WHERE AM I?

I woke up to nothing. It was dark all around me. I could feel nothing, but I could hear voices of people arguing near me. My eyes wouldn’t open. I couldn’t recognize any of the voices I heard which was strange because I could identify almost every voice in my school. I forced my eyes till they painfully, slowly opened. The first thing I saw was a duo of a young boy and a woman who seemed to be in her early 20s. I was lying on the ground of what appeared to be an old, run-down chapel. On my right was Hana who was asleep, and to my left, Aoyama also asleep. There were some others also asleep but I couldn’t recognize any. Where was I? I didn't know. Who were they? Not a clue.

"Hey, now wake up!”

As the boy shouted, everyone slowly woke up.

“Hey mortals! Fear me for I am..."

"Shut up"-Thwack

"Ow! What the heck?"

The boy tried to introduce himself but he received a light chop on his head from the woman’s hand. The boy had a light greenish set of hair on his head while the woman’s was a light blue. The child was fairly normal except for the straight sword hanging around his waist. The woman was wearing a tight red dress which pressed her well-endowed body. She turned to us with a smile that could charm any number of men instantly.

"Now, as that nitwit was trying to say..."

"Lord Min...”

"I Thought I told you to shut it. Anyway, I'm Lady Velos but you may address me as Six. He's Five."

She immediately gave the boy another chop and they got into another argument. I ignored them and inspected the room carefully, noticing that of the five others lying on the ground by me, there was a girl roughly the same age as me. She wore a dark blue yukata with some symbols neatly designed all over, some make-up and wielding a fan in each hand. I thought it was strange because we were a long way from any festivals I knew of. She had a head of red hair to compliment her red eyes.

Six and Five? What kind of names are those? They’re just numbers…anyway, from the way they bicker; I can tell they’re well acquainted. Since I don’t know anyone here, should I just ask or be patient in hopes of getting an answer...

"..."

“…”

"See?! They're speechless; you should have let me do the explaining."

"I will kill you."

"Jeez alright."

I guess the others don’t know what’s going on either, because with the exception of those two, no one else has spoken. Okay Masayuki, let’s verify that fact.

"Um...Hana… Aoyama… where are we?"

Hana and Aoyama both had confused looks on their faces. I looked around a bit but since I couldn’t see everything, I got up. The first thing I noticed was that I was still wearing my school uniform. In my right hand was my bag, which only kept the two gifts my dad left me before he died a strange book and an even stranger box.

“You there, what’s your name?”(Six)

“Yeah, and how the hell did y ”(Five)-Thwack

“…Masayuki.”

“Oww…”(Five)

“Interesting…yeah not really!” (Six)

In truth, I often dawned an oblivious attitude which annoyed people easily but there was no way to use that here and no reason to use it yet.

"...Masayuki?"(Aoyama)

"...What’s going on?"(Hana)

I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as I stood there. I couldn’t figure out where to look so I kept to Aoyama.-“I should be asking you, I fell asleep…remember?” I asked.

"Well yeah, but then you started glo "

“Okay, that’s enough. Why do you think we are here? Damn it. We even had the courtesy to summon you to a chapel to make explanations easier but of course you would rather converse with each other.”

I looked at the boy with amusement as he struggled to hold his obvious anger in. He was trying to sound calm by the looks of it, but his emotions were labeled on his face.

“Why is he trying to act unfazed?”(Aoyama)

“Of course you’ll say what’s on everyone’s mind.”(Masayuki)

“Hey, you two! Since you act all buddy-buddy, I assume you know each other. Where the heck am I?”

Asked a blonde haired man still lying on the ground. He had an aura of superiority most often given off by rich folk. He wore a plain looking shirt with the words: ’BOSSTY’ on the front and sweatpants.

Now that I think about it, they all look like they’re having a hard time getting up. Is it they can’t get up or something else...?

“Hey Aoyama, Hana, can you guys stand or?”

The blue-haired woman and the boy seemed to be staring at me intently. I, obliviously, scanned the room inspecting the others on the ground.

