Chương 2: [P-1] Hot Start

Book I: Floating City Standing in front of Hague was the goddess again. No, wait. It looked like her, with the same sage-green hair, but younger—twelve, thirteen at most. And more modestly dressed.

"Please, Hero. Save this decayed world," she said.

"Uh," said Hague. The girl fainted.

"Shit!" He barely caught her, completely limp in his arms. He tried to check if she was still breathing, but a loud bang forced his head up. He stood in the center of a perfectly square room. The walls stretched high, really high, with windows letting in slanting light that never touched the ground. It gave the place a holy feel, less church, more ceremonial chamber.

Maybe he only thought that because the girl he caught wore priestly regalia, but then again, he was standing on some sort of runic circle etched onto the floor in bright red lines. There was only one exit, and that's where the banging came from. Two grand arched doors rattled on their hinges, held steady by a splintering plank of wood and a man in full medieval armor throwing his weight against them. From the other side came indistinct yells.

"Hero." His head whipped around. Someone he didn't notice before stood at the edge of the circle. She wore all black: black doublet, black trousers, black boots, black cape. She even had black hair, with straight but messy bangs, from under which her pale face stared out like an animal's. In the dusky light, something emerald gleamed: a gem on the pommel of the sword sheathed at her hip. It matched her emerald eyes.

"Hero." She squinted, as though focused intensely on something. A scarily severe stare. Enough to make Hague wonder whether she were about to draw that sword and plunge it into him. Seconds passed; her eyes drifted, slowly. Her lips screwed up.

"I am Adelheid Mathema Peñaranda y Salzbach-Goemoto, Crown Princess of Ulrica." Oh. Maybe she just needed time to remember all that.

"My father," she said.

"The King." She no longer stared at Hague but past him.

"The King is murdered. The usurper seeks the throne. His forces have harried me here, far from the capital. I possess few allies and fewer friends. In such state I implore you, Hero: lend me your aid!" Hague, still holding the unconscious girl, stared at her. The banging on the doors grew louder and louder.

"So you're a princess," he said, "and your dad's dead?" Adelheid Whatsit-Or-Other nodded rapidly.

"Jesus. This really is Fire Emblem."

"Look alive!" yelled the man in armor.

"They're breaking through!" The drawbar snapped and the doors burst open. Adelheid ended her awkward off-center stare to turn and draw her sword. The armored man stepped back and readied a massive battle axe. Seven soldiers streamed inside. They all carried spears and they all wore matching uniforms, silver with gold embroidery like the robes of the girl in Hague's arms. The last soldier also had epaulets, to distinguish them as more important.

That was the one who spoke first, her voice piercingly feminine, like a bell chime.

"End this nonsense now. As captain of the Lucian Escort, I demand you unhand the Polymath!"

"Your affairs come too late," Adelheid muttered.

"The ears are senseless." Then the soldiers noticed Hague. Their reaction was delayed, each seeing him at slightly staggered times. They were, he noticed only as their faces turned toward him under brimmed chrome helmets, all female. That seemed weird. Even in modern gender equality fantasy, you didn't get all-girl groups without a reason. If not for the guy in armor—who was definitely a dude, he sounded like he ate brass tacks for breakfast—Hague would've worried the goddess dropped him into a fucking harem setup.

Everyone stared at him. He glanced down at the unconscious little girl he was clutching to his chest.

"Wait," he said.

"I swear she just fell on me like this." (He held back the urge to add, "Not beating the allegations, huh?" Be serious, man!)"What have you done," said the leader.

"Princess Adelheid, what in the name of all that is known have you done?"

"The rest is silence," Adelheid said cryptically. The other soldiers babbled:"It's a trick, right?"

"The Polymath would never—""What about the Covenant?"

"She knows what the last Hero did. She saw it firsthand."

"It's a trick. The Polymath wouldn't summon another Hero."

"It's a man in costume."

"Costume? Are you daft?! Look at him! Look at his clothes! Look at his—eyewear!"

"Hey now," said Hague.

"Don't diss the shades."

"No clothes like that exist in this world!" This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"It's a Hero. The Polymath summoned a new Hero."

"But the Covenant—""The princess! She forced her hand!"

"Why? Why, why, why?" They started growing hysterical. It was like trying to read chat after one of his hot takes, the only thing to do was let them burn off the energy. Or that was what he would say, but these were soldiers holding spears. All, of course, pointed directly at him. Luckily, they followed some semblance of military discipline. Before doing anything, they turned to their leader.

"Captain Marpasia, what now?" The leader in epaulets, Captain Marpasia, seemed to lack any desire to answer that question, but the sudden quiet that fell upon the room forced her forward on the weight of their stares. Her eyes tilted up, through the angled beams of light, toward the high canopy ceiling. She swallowed a sharp intake of air. She said:"Princess Adelheid, did you make Polymath Truth summon a new Hero to our world?" Adelheid muttered, too quiet to hear.

"Her Highness did no such thing," graveled the armor dude.

"Your Polymath acted of her own accord. She'd tell you herself, if she weren't out like a light from the exertion."

"It's not the place of a lowly Ulrican knight to speak so impertinently in this exalted tabernacle," Marpasia said, regaining initiative, though even when she spoke with authority she sounded more like Hague's vtuber ex than anyone of rank.

"I asked the princess, and in her words I'll hear the answer!" Adelheid didn't bother to mutter this time. Step by step she shuffled closer to the armor guy, maybe with the goal of hiding behind him. So yeah, this was going nowhere good. Hague only sort of understood the situation, but a few things were obvious. From his perspective, he was sent to this world by the goddess. But from the perspective of this world, he was "summoned" by this... Polymath, whatever the hell a Polymath was.

