Chapter 0 : Prologue Between Friends
"There really doesn't seem to be anything good here…"
Naofumi went down the library's aisle, hoping there would be some book that would grab his attention. So far, he's been passing a lot of the usual genres that he would have immediately indulged himself into, but all that achieved was a defeated mood. By now, he would have found something, but not today. Not even the guilty pleased standard fantasy novels would soothe the yearning mind.
At the very least, there weren't many people around to watch him pace back and forth. These days were transitioning over to the digital age, where physical books are becoming part of the past. Nevertheless, he always enjoyed the sensation of holding a book and flipping through its pages. It personally felt better than swiping along a screen.
Unfortunately, he had already reached the end of the aisle without any book being able to pique his interest. Maybe that was his consciousness telling himself that today wasn't much of a reading day. He had thought that after a final exam, he would be raring to go in tackling a handful of books the next day, but he couldn't have been more wrong apparently. It was possible that he was burnt out from anything that related books for a while.
"Sigh... Well, I guess you can't get what you want every time."
Just as he was planning on leaving though, a book fell out of the shelf behind him.
He looked around, seeing that nobody had passed on by. Was it his sliding touch that caused the book to have a delayed tumble to the ground? In any case, it would have been his responsibility as the only one around to put it back on the shelf where it belonged. He picked it up, only to find a problem very quickly.
"Didn't... the book just fall from there?" Naofumi gazed at the shelf, seeing there hadn't been any gaping holes between the books. "That's weird. I'm sure it was around here, right?" And yet, no matter where he looked, it was packed without any evidence that it fell from this particular shelf.
The book hadn't been a small novella either. It was a decently sized hardcover textbook with metal platings on it. There was no way that this could be casually slipped into the thin crevices between the other books. It wasn't heavy, but Naofumi was surprised at its light weight. Its title on the cover page was too rubbed out to even know what it was called.
To be frank, Naofumi didn't know what to make of this, but considering how difficult of a time he was trying to find a book to read, he figured it might have been destiny. He didn't bother opening up the book and brought it over to the self sign-out, but he came to another complication.
"Excuse me?" He called out to a nearby librarian. "There doesn't seem to be a barcode for this book. Was it accidentally ripped off?"
"Where did you find it?"
"The fantasy section, where all the novels are."
"Novels? That certainly doesn't look like a novel." With a small joke, the librarian walked up to see the book for themselves. "Anyways, we would have caught a problem like that before it went back onto the shelf. Though, I've never seen that book before in the library. Are you sure it's ours?"
"It was in the library, so I have to assume so."
"I don't think we keep any books like that here. I know a considerable amount of books in that section off the top of my head and I've personally never seen such a worn out title there. Someone must have accidentally dropped their own copy."
Naofumi bit his lips, knowing full well that no one had been around when that book fell down. If it hadn't been a person nor the shelf that dropped it, then what could have happened there? That curiosity gnawed at him.
"You don't mind if I take this along with me?"
"I suppose that's fine. You're a regular face here, Iwatani, so if the person does come back to ask about it, we'll be in easy contact with you."
"Thanks. I appreciate it."
Naofumi placed the book into his bag and heaved it over his shoulder. It felt like it was becoming heavier than what he originally thought it to be. Actually, it was as if its own gravity was tucking Naofumi down a bit, but he shrugged it off. It must have been his imagination.
-/IV/-
"And that's how you came back," Itsuki asked, "lugging that book in your bag?"
"Yeah, I guess? The entire situation made me feel compelled to take a look at it, at the very least."
"I'm not sure if compelled was the right word there." Ren muttered in his chair as he leaned forward on the table. "A book that shows up, seemingly out of thin air, and dropped down right behind you with no one else in sight. What's more is that not even the librarian recognized it. You would think that they would be more equipped to know some books outside their catalogue."
"Now that you mention it, I never asked them if they even knew what the book was," Naofumi said, rubbing his chin. "I only asked them about the missing barcode. I suspect it was difficult to make a decent guess when the title on the cover was all smudged out."
Motoyasu lightly nudged Naofumi's shoulder, standing beside his seat. "Ah, but isn't that a fun mystery to look into? A book that just showed up out of nowhere! That's kind of like a paranormal problem that we look into! Just imagine what type of answer it could be!"
"Yeah, we just have to jump through some hoops of logic before we get to that point," Ren sighed as he rolled his eyes. "Why don't you just hold your horses and stick to reality for a little bit? There has to be some normal explanation for what happened."
Naofumi came back to the apartment he was renting out with some other guys.
