I'm pretty sure I had a dream about the past while I was out. I say a dream because it felt like I was seeing it from above. It was the first time I saw Sonja, back in middle school, during the first month of seventh grade. She seemed so tiny with her big glasses, her messy bob cut and her green dress. And that thick, THICK british accent coming straight out of Skins. Remember that show?

Anyway, she was a late transfer because her parents moved out of England kind of out of nowhere and ended up here, deep in the American South. So yeah, that accent did not fly for the class. She was also the first Indian girl in school. Mister Berway, the math teacher, must have felt the temperature dropping into the negative so he did the most sensible thing he could think of : Put her right next to the class outcast. Which just so happened to be me. The end of sixth grade had been an unabated disaster thanks to my unexepected participation in the end of the year school play. I... maybe I'll tell you about this part some other time. What matters is that I was completely friendless and my reputation was in tatters. I was pretty miserable. I mean, you know how it is when you're thirteen, everything is so dramatic, so I was sure that I was going to be alone forever, never to find anyone who'd want to hang out with me. I had never been more wrong in my life.

Then I felt a slap on my face.

“And there ya go, good's new!”

I woke up immediately, feeling like someone had just set fire to my face. I opened my eyes and was immediately blinded by the harsh light of the sun and a sudden sharp pain. I barely had time to catch a glimpse of two persons next to me before closing them.

“Jesus, no need for another black eye, I could have just yelled.” said a sarcastic and familiar voice.

“Sonja? Is that...is that you? Are you okay?” I asked.

I suddenly felt the soothing feeling of a cold hand on my bruised left cheek.

“I should be the one asking that, Devos seems kind of intent on disfiguring you.”

I shuddered at the name. Everything came back to me, my door flying through the hallway, Sonja getting hit by the weird green ball and finally, the aforementioned Devos punching me into the next chapter.

“Not me fault if that's the fastes' way ta get results.” Devos said unapologetically.

I reopened my one good eye to see Sonja, sitting on the edge of the bed looking at me with a half-smile, her face shielding me from the sunlight coming in from a window. She looked completely fine, that helped me calm down a bit. That's when I noticed that we weren't in my apartment anymore. We were in a small, almost barren room with just a bed, a little cupboard next to me and a desk in front.

"I'm pretty sure my family's too broke for me to get kidnapped so…what happened? I asked, in need of some answers.

Sonja's face got a bit darker while Devos started laughing. I couldn't see where he was but it felt like he was behind Sonja so I moved my head around to look at the guy but the sun was still doing its best to blind me.

"Do you want the full story or the abridged?"

"Do you really have to ask?"

"Abridged it is. We got isekaid." Sonja said in the most deadpan way possible.

I closed my eyes and immediately regretted it. I very painfully groaned and turned around on the bed. I really didn't want to believe it. Yes, everything before had been pretty weird and, of course, that green ball which hit Sonja just screamed "magic" to me. But there's one giant-ass step between seeing and believing and I just didn't want to.

""Isekaid"? Never heard tha' one before! What's that?" Devos loudly exclaimed.

"It's the kind of story where someone is taken from one world to another, usually to save it from some kind of threat." Sonja explained.

"Ya don' seem as shocked as yer lil' friend here, I'm guessin' you've seen yer fair share of it?"

"Oh, we both did, it's just that he's not that much of a fan."

Understatement of the year.

"Please, pleaaaaase tell me you're joking. I don't….I just don't want it to be true…Please." I pleaded while gripping one of my pillows.

I felt Sonja's hand resting on my shoulder and she leaned in a bit.

"They call mana "Sifo" here…" She whispered.

I sighed as hard as I could. If that was a bit, she really got me going. But it didn't feel like one. And that was the worst. Oh, you might need a bit more of an explanation about an "isekai" than Devos needed. Sonja did summarize pretty perfectly but I feel like I need to be more specific. So yeah, your basic isekai starts with a dude, usually Japanese between 18 and 40, who gets killed by a truck most of the time. They are then sent to another world by whichever entity is the top god of that particular place and they get some kind of cheat ability and a mission : Kill the Demon King. Once they get to their new world, they get cheat-like abilities, super powerful weapons and a ton of companions. Oh, and of course, they usually get a harem of usually forgetable and badly written female characters who are inexplicably super horny for the main character.

