Rather than waking up in the same position of putting the food down, I awoke in the same position I was in when I was on the floor against my door. Knees up with my head tucked between them while my arms held the position together. I wasn’t shaking uncontrollably though. Below me, I could feel a cold stone floor.
Before I could observe anymore a voice came from behind me. “I-is that you James?” A very familiar voice.
I frantically untangled myself only to spin around to see an exact replica of Hans as well as an older man next to him. Hans was shaking though, and his eyes were wide. The old man was looking at me with a smile.
The elder was buff, still had red streaks in his gray hair, and donned golden armor with some black crystalline pads on his shoulders, and elbows, as well as one diamond-shaped area right in the center of his chest plate. Hans was donning a noble’s outfit of a nice older-fashioned blue silk suit. But he was shaking constantly.
“Hans?” I tentatively asked. My voice was just as deep and crackly as ever.
“That’s me!” The old man held a thumb to his chest and let out a hearty laugh.
Just wow… The young guy looks like an exact replica of how Hans used to look when I was summoned to the palace. But hey, this will probably be a pleasant experience.
I gave out a little curtsy with my imaginary dress. “I’m happy to see a familiar face for once.”
He let out a chuckle, “I hope you mean my son instead of me.” He slapped the back of his kid hard enough to send him forward on his hands and knees.
Hans frowned “The sissy is named Cendrick, after an old friend… Well, I guess I can’t call him a disappointment anymore considering he summoned you.”
Looking closer at Cendrick I see some differences between the two. Hans had a lot of freckles and high cheekbones while Cendrick possessed neither. Hans had golden yellow eyes while Cendrick had blue. I leaned over and held out my hand, Cendrick took it hesitantly.
“You got to stop with this scaredy cat act or else I’m going to have to give you a hard punch,” I said it very jokingly, but the deep crackling voice made it come out more of a threat.
He went pale while Hans cackled.
Eventually, Cendrick let out a meek greeting, and off we went. I was given a proper tour this time. Rather than aimlessly walking around for hours like I had done with Isabelle.
Apparently, Hans had risen above his status of servitude and earned the title of High Paladin, which is apparently not related to the church at all. It's like how a mage can use magic while paladins can imbue their weapons with divinity. To go from a paladin to a ‘high’ paladin though requires tremendous feats on the battlefield.
Walking through the hallways reminded me of the palace, except the stone here was a nice ashen gray. They had the same system of symbols marking the rooms, the same security measures, and it was almost as big as the palace. Making our way through the halls I noticed many little squads of knights hustling along in groups as some sort of patrol. Maybe we would see one per hour, but it was an extra layer of security on top of the static guards.
I eventually brought up the question of what happened after I vanished and was promised a story at dinner. But he did tell me that this wasn’t his estate and instead, it belonged to the Chappel Family. He lived here due to an unknown reason that he promised he would tell me at dinner.
Eventually, the conversation turned to Cendrick. He was a studious boy and was well-versed in the areas of science and magic, but he wasn’t blessed with the capabilities of mana so he couldn’t be a mage. He spent the majority of his time here in the palace, and although he wasn’t accomplished the knights really liked him due to him settling numerous issues with the commoners in the city below. But for some reason, Hans wanted to call him a disappointment even though he was a good lord? Probably tough parenting, I guess.
The castle we were in is adequately named The Chappel Constraint. It was located way in the west, about three weeks away from the palace on horseback. The city was named Chappel’s Cradle. These guys really must think highly of themselves... Outside of Cradle all you could see for miles was a vast forest in all directions.
Eventually, we found our way to the throne room. Upon entering I was greeted with an odd sight. Instead of the same stone the rest of the castle was made of the room’s floors, walls, and ceiling were all a deep dark ebony wood. Instead of an elaborate and extravagant throne there was a long table with some nice wooden chairs. The table and chairs were juxtaposed against ebony in a light walnut color. The legs of the table had some bronze engraving with some rubies embedded in it though.
Opposite of me was a tall blond slim man, he looked like a stereotypical elf from fantasy except minus the pointy ears, he was staring right past Hans into my eyes. I held his gaze because I had my own pride. While we held gazes, we all took our own seats around the table.
The conference was me, Hans, Cendrick, Gris Chappel(blonde man), and another guy hiding in the corner of the room.
