A Contest of Fate

1

A strike of red lightning split the sky as if a sword cleaved through the clouds, disintegrating them in fire, turning night into crimson dusk.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. That must’ve been magic.

“What are you doing, Ryota? If we don’t fight, the Elesians will take control of the bridge!”

In front of me was a man clad in burgundy armor with a cape that looked like wings. The twenty other knights ahead of us charged the oncoming wave of warriors with axes and spiked helmets. Sparks of fire and lightning whirled along the clash of steel against steel.

The words caught in my throat, but I desperately nodded.

“If your nerves are getting to you, focus on supporting our troops from the rear,” the man said as he turned the other way. “Wind is your strength. Let it be ours.”

Before I knew it, he had gone to fight with the others. I didn’t even know his name. But he surely knew mine.

Okay, focus. This may not be a game, but I have an objective.

I slapped my face and felt the stinging of my cheek. Ahead of me was chaos and death. Men and women eager to slit each other’s throat or burn them to a crisp. The height of the war between the Elesian Empire and the Free Cities of Joren was taking place on this damned bridge and in minutes it will all but collapse. If not for all the magic being thrown around, then the sheer number of people and beasts would. And the smell… I’ve seen war movies in film and tv, but I never imagined it would smell this bad. Like blood and piss mixed with seared flesh. If it wasn’t for the part that I feared for my life, I would’ve thrown up everything I ate that morning.

The Great Bridge was a colossal three-hundred meters wide, made with ancient stone blocks infused with magic spells. It was unlike any that existed on earth, spanning over a kilometer in length, connecting two floating continents. That meant that beneath this marvel of a structure was nothing but empty space—a drop higher than Mount Everest.

I clenched my teeth, ran towards the closest guard rail to my left and saw this image myself. I needed to confirm it. Why? Because apparently, the Elesian Mage Queen was secretly flying beneath the bridge on her palanquin. Her goal was to destroy whatever it was that held the bridge together and stop the war, sacrificing herself in the process.

Unfortunately for her plan, fate determined that it would only make it worse for both sides of the conflict. It would stop the fighting, sure, but the destruction of the bridge would trigger a domino effect that would eventually disable whatever it was that made the continents float.

Good job, Mage Queen, maybe next time do your research first!

But that was why I got sent here. To this miserable world nearing its end.

Lightning struck again, this time splitting the air in front of me. I mostly just saw red before the force of the magic threw me backwards like a puppet.

Oh, but my strings were real.

As I contemplated how I’d die when I hit the ground, I saw that damned clock at the edge of my vision. It displayed a series of numbers that looked nonsensical at first, but somehow my brain interpreted it as fifty-eight minutes and eighteen seconds. Less than I was promised. Much, much less than I was promised.

And so, I choked a curse as my life flashed before my eyes. I saw my family. I saw my friends. I saw the university I’ve been attending for the past year. I even saw the love of my life, ignorant as she was of my feelings.

But really my mind raced to something very recent.

Something that wasn’t so different from this moment.

It was, ironically enough, the reason I was even here.

2

The first thing I remembered was the universe wrapping itself around me. It was as if the sky swallowed my body and filled it with light—warm and unending. A thousand different lives flashed before my eyes, gushing like a river amidst a raging storm. Different places, different times. They were all familiar. The days, the nights. The faces of everyone I knew. Everyone I loved. Everyone I hated. All the struggles I overcame. All the times I failed. Every connection made and broken. It was as if I was there. As if I had lived each and every one of them. But before I could take hold of a single thread, before my consciousness could grasp exactly what it was that I saw… the universe spat me out.

And then I saw her.

And then I met them.

In the vast emptiness of the stars I floated, disoriented and confused.

My eyes fixated on the woman in the distance. Her expression showed interest in me, as if I was exactly what she wanted to see. She was beautiful. I realized that the second I remembered to blink. Her eyes were a set of gold, her face heart-shaped, her body slender, wrapped in a white robe that flowed endlessly into space. As did her bright, green hair. Her forearms and shin were adorned by bracers and armor gleaming in silver, while her feet remained bare. Because why the need for shoes when one floated in eternity?

