Chapter 2: A Brave New World Pt.2: Welcome To Lescatie

"I told you I'd find something useful with this crystal ball." A young girl with long pink hair tied in a ponytail with a white bow said with a smug face. She wore a red dress with a short red skirt and loose white and pink sleeves and brown shoes and cream-colored that went from her feet to just halfway above the knees. Her pink eyes glinted with anticipation.

"True, but just look at him. I don't think this one will cooperate so easily. His world looks too completely different from ours, Mimil, so I think we should look elsewhere." An older woman replied. She wore a dark green jacket she left open to expose her armored chest as well as dark green boots with armor on them and brown stockings that went from her feet to just halfway past her knees. She had a green headband covering her right eye and her long hair was grey and she folded it at her shoulder then pinned it upwards. Her left grey eye was full of experience.

"He looks so sad….I have to agree with Mersé. We should leave him be." A nun with green hair said with a hint of sadness. Her white and blue church gown had gold trim and gold crosses and white laces. Her gown stopped just slightly above her knees whereas her black stockings went up to her knees. Her blue boots had gold trim and gold crosses just like her gown. Her blue eyes that were full of kindness looked on with a concerned stare.

Five people stood in a dark room lit by candles. They had been watching Joshua ever since he left the store and grew very interested when he brought out his books and began looking through them. Did Joshua have access to arcane knowledge? Could he change their world for the better? They only had more and more questions for him as they observed him.

"Are you kidding? Look at the weapons in those books he's reading. We could easily wipe out the monsters with them and the demon lord in a month with those." A young red-haired man retorted. He wore a blue and yellow knight's tunic with chain mail underneath as well as white pants and brown soldiers' boots. His brown eyes were filled with intrigue and hope. The books this man had were covered from page to page with guns they had never seen, or in the case of the shop theory book, measurements they had never even heard of before.

"I have to agree with Elt. Those weapons would make things much easier on us in this war. If Mimil can pull off a summoning circle to bring him here we should take the opportunity to ask him about them. The only thing that intrigues me the most is his lack of a soul because I don't sense one coming from him." A young girl with aqua-grey hair added. She wore a red cape and white dress with blue sleeves that had puffy shoulders. Her tall brown boots had gold crosses and her blue stockings went halfway past her knees. Her brown gauntlets on her lower arms were drawn tight and two brown belts crossed each other around her waist and were fastened with a gold cross. A light blue headband kept most of her short hair out of her face and her blue eyes had the same interest as Elt's but also had confusion shining in them.

"So Wilmarina and Elt agree. I say we summon this guy and ask him politely if we can read his books. If we're lucky he might even be able to make us some of those weapons." Mimil sang happily with a smug grin.

The candle flames swayed delicately. With everyone curious about the man in the looking glass murmurs began and questions abound deepened. His world had horseless carriages and weapons they could only dream of and looked so far advanced even for magic. Despite how everything looked the man sat all alone under the dim light in his apartment looking worn and tired. He was young from what they could see but the bags under his dark brown eyes made him look older than he appeared. He dressed funny and looked like a lowly peasant but had some fancy-looking things for a peasant.

"True….I don't sense a soul coming from him as Wilmarina said or any spiritual energy for that matter…maybe he cannot use magic?" The nun asked with a confused stare.

Mersé pondered the nun's question. Joshua had to have a soul or else he wouldn't even be alive. Magic was also a given because if he had a soul he might possess powerful magic they hadn't even heard of. He could become the key to winning the war against the monsters.

"I guess we'll just have to see if what Sasha said is true or not. If our dear mage will summon him I would be most pleased." Mersé said, chuckling before looking at Mimil.

Mimil beamed happily. The man in the looking glass was a true oddity. One that had her itching to study him. Just what magic was he capable of? Sasha, however, was still concerned about summoning this man. He didn't look like he was in any shape for what the others had in mind. The man looked like he was ready to snap at any moment at the slightest provocation. He might just fight back once he was summoned and make things more difficult for himself than they needed to be.

"What will you do if he fights back? We have to approach this carefully." Sasha asked with concern in her voice.

That caused the rest to glance at one another. Sasha posed a good question seeing how the man earlier checked to see if he still had his weapon. This caused Mersé and Mimil to mumble to themselves.

