Behind me, everyone else exchanged worried looks, and I heard Arthur sigh as if he’d aged ten years in the last ten minutes.

  “Come on,” he muttered, tired but resigned. “Let’s go with him. We can’t just let him wander off and get himself into trouble or worse, be killed. Whatever world this is, we don’t know anything about it yet.”

  “I suppose he’s got a point,” Arthur’s father admitted, scratching the back of his head. “We can’t stay here forever.”

  They drifted into a debate and discussions about whether everyone should follow or not. I shook my head and turned back to the door, fully intent on leaving them behind.

  Which is precisely when the door opened.

  Into my face.

  “Gah! My nose!”

  My cry of pain startled everyone, snapping their attention towards me and the door.

  “Hey, uh, Vi,” Arthur said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Didn’t you say you were gonna break something important? Why’d you start with your own nose?”

  A few snickers bubbled up around the room. Without looking away from the door, I raised a middle finger in elegant reply.

  Slowly, a face peered through the narrow opening—a pair of startled eyes meeting mine. I straightened slightly as the door shifted wider, and a woman stepped inside. Upon seeing the state of my face, she gasped.

  “I am so sorry honored one!”

  I stepped back to give her some space.

  She wore an eastern-style tunic, dark purple trimmed in gray. The fabric wrapped her torso modestly despite the unmistakable volume, and flowed down to her knees. A wide, ornate belt cinched her waist, a thick cord tied neatly at the side, held together by a silver buckle engraved with two lions lifting a six-pointed flower.

  And unlike the stereotypical fantasy mage in a billowing skirt or the long robes of Gandalf, she wore semi-baggy dark pants and tall black boots with low heels. Her getup was practical, sturdy, and clearly built for movement. She looked ready for work, not theatrics.

  She slipped inside the chamber with surprising grace. She wasn’t flawless—far from it. She was about three centimeters shorter than Reika and had ash-gray hair, cut in a wolfish style that brushed past her nape.

  Her gentle smile contrasted with the weary rebellion of stray hairs that refused to be tamed by whatever comb had last faced them. Her lashes were long and graceful, framing ocean-blue eyes. That would’ve been striking if not for the colossal dark bags sagging beneath them.

  Jesus Christ lady what the hell happened to you?

  Despite the exhaustion practically radiating off her, she looked extremely happy and relieved at the same time, like a great weight was taken off her shoulders.

  I was still rubbing my nose when the sound of metal scraping stone echoed from the hallway.

  “Is something wrong, Lady Celestia?” a man called urgently from outside.

  “No! Everything is fine!” she called back. “Go and call His Majesty at once.”

  Her voice was as she looked, youthful, somewhat soft-spoken and slightly ethereal but she had an accent clinging to her words that sounded suspiciously like Italian.

  Celestia took one long look at us—at all of us—and then, with a strange mixture of relief, triumph, and barely-contained hysteria, she did what I could only describe as a fist pump.

  Then she noticed us staring at her and she straightened and coughed once, like nothing happened.

  “My lady?” came the voice again, and then a head with a greathelm on, whose visor was raised peered cautiously from the doorway. The man spotted us and his eyes widened then he froze completely.

  So far, at least none of them were faking their surprise. Good sign. Probably.

  “Knight Everald,” Celestia snapped, jolting him back to life, “I repeat myself, go and call his Majesty, at once! I have—the summoning has succeeded and the heroes must be attended to!”

  She didn’t stop there. Celestia launched into a rapid-fire barrage of orders, each more frantic than the last.

  “Notify the Lord Chamberlain! Have him prepare their lodgings immediately! Alert the kitchens, they will need their meals ready! Inform his majesty that I shall escort the heroes to the main drawing room!”

  “Yes! At once, my lady!” Everald saluted so sharply his armor clanged. His head disappeared from view, followed by the clattering thunder of metal boots sprinting down the corridor, his footsteps echoing deep into the stone halls.

  If anyone had clung to the idea that this was a trick, an illusion, or a misunderstanding—

  Well.

  Not anymore.

  The chamber fell into a breathless quiet as we continued staring at the girl.

  Celestia coughed once, straightened her posture, and addressed us with a careful sort of dignity.