Gris knocked on the wood in some sort of code and the door opened and a knight entered the room carrying a very large map. Looking at the map I could take an educated guess that it was the territory of the kingdom. On the far left was Chappel Constraint, surrounded by forests, to the north were two other cities, and to the south was one major city. However, going eastward you would eventually run into a huge red dotted line going down from the north. It was the battlefront, there were castles all over it and west of it located in highly defensive positions. To the northeast was the palace marked with the biggest star on the entire map, however, this was past the frontline in enemy territory.
Gris went on a long spiel. To summarize since my last death in this world, the elves have made steady progress in the war that the humans had seemingly won. The reason was due to a few elves that were ridiculously faster and stronger than the average paladin. They would wreak havoc on the frontlines and would assassinate key figures. However the war really started turning when the church withdrew from the frontline.
Due to the archbishop’s assassination of the last princess, there was a purge of the holy order. From the guilty higher ups to the innocent priests in slums the citizens and soldiers massacred them across three nights. Apparently, the princess was more liked than I had imagined. There are other religions that grew exponentially after the extermination, so it isn’t like this is a godless land.
At some point, servants had brought in food and they were all eating around the table. However rather than some grand feast it was some chicken legs and some soup. Which was good, because it wasn’t like the nobles were in here stuffing their faces every night.
Eventually, Gris dropped a huge piece of news. Those elite elves that he had previously mentioned had snuck past the frontline and were targeting civilians. The information says there are three groups, one in the south, one in the far north, and one directly east of the city. The frontline cannot spare any high paladins to come to the rear so Gris gathered us here to form a strike force.
Me, Hans, and the man in the corner named Zero were the strongest warriors not on the frontline. And he wants us to go kill the elves. Originally it was just going to be those two but now I’m here which makes this easier.
There are three groups that had split off into three individuals. So, there are approximately nine individual elves with the power to compete against high paladins all going around and slaughtering civilians. The northern cities are sending out a lot of paladins to subjugate the ones up there while the south apparently has the strongest mages who are going out to deal with the ones in the south.
That leaves the ones to the east. There is one wrapping around the northeast of the town and killing villagers along the mountain range. The second seems to be beelining straight for Chappel’s Cradle. And the third seems to be slowly going south away from this city.
I piped up when Gris seemed to wait for our response, “So which one are we going for first?”
The other guys looked at me like an idiot, and as I went to open my mouth Hans spoke up. “We’re splitting up James.”
It was my turn to look at him like an idiot. “My guy, I have never been to this world and you’re expecting me to track down a single entity?”
Zero gave his unwanted opinion, “You’ll know where they are pretty easily considering all the fleeing villagers.”
Well, that is true… But I do not like it.
I simply shrugged and sighed in defeat.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Well the bigger problem,” I started slyly, “is that do you guys have confidence we will all win our individual battles away from any reinforcements? Also, what if the information is wrong and it is more than just individuals we’re marching towards? What if it's entire squads?”
Cendrick flung his hands up in the air, “Then we’re just screwed, you three are the only contenders we have against these elves. If we send all three of you at a single one then the other two are going to get too far out of reach.”
I nodded in agreement because that was a fair point.
“So who is going to which one?” I put forth the question we were all thinking.
Without skipping a beat Zero made a declaration, “I’ll be heading to the one in the south. I have a potion I acquired through an old friend that grants infinite stamina for forty-eight hours. I’ll drink it and start running straight there after this meeting, I should encounter the elf around midday tomorrow and I will have a huge advantage from the potion. Afterwards I should have enough stamina, or still have the potion’s effect, and head north to help with the second one.”
Hans nodded, “Sounds like a good plan to me. I’ll take the one directly to the east. Due to that one being the closest. That means James will head north through the mountains to deal with the third one.”
Gris nodded, “This sounds like a solid strategy. Hans and the summoned shall set off tomorrow, Zero will be leaving shortly. I will be preparing a cloak and some body wraps for James in order to make sure he doesn’t freak out anyone he encounters along the way. With that, this meeting is adjourned.”
I got up to leave but Gris had quickly slithered around the table and clasped my shoulder. “I would like to hear more of this other world Hans claimed you stated you were from. I’ll wait for your return to hear about it though.” He gave a chuckle and left quickly after that.
