"Where am I?" Kato says.
Gaild looks at Kato, and then to Vitam, and then to the rest of his officials. They all seem confused about what to do in the current situation and still haven't recovered from the shock of Kato's arrival.
"Errm, let's talk about this in another room. Come, follow me." Lord Gaild says.
Lord Gaild begins to lead a nervous Kato away, but he quickly peers his head over to Vitam before leaving the room.
"Grab Cassandra and Keith, and bring them to the round table." He tells Vitam. Vitam nods his head and walks through the door.
________________________________________________________________________________________
As Gaild walks with Kato through the castle walls, Kato begins to wear off the shock of his arrival. He begins to look around his surroundings, attempting to identify where he is. Obviously, due to the golden ornaments on the walls, glass chandeliers, and use of cobblestone, he must be in some medieval castle in the world. However, when walking past a window, Kato sees a small town surrounding the castle, forming a circle. 4 roads separate the circular city into quarters, with the court in the middle. The town itself was pretty small, and one could walk from one end of the town to the other in roughly 10 minutes. However, it wasn't the size of the city that was intriguing to him, but rather the buildings themselves. Unlike the concrete and plaster buildings that dominate the 21st century, these houses were made of wood and stone. A lack of electrical wires and cars indicated that he was no longer in Kansas (the Smithsonian is in Washington, but you probably get the reference).
A large, circular wooden table sat in the middle of a reasonably large room. The walls had paintings of angels and knights fighting off demons from hell. It was terrific yet haunting to Kato. A large map is displayed on the wooden table, showing three large continents and inscriptions of locations.
Gail peers out the doorway, seeming to wait for someone or something. He then makes a gesturing motion with his hand, and three people come inside. Kato recognizes one person, the white-haired man with the dark robe from earlier. He is followed by a young blonde female wearing a turquoise robe and pointy hat, the kind that fairy tale witches would wear while they ride on wooden broomsticks. Lastly, a man with a stubby beard and dark, messy hair comes through, wearing a robe and a white cloth shirt accompanied by dark baggy pants. A saber was attached to his side, along with a small wooden box on a belt. The three people sit at various chairs on the round table, with the stubby bearded man laying his legs on top of one side of the table.
Gaild closes the door and sits down at a slightly larger chair at one part of the table. He then gestures towards an empty chair for Kato to sit on at the other side of the round table. Kato sits down and brings his two hands together under his chin.
"Well, for starters, I think we should say our names. My name is Lord Gail Kaldor of the Kald province, and to my right and left are Vitam, Cassandra, and Keith."
"My name is Kato Tanada." Kato says.
"I see, well, welcome Kato to our world, which some of us call Terra. First of all, well, there isn't an easy way to say this…."
Gaild looks somewhat nervous but slightly sorrowful to Kato. However, Kato already knew the rest of the sentence.
"And I've died, correct? The question is, well, actually, more than one question, but who are you? How did I end up here? Where are we? Is it possible to return to Washington by any chance?"
Kato fired off these questions in rapid succession, surprising Gaild.
"Whoa, slow down there, man." The man with the saber says.
"Let's start from the beginning. Yes, you have died in your previous world, but even magic cannot reverse the flow of time. We were meant to summon someone who has died from another realm into our world, but it is impossible to send someone back into their world." Gaild says calmly.
"Damn it, why couldn't it have been an average day, and I've just started working there as well! It would've made sense if I've been working for a long time or if those workers had the ability to FUCKING READ SOME INSTRUCTIONS!" Kato says out loud, gripping his fist. The other people sitting at the table jerked back when he yelled, and Gaild cleared his throat.
"Ahem - I am deeply sorry about your current situation. If there were something we could do about your death, then we would've done so. However, your existence may prevent hundreds, if not thousands, of deaths. " Gaild replies.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, you see, let me explain from the beginning...
Around 300 years ago, during the Age of Adventurers and the Kingdom of 100 Lords, a different realm opened up our world, the kingdom of demons. Beings that had the shape of humans but had horns and armored scaled wings and practiced dark magic. They united with the monsters of our world and clashed with our armies. Knights, mages, adventurers, and priests fought against the forces of evil, but we were losing. In the act of desperation, the king of our continent of Auruom summoned a hero using the rarest kind of magical stones in our world, summoning stones."
Gaild turns around to the massive painting on the wall. The artwork's center displayed a tall, muscular, blonde man in iron armor holding a broadsword while riding a horse. He stood along with knights and hooded figures, attacking demons with colored skin and black armor. It was a magnificent display, one worthy of being a national treasure.