  “Everyone, my name is Celestia Auranelle de Montecelli.” She placed a hand over her chest and dipped into a graceful curtsy with a small bow. “Please, call me Celestia.”

  When she rose, her pleasant smile seemed to brighten the room.

  “I am sure everyone is confused right now,” she continued. “But if you will follow me, we will explain everything in a more suitable place.”

  Stolen story; please report.

  I glanced back at my unfortunate companions in getting isekai’d. Their faces were a mix of disbelief, fear, curiosity, suspicion and every other emotion, except probably, calm. The boys were stunned but they also seemed excited. I sighed internally. This is what happens when you watch one too many isekai’s.

  The girls looked terrified and uncertain. The adults, well, they looked like cornered animals trying to decide whether to run or bite. But I could also feel the tension radiating from them.

  When no one moved, Celestia’s smile wavered a bit.

  “Uhm… no one here will harm any of you. I promise. And if anyone tries, I swear upon my life, I will protect you from harm. Please, trust me,” she said calmly, though I could detect from her tone that she was almost pleading with us.

  Still, no one spoke.

  “The king would also like to meet everyone,” she tried again, but the edges of her smile were starting to crack.

  Then, a moment later, her face drained of color.

  “Wait! Oh no! Perhaps—you can’t understand me!?”

  She clasped both hands to her head, spiraling into panic at alarming speed.

  “Am I going to get blamed for this!? Did I make a mistake!? Is this my fault!?” she said to herself, her expression turning from a pleasant smile to outright horror. “Was it the timing!? Was an inscription wrong!? Too little MP!? Too much MP!? Did someone tamper with the formulas!?”

  She was seconds away from having a full-blown existential crisis.

  I sighed and dragged a hand down my face. We were going nowhere if this continued.

  Stepping forward, I placed a hand on her shoulder. The sudden contact startled her out of her spiraling nonsensical muttering.

  “Lead on,” I said, more of a command than a suggestion, really, as I steered her toward the open doorway and into the hallway.

  “Uhm—wha, what!?” she stammered, utterly confused.

  “We understand you just fine,” I said, already walking.

  The hallway outside was lit by small crystals set into alcoves near the top of the walls. They bathed the stone in a faint bluish glow that made everything feel half-melancholic, half–horror story. If the lights flickered even a little, I was fully prepared for ghosts.

  Come find us.

  Hmm. Right on time?

  I heard a near ghostly voice, as if three people were speaking and their voices overlapping with each other. I glanced at the woman beside me and she didn’t seem to be bothered.

  Just me then.

  “Uhm, honored one,” Celestia said nervously, glancing back at me. “Are you sure this is alright? We left everyone behind.”

  “Call me Vi,” I replied as I let go of her shoulders. “Don’t worry about it. Give it a few seconds, they’ll follow.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Vi-sama.”

  Her reply caught me off guard.

  “Please drop the honorifics, I don’t care for such things. Vi is fine,” I said, though there was something that piqued my interest. “You know about honorifics? How do you know about that? You’ve had heroes before?”

  Her face brightened at my question.

  “Yes, our continent had hosted heroes before, three times in fact, in the distant past. The earliest about two thousand years ago. It is well recorded that some heroes preferred honorifics, while the others did not.”

  We were halfway down the corridor, deep in discussion, when the sound of hurried footsteps echoed behind us.

  I introduced the first people that caught up to us.

  “This is my brother William—call him Wills. He’s an idiot.” My brother scowled at me, but I continued anyway.

  “This is Arthur, also an idiot. That’s Trayn, a tall idiot. And Taka—he’s less of an idiot, but still an idiot.”

  The four exchanged looks of collective betrayal.

  “Lady Celestia,” Wills said, pointing at me, “that’s my brother, you can call him Vi. Just so you know, in case he forgot to mention it but he is the biggest idiot here.”

  I placed a hand over my heart. “Guilty as charged.”

  Pfft!—

  Celestia pressed a hand over her mouth, barely stifling a laugh.

  “Pleased to meet you all,” she said once she managed to compose herself, her bright smile returning.

  Arthur turned to her. “So, Lady Celestia, we were summoned here because we’re supposed to become heroes?”

