a table furnished with ample food and drink, cried out, “I knew you would come! I told them you would!”

Iranon poked his head in behind the barbarian. “So? Is that the princess?”

“Yea, I met her the other day. That’s her.”

“Haha, you savages are so funny. Surely that could not be--”

“I will crush your skull, get out.”

“Right, right, one cannot have enough spare skulls to stand next to you,” he said, then made his escape without needing to be told twice.

With a sigh, the barbarian sat down across the young girl who was the twin image of his little sister. Not only did her outward appearance bear a bizarre resemblance, even her demeanor, her aura. And she was around that age when Estella passed away too, at the scant age of fifteen.

“So what grand idea got into your head this time, E... eh?” He came so close to saying her name in the end. This kind of situation was way too familiar.

So familiar it’s unreal. Unbelievable. Incredible.

Just like a thousand times before even as this when he had sat down to scold her for mischief.

“Well,” the girl said sheepishly, looking away with a vague smile “it’s a long story...”

“How long can it be? Your name was... Soraya, I think. And unless those guards at the palace were only speaking nonsense, you’re a princess, right? How come you’re here, kidnapped by mere thugs?”

“Well,” she avoided his eyes, “I sorta... absconded from the palace, I guess?”

In a wheelchair?

Well, the crime boss did say she had some friends with her.

“But why?”

“Well, I mean,” she said, still averting her eyes, “you are my responsibility, right? I summoned you to this world, albeit accidentally, but then I got panicked, and you started hitting people, after being hit, of course. I thought you would be lonely and frightened out there...”

“Oh, yeah? Aren’t you nice? Why did you sneak out instead of sending a search party for me then?”

“Oho,” Jophiel let out a sound, “you are not all that stupid, aren’t you?”

He ignored her, who despite the remark was hungrily eyeing the food on the table: a rich assortment of meatballs, cheese and plenty of fish. Protein for days. But what sort of depraved angel would drool looking at human food like that? Not even a fallen angel could fall so low, he would imagine. Even Satan would have more self-respect than that.

“Well fine,” Soraya sighed, meeting his eyes at last, “I sneaked out because I wanted you to help me with something, something my parents wouldn’t allow me to... And then those people caught me and my handmaids. Haha, I’m such a failure, aren’t I? Rania always told me I didn’t behave like a princess at all,...”

He regarded the girl mercilessly. “Well yeah, you don’t.”

This routine he only knew too well--always trying to squiggle out of trouble, that one, by putting on pitiful, self-deprecation acts, so that out of sympathy other people would fawn over her, trying to butter her up and make her forget her pitiful situation, and, in doing so, entirely forget her crimes.

Or such was how his little sister was. His real sister, Estella, not Soraya. But they were so alike it was almost scary.

Unless this was his sister who had been summoned over here even before him, and had been pretending to be a princess here since.

How plausible is that?

It sounded a lot like something she would do.

“So you’re stupid after all!” the angel said.

He ignored her.

“So what do you want me to help you with?” he asked.

At once she sat up straight, looking firmly into his eyes. Scrutinizing perhaps, in an attempt to measure how much she could trust him, a total stranger with only a vaguely arcane connection with herself.

The pitiable and abject look had been an act after all.

“I want to find my sister.”

“Your sister?”

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

“Mm. She left home some time ago and I haven’t received a word from her, so I want to go find her.”

What are they, a pair of runaway princesses? Does it run in the family or what?

He thought about it for a bit. “But I mean, can’t you send someone out to look for her? You are a princess, aren’t you? Do you really have to do it in person?”

“Well, a search party has already been set out. There are periodic reports to the palace about their progress, what grounds they have covered during their search, and sundries. But everyone knows it’s a fool’s errand. Only I have the slightest idea where she could be, but they wouldn’t believe me. And, to be honest, I don’t know how to get there myself.”

“Yet you think I could?”

She raised an eyebrow. This princess didn’t look at all like the frightened girl back when he unwittingly stormed through the door of her closet. “You are a summon beast. I was sure you could do something about it.”

“What a wild assumption! And don’t call me a beast. I have a name.”

Not that he had bothered to tell her it.

“It’s Agravain,” he said. “You may call me Agravain the Barbarian.”

The girl accepted it easily enough. No hint of surprise. It was clear she never knew him by that different name, Donovan MacAeda.

“You call me a beast,” he continued, “but you don’t look at all frightened when you talk to me, do you? Though I guess you were trembling when I first appeared. Why’s that?”