We appear to be in an old chapel or something like that. The building looks like it’s on the verge of collapse so there’s that. I am still wearing my school uniform though so I know I was brought here during or after school. This doesn’t feel like a dream though, and I’m pretty sure my friends don’t know what’s going on either. We could have been kidnapped but…I don’t know…what could they want from us?

"Anyway as I was saying..."

The woman who identified herself as Six continued, as if she was oblivious to their questions.

"You were all summoned to this world to partake in a game of sort. My brother and I..."

"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN SUMMONED TO THIS WORLD!?" Screamed the blonde haired man.

“Sigh…You are becoming quite bothersome.”

“Huh, okay…let’s start over. My name is Kell Crinell, half American so don’t ask about the name, and I’d like to know… I don’t know… maybe, HOW THE HELL I GOT TO THIS DAMN PLACE!”

“Kell, huh? Your arrogance is justified by your dragon genes but don’t et that get to your head.”

“WHAT THE HE ”

“ENOUGH!”

With that, the man was sent flying across the room. He slammed into a pillar which collapsed on him soon after.

“In this world, ignorance is death. That’s one of the three absolute laws in this world.”

Whoa, what the hell just happened? Did she even move? Okay- okay, okay, okay, okay, okay- okay. I’ll just keep quiet and wait. I mean for all I know, this could all be a huge prank. Maybe the boys got me?

Everyone fell silent after seeing that guy launched through the air. The woman, Six, walked to the pillar in a classy manner, grabbed Kell’s body, and dragged him back to where the rest of us were.

“You there, Masayuki right?” Five asked.

“I am.”

“Hmm...I like you. You’d better win for me so I can choose you.”

“Huh?”

What’s he talking about? Should I just say ‘yes’ or is this a ‘no’ situation? Or it’s a test; should I just ask him what’s going on?

Thwack “I haven’t explained the rules yet you moron.”

Oh great, so it wasn’t a test…I think?

“Sorry about that, now if there aren’t any more distractions? Oh, and you are free to stand now.”

The others got up one by one with the exception of the two knocked out guy. Aoyama got up quickly and reached a hand out to help Hana but she tugged on my shirt with an expecting smile. I didn’t want to kick Aoyama in the groin but I helped Hana out anyway it would have been awkward if I didn’t.

“Now then, we have introduced ourselves as Six and Five but if mentioning those names is too difficult for you, stupid as you may be, you may address me as Lady Velos and him as Lord Min.”

She paused to check our expressions.

“I’ll be going over some major points, rules and customs of this world so anyone who interrupts me should die before we leave this place.”

Pausing once more to check our expressions, she went on to explain to that we were summoned to this world to be champions because we had the blood of other races in us. We were supposed to be four, but the people having physical contact with us during the summoning were also brought along. She gave us a basic explanation think of RPGs. The ranking in this world went something like this:

Humans have different ratings which can be found in any town hall or adventurers’ guild. She didn’t want to waste time on that because “most of you will become adventurers anyway so you will find out”, or so she said.

D-rank Monsters:

Re-animated Undead

Hobgoblins

Higher Slimes

C-rank Monsters:

Ogres

Orcs

Lizard men

B-rank Monsters:

Angels

Demons

Spirits

A-rank Monsters:

Giants

S-rank Monsters:

Dragons

Super S-rank Monsters:

Gods

“Yeah, this is an RPG.”

“Yes, it was called an RPG in your world but make no mistake, you break the laws, you die.”

“What you’re the police now?”

Immediately after waking up, Kell asked that question. He didn’t have any injuries on him so he must have thought it was a dream. He almost started shouting questions again but one glare from Velos Lady Velos I mean, shut him up. She must have read my mind cause when I left the “Lady” out, she shot me a spine-shattering glare.

