Heya guys! Sorry for being inactive for the last couple of days and not updating but I have a few good reasons, hopefully. The first being I had a headache which made it really hard to do anything, so yeah, I wasn't able to write because I couldn't even think strait at the time. But don't worry! I'm all better now! The second reason is that I've been going over ideas and concepts with my friends to see if they're good or not and I got some pretty positive responses from them so that's good, yay! Anyways, some of the divergences from canon wont happen until later into the story but I'm sure you'll understand, hell, you might even be able to figure some of them out before I even post the chapter! Anyways, feel free to ask questions in the review/comment section whether it's about the fanfic or myself doesn't matter as I'll do my best to answer the questions(Unless it'll spoil future chapters in which I probably wont tell ya). But enough of my rambling and lets get on with the chapter, enjoy!
As the men in robes led the four cardinal heroes to meet the king, they were looking at their new surroundings getting use to the new environment, getting a feel for it and overall enjoying the excellent architecture. As they passed by a window while walking up a flight of a spiral staircase Kirishima looked out said window and was in awe at the amazing view of the town.
As the sword wielding hero said something about a "Mediterranean climent" Kirishima ignored him in favour of admiring the natural beauty and peaceful atmosphere he was currently bearing witness to, if he ever found a way to go home and had a method to come back he was definitely going to bring all his friends here.
Eventually Kirishima managed to pull himself from the window and continued following the group, the scenery wasn't going anywhere so he could just come back at a later time to enjoy it.
After a few minutes of walking they stopped in front of a HUGE door, seriously it was so big that it took 4 guards in total to open them.
'Kinda seems like a bad design choice to be honest.' Kirishima thought thinking about the inefficiency of the over-sized door. Seriously, what if the king needed to escape an attacker and he couldn't due to the doors being so damn big? Really, it's just a bad design flaw that literally nobody seems to have thought about.
The four heroes entered the throne room which looked like a classic medieval throne room you'd expect to find when in an old-time castle or in a video game. A large room with a long red carpet on the ground, nobles wearing fancy and well-made high quality clothing, several guards standing around the room, and most importantly the king sitting upon his thrown, along with two other throwns beside his which were most likely for the queen and their heir/heiress.
"So, you are the four cardinal heroes." said the king wearing typical fantasy royal attire, fancy robes, a golden crown, that kind of stuff. "I am the King of Melromarc, Aultcray Melromarc the XXXII."(Thirty second for those who don't know how to read roman numerals)
'What an overly fancy name.' Kirishima thought. Though, under fantasy settings it was quite common to use fancy name.
"Heroes, introduce yourselves." the King commanded arrogantly.
"Ren Amaki, sixteen years old, high-schooler." the sword-wielder spoke first introducing himself.
"Motoyasu Kitamura, Twenty-one year old college student." the Spear Hero said next, introducing himself.
"I guess I am up next! Itsuki Kawasumi, seventeen year old high school student." the final hero aside from Kirishima introduced himself.
'Seventeen? He looks younger than that.' Kirishima thought.
"Well I'm-" Kirishima was cut off however, as the king spoke.
"Ren, Motoyasu, and Itsuki, right?" Aultcray said to confirm their names to make sure he heard them correctly.
What an asshole move!
"Hey king! Aren't you forgetting someone!"(1) Kirishima semi-yelled, annoyed at the fact the king was ignoring him.
"Ah, my apologies, please proceed shield hero." the king said not really sounding sorry at all.
"Sigh whatever. The name's Eijiro Kirishima, I'm seventeen and I'm in high school." Kirishima introduced himself without being interrupted this time around.
"Yes, very nice." the king said not really paying attention to him which annoyed him a bit but not enough to speak up about it.
They all then proceeded to talk about why the heroes were summoned to Melromarc and the waves of calamity which would bring forth destruction upon the world unless the four cardinal heroes stopped them, unfortunately the four of them couldn't work together as the legendary weapons repelled one another and them working together would only hinder there growth, but the king would call for adventurers who would be willing to work alongside the heroes in order to aid them on their journeys to save all of Melromarc from disaster and ruin(2).
After the discussion the king called for one of the maids to take the heroes to their sleeping quarters where they will be staying for the night so they may rest and prepare for tomorrow for that is when they shall begin their grand adventure!
After the maid left and the heroes were left alone Kirishima plopped down on the couch and took a deep breathe.