“Hmmm, I wonder,” the girl cocked her head, blinking twice. Even this small gesture Agravain knew too well. “I was in a panic then, but now that I’m sitting with you like this, somehow I just don’t feel like there’s anything to be afraid of, not unlike with my sister, as though you were a family and it just makes me at ease for some reason, I guess? A natural connection between a summoned be--person and their summoner? I think it’s kind of weird too.”

In the middle of her sentence, the girl’s mouth dropped. She stared wildly, an expression of terror lined her face.

Her hand shot up to point at his side.

“Ah... ah!”

At once alarmed, Agravain whipped around, ready to face the sneak attack of an unseen foe.

There was only Jophiel sitting next to him.

Who was merrily gorging on the food on the table.

How stupid can this angel be?

Noticing eyes turned on her, the angel spied around, mouth stuffed with food.

“Ellwo?”

“Someone appears!” Soraya cried.

She decided to drop her invisibility just like that? After all this time? And after warning him against acting suspiciously too.

Jophiel swallowed, drained a glass of milk, then wiped her mouth on the tablecloth.

“Yo, I’m an angel,” she said.

Even her self-introduction was sloppy. Do angels not come with the minimum training in personal interaction or what? At least throw a “be not afraid” in there.

“A ghost!” Soraya meanwhile was still gripped by panic.

And it seemed even in this world, ghosts and other invisible beings were no normal occurrences.

“An angel, I say!” Jophiel matched her shrill pitch.

What are you competing at?

“Calm down, you,” Agravain sighed, “she’s an angel alright. She’s sort of assigned to me because I was summoned to this world, I guess.”

“Oh.” Soraya was still gripping the table with white fingers, face fraught with doubt. “Is that a thing at your place, having angels assigned to them?”

“Mine? I thought angels were this world’s thing? They were mostly things of myths and religious texts of mine.”

“It’s neither here nor there, actually,” Jophiel explained unhelpfully.

“Well putting that aside,” he said, “You were saying your sister had gone somewhere, but you don’t know how to get there. What is that place exactly?”

The girl was still wary. A suspicious young girl.

“She’s not gonna do you any harm, trust me. If she does I’ll punch her.”

“Hey! Don’t involve me with your slapstick!”

“Aren’t you one contradictory character? You aren’t going to harm her anyway.”

“It’s still rude to threaten to punch a girl, you know.”

“You are no girl. You’re an angel. And who says I can’t threaten to punch a girl? It’s perfectly normal in my world.”

“Who do you think you’re lying to?!”

“Anyway,” he returned to Soraya, “So?”

The princess frowned, seeming to think hard. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that the little exchange just now had raised their suspicious meter to the max.

After a long while, the young princess finally said, “Well, I guess it’s true then. I did somehow summon you to this world, and now it seems angels are real too. So I can’t but admit magic could also be real.”

She was considering Jophiel’s words seriously after all. What a trusting girl. How will you survive in this world if you can so readily trust such a dodgy character?

“It’s rude to call someone you barely know dodgy.”

“Can you actually read my mind?”

“Just a guess,” the dodgy angel gave him a sidelong look. “You don’t exactly have a poker face.”

Meanwhile, Soraya was persisting with her more substantial musing. “And who knows,” she mumbled, “if even the existence of other worlds is real, then maybe in one of them there’s another me who is well and healthy? Or does by being well and healthy, that one essentially can’t be me?”

It was getting too philosophical for Agravain, so he dragged her back to the main subject. “You were talking about your sister’s whereabouts.”

“Right. Agravain, in your world do you also have a myth called the Cycles of Magic?”

“Nope.”

“Well, it is said that magic is a constantly changing force in this world. For a period of a thousand years it would gather the powers of the world in an object called the Mundane Egg. I have no idea if it’s metaphorical or an actual egg. But, supposedly, once that egg hatches, magic will return to this world for a thousand years before waning again. So that’s why it’s called a cycle.”

“So currently magic doesn’t exist but it will come back with this Egg?”

“Mm, according to the conspiracists, our generation was just the time for Mundane Egg to be hatched, and magic will soon come back to this world But it doesn’t just hatch on its own. Someone has to go on a pilgrimage to find it. And whoever accomplishes this could shape the magic of the next one thousand years the way they want.”

“And you think your sister is attempting this pilgrimage? Why?”

As soon as he imagined this, the reason came easily to him. He had no way to know for sure, of course, but from the way this girl spoke of her sister, they probably were on good terms. And if someone with a disabled sister that she loved learned of a miraculous way to shape the world however she wanted...

