Why Am I Even Here?

After learning the fireball magic, Terry was then quickly taught other types of attack and defense magic by Potato. Learning and using magic was far easier than Terry expected, the only difficult part was the loud-mouth Princess Kiwi following close behind them and critiquing everything Terry did. “You’re doing it wrong.” She would say with a sneer.

Terry rolled his eyes and continued to mold the ball of water in his hands with magic. He held out his hand and shot out the water destroying the last training dummy. “Good, now that you have ‘aqua arrow’ down everything else should come naturally.” Potato happily tapped Terry’s shoulder with his small fuzzy paw. Terry felt that was fairly lazy teaching but Potato was the only teacher he had, so he let it go. “Great,” Terry sighed “So, what do I do now?”

Princess Kiwi huffs and stomps her foot. “Well, ‘Hero’, if you and our ‘Great Wizard’ Potato think your so great, I say you ready to face the Deamon Lord.” Before Terry could respond, Kiwi turned around and marched up to the small group of knights and King who were still on grounds watching them. “Everyone!” Kiwi called with a false cherry tone, “The Hero says he’s ready to fight the Deamon Lord! Gather a team of warrior to accompany him on his travels!”

The King looks concerned, “Honey, are we sure that’s such a good idea, the Hero’s only been here for a day. He hasn’t even learned anything about the land or history.” The King walks up to his daughter, arms out as if to hug her. The Princess smacks the King across his face in response. “Father we are doing as I say!” She then turns to the group of knights, “Fetch Pear and Avocado and bring them to the Throne room. Blueberry come with me!” Kiwi storms off with Blueberry stumbling after her.

The rest of the knights scatter off in different directions leaving the King, Potato, and Terry Alone. “Are you alright?” Terry asked gingerly walking up to the elderly king. “Oh, I’m quite alright.” He says while rubbing his check. “Kiwi is just hot tempered as all, takes after her mother.”

Terry says nothing buts stares at the King, looking him over. The King is a tall man but thin and boney. His face full of wrinkles with dark circles under his eyes. Terry cleared his throat.

“Sir, since I now learned magic and I’m going to fight for your kingdom, maybe now you can tell me why I have to fight this, Demon Lord?”

“Ah, yes apologies Hero, we haven’t told you much yet have we.” The King smiled kindly at Terry. “At the start of the new year I decided I would start the process of stepping down from the throne and allow Kiwi to take her rightful place as Queen of Kalabash.”

Terry understood that as a Princess, it made sense that Kiwi would be the next leader of Kalabash. However, the idea of the rude and volatile girl having more power of authority, made Terry very worried for Kalabash. The King continued speaking, losing the smile on his face.

“It was around that time that demons started to appear all around the kingdom with more appearing every day. We have a majority of our troops out fighting these demons and doing their best to protect our people, but I fear that they cannot last much longer. As a last resort, I had our kingdom’s strongest wizard try and summon a Hero from another world to try and save us.” The King gestures to Potato, still sitting on terry shoulder.

‘So that’s why Potato was so addiment that I stay.’ Terry thinks. “That still doesn’t explain why you need me, why do you need someone from another world.”

“We believe that the Demon King is the one causing the attacks and only a Hero from another world can defeat the Demon King. This is the first Demon King nor are you the first Hero summoned here.”

Terry stands in stunned silence for a moment letting it all sink in. There were other people summoned here, other people who had to fight other Demon Lords. Terry wants to ask how many times this kingdom has done this but her also fears the answer.

Just then a knight runs onto the field with Terry and the King. “You’re Majesty! Hero! Princess Kiwi says you are needed in the throne room.”

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Terry and the King said nothing as they walked to the throne room and sat in awkward silence while they waited for Kiwi who burst through the throne room doors dressed in a new dress. This dress appeared to be more for function. Kiwi’s hair was tied into two long twin tails and she carried a large staff with a large blue jewel in the center. The king looked at his daughter with concern.

“Kiwi dear, you don’t really plan on joining the Hero’s team, do you? Along with the produce stone, that’s the most powerful magical item in our kingdom.”

Kiwi shot her father an angry look, “Shut up father! You know nothing. I’m the most powerful and beautiful magic user in all of Kalabash. It only makes sense that I would work with other to defeat the Demon Lord.”

Terry noticed that she said nothing about him nor the fact that apparently only the Hero could defeat the Demon Lord. As if reading his mind Kiwi looked at Terry, her glare turning into a smug grin. “Don’t worry ‘Hero’, I gathered only Kalabash’s best for our team.”

Terry ignored Kiwi’s use of the words ‘our team’, and looked at the group of girls behind Kiwi. There was blueberry, the captain of the knights he met on the training field earlier. Terry noticed that she appeared far more jittery and nervous than when he last saw her.

There were also two other girls Terry hadn’t met yet. One a girl with long pink hair and long flowy dress decorated with flowers. While the other girl had shoulder length wild red hair and wore a more comfortable and relaxed adventuring outfit.

The girl with the red hair ran up to Terry with a wild smile on her face. “So, you’re the Hero huh? Are you strong? Can we fight?” Terry pulls back as the girl get closer and closer to his personal bubble. “My, my. Avocado, calm down, you’re scaring him.” The pink haired girl said as she walked over to Terry and the girl named Avocado. “Hello Hero, Welcome to our kingdom. My name is Pear and I am- “

As the Pink haired girl spoke, she tripped over her own feet and face planted onto the floor, the hem of her dress flying over her head exposing her underwear. “Aw jeez.” Terry grimaced and turned his head advert his eyes. “You alright?” he asked.

“Keep your eyes to yourself ‘Hero’.” Kiwi sneered. “These girls are the warriors who will help us defeat the Demon Lord.” Terry looked at the Princess Kiwi in disbelief and then looked at the girls around him. The only thing Terry could think in that moment, ‘Why must my life be like this?’