He was finally here. Standing there with a broad smile on his face, Oren looks out at the campus in front of him. Large buildings where he would be spending the next several years learning everything there was to learn about business. There would be opportunities to finally prove himself, to finally make a name for himself… to finally make a life for himself.

  Oren was an adult now. From here on out, the only one who could decide whether he succeeded or failed… was him. In the end, he just had to take the first step forward and start his new life. One step was all it would take. Firming up his resolve, Oren proceeds to take that decisive step forward. Or rather… he tries to.

  His foot lifts off the ground but it never comes down. It’s like he’s suddenly weightless… and indeed, looking down, he finds himself leaving the ground altogether.

  “Wha- what’s happening? What’s going on?!”

  It’s not like he’s alone outside of the University. There are other people in the sidewalk moving back and forth, going about their days. But strangely, nobody seemed to pay him much attention. His startled cries go unanswered, even as he goes from baffled confusion to shouted pleas for assistance.

  “Help! Help me, please!”

  He’s rising higher into the air now… faster and faster. Gravity has ceased to have any hold on him. Is he dreaming? Is this some weird kind of nightmare? Oren squeezes his eyes shut, willing himself to wake up. But when he opens them again, he finds himself staring out at a blanket of twinkling stars on black.

  Looking down, he sees all of Earth below him. The experience is decidedly surreal. Surely this is all a dream, but the detailing is more vivid than any dream he’s ever had. Even when he’d lucid dreamed before, it’s been nothing like this.

  Earth… grows small fast. He’s picking up speed or something, surrounded by some strange nebulous force. And then, before he knows it… he’s moving too fast to even be capable of processing what he’s seeing. The stars become streaks, like something straight out of science fiction… and then it goes beyond that, until all he sees is light.

  It’s almost anti-climactic when he finally arrives. Landing should reduce him to nothing but a smear on the floor, but instead all that happens is his legs buckle and he falls to his knees as he suddenly finds himself back on solid ground. Gasping for breath, Oren feels hands on him and a reassuring voice in his ear.

  “Hey… hey, it’s okay. You’re okay. Just breathe friend. Just breathe.”

  What was going on? What was happening to him? Another voice echoes out, deep and serious in tenor.

  “The Hero has been summoned successfully. Those who sacrificed themselves for this moment did not do so in vain. Our salvation is at hand!”

  Slowly, Oren lifts his head up, staring around himself in wide eyes. The first thing he notices is the man helping support him, smiling at him encouragingly. The next thing he notices… is the bodies.

  They’re in an auditorium and he’s in the exact center of the room, surrounded by what Oren can only describe as occultist nonsense. Except… is it really nonsense if it works? Around the edge of the circle, crumpled forms sit at equidistant points. Are they dead? It seems that they might be. Beyond them is a man in robes… the man who spoke before. And beyond even that, the auditorium is filled with onlookers, people with desperate undisguised hope in their eyes.

  “Hero! What is your name?”

  Swallowing thickly, Oren finds himself helped to his feet by the man at his side who gives him an encouraging nod to go with that smile of his.

  “Wha… I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Where am I? What’s happening?”

  The deep voiced man looks sympathetic.

  “We apologize, Hero. We have summoned you from your world to ours because the need for your help is dire. The Demon King has arisen once more and sends forth his armies from the Hells to destroy our civilization. If he is left unchecked, millions will perish beneath the cloven hooves of his army.”

  … The fuck?! That shit sounded like something straight out of a goddamn fantasy novel! There was no way any of this was real. Was Oren being pranked?

  “Sir, I think the Hero needs a moment to collect himself. Perhaps the others should be dismissed?”

  There’s a pause as the man at his side looks around them meaningfully. Honestly, until he said something, Oren hadn’t truly realized how much being stared at by hundreds of hopeful faces was bothering him. After a brief pause, the other man nods and gestures.

  “Leave and return to your work! The Hero is here now… you may labor with lightened hearts knowing that our freedom from the tyranny of the Demon King is at hand.”

  Oh god. Did they really think Oren was going to be able to do anything about… any of that. He blinks rapidly, trying not to fall into a full blown panic attack even as everyone begins to pile out of the room. As they file out, the man at his side looks at him with some concern.