Wait.

Eternity?

I remembered to breathe. So did the person next to me. I looked around, still dazed, as the strangeness of my situation slowly unwrapped itself. My heart started to beat faster.

Wait a minute.

“Where… are we?” a voice said.

Next to me were seven other people. Three appeared to be men. Four women. They looked as bewildered and confused as I was.

I looked down at myself. I was still wearing the clothes I specifically picked for that very important day. Buttoned shirt, brown slacks, expensive shoes. Those things cost me a week’s worth of pay.

Wait, wait. I wasn’t supposed to be here.

I was… I was going to confess my love.

My love.

For a moment, Ilyana’s beautiful smile flashed before my eyes. Her honey-colored hair, big brown eyes. She would always tilt her head slightly on the right and ask me what I was thinking. I loved her since forever.

I was supposed to finally tell her how I felt before it was too late. Before she was taken from me. It was my last chance.

Why was I here? What was this place? Was I—

“Am I dead?” asked the person next to me. He was a tall man with short black hair, and glasses. Judging from the jersey he wore and his general physique, he must be an athlete of some kind.

“Dead? Is that what’s happening? Is that why we’re floating in space?” another person said, a woman to my right with braided hair, and wearing a long, flowery dress.

“No, no, no… I can’t be dead yet!” shouted a man to her left. His hair was bleached grey, and he had several piercings on both ears. “I still have so much I wanted to do!”

“This is insane!”

“Is this the afterlife?”

“I want to go home…”

“Can everyone calm down and shut up! I can’t hear myself think!”

There was a blonde woman wearing a baseball cap, a heavyset man wearing a tank top and camo pants, a tall woman wearing a black suit, and a woman with baggy clothes and giant headphones. I never thought I’d see a more disparate group of people gathered in one place, but they were all united in their hysteria. I was probably the only one who didn’t say a word, perhaps because the others already said everything I wanted to. Or perhaps because, in the midst of all the outburst, the most mysterious one of all stayed silent in the background, observing us with eyes deep in gold. That one, I was sure, wasn’t human. And when she finally spoke, it was as if the universe had frozen over. Her voice was sharp but quiet. Stoic, despite the smile.

“You’re not dead,” she said. “Every single one of you is still alive.”

As if seeing her for the first time, the others all looked in the direction of the voice. Some, like the grey-haired man, shrieked in surprise. The athlete took a defensive stance. The blonde hovered away. It wasn’t just me, then. Despite her human-like appearance, there was an ‘otherness’ to this being.

“Where are we then?” said the one with the headphones. “Are you an alien? Is this space? Who are you?”

The robed woman leaned forward as if to assess them. She looked at each person one at a time. When our eyes met, I felt a deep chill run up my spine.

“Think of this place as a representation of the universe,” she said. “I am one of its arbiters.”

Murmurs echoed around me.

“That doesn’t really answer our question,” said the woman with braids. She turned to the others. “I’m guessing all of you just found yourselves here? One moment you’re somewhere, the next thing you’re here?”

Some nodded.

“That’s right,” answered the blonde, “I was out on a run before I found myself here. It doesn’t make sense. There should’ve been lots of people around me.”

The others told similar stories. One was studying at a library, another out eating with friends. It was then that I realized we were all around the same age. And probably from entirely different countries… how is it then that—

Before I could finish my thought, the robed woman made a sudden motion that made everyone flinch. She raised her arms in a circular pattern and light burst around her. I shielded my eyes. When it dimmed again, I was greeted by a spinning disk in front of me. It was like a movie screen or a hologram of some kind. I didn’t know how it worked but I was too busy staring at my own unconscious body to care.

“What is this?” asked the blonde.

“I-Is this me?” said the military man. “Why am I in a stretcher? What’s going on? I thought we weren’t dead!”

Everyone had their own disks to look at. I switched back to mine. A couple of students in my university seemed to have found my unconscious body next to a set of stairs. One of them was on the phone, while another kept looking down the hallway. Half a minute later, another student came running towards them with a teacher in tow. The teacher crouched down and put his hand in front of my face. Relief washed over the guy as he breathed a long sigh of relief. That probably meant I was still breathing.

