“What do you think you are doing?”

“Where did you come from?”

“What’s with that sword?”

SLASH!

It took only one swing. One swing to end the lives of three perfectly healthy and ignorant men. Once their bodies fell, the blood and innards spilled about. Nerves and organs floating about in a pool of red. For the man, however, the job was complete and their deaths were mere stepping stones for him to advance. Disregarding the gruesome and gore scene before him, he continued on the path of indiscriminate killing and self-preservation.

“I, Shainaq Jawaz, welcome you all to the city of Masquara.”

“Eh!?”

All the students, including the indifferent yet amused Asahi and the calm and composed Aki, raised their voices in surprise when they realized that they could understand what the man in front of them had said.

One sentence from Shainaq sent the whole class into an uproar. They had spent one whole day unable to converse with their companions, they had expected for this to continue.

“I ask all of you to please remain calm... I can only imagine the number of questions that you have, and I promise that all of them will be answered in due time. However, this hall isn’t a good place since it is too open… Please, follow me.”

Shainaq's voice was extremely gentle and friendly which went well with his handsome look and tall frame.

Being led by Shainaq and two butlers, the students left behind Cli, the commander who accompanied them, and walked toward what seemed to be a reception room. It was a pretty large room, two women stood inside with rectangular trays in their hands.

“Please, make yourselves comfortable.”

Shainaq said in a gentle voice and instructed. In the near-empty room, exactly twenty-six chairs stood facing a single, much larger chair, in front of the room. Aki took one of the seats in the back, and unexpectedly enough, Misaki took the seat on his right while Vinayak took the one on his left. Misaki eyed Aki and conveyed her intent, which was to discuss the current situation.

“We will begin once you settle down. Until then, please enjoy our hospitality.”

Shainaq signaled the maids wearing the same exposing clothing like the ones in the hall. They respectfully brought the trays to each of the students and urged them to take one of the many metallic cups placed on them.

“So, what do you make of this, Muranaka-kun?”

Misaki asked while inquisitively looking at the metallic cup in her hand. The cup resembled those from their world, but the liquid filling it seemed quite unfamiliar. It was a purple fluid with considerable thickness. Without replying to Misaki, Aki brought the glass near his mouth and took a sip.

“It’s delicious. Don't think too much about it. If they wanted to kill us, they could’ve done so already. They don’t need to use poison. As for this 'Shainaq' guy, I believe he is a very important individual. That commander from before was extremely respectful to him, and he is being respectful to us, it looks like our existence is quite important to them.”

Aki said and proceeded to chug down the remaining liquid. It was a cold and refreshing drink, it tasted like mulberries, but at the same time, it did not. Misaki looked at Aki carefreely drinking the unknown liquid and nodded toward Akio, Umi, and Nikki. And with Vinayak, these five people emptied their cups as well.

"Truly, it's delicious."

The sun was on the edge of the horizon, indicating the arrival of dusk, but even so, the surroundings were unusually bright. Shainaq, who was busy observing the students and discerning their personalities and merits, abruptly straightened up. His eyes turned serious and expression became stern.

“Firstly, allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is Shainaq Jawaz. I am a trusted aide of the leader of this country you are in. It is my responsibility to make sure you are briefed about your current situation and are treated with the utmost respect. If there is anything that you are uncomfortable with, then feel free to consult with me.”

Aki’s ears perked up as he began observing every movement Shainaq made.

"Excuse me, I can discern that you all hail from Asia, but can you tell me which country you were in before coming here?"

"Japan."

Asahi answered Shainaq's question without even a bit of hesitation.

“Is that so? You must be thinking that I am speaking then... No, I am not speaking Japanese. I am speaking the local language of North Gerblicli, Miras. I believe you’ve realized this already but you’re not exactly listening to me speak. What enters your ears is Miras, but what you comprehend is Japanese. This is due to a special device, I will tell you all about it later.”

“First, let's clear some of the basic doubts you may have. Yes, this is a different world. This isn’t Earth. It’s embarrassing to say, but unlike your planet, ours doesn’t have a globally accepted name. Hence, please feel free to refer to it in any way you like. Let me explain to you why the twenty-six of you are the only ones summoned here. This is a bit complicated, and some of the terms I will be using don’t exist in Miras, so allow me to speak in English, will that be all right with you? I hope everyone understands English here.”

Aki nodded with everyone else. After confirming everyone’s response, Shainaq nodded and began to speak fluent English.