  “I am called Raythe. If it pleases you, I can continue to refer to you as Hero… or maybe Sir Hero. Tell me how you want to be addressed and consider it done.”

  Shaking his head, Oren swallows dryly as he looks to Raythe.

  “No! I mean… no, please don’t call me that. Just call me Oren. I still don’t know what’s happening. I’m not… I don’t know anything about being a Hero.”

  Raythe smiles another encouraging smile and nods his head.

  “That’s perfectly alright, Oren. It’s expected for you not to know much. And… I apologize most sincerely that we had to take you from your world. But the ritual is an ancient one, tried and tested. It will always summon the one that is most needed in desperate times such as these. Even if you do not know it yet… you have it within you to be a Hero. To be THE Hero.”

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  Oren stares at Raythe with wide eyes, dry swallowing again in disbelief. He half-expected the other man to start saying nonsense like ‘believe in the me that believes in you!’ or something any second now.

  … What the fuck had he gotten himself into?

  -x-X-x-

  With a grunt, Oren brings his wooden practice sword up, barely dodging Raythe’s overhead swing in time. As usual, the other man’s years of conditioning make Oren’s arms rattle from the blow, even as beads of sweat drip down from his forehead.

  “Good, Oren! Great even! Again!”

  But Oren just shakes his head and takes a step back, holding up an empty palm as he gulps in lungfuls of air.

  “W-Wait… I can’t, I need a moment please.”

  Raythe immediately relaxes his own stance and nods.

  “Of course friend, take as much time as you need. Here, use my waterskin.”

  Offering the other man a grateful smile, Oren takes a long pull of refreshing water from the skin and then hands it back over as he smacks his lips.

  “Thanks Raythe. That always hits the spot.”

  It’s been a month now since Oren was summoned to this world. Four weeks since he’d had his entire life turned upside down. To be fair… he kind of got it. They’d shown him how bad things were outside of their little underground cave system. Specifically, Raythe had taken him for a trip up to the surface, where he’d barely lasted five minutes before they had to go back down.

  They assured him that the Demon King’s armies hadn’t reached everywhere yet. It wasn’t all as bad as it was over their heads. But at the same time… that taste of what their world would look like if the Demon King got his way made it clear that Oren couldn’t just sit on his thumbs and do nothing. They needed his help… and apparently, he was the big damn Hero.

  Huffing at that thought, Oren shakes his head.

  “You know… you keep telling me that I’m the only one who can defeat the Demon King.”

  Raythe pauses and raises an eyebrow at that. Oren offers a helpless smile in response.

  “Oh don’t get me wrong… I totally believe the Demon King needs to be defeated. You guys wouldn’t have had volunteers sacrifice their lives to bring me here if it wasn’t serious. It’s just… I can’t help but feel like you have the wrong guy. It just doesn’t feel like I’m making any progress here to be honest.”

  There’s a long, silent pause before Raythe hums and nods.

  “You can’t see it. You’re so busy second guessing yourself that you can’t see your own improvement.”

  Oren frowns as Raythe suddenly moves over to the wall where a weapon rack carrying real blades is located. He picks out a weapon and almost faster than Oren can blink, turns and tosses it to him. Yelping, Oren nevertheless manages to catch the sword by its handle so he doesn’t cut himself… if only just barely.

  Giving Raythe a truly unimpressed look, Oren groans.

  “Seriously? If that’s supposed to prove something…”

  Sure, he managed to catch it. He definitely wouldn’t have a month ago. But that…

  “Nah. I want you to use that sword on the training dummy. And don’t hold back, not even a little bit.”

  Frowning, Oren glances over at where Raythe is pointing, to the training dummy he tends to spend time smacking with his wooden sword each day whenever his friend is busy with other duties. And… damn it all, Raythe IS his friend. It’s kind of crazy to think, but he might be the best friend Oren has ever had. Only four weeks and they already feel like two peas in a pod.

  Shrugging, Oren strides over to the training dummy and takes up a proper stance just like Raythe taught him. Then, with a swing of his arms and a twist of his upper body, he lunges forward, slamming the blade down onto the practice dummy from an upper diagonal angle.

  “HAH!”

