Chapter 1
It was hard to be an American in Japan, Lucatiel Niazaki knew that from the moment his parents moved him and his sick brother here ten years ago, for his fathers new job and to get better treatment for his little brother Noah. It had been hell to get settled in and begin learning a whole new language, as well as losing all of his friends and taking a Japanese last name.
However, that had been ten years ago, and it got easier for a time. But four years in when he was just thirteen. Suddenly, Lucatiel's father died from a freak accident at work that electrocuted him, frying his brain and effectively condemning his family to a life long of hardship, with no way to get back to America and his mother turning to drugs to help with the grief of losing the love of her life, Lucatiel was left to care for his younger sibling.
He was thankful to finish high-school at seventeen, but because of him also working two jobs, his grades were far from being college acceptable, he couldn't get a sports scholarship either because he didn't have any clubs to fall back on, being so overloaded as it was.
His brother Noah: who was fifteen years old, was so sick and frail he could barely walk down the street without needing assistance, let alone go to school made the older brother work even harder to try and keep him alive, the treatments at the hospital worked for a time. SO well in fact that Noah finally started getting better… until their dad died, and the money stopped coming in and the treatment's stopped.
All of this on the oldest siblings back left him feeling Jaded and hateful at the world, which bled into him hating his family a little. Most people avoided Lucatiel entirely because of this, leaving him isolated from the world.
Which left him in a bit of a mental conundrom as he found himself in a pawn shop, looking for a gift for the mother that he convinced himself he hated. He had managed to save to 25,000 yen, a small part of his mind told him to keep saving until he could buy a plane ticket to get the hell out of there, but the more sensible part of him told him that was terribly unrealistic.
He wasn't cold hearted enough to do that anyway… yet.
"Hey kid, what can I do you for?" The man behind the counter asked, surprising Lucatiel when he spoke in near perfect english. It wasn't like it was rare for that to happen, in fact a lot of people in this country were very acomodating, when they noticed him they would attempt to converse with him in his native language.
It was endlessly amusing when he spoke back to them in perfect Japanese, the look on their faces was priceless. "I'm looking for a gift for my mother." Lucatiel spoke back in Japanese. He would not be graced with amusement today, the pawn shop owner, a middle aged man with graying hair at the edges didn't react whatsoever, except for a nod and a look to his counter picking a book out under what he assumed to be a mini shelf.
"Take a look around, let me know whenever your ready, take your time." He said, and started reading said book.
"Don't mind if I do." Lucatiel mumbled, immediately moving towards the back half of the store, almost knocking over a wooden sword in the process. Usually the back of the store held cheaper items, which he was going for, no sense in spending too much in a pawn shop of all things.
He looked over an assortment of garbage, stuffed animals and mostly broken toys, until his body gravitated towards a clearance section, morbidly curious more than anything else.
"How bad does something have to be in quality to be in a clearance bin in a pawn shop." Lucatiel rummaged through the bin: partly convinced he would have to bathe in alcohol to get any bactieria off of him before his hand hit something interesting.
"Well now, your an interesting find." from the bottom of the bin Lucatiel pulled out a solid black ring with a purple and red gemstone adorning it. "Your rather beautiful, but you have to be fake, no way in hell would you be here if you weren't."
Lucatiel examined the ring a bit more, inside was an engraving in a language that he had no inclination of, he knew there were tons of them, and even more languages that no longer existed outside of books through the passage of time.
The ring was also perfectly fit for his fingers, he knew this because he and his mother had the exact same slender fingers. 'A pianist's hands' one of his teachers once called them, and the ring looked to be pretty much the size of his mothers wedding ring, which she sold for drugs a year after his father passed.
He slid it on just to make sure, and was satisfied to see it was even better than expected, it was perfect, almost like it was made for him. A pleasureable chill went down his back at the thought of it.
"Hey kid." The pawn shop owner suddenly spoke from beside him, and a second before Lucatiel could respond a loud CRACK resounded through the room, and Lucatiel was screaming in agony as he collapsed to the ground, knocking shelves of crap down with him.
