In a bright, windowless room, lit up by glowing orbs embedded in pillars that surrounded the center of the room, a group of figures sat around a dark table with serious but expectant looks. The table, made out of beautiful dark wood, sported an elegance seldom seen and spoke volumes about the status of the people surrounding it.
"The preparations are all finished and we are ready to perform the summoning at once, Your Majesty." A bald, aged man, wearing a robe resembling that of a priest, spoke first.
"Mm, excellent work, pope Simian! How about the military side, general Zurkman?"
The person addressed as 'Your Majesty,' was a middle aged-man with long brown hair and a full beard. He wore a pompous red robe woven out of the finest silk and gave off an air of limitless arrogance.
The general, a man with a scary face thanks to the scar adorning his left eye, short grey hair and a neatly trimmed moustache, furrowed his brows at the king's question.
"We still need to prepare a few more dungeons and nourishments for our future heroes. I'm afraid we will require a few more days until everything is ready. My apologies, Your Majesty."
"Humph. Very well. Make sure it is taken care of quickly." The king snorted in annoyance, but then waved his hand in dismissal and ordered the general to hastily complete his assigned work.
"Worry not, Your Majesty. By my calculations, we should have everything ready by the end of the week. The general has already spoken to me about the issue, so there is no need to worry about it." A man with neatly cut, shoulder-length black hair spoke as he stopped reading through the stack of documents laying in front of him. He pushed up his glasses with his index and middle finger, making them shine from the redirected light and hiding his red eyes.
"Hahaha! Is that so? Very well, if the general has already sought your help, then I'm certain everything will go smoothly as always, Liam."
"I am unworthy of such praise, Your Majesty. I merely do what is required of me."
Liam held the position of prime minister, making him the second most influential person in the room and a close aid to the king. Thanks to his consistent ability to provide amazing results, the king greatly favored him.
"Still so modest. We shall perform the summoning a week from now, so make absolutely sure everything is ready by then. Double check everything, triple check the important parts of the Submission ritual, the destiny of our nation and His will relies on our success! We shall rule the world under His name!"
""By your will, Your Majesty!""
Loud affirmations echoed out of the mouths of the king's subordinates, making him smile broadly. The king stood up and left the room, followed shortly thereafter by everyone. As the prime minister exited the room, he snapped his fingers and the room was plunged into complete darkness.
○○○
In the beginning of the school year, nearing summer's end, the sun still scorched everything beneath it and the air was as hot as it could get in the middle of Europe. Despite the scorching heat, classes were ongoing as usual. What was unusual was the fact that everyone was present in class today, full attendance, an auspicious event that, on average, happened at most 2 times in a school year, with many of our classmates being active in various sports.
"Hey, Philip, you got time for the D&D session after school like we talked about? Wenc and his girlfriend are coming as well."
"Of course. I cleared my whole day out for it, no way I'm missing it at this point." Philip, still sitting in his seat, answered matter-of-factly.
Mark, the boy that approached me, had a tall and muscular stature, giving him a rather unusual physique among boys his age. His black hair was cut short, missing only a few millimeters from having a shaved head. Although I was also taller than average, Mark still stood a few good centimeters over me. I, unlike Mark, had long white hair, ending just below my shoulders. As usual, I had it tied in a low ponytail.
"Great, that's what I like to hear. What's next period?" Mark asked me as he sat his backpack on the table, his black eyes quizzically scanning through the notebooks and scripts for our classes.
I rummaged through my own backpack and pulled out a blue notebook.
"Math, your oh so beloved subject." I answered him teasingly.
"Ugh, damn." He groaned, but also pulled out a similar, blue notebook and set it on the table and removed his backpack.
"Hahaha, come on man. Derivations and integrals aren't that difficult."
"Maybe for weirdos like you who like to solve math problems in their free time and see some weird patterns in the numbers."
