Opening the door, I am greeted by the tailor Morice and two other people who I assume are attendants.
“Mr. Morice, welcome. Please come in.” I greet him, stepping aside so he could enter.
“Hero Erja, it is my pleasure to be able to complete your request. I shall show you the suit, as well as tell you about the materials used.”
Looking over the suit Morice had brought in on a dress form, I am more then satisfied by how it looks. There was very little if anything I would change, and that was me saying so before trying it on.
“I took a few minor liberties when it came to what was used to make it, but it's for the most part exactly what you requested.” Morice says, before moving to the suit and continuing with the description, going over what he had changed.
“I decided to go with the fur of a mountain lacertilia due to their resistance to the elements and temperature for the collar. While ones with grey colouring are fairly common, mountain lacertilia themselves are decently rare, making their fur a nice statement of wealth in the higher circles.
As for the accents and rose gold trimming, I decided to go with a slightly higher content of copper than usual to better blend with the rest of the colouring.”
Continuing on to go over the smaller details, such as hidden pockets and slight adjustments to make it practical while still being socially acceptable, he finishes his overall description with a confident smile. Feeling good about how it came out, and silently praising Morice, we move on to seeing how it fits.
Trying it on with the assistance of the two attendants, I glance over how it sits on me. Yet again feeling satisfied with how it came out, I turn to Morice.
“I am very impressed with your work, thank you.” I say, giving him a small bow.
“Of course. If there is anything else you need, you may call on me at any time.” He responds, bowing back before ushering the attendants and himself out. Getting used to the way everything sits on me, I take the coat off and hang it on a rack by the door before going back to reading.
Looking out the window, I notice how dark it was and decide that it would probably be a good idea to go to bed. As I was about to turn away, in the corner of my eye I saw someone limping towards the barracks by the arena. Following him with my gaze, I don’t see anything that would tell me why he was limping.
Watching him disappear into the barracks and away from where I could see him, the sinking feeling of apprehension grows. Yet again with nothing to do about it, and the rational part of my brain saying that if he was injured someone would help him, I go to the bathroom to do a quick once over before going to bed.
Having a peaceful night for once, I wake up feeling well rested. Having spent the last few days on a similar schedule, my internal clock was fairly accurate at this point, feeling that it was somewhere around 9:00 o’clock, I get up and out of bed for the day.
Having a shower and going through my morning routine as per usual, I decide to wear simple clothes for the first part of the day before being presented before the kingdom's royalty. Slipping into the clothes, I head to the canteen to see if there was any food available.
Finding it with a decent scattering of people here and there, I make my way to a small line of people getting breakfast at the same time as me.
Helping myself to a plate of simple eggs and toast, I sit down at one of the many empty tables before digging into my food and wondering how the day would play out. Already having an idea on how meeting the royal family would go, I sidetrack to wondering if any of the other summoned would do something stupid and cause a scene.
Hoping that it wouldn’t be the case, I finish up my meal and decide to walk around a bit more than I had been the last few days to get a feel for the layout of things. Already knowing the far side where the library is fairly well, I settle on going to the opposite side to where the training arena is and in the direction of town.
‘I doubt they’d let us actually go into town right now, though I don’t know what I’d even do if we could in the first place’. Wandering around, taking the long route, I came to the front of the castle. Not surprisingly, the main entrance was situated there, fronted by a small encircling garden.
With not much else to do, I peruse the grounds to see if I could find anything interesting.
Meandering through the garden there, I find a small bench with a tea table backed by a tree. Sitting down, I take a moment to breathe, losing myself in the serenity and calm of the area. Letting time pass as I basked in the feeling that the garden provided, I almost missed the most important part of the day.
“Excuse me Hero, Lady Arwin has requested you and the rest of the Heros to prepare to meet his majesty the king shortly.” A maid calls out to me.
Startled, as I hadn’t heard her approaching me, I quickly realise what she said. Looking up at the sun I see that it was somewhere a little past mid day, meaning that I had been relaxing for somewhere around three hours, ‘definitely need to see if they have wrist watches here.’