"He was a brilliant general and a powerful magician from his world. When he came to our world, he was able to outmatch even the best of the mages. His strategies for defeating the enemy were unlike anything we have seen before. So, the rides have turned, and we pushed the demons back from our continent, the monster's continent, and back to the barren continent where they first appeared. He defeated the demon king there, and a truce was brought up by his second in command. As of right now, the demons are peacefully in their realm. Due to the numerous casualties in the war, the remaining monsters on the monster continent decided to be more 'civilized,' making towns, villages, and cities and trying to mimic our old kingdoms for the past 300 years while maintaining peace.
After the hero slew the great demon king, magical energy spewed all over the barren continent, creating the most abundant source of magical stones in our world. After the war, he stayed on the continent with the refugees to make a magical society, run by magic stones. These stones are conditioned through heat, wind, nature, and a variety of conditions to let them gain their specified affinity. Eventually, when he too died, more magical energy was spewed all over the continent, only increasing their magical stones. They are the most highly advanced magical civilization in our world and have accumulated strength over the past 300 years despite being isolated from the rest of the world."
"This world has magic?" Kato says.
"Your world doesn't have magic?" The woman named Cassandra says.
"Well, yes, but we managed to make our world much more technologically advanced than yours, by at least 500 years ahead."
"500 years?"
"Yes, but why was I summoned here?"
"Very well," Gaild says. "Around ten years ago, after 100 years of a failed monarchy, the last king of Auruom lost all grip on his lords. The first was Charles Firald of the Northeastern Gradon fief, and then Dyldrai Lios of the Souther Ager Fief and the rest of the 98 lords in Auruom rebelled. It was a successful revolution, and we managed to topple and execute the monarchy.
However, after the king died, there was a large power gap between many of the lords. A race occurred when the 100 lords competed for land and power by invading each other. Their fiefs became their kingdoms, and their knights and ships were their militaries. We started out with 100 lords, but only half of us remain. The Gradon fief managed to conquer roughly 10 other lords and grew to occupy the majority of the Northeast. Various other lords conquered their neighbors, gaining land, while others made alliance pacts with each other in order to preserve their security."
"I see, so which nation are we?" Kato asks.
Gail looks at him and then starts to draw his hand towards the map on the table. His hand slowly wavered over the large piece of parchment, passing over rivers, mountains, valleys, cities, villages, and even large empires. Then, his hand stopped to what appeared to be near the northeastern section of the map. A small opening to the ocean began to flow inwards to the continent, and Kato estimated that it looked like a slightly larger horizontal Adriatic sea. Gaild's finger was pointed towards the end of the opening, but it wasn't exactly touching the ocean. Instead, it was separated from the sea by three kingdoms that occupied the corner of the end of the sea and surrounded the tip of Gaild's finger. A collection of four small lands were in the center of the three larger ones, isolated from the rest of the continent. The one land that Gaild pointed at was the smallest of the four, and was labeled Kald. It was the smallest kingdom on the map, and compared to the map that occupied the table, it was no bigger than a penny.
"That's you?" Kato asks with surprise.
"Yes, we are the smallest nation in Auruom. We luckily found summoning stones from the royal vault dating hundreds of years old, and it is a miracle that we had the proper spellbook in the vault too." Gaild replies.
"So why am I here?" Kato asks.
"The summoning process can search across infinite realms for a specified hero. In our case, we wanted a hero whose world is somewhat similar to ours, speaks the same language and writing, and can increase our military strength. Currently, we have a population of roughly 6,000, and we only have 100 knights as our military. It is also the smallest in Auruom."
"That explains how you guys can speak English," Kato says. Kato found it annoying that they didn't speak Japanese like what occurred in all the other fantasy books back in Japan, but he was fine speaking English for now.
"English? Well, I guess that was your world's language. Anyways, back to the point. We planned to summon someone to help our military. Are you-"
"Wait, me? No, no way. There is no way I can do anything like that. My country back in my world hasn't had a war for over 75 years, and I have zero combat experience whatsoever. I've never held a sword, and I definitely cannot do magic."
"Is there anything that you can do?" Keith asks.
"I have a photographic memory, and I can build tools back on my world. But because of your world's old look, I doubt I can make anything."
Gaild looks at Cassandra, Keith, and Vitam, all deep in thought.
"I say we try and test him in swordsmanship, magic, or strategy," Vitam says. "He's never held a sword, and his previous world didn't have magic. Perhaps he may have something here?"
"Very well, now follow me, Kato," Gaild says, walking out the door.