When he first moved in, he didn't actually know any of them, but nowadays, he couldn't say that. They were truly people he could trust in and likewise, it went similarly the other way around. If he were to be honest, he'd even go out to say that they became his closest friends to date, but the act of living together for three to four years would obviously allow that to happen.
They were finishing up a meal Naofumi cooked for them. He was typically in charge of all the meals, but not because he was forced to. If it was for his friends, he didn't mind spending about thirty minutes to an hour cooking something up for them. They all enjoyed his food, so he didn't see why he shouldn't. In exchange, they were the ones buying the groceries, so the work wasn't all leveraged to him.
Naofumi had brought up the book when they were conversing in some small talk after dinner. It was nice to catch up with everyone's day when they were in the middle of cleaning up the area. He brought out his bag when they asked a bit more about it and before he knew it, everyone had gathered around the dining table with their curiosity laid out bare for it.
It was… much more heavier than he recalled.
"Oh? You're interested in this?" Itsuki asked Ren.
"I'm more interested in the method in which Naofumi got the book." Ren crossed his arms, resting them on the table. "Something tells me that this wasn't any accident or mistake that occurred. Someone would have realized that they dropped it, no doubt about it."
"Yeah, it's pretty hefty," Motoyasu said, inspecting the book. "They would have gone back for it once they realized that the weight was suddenly gone from their body. Does this mean that whoever dropped it wanted Naofumi to pick it up?"
"Who knows?" Naofumi shrugged. "If that's the case, I wouldn't know the reason why they wanted me to see this book so badly. Maybe there's something inside that they wanted me to see?"
"There's only one real way to find out," Motoyasu chuckled, leaning forwards to get a better look. "Let's crack this baby wide open!"
Naofumi's fingertips stroked along the cover, trying to lift it up to the title page. However, his hand started to suddenly tremble as if there was something inside that was causing it to move by itself. He didn't perceive himself as being scared, but his body was acting out of instinct. He has to take a deep breath to calm his nerves before flipping it open.
How was it that this book was giving him a bad feeling?
Between its mysterious appearance, the gradual shifting of its weight and the tension in his body that he couldn't explain, everything was starting to add up to an answer he rather did not want to discover. However, his friends didn't show the same type of anxiety. They weren't feeling the same thing, acting as if everything was normal. He was tempted to close the book right there, but if they were acting so casually, perhaps it was part of his imagination.
Why else would he think something bad was going to happen? It… was just a book, right? What exactly could a book do to him that made him shake like this?
"The Records of the Four Holy Weapons," Naofumi announced.
"That's the title of the book?" Itsuki asked.
"Seems like it," Naofumi nodded. "I don't see any credentials here though. All that this book has is a title. No author, no editors, or even a publishing company. It's empty of names of people or groups that might have contributed to its production."
"Do you even recognize the title?"
"Nope, this is my first time hearing about this title," he said, shaking his head to Ren. "I obviously don't know all of the fantasy books in the world, but if something like this was popular, I would have at least heard about it from my university friends."
"So what? It's a niche book?" Itsuki pondered. "There are tons of books that get released into the wild underneath the radar, so it wouldn't be out of the question that you haven't heard about it."
"The cover's design suggests differently," Ren responded. He pointed over to the title page. "The smudged words seemed to be intentionally made like that. The rest of the book doesn't look to be worn-out or be a victim to time. Some of the metal parts would have been slightly rusted if that were to be the case."
"Yeah, I see what you're saying," Itsuki narrowed his eyes. "Instead of rust, it actually looks like it's a brand new copy, leaving out the title of the book. It reminds me of the style of deluxe edition runs of some games out there."
"Pages are in good quality too," Naofumi nodded, flipping back to the title page when Itsuki was finished checking back. He squished a paper between his fingers, feeling its texture. "It really does seem like whoever this book belongs to, they took good care of it."
"Alright, but never mind that! What are you three doing, just trying to inspect all the nitty-gritty details of this!?" Motoyasu waved his hand outwards, grabbing his friends' attention. "Put away your detective hats for a little bit when the answer is right in front of us! Let's find out what this book has in store! With such a mysterious book like this, I want to find out what it's all about!"
"I don't know about this, Motoyasu," Ren mumbled a bit loudly. "Something tells me that this might be some bad news for us."
Naofumi widened his eyes. "So you're feeling that too, Ren? I thought it was just me."
"Then we'll just get it over with! C'mon, I'm curious! Look, I'll even turn to the next few pages! What's the worst that can happen? It's only a book!"