Okay, I might need to stop there because Sonja would probably say that I'm not being fair…and she'd be right. I used to love Isekai stories because they used to feel different, new, and once the basic formula had been set, the best of them would find a clever twist that would put them above the others. But then the market just got swarmed by shitty isekais with dumb plots, overpowered main characters who were just better than everyone because character growth is so overrated and more and more scantily clad cheerleaders pining for the poorly disguised author avatar for absolutely no good reason. For me, the genre was just ruined and I couldn't exert myself into finding the good ones in the sea of mediocre stories floating around the internet.

Alright, rant over, I'm sorry it got so long but I really need you to understand how fucked I felt at that moment. I wasn't a 100% sure she wasn't fucking with me but, at that point, Sonja's words were my only anchor to reality. Speaking about the devil, she was still patting my shoulder when I heard Devos talk to her.

"Oy, can't he keep it down? I didn't know humans were so whiny!"

"Oh, no, Terrence's here is a special case. It'll grow on you, believe me." Sonja joked.

"I doubt tha'."

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I turned my head around to look directly at Sonja.

"Hey…" I whispered. "When did you get so chummy with that maniac?"

"You've been out for quite a while, we were both getting bored and he's actually quite funny once you get to know him."

" I doubt that…wait, what do you mean by "quite a while"?"

"Well, when we got here, it was still night and now, I'd say it's around…noon-ish?" she said while looking towards Devos.

The man jumped down from the window's edge and got closer to the bed.

"It's 14 in tha afternoon…an' they're late." He grumbled.

Looking at him, I had to admit it : he was pretty fantasy-looking now that he was out of his weird baseball fan outfit. He was wearing some kind of chainmail shirt, armored grey pants and metal boots with an axe almost as big as him on his back. His red hair and beard were just popping out of his outfit.

"Are they normal late or are they "we're in danger" late?" Sonja asked as if she was in the know.

I mean, she was, obviously, but I wasn't and I was feeling more and more annoyed to be in the dark.

"Can't say, this whole deal's pretty new…I don' like this, stay here."

Without any other words, Devos stormed out of the room and closed the door with a pretty loud locking noise.

"It's not like we had anywhere to go anyway." I said while Sonja was rolling her eyes up.

I managed to sit up but I suddenly felt like throwing up and fell backward on the bed.

"Whoa, are you ok?" Sonja asked with a tinge of worry in her voice.

"I'm pretty sure I'm concussed so…no."

She put her hand on my forehead and I closed my eye. I was starting to feel pretty overwhelmed by everything.

"Son', seriously….what the fuck is going on?"

For a few seconds, she didn't say anything. I could just feel her hand on my forehead trembling a little bit.

"Guess it's time for the full story then."

She took a big breath.

"This world is called Azmos and, you guessed it, is about to be attacked by a demon king. Apparently, you're what they call the "Ebony Warrior" and you're supposed to kill it to save them. Devos and Neivytoa came to our world to get you because the Elder allegedly saw you in a vision."

I wasn't even that surprised because there wasn't anything special about what she said. It sounded like the thinest of plot from the most basic isekai ever. But then something ticked and I looked at Sonja.

"Wait, what do you mean "allegedly"?"

A wry smile stretched her mouth and her eyes started twinkling.

" Here's the thing : Neivytoa believes in the Elder's prophecy but Devos doesn't. Like, at all. I'm pretty sure he absolutely hates his guts actually. Sorry, sorry, I need to tell you everything first or you won't get it."

Sonja wasn't the kind of person who got this excited for no reason.

