Chapter 1: The World of Ethymus
The students clump together finding safety in numbers, scared and dazed from being transported into another world.
“Heroes! I welcome you into our world!” The old man exclaimed.
“Guys get behind me!”
Ms. Nakajima puts herself between the students and the unknown man, trying to shield them from him. Hasegawa looks at the old man in front of them.
‘He seems to be the one in charge here…’ He remarks.
Looking around once more he notices an audience made of rich and influential looking individuals, watching them from above in a balcony of sorts. It seems like he was the only one who noticed.
Hasegawa walks up to his teacher.
“Nakajima-sensei, there’s more people observing us.” He points towards the balcony’s location. With the observers looking a bit surprised.
“Where? Hasegawa-kun, I don’t see any balcony.”
“But sensei, it’s right there. Can’t you see it.”
“No, I can’t… Wha— Ryuu-kun! What are you doing!” She screams.
Ryuu walks past Ms. Nakajima in front of the group.
Suddenly royal guards appear out of nowhere, surrounding Ryuu who visibly doesn’t flinch. Pointing their spears at him without any regards to whom they’re pointing at.
“Stand down!” The king orders and the royal guards comply, slowly withdrawing and returning back into their original position into the shadows..
“Who are you? What do you want from us?!”
“Stay calm hero, I do not mean any of you harm. My name is King Rouland Redgreeves I am the ruler of the Kingdom of Estusia.” The king speaks in a wise and booming tone.
“Okay then King Rouland… What do you want from us? And what do you mean by hero?”
The King explains their situation.
“All of you were summoned by the Church of Nuarin under my order, to help the fight of vanquishing the demon threat that threatens the world. You have been chosen specifically by Nuarin the holy as his fabled warriors. All of you have been given abilities by our goddess making all of you our saviors!”
‘Really? Demons exist here?’ Hasegawa remarked to no one but himself.
A realization finally hits everyone. How do they return home?
“Hey guys… how do we return?” one girl speaks out.
“Shhhh, be silent don’t interrupt the scene.” A random classmate interrupts her.
The king continues.
“What is your name boy?”
“Ryuu Arata, given name Arata family name Ryuu. You can call me Ryuu.”
“Well then Hero Ryuu, come here.”
Ryuu walks towards the king slowly, he walks up the altar and meets King Rouland face to face, their eyes connect with each other, then the king suddenly does something unexpected.
King Rouland prostrates himself in front of Ryuu.
The unseen balcony that Hasegawa observed earlier removed it’s cloaking spell finally becoming visible to the untrained eye, surprising the other students who weren’t able to notice it. Revealing a wide range of individuals shouting in surprise, mouths agape.
Their confusion was audible, the beloved king of Estusia, bowing before a man they have never met.
“Your highness!” Shouts a surprised bishop.
“Your majesty! what are you doing?!” One of the nobles shouts.
“Silence!” King Rouland orders and the room immediately falls silent. He looks up at Ryuu from the floor.
“Please! save our kingdom!” The king pleads.
“If we fail to stop the demons from invading into our lands, everybody in this kingdom will be in danger. Men, women and children will be slaughtered without remorse in barbaric ways. The demon plague would consume this world.” tears freely flow from his face.
The students moved by this display, move closer to the king and Ryuu. They then separate Ryuu from the king for a moment.
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After quite some time Ryuu-returns to the still weeping king.
“We all agreed to help you guys.” Ryuu suddenly answers surprising the king and the observers.
“You will?”
King Rouland wipes the tears from his face.
“Of course.”
“Nuarin her grace! I thank you heroes!”
“No problem your Highness-”
“I’m kinda sorry about interrupting this moment.” Hasegawa cuts into the conversation.
“Ah yes Hero?...”
“You can call me Hasegawa, anyways King Rouland can I ask you a question” Hasegawa kneels before the king.
“No need to do that Hero Hasegawa, what is it do you want to ask?”
“How do we return home.”
At this question King Rouland visibly pales.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Ahh… ehh… uhm.”
“Do you know or do you not?” Hasegawa demands.
“The spell that we used to summon you here was a one-time use spell from our ancestors. It is said that the demons have a copy spell in their continent.”