“There were many criteria that needed to be fulfilled for the summoning to occur. First, it had to be a group of more than twenty and less than thirty people. Second, all of the people had to be sufficiently compatible with [Lord’s Blessing]. Third, the group had to be composed of people who were fed up with their lives. What I mean is that the people who would be summoned must have a certain degree of disgust toward their lives and wished to escape from it. Fourth, the people summoned must be under forty and over fifteen years of age. We didn’t specifically target your group, it’s just that when the ritual was being conducted, your group was the only one which met all the conditions, and thus, was summoned from Earth to here.”

“Now, what exactly is ‘here’? The planet which you stand on is a parallel version of Earth. Yes, parallel worlds exist. There is an infinite number of parallel universes. Every universe occupies the same space and vibrates at the same frequency, the only factor distinguishing one universe from another is time.”

“This is a little complicated so please pay attention. Imagine this world to have a time ratio of 1:1. What this ratio implies is that one unit of time passes on this world when one unit of time passes, in this case, the 'unit of time' being seconds. If you've watched interstellar or are familiar with the theory of relativity than it might be simpler. So, what I mean to say is that one second passes in our world when one second passes. This might sound ridiculous but hear me out. The ratio of Earth’s time to our time is 1:8. What that means is that when one second passes in your world, eight seconds have already passed in ours. In other words, our world is eight times faster than yours. I hope that you can grasp the basic essence of what I am saying. I will answer all your questions but before that allow me to elaborate on this topic.”

“What’s the shortest measure of time that you know of? Yoctosecond? Planck time? Now imagine, there exists a whole other universe just one Planck time away from you, but you would never know of it because these two times have a sort of 'time barrier' which prevents the intrusion of one universe into another. You're unfamiliar with all of this because breaking this ‘time barrier’ is near-impossible for most of the species inhabiting these universes. Which include the humans of your planet."

"However, we have discovered a method to slightly weaken this time barrier. I say 'weaken' because if it were to break, the consequences would be catastrophic, possibly leading to the destruction of the universes involved. The only people who know about the existence of these parallel universes and time barriers are the leader I mentioned to you earlier, myself, and seven more people. The further in time a planet is, the harder it is to weaken the time barrier enough to cross over to the said world. The time barrier gets thicker as we move further away than the source. In this case, since you were a whole eight seconds away from us, fifty-two space manipulators died in the process of summoning, which is honestly a very severe loss to not only us but the whole world.”

“The reason why such a distant world was chosen for the summoning ritual was that most of the parallel worlds are dead. What that means is that out of the infinite worlds like ours that exist, almost all of them don’t have life. Between our world and yours, there are only three planets with intelligent life. However, all three of them had one problem or another with their inhabitants, resulting in us choosing your world. Now, for the reason why I am so familiar with all this and am familiar with your world… I am what you would call a reconnaissance agent. I have been to all four of the worlds, and have studied all of them, which includes yours. I lived in your world for about two years, and when I returned, sixteen years had already passed. This information about me being an agent and traveling to other worlds is highly confidential and is known only to the leader and myself. Your existence here will be knowledge, however, the way you were summoned will be kept a secret. Because if the other nations become aware of the method of summoning humans from other worlds, the whole situation will turn chaotic. Therefore, we will not be telling you exactly how you arrived here for obvious reasons, but apart from that, you are free to ask and know everything to do with this world and its citizens.”

“There are many similarities and many differences between our worlds. And since I am the only one aware of those differences, I will handle your education and grooming. So, from tomorrow until you are completely ready to enter the world, you will be staying inside this mansion and will undergo training and education. For now, please retire to the prepared rooms. Each room can accommodate three people, so do make yourselves comfortable. It will take a bit of time to adapt to the change in time flow but when you are used to it, you will experience no difficulties in living here. You all should be feeling a pressure weighing down on you, please do bear with it, for the time being, we will address it in tomorrow's lecture."

"Every room will have two helpers for your convenience, they have been instructed to obey your every command, however, they will not be able to understand any complicated commands since they do not understand your language. I am here to help with that, so write your instructions on the paper provided in your rooms and I will translate your command for them. Please use English to write since I do not understand Japanese. When I was in your world, I lived in the U.S, and my name was Micheal Smith. It is a story for another time though. For now, please follow them to your rooms.”

Aki and the others followed the butlers and maids to their accommodations. And since no man would share rooms with Aki and Vinayak, Chisa decided to share the room with them. The students were dead tired, so nobody cared about anything. They just took a bath using the hot water prepared in multiple buckets and wore the clothes provided. The injured were treated and lavish meals were sent to each of their rooms. Aki and Misaki met up after the meal and discussed some rather concerning topics.