Zero had left as quickly as possible and thus just me and Hans were awkwardly just standing around.
Hans sighed, “Welp I’d like to stick around and chat, but I should get some sleep before this adventure of ours. Just uh… find a servant to guide you to a vacant room.” He left quickly with his head down.
Little does he know; I haven’t had a wink of sleep in this world. I wanted to sit and think about this world, but I wanted a nice view. So naturally I made my way outside the inner castle and jumped right onto the wall. It was probably a good twenty-foot high wall but in this world that was nothing to me.
When I landed, I scared a guard so bad he fainted. I just kind of propped him up against the stone that jutted up from the outermost layer of the wall and took a seat atop that very stone.
I had a beautiful view of the city just below. It was that of a stereotypical medieval town where the main colors were white, yellow, red, and some umber. I could see some lit lanterns in some houses. I also saw coordinated patrols of guards wandering the streets.
Above all else the full moon tonight made the grayish stone look blue and it was a nice soothing view.
That night I thought about a lot of stuff. Mostly about this world. Why was I summoned? Who, but really what, summons me? How many more times will I be brought here? Should I really be helping the humans? Historically and in almost every fantasy fiction humans are pieces of trash. Greedy, lazy, stupid, and above all else they’re entitled. Modern society is like the best culmination of this I can use as an example. The entitlement is simply insane, and everyone expects things to go their way.
That train of thought got me to think about the real world and more specifically my work. I realized I had been angrier and overall, more snappish since the last time I was summoned. Every little thing that happens instantly puts me in a sour mood and makes me want to quit my job. My manager at work is really cool and actually good at his job, my sales rep is actually really good and has brought us a lot of business which has made my bonus pretty huge, and the days go by really quickly. So I shouldn’t really be wanting to quit my job, but like that’s just the mood I’ve been in a lot.
I just continued to ponder those topics and what I was doing with my life. I just kind of zoned out until eventually I felt a hand tap against my shoulder. The moon was starting to fall so it was definitely past midnight, and upon looking over I saw a young face that belonged to Cendrick. I patted the stone next to me, but he shook his head and sat down next to the silent guard.
“My dad really appreciates you ya’know. He always goes on and on about that creature that appeared when he was a servant in the palace.” Cendrick started.
I cleared my throat, “Well I only talked to him like two or three times in there, so I didn’t think we were particularly close. Granted one of those talks was for like six hours but still. I was just kinda infatuated with his name because it’s like a stereotypical name for a certain group of people from my world.”
“He said you gave him some advice and seemed to be the only person that seemed genuinely interested in him.”
Ok that sounded wrong but whatever. “So did you come here looking for some of that sage old advice from a twenty-one-year-old kid?”
“You’re only twenty-one?” Cendrick had a gaping mouth as he asked that.
“Yeah dude, you’re probably older than me.” I laughed.
“Well I’m only seventeen so you could still give me that advice and I could say it was from an old wise creature.”
“Sure thing buddy, so what is it?” I flung around and propped my head on my arm to try to act interested.
“My dad expects a lot from me in the sense of fighting, but I’m not physically blessed like him or the other soldiers. So, I tried learning magic but I’m not the best at it. SOOO I’ve started getting closer to the soldiers and trying to act as a leader but I don’t know if that’s what I should be doing. What do you think?” He was looking at me as if I was some old wise man from the fairytales now.
“Well do what you want, stop doing what you think they want you to do for starters. There’s some basic advice.” I faked a yawn to try to hint at him.
“But that’s the issue, I myself want to do all of that and more but I don’t know which one I should focus on.”
“Just do them all then idiot.”
He looked at me like I was an idiot, “What? How?”
“Just practice every day, you don’t have like a government-mandated school and you’re basically just a kid so you have the time. What type of magic do you like? And why do you think you’re bad at swordsmanship? And just keep doing what you’re doing with the guards it’ll help you learn how they think.” Dropped another yawn.
“Well, the magic I’ve been playing with is stuff along the lines of making other people stronger. Right now I can kind of make their body as hard as steel and really light. I can also kind of make people see better in the dark.” He sounded super excited telling me that.
I laughed, “And you’re saying you aren’t good at magic.”