“So, we have to beat the demons first.”
“Indeed.”
A rumbling sound is heard around the summoning room.
“What was that?”
Hasegawa turns his head towards the origin of the noise and sees Akari holding her stomach with an embarrassed expression on her face.
‘Oh yeah, we weren’t able to have lunch.’
Suddenly her right hand springs upwards, with her having an unreadable expression on her face.
“Uhhmm… Do you have any food around here?” She asks sheepishly.
“Of course! heroes We have prepared a banquet for you!” King Rouland answers.
“My eldest daughter Princess Abigail shall show you towards the dining hall.” He ushers in a beautiful Blonde girl with dazzling purple eyes wearing a white royal dress.
“Hello heroes my name is Abigail Redgreeves. The king’s firstborn and eldest daughter.” She takes a courtly bow. “If you would all follow me, I shall show you all where the dining hall is.” She said in a fine courtly manner.
“Uwaaah! She’s so beautiful!”
“Look at her hair!”
“I shall be your knight, fair maiden!”
“Hello my name is Ryuu Arata nice to meet you… Princess Abigail.” He smiles at her.
She blushes.
‘You never stop do you?’
“N-Nice to meet you Hero Arata.”
Bingo.
“Princess you don’t have to be so formal, you can call me whatever you want.”
“Okay then…R-Ryuu.”
Again, Hasegawa can feel the killer intent from some of his classmates.
The princess then showed them the way around the castle. The castle is pretty big in and of itself, with many portraits and paintings scattered throughout the hallways.
There were many statues littered here and there, apparently some of those statues were hidden golem guards.
Conversations like this occurred along the way.
“Wait do cat-girls and elves exist?”
“Does this mean that we became legit heroes that are going to save the world, I’m not dreaming right?”
“Ryuu-san was pretty cool earlier, wasn’t he?”
‘Demons. I wonder what do they look like.’ Hasegawa thought to himself.
They finally reach the dining hall.
The dining hall is an entire table filled to the brim with food, the table is large enough to seat around twenty to thirty people.
Everybody scrambled around the table finding seats. With everybody forming into their own sections of friends. The king and the other nobles arrived not much later, then the king gave us his blessings to eat the food on the table, praying to Nuarin for the food.
Most of the seats ended up being occupied, with Hasegawa ending up sitting right next to the class delinquent, Akimasa Takezawa. The seat right next to his was unoccupied due to the other students being afraid of what He would do to them.
“Why are you sitting right next to me?” Takezawa asked.
“Ehh, you looked lonely.”
“What was that you bastard? “
“Nothing. This was just the last free seat.”
“I see…”
“You’re not such a bad guy as I thought Takezawa.”
“What did you think I was huh?!”
“A violent sack of meat? It’s kinda because of the fist fight with that teacher from last year.”
“Don’t remind me of that.”
“Although, it was kinda funny when you round-housed the trashcan into him”
He laughs.
“I won didn’t I”
“Yeah yeah.”
“Ya know yer’ not such a pussy like I thought.”
“Nice dialect you got there.”
“Yeah I know, it slips out sometimes.”
“Well, it’s not like this banquet going to eat itself. Let’s finish eating.”
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After they had our long-postponed lunch since the summoning, Hasegawa and others were all led to a field right next to the castle. Armed knights appeared in a marching formation, with a knight captain riding an ivory white horse.
He was a middle-aged battle hardened general, his hair slightly greying and with a body shaped like a barrel, heavy and buff. Disembarking from the horse with speed skill that reflects how many times he must’ve done it before.
“Hello heroes. My name is Captain Grant Cobalt.” his voice booming and energetic. The students couldn’t help but look at him in awe.
“Woah it’s a real knight!”
“He looks ultra-powerful!”
Captain Grant points his thumb towards his chest.
“I have been assigned by the king to help train you in the art of combat and magic.”
Captain Grant continues.
“As you all have been informed, everyone has been granted powers by our Goddess Nuarin, and as such I will tailor your training to compensate for that. One’s traits are important as you all will be segregated into different job classes according to your specialty. If one is good at light magic then that one will become a paladin like myself or a priest depending on various circumstances.”
