God?

It was at that moment, the scenery changed once more. Almost as if glass collapsed in on itself.

I heard a shattering sound...

The 'Knights' and 'Priests' that surrounded me turned to nothingness. The radiance no more.

A force similar to the one that pulled me over to that supposed 'Royal Castle'... once again transported me somewhere else. After focusing my eyes, I saw that there was a creepy faceless man in a formal suit standing respectfully before me.

The world around me seemed both dark and bright, just like the faceless man's clothing and even his physique.

Was this a balance of colours... or a crazy paradox?

"Who exactly are you?" I eyed him curiously. It was the first time in many years something like this had happened to me, but I didn't feel panicked. If I was already dead in body, then there was no helping it.

Maybe because my body and rotted brain wasn't hampering me, it felt like I'd exited a cocoon.

Like a butterfly no longer burdened by a shell...

Was this the true 'me'?

If so, then what we're all these memories that were awakened within? All these thoughts and emotions?

If I hadn't trained to keep a level-head in unexpected scenarios, I'd likely have attacked the man by now.

Fear... I had a hard time controlling it right now.

But the fact that I had nothing to lose calmed me.

Now.. I was just an old man waiting for death. Even if the faceless man in front of me was some dangerous entity, even if my soul is now a captive of a godly entity... There was no reason for me to worry about losing something now that I had nothing.

No life or future...

Pretty depressing to think about.

"'I am a God from another world' ...is what I wanted to say, but that explanation isn't quite right." The half black and half white faceless man answered in deep thought. It was sudden since he had no mouth.

So it was hard to tell exactly when he'd speak.

Even so, there was something unsettlingly human about the way he handled himself and gestured.

I could feel his 'gaze' sharpening moments before he glanced at the paradoxical world around him.

It was almost as if he too wasn't sure on how to put me ease in this situation. In this unfamiliar place.

"You probably have a lot of questions for me. So, yeah... I'll start my story from the beginning, but please be patient with me while I'm explaining." The faceless man was polite and direct with his words.

I decided to say nothing. It wouldn't make sense for me to anger this supernatural entity anyway.

Better to be a child listening than an adult talking.

I didn't want to take responsibility for anything I happened to say or bring up, so this worked well.

"In a world completely different than your own. Two types of ceremonies were conducted every hundred years. One was called the 'Hero Summoning'. The second ceremony called the 'Totem Summoning'.

I know you've read similar tales in your youth in your own world. Tales of a 'Hero defeating a Demon King and saving the world'. How an ordinary person became special simply by falling through reality.

It may seem ridiculous to you, but the truth is that you WERE chosen. You were picked as a candidate to be summoned into this magical world. I mean it sincerely. Just look." The faceless man gestured behind me. Only then did I notice a distortion.

I turned my head to see that the light and dark world there going through change. Crackling. Sizzling.

It twisted into something unexpected.

What appeared before me was a lush world filled with lush forests and giant, towering mountains.

I looked down and saw old civilisations similar to the ones built in my own world. Both rational and civil.

This world... was vastly different from my own.

I could see two suns that were both big and small shining brightly in the cloudless sky. It was an unimaginable scene that took my breath away. It made me feel emotions I'd thought never existed.

To experience such wonders...

When was it that I'd truly looked up? Seeing the sky as more than a roof. The sun as more than cruelty.

This wasn't a static image. Everything felt so alive.

The faceless man didn't interrupt me. I fell into a trance observing the unfamiliar world around me.

"Fine. It's a beautiful place... Okay? I'll admit that at least." I praised wholeheartedly and looked back at the faceless man in deep thought. If he really was a God, why did he respect me? Wasn't I a mere tool kidnapped to serve the humanity of this world?

Not only that, but there was a lot of inconsistencies in his words. How could he know my past?

And even if he did, I couldn't understand how he'd act so familiar with me despite his position of power.

He didn't introduce himself and tried to show me the beauty of these foreign lands. Why go so far?

I felt more curious. Wanting to find the answer.

"Please tell me more about this alternate world." I requested after seeing how magical the world was.

Dragons and Phoenixes lived in harmony on volcanic lands, yet also seemed to have an amiable relationship with other mythological races and creatures. There was a complexity just like Earth.