“She told me, of course. But no one would believe me. Well, not that I believed magic was real either, not until just now. I knew she believed it though. She even did a ton of research before setting out. As for the rest of the court, they all think she ran away from her engagement with a foreign prince.”

That one sounded more plausible, at any rate.

Yet somehow, Agravain knew he guessed right, and Soraya probably thought she did too.

“Well, too bad,” he said “I have only learned of this Magic thing just now. No way I know how to get you to where that egg is, even if there’s any truth to that myth, or where your sister is looking for it.”

Jophiel coughed. “About that,” she said, taking on a serious tone. She thumped the table with her palms. Somewhat notable that she had just cleaned all the plates in her vicinity.

The angel gave both of them a look, deliberating holding out a dramatic silence to heighten the effect, then she began, “In the first place, that myth is real. It is in fact the whole reason you and I were sent here, and the reason this young princess was destined to summon you over. And as the girl said, the person who obtains the Mundane Egg gets to shape the principles of the coming millennia’s magic to their will. There’s only one misconception about its nature. It’s not that just any random person could find the egg. Even if they do, they wouldn’t be able to unlock it. Sure, after magic has been conceptualized, common people can learn to use it, but only qualified people may find it, use it, and shape the general magic of it.

“If you still can’t get your heads around what being a master of this Egg entails, then let me put it this way: it’s like getting to construct for yourself a system that will allow you to do anything you want, a machine to make every one of your wishes come true. Not one, not three, but all of them. Since you can just rewrite this world however you like as the new Founder of Magic. But this could only be done by one of the few chosen people.”

“I can see where this is going,” Agravain grumbled, “it’s us, isn’t it? The people you call Player Characters.”

“Close. It’s both the Player Characters and their Summoners. Think of the Summoners as the ties you have with this world, which in the first place “hooked” you from your world to this one. The Angel, the Summoned, and the Summoner. Respectively, the Player, the Player Character, and the Hook. There’s a total of seven such groups, each centered on one of the seven individuals, summoned from another world from different walks of life. And that’s the point of the competition I spoke of: a quest to claim the Mundane Egg for yourself. But what if you don’t want to engage in this competition? What if you want to live in this world without concerning yourself with the Egg?”

“Just say why.”

“Because,” the angel nodded in Soraya’s direction, “of the hook. All seven of you get one. Each one’s is different, of course. Technically a ritual is actually unnecessary. Sometimes the PC just pops up thanks to an intense prayer from the Summoner. But at any rate, the circumstance and connection between you and this girl is just how the Angels of Fate arranged it. Those Angels are what you may call the organizers of this competition. As for what that connection is, you already know too well, right?”

There was a long silence. Neither Soraya nor Agravain could fully digest what they just learned. But at length, the girl who looked just like his sister was stealing glances at him sheepishly. She understood, he thought, perhaps even better than he did.

Of course, and of this there could not be a doubt, he wanted to help her. Even though he knew she was not his sister. Just someone else who looked like her, who acted like her, maybe even thought like her.

Still, she was not Estella.

Estella was Estella. Soraya was Soraya.

But if this was how fate had designed it, maybe he could just think of this girl as a reincarnation of his sister?

In the end, he groaned out loud, slamming the table with his fist.

Estella, no, Soraya jolted.

Even in surprise, she could never jump from her seat. Because she could not walk.

Just like Estella, who had been sickly for the entire time of her short life.

Who was confined to bed most of the time.

Who always got scolded for trying to plot an escape from the four dreary walls.

Because her parents and her brother loved her.

Because, according to the doctors, if she could survive to adulthood, she would have a greater chance to live a long and fulfilling life.

She did not.

“Very well,” Agravain the barbarian declared, “let’s go on an adventure to find your sister!”

“Woohoo!” the angel clapped. She wasn’t even trying to pretend she hadn't already anticipated the decision. “Well, now that’s over with, let's get this underway, yeah? Speed is of the essence in this competition. There’s a reason that we three meet up in this place. There’s quite a few handy things, and people, we can make use of in this place. It was a nice arrangement by the organizers.”

Having said this, she snapped her fingers. A large book popped into existence. Not holographic as before, but a large and very book, leather-bound and presenting information on antique parchments.

It dropped onto the table with a heavy thud.

“Behold,” she said, all smug and standing akimbo, “what set me apart from all the casuals! The Angel of Knowledge and Hidden Records’ lifework: The Codex of Anything and Everything!”