Chapter 04: Arrival at Tortus

In a rather large room, built of white stones that resembled marble, with tall massive columns with carved sculptures rising to the huge curved ceiling, were many priests dressed in a kind of white robes with golden ornaments, standing in the center of the room.

They were conjuring something in an unknown language, their hands folded across their chests. The whole room, together with the priests, gave the aura of a Cathedral.

Seconds later, the dimly illuminated pentagram glowed with a mowing light before numerous archaic symbols ran in the magic circle.

The luminous pentagram dimmed again, and from it, some thirty people were spat out. Some lost their balance and fell on their butts.

Every one of them except for one person who was at the bottom, wore blue pants or dresses, black shoes, white shirts with a tie hanging from their collars, and a jacket of the same color as their lower garments.

They looked at the surroundings with dazed looks and expressions before their gazes fell on the people who had previously been in this place; the priests.

Soon, they moved their eyes to a wrinkled old man who had a look of cunning, a pointed monk's hat with golden rims decorated his head.

He walked slowly towards them as he rested his staff on the ground making it clatter with each step he took, finally he opened his mouth and spoke:

"Welcome to Tortus, heroes from another world. It is our pleasure to welcome you. I am the Pope of the Holy Church, Ishtar Langbard. It is an honor to meet you all," the pope said with a soft smile on his face as he swept his gaze over them. His eyes instantly narrowed as he saw one person who stood out like a sore thumb in the crowd.

"Pardon my rudeness, but are you different groups?" the pope who called himself Ishtar asked hesitantly.

Only at that moment, the students looked back and were petrified, whether male or female, they all had shocked expressions as they looked at the man's appearance.

This person naturally was Nader who had previously entered their group to obtain information. The instant he had stepped into this room he had clicked his tongue in annoyance as he had thought, 'Another pope, they exist even in other verses...'.

"Old man, you need not be alarmed, I have been caught by summoning magic while casually strolling through my backyard," Nadir lied as he looked at the group of summoned before averting his gaze.

His gaze landed on a mural about ten meters at the back of the room, the figure depicted on the mural looked like both a man and a woman. The figure was wrapped in a halo with a soft smile adorning her face, her curly blonde hair cascading downwards. Her arms were wide open as if she wanted to embrace and catch everything in existence.

Instead of thinking it was a masterpiece, he felt a mild disgust towards this figure as he felt he was not as good as the figure made him out to be.

Before the Pope could respond, Nader's almost emotionless voice echoed in the room as he pointed his finger, "Whose figure is this?".

"A-ah, yes," the Pope stammered a little before smiling proudly and declaring, "This is the blessed Ehit and the one true God of the Holy Church. He is the great ruler who created this world and the God who invoked them!".

"...I see," nodded Nader.

'A God?' he thought as he furrowed his brows, 'This is the otherworldly being who had descended in this place?'

Ishtar smiled and led the group of still shocked summoned into another room, as she explained that it would be a quieter place to talk. Nader followed them casually with his hands in his pockets.

They opened a huge door that revealed a room just as majestic as the first. Unlike the other room, is that this place was furnished with luxurious chairs and long tables, the arrangement, and craftsmanship of each piece of furniture, implied that it was a dining room or banquet hall.

Starting with a student whom Nader recognized as Kouki, he took a seat in a chair being followed by the other students taking seats at their respective tables. The other priests simply stood at a far place behind them as he watched them. Nader, on the other hand, sat nonchalantly at a different table from the others, not too far away and not too close, just enough to hear the information he wanted.

The students sat with stunned faces without causing a fuss, they were trying to process everything that had just happened: first, they were chatting with their friends at their institution, and the next moment they had found themselves in this unfamiliar place.

After a few minutes of silence, everyone's eyes were drawn to an entourage of maids entering in orderly rows through the huge double door. Each of them was driving carts filled with plates of food.

The men, even if they were puzzled by their current situations, looked at the maidservants like hungry wolves, real maidens are something they only read about in fantasy books. But they soon averted their gaze with a cold sweat running down their backs as they felt the maids' cold stares that had bore into their bodies.

By the time the maids noticed Nader, they froze, even though he had a neutral expression, they looked to them like the most handsome existence they had ever seen.

Ishtar feigned a hacking cough as he tapped the tip of his staff on the floor to snap the maids out of their fantasies.

The maids panicked and moved back and forth serving the dishes to those present. The maid whose turn it was to serve Nader had a silly grin on her face. Then the maids quickly left the room, but not before giving Nader one last look.

Nader looked at the food that was on a silver tray on his table. He decided not to eat it, he wasn't sure what was contained inside, maybe it was even poisoned.