"Think you could steal from me? ME!? You little American shit!" Pawn shop guy snarled, Lucatiel was holding his side and coughing blood, more blood spilling through his fingers as he looked up at the guy.
That's when he realized it, the son of a bitch shot Lucatiel in the right side of his chest under his arm. "Y-You bastard!" Lucatiel cursed in between spasms of pain. "I-I w-wasn't stealing from you, you fucking shit!"
The pawn shop guy scowled and yanked on Lucatiel's left hand and pointed his gun at his middle finger. "Then what the fuck is this?"
Lucatiel's vision was beginning to get staticy around the edges. "Pl-please, you gotta get me to a hospital. I don't deserve to die."
The pawn shop guy spit on Lucatiel before dropping his hand. "Fuck you, don't steal in the next life you punk." He said before aiming and firing into Lucatiel's head, killing the nineteen year old.
The ring on Lucatiel's finger began to glow after he died, and the pawn shop psycho got to widen his eyes in surprise before his gun was forcibly turned on to him by some unknown force and the clip was emptied into his face and neck.
The cops would eventually make it the scene, but other than the blood, there was no sign of Lucatiel at all and with the older boy going missing, the mother would finally snap and end it, with Noah later dying from his illness.
A truly tragic ending for the Niazaki family… well, except for one.
Line break, Pov Change to first person.
I don't remember how I ended up here, I just remember that psycho shooting me to death.
"We did it! The summoning was a success!" the voice ahead of me sounded extremely relieved, I wasn't, I was suppose to be dead, why the hell wasn't I dead?
"Ahh, what the hell, where am I?" A voice beside me spoke, I blinked the bluriness out of my vision and saw four other people beside me with various weapons. Well, three weapons and a shield.
"Oh great heroes, please save our world from catastrophe!" the leader of the robed men pleaded, he held his hands out and beseeched the four to my right.
"Hey, I hate to say this but I think you've made a mistake. Send me back to my world." I demanded, I startled all of them and they looked at me like fish out of water.
Are you kidding me? You didn't notice me!? "Listen, I'm sure you have your own problems but can't you be more considerate?"
"I agree with him. Don't you feel at least a little guilt in bringing us to another world without our consent?" The boy who spoke earlier brandished the weapon he was holding, a white and gold sword with a blue gemstone inside it.
Somehow I knew what that weapon was, the legendary sword, as a matter of fact for some reason I knew what all the weapons here were, the legendary sword, bow, spear and shield. I didn't know how I knew that.
"And if you sent us home as soon as peace is restored, we'd have worked for nothing, a little unreasonable don't you think?" the blonde teen with a bow clearly agreed.
The tallest one of the group, a long blond haired man nodded his head. "We can talk about your issues after we go back to our world."
The only one who seemed willing to help was the dude with the shield, he had a more honest look about him, if not a little naive, and he was looking at the rest of us as if he couldn't believe what we were saying.
What? Sorry that I don't feel like helping an entire fucking world after I just died and got released from helping my own family.
"So how are you willing to accommodate us? Depending on your answer we may just become your enemies instead." Tall guy said. The other's aside from shield dude nodded with him.
Okay, that's a bit dickish, I wouldn't do that. I just care about going back to my world to die.
The guys in robes were clearly starting to get nervous, they fidgeted and stuttered when speaking, as if they couldn't believe that the heroes they called had some common sense, and they couldn't stop looking at me in a mixture of confusion and amazement, I was starting to feel like I wasn't supposed to be here and that was pissing me off.
"F-first, we'd like you to have an audience with the king of our country, Melromarc." Their leader said, stepping forward with his hands spread in a placating gesture. "You can negotiate your reward after that, so please…"
"I don't give a shit about some reward, send me HOME!" I shouted, my anger rising. The others looked at me in amazement and I sent them my best 'fuck off' glare.
"I-i-i-i'm sure our king has ways that can get you what you want… sir hero?" the leader backpeddaled again. "B-but as of right now we personally don't know how to do that."