I raised my own hands to my face. What was I looking at then?

“As some of you might’ve guessed,” the robed woman said, “you’ve all been pulled from your bodies. You are the embodiment of your consciousness. Your soul.”

I looked up at the woman.

“You mean we’re… ghosts?” the grey-haired man said. “Why is this happening to us?”

“Because you’ve all been chosen by fate,” the woman answered. “You’ve all been chosen to save this universe.”

I was dumbfounded. And I wasn’t the only one.

The woman produced another set of spinning disks, this time they were bigger and lined up perfectly above her head. Eight holograms showing eight different places.

But something was off.

The places the new disks displayed did not look normal. Each scenery showed something fantastical. Like a castle with wings on one. Or a forest with red and yellow trees in another. Heck, the one on the far right had something that looked like a dragon against a backdrop of glinting skyscrapers. What the hell were we looking at?

“These worlds are in great danger,” the woman said. She looked up at the disk directly above her. It showed a world in flames. It looked like one faction of people was fighting against another in a place with a big bridge. It looked like a war movie. “This is nothing new for humans. Worlds like these come and go all the time.” She turned back to look at us. “But these eight in particular are special. Their end spells a bigger threat against the universe itself.”

“Take this one for example,” the woman hovered to her left and gestured to one of the disks. It showed a group of people in blue robes operating some kind of machine. “Mervan. This world will one day save half the universe from a deadly plague. That is what fate determined.”

“Yet now that future is dim.” The disk showed one of the machines blowing up. The people operating them did their best to escape. “And so this world finds itself in need of saving.”

“I see where this is going,” the athlete said. “You gathered us here to save the universe? Is that what you said? If so, then you meant for us to go to these worlds in order to save them.”

The robed woman smiled.

“Seriously?” the woman with braids said. “Is that why our souls got ejected from our bodies? Is that why this place looks like space?”

The grey-haired man started to chuckle nervously. “I see, I see… we’re like, heroes, right? I see… yes. We were chosen by fate. I get it. I’m in.”

“What?” the blonde shouted. “Well, I’m not! What the heck? I didn’t sign up for this. No, take me back!”

“Are you kidding me?” The grey-haired man’s posture straightened. “This is a call to action! We’re gonna be heroes! Who doesn’t want to be a hero?”

“I agree with the blonde,” the athlete said, fixing his glasses. “This is too much and too sudden. And I worry for my own safety. I’m sure there are better trained professionals than… well, us.”

Everyone looked at each other. None of us seemed particularly capable of becoming a hero. We just looked like a group of normal people. Even the guy in the military getup did not look confident.

“I agree, this is too much,” the braided one said, shaking her head. “How the heck does fate decide any of this, anyway?”

“Are we getting compensated for this?” the woman in the black suit asked. “Well, even if we are, we were abducted out of nowhere. That does not make for trustworthiness.”

“You’ve all got to be kidding me,” the grey-haired man cried. “No one? Anyone?”

“Sorry…” the military man said, his head down.

“Oh, bro… you’re the one person I thought would say yes!”

And then, for some reason, or maybe because I haven’t said a single word this entire time, all eyes were on me.

I was supposed to confess my feelings today. Ilyana was waiting for me atop those steps in the university. Sure, I came in an hour early, but now all she’ll find is my unconscious body. No way I could agree to this, right?

There should be other people who could save the damn universe. Assuming any of this was real. It must’ve been a mistake I was chosen. What would a second-year engineering student know about saving the universe anyway? And me, for that matter. My biggest accomplishment in life was that spelling bee in high school. What else do I do besides play video games? I’m not even good at them!

So, no. The answer was no. I opened my mouth when—

“I meant to change myself this year…”

Honest truth, I thought it was me who said it. I would’ve. Because those were my words two days ago when I finally decided to tell Ilyana how I felt.

Instead, it was the woman with the headphones who spoke the words. “I’ll do it,” she said, louder this time.