Quickly getting up, I dismiss the maid and hurry to my room. Arriving there, I quickly wash myself before putting on the suit the tailor Morice had made. Moving with a false urgency, as I had to make good impressions but honestly didn’t care much, I finish dressing just in time to hear a knock at my door.
Opening it, I’m greeted by another maid who leads me to the hall where the summoned would be presented to the royal family. Arriving at the entrance to the hall, I’m relieved to see that not all of the summoned were present, meaning that I wasn’t late… hopefully.
Gathering myself, I straighten my coat and stand off to the side to wait for when we are called. In the meantime, I listen in on what the summoned were chattering about wondering if there was anything that would be of interest to me.
Not really hearing anything appealing past a few people having some good questions about the place, I snap to attention as I hear a loud voice call out from the otherside of the door we were waiting in front of.
“Now entering, the summoned heroes!” the voice bellows, followed by the large double doors opening to reveal a fairly normal hall that you would picture when asked what a throne room would look like.
Following the que, the rest of the summoned begin to filter into the hall in threes. Slipping into one of the last groups, I enter with apprehension. I was never really good at gatherings, I wasn’t really antisocial per say so much as I just didn’t really know what to do. Doesn’t help that I’ve always had a fairly big ego when it comes to appearances.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
Walking down the hall, I notice multiple people that were gathered at the sides showing blatant dislike towards us summoned. Taking discreet glances across the entire hall, I feel like things start to slow as I bring my attention to the back of the hall.
Looking up, I see a man sitting on an over the top throne. For whatever reason, I couldn’t bring myself to look him in the eyes, almost as if I was back in that place where I met that god when I was first brought here and couldn’t move.
Forcing myself to look at him directly, my mind starts to burn as I struggle to meet his eyes. The world around me moves normally, but it felt like I was moving through molasses. In one final motion, I rip my gaze upwards. Meeting his eyes, and I’m greeted by a normal looking older man.
Then I see a mass of writhing flesh, and then a being that could only be described as demonic, shifting back to the human that he was initially.
[Unidentifiable being has been recognized, ability :Voice of nothing: is forcefully recommending the user disengage from the being immediately.]
Staring at the creature before me, I barely notice that the summoned had begun to kneel. Pulling myself back to reality, I follow suit. Realising that my eyes were wide and I had a cold sweat.
Taking control of my breathing, I pull myself together and choose a calm mask, hoping that no one had noticed. My mind racing, I hear someone call out honorifics of the king before that creature in human skin began to speak.
“Heroes, I thank you for your future sacrifice in helping us defeat the Demon Lord. Though, it is with regret and urgency that I say that your learning must be rushed due to the appearance of an unusually powerful and perceptive demon that has presented itself to us. It is due to this that we have decided to bring forward your field training to the coming day. You will have the opportunity to choose a sacred weapon out of these that we have brought forth for you. Please pick one, and use it in the coming battles.”
Following his speech, several knights came forward and presented a plethora of weapons that gave me a feeling of worry.
The being that was the king, gives a few more words of flattery while the summoned begin to in turn take one of the ‘Sacred weapons’. Waiting for my turn to pick, I continue to look over all of the people present.
Noticing quite a few people with the prominent veins from before, I fully root myself in believing that there was something seriously wrong and that I might have to try and escape in the coming field test.
With my turn coming around, I stand up and look over all of the weapons that were presented. Noticing a few weapons that caught my eye, I struggle to decide on what to take, still with that feeling of unease.
Seeing a fairly plain looking axe with no particular ornaments at the far end, I take an interest in it and decide to choose it. Picking it up, I feel that it was the correct choice over all of the other extravagant weapons. Following etiquette and what the rest of the summoned had done, I bow to the creature and move back to the line of summoned.
Still successfully holding myself together, I start to hope for the day to end. Listening to the creature prattle on, I wait with anticipation to be able to leave. To my luck, it wasn’t much longer until we were dismissed and I was able to get away.