"I think we can handle this if we ease him into things." Mimil scoffed. "He doesn't look so tough." Mimil had another smug grin on her face. The man in the looking glass didn't look like the fighting type so what was there to lose.

Everyone but Sasha mumbled in agreement. It wasn't until Mersé grinned that she had come to a decision. The strange man was the only option they had at this point. The candles swayed once again causing shadows to dance lightly around the room.

"I think it's decided four to one. Mimil…If you please?" Mersé said confidently.

Mimil began to chant an incantation as a red ring with several runes appeared around the crystal ball. The candle flames swayed violently back and forth as she chanted. The ring turned yellow and through the crystal ball, they could see it working. Joshua felt something strange around him only to look down and see a strange yellow ring with unusual symbols forming beneath him. It grew to the point it circled him and his table. Joshua's eyes were filled with confusion and fright as he could feel the charge in the air growing stronger until everything under him gave way to bright light and he felt himself falling.

The magic circle around the crystal ball grew and shot up to the ceiling. From it, a bright light shone down with Joshua dropping through it. He landed right next to the looking glass on his stomach with a hard thud and groaned in pain. As he tried to stand up his books hit him over the head and the backpack hit him from above followed by his chair, then the table from his home dropped on top of him with an even harder thud. Everyone looked at him with worried stares before Elt and Mersé lifted the table off of him. The table had hit and smashed the crystal ball to pieces and broke its pedestal, leaving a dent in the table's wooden surface.

"Oh, my….do you think he is alright?" Sasha asked worriedly. She had covered her mouth with her hands when the table landed on him.

"Hey….you okay?" Mersé asked nervously as she nudged Joshua with her boot.

Mimil looked at her crystal ball that had shattered to pieces and looked like she was ready to cry. It had been her only one and was now nothing more than worthless shards. Elt rolled Joshua over and could see he was still breathing.

"I think he'll be okay….he's still breathing," Elt said as he looked him over.

Wilmarina breathed a sigh of relief. It would have been bad to summon someone and have the summoning accidentally kill them. The summoner would be trialed and thrown in jail or worse if that happened. Mimil was only twelve years old and too young for such a life behind bars. Elt noticed a strange pendant around his neck that had letters engraved into it. The letters looked similar to their written script but were tiny and hard to read. The inscription on the pendant looked like identification of some kind. Elt then noticed the weapon on his right hip tucked inside his pants.

"He's got some kind of identification information written on his pendant…..Oh wow, look at how small his weapon is and it looks like one of the ones from his books." Elt said, amazed he was still alive and amazed by Joshua's handgun. Elt began reaching for the gun until Joshua's right hand grabbed his wrist in a firm grip and startled Elt. Everyone else was just as startled as Elt as Joshua began to speak.

"Don't….you'll only hurt yourself or someone else. I don't want anyone to get hurt…..so don't. Please?" Joshua warned; pain in his voice and a grim stare on his face. The strange man looked around him he saw he was surrounded by three women, one child, and one man. The three older women had large breasts but one looked to be no older than seventeen and carried a sword. The other two looked to be somewhere in their twenties or early thirties. The one with grey hair held a halberd. The man had a sword strapped to his belt hanging off his left hip and looked to be around Wilmarina's, age.

No one could understand Joshua as he spoke an entirely different language. Everyone was puzzled by what he had said. Elt had a nervous look on his face as Joshua gently released his wrist. Joshua silently reached out his hand in a gesture asking for some help getting up on his feet and the young red-haired man obliged. Everyone was shocked to see Joshua stand with little effort after such a landing and having several things strike him over the head. Joshua reached up to scratch his head only to find his hat missing. He searched around frantically only for Wilmarina to spot his hat at her feet.

Wilmarina handed him his hat and Joshua let out a relieved sigh as he calmly took it from her with a tired smile. He gave her a nod and said something else none of them could understand. If anything getting his hat back seemed to earn some of his trust. Wilmarina gave a slight smile of acknowledgment as Joshua dusted off his hat and returned it to his head.

"I'm not sure, but I think he just thanked me?" She said happily.