"Okay, so, the elf Neivytoa, I'll just call them Neivy for short, is a member of the Church of the Ebony Covenant. They've got a chief, this Elder guy, who received a vision of the second coming of the Demon King two thousand years ago."

"Two thousand?"

"Yeah, Elves are pretty long-lived around here. So, after that vision, he left their holy land and he moved to this continent, Literborea, with some other elves who believed in his vision. Together, they created their church and they've been spreading its words around for a while."

I squinted my one good eye, smelling something fishy from a mile away. Sonja continued.

"They've got a shitload of elves, of beastmen and some dragonewts in their ranks, and, of course, every new member must adhere to the Ebony Covenant with just a "small" (she air-quoted that) contribution to the Church. Money, years of servitude, family members, aaaaaanything goes. And the Elder is the only one who can enjoy these contributions."

"Wait, slow down a bi-"

That was already a lot of informations to dump on me and I knew there was way more coming. But Sonja is pretty much unstoppable once she gets into gear.

"And wait, you don't know the best part! For the last thirty years, the Church has been losing its appeal and they weren't getting new applicants so, one week ago, the Elder suddenly had a new vision about the coming of the "Ebony Warrior" to fight against the now-almost resurrected Demon King and he needed new followers to help him prepare!"

"So wait…you make all of this sound like a scam-"

"I'm not doing anything special, I'm just telling you what Devos told me about the Covenant."

"Yeah, but you think that's a scam."

"Obviously."

"And it does smell like a cult but how can you be sure that Elder guy is lying?"

"Oh, I'm not." she said with a big smile.

You know, when you've known someone for a while, you can almost always predict what they're thinking or how they're feeling about something. And I knew that look all too well.

"Son'..."

"The game is afoot, Terry! We've got a mystery to solve and you know I can't do it alone. Either that prophecy is all made up or you are the Ebony Warriooooor !!!" She dramatically declared while sitting up.

I snorted for a second as I looked at her. Thank God she was here. I don't know what I would have done if I'd awoken alone in this room with Devos.

"Alright Sonja Holmes, why don't you tell me a bit more about why you're trusting Sir Punch-a-lot? Not gonna lie, I'm not much of a fan and it already feels like we're going to-" I started before the door violently burst open.

At this point I wasn't even surprised to see Devos, looking feral as all hell, stomping into the room with his red hair almost standing up on his head.

"Who needs doorknobs anyway..." I whispered.

"They're gon'!" He shouted. "Their whol' cursed lot! Gon'! I should've seen it comin'! Nekios' beard!"

"What? Who's gone? Neivy?" Sonja asked.

"Of course! They've been gon' for hours! Tha' ol' bastard must have taken off with them. I knew he was shifty, but they wouldn' listen!"

And I was lost again. This was maddening, I was just about to get some concrete answers, I didn't even need all of that backstory! I just wanted to know where the hell we were and who our captors were. So far, I only knew that Neivytoa was an elf, that they were a part of a cult, I assumed Devos was a dwarf and that's pretty much it. I still had quite a lot of questions to ask but it really felt like I wouldn't have the time to ask them.

"If the Elder is as fond of you as you are of him, I'm pretty sure you'd be the last one able to get anything out of anyone. Can you guess where-"

"Stop! Time out!" I yelled, surprising both of them.

I sat on the bed, still nauseous but feeling too angry to care.

"I ain't moving a feet out of here before you tell me what the fuck is going on!"

Sonja turned around, a bit miffed.

"I already told you-"

"No! You told me all about that bullshit church but I don't care about that! What I need to know is how we got here and how to get out!"

Devos walked toward me and grabbed me by the shirt. That pissed me off even more.

"Ya want answers? Ya need Neivytoa, so get movin'!"

"Get OFF, MAN!" I screamed while yanking his hand back.

Devos literally flew backwards and loudly crashed into one of the room's wall, sending debris everywhere. I blinked a few times, unsure of what had just happened. I turned around to look at Sonja, who was staring at the wall, probably just as confused as I was. I looked down at my hand, dead silent, waiting for reality to catch up to us.