Leaving the hall, I start to hurry back to my room in hopes that I could hide there. Moving through the castle with a facade of calm, I make it to my room in record time and immediately lock the door.
Finally letting myself calm down, I lean against the door and start letting my fear leak out of the little box I had crammed it into. My cracked pupils dilate, and I start to breathing heavily. Desperately trying to figure out what it was that just happened, I replay the events of moments ago.
As I do, I start to notice more and more concerning things that I should have picked up in the moment. When the people who I assume were nobles had looked at the group with disdain, I came to the revelation that they were all looking at me. When the creature had talked about the demon, it had put distinction into powerful and perceptive.
Along with a few other things, I come to the final realisation that neither Lady Arwin or Sir Roland were present. Starting to panic, I spend the next few minutes trying tp calm myself.
Finally being able to at least move and think properly, I sit down at my desk and look over the axe I had chosen as my weapon as a distraction. Admiring its design, I preoccupy myself with getting used to its weight.
Lightly swinging it a few times, I hold up its face to look closer at the details. A dense ebony handle with a curved pommel of some sort of lighter coloured wood. Its head being made of a speckled silver metal, yet again foreign to me.
An engraving covers most of the blade, seemingly depicting someone fighting what I could only describe as a boney looking hydra from Greek mythos. Wondering what it could be about, I put it down on my desk feeling quite a bit calmer.
Not even beginning to try and understand as to why I felt what I felt and saw when I looked at that creature, I come to accept that I had to find a way out of this place. Knowing that my best bet was to try and get away during the field exam, I settle on the plan of trying to run sometime closer to the end of the excursion when things are more relaxed.
Knowing this, I decide to get a feel for my strength and stats until night by seeing how long I could continuously work. Feeling hungry, I push ahead and start to do random physical ‘tests’ to be able understand what I could do a bit more.
Calling up the voice, I get it to show my stats for the second time that day.
[Name: Erja
Race: Soul-Humanoid
Class:
Level: 02/15
Vit: 18
Agi: 17
Str: 17
Mag: 16
Def: 17
Status:
Innate Ability:
:Voice of nothing: lvl 2 - (Hidden)
Skills:
Inexperienced water affinity: lvl 1, Inexperienced blood affinity: lvl 2, Axe handling: lvl 3,]
Seeing nothing new but having a bit more of an idea of scaling, I continue with my plan until nightfall. With the hours moving past at a snail's pace, it finally became dark, not feeling very tired at all even though I had been doing physical exercises for several hours at that point.
Moving to bed, I try to fall asleep in hopes that when morning comes I can be completely rested. Apparently though, whatever god rules over dreams had a different idea as I couldn’t sleep for so much as a few minutes at a time. At least getting a few hours of shut eye, morning comes way faster then I would have liked even though I wanted to leave this place as fast as possible.
Cleaning myself up, I catch myself as I was about to move back to the main room in the mirror. Looking closely, I notice that the cracks that were spread through my eyes had grown, and not by a small amount.
Feeling worried for the one hundredth time in the last twenty four hours, I add it to the list of things that concerned me that I couldn’t do anything about. Brushing it off for probably the worst, I get myself dressed.
Making plenty use of the extra hidden pockets in my clothes, I throw on my casual clothes with my coat on top. Tucking the axe from yesterday into the left side of my belt, I mirror it with the dulled one I had received from Roland, just in case.
Using that same mindset, I equip myself with several different things. Not having much, I finish setting myself up with less than I would have liked. Not able to do really anything about it, I prepare myself for the coming day.
Expecting to receive a knock fairly soon as it was somewhere around 7:00 in the morning, I start to wonder if I'm a prophet as I hear said knock at my door. Opening it to find a maid as per usual, I follow her and most of the summoned to the back of the castle, near the training arena.
Seeing a whole company of knights as well as a few people in robes waiting with a few of the summoned that weren't with us already, we merge into the group and wait for the rest of the Heros to arrive.