As promised, we met in the backyard after we had our breakfast. I told Merry what was happening and now we were facing our three friends in front of us.

“Do we really have to tell them?” Takana complained. His bed hair was still there. Maybe he didn’t clean himself first?

“I-I think we do have to tell them…” Kihana said timidly. Unlike Takana, Kihana was properly dress and groomed.

“Do you want to keep lying to them, Takana? If Hashi were here, he would have agreed.” Fuyuki was as beautiful as I saw her last night. I still remembered our hugs last night.

“Why are you blushing first thing in the morning?” As usual, Merry was still cold towards me.

“I-It’s nothing…” I said.

“Even if we tell them what happened to us, there’s no benefit from it. Maybe they’ll think we’re just crazy or something. Remember when we tell our stories to some people? What did they think of us? They laughed at us!”

“You’re right but I believe these two are different. Besides, do you just want to keep lying on your friends?” Fuyuki said.

“Y-Yeah, Takana…I don’t want to lie to them anymore….” With pleading eyes, Kihana looked at Takana. Even I couldn’t resist something so compassionate.

“G-Geez! All right, Suit yourself.” Takana finally threw in the towel.

Fuyuki spoke, and this was the story she told;

We came from a different world.

A world where buildings are as towering as the sky, vehicles that didn’t have any animal pushing it and a powerless world where we didn’t have any magic or superpower abilities, basically a technologically advanced world where the weak can be strong and the strong can be overthrown. A fair and balanced world in a way.

The four of us, including Hashi, were people there, living a normal and mundane life, just like everyone else. When it happened, we were all in a different place but we all experienced blacking out and then waking up inside a medieval palace.

In total, they were fifteen of us that were summoned. Most of them we hadn’t seen before but all of us at least knew someone. Hashi and I knew each other, Takana and Shiro and Kihana and Sumiko.

Naturally, most of us were all confused and scared but there were individuals among us who weren’t and quickly recognized the situation we were in. They were Shiro, Hashi and Tetsuya, the future leader of the three parties we were going to make.

By the order of the King of Ergaos, Gyoro Ergaos, we were summoned by a mage called William. Yes, we were summoned by the highest noble in the aristocracy.

Initially, they treated us well. They provided us with the best service this kingdom could provide. It was like we were in a paradise. Eventually, the three future leaders wanted to know what our purpose was and why we were here.

In the Kingdom of Ergaos, two witches resided, one in the far north, which is the town of Roq, and one in the east, near the borders of Ergaos and Kisha, the other Kingdom. As you’d already known, Shakna, the witch in the far north, was recently defeated by the King, along with his vassals who died after the battle. We were summoned after that battle.

The witches themselves hadn’t appeared for a long time but their zealous generals and monsters had been causing havoc and chaos for decades. They had mutilated, killed, humiliated and destroyed humans and infrastructures. The King stationed the army and the wanderers in the east ever since Shakna was defeated.

They wanted our help to defeat the witch and her army. They made us chose to whether to fight for them or to never return home. Most of us wanted to return home, to return to our family and friends, so we didn’t had a choice but to accept their conditions. That being said, they treated us well and trained us with the highest training of this kingdom.

We were divided into groups of five. As I said earlier, those three were the leaders. They were personally chosen by the King to lead us. You’d probably seen the party of Shiro in the tavern and Tetsuya’s party. At the start, our party consisted of five, Hashi, me, Kihana, Takana and Sumikko. Just like wanderers, we were chosen to pick our class.

In the three parties, Shiro’s party was exceptional. They were doing exceedingly well that they were loved by everyone especially the King for their competence in training. Tetsuya’s party wasn’t that far from them, they, too, were doing great. All of their party members and party leaders were competent; it was as if they were born for this.

In contrast with them, our party’s performance was mediocre; you can even call it depressing. At the time, Takana was originally the swordsman of the party while Hashi was the Warrior. Same as them, Kihana was the Mage and I was the Priest, originally. Takana had a hard time mastering the fundamentals of a Swordsman. Kihana had a problem with understanding the concept of magic and I had conflict with the medical knowledge of this world. Sumikko was our archer. Only Hashi and Sumikko were the ones doing a great job in our party.

Because of that, our party was oppressed. We received harassment and intimidation from the people inside the palace especially the party of Shiro, most notably from Ryuu.

