The King gave us the loredump on this place, and it was…similar but not the same as Dimensional Sign. The similarities were a bit too hard to ignore, but given I had convinced myself this had to be real, or at least, I was going to treat it like reality, I decided to listen intently, finding that, oddly, I was not sore on my feet like I normally would be after an hour standing in one place as he explained.

The biggest takeaways were two fold. This Kingdom and World were under assault by the 'Waves', holes that periodically opened in the sky. Normally, there was one or two, those were common, a result of magical energy interacting with alternate worlds. But Waves were a whole different story. They were the sky filled with such holes, and while sometimes a monster or demon might come out of one of the normal ones, these things spilled forth armies.

That was bad, but he assured me when I asked that magic itself was a natural force in their world, and the monsters had always been part and parcel with life here. From goblins to dragons to sea monsters, they had all kinds. The people weren't doing anything untoward to summon the waves, so nothing could be changed to stop them. I…chose to believe him for the moment, especially since something about it rang true.

This was mostly because of what came next. The Four Cardinal Weapons, the greatest tools of heroes, had been forged in ancient times to deal with these plagues when they occurred. In Dimensional Sign, the wielders were chosen from the population, and you could pick some stuff that the game was really good about referencing later in terms of your personal history and even changing the starting area based on your homeland.

Here? They summoned heroes. The Weapons worked best when held by those who had come from other worlds, and they would grant us awesome powers while here, and supposedly if we went home, we'd keep some of that. Sounded like a bargain in the making. Unfortunately, as he noted, the Waves typically came with warning signs, sometimes years in advance, allowing them to summon heroes to train in that time.

This time, they had no warning. The Dragon Hourglasses, magical relics around which most nations were built, tended to give a good indication of the Waves coming. They gave them five hours, and the First Wave had devastated parts of the country, until they'd fought it off with armies and wandering adventurers that had happened to be nearby, a feat only possible because the Waves had two weaknesses that they had been able to exploit.

The first was that the Waves had an 'anchor', a sort of boss to the wave, and the first beast to come through. They, according to history, varied in size and power, but they were the single point of failure. Killing them would send all the monsters back to whatever realm it was they came from. It was not an easy thing to slay such a beast, and they had proven incapable of doing so.

Luckily, there was the second weakness…if one called it that. The Waves had a time limit. Run that out, and the holes would close. That said, unlike killing the boss, this would leave whatever monsters were around to cause havoc, and they had, though weakened without the flow of evil magic from the holes in the sky. It was possible, however, to defeat them now, even if it would cost them greatly.

The First Wave had been three months ago, and they'd spent much of that time gathering the necessary materials to summon the four of us, which gave us less than a month to prepare for the Second Wave, which, he admitted, would be even stronger than the first. Gods, I hated time limited quest design. Still, it wasn't all bad, as there were some advantages to what we had to work with.

For one thing, we had motivation. They promised rewards. I will admit some weakness at that, though I would never have come right out and demanded payment, unlike Ren and Motoyasu…Sword and Spear. They were kinda upfront about it. Especially the Blond Bimbo holding the pointy stick. Guy really rubbed me the wrong way, especially with the way he spoke of 'rewards'.

I did agree, however, pointing out that we weren't anyone's lapdogs. We'd been summoned, and given some special cool toys, in order to do the job. That was okay, but we'd need payment. No one worked for free, afterall. Still, Naofumi, the Shield guy, seemed put out with us being so forward. Gods I hated him almost as much as Spear. Did this guy never work a real job a day in his life?

Sword was overly proud of himself for being the first to find the Status Screen. Apparently, it was a bit of magic given to our weapons, developed to help us determine our readiness for combat, and looking at mine, I was okay with it. It gave my physical stats, like height, weight, and such, while also quantifying things like my less common stats, including stamina, HP, and even an MP stat that I was excited about.

"Only Level 1?" asked Shield suddenly, and I looked up to find I was, in fact, Level 3, apparently.

"I'm on the third level myself. What about you two?" I asked, and they confirmed, both Sword and Spear were with Shield, Level 1s.