The bell suddenly rang, signaling the end of the break and the start of the lesson. Everyone filed back into the classroom and took their seats. A short while later, a short man with round glasses, Mr. Pubs, walked into the room as he greeted everyone. Mr. Pubs was rather liked among the students, thanks to his youthful age and fun way of explaining the subject. The lesson passed by quickly and the bell rang, signaling the end of the lesson.
I resumed our conversation about today's session, inquiring about what to expect.
"Anyway, what did you prepare for today's session?"
"No spoilers, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised."
"Uh, sure, just please not another False Hydra, I've had enough of that hellspawn."
"Ahaha, come on, are you still grumpy about that encounter? It wasn't that bad."
"The problem is it was great, but incredibly annoying."
I stored my notebook back in my backpack and prepared to leave for the next classroom, when suddenly someone grabbed my backpack and spilled all of its contents on the floor.
I sighed and turned towards the dumbass who decided to attempt to bully me. Lo and behold, the twat I expected to be there didn't fail my expectations.
"What the fuck do you want, Simon."
"Hahaha, well, I saw that your bag was rather disorganized, so I decided to help you in organizing it."
Simon Holtz, a blond haired, blue eyed prince charming answered with a sneer, obviously enjoying my annoyance. His three henchmen giggled behind him.
"Tsk."
I clicked my tongue in annoyance. I probably wasn't much weaker than him, but starting a fight while outnumbered 2:1 wasn't exactly smart, and that wasn't even the biggest problem. The biggest problem was that Simon was the grandson of the school's principal, and this being a private school owned by said principal, he held rather substantial power. Thankfully, he knew he probably wouldn't be able to go too far with his bullying, otherwise even his grandfather wouldn't be able to protect him, but his lite bullying was still immeasurably annoying, but me and Mark have mostly gotten used to it. Since if we did fight back, his grandfather would most certainly take his beloved grandson's side, which would inevitably lead to massive problems for me and Mark.
I rolled my eyes and started picking up my notes from the floor and stuffing them back in my bag. Mark helped me pick up my notes while staring daggers at the squad of narcissistic bullies. As for why they were bullying us despite not being the typical scrawny nerds? Well, one time he joined us for a D&D session, but he kept on whining and being a little bitch about the rules being unfair and stupid and so on, so we kicked him out of our D&D group, and it seems his narcissistic and spoiled ass didn't take that too well.
Unfortunately, it was better to just ignore the light bullying than to create a bigger mess for ourselves by fighting back.
"I still don't get how you two can spend so much time doing such useless and boring shit. Don't you ever want to actually do something fun for once? You know, live a little, instead of living in your stupid fantasies." Simon looked at us with disdain, not hiding his hostility.
"If your idea of having fun is going to clubs with trash music, making out with every random chick that comes flying onto your lap and getting drunk every weekend, then no, I'd rather do useless and boring shit." I also made sure to not hide my hostility when replying. As I stored away my last notebook, I stood up and turned away from Simon, his existence already leaving my memory.
"Idiots."
"Leave it be, Mark. We both know his rotten brain is beyond salvation."
Just as I was about to leave through the classroom door, I crashed into some invisible barrier and staggered backwards.
"Ouch, the hell?"
I looked at what I crashed into and saw a thin glimmering membrane separating the classroom from the hallway.
"What's that?"
"No clue, but it's really damn tough. Felt like I just hit my head on steel wall." I answered Mark while rubbing my head. Pretty sure that's going to leave a bruise.
"Hey, Philip, look at that." Mark tapped in on my shoulder and he pointed at the center of the room, where a glowing geometrical pattern was starting to form.
"Is that… a magic circle?"
"Sure looks like one to me."
I scrutinized the glowing geological patter, filtering out the surprised shrieks and screams of my classmates.
Just as I was about to take a step forward to examine the magic circle (provisional) more closely, it suddenly glowed so brightly the light engulfed the entire room, causing me to go blind for a few seconds. Then, I felt my body grow lighter and the air and ground around me shift.