The next morning.

Aki woke up with the chirping of singing birds entering his ears. He looked around him and observed the room he was in. Since yesterday, they were desperate to recover, even Aki forgot everything and went to sleep. The room he was in resembled that of a retro-style hotel. There were three narrow beds with a one-meter gap between them. The room had a huge table standing in front of the three beds. That’s it. Just three beds, one table and one window which lacked glass. Also, there was no door. According to Shainaq, doors fit for rooms weren’t invented yet. Gates existed, but the doors didn’t. The only thing between the outside world and the room they were in was a single pink-colored curtain. However, two men were standing outside so no one could enter without permission.

“Mnn~~ Ah~, Aki, you up~?”

“Chisa, this bed is small, can’t you just sleep on your own? What if Vinayak catches you?”

“I tried, but I was way too scared last night. What? Am I not allowed to cling to you while sleeping? Is that how it is? Are you going to abandon me too?”

Aki's eyes flashed with an incomparably sad and lonely light, but he managed to calm himself soon after.

“It’s not like that and you know it. It’s just that I don’t want people to misinterpret our relationship.”

“Oh~ Is that so? Well… I’ll let it go for now. So, what’s the situation looking like? You seemed very occupied last night so I held back, can you tell me what's happening? I have to be on top of things to be able to follow your orders.”

“Well... for starters, I did talk with Arashiro-san last night… It seems like we can only believe in that man called Shainaq. Although what he said about the time ratio was accurate, many questions were left unanswered. When Arashiro-san asked him 'why' we were summoned, he said that he wasn't the right person to tell us that. That's suspicious but we can't do anything about it. We decided that we would learn whatever we are taught and train in whatever they want us to, for now, that is. Shainaq said that he would help us get rid of this pressure today, I just hope that’s true because my shoulders are already on the verge of breaking.”

“Hm~ One thing I noticed was that these people are pretty primitive for a civilization that can break this so-called time barrier though. They don’t have doors, they don’t have showers, the maids look like freaking prostitutes, glass isn’t mass-produced, the weaponry is old-fashioned, the clothing is old-fashioned, the furniture-design is simplistic, the etiquette is very old fashioned, and even the meals are simple. However, all the men I have seen, be it young or old are extremely handsome, I don't know if it's a good thing or not.”

“Why the hell are you ranting? Just be happy that our lives aren’t in any danger. Also, the women here are very beautiful, so for the males, this must be akin to a paradise.”

“Yeah, yeah, we should go get something to eat. Our lecture starts at nine, right? I feel like I am back in college. Nine to one lecture. Three to seven training.”

“Hm~ I am pretty excited though. I mean, we are in a new world. Just think of all the different things we can learn. We should probably set out... I’ll ask the butler to get us some clothes to wear. Can you wake up Vinayak for me? I’ll go take a bath.”

“Okay. Leave a bit of water for me too. I’ll take a bath as well.”

“Understood.”

After taking a bath, Aki joined the students who had gathered in the dining room for breakfast. It was called a dining room, but it was more like a cafeteria since multiple tables stood in the huge room with a high ceiling. After eating what seemed to be a kind of bread and a bit of porridge, they moved to the same room as yesterday for the lecture.

“I hope all of you had ample rest yesterday night. Resting in an unfamiliar place is a frightening task, I know, but I hope you get used to it sooner rather than later. It’s our first day together, so let us begin with something less complicated…”

Shainaq pulled something out of his robe and showed it to the class. It was a rectangular shaped rock. About twenty centimeters in length and ten in-breath, it was a small and slim piece of rock which resembled a modern-day tablet. White in color, it gathered the attention of everyone present.

“This is the device that I used to make you guys understand Maris. This device is known as [Blessing Slate]. This little thing that looks like an I-pad is an integral part of the high-class society in this world. This is one of those things which once touched by someone, can’t be transferred to another, and as I said, it is mostly seen in high-class houses, so we can’t provide you all with one of these as of this moment, however, once we go to the pa- the leader’s house, I will make sure you all have one of these in your possession. Now, we will talk about its functions and importance in detail. Hope you don’t fall asleep~”

Four hours later.

“Interesting.”

Aki said while rubbing his chin and walking toward the dining hall for lunch. By his side were Misaki, Akio, and Nikki. Vinayak and Umi were following them from a distance. Akio was walking on his right with their shoulders touching, her eyes never left Aki's face, not even for a moment. Through her perspective, the only male existence that mattered to her was Aki, her father, her step-brother, all her male relatives were nothing more than mere acquaintances. Akio is disgusted with every single one of them. As for friends, she perfectly knows what they are thinking while looking at her transcendent looks and enticing body. Her eyes show absolute disgust and resentment to every male she meets, the only exception being Aki. She is aware of how deep she has fallen, but everyday she falls deeper and deeper.