"Well then, looks like this old man is going to have to get you 'young whippersnappers' into shape…if three is a high level anyway. Seriously, that EXP bar is a percentile for me, you guys too?" I asked, and while Shield rolled his eyes, he did smile a little, before they confirmed the same, and the King cleared his throat, getting our attention back to him.

We then learned our weapons were in their 'base' state, and would power up with us as we gained levels. The Minister even said something about transforming, which made me wonder as I quickly looked over my status screen, flipping through pages of it, and finding what I wanted, only to have something drag me out of my search as we learned something really crumby about this world.

EXP was split between party members…well Weapon Party Members anyway. If we adventured together, our weapons and own abilities would increase slower. Not how he explained it, mind, but I quickly thumbed through the help menu I'd found, and the info there confirmed it, along with what looked like sarcastic notes from a previous Bow Wielder. Apparently we influenced them, and when we left, some of that would stay.

Shield complained, again, about his weapon not technically being a weapon, which made me want to shout 'Captain America!' at the top of my lungs at him…not that I expected him to throw it or anything. He was a Tank. He could take the damage, right? Sword would DPS, Spear would Crit, and I would support. We might not be able to power up with each other, but that doesn't mean we weren't all important to the effort when it came time to fight the actual battle.

We could, to compensate for not being able to work together, recruit allies in this world. They would be affected by 'Status Magic', and would increase in power alongside as at a rate they couldn't do on their own. Sounded handy, honestly, and hey, party mechanics were the best, especially since they only had to be 'Loyal to the Wielder' according to my help screen, and it didn't mention a limit on the number of followers.

The King promised us they'd be gathering their best and brightest to assist us in the morning, and I for one, welcomed a starting party, but I'd want to see the balance on my own. I didn't doubt, given this was their world, they'd want to assist us as best as they thought, but I was the Hero here, and I wasn't going to have my party line up decided by the 'Recommend Party function' unless it got too large to bother with.

That ended the meeting, and we were soon taken up to a small tower, with some nicely appointed rooms. Actually VERY nicely appointed, the beds were spring type, not down filled, so they were advanced for the setting. Made sense, I supposed, and pretty soon we gathered in Spear's room to talk to each other after a small meal, with me taking a seat on the couch(Three hundred pounds and seven feet was a bit much for the chairs here, apparently), while Spear sat on his bed, Sword looked broody in a corner, and Shield just sort of flopped down into the seat by the table.

We then compared notes on this world and discovered something…disconcerting. This world wasn't the only alternate world. We, as it turned out, all came from different worlds too. Hell, Broody McSword Boy, Ren, as it turned out, came from a world with full dive virtual reality tech, where this world was a game…well not this world specifically as I got him to realize.

To Sword, this place was the VRMMO game called Brave Star Online(I made a joke about the Planet of New Texas that no one got, which disappointed me). Meanwhile, to Spear it was a regular MMO called Emerald Online. To me this place was, as I'd thought, Dimensional Sign, a pseudo Single Player game where you could invade other players' worlds, or be summoned to help them. Finally Shield seemed to have found it as a Light Novel of all things, which made it the least interactive.

This was…disconcerting. World as Myth, a concept I explained to them as basically being the stories from one world influenced others, or perhaps other worlds influenced stories, was possibly in play here. But that meant we couldn't take anything for granted. After all, this world had some differences already. I'd never heard of a country called Melromarc for instance, and the region map we'd seen earlier looked nothing like anything from my game beyond similar biome types.

"So, while all of you got to see this world as a game, my version was a novel. I wonder why," said Shield aloud, as Spear got that smug look on his face that I wanted to knock off it…even though I was sure he had a second, smaller smug look underneath it. Worse, Sword chuckled a bit, the broody boy persona slipping away for a moment.

"What? You don't know?" asked Spear in a condescending tone of voice.

"Know what?" responded Shield, looking up, interest in his eyes…he'd obviously not been paying attention to the conversation until that point.

"Oh, well, Shield sucks man. It's the worst class in the whole game," said Spear with a chuckle, and Sword nodded.

"It is. Defense with no offense. Is it the same for you?" he asked, turning towards me, and I was almost ready to smack them both, before deciding that would be very un-heroic, and instead shaking my head.