  “Yes, that is the gist of it,” she said with a confident nod.

  “All of us?” Arthur gestured to the mixed crowd behind us. “Even our parents? Our teacher?”

  “There is a possibility, yes,” Celestia said thoughtfully, tapping a finger to her chin. “Though we won’t know until we examine everyone’s statuses.”

  “Yeah, no. I don’t think I’m hero material,” I said flatly, sounding more tired than dismissive.

  Arthur slung an arm around my neck. “You heard her, there’s a possibility! Don’t be such a spoilsport. We were summoned to another world! You should be excited!”

  “Arthur,” I replied, deadpan, “they don’t have electricity or Wi-Fi here.”

  Everyone paused. My words seemed to bring them back to the reality of our situation.

  “Oh. Yeah.” Trayn said as he ran a hand through his hair. “Shit.”

  “Uhm, honored ones,” Celestia said, flustered, “We can have those made, if it will help you in any way.”

  “I doubt you can,” I said sadly.

  “Yeah, not at least for another hundred years or so,” Takashi added gloomily. “Possibly fifty years at the earliest.”

  “Anyway,” I said turning back to Arthur, “Do I look like the hero type to you?”

  He opened his mouth—then slowly nodded. “That’s, yeah. You got me there.”

  We reached the end of the hallway and I opened my mouth as I eyed the challenge that is to come. “My arch enemy.”

  “The stairs?” Takashi asked with a small, confused smile.

  “You just wanted to say that, didn’t you?” Trayn accused with a smirk.

  “I did,” I admitted, as we stared ahead of us, a winding staircase curled upward into darkness.

  “It’s a bit of a climb,” Celestia said with a wry smile and pointing up.

  She wasn’t joking. The climb was brutal—easily eight stories straight up in a spiraling stone staircase. Celestia tried to hide it, but by the fifth-story landing she was wheezing so hard we thought she was about to pass out so we had to stop. Thankfully, the landing was just wide enough for us to pause without risking anyone tumbling back down the stairs.

  By the time we reached the ground floor, Celestia practically collapsed against the wall, sliding down until she sat on the cold stone. She gasped for breath like someone who’d run a marathon with no training whatsoever.

  I was tempted to join her. The climb had done nothing good for my thighs or calves. Why couldn’t they have summoned us on the ground floor like normal people? I glanced back at my companions. To my surprise—and growing irritation—everyone else looked perfectly fine. I was the only one tired.

  “You okay, Nii-san?” my brother asked.

  I couldn’t answer. I was too busy breathing deeply, trying to look like I was in total control of myself and absolutely not dying. Not as dramatically as Celestia, who was halfway to passing out on the stone floor, but still. I waved a hand vaguely, hoping he’d interpret it as I’m fine, shut up.

  By now, a small crowd had already formed, more than a dozen people, had already noticed us. Maids in long Victorian-style dresses that nearly brushed the floor, guards clad in ornate steel armor, weapons at their sides, posture rigid and attentive, alert for anything.

  Celestia raised one shaky hand and motioned them over.

  “The heroes…” she managed between ragged breaths, gesturing helplessly at all of us.

  At her words the guards straightened immediately and saluted—fist to chest, armor ringing with the motion. Some of the maids started whispering with one another.

  “To the main drawing room,” she ordered weakly.

  The guards nodded resolutely, forming two rows—three men on each side—to escort us in a formation that felt entirely too formal for people who had just watched their summoner nearly die from a staircase.

  And just like that, the weight of our situation settled again—heavy, unfamiliar, unavoidable, despite the person who summoned us, getting carried by two maids like a sack of potatoes.

  We were led inward, deeper in what could only be described as a palace. The hallways were grand, decorated from top to bottom with statues, paintings, empty suits of armor and even weapons stored in glass cases. Much like the hallways down in the summoning chamber, every inch of space was lit by the method, crystals, though the ones here were much brighter and set on more ornately decorated alcoves.

  The guards led us through a pair of massive doors carved with swirling patterns of vines and flowers I didn’t recognize. I expected a grand hall, maybe something out of a European palace—high ceilings, chandeliers, velvet curtains.

  Instead, we stepped into something entirely different.