An ecosystem that some would find boring and others would look into. Making it their career.

I couldn't help myself anymore.

Looking like someone discovering enlightenment.

Feeling surprised after seeing that there seemed to be people with lightning tattoos. Those who built temples and shrines that somehow blended in with the varied ancient cultures of those around them.

This is an alternate universe alright.

I may be unable to tell who those lightning tattooed people were, but they weren't the same as me.

Definitely not the same as the humans I saw in the first images of introductory scenes into the world.

"Informing you about the difference in society and common sense of this mystical world... probably wouldn't be able to help you adapt since those type of differences are things. They can't be explained through a few mere words." Meaning: This 'God' was planning to act like a typical arbiter of goodwill.

Because OF COURSE a random godly entity would reincarnate or transmigrate someone on a whim.

But that stereotypical reaction didn't harm me.

I could only see it like that.

"Instead, listen to your circumstances. The reason you're here in front of me... is because you can no longer go back to your original world." The faceless man said with as if that mattered at this point.

Even if I did go back there, I had nothing left.

His gaze showed no signs of mischief or falsehood.

Deep within his tone of voice were emotions.

Ones I couldn't read into.

"I don't understand what you're trying to say." I spoke with furrowed brows and shaking lips.

An inquisitive look was on my faces. I wanted to know why I couldn't return, even if it had no value.

"Let me clear up why these Druids and Fiends even bother to summon people from a different world through ceremonies. Only after that will you understand why you can't return." The faceless man sighed and waved his hand again into empty space.

The world behind the man changed and seemed to illustrate a story. He continued his explanation.

"I'll try to keep this simple enough for you to understand. Please bear with me on this.

Basically: The world you saw was the creation made by the joint effort of two 'Gods'. Divine beings. Also known as Moon Goddess and Sun God. Both having created their own children based on their image.

The Sun God created the Druid Race.

The Moon Goddess created the Fiend Race.

Everything was peaceful at first.

Both races were respectful to each other and cared for each other's wellbeing. Harmonious as hymns.

The Fiends offered their power to help the Druids to build society. Connect to unreachable places.

On the other hand, the Druids returned their kindness by imparting some of their wisdom.

However, it was only a matter of time before a change occurred after a long years had passed.

The day and night had a falling out due to the wars their children were starting over obtaining love.

Not resources, but 'love'.

The affection of their parents.

The Moon Goddess was angered by the Druid's greed. How they siphoned precious resources.

Contrarily, the Sun God was angered by the Fiend's savagery. Their glutinous hunger to devour life.

They fought, killing each other in the process, and left behind two Divine Swords that held traces of the Will they decreed before death." It was this point I saw a familiar illustration of swords of divine nature.

Both of them existed in my memory somehow.

The faceless man continued:

"The Divine Sword of Darkness held the decree to eradicate the Druids. Punish them with death.

The Divine Sword of Light held the decree to eradicate the Fiends. To show them no mercy.

The Fiends tried to let their Emperors handle the Divine Sword of Darkness( but found that none of them had the required strength to lift it. Making it nothing more than a useless reminder of loss.

Those who attempted to forcibly do so all died with shattered souls. They were sent to the Death God as punishment for their sins. At least, that's how they initially rationalised desecrating their dead parents.

The Druids had similar circumstances on their side, but the solution their greatest Magician came up was shocking. It was to summon a foreigner from other worlds to wield their Divine Sword in their stead.

They used the magical energy within the Divine Sword of Light to summon a heroic warrior from many alternate worlds, but little did they know that their Magicians suggestion had been overheard by Fiend's spies. It was a grave miscalculation.

This allowed them to duplicate the ceremony so that they can summon a wielder for the Divine Sword of their own. Pretty ironic, isn't it? Success was always shared between the two races. Then and even now.

The summoning on each sides was a success, and a tradition was created from that day forth.

It was so the 'will', left behind by their Divine Gods of Sun and Moon, could be carried out completely.

The wielders were always summoned from your world called Earth, and every time they appeared in this chaotic world, the war between both races would intensified. They chose the be arbiters of war.

Every single one of them...