“Well yeah other people can make it rain rocks the size of houses and I can just make people ‘better’?” He shrugged.
Well, my curiosity has been piqued so no more fake yawns. “Well, I have an idea, instead of fake yawns you could strengthen yourself and fight with your body and some martial arts.”
“What’s martial arts?”
“Oh dang that kind of puts a wrench in the gears huh.” What to do now, cause there goes the cool anime-style martial artist if I don’t do anything. I looked at him and then saw the guard and it clicked immediately.
Before Cendrick could say anything, I jumped up and gave the guard a good shake. Looking at him he looked to be about the same age as Cendrick so this made the plan even more perfect. After a couple of seconds, he opened his eyes and panicked.
I eventually lined them up. This guy’s name is “Kin”, and he is nineteen. Claims he was once a farm hand before learning some of the Emporer’s Spearmanship. He also had an insane stutter.
I now made a proclamation, “You two will be each other’s sworn brothers and will both learn the martial arts I shall gracefully bestow upon you two. Cendrick you will teach Kin how to use this magic during your free time during the day, and you will train your bodies together at dawn and sundown when no one is around. You two shall learn of modern-day martial arts as my first students in this world.” I threw my hands on my knees and proudly held my head high.
These two idiots didn’t clap so I loud whispered with my hand over my mouth, “This is when you’re supposed to clap and be thankful to your new master.’
They obediently clapped but Cendrick had to pipe up, “I thought I was your master because I summoned you.”
I wanted to hit him but I didn’t want to kill him.
I looked at the moon again and realized I probably only had a few hours.
“You guys are going to have to engrave this into your memory the one or two times I do something because we have until morning. Understood?”
They nodded.
And so the lessons began. Kin was slightly taller than Cendrick so he probably had another inch or three of reach on Cendrick so I made sure they were both aware of this and not to get too cocky or demotivated because of it.
Kin was a blonde guy, a little stockier than Cendrick, but his shoulders had already formed that gap between his torso and arms probably from learning the spear. I made him strip of his chainmail and he was also fairly toned. That lucky guy also had a natural butt cheek chin.
And so our lessons began.
I started them off by learning the basic Muay Thai stance I was most familiar with. Ran them through some basic drills with jabs, crosses, hooks, and uppercuts. Explained the method of combos where you go from one side of the body to the next through the rotations from your ankles to your arms. I then showed them the step-by-step on performing the basic kicks. A front kick, a round kick, a side kick, and a back kick were all sort of mimicked well enough.
I then explained these were all from a single martial art and that we didn’t even get into more complicated areas like clinch work from Muay Thai. They were super shocked and started trying to ask me question after question. But I’m the master now and didn’t tell them anything they wanted to know. Instead, I then explained I was going to show them the most crucial part of everything I was to show them that night.
The ’Six’ from Krav Maga is the only good adaptable part of that whole martial art that the Jews developed to fight against the fascists in the 1930s. And is the only thing I still regularly practice since not having been to a Krav Maga gym in like eight years. The ‘Six’ are six-arm positions meant to block attacks coming from different angles. The first position is where both your arms are straight horizontal above you and they gradually go lower around your sides until you’re at the sixth position where your arms go back to horizontal at the bottom to block like a kick to the nuts or something along those lines.
I demonstrated the use of the Six by having them attack me and showing the simultaneous defense and offense it offered as well as how effective it is at takedowns and counterattacks. I spent almost a full hour on this alone.
I then went to the next techniques I taught them which were takedown defenses and best ways to punish those. I myself am a striker and will not teach someone how to grapple when I don’t have that good of a grasp on it. But I will show them how to not get taken down to the ground. Because even people who don’t know martial arts tend to tackle their opponents.
I spent yet another hour on that. I then proceeded to have them run through a lot of drills they could do in pairs to work on their blocking, counterattacking, as well as overall perfecting the strikes. Then after they were exhausted, I taught them how to effectively shadowbox.
By the time they seemed to get the hang of it I saw the sun rising and bid them farewell. As I was walking away towards the gates where I was supposed to meet Gris I was thinking about those two. They were like sponges and were just getting better and better as the practice dragged on. Due to it being their first practice, they looked like they were anemic and were about to pass out towards the end.
That put a smile on my face and added a little bit of a skip to my step before this journey began.