  Not to toot his own horn, but the blow is pretty clean by Oren’s estimation. Well-executed, one might say. He’s expecting to bury the sword in the wooden practice dummy’s ‘shoulder’ at best. Maybe cut in a few inches or something. He HAS gotten stronger over the last few weeks, after all.

  … But he’s not expecting to shear completely through the training dummy, taking it from shoulder to hip and coming out the other side with what felt like barely any resistance at all. Oh, it wasn’t as easy as cutting through butter or anything like that… but it was far easier than anticipated.

  As the upper half of the practice dummy belatedly slides off and then falls to the ground, Oren just stares blankly for a long moment, not quite sure what he just witnessed.

  “See? You’ve already come a long way, Oren.”

  “How… how did I do that?”

  Raythe chuckles, even as he takes the blade from Oren’s hands and puts it back on the rack.

  “Simple, really. It’s like I’ve been telling you. You’re the Hero and that comes with both a blessing… and a burden. You have limitless potential, the capacity to become stronger than anyone else in the universe. You just need to reach out and grasp that power. Keep training, and you’ll find that there is no ceiling you can’t break through.”

  … In all fairness, Raythe HAD been telling Oren that for weeks now. He’d just chalked it up to inspirational fluff. Taking down the Demon King had honestly seemed like an impossible task to Oren. It was something he knew he had to do… but also something he was sure he would fail at. After all, he was just some random guy from Earth. There was no way he could take down an all-powerful Demon King and his armies… right?

  “Heh. I see you’re finally starting to believe, Oren.”

  Blinking, Oren looks over to see Raythe grinning at him. And he realizes…the other man is right. This is the first time since his summoning that he’s startling to believe in what it means to be the Hero. The first time that he’s started to think he might actually have a shot at beating the Demon King and saving the world after all.

  Lifting his wooden sword back up into the air, Raythe retakes his stance.

  “Still, that limitless potential isn’t going to unlock itself. We still have a long way to go, Hero!”

  Right. Feeling a newfound sense of purpose, a new wave of resolve and determination flowing through him, Oren grins as he lifts his own wooden sword back up. A moment later, they’re back at it, fighting one another back and forth across the room… but now Oren thinks he can feel it. The improvement happening bit by bit.

  And maybe one day… he’ll be able to storm the Hells themselves and kill the Demon King in his own throne room.

  -x-X-x-

  Back in the present, Sophia’s question still hangs in the air.

  “What… what happened to you? What did those that summoned you do to make you so cavalier about dying?”

  Obviously, Oren can’t exactly answer her honestly. What did they make him do? Oh, nothing much… just singlehandedly kill her father and everyone she knew and loved up in the Heavens. Which in turn seemed to have brought about an age of god-killing and worshipper-killing down here on the Material Planes. It was all his fault, in the end. Was it any wonder that he was so ready to lay down his life for her? He wasn’t suicidal per say… but if a ‘good death’ presented itself to him, he wouldn’t exactly reject the idea.

  Still, what to say to her in this moment instead of the truth? In the end, Oren decides that stonewalling is still a perfectly reasonable response at this point. He doesn’t want her to like him anyways.

  “Nothing. I told you before, I figured out they were lying to me and sought my freedom. Still, you’ve said it yourself. I’m an Otherworlder. The chances of me ever seeing my home again are next to none… but I don’t really belong here either, do I?”

  And then, because he’s kind of a bastard like that, Oren goes for the throat.

  “What would your father say if he was here now? What would he do with me? I think we both know the answer to that.”

  He doesn’t have to look over at Sophia to know his words have caused a grief stricken expression to spread across her face. So… he doesn’t. Pretending like he can’t tell the Minor Goddess is rather aggrieved by the mention of her father, Oren just grunts.

  “Nothing for it. With the horse dead… we’ll just have to keep going on foot. Unfortunately, our supplies have seen better days. I was hoping to move around the next few towns to minimize human contact, but… we’ll have to resupply at this rate. Come on, let’s go.”

  He starts walking and to her credit, Sophia hurries to catch up with him a moment later. Hopefully between his attitude and the next few days of travel on foot, Sophia would come to despise and disdain him.

  Because Oren knew he wasn’t worthy of anything more.

  A/N: Angsty McAngsterson up in this bitch.

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