The girl conked out in his arms. Some religious leader, maybe. Loli pope. He wasn't exactly sure how Adelheid factored into it, or who if any of these people he should trust. Marpasia and co. didn't seem to be affiliated with the "usurper" Adelheid mentioned earlier, but unfortunately they also didn't seem too happy to see him. Though that was just cuz they hadn't gotten to know him yet. He stepped forward. His slightest movement caused all the soldiers to twitch their spears.

He gestured for peace, at least as best he could while carrying the Polymath. He would've liked to put her down, but since the soldiers seemed to respect her, he figured holding onto her might keep him from becoming an instant shishkabob.

"Guys," he said.

"Relax. Can we all just chill a sec?"

"No!" said Marpasia.

"You keep calling me a Hero, but heroes are good guys right? Why are you so mad about it?" They glanced uncertainly among themselves, nobody wanting to speak, as if even talking to him might taint them. The duty finally fell to Marpasia, who spat out:"Why are we 'mad,' you ask? The last so-called Hero decimated this world. Countless thousands perished in his conquests, the church ravished, order upheaved, and only the meanest chance of his murder saved us from worse devastation.

To this day, his heretical acolytes bring endless war to the Low continent, war and war and war, war for sixty-six long years and no end in sight. Save for the bulwark that is our holy homeland, the glorious and noble Queendom of Lucia, their hordes would surge teeming northward, and none for generations would know peace! Even a schoolgirl sees the Heroes have degenerated every successive summoning, each more corrupt than the last—""Vulgar untruth," Adelheid said.

"Falsifier. Fool. The last Hero was but a lapse. Those before were good far exceeding this sickly world's merit. The Heroes are good. They are good. They're good! Good!" She cried out animatedly, looking ready to leap forward and start stabbing.

"Okayokayokay," Hague said quickly, before Marpasia got more than a few words into what sounded like a smarmy rejoinder.

"Guys, guys. It's fine. It's fine. It doesn't matter what the last Heroes were like, cuz I'm not them. I'm just a normal guy. I'm the Hague." He thought about what he said and hesitated.

"I'll just not do anything evil. Easy."

"We cannot possibly trust such empty words."

"At least wait for me to do something evil before you try to kill me."

"Then it would be too late," Marpasia said.

"Once you're allowed to grow stronger, to gain allies, to gather mighty armaments, you can no longer be so easily suppressed. There's but one chance to prevent calamity, and that's to smother it in its crib—to strike you at your weakest! Polymath Truth may have broken the Covenant, but we, her Lucian Escort, shall stand by our oath!" It was as much an argument as a rallying speech. Her soldiers, overcoming their timidity, murmured in agreement and reaffirmed their grips on their weapons.

They fanned out, creeping along the edges of the room, encircling Hague. Instantly, the fundamental problem of being outnumbered 2-to-1 became clear. Plus Hague didn't even have a weapon, unless he tried swinging loli pope like a club. One soldier said, "Must we spill blood in the exalted tabernacle?"

"When Her Majesty hears of our deeds here," Marpasia said, "pardon will be only the first of her favors." Hague had to do something.

"Come on. You're worried about me growing stronger? Getting weapons? Look at me. Do I look like a fighter? I'm just a guy. Just a guy who's really good at video games. Now Hague, you're wondering, what's a video game? Well I'm glad you asked, cuz I can tell you all about—huh?" They were all staring at him, utterly aghast. Even the big man in armor, who hadn't let his focus waver once, glanced over his shoulder. The room went dead quiet. Hague didn't understand. What'd he say?

"The same as before." Marpasia spoke barely above a horrified whisper.

"Oh Almighty Sophia, he's exactly the same as the last—a gamer!"

"Wait—""KILL HIM!" Marpasia screamed.

"Whatever it takes! Kill him now!" From seven angles at once, the soldiers advanced.

"This is complete fucking bullshit!" Hague said. That shitty goddess! How was this fair? It wasn't a game at all. What the hell was he supposed to do? Bark orders at Adelheid while dodging spears? Real time wasn't his fucking genre! Then—as if reality read his mind—everything froze. Marpasia, her soldiers, Adelheid, armor guy. All stood perfectly still, unwavering, unblinking, even midstep. In the slanting sunbeams, motes hung motionless.

Hague no longer felt the slow rise and fall of the chest of the girl in his arms. Actually, he no longer felt her at all, though when he looked down she was still in his arms. She just weighed nothing. He tried to lift her to make sure. His arms phased through her body. Startled, he jumped back, only to jump out of himself. There he was, the Hague, frozen in time too, clutching a little girl for dear life, looking ready to shit his pants. Hague paced around himself.

It was like he was a soul, astral projected from his body. It made no sense at all.

"What the fuck," he said. He said it voicelessly, airlessly. He recognized the feeling: exactly how it felt to talk in the goddess's limbo. The goddess! Where'd that bitch go? He had some shit to say to her. (She was joking about the savings account, right?) But when he whipped his head back and forth to find her, something in his shades clicked. The single lens blacked out, blinding him. His hands shot up to pull the shades off, but before he did, something appeared on the black surface. It was the room.

The sacrificial chamber or exalted tannenbaum or whatever they called it. He recognized the runic summoning circle and the four pillars in the corners. He wasn't looking at it from the ground, though. He saw it from above. A top-down perspective, like he was floating on the ceiling. Down below was his body, and Adelheid, and everyone else, exactly where they stood when time stopped. That wasn't all, though. There was a grid on the ground. OBJECTIVE: DEFEAT ALL ENEMIES TURN 1 PLAYER PHASE START