After just three days of non-stop training, the King wanted us to fight, to taste actual battle experience. There were three stages in this battle; the first stage was the kasaks, second was undead zombies and third was the beasts, a half-wolf.

Shiro’s party did great; they passed the three stages with minimum injuries. Tetsuya’s party did great, too. Although, they had a hard time with the half-wolf beast, they nevertheless passed the third stage. As for us, well, we did defeat the kasaks but Hashi and Sumikko were the ones who did it; you could even say we were liabilities in that battle. We couldn’t proceed in the second stage because we were tired and if we had hard time defeating the kasaks, how about the witches, right?

After that, the King had enough of us. You see, the King was an extremely impatient man. I didn't know the reason but he was eager to defeat and kill those witches. It was like that was his only purpose in life. The King wanted Hashi and Sumikko to stay while the three of us were to go and live the rest of our lives as common civilians.

Takana was all okay with it and so are we. We didn’t want to fight, anyway. We thought it was nice that other parties were the ones who will do the hard work while the three of us wait. But the King didn’t agree with that. He told us that if they were to defeat the witch, they were the only ones who will go home.

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We were shocked but the King had wanted it, so we had to leave.

However, Hashi stayed with us. I was fine with him being here but to be honest, we wanted him to come with us. We couldn’t impose on him since he was needed there but he chose to be with us.

Even though we were weak, he stayed with us.

Sumikko, on the other hand, didn’t. We really couldn’t blame her; it’s her life, after all. But we thought since she was close with Kihana, she would stay with her. But we were wrong to think that.

The King’s mind was made up; he wanted us gone. But Tetsuya’s persuasion of the King to give us some money worked and he reluctantly gave us five gold coins each.

With that, we thought we just needed time to work on our skills and abilities and everything will be fine.

But just as we were leaving the palace, we were stopped by the guards. The guards, out of nowhere, punched Takana in the face.

“What are you doing!?”

They beat up Takana until he couldn’t move and did the same with Hashi.

They beat them up until blood colored the floor that we were standing on.

We couldn’t do anything as they punched and kicked them.

After that gruesome beating, they looked towards us next.

I was sure that they were going to do something to us. Something terrifying.

Instead, they took all our money.

“Get lost before we do something to you.”

They left laughing as they counted the money they stole.

It was at this moment that we realized that this world was just like our world. It was cruel and unfair. Only the strong can prevail and the weak will always suffer, no matter what.

But Hashi pulled us out of there. He led us to this town and gave us reason to be strong for each other and to help each other in times of need and in times of peace.

That’s why we were so thankful to him. Even though he could have stayed there, and I would understand his choices, he chose to stay with us.

And that’s our story.

*

After they talked about what happened to them, Merry and I were in disbelief but I’m pretty sure our reasons were entirely different.

So they had a rough start, huh?

“You didn’t have to tell them about those goons beating us up.” Takana snickered.

“I’m just telling the truth.”

“I-I think that was an important part of our story…”

Fuyuki nodded. “So…do you guys believe us?”

“Sorry but I have a hard time believing that.” Merry said.

That was only to be expected. If I was in her position, I’d say that what they were saying was full of shit.

“Well, that’s the only natural reaction,” Fuyuki turned around and took something from her bag. “So, we brought this with us.”

A phone.

Physical evidence was indeed the best way to prove your case.

They showed us the phone while I put on a fake confused face as to not blow up my cover.

“What is this thing?” I said as I checked the phone. Merry also seemed to be confuse but unlike mine, hers was genuine.

“That’s a phone. It’s a technology in my world that allows you to do a lot of things such as taking a picture, surfing the internet, play games and many more.” Fuyuki explained.

Merry, as expected, tilted her head. She was confused. As for me, I furrowed my brows to show my confusion.

“You idiot.” Takana said. “Of course they won’t understand what you’re talking about. Let me show you how it’s done.”

Takana took the phone I was holding and opened it. Merry let out a yelp especially since this thing was literally from another world.

“This is an application. It is called photos.” After explaining it to us, he showed us a photo of an anime cat-girl which resembled Merry a lot. “This is you, Merry. Pretty cute, right?”

Fuyuki quickly smacked Takana on the head. “Sorry, Merry, but your race is a popular character in our world. This trash is one of those that worshipped things like this.”

“Hey, I’m not a trash!”