My anger subsided a bit, and I felt a little guilt creep into me, they clearly were scared… Damnit, fine. I suppose I could hear them out.
The others walked forward with me taking up the rear, various barred windows showing glimpses of the outside world, I felt a little in awe at how beautful of a spectacle it was.
"We really are in another world huh…" The boy with the bow said at the top of the staircase, I nudged by the shield dude as he looked out one of those windows.
"It's like the typical sales pitch in all of those tour brochures." shield guy said.
The bow guy looked amused and smirked. "Wait, have you really never travelled outside of Japan before?"
I wasn't a fan of the haughty tone in his voice. "Don't act like it's not expensive as shit to travel to another country." I said, there was more than a little bitterness to my voice.
The smirk left his face replaced by a glare at me but everyone else chuckled. And the dude with the sword spoke quietly, not even bothering to look back at us. "this place probably has your standard mediterranean climate."
We followed the depressed looking mage until we reached a large throne room, in at the forefront sat two thrones, though only one was currently occupied by an old man, the king if the crown on his head had anything to say about it.
"Hmm… so these are the four cardinal heroes, but I have to ask. Who is this stranger you've brought to me with them?" he asked the mage who escorted us here.
"I'm not sure my liege, but… he was summoned with the four cardinal heroes, so we assume he's a hero of some kind, but we only have four legendary weapons."
"I'm Lucatiel Niazaki. Nineteen years old, but I'm no hero. And I just want to go home." I tried to keep my voice reasonable in respect to the King, but I was already upset.
"And I'm the King of Melromarc young hero, Aultcray Melromarc XXXII. And you must be a hero, for were you not you would not have been summoned to our world."
"I don't have any weapon King, nothing in fact, just my clothes and this ring here." I held up the ring to show him and the entire room of people stopped in shock.
It was quiet for an eerie amount of time before the room exploded into an excited frenzy people above us started running around, and some knights from behind us shouted out the massive doors to the outside world.
"A… A ring! A RING!" Someone from the second floor shouted in excitement. "Oh my god!"
"He has the ring! HE HAS THE RING! The Fifth has returned at long last!"
"Oh praise god!"
"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE!" I shouted, shutting everyone down. The king cleared his throat to regain some composure, but that didn't take away the newfound shine in his eyes.
"It's… hard to explain, and I give you my word we will, but first, we must not forget about our other heroes!" He raised his hand for silence, and when it was given he pointed to the other hereos. "Name yourselves."
The sword guy stepped first, then the spear then bow. I raised an eyebrow when the king tried to skip pass the shield hero which turned into a private scowl when the king looked absolutely disinterested in him, was it because he didn't have a weapon?
The king went on the explain about the world and my origin I'll summarize, this world has an apocalyptic prophecy called the waves of catastrophe, those waves will destroy the world unless the four cardinal heroes come together to stop them, the waves are predicted by a dragon hourglass and when the sand inside it runs out the heroes are teleported to the sight of the wave.
One wave has already passed, fended off by local Knights and wayward adventurers, but the others will be stronger, which is why they summoned the legendary heroes… which comes to me, apparently, this isn't the first time the waves of catastrophe appeared. Apparently there used to be five Heroes.
The sword Hero.
The bow Hero.
The spear Hero.
The shield Hero.
And me, the Ring hero. But the last Ring Hero apparently lost his mind at some point during history and stole the Legendary Ring and escaped back to his world, taking the ring which lost almost all of its power, needing a vessel to get back to it's world, I found it, however I had to die for it to activate.
Anyway that's it. Oh, and I also at some point realized that since I had the lost Ring, they probably wouldn't let me go home, which only made me even more frustrated. It's really hard to take things and stride and demand stuff like the three stooges beside me when the one thing I wanted almost certainly wouldn't be given to me.
About thirty minutes later I also learned that this world was a game, or at the very least very similar to one, which I mean literally. Apparently the Heroes exclusively had access to something called Status magic, which showed us literally game like stats such as strength, dexterity, defense and magic. And tons of other micro stats like resistances.