“Humans…” ignoring him “… gain more Experience Points (XP) by defeating monsters on a higher level, in the extremely rare case where a human can defeat a god, which is your main mission here, the human instantly goes up twenty levels. You summoned ones were each born in this world and sent with a parent to other worlds. Your human genes are naturally higher to prevent your abilities from surfacing in the other worlds. The three main energy sources in the world are Mana which is required to use magic and in some cases, spells , Aura- which is is used to strengthen, develop, change or manifest skills. It is holy energy in angels and demonic energy in demons- and Willpower- which is used to develop new skills (when a certain amount is reached), resistances and together with aura, in rare cases, weapons.”

Wow, she actually talks a lot. I’ve had life easy so I should assume everyone summoned here has the same charisma, luck and, most obvious, fighting ability.

“To check your levels, stats and skills, call out: ’Evaluate Self’. Your current levels are too low to use any strong skills and magic related abilities. As in normal RPGs, you all start at level one.”

“E-excuse me, Miss Six?”

That voice came from the girl dressed in the kimono.

“It’s just Six and what is it?”

“Okay, Six, erm…My name is Yume… Yume Senazuki… and… erm… I’m assuming that what you’re telling us is the truth and this is just like a game, so uhh… the ranking system seems bunk so does that mean humans of this world are really strong… or… the monsters here are really weak?“

Yume Senazuki huh? Yeah she’s definitely smart, she also noticed it right away. Normally, demons, angels and spirits are ranked behind only the most powerful monsters or at least that’s how it is in games, sometimes they even are the most powerful creatures in games..

“Why isn’t it obvious? You lot are the reason why the ranking is the way it is.”

“Wait !” I interjected, “What did we do exactly…? As far as I’m concerned, I woke up here with my friends and neither of us has any recollection of how we got here!”

I checked my friends’ facial expressions, after I was done, to confirm they had nothing to do with me being wherever “here” was, but they looked rather confused.

“Well your friends’ facial expressions show that they must have seen you being summoned from at least 7 feet away, before rushing to your side. Am I wrong?”

Perhaps out of fear or because he really did speak the truth, my friends slowly nodded their heads.

“Well no time for all that, you can catch up after the trial period. Two of you will leave here alive. Well… two plus their invites I guess… assuming the two who brought plus ones survive, that is.”

She turned to me as she spoke. I couldn’t help but feel uneasy, then I realized that I was too far gone since well… since birth I think. I was always surprised by the change in attitude whenever the concept of death came up in conversation. I never felt anything when death was involved, as if it were as normal to me as breathing.

“Some of you may have negative opinions on killing so keep this in mind... you don’t kill, you die!”(Five)

It seems they just want us to kill each other… but for some reason, I feel less “nothing” than usual. If I take everything my dad used to say and everything these two are saying seriously, then it must be from my demon heritage… But…! My mom was supposedly from this world so depending on the answers to my next questions --

“Now to group you idiots. First match will be a Yume Senazuki facing off against Kell Crinell . The second matchup is obviously the curious teenager, Hiroshime Masayuki, versus the quiet, Pekra Mochizuki.”(Five)

Hmm, so I’m going up against that twin? He looks pretty fit compared to me, damn, I hope he’s all looks. Well, at least my match is second so I’ll get a chance to observe different fighting styles and powers? I guess?

“Masayuki…”

“Don’t worry abou-”

That’s when I noticed that my friends had dawned terrified expressions on their faces. They were never really subtle about their emotions much to me, that is.

“Shall we begin?” Six interrupted, “The sooner we finish the trial period, the sooner you can converse.”

“Yeah, let’s get a move on already!”

I answered impatiently, all the while, absorbing bits of information they revealed as time passed. I was kind of energetic, and happy with the prospects of creating a new life with my own power.

“That’s what I like to hear! Now that you’re done with the boring stuff, I’ll go ahead and make them some weapons.”

“Zzz…”

“Wake up idiot!” Thwack

“Ow! Son of a-”

“Oh good, you’re awake…we’re starting the trial…get a ‘balance room’ ready.”

Balance room…feel like that’s going to be important later…I’ll memorize that for sure.

“Don’t worry Six, I got this.”

“Alright then, I’ll just go over the few other rules before I create your trial weapons…