“Right, game face on, Eileen. Time to go make nice with your minions.” I had to recenter myself just to make sure I was in full human-mode. Frankly, for many reasons, I was a little flustered and twitchy. Using magic, flirting with cute girls, being literally worshipped for the first time in decades? It did things to me that made it hard to focus sometimes.
I still had to figure out what to do with a room full of advisors and court mages, though. I really didn’t want to deal with them. Then it hit me that I didn’t have to, so I disabled my armor spell and strolled right out the same side door that all the heroes had left through.
All the while, I tried to wrangle my human disguise into place. Not Li’erz, whose name was obviously weird to humans. I had to be Eileen Singer, a German cosplayer who preferred to go by LiLinCos on social media. I just also had to tack on a backstory as a girl who was summoned as a hero to a different world in the past. A girl who has magic, but can’t send them all home. That last bit actually would be super easy to explain, since, as mentioned, planets move around a lot.
I followed the clamor of a hundred or so people until I found a large dining hall that was so packed that most people were standing upright as they snacked on whatever breads and cakes had already been prepared.
“Damn, this is so weird still. It was, what, like ten in the morning when that spell happened? My phone is reading nine at night!” Very English words from one boy caught my attention.
I paused to listen from outside the doorway as a girl responded.
“I mean, we were teleported a long distance, so maybe that also made us lose a whole day of time?”
I peeked out a window along the hallway and noted that the daylight had faded entirely, and stars were beginning to reveal themselves. Did the new world have sunset as late as nine at night? By the look of the plants in the courtyard below the window, the latitude was too far from the equator for a sunset that late in the evening. Assuming the axial tilt and season weren’t too skewed.
“Actually, there’s another possibility.” A new, older male voice with a heavy accent cut into the younger boy and girl’s conversation. “Sorry to cut in, but I overheard. Our phones receive the signal that tells them what time to display based on the local cell towers. If a phone receives the wrong signal from somewhere, it can change the time display. Did some work in radio frequency testing.”
The boy jumped at the possibility. “Wait, so there might be cell towers here?”
“Doubtful,” I cut in as I entered. “Just because you’re getting a strange signal doesn’t mean there’s technology here. Those guards had swords and halberds. I’d bet money that you’re just catching something from a lightning spell somewhere. Or maybe a powerful aura spell.”
I rounded the doorway to find an older Japanese man sitting on a stool with a dinner roll in hand, chatting with two standing teenagers, one boy and one girl, both foreign.
“Any chance you might get some kind of signal system running for us, old man?”
He flicked his gaze to the floor, drumming fingers on his dinner roll absentmindedly for a moment, then shrugged. “No idea if we’ll have access to the materials and tools to make even something small. It’s possible, though.”
I nodded at him. “Thank you, I hope we can establish some sort of communication system for those who run off or get separated.” Then, I turned and realized the whole room had gone silent, all staring at me.
I sighed, strolled down the center of the room towards the window that opened into the kitchens, and found no food left for me. I’d have to wait for them to finish cooking something.
“Right.” I turned on my heel and raised my voice again. I really needed a megaphone, since my sound spells would be far too violent for the setting. “Hello, everyone. Many of you will know me as LiLin. I’m a professional cosplayer, but… I got summoned as a hero once before. We’re not supposed to talk about it on Earth. Doesn’t apply here, though. Proper introduction, I am Eileen Singer, eternally sixteen.”
I got some laughs at that, which was good. I definitely was older in appearance than sixteen, and they knew it. Just sucked making the joke twice as I repeated the words in Japanese right after. The international style of cosplay event meant so many extra headaches.
“I know you’re all wondering what’s going on and how we’re all going to live from here onwards. I have a lot to tell you all. Fantasy worlds are dangerous. Monsters and the like are daily threats that make the average person jumpy and easily scared, so they’ll have honed instincts of self-preservation. Make the wrong noise in a crowded market, and someone might jump straight to fight or flight on the spot.
“Which is why I’ll be your official mentor in all things heroic beginning an hour ago. Magic? I can teach a little, but I’m not good at explaining things. Swords and axes? I’ve wrangled a few mentors to begin lessons in the morning. Getting home! I’ll be working on that whenever I have some free time. Jumping planets isn’t easy, even if I did have the ability to use translocation magic, which I don’t yet. Don’t worry too much, we’ll get back to our convention lives eventually.
“All I ask is this: don’t run off and get yourselves killed. Get some training. Practical experience with some people to pull you out of the fire. I can’t afford to pay for your funerals if you do something stupid.”
Thank myself that I led with the magic lessons idea. It would restrain them from leaving before they’ve had time to—
Something fibrous wrapped around my wrist and tugged at me towards the meal window. I whirled towards it, only to find one of the strangest applications of wind magic I’d ever seen. A long tress of hair was tugging my hand out, and I opened my palm in time for a blond girl to settle a plate of chicken fried rice there. Then she winked, her head barely shifting as she released my hand.
I took a moment to blink at the girl, only realizing a moment later that she was just a youthful face. Her curves did not lie. Then her four long ponytails shifted forward to unload dishes of steaming food across the kitchen window. Carefully sculpted wind magic around her obscenely long hair functioned just like extra limbs, allowing the chef to use a whole six ‘arms’ at once.
“Creative,” I breathed out in appreciation.
She placed two fingers to her lips, winked again, then blew a kiss at me.
I mimed being struck in the heart.
On the list she goes.
“Just what sort of castle was this queen running?” I stripped a little metal from the plane of earth, pre-shaped into a simple spoon, and began tucking into my dinner.
Blegh. Still flavorless. Cursed fantasy worlds.
The worst part was not being able to explain the reason for the problem. Saying it aloud would mean revealing I knew too much about the treaties between gods overseeing a world’s game. To ‘make things fair’ the gods would work various restrictions into their treaties to ensure no game world would trend too close to a boring utopia. They intentionally reduced the quality of living in ways that just made life miserable. One world would have seasoning only for the rich who could afford to carefully grow them in specific conditions. Other worlds might give the seasonings to the antagonist races, like demons, thus sparking extra envy to fuel conflicts.
I once encouraged my followers to trade spices to the humans, creating a peaceful resolution to some conflicts. The other gods threw a hissy fit over it.
Regardless, I had to endure flavorless chicken and rice.
By the smell, I had already, thankfully, identified that baths weren’t limited to the ‘evil races’ of the new world. I think I’d have been forced to wage a war on the gods otherwise. There was no way I would spend my days preparing for the spell to return to Earth surrounded by smelly, unwashed people. I’d have had to give up my dreams of a harem, which would’ve stripped any fun out of the mess the king had made of my retirement.
With hot food in reach, the Earthlings threatened to stampede, only kept in line by Rio and that guy who’d gotten the Prophet designation. The man in the most danger of being kidnapped by whatever passed for a religious institution for the kingdom. I supposed I had turned it into a queendom, though. After all, I’d sent the king on a long walk.
I eyed the chef as she bustled about. What kind of ruler keeps an archmage as their cook?