Motoyasu's words fought back against Naofumi's anxiety. Being as cheerful as he was, he couldn't possibly be feeling the same thing that he and Ren were experiencing. Either Motoyasu truly didn't feel that tension in the air, or he was trying to calm everyone's nerves down by acting with contagious energy. Both were equally fitting for him.
He stepped around the table and stood by Naofumi's side, flipping the pages for Naofumi to see for himself. "A few picture pages and it looks like it's depicting…"
"An image of destruction washing away the lands and living creatures underneath it."
Naofumi reached out to the picture, sliding his fingers on it, just as he did for the cover and the title pages. However, something about the image felt too real, despite nothing in their world having any equivalent to what had been drawn. There were definitely natural disasters that the world had to worry about, but monsters don't come out of a crack in the sky, destroying everything in their paths.
Despite that, Naofumi's heart couldn't explain its faltering. From there, he continued to read the next few passages, spread throughout the next few pages.
The waves of destruction, so the image called itself, was a part of an ancient prophecy of a certain world. It was said that this disaster would wash away the world until nothing was left. Not even a single life, not even a single soul, but not all hope was lost for the people of this land. To ward off the waves of destruction, they would summon forth heroes from another world that would save them from this calamity.
In addition, the heroes were not alone in their summoning. Each of the four heroes would be summoned with a respective holy weapon that would help them in their journey in defeating the waves of destruction. It was of the sword, the spear, the bow, and the shield.
The Sword Hero was someone of great strength, unyielding of his desire to grow. The Spear Hero was someone of undying loyalty, valuing his friends and allies above anything else. The Bow Hero was someone of unshakable justice, earnest in his quest to bring fairness to the land. The Shield Hero was a person that wanted to protect the people that believed in him, inspiring those same people to protect him in return. Each of them clearly had their own heroic trait that guided their paths forwards for the sake of that world.
"Not to burst any bubbles, but the shield isn't a weapon…" Motoyasu cracked open a beer can, surprising Naofumi as to when he left to grab one out from the fridge. He could have sworn he was standing beside him, but Naofumi was probably distracted by the book to notice. "It feels more like protective equipment if anything, on the same lines as normal armour. There's a reason why no one brings a shield into fights for Emerald Online."
"Isn't Emerald Online's meta about reaching high levels of damage before the enemies could do anything about it?" Ren played the same game before, so he had a good grasp of what Motoyasu was talking about. "That game is just a DPS stat-check on every encounter, so I don't think it's a good reference to make."
"You say that, but would you consider a helmet as a weapon?" Motoyasu sipped some of his beer. "Or even protective gauntlets on your hands? It's just armour at the end of the day."
"If you word it like that, then I would be inclined to agree with you. However, Brave Star Online makes the distinction between offensive gauntlets and defensive gauntlets, both with different combat styles. I don't see why it couldn't be the same for the shield here."
"Didn't Emerald Online have a different scaling for characters that use shields as their main hand weapon?" Itsuki asked, recalling what little he had played in that game. "Something about their defense being really broken in the beginning, but drops pretty hard from mid-game to late-game?"
"That was early on though. I guess it's been two years since you touched it. The developers pulled a hard shift over the shield-oriented classes and they basically take no damage against some of the higher-level bosses. It's really broken now. On paper, that is."
"Yeah, the developers dropped any additional planned changes," Ren continued for him, "when the players still didn't touch the class anyways, so they decided to quietly abandon it about a year ago. I told you. It was a constantly high-DPS meta by nature of its mechanics and no matter what they did to the class, people would still ignore it. You can't do anything by yourself as a shielder class."
"Oh, I didn't know you kept playing after Itsuki dropped it. Wait a minute. I never saw your account being active since then."
"I made an alternative account and played for a little longer off and on, but I haven't touched it in a while. There wasn't any real skill expression to the game, so I got bored. If you knew how to rotate skills on cooldowns and position properly, everything was easy."
"Oh? And here I thought you dropped it because it placed an emphasis on team-based coordination, something you're far from acquainted with."
"Shut up, Itsuki. Wipe that smirk off your face."
"W-What!? And you never told me you were still playing!? Oh, come on!"
"I'm telling you, that's not the important part here."
As Ren and Motoyasu went through their tangented thoughts, Naofumi's attention was still glued to the book. There was something about it that made Naofumi believe that there was something hiding underneath the words, but he couldn't explain it all too well. A vague feeling was all that he had, having his breaths be unconsciously shorter as he laid a finger on the next page, but…
"Is something wrong, Naofumi?" Itsuki noticed his wincing, making both Ren and Motoyasu stop in the middle of their conversation about Emerald Online. "You've been looking at that page for a while now. Did you see something weird?"