"By the Old Gods your designers must suck. You say your games are MMO types, that still means Massively Multiplayer, right?" I inquired, and they both seemed taken aback, but nodded.

"Then it should at least be as well designed as Dimensional Sign. In that game, the Weapons are only guides. Even with their built in abilities. Regardless we have," I stood up, and pointed towards Sword.

"The Damage Per Second. You do fast attacks, usually powerful ones too, and do the best in general fights of all kinds," I explained, and then shifted my finger towards Spear.

"You are Critical Hits galore. Your whole build, at least when optimized, is all about crits and generalization. You're the guy to bring in when there's a boss to slay, especially if there's a time limit," I got a nice smile from him for that one. He was a Himbo, the upgraded form of Bimbo, I suppose. Regardless, no reason to antagonize him.

"As for my Bow, it's the Support on the Battlefield class. It can provide cover fire, or do buffs and debuffs. The thing you want in any kind of big all out brawl," I say, tapping my weapon, before pointing towards the Shield that Naofumi was looking at like it was a leech or something on his arm.

"And the Shield is the Preparation Hero. They start the weakest, sure enough. Defense with no offense, but they get all the off the Battlefield supports, at least in Dimensional Sign. Given a good running start, they can forge items. Heck, one of their abilities includes castle defense and stuff, which, given we're going up against forces like a literal army, having someone who can turn into a castle on command would be a great thing," I explain, and that, at least, gets Shield to brighten up, while the other two look a bit down, but then shrug. Situation diffused.

Shield, while we discussed where to go for the best level ups for our weapons, got up, and we watched him walk out onto the balcony, before shouting about how he was coming, and the world better be ready…or something. I was embarrassed for the boy, and rose from my seat, telling the others they should probably get some shut eye, as we might begin early in the following day.

We left Spear's room, but rather than go back to my own, I tracked down the maid who'd escorted us here, her name was Ericka I found out after some coaxing…a lot of coaxing, after all, this wasn't how staff acted at this time and place. Still, I got her to show me where the library was for the castle, and I found a few old men scribbling down in books, making copies of them for posterity.

The room wasn't large, mind. Two stories, about the size of a medium house back home. Still, it worked, and I asked if they had coffee or soda in this world, and luckily, the translation of my words did provide something for coffee, though she said soda sounded like a snarl of some kind. That had my interest, but for now, I asked her to bring me five cups, warm as she could get them, if she would be so kind, and set to work.

The first thing I was fortunate to discover was a shock, and made me laugh loudly enough to get shushed, which I apologized for, even as I began to smile more and more broadly. I could read the books here. Not just the words and things, but like, the impression of each page came to my mind at a glance, no matter the script it was written in. I couldn't just, say, do the flip book thing with anything here, even if they could have taken it, but I could read almost a page a second.

That meant that, by the time lovely lady Ericka returned with my cups, I was seven tomes deep into the history of this world. Mostly old legends, compiled into texts with various scholars commenting on them, but it worked, and thanking the maid for her assistance, I offered to let her sit beside me if she wanted, but she bowed and said she needed to return to her duties.

Leaving me alone with half a dozen old guys, which I chatted with a few times finding out, surprisingly, they WERE old. This world, as it turned out, had an expected lifespan in the seventies, and it was only on looking them up and down that I realized, yeah, they were all well kept, with hair, teeth, and nails looking BETTER than if they'd gotten regular(and far too expensive) healthcare on my world.

From there I began to delve into history, politics, geography, the basics to know how this world worked, and who I might be aligned with. As would be expected, the library was mostly overflowing with praised for Melromac, and her Queens, as the seat of Royal Power passed from mother to daughter, a fact that had me curious as to why there was a King right now, even though the family tree listed him as the husband of the current Queen, Mirellia.

She wasn't dead, but she wasn't here either, making me wonder, but I pushed that aside when I found something interesting. This world had races other than human. I was expecting that, though instead of elf, dwarf, or whatnot, this one was a bit more…fuzzy in its divisions. Like, literally fuzzy, as the other two races were Demi-Humans and Beastmen, the latter also called therianthropes.