At this the students seem excited; Hasegawa ponders to himself what kind of powers he must’ve been given.
“Now We have arranged the kingdom’s best ability appraisers to find out strengths and weaknesses, does anyone want to go first.” Six said appraisers started to prepare for the ritual.
“I would like to!” Everybody looks at Akari-san.
“Well then missy step right up here.” He points at the magic circle one of the appraisers drew on the ground.
Akari-san enters the circle as the appraisers start to chant their magic spell thing.
“Nuarin! we call upon thee to shine your light through us and show us knowledge” Their eyes glowed a yellow hue.
“Facultatem Revelare!”
The entire circle burst into a yellow light.
Characters appeared from thin air, then slowly but surely the light from the circle slowly faded away but the characters still remained floating.
“Amazing!” One of the appraisers said.
“She has the same capability as a mage master in terms of mana capacity. Just at level one!”
“She has an elemental affinity leaning towards fire.”
“Nice little miss” Captain Grant commented “You’ll make a nice inferno-mancer, a mage that specializes in fire type abilities.”
“Really?” Akari-san asked “That’s great!”
“Well then who’s up next?”
Multiple hands raised up including Hasegawa, who doesn’t want to find out if you can shoot electrical bolts from your hands or wield flaming swords or something like that.
“How about you boy?” He points at Ryuu.
“I would be honored” And thus they did the ritual to him too. The results are to be expected.
“Nuarin! we call upon thee to shine your light through us and show us knowledge”
“Facultatem Revelare!”
The same glow occurred and the same thing happened. Characters floating around Ryuu.
“Captain this is impossible! He excels in all areas! With the capacity to learn them tenfold!”
“What?!”
“Captain he also exhibits proficiency in all elemental attributes!”
“That much potential…” He looks at Ryuu-san, “Is this the face of an actual hero granted with Nuarin’s blessings?”
“Is it really that good?” Ryuu-san asks.
“It’s excellent with those skills you can be a master Paladin.” Captain Grant answered him.
Then it started again.
“Look how cool Ryuu-sama is!”
“Ryuu-sama!”
“Ryuu-sama!”
“Ryuu-sama!”
The fan club started chanting.
“Okay enough of that!” Captain Grant continues “Next person!” and again hands were raised. This went on for a full thirty minutes with multiple people having multiple specializations. Takezawa-san being a boxer type and so on and so forth. Then finally it was Hasegawa.
“Nuarin! we call upon thee to shine your light through us and show us knowledge”
‘’Facultatem Revelare!’ The glow started, but…
instead of a yellow light, mine became red, no characters appeared.
“Uh sir? Captain Grant…. we can’t read him.”
“Impossible!”
“Maybe the reading was wrong?”
“Are you saying that our beloved Goddess, is wrong”
“But that has never happened before.”
“What? Is there something wrong?” Hasegawa asked the people in charge.
“Uh… kid you see we can’t read your abilities.” Captain Grant replied an uncertain tone could be felt from his reply.
“And?” Hasegawa could feel something different was at play here, like why was he the only one able to see pass through the cloaking spell of the balcony earlier?
“I’m sorry kid without proof we have no choice to label you as a peasant, a normal civilian for now, the ones with the lowest rating of potential.”
“What do you mean by ‘lowest rating of potential’? There’s more to it isn’t there?”
“It means for the ability to increase your physical, mental, or spiritual attributes and it means that you won’t be able to join us in battles until we are able to read your ability. I do want to help you kid, I really do. But I am a paladin and knight foremost, and I won’t send a probably helpless kid into battle.”
“Maybe earlier was just a fluke, you don’t know what happened.” Hasegawa frantically replies, this would mean he would just be a bystander if the demons would overpower his classmates, and hewouldn’t be able to do anything.
“I-I’m sorry kid life’s just not fair, plus our Goddess is never wrong.” Grant’s voice becomes solemn.
“I see….” Hasegawa slowly moves away from the circle; he mutters the last part in a soft voice and just returns to his now silent classmates. With some of them snickering lightly.