"N-Not in particular, no," Naofumi answered, snapping out of the eerie feeling shivering down his spine. "I'm thinking that this book was more boring than I gave it credit for. It might look really interesting, but it seems a bit generic, even for my tastes." He flipped through a bit more pages, summarizing the collection for his friends. "After the entire prologue, the heroes go off on their journey to get stronger in order to protect the world from the waves of destruction. A bit old-fashioned, don't you think?"
"There aren't many stories out there that focus on four characters as their protagonists, right? I think that has to count for something," Itsuki replied. "It's far easier for games to do it, but books are another level of difficulty."
"Any cute heroines though?" Motoyasu smirked. "You can't have a good story without any cute girls, you know."
"I doubt your definition of a good story," Ren groaned with a tired voice.
Naofumi flipped the book a few pages back. "There was one princess that was mentioned, but it looks like she was written to be a terrible person. Being obsessive and manipulative of the heroes, she was usually the obstacle in the way for them. It looks like it's because of her that the heroes had a habit of going up against each other, whether it's through another one of her schemes or trickery."
"I'm sure she has her reasons for doing that. I can perfectly see a scenario where such a cute girl can be saved, being happy without deception."
"How the hell do you function in life, Motoyasu?" Ren deadpanned.
"Yeah, I guess it would be nice if she went through some character development and became a better person, but it doesn't look like the writer gave any attention to that. It's already rare to see four characters share a main spotlight in stories these days."
Naofumi kept flipping through, where the book started for real. Since all of the basic information was explained to them, the story could begin with the summoning of the heroes. He hadn't been a huge fan of how much blatant exposition was slapped onto the front, making it feel pretty lazy with zero effort being placed into the gradual integration of this world for the reader. However, he persisted in reading it because it was fun to do it with his friends.
Motoyasu would be out and about, usually on dates with various girls. He was one of the more popular students on the university campus, so he had his hands filled with social stuff. Ren, on the other hand, typically spent his free time playing Brave Star Online, an virtual reality MMORPG which had recently hit the market with a bang a year ago. He's been addicted to it ever since and according to Itsuki, he's really good at the game. And speaking of Itsuki, he had his music club to attend to. He was musically gifted, so it was an easy decision on his end to join them.
Nevertheless, they always found time for each other if they really needed it. Motoyasu would say that he has plans with his other friends, Ren would choose to stay off Brave Star Online for the day, and Itsuki would intentionally skip his music club's practice. It was fun to spend time with his close friends, but he would never have guessed that reading a book, something that only he enjoyed out of the group, would be a thing they would do together.
That was until Naofumi noticed something wrong.
"... The pages are blank."
"Blank? What do you mean by that?"
"There's only one way you can interpret that, Itsuki," Ren replied. He walked up right beside his friend to get the same perspective of the book. "It's completely empty. There's nothing here after all of that setup."
"There's no text. No pictures." Naofumi kept flipping through, but he was met with the same sights. "There's not even any indication that these were intended to have text on them. The page number doesn't even exist. Just… white pages."
"Oh. I guess that's that then." Motoyasu finished up his beer and placed it on the counter. "And here I thought there was a secret lurking inside the book, but we got hit with the exact opposite. Instead of something interesting, we got absolutely nothing. A bit disappointing..."
"Why would it be empty? Added with the manner in which Naofumi came across this book," Ren pondered, "and I can't help myself in thinking that this is too suspicious."
"Maybe someone's playing a prank on him. Happens all the time to me."
"I think you're the exception, Motoyasu. Not the rule."
"Isn't it because you keep playing pranks on them that they're forced to retaliate?"
As his friends kept talking between one another, Naofumi's head suddenly started to become dizzy. He tried to shake it off, but it wasn't a feeling that he could ignore lightly. He found himself leaning on the dining table in an attempt to keep his body upwards.
"Hmm? Naofumi?"
"Hey. Are you feeling alright?"
All his friends looked over with concern, but he couldn't look back at them. His vision was starting to be distorted to the point where he couldn't make out their figures anymore. The world was spinning around him, making it feel more uncomfortable by the moment.
"You don't look too good." Motoyasu tried to grab onto his shoulder to help him up a bit. "I don't know what happened, but let's get you some rest. Did you suddenly get hit with a fever or something?"
"That's one sudden fever," Itsuki frowned.
"N... Not sure." Naofumi tried taking a deep breath. "Thanks for the help, Moto—"
Naofumi couldn't finish his sentence before Motoyasu's hands slowly lifted away from his shoulder. The distorted friend started to collapse and before he could realize what was happening, a heavy thump hit the ground. Naofumi's body slumped back onto the table, but he looked over to Motoyasu's direction.
