"And so, thanks to our heroes, the great dark wizard was defeated," said the man hidden in the box as he manipulated the puppets.
As the large puppet fell, the children who had gathered to watch the show cheered wildly. Even the adults applauded the performance.
Zack clapped along with the crowd, but his mind was elsewhere. During his stay in the castle, he had also lightly researched legends of previous heroes, though without much success. Most of the information he could gather was more or less similar to the performance he had just witnessed.
A great evil appears; the world is in danger, the hero and the three tier 4 classes that accompany him emerge from nowhere, and they confront that evil; the world is restored to order, and the three classes are not heard from again. Some people believe that the hero class is a special class of the system, and can only appear when the world is in true danger.
There are also those who suggest that after eliminating the threat, the four lost their classes, or they married and withdrew from the world. There is no evidence that any of these theories are true. Most are baseless speculations made by various scholars from multiple different regions. What is certain is that there is no record of them reappearing after defeating 'the great evil'.
Considering his own origin, he knows that this is not the truth. Heroic classes appeared when the summoning was performed, so the truth is something different from what is believed.
Heroic classes do not appear when there is a great evil, but rather, when the natives see that they cannot deal with the threat that jeopardizes their way of life, they summon someone to deal with it for them.
As for what happens when their task is finished, he has no idea. Perhaps they are sent back to their world, or maybe they stop fighting and live their lives like any other person. Zack is not too interested in what happened to past heroes for now.
There is another much more worrying point he noticed while investigating the heroes. No matter what the story is, or what period it is set in, in all the documents only the heroes appear.
The sage, the saint, the warlord, and the hero.
Despite having the content of many magic books in his head, the magical knowledge he has learned is mostly related to tier 1 magic. The number of tier 2 magic books he has read is much smaller. Even if he has memorized tier 2 content, that is not something he has practiced himself, nor is he really able to fully understand at his level, but that does not mean he cannot see certain clues.
The ritual they used to summon them was not something new. On the contrary, it was very ancient magic.
When they arrived in this world, they were summoned to a special room, suitable for large-scale spells. As far as he can remember, the symbols in the magic circle they had beneath them when they were brought here are not compatible with the current system that Zack has studied.
Unlike the current magical system by which all mages are initiated, ancient magic is completely different.
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During all the time he was in the castle, Zack did not read a single book containing ancient magic, but there were many diaries and biographies of past mages that explained what it was.
Ancient magic was the first magical system created by humans (or at least that's what it said). If Zack had to describe what it consisted of, he could only say that it was... a mess.
At that time, no one knew how it worked or why it did. The few who discovered how to use magic kept that knowledge to themselves and only passed it on to their closest disciples.
Without a knowledge base to rely on, mages who wanted to learn magic without a mentor, or develop their own magical techniques, could only try again and again to do magic until what they did worked. Even if it worked, that does not mean that the spell did not have errors. Just as you don't need a perfect score to pass an exam, it was not necessary to develop an ideal magic circuit for a spell to work barely.
The problem was that no one knew which parts were right, and which were wrong. This resulted in books by different mages having ineffective parts, or that contradicted what was written by other mages, and yet both spells worked.
In the end, a group of scholars gathered at the behest of a human king (that was written), examined many magic books, and conducted many experiments to develop what would be the basis of the first magical system.
Returning to the subject at hand, Zack is sure that the magic circle through which they were summoned to this world does not belong to the modern magical system, but to an older, more archaic magical system, and impossible to modify without knowing it in depth.
Most writings on ancient magic are incomplete and impossible to recover, so the probability that the magic circle that brought them here has been modified is minimal. Additionally, the nobles who received them were waiting for them. They knew that not only the 'heroes' were going to be summoned, but that there would be more people involved.
And yet, in history only four people are mentioned: the sage, the saint, the warlord, and the hero.
Nothing is said about their companions, friends, or servants. In the end, it's always just the four of them.
It's obvious that on other occasions more people were summoned, and it's obvious that this time was the same. Why is there no trace of them in history?
While Zack was lost in his thoughts, and the children were distracted by the show, they didn't notice a figure approaching them in a hurry.
No one except Rea.
"Max, what's going on? Where's Sally?" Upon hearing Rea's voice, Zack turned to see what was happening, and upon seeing Max's concerned face as he approached, he could only think of one thing.
(Where are the drinks?)
...
"WHAT? THEY'VE KIDNAPPED SALLY?!"
"Are you sure?"
"For the umpteenth time, I'm telling you the truth! We have to rescue her!" Max replied, exasperated. Just when it seemed like Rea was going to look for the culprit, Zack grabbed her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.
"Explain it again." He wasn't in such a hurry to get into trouble. No matter how dramatic Max gets, it's very hard to believe that someone was taken against their will in broad daylight, and in front of dozens of people.
Zack's approach is correct, no matter how urgent the situation, rushing without thinking will most likely make the situation worse. Unfortunately, Max's state seemed to not allow him to understand this.
"We don't have time! If we don't hurry, Sally could be in danger!" Max replied, exasperated.
"Matthew," Rea said quietly. It seemed she thought the same.
"And what are we going to do? Search the entire city hoping to find her. We don't even know what happened. And what's going to happen to the children if we leave? Do you want us to leave them here?" Before either of them could say anything, Zack turned to Max.
"How did it happen? Where did they go? How many people were there? Why didn't the guards do anything?" The series of questions made them both stop in their tracks.
Seeing them both speechless and saying nothing, Zack couldn't help but sigh internally. All he wanted was a quiet day, is that really too much to ask?
(There's no time for this) Zack thought, leaving his regrets behind. (The important thing now is to know what happened)
Zack's gaze became penetrating, sending shivers down Max's spine.
"Explain everything. From the beginning."