One thing stuck out to me: I had a LOT of magic attack and defense, almost in the triple digits, my physical attack and defense were pretty shit though, but I had another stat separate from physical attack called strength, which was pretty standard like the rest of my stuff.
There was one thing that stood out to me though, the ring had a unique ability called Ultimate Item Creation. From the slight overview, I can create items from materials found in this world that would normally create other items.
Huh… I wonder if I could create advanced healing potions or something from regular healing potion materials, or maybe make something new entirely.
The legendary ring. I can't tell if I'm lucky or not to end up in a game world, I didn't really play games to much, just watched my brother because it was one of the things he was still passionate about, but I was starting to remember bits of a console game I'd watch him play on my rare days off… what the hell was it called… Night Sky online? I think that was it.
The only way to upgrade our stuff was to leave on an adventure, to develop and upgrade the legendary weapons we have. But how in the hell was I supposed to upgrade a ring?
"Well, I suppose we could party up and fight together, that'd be the most ideal way to do it." the spear hero, who's name was Motoyasu suggested.
It was a fair idea, all of us were Level: 1 which meant that we were basically useless, Naofumi, the shield hero mourned that we weren't already maxed to start with, which made a little sense, why summon us and call us heroes if we were weak?
"A moment, heroes." A voice called, the king's aide, a rather sinister looking individual stepped forward, his face seemingly stuck In some sort of wilting smirk. "Each of you will adventure separately from each other."
"And why is that?" The bow hero, Itsuki asked.
"It has been said that the legendary weapons repel one another by nature, therefore when you are close by you are blocked from gaining strength." he explained. "Previous heroes have told of some sort of 'help' menu, if you look there you should find more clarity."
The four Heroes looked at said help menu including me. "Huh, so he's telling the truth, we can't gain XP if we work together."
"Same here."
"Me too."
"Well that sucks."
"Uh… excuse me." I called, getting everybody's attention. "Mine says differently." they all stared at me with varying levels of disbelief as I stared at the message in front of me, I realized they couldn't see it so I recited it back to them.
Unlike the other four cardinal weapons, the ring is in harmony with all of them, therefore it's development is not hindered by the other weapons due to lack of adverse reaction.
"Well now… this is unexpected." the King rubbed his beard thoughtfully. "That wasn't originally the case with the Legendary ring. It used to have the same hindrance as the other legendary weapons."
"It's like you placed a cheat-code in before starting the game." Ren, the sword hero crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at me, I was confused on why he was so angry. At least he had a sword, swords were cool.
"You met the admin didn't you?" Itsuki asked.
"The hell are you talking about? What admin?" I asked
"Well, the sun is about to set." The king interjected. "Rest up for tonight, and set forth tomorrow. In the meantime we'll gather the best of the best to form your parties."
A regal looking woman walked up to them, but she was probably just a servant by her posture. "Right this way please, we've prepared rooms for you in anticipation of your arrival."
"Uh.. sure." I mumbled.
Line break Three hours later.
"Ugh screw this!" I growled, chucking the pillow I was laying on into the a nearby window, the moonlight sky shining through it and into the room.
My conversation with the other heroes made me unable to rest, I just couldn't wrap my head around it, all of us were from different versions of Japan, with different periods of history and different prime ministers, especially in Ren's case, whose world was hyper futuristic to where Console games were a thing of the past, and VRMMO's were common place.
It also seemed everyone agreed that this place was a game, or at the least abnormally similar to one. The other heroes seemed to be calm and carefree despite this… I wasn't sure how I felt about it now that my frustration and anger left me. On one hand I died, I should be in heaven, or hell. But on the other hand because of me being summoned here I get to have a new lease on life and it's great but… it's just to help another world, it was hard enough just to help my family!
I let out a sigh. I couldn't really be upset now that I was able to look at things logically, living like I was before felt like misery incarnate, I was basically committing slow motion suicide. I sighed again and rolled out of bed, putting my shoes on and stepping out of my room. There weren't any rules that barred me from wandering the castle so I figured it was okay. And besides, according to a servant who chatted me up before I attempted to sleep, I brought the Ring back to this world, which in turn made me so popular I could literally punch the King in the face with no consequences. I'll admit the thought was funny. Though since my attack stat was a whopping 23 it probably wouldn't hurt to much.
