They say reality can be stranger than fiction, but who could imagine such a situation come to pass in front of them?

One second I was sitting in the library, and the next instant after a blink, I'm standing inside a bizarre temple, utterly baffled and accompanied by a group of similarly baffled individuals.

The cognitive dissonance I felt was so severe, that before I could collect myself and process what was going on, one our group appeared to have stepped ahead and already taken control of the situation.

As my eyes traversed along his motion, I noticed the large audience of people, who were all clad in some ceremonial garb reminiscent of Athenians. The guy from our group was tall, appeared self assured but also had a cautious expression on his face.

"Who are you guys? Where are we? What did you do to us?" Those collective rapid fire questions from his person brought me down. It was then I realised that I had been kidnapped into another world.

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Being transported into another world, typically a fantastical one, to partake in a heroic journey of self discovery, personal growth and power. A fight of good and bad, betrayals and double crosses, twists along the way, such was the way of fantasy novels. 

While this kind of narrative fiction is interesting to read, it's not so interesting to do. 

There were fifteen of us summoned into this world. Each of as different a stripe of creed, culture and language imaginable. That we could even converse immediately without any linguistic barriers immediately set of alarm bells that this wasn't an ordinary world.

It soon became clear what the deal was. The temple we were in was actually known the High Temple of Heroes. Interdimensional summoning magic was the custody of this temple, whose members only converged in times of great crisis.

It appeared that our collective summoning was part of a cycle of serial interdimensional kidnapping child soldiers. I'm being facetious, but we weren't the first, and not might we be the last heroes that the Temple had summoned.

The threat? A humanoid race of evil creatures labelled demons who had banded together in a unified Empire to turn humans subservient.

What was the mcguffin involved, you, dear reader, might ask? Why summon fifteen innocent young people who've just turned eighteen from Earth? A world that knows not of any magic?

"The reason for summong you? My, that's quite simple. Those who are summoned have the propensity to awaken extraordinary powers - Flairs, as we call them. Some of your kind have also called them superpowers in the past." The high priest who addressed our doubts was quite patient and elaborate in his responses.

With some cautious apologia, we were taken to personal rooms to come to terms with our new reality and absorb the shock. Helpful guide books were allotted to each of us for reading and understanding the world we were in.

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I was still clasping tight onto the book I had been given as I jumped into the bed in the room assigned to me. I felt like I was in a college dorm. The shock of being thrust into these circumstances had yet to wear off, so I decided to check out the guide book they handed me.

The first thing I noticed was how Earth like the book was. That made me observe my surroundings and realize that the bed, the objects in the room all seemed to resemble Earth a lot. The temple we were summoned into also looked like a large Opera building back from Earth. 

Technology, it seems wasn't as lackluster as a typical Medieval Fantasy world. I opened the book and found the explanation I was waiting for in a language that looked like Sumerian, but creepily understood by my brain anyway.

The geography of this world was vastly different from Earth's. At least it confirmed that this world was a spherical planet. While Earth was mostly oceans with a few land continents, the terrain of this world was extremely complex. 

The Temple we were summoned to was a giant monument located near a historically significant city known as Olympus. It was supposed to be the capital of the first unified human Empire. That Empire had falled into the ashes of history. The tides of time waxed and waned. It was now simply a free city state that was an academic hub between two capitals. 

However, the significance of the place still remains to this day. In every time of planetary crisis on Gaia, the eyes of every human would be dragged in the direction of the Temple that summoned the heroes to protect them.

The rest of the book felt like a lot of propagandistic good vs evil narrativizing about the scourge that were demons. I personally couldn't care less. I was indignant about the entire kidnapping affair.

I felt no allegiances to this world, not was I a person of action. I just wanted to go back to my comfortable environment of familiarity. The notion that magic existed was an exciting prospect, but the idea that I would become a goon for some random religious cult of Heroes wasn't something I was particularly looking forward to.

Luckily the guide book explained the process forward. Naturally, they claimed, the idea of awakening Flairs of the transmigrators was a risky affair for the exact reasons I was feeling apathetic to their cause. As such there would be a strict personality test conducted before providing an Awakening license.

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Unsurprisingly, in a shocking twist that couldn't possibly be foreseen, I failed the test. I was judged to be too selfish, unmotivated and problematic to be considered for awakening. The personality tests were a gruelling affair. Three consecutive two hour panels interrogating us on our backgrounds and intimate details. 

Surprisingly, I wasn't the only one. There were three more people in the group who had also been rejected. We were offered the deepest condolences. As a compensation for our interdimensional kidnapping, we were offered a lifetime of living expenses, a fully financed education program to integrate us into society and a probationary observation period of we had good results to get potentially awakened in the future.

The human world was awash in the news of the arrival of the "Big Eleven". News about the rise of new heroes in the face of the grave threat of Hyperion, the Demon race Empire, brought hope and stability to the humans.

Meanwhile, the remaining four of us scattered away across the city of Olympus like dust in the wind. After my so called training, lasting a month, I found myself back where it all began. A library.

The library wasn't a particular big one, but it was a cozy one. Being a librarian in the city of Olympus was a government job that came with a residential permit and a stable salary. However, the government didn't even deem me capable enough to become an actual librarian.

As a historical city, academics were quite well regarded and revered in this society. My average intellect was quite capricious and revolting to be considered for a librarian's job. However promises had to be kept, reparations for kidnappings to be paid.

Thus it was how I, a young man named Frazer, became a librarian without ever being acknowledged as one. A true background character in a stage set for heroes. Thus begins my story.