Chapter 1 – Game Over, Start Again Part 6: The Hero's Welcoming Ceremony

Part 6: The Hero's Welcoming Ceremony

“And thus, we welcome our savior, the Hero of Light!”

Renji’s eyes snapped open. No headlights, no screeching tires, and no pain, that was not something he was expecting.

Instead: vaulted marble ceilings soaring into a gloom far above. Ornate, chiming chandeliers that dripped crystal light. A blast of triumphant trumpets, and velvet banners, heavy with gold embroidery, rippling in an unfelt breeze. He could smell old stone, melting wax, and the sharp, clean scent of incense. He was lying on something cold and hard, which was marble. And he was wearing velvet?

He sat up, his head swimming. Around him stood a perfect semicircle of richly dressed nobles, applauding with a polite, rehearsed enthusiasm, and directly ahead, standing on a dais and bathed in a column of light from a stained-glass window, was the man himself, the one who haunted his nightmares and some of the doujinshis.

The Hero. Blond. Smug, and self-righteous, his legendary sword was already glowing with that obnoxious, holy light that seemed to be even more smug than the hero himself. Renji stared, the gears in his brain, still slick with the oil of unreality, turned with the agonizing slowness of a frozen dial-up modem. “This… this can’t be real.”

The Hero raised a hand, his smile perfectly calibrated for maximum charm and inspiration. “Fear not, people of this troubled land! I, your chosen Hero, shall—”

Renji screamed.

It was not a noble gasp of surprise. It was not a manly shout of confusion. It was a full-on, guttural, existentially unhinged shriek of pure, undiluted panic: “AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!” It echoed through the vast cathedral like a demon being forcibly exorcised. Heads snapped toward him. A noblewoman in a ridiculously large hat gasped. The High Priest, a man with a long white beard and shifty eyes, fumbled his holy staff. Even the Hero faltered, blinking his perfect blue eyes, thrown completely off his script.

Renji slapped both hands over his mouth, then immediately pulled them away again as if his face was on fire. Everything felt wrong. His body was too heavy. The velvet robe itched. His chest felt tight but not with anxiety, with the unforgiving grip of what felt like a corset. He looked down.

Velvet. Rings on his fingers. A heavy gold chain of office around his neck. And embroidered on his chest, the crest of the Human Alliance. This was not his Uniqlo hoodie.

“No,” he whispered, his voice trembling. “No, no, no, no, no” his hands shaking and his feet slowly turning to noodles.

He scrambled to his feet and spun in place, taking in the entire impossible scene. The banners. The costumes. The familiar faces of NPCs from the game, now rendered in terrifyingly high-definition 4K reality.

And then it hit him, with the subtlety of a Truck at 70 kilometers per hour.

“This is the intro cutscene. This is the Hero’s summoning ceremony. Chapter One of Ebon Requiem Chronicles. I know this scene by heart.” he thought with his mind slowly coping with its new reality.

His voice rose to a high, panicked squeak. “Oh god. I’ve been isekai’d,” he said with eyes half full of tears and half full of panic as he felt like he was losing his mind while trying to maintain focus.

A fresh wave of gasps rippled through the assembled nobles. The High Priest dropped his staff entirely. A nearby knight instinctively crossed himself. A baroness in the back actually swooned.

Renji clutched his head, his eyes wide with horror. “I’m in the game. I’m in the game! And not even as a cool side character—I’m one of the nobles! One of the pompous, arrogant NPCs who gets two lines of dialogue and then dies horribly behind the scenes!” He dropped to his knees, the heavy robe pooling around him, his face pale with dawning terror. "Chapter Two, the diplomatic banquet at Castle Greymoor., the surprise attack by the Orcish vanguard, one of the Ambassadors gets an axe to the chest before he can even finish his canapé! I'm tutorial roadkill!" he whined feeling like his brain was about to melt and leak from his ears.

The High Priest leaned down, his voice a low, urgent whisper. “Ambassador Volkov, are you unwell? Do you need a cleric to check on you?” Renji looked up slowly, his expression frozen. “Volkov?” he croaked. “Did you just say Volkov?!"

The priest nodded, visibly sweating under his heavy vestments. “Yes, of course. The esteemed Ambassador of the Human Alliance, Renji Volkov,” she spoke with a slight confusion.

Renji’s mouth fell open. “They used my real name?!” “I’m not just some generic background noble. I’ve been cast as myself. Or at least some NPC version of me destined to die.”

The Hero stepped forward, his concerned smile perfectly back on script. “Do not fear, Ambassador. I, the Hero of Light, will protect you,” he said, trying to speak reassuringly while trying to place his hand on Renji’s shoulder.

A switch flipped in Renji’s brain. The panic was still there, a screaming chorus in the back of his mind, but a new, cold resolve washed over it. He stood, eyes blazing. He pointed a shaking finger at the blond protagonist. “You. You sanctimonious plot device. You are a tutorial boss in a hero’s costume. You’re the reason Evelina Duskbane dies. You ruined everything!”

The Hero blinked, clearly not briefed for this level of emotional intensity from a background character whom he had just met. “Uh… excuse me?”

Renji stumbled backward, tripping slightly over his own ridiculously long robe. “No. Nope. This isn’t happening. I died. A truck hit me. I’m supposed to be dead. Or in a hospital, or in hell but not… here! Not in pixelated politics land with a pre-scripted, ignominious death on the horizon!” He turned in a slow circle, trying to find a glitch, an exit, a crack in the reality of it all. Nothing. Only marble, velvet, and the faces of characters he’d seen a thousand times on a screen, now made terrifyingly real.

No Aya to calm him down. No Kenta to make a terrible joke. With no Mizuki to sigh and make a bleakly accurate prediction about his chances of survival, he was realizing that he was truly and utterly alone.

Renji Volkov was completely, terrifyingly alone—trapped inside his favorite game. And standing just meters away from the glorified anime messiah who was destined to kill the only character he had ever truly cared about.

His eyes narrowed. His panic sharpened into a single point of desperate, defiant purpose. His voice dropped to a whisper that was somehow louder than his earlier scream.

“I can’t let it happen again, no, I won't let this happen!” He wasn't sure what that meant yet. He didn't know the rules of this new reality. He didn't know the stakes. But Evelina Duskbane’s fate wasn’t sealed anymore. Not if he had anything to say about it.

Renji stood straighter, shaking but determined, his eyes locked on the stunned Hero. His voice came out not as a whisper, but as a declaration—a promise to himself and to a queen who didn't even know he existed yet. “It’s time,” he said, a wild, dangerous grin spreading across his face, “for a new game.”

End of Chapter 1.