"M-Motoyasu…? Wh-What's…?"
"M-My head…?" Ren's painful whispers were heard as Naofumi watched as his other two friends went down as well. "Gah! What's happening to me…!?"
"It feels like my head is splitting apart!" Itsuki grunted. "Ugh, damn it!"
"R-Ren, Itsuki! D-Don't… I-I..."
Naofumi didn't know what he was trying to say. The pain in his head only grew to an unmanageable level and soon, he found himself following in the movements of Ren and Itsuki. Slamming against the floor, he wasn't sure what was happening to them. It couldn't have been a coincidence that all four of them collapsed within a short span of time.
However, that was all Naofumi could conclude. His consciousness drifted away before he could give any permission to it. All he could remember was how easily he surrendered to the unnatural force, but he could have never guessed what awaited them on the other side.
-/IV/-
[Author's Note about the Rewrite]
Yeah, don't worry, I hate myself as well.
When I first came up with the premise of ROT4H, I wanted a story that built on the foundations of friendship between the four heroes. Two years ago, it was built from the frustration of people constantly using the other three heroes as mere one-sided antagonists to make Naofumi look good or their original character to look good. The latter part is ironic, but I'll get to that soon.
Anyways, somewhere along the lines, that vision started to be swerved. There were far too many distractions that pull away from that original concept that it started to leave a sour taste in my mouth. I had some semblance of its error while I was writing, but when I was able to step by by finishing the first arc, I finally understood the severity of the error. There were far too details that subtracted away from the story that I would rather simply retcon, but in the original version, it was far too ingrained in the first arc to be retconned without a second thought.
That made things difficult and I had two choices that I decided to branch out to see how it was go.
The first one had been to continue. That lasted for one "story-so-far" chapter and a normal one. I simply couldn't move on, knowing that I was trying to sweep all of the terrible things I added in underneath a rug, forcing readers to readapt to a new story beat or a new mechanic that I wanted to change. In other words, I did too much when really, I didn't really have to do anything.
That's why the original is standing at 42 chapters, more than 300k words, and yet it hasn't even reached the Riyute Wave of Destruction yet. Honestly, that's no excuse to delay something for that long, considering that the pacing suffers heavily from it. Not even the fact that I have to balance out four perspectives to make sure that they all share the spotlight equally, not even that would a good enough excuse for what it would be taking that long.
The second option was to rewrite. Again, but this time, eliminate everything that wasn't needed. Eliminate the mechanics that weren't needed. Eliminate the characters that weren't need, again we'll get to that very soon. Eliminate all of the story beats that were frankly not needed to tell a story of friendship between the four heroes. People clicked on the story to read about a friendship between the four heroes and how it can flourish, even through desperate struggle, because they're together and going through hardships like that makes things immediately better. They didn't click on the story to be bombarded with all of these original stuff that I added in. There was enough content that I could have used in order to make things interesting; I was simply too stupid to see it.
So allow me to get to the big part of the issue here.
I don't like the main antagonist I created for the first arc. Frankly, I didn't like any of the execution I've made regarding them. It was basically created to become a tool for my narrative writing bullshit. He was the crutch that I leaned on to make sure the plot was progressing exactly how the former author inside of me was wanting, ignore what else could have naturally happened. I built a personality around that to mask that crutch, but when I finished the arc, it was something I couldn't be proud about.
It was just disheartening for myself to even reread my own work, seeing all the tricks I used for the main antagonist. And it wasn't as if I could simply pretend he didn't exist anymore after having such a big involvement in that story branch. So this version of the rewrite, I removed him. I removed all the original characters that shouldn't have a place in the first arc, primarily keeping to pre-existing characters with reformed personality as my furthest extent - this being the party members of the heroes.
Maybe I'm pretty stupid for flushing two years of work down the drain, but it's through those two years that I was able to step and and ask myself about my own writing technique. About my own narrative choices. About how I should go about in executing my ideas in a scene and while I'm not looking for perfection, I want to at least be able to read through my own story without such problems hanging over my head like a low-hanging fruit on a grapevine.
Because I know I improved as an author over these two years and I simply want to give myself one more shot.
At the end of the day though, I'm primarily writing this story for myself and if I got tank a reputation for constantly rewriting, maybe I'll do that.
[Or maybe I should get a beta reader, so that shit like this won't happen again.]
Anyways, thanks for giving this another shot.
But if you have NO idea what I'm talking, then allow me say this:
Welcome to the story of "The Rising of the Four Heroes".
Please enjoy yourself in this story of friendship.