It seemed that, according to the records here, there were supposed to be people of all races in all kingdoms, a fact encouraged by the Waves. I even found some battle tactics that spoke of how best to make use of each race against the Waves specifically. This led me down a wiki-like binge that had my eyes watering after a while, and I dipped far into the cups of 'coffee' to keep myself straight.

Turns out, we Heroes weren't the only ones able to level up. The 'Dragon Hourglasses' that helped predict the Waves, and were part of the world's religion allowed anyone to do the same, becoming Adventurers in the process. It was there that the races found their largest differences, as each race had their own way of showing how the level ups were affecting them on a physical level.

For humans, it was mostly like going through training programs. Those with physical type classes would grow stronger, their dispositions changing how that worked, from getting taller(Though never more than six feet I noticed. World of short people apparently.), to growing muscles, to even changing eye, skin, and hair color to fit in better with their chosen 'hunting' grounds for monsters.

Demi-Humans treated level like age. Oh, they could age naturally, but their lifespan was only around three-quarters of a human, and they could 'skip' from baby to young adult if they gained power by killing monsters. There was an anecdote in one story about just that happening, a rabbit-eared child going from just born to a fighter to be reckoned with in a few months, which was the extreme, but by no means the expectation, though it made mention on how mental maturity was still something they needed to learn.

Beastmen on the other hand grew…special traits, or so it said. They lived about half as long as humans, and were more primitive(something the author noted was as it should be, racist). But when allowed to turn into an adventurer, they could spike higher than either of the other two, as they had 'evolutions' they could go through as they leveled up, allowing them to specialize their bodies to their tasks.

It referenced level limits, like a real RPG, and even called it 'Class Up' when you went and upped the limit, a feat only able to be done by the Dragon Hourglasses, and something more for Demi-Humans and Beastmen. The human level limit was…well, there wasn't one, but the other two needed to 'refine' themselves to go farther after a certain time. An interesting way for the world to work if it occurred naturally somehow.

I cross referenced most of what I learned with my own help menu, wondering idly if the others had noticed it yet, as it provided some good info, and even contradicted the books, usually with notes from heroes of the past on how things actually were. First thing I looked up was the Hourglasses themselves, making sure that they weren't the source of all this, which would have made the job permanently ending the Waves that much harder.

Unfortunately, in this situation, the Waves came before the Hourglasses, and it was in fact the former that had caused the latter, as they pounded down an ancient civilization that had designed these tools to help fight them. It was possible they'd 'designed' the other races too, according to a side note on one of my help topics, but the one making it just wasn't sure about that.

Luckily, I did get a kind of timeline of events, sort of like a journal feature of my weapon, and learned some things about how this worked. This was the Eighth set of Waves that had hit this world, and as side note it was the WHOLE world, not just Melromarc being attacked. So summoning all of us at once was a bad thing…sort of, as the Waves still popped up in singular regions at a time.

That last caught my eye most of all, as the estimate I was given was about two and a half kilometers square for the place they'd pop up. Oh, more holes would appear while the Wave was happening, but the main thrust of the attack was still isolated to a single area, and we were able to somehow 'teleport' between Dragon Hourglasses, if I was reading the tooltip right. That was a handy feature, and made them seem even more gamey, but I'd take it.

It was as I brought a cup to my lips that I realized it was empty, as were all its brothers and sisters, their whole group decimated to keep my tired body going. Rising from my seat, and walking to the last of the old men still working, I asked where the kitchens were to drop off my used dishes, and he assured me that I could leave it on the table in the middle, and he would have it taken care of.

He thanked me then, for being with them. They had lived through a set of Waves before, he and the other old men here, and the Heroes of that last age had not been interested at all in the world into which they'd been summoned. Seemed goofy to me, but I shrugged, and wished him a good night, as I went back towards the rooms, easily able to find them thanks to having been there before.

A yawn, and a look outside told me I'd probably get about two hours of sleep…more than I typically did all things considered, and the moment I was laying on my side, the world slid away into darkness, leaving me dreaming, mostly of monsters in the pictures I'd seen, mixed with game images and sounds. I was smiling in my sleep, imagining the grand adventure I was about to have.