"Man, I can't believe this is real, it's pretty unbelievable that this is happening but here I am, experiencing it in the flesh." Kirishima said reflecting on the entire situation as a whole.
"Yeah, I know what you mean, at first I just thought it was a really weird dream. But I have to ask, doesn't this place kinda remind you guys of Emerald Online?" Motoyasu asked them curiously.
"What are you talking about? This is like the console game Dimension Wave." Itsuki said confused as to what the spear-wielder was talk about.
"You are both wrong, this is like that new VRMMO that just came out called Brave Star Online." Ren said just as confused as the other two.
Meanwhile Kirishima was analysing the situation, all three of them were thinking this world was similar to different games they've played but haven't even heard the ones the other two are talking about, but how is that possible? Unless...
"Guys, I think I know what's going on here, but I can't be completely sure about it." Kirishima said still trying to get the full picture of the puzzle.
"What's your idea Kirishima-san?" Itsuki asked curiously, hoping to find an answer to this conundrum they find themselves in.
"Let's compare our general knowledge to see if we even come from the same dimension, everyone in on this?" Kirishima asked to which the other three heroes all nodded after some thinking.
"Ok, who is on the 1000 yen bill, in 3 2 1!" everyone said their answers, but all of them were different.
""Who?"" they all questioned each other.
They all then proceeded to ask their own questions to which, all four heroes had different answers to each one.
Later...
"Well, it looks like you were correct, Kirishima-san" Ren spoke slightly concerned by the fact that each of the heroes were summoned from different realities, but not visibly showing it to the others.
"Yeah, kinda sucks, but oh well" Motoyasu said in a completely uncaring tone, to him the heroes being from different realities didn't really matter. And to be fair, it kinda doesn't. After all they were already summoned so there's no use in crying over spilled milk.
"Kitamura-san has a point, we were summoned here to be heroes, so it doesn't really matter where we come from" Itsuki said charmingly, like the little playboy that he is.
"Though I kinda feel bad for Kirishima, being stuck with the Shielder class must suck for him" Motoyasu said jokingly, which just confused Kirishima.
"What do you mean Kitamura-san?" he asked, confused.
"Well, how do I put this lightly?" Motoyasu seemed to ponder for a moment before he turned to Kirishima. "Shielder's suck."
This though, just caused Kirishima to let out a shark-like grin.
"Oh yeah!? Well then I'll just treat it like its hard-mode then! Besides, I can make due with what I got!" Kirishima said confidently.
"Hmph, well, with your enthusiasm and attitude you could probably make it to LV 10 in about a month." Ren said pretty sure Kirishima would be left in the dust by the rest of the heroes. Now Ren didn't dislike Kirishima, he just didn't think he'd get very far with the fact he has only got a shield to use as a weapon.
"Well, he could probably make it work if he gets a party member with a really high ATK stat." Itsuki said trying to support Kirishima a little bit(3).
Kirishima then walked out onto the balcony, and looked out over the city.
It was surprisingly beautiful at nighttime.
"It doesn't matter who's in my party, I'll just work with what I got and be the best hero I can be." he said with a voice that was full of determination and spoke of an unbreakable will.
"Yeah... Well I'm turning in for the night, see you guys in the morning!" Motoyasu said while walking to his room to retire for the night(4).
The heroes of the sword and bow also say their goodnight's as they each walk to their own rooms to sleep on the comfortable beds.
Kirishima, now alone, yawns and heads to his own bed to rest his head, its been a long day for him and he assumes tomorrow is also going to be a long day, so rest well Kirishima, for you shall need it.
Hello there reader(s)! Now you may have noticed a few numbers scattered around the chapter, those were points in which I thought you might have some questions about so I'm going to answer your unasked questions the best I can!
1: The reason the other heroes don't speak up about Kirishima's way of talking to the king like in canon is because they are scared of Kirishima hitting them with his shield, it may sound unlikely but this is my fanfic and I can do whatever I want with it. -w-
2: Honestly I'm just to lazy to write the entire talk about them explaining the waves of calamity and all that, so yeah, laziness.
3: While the four heroes got talking with each other Itsuki came to like Kirishima a bit due to his friendly and outgoing nature along with his enthusiasm and attitude towards being a hero.
4: Simple really, the place they were talking was Kirishima's bedroom.
Anyways that's it for the author's notes and again, I just wanted to say thank you all for your support and kind words towards this fanfiction, it really means a lot to me that you like this fanfic and want more of it, its just so heartwarming, so again, thank you all!