Eventually I found myself back in the throne room, the massive space was a little unsettling in the dead of night, though there were a few torches lit to give it some depth, I decided to walk up to the throne for no other reason than sheer boredom and touched it, partially worried I was gonna be incinerated for my audacity.
I then noticed a strange discrepancy, there were two thrones, but only one royal King, was the Queen somewhere else? Or was there no Queen? Actually scratch that, why was one throne a little smaller than the other?
"Uh… Sir Ring Hero?" A voice called behind me. I nearly let out a yelp as I turned, startled. Standing in front of me was a Knight bearing a torch, his sword drawn as if readied for combat.
I relaxed, he probably thought I was an intruder. "Y-Yes? How'd you know it was me?" I stepped down from the throne and got a closer look at the man, his most notable feature being the scar across his face.
"Your hair, it's the color of ash. Plus the ring glows in the light sir." The Knight explained. "But enough of that, you really shouldn't be up there, I understand you have a lot of leeway as the returner of the Legendary ring but you shouldn't push your luck."
"Ahh, i-i'm sorry. W-wait where did you come from? I was certain I was the only one in here."
"The gallows sir." The Knight pointed to a nearby door. "There's a very dangerous prisoner in there."
A prisoner huh? That could be something to clear some of my lethargy. I walked in the direction of the door and the Knight rushed to stop me, getting in front of me with his palms facing my direction.
"Sir Ring Hero! Please don't continue your course, the prisoner truly is dangerous and she has been imprisoned for a variety of crimes!"
"Such as?"
"What?"
"What crimes has she been imprisoned for?" I asked, I was beginning to feel a little annoyed for some reason.
The Knight actually looked thoughtful, and it was then I realized that he didn't know himself. I rolled my eyes and pushed him aside. "If you can't tell me, then I assume it's not that serious, and if it's not that serious, then that means you can come with me correct?"
"I'm… Okay I see your point sir Hero. I'll leave you to it, but I warned you." He didn't move from his spot, but he also wasn't impeding my progress anymore, I walked to the door and opened, a chill creeping up my spine from the black abyss that was the staircase and slowly walked down with my hand pressed against the wall for a brace.
There actually was light at the bottom of the staircase which lead into a narrow hallway lined with cells, it was at this moment that the feeling of 'I shouldn't be here' began to finally make it's way into my brain.
I sighed. "What the hell am I doing? This isn't any of my business, I should just leave before I get in trouble."
"Is someone out there?" A faint voice called from inside one of the cells and I froze like a deer caught in headlights, the voice sounded… exhausted, hopeless almost. To me, that didn't sound like the voice of someone who was guilty of several crimes. Steeling my resolve, I stepped into the passageway.
Eventually I found myself standing in front of the only occupied cell (which was the only one with light) and in sat a young woman with strawberry blonde hair and deep blue eyes, who was looking back at me with a careful neutrality. Despite the tone of her voice earlier there was a certain… noble aura I felt coming off of her.
"Who… are you? You don't seem to be a Knight."
"And you don't look like someone who'd be guilty of a crime." I took a chance and wrapped my hands around two of the bars, when she saw the ring on my left finger her eyes widened and she brought a hand to her mouth.
"Y-Your the Hero of the Ring! Lucatiel!"
"It seems that I've been mentioned by many so far. Well since you know me, what's your name?"
She stood straight and bowed briefly. "My name is Eclair Seaetto Sir Hero. It's a pleasure to meet you.
A/N: Starting something new, trying to shake off the rust of writing with something I deeply enjoy. The general writing and formatting will get better eventually, but for now I'm just taking it easy.
That being said I'd like if you could give me some input on whether or not to write this in first person or third person, the light novels are in first person but that's from Naofumi's perspective, so opinions on the matter would be nice, I'm capable of doing both.
That's it, thanks for reading.