The grey-haired man beamed. He quickly turned to the robed woman. “That’s it, right? You’re going to send us to save those worlds. Like in manga! Me and this chick are in!”

The golden-eyed woman, who’d been letting them speak this entire time, cracked an uncanny smile. She descended from the floating disks to level with everyone else, then extended her arms as if to stretch. As if she decided to act like a human whose shoulders hurt. “I’m afraid you’ve all misunderstood something,” she said with a slight yawn. “Assuming yourselves as heroes? Well, you’re not entirely wrong. Some of you might fill those roles. But make no mistake. This was never a negotiation. The one truly saving the universe… is me.”

The woman sighed—another human-like expression. She hovered slightly in a way to assume a sitting position, legs crossed, and cheek resting on one hand. “I really should’ve used my words better,” she said, voice playful. “You, my dear humans… are my contestants.”

I blinked. I was apparently my ‘soul’ hovering in space, but I blinked.

Contestants?

“Yes, that would be a more apt description.” She pointed at us. “Fate deemed all of you… capable. That much is certain. Why? The reason is lost even to me, but you have been chosen. And as the universe’s arbiter, it is up to me to use all of you.”

The grey-haired man laughed incredulously. “Use us? What does that mean? Are we saving the universe or not?”

“In essence, you are.” The woman smiled.

“Wait a damned minute here,” the athlete said, hovering forward. “What do you mean no negotiation?”

“It means you’ve been determined to participate.”

“And if we refuse?”

The woman gestured towards the disks in front of us. I didn’t even realize that an ambulance had arrived, and medics surrounded my unconscious body.

“It means you will participate.”

No negotiation. We do this or we don’t go back. Dammit. I looked at the eight different worlds displayed above us. They all looked dangerous.

“What exactly are we meant to do?” the blonde asked, worry clear in her voice. “How would we even help?”

“It’s obvious,” the grey-haired man interjected. “We’ll be sent to those worlds and save the day. Right?”

The golden-eyed woman nodded. “This is true. You will all be given a mission in each world. Accomplish that and you win.”

“Win?” the woman in the black suit scoffed. “You mean get our lives back. This is nothing more than blackmail.”

“Yes, this isn’t fair!” the blonde followed.

“Wait, guys, come on,” the grey-haired man interjected again. “We’re here to save not just one world but many! Isn’t helping people enough?”

“That’s not the point!” the blonde snapped. “One, this whole thing came literally out of nowhere. Two, how difficult is this mission? And how long will we be sent to these worlds? Third, how do we even know we’re actually helping anybody? This is all so suspicious!”

“Exactly,” Braids said. “Even with our lives on the line, how do we—”

“Money.”

The golden-eyed woman leaned back.

“I’m perfectly aware of how you humans get motivated. It’s one thing to offer you your life, its another to encourage you to live it. For this first task, I offer you all the basest of rewards.”

“After the completion of your mission, I—that is, fate—will make it so you each win ten million American dollars, or the equivalent of it, in your respective dwellings.”

My eyes widened. Did she say ten million?

“You’re offering us money?” the athlete said in surprise.

“I am,” the robed woman said, clapping her hands together. “I believe it an insurmountable amount for each of you.”

“Wait,” the blonde started. “How can we even trust this?”

“Our situation is… supernatural enough…” Braids mumbled. “If something like this is possible… then maybe…”

“Fate’s work for money,” the athlete said. “We can trust your word on this, arbiter?”

That one sure changed his tune. Aside from the blonde, everyone else seemed less hesitant.

Ten million dollars…

Ilyana’s face popped in my head. With money like that, life would be infinitely easier for us.

“But of course,” the robed woman replied. “Your money means nothing to me. In fact, I believe this compensation is more than enough for how little time you’ll work.”

“Wait, what does that mean?” the grey-haired man asked. “Aren’t we going to these worlds to be heroes?”

“All you’re required is to do one specific task in each world.” The robed woman smiled as she leaned forward, hands clasped. “If successful, it will be enough to shift the tides of destiny.”