“This [Blessing Slate] can measure our raw strength and our [Lord’s Blessing] manipulation. Also, it can help us in communicating with other people without any language barrier. However, even that has many hidden problems as many of our terms may be simple rubbish or may not exist in their languages. For example, the word ‘respiration’, when translated, it would be ‘the process of breathing’. However, for us, respiration is the entire process involving the oxygen and carbon-di-oxide exchange in cells and the process of turning deoxygenated blood into oxygenated blood. That’s just one of the many examples. Take the word ‘Japanese’, for us, it is the language we speak, but for them, it is just pure rubbish.”

Aki said, to which, Misaki nodded and asked.

“So, what you are saying is that the words that don’t exist in their vocabulary won’t be translated and would just transmit to them in Japanese?”

“Yes, exactly. Do you remember how the words ‘Miras’ and ‘Gerblicli’ weren’t translated to us while ‘North’ was? ‘Miras’ and ‘Gerblicli’ just don’t exist in our vocabulary as they are names of a language and nation respectively and hold no meaning whatsoever. Like how ‘Japan’ is a nation and is called ‘Japan’ worldwide without being translated. Yes, it may be called something else in other languages but at the end of the day, it is a nation and has no other meaning. Whereas ‘eat’ means the process of eating, the word itself has a definite meaning and is called something else in each nation.”

“This is difficult to understand.”

Nikki said while crossing her arms in front of her chest. Her kind and gentle demeanor never leaving her being.

“Let me see… You can imagine this [Blessing Tablet] to be a better version of google translate but with simple vocabulary.”

“““Oh~~~”””

Nikki, Misaki, and Akio nodded together in understanding.

After eating lunch, they were led to the garden and were made to change into a more tight-fitting outfit. Their measurements were taken in the morning and the clothes were prepared in less than half-a-day.

“I’ve been constantly talking about [Lord’s Blessing], and I hope you’ve understood the theory of it. Now, let us explore it in all its glory.”

Shainaq made everyone sit on the comfortable grassy ground.

“I’ve already told you this in the previous lecture, allow me to emphasize it once more. Our world is heavily religious, I mean it when I say that. Our world’s faith towards a higher existence is many times higher than yours, and I am not talking about the Earth of today, I am talking throughout history. Even if one were to accumulate the faith of every species which has walked on Earth, even then it will not be comparable to the faith which people in our world hold today towards [God]. Unlike Earth, our [God] doesn’t have a specific name. Christians have Jesus. Muslims have Allah. Buddhists have Buddha. As for Hindus… Well… They have 3.3 million Gods. Having so many gods, people of Earth are divided by religion. Religious riots and fights are practically commonplace. However, this is where we are different, we believe in just one existence. One existence which towers over all others. One existence that is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omnificent. One existence which carries the hope of all humanity. That existence is, [God].”

“In contrast to the many factions on Earth, the people of our world are divided into only two factions: Believer and Atheist. Either you believe in this existence or you don’t. And frankly speaking, the people belonging to the latter are droplets in the sea when compared to people belonging to the former. Do you see that huge castle-like thing? That’s the temple, masjid, church, or whatever you wanna call it which prays to the [God]. People here refer to it as a [Samahdi]. You must be thinking that the samahdi here is pretty huge, well, this is the smallest samahdi in all of North Gerblicli. I believe I do not need to say anything else. Now, let’s move on to [Lord’s Blessing], it is an invisible force covering all of our planets and is present in everything that exists, be it ground, rocks, water, etcetera. This force isn’t fictional and it exists, what you people feel weighing down on you all is exactly this [Lord’s Blessing]. First, we will learn how to channel this [Lord’s Blessing] in our bodies. As you know, one of our conditions was that the people being summoned must have a certain degree of compatibility with [Lord’s Blessing], so it will be easier for you to learn this. [Lord’s Blessing], exists in your world as well, however, it’s purity is very low compared to ours, and that is the reason why you all can’t begin to channel it. It’s pretty easy, it’s basically meditation. I will be guiding you from now on in this meditation and will tell you all the ways [Lord’s Blessing] can be manipulated and used. Also, every day we’ll have lectures which will make you knowledgable enough to meet our leader.”

Shainaq said with a smile as he began guiding and teaching the students about the world and its values.