The summoned wielders would be imparted strength by their Divine Sword upon arrival to this world. It allowing them to become truly invincible warriors of the race they were summoned by. The only drawback of this power was the lack of freedom brought by the decree of the two stubborn Divine Swords.

In every hundred years, the summoned Hero and Demon King would lose their right to possess their Divine Swords. This wasn't a natural severing of the contract. No, it was the scheme devised by rulers.

This was a sort of restriction placed on them by the ones that handled their summoning.

It was due to the fact that both races didn't want their Divine Swords wielders to weaken with age.

After all, even the strongest couldn't live forever.

And if one of them died, the other side would be pressed to find a new wielder at such short notice.

This was because Divine Swords only gave one enhanced strength, not immortality.

A wielder could hold the Divine Swords for a long time and even have their lifespan augmented by the swords... yet both of them couldn't dispel the marks of age. This created a very long cycle of tradition.

This cycle repeated hundreds and thousands of times as countless eras passed... Never ending.

That is until the incident where YOU were summoned. A man who wielded both the wielder of the Divine Sword of Darkness and Divine Sword of Light took place. Unprecedented before now." The faceless man stopped his words there and dissipated the realistic illustrations in front of him.

He gave me so much information that I couldn't digest it all at once. However, I was still able to instantly make some connections to what happened to me before I arrived here and the present situation I was in thanks to his words. Even if only a little.

It seems the people I met before weren't humans like I'd thought, but mystical beings called Druids...

Hmmm, that was strange because they looked too human in my opinion. These people I'd saw didn't look anything like the tree huggers I heard Druids were in my past as a knowledgeable Otaku.

Well, it was probably nothing special.

It might've been that they looked identical to humans due to their similar history and culture.

The illustrations the faceless man showed couldn't have been fake. The Divine Swords drawn were an exact replica of the ones I saw after being summoned. Not only that, but the Gods who held the swords seemed to be the type who would fight to uphold their beliefs stubbornly.

One sword seemed like it was glimmering in light.

The other sword was so dark that it seemed to devour light itself. Darkness pitch black as night.

What baffled me the most about what the faceless man said was that the two Gods actually fought for such childish reasons.

I understood that the Druids created by the Light God may have been too similar to humans and thus incited war, but what was up with the actual Gods themselves getting caught up in a war caused by different ideals? Did that even make sense?

Was it even possible for Gods that the faceless man illustrated to experience human sentiments?

If they didn't exist, then why would the faceless man lie to me? The story seemed way too simplified.

I mean, it was the classic light versus dark shtik.

The care he shows towards me seems genuine, yet this fact was what made me more suspicious of him.

I'd never had friends who HADN'T gone through life or death tribulations with me. It was really strange.

I was unable to comprehend his reasoning...

Perhaps I was just imagining it and the faceless man is only being kind.

You can't judge a supernatural entity like him with regular human logic, right?

My heart thumped wildly as I took in what he said with a grain of salt, not knowing how to respond.

My previously indifferent face became stern.

I looked at the faceless man in front of me.

The fact that I couldn't return was something that didn't really affect me much, but what he implied in his story really put me on edge. He said that the Gods of this world died...! If so, then who is he?

I think I should pretend to not have thought of this question until he introduces himself.

Who knows what could happen if the faceless man had a weird and violent temperament?

Meh... It could be that he forgot to introduce himself as well, but that seems unlikely.

Especially considering how the faceless man seems to be wiser than you'd expect.

The fact that he has a lot of information regarding me doesn't make me feel any safer.

That could've meant he read through my thoughts...

Hmmm... Now that I think about it.

He hadn't mentioned anything about sending me back to my homeland.

Was he trying to hint that he can't send me back to Earth? I couldn't believe this to be the truth.

Maybe he's just insulting my intelligence.

How can an entity that could bend reality to his will not be able to send me back to my homeland?

Fine. Let's say he can't send me back for now.

However, the problem still stood.

I was unable to comprehend how I was chosen twice out of the more than seven billion people of Earth in these two summonings. Was it rigged somehow? Did someone manipulate the results in their favour?

The only thing I got after his long story about Fiends and Druids... was that the story was likely altered.

I wondered what exactly the man was thinking...