“Just one task?” the military guy said. “That’s sounds… awfully easy! Maybe that’s why we were picked!”

“What’s the catch?” Headphones asked.

The robed woman’s eyes narrowed as her smile turned one shade malicious. I might’ve imagined it, but that’s how it felt.

“The catch, my dear, is that you are pressed for time. Your missions require… forty-eight earth hours or less to complete. Failure means the destruction of the world you’re sent to… and your inability to return to your own.”

The deepness of the woman’s golden eyes flickered as I felt sucked into them.

“I will save this universe because that is what’s fated to happen. But who says I can’t have my fun while doing so?”

This whole abduction, our souls pulled into outer space, us presented a means to save the universe… it was all a game. And we were contestants.

“Oh,” I said, my voice breaking. “Well, shit.”

3

Magic, that’s right, I could use magic!

Before I hit the ground, I summoned the power welling inside of me. That golden-eyed woman—the arbiter, I suppose I should call her—did a really crappy job explaining how my body adapted to this new world.

Apparently, I was inserted into this land as if I was born here. I had a past, an upbringing, and whatever weird power they have going around. In this case, some of the people of this world were gifted with an affinity to magic. Mine was wind.

“It will come to you like second nature if you really put your mind to it,” the arbiter said, just as she pushed me into the disk leading to this world. “Remember, you were born there. Your body already knows what to do.”

Testing that theory into reality, I imagined a gust of wind shielding every part of my body. As if on reflex, my hands moved as if to push the air away from me. Before I knew it, I was enveloped by a tornado just as I hit the ground.

I barely felt a thing.

When I came to my senses, I realized I almost crashed into a group of knights. Some of them were also affected by the red lightning attack from the enemy, but none of them were as close to the explosion as I was.

A few of the knights looked dazed but otherwise kept their attention ahead of the bridge.

“You okay there, kid?” an older knight ran up to check on me. “You’re… Ryota, right? Of House Rutherford.”

I nodded dumbly.

“I knew it. Recognized you as soon as I saw the crest of the falcon on your jacket, and the gift of the tempest all over you. You’re the recruit Commander Elise told me about.”

I cracked a smile and took his hand as he helped me stand up.

“My men and I could really use a boost in speed. Mind casting some of your magic before we charge the enemy?”

I blinked. “Yes, of course!”

The second easiest part about jumping into this world was keeping my name. The first was how seamless my appearance was to everyone else. To the people here, the knights of Joren in particular, they knew me as a recruit they’ve always known but never really paid attention to. Just a random dude with no redeeming qualities, but supposedly not bad in a fight either. I was like a second thought in the writer’s mind, inserted into the third act of the story like a deus ex machina. Or well, that was what I was meant to be anyway.

After I found the correct ‘feeling’ inside my chest, I summoned a gust of wind that enveloped the mighty knights. Their armor gleamed a little in green, and they roared in thanks, raising their swords to my direction, before running off to battle.

The old knight put a reassuring hand on my shoulder and nodded. “We will win this fight,” he said, though he trembled a little. “We will not be slaves of the empire.”

I nodded as I met his gaze. “For everlasting peace.”

The words came second nature to me.

When the old knight left, I immediately looked to the upper right corner of my vision. The numbers told me forty-eight minutes and three seconds.

Forty—I already wasted ten minutes doing all that?

Damn that arbiter, what a hack!

“Unlike the other contestants, your mission is a delicate matter,” the arbiter’s voice echoed in my mind. I could easily imagine her uncanny smile. “Go to the Mage Queen and stop her from destroying the bridge. You have about two hours to do so.”

Two. Hours.

She said our time limit was two days. I had two fricking hours!

“I said two days or less, didn’t I?”

I already wasted an hour orienting myself after I arrived to this world, not to mention I got pushed all the way close to the frontlines before I could protest. Just crank up the difficulty, why don’t you? I was a gamer, but I never once bragged about my skills or beaten any secret boss battles. I was a casual at best.

But think, think, think!