“Anyway,” Fuyuki ignored Takana. “This is the camera of the phone. It allows you to take a picture. Here, let me try it on you.”

Fuyuki took a picture of Merry. After that, she showed it to her. Naturally, Merry was surprised; the picture was cute, too. I showed my surprised face, too.

Fuyuki continued to show us many things about the phone, it was kind of boring since I knew everything but I had to keep up my acts. Merry, in particular, had shown interest about watching videos.

“N-Now, do you believe us, Merry?” Kihana asked.

“It’s hard to but I do believe you now.” Merry checked the photos. “I mean, look at this picture, there’s nothing here that looks like our world. Your world…it’s so beautiful. Your smiles are proof that your world is a great place.”

“Well, I wouldn’t really say that.” Takana said while scratching his hair.

“How about you, Terrin? Do you believe us?” Fuyuki asked.

“Of course! Ever since I saw that phone, I believed you right away!”

More like ever since I saw you, I’ve known who you really are.

“I knew you would believe us, Terrin.” Fuyuki smiled.

“I have a question, though.”

“What is it?”

“Why did you change classes?”

“Except for Hashi, we were having trouble with our class, so we decided to change classes when we got here.” Fuyuki said.

“Yeah, and I wanted to be the High Warrior, so Hashi swapped with me.” Takana explained.

“I-I swapped with Fuyuki.” Kihana said.

So that’s explained the reason why they were still training even though they trained in the palace.

“Do you plan on getting back on your world?”

“We do.” A serious expression was plastered on Fuyuki’s face. “That’s why we still continued being a wanderer. We planned on killing those wicked witches and go home.”

“Yeah,” Takana’s face was full of anger. “If it wasn’t for those wicked witches, I would still be home watching movies and animes. Damn, I hate them. Unless they’re hot and sexy, I’m going to thrust my sword into their faces without hesitation.”

“T-That’s a bit much, Takana but I do agree with you. Maybe Hashi would still be here…if it wasn’t for those wicked witches.” Kihana said. I’ve never seen her so angry to someone.

I really want to strangle this people. I also want to hear them scream as I kill each and one of them.

“Dude, chill. You don’t need such hostility with the King. He’s a bastard and when I see him, I’ll kick him in the face but you don’t have to be that angry with him.” Takana said. It looked like he was trying to calm me down.

“Huh? What are you talking about?” I was genuinely confused. Did something happen?

“J-Just now, you were making a scary face…” Kihana was a bit scared of me.

“Scary face?”

“Maybe you didn’t have any breakfast yet.” Fuyuki said. She, too, kept her distance with me.

Suddenly, someone smacked me in the back.

“I apologize about him, everyone. He does sometimes become like this.”

I do? I had no idea.

I scratched my back, “I’m sorry, maybe I’m just tired today.”

“Well, it’s fine, now that you’re okay but that felt good!” Fuyuki shouted. “We finally let out our secrets to them! Now, there’s no more secret between us.” an innocent smile appeared on Fuyuki’s face.

I’m sorry but someday I promised I will tell you mine when the time comes.

“I don’t understand your mind. There was no merit in telling them. We literally just wasted our time.” Takana sighed.

“Yes, there is.” Fuyuki smiled creepily. “Now I can take pictures of Merry openly! Before I had to do it in secret.” Fuyuki please stop drooling.

“D-Doesn’t it feel nice to you, Terrin?” Kihana said.

“Not really. I just don’t see any point in saying it to them except for Fuyuki’s dumb liking of cats. Hey! Don’t play with my camera, I only have two spares of battery with that!”

“Camera? You mean the phone?”

“No.” Takana showed me. “This is a DSLR camera. This is makes better quality than the ones in the phone.”

I know what that is. It looked like it was the latest model.

“Why do you have a DSLR camera?”

“Why? When I got summoned, I was on my way to anime convention when I got transported here.”

“Well, thanks to that, I can get some high-quality pictures with Merry! Come Kihana!” the three of them took pictures. Merry was still in disbelief about the whole new world thing.

“I told you if you keep playing with it, the battery will run out soon!” Takana snatched the camera.

“Tch! You’re so stingy! But that’s okay; I don’t have to take pictures of Merry in the distance, anyway.”

Taking pictures in the distance, huh? That would be nice as a scouting ability…

I just thought of something.

“What if we use the camera to watch Bladetree in the distance?”