"Well, I'm sure you all must be confused by the situation you are in. I only ask that you pay attention to me until the end of my explanation."

To simplify the long explanations, this world was called Tortus. A world where three different races lived: humans, demons, and Semi-humans. The human territory was located in the northern half of the continent, the demons in the southern half and the semi-humans to the east, in a huge forest surrounded by mists.

Both humans and demons had a tense relationship, for hundreds of years they were in constant wars. Although the demons had a very small amount of their race as opposed to a large number of humans, their forces far outnumbered most of the humans, which caused both sides to be at a stalemate.

Thanks to that equality, for decades no battle had happened between the two races, however...

To the horror of the humans, they had learned that the demons had managed to tame the monsters, which meant that the equality of power they had, had been erased.

The Pope paused for a moment in his explanation, and like a sly fox, watched the reaction of everyone present. His old, lazy eyes sparkled at the sight of Kouki. He had realized that Kouki had the most influence over his companions. He started to create some plans in his mind to get him on his side since that way it would be easier for him to get the help of his companions.

"The blessed Lord Ehit realized that humanity was doomed to annihilation, so he summoned you here to prevent such a disaster. You heroes are humans from a world greater than ours, and so you carry within you, a strength that surpasses the humans of this world."

"Please do as Lord Ehit has asked of you. Defeat the demons and save the human race from destruction." With a trance-like expression, he implored.

According to Ishtar, in this world, more than 90% of the human population worshipped Ehit, and those who received his divine revelations received high positions in the Holy Church.

Nader thought that this world, like his own, was influenced by the belief in 'God's will'. He thought that perhaps the Ehit God of the Holy Church was not as good as they made him out to be.

Nader didn't care about the problems of this world, but he would undoubtedly look for ways to strengthen himself before moving on to the next world. Even if it meant facing Ehit.

While Nader was in his thoughts, a small girl stood up from her seat while banging on the table with her small hands, which cut off his train of thought.

"You can't be serious! You tell these children to fight a war? That is unacceptable! As a teacher, I can't allow it. send us back now!

right now! All of these children have families at home who must be very worried. You can't kidnap them like this!"

Every word uttered brought obvious anger and rage with it.

She was Aiko, the teacher most beloved by the students at her institution. She was only about 140 centimeters tall, her hair flowing down to her shoulders was a dark brown color.

Aiko tried to approach Ishtar, but the next words that came out of her mouth, made despair weigh on her shoulders.

"Pitifully, although I understand your feelings... for me it is impossible to send you back to your world."

All the students, and even Aiko, looked at Ishtar in disbelief at what they heard.

The oppressive silence was dissolved by Aiko's shout.

"What do you mean you're not capable? If you called us here, you should be able to send us back, right!!!".

Ishtar shook his head with a tired sigh, "As I said before, it was Lord Ehit who summoned you here. The only reason we were in that room was to greet you and to offer our prayers to Lord Ehit. We, humans, do not possess the power to interfere with other worlds, so whether they can return or not also depends on their will."

"It can't be..."

Aiko lost all strength in her body and collapsed in her chair as the students began to shout something like, "You've got to be kidding me!", or "Return us to our world!". There were even those who lost all hope as their dull eyes wandered into space.

"This can't be happening, this can't be happening, this can't be happening..."

Nader studied Ishtar's expression and shook his head he could see the contempt in the depths of his eyes, it was as if he was thinking, "You were chosen by the Venerable God, why don't you kneel and rejoice that you were chosen as his hero?"

Just as Ishtar wanted, Kouki stood up from his chair and pounded his fists on the table attracting the attention of all his classmates.

"There's no point in complaining to Ishtar. There's nothing I can do about it now. And I, at least, have decided to stay and fight. These people are about to be annihilated. Knowing that, how can I leave them to such a tragic fate? And besides, if we have been summoned here to save mankind, we may be allowed to return once we have saved them? Well, Ishtar-san, do you think that's possible?"

"It is as you say. Lord Ehit is not so cruel as to ignore a request from his chosen heroes."

Kouki smiled and looked at his companions' faces again with a determined smile, "And we have all gained incredible strength, haven't we? When I came to this place I felt like my strength has skyrocketed to the heavens!".

"Yes, that is correct. It would be safe to assume that each of you has the equivalent strength of a few to a dozen regular men."

"Then we'll be all right. I'm going to fight. If we save everyone, we can go home. so just watch! I'm going to save you all, including us!" The boy clenched his fists tightly as he proclaimed his 'heroic' intentions.

At the sight of the supposedly heroic act, Nader's mouth twitched a couple of times.