The arbiter said Fate picked us for a reason, right? I could do this, I just don’t… know… how to…

I looked around me and saw that a part of the bridge had broken. The lightning magic that threw me backwards also destroyed a chunk of the guard rail protecting the side of the bridge. It revealed a section leading to its underside. The Mage Queen was supposed to be flying down there.

I wondered if my wind abilities could be used for flying. I looked at the skies above the battlefield but didn’t see any floating entities. Which made sense considering the drop from this bridge meant certain death. A single arrow or magic spell was all it took.

It was an instant game over for me, but then again, if that arbiter was to be believed, this world was done for if the Mage Queen succeeded. After that, the universe. I still didnt fully understand how one thing will lead to another but regardless of that, my life was already at stake.

I never really had a choice.

I closed my eyes and imagined the power inside me move. I felt it envelop my body and then… I floated. It was a familiar sensation back to when I first met the arbiter. I could do this.

A knight, or rather an archer from my side, noticed me. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing? That’s dangerous—”

I gave the woman an apologetic look, then flew off, making sure I didn’t fly too high. Sorry, ma’am, but my time limit was almost up.

I made a dash for the broken part of the bridge, then swallowed hard as soon as I saw what was directly beneath the floating continents. Pastures? Farmland? It was too high up to tell, but it was a long stretch of flat land. It reminded me of my time looking out the window of a plane. Except I was sure this was much higher.

I didn’t know how people in the floating continents survived with little oxygen, but that question was irrelevant. I slowly flew down the side of the bridge until I reached the underside. All things considered the damned structure was actually pretty thick. Maybe about five stories in its depth.

And then something became obvious.

Too obvious in fact that I immediately flew back up to hide myself.

The Mage Queen’s palanquin wasn’t exactly hiding. It was like a rectangular carriage the size of a small house with some kind of wheel spinning beneath it. It wasn’t pulled or carried by anything, but it floated.

I scanned the area and there was not a single soul in sight. Did people from the two continents really fear the drop or was this underside sacred somehow? I part of me felt like I knew the answer to that, and it was the latter. Odd. It was almost as if I had a memory of this world.

Well, sacred or not, this was war. One would think the underside would make for some kind of strategy.

I looked at my time limit. Thirty-two minutes, fifteen seconds.

Ah, dammit.

Just then the palanquin turned right, spun the other way, then stopped. Above it was an arch, as if the underside of the bridge had some kind of design or decoration.

Suddenly, the palanquin rammed the arch, causing the underside to rattle. The people fighting above probably wouldn’t feel a thing, but the Elesian Queen had started her plan. A bunch of symbols appeared on the surface of the palanquin, as if it suddenly had glowing graffiti. The symbols then came alive, moving upwards as if being sucked by the bridge. Or maybe it was being sent to the bridge.

I had no time to worry about this.

I flew towards the palanquin, cautiously at first, then haphazardly all around it when my timer reached eighteen minutes.

Eventually, behind the glowing symbols, I saw a seam. I looked at my right hand and channeled some of my wind magic there. At least the arbiter got this part right. My insertion to this world’s history and lore was quickly becoming second nature. Odd, but I’d take it.

I stabbed my magic-bladed arm into the seam and opened one side of the palanquin. Not caring about the glowing symbols, I barged inside like a cartoon thief.

I landed inside with a soft thud. The interior of the palanquin was… well, surprisingly decorated. It wasn’t just the size of a house it was like a house inside. It was as if I entered a door and got into the hallway that went in a circle. It had wooden panels on the floor and there were paintings and all sorts of objects hanging on the walls.

But I had no time to admire any of it. I stepped into the hallway and made my way around, until eventually, directly on the other side, I heard a voice. A woman’s voice. There was a doorway with no door. And inside…

The Queen of the Elesian Empire sat in the middle of a round pedestal… chanting some kind of spell.

I was hoping she’d be in a trance-like state, but when I stepped inside the room, she immediately noticed me. She gasped out loud and stopped what she was doing.

That’s when I got a good look at her.