Mersé looked the man up and down now that she had a clearer view of him. He was young, perhaps in his late teens to mid-twenties? His clothes were nothing like she had ever seen before. She could now see he had facial hair to an extent but not a full beard. He looked a little skinny and tall but Mersé wasn't entirely sure of that due to his clothes. She reached out her left index finger and poked his left arm and sure enough, he felt like a human. Joshua gave her a confused look as she poked his left cheek, then his stomach, and lastly his right knee. She couldn't sense a soul emanating from him so Sasha was right.

"He's human alright, but Wilmarina and Sasha guessed right. He's got no soul coming from him." She said as she playfully poked his stomach again. Joshua gave her a slightly annoyed glare as she began to chuckle. Joshua couldn't understand what she said as the words she spoke were foreign to him.

"Please stop that." He grunted. Everyone gave him a confused look again.

"They probably can't understand me just as much as I can't understand them?…" Joshua thought to himself. "The one with the blue and yellow tunic is a knight…I think? The woman with the dark green jacket and grey hair might be his superior officer so I better watch myself. The other three might be royalty to some degree….all the more reason to be on my best behavior."

Mimil approached him from behind and grabbed his right hand and muttered '"don't worry, Mr. Tall and handsome, it'll only hurt for a moment" before Joshua was zapped with orange light. His chest heaved in and out as the light faded and a pained expression was spread across his face. Mimil smiled as he regained composure and looked at her with a slightly terrified stare.

"Mimil! You shouldn't do that without warning!" Sasha scolded. Mimil kept smiling as Joshua was finally able to speak and be understood just as much as he could finally understand them.

"What did you just do to me? Didn't you hear me when I said I didn't want anyone getting hurt-wait….I understood what she just said?" He asked in a frightened and confused voice.

"I'm sorry. Mimil knows better than this especially since her magic is one of the strongest in the kingdom." Sasha replied apologetically.

Joshua's expression softened as he let out a sigh. At least he was still alive and for all he knew things could've been much worse. He looked around and saw his backpack, table and chair scattered about the room, as well as his books and the remains of the looking glass and its pedestal. A small feeling of guilt washed over him as he looked at the shards scattered around so he began scooping some of them into his hands.

"I'm sure we've all got questions for each other, but I want to know who's crystal ball this was? I'm pretty sure it was my table that smashed it judging by the large dent in the wood so it's only right I help to replace it." Joshua said as he scooped some more shards into his hands. Mimil's smile turned mischievous at his words.

"It's my looking glass. Thank you for the offer." She said with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

Everyone else was surprised by Joshua's actions and even offered to help pay back Mimil. At least he wasn't hostile and out of respect was scooping up broken crystal shards with his bare hands. He reached for his backpack and pulled a strange, white, translucent bag from within and dumped his shards into then held it out to Mimil so she could do the same. Joshua tied the top closed when they were done and handed the bag to Mimil.

"What's your name?" Mersé asked him with a grin.

"Joshua…Joshua Gehrke, ma'am. Or if that's too much or too hard to pronounce my last name, then just Josh is fine." Joshua replied calmly. Mersé reached her hand out and Josh did the same and shook her hand.

"Well, Joshua, welcome to the kingdom of Lescatie." She said happily.

The name "Lescatie" sounded somehow familiar to Joshua though he didn't let it show. He began to wonder why it sounded familiar as he couldn't ever remember hearing it once in his life. Joshua decided to simply brush the thought off as he watched Elt approach the only door into the room. Another thought passed through Joshua's mind as he watched Elt: The Japanese had a genre of light novels and manga dedicated to being summoned or sent to another world called "Isekai" that Joshua often enjoyed reading on the internet in his spare time and as he thought about it, this all began to look and feel like such an adventure. He could feel a small tinge of excitement course through him at the thought of being involved in something bigger than he could imagine. Romanticized thoughts of adventure began to grow within him as he wondered what kind of magic he might learn in this world. He began to wonder if he should change his name to suit his new adventure but felt it was best to call things by their real name and by their real name only lest he forgets his real identity and upon returning to his world be seen as insane. His excitement only grew as Elt opened the door.

A/N: reuploaded because I finally noticed Grammarly 'relocated' some words while I was doing spell check before uploading and my changes somehow didn't get saved. Thanks, Grammarly, you really screwed me over.