The Mage Queen was, what people on earth would call, an elf. In this world, however, they were referred to as the Myseni. I knew that somehow. She had long, bluish white hair, elongated ears, and a ruby-like gem grew out of her forehead like a third eye. She wore a blue-and-black dress that showed more skin than cover it, while a series of bracelets adorned her arms and legs. And suffice it to say, she was incredibly attractive.

My eyes wandered for a bit, then I quickly searched the room, slightly flustered. The place itself looked normal enough except it had doors on the walls. The hallway outside didn’t have them, of course, so where did they lead?

“Those clothes…” the Queen started, “that armor… are you a Joreni assassin? How did you get in here? How did you find me?”

I locked eyes with the woman. She was probably scared of me, but not counting her initial surprise, she assumed a look of pride and bravery. She didn’t seem to have any weapon on her, but magic existed in this world, and she was in the middle of chanting a spell before I rudely interrupted her.

Whatever the case may be, I simply did not have time. Eleven minutes.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” I said, my voice sounding a lot more intimidating than I thought I could make it. “And I’m here to put a stop to it. Destroying the bridge will mean the end for both our peoples.”

Shock appeared across the Queen’s face, but she quickly covered it.

“How did you even…” she muttered. “But no. What it means is the end of the war. The fighting has gone on for far too long. If it means our continents will be split apart… if it means losing the gift of magic… then I will do it. I have to, for both our peoples’ sake.”

Losing the gift of magic?

“That’s where your wrong,” I said. “Destroying the bridge means both our continents will fall to the ground below! And eventually—”

I held back whatever else I wanted to say. She didn’t need to know about the rest of the universe.

“Fall?” she said, eyebrows knotted in confusion. “Why would the continents fall?”

“I don’t know, probably because if flies on magic and—look, I really don’t have time for this, your Queenliness. What you’re doing is dangerous and… I really don’t want to kill you!”

That was what I thought the arbiter wanted me to do coming to this world. But now that I really thought about it, my mission was to simply end the destruction of the bridge.

“So, you are an assassin,” the Queen spat. “Well, I’ve come this far. I will regret far more than killing one Joreni assassin.”

The Elesian Queen stood up on the pedestal, her hands glowing with power.

“Dammit, Queen! I don’t have time for this!”

Five minutes.

“Can’t we just… how can I convince you to stop?”

“Can you stop the war at this very moment?”

“Well…”

“Then you can’t.”

The Queen’s hands reverberated with power. I probably messed up big time by talking to her. I probably should’ve taken my shot as soon as I entered the room.

But then again… as much as I could imagine my ‘history’ in this world, as much as I felt sad for the people of Joreni, as much as it felt natural to summon magic or even fight alongside the knights, no matter how much I felt like I was a part of this world, in the end… I wasn’t. I was no killer. I was just a character inserted into this story. Even with how natural I felt being here, I never once lost my sense of self.

“Remember, Ryota Rutherford, the success of this mission means the safety of the universe. It means your ticket back to your world.”

Three minutes.

Damn that arbiter. Why would fate pick me to do this anyway? Maybe… maybe this was just an elaborate dream?

Two minutes.

The Queen probably waited to see how I would attack first, but her hands suddenly started to move.

“Know that at least in this mission, you are a hero. You will save that world from its grim fate.”

Dammit, fine! But the mission was to stop the destruction of the bridge, right?

I summoned every ounce of magic I could muster…

…and destroyed the room.

I’d like to think that I didn’t harm the Elesian Queen, but my wind magic went berserk after I unleashed it. I saw it hit the pedestal, the walls and its doors, even the hallway outside. Oh, and the Queen got me too, of course. I was hit straight in the chest by something bright and hot. Lightning probably.

And then I felt the palanquin make a sharp drop.

After that was blinding whiteness.

I fully expected myself to wake up in my bedroom having dreamt everything that happened so far. Or maybe even wake up on the floor of the university or the hospital where the medics and teacher took my unconscious body.

It was none of those things. The next thing I saw was a pair of golden eyes staring back at me, six other people floating in space, and a singular disk suspended in the air before all of us. In it was a picture of a fantastical world… imploding unto itself.