POV: Drake

  His throat was sore from screaming at Mio for allowing the law to affect who got pulled. Worse, his hand stung when he hammered it into a solid wood table. Mio flinched as the echo reverberated through the room.

  She just stood there, hugging herself, looking at the ground, and mumbling “I'm sorry.”

  He pushed a chair out of his way, she cringed at the noise.

  “You kidnap me, drag me through space, and ‘I’m sorry’ is all you got? ‘Whoopsie Doopsie’? ‘My bad?’ This is pathetic.”

  “She’s a non-combatant and you’re scaring her,” Sayaka told him, then yawned. “It’s late. Everyone is up figuring things out. I promise they’ll be just as stupid after we get some sleep.”

  “I got kidnapped late in the morning and this is the other side of the planet. I'm all screwed up from jet lag.”

  “I never heard of that.”

  “I have,” offered Runa. “The last hero complained about the same thing. It means Drake-dono is going to be cranky.”

  “I don't need this shit,” spat Drake and left the room.

  Runa followed, “The last hero said that too.”

  “A smart guy.” Drake declared. “Where do I need to go if I want to leave as soon as possible?”

  “Quartermaster’s for smiths and artisans. And the castellan for administration.” Runa said, she was walking next to him, her arm almost brushing against his.

  Drake veered away, “then take me to the castellan. I need to know what one is though.”

  “He’s in charge of running the castle,” said Runa.

  “Why am I seeing him and not the king?”

  “Heroes with exemplary companions get to see kings. You shot a wizard in the lung and two out of three of your companions have irreparable psychological damage, so you get the castellan.”

  Drake grunted and dropped the issue. Runa kept drifting into him. Her dress laced up on one side and she seemed to always have that side facing him. As they approached the door to the castellan’s office she went so far as to flip her long curly hair. Drake slowly pushed her further away from him with one arm.

  “You’re my age.” he enunciated the words.

  “”, she enunciated back at him and smiled.

  Who the hell treats armageddon as a dating app?

  “You’re fired. Seriously. I want you gone.” he said while knocking on the castellan’s door.

  Drake and Runa were ushered in. The castellan was meeting with a wizard who moved his chair next to the castellan when they entered, and the desk became an allegorical barrier. Drake informed the castellan of his need to get home by December 24th.

  The castellan steepled his fingers, “I was just receiving a briefing on the irregularities of your summons. I hope you finish your task as soon as possible Drake-dono, but we can not promise that we can tell you when your deadline is. Perhaps if you gave us the date and time you left?”

  “I left late in the morning in a different time zone.”

  Their expressions were blank.

  “You can put time in zones?” asked the wizard.

  “What? No!” said Drake. “It’s how you adjust time for different countries around the world.”

  The castellan grimaced while he rubbed his eyes with his fingers, “Other countries? You may have severely overestimated how much of humanity is left, hero.”

  Oh.

  Shit.

  “It’s us and the elves”, confirmed the castellan’s wizard. “We have some colonies, although they may have been destroyed.”

  The wizard glared at Runa at the word ‘destroyed’.

  Drake decided to overlook that. If Tenka had drama, he wanted no part of it.

  “Fine. I’ll round off the hours and call this Day 13. The 24th will be Day 0.”

  The castellan shrugged, “Easily done. I can send notice to our generals of the arrangement, if you think it will help.”

  Drake nodded. “Great. Additionally, I want to get rid of Mio and Runa. Probably Sayaka too. You must have some strong guys sitting around. There’s no reason to keep this to four people. Let’s do this properly with a sane military.”

  Runa didn’t even blink at the implicit accusation.

  “No,” the wizard said firmly.

  “Agreed,” said the castellan. “Sayaka is an elven assassin with magic enhancements known only to her own kind. She‘s small, but her strength matches most men. She’s been fighting for six hundred years, Drake-dono. Between Demon King assaults, she goes into their territory and kills as many as she can. She’s a solid warrior.”

  “What about Runa?” Drake asked through clenched teeth.

  “Yes! What about me?” Runa smiled and sat back in her chair.

  The wizard shifted a few times in his seat and said wearily, “she is the ‘Mad Sorceress of the Broken Tower’ and has been judged a threat deserving of a hermetically inscribed choker that will kill her if she’s not careful. She is both powerful and controlled.”

  He was stuck with them. Dammit.

  “Why is this Broken Tower a big deal?” Drake asked.

  “Because I broke it,” Runa said smiling. “Before then it was called the Academy of Magic.”

  “You blew up Hogwar-”

  Runa waved her hand in dismissal, “They had it coming. Leave the past in the past, I always say.”

  The wizard frowned, thankfully he stayed quiet.

  “Tell me I can at least get rid of Mio and take some guards,” Drake said. It was like he was arguing with a used car salesman who was trying to lure him into driving a lousy vehicle off the lot.

  “Mio is important for the prophecy,” said the castellan.

  “Fuck! There’s a bullshit prophecy now? The future demands I take her? I don’t believe you. She’s useless baggage and your problem!”

  “Not the future,” corrected the wizard. He sat up in his seat, his voice more confident.

  “Prophecy magic describes actions creating a ritual that makes a given future more likely. The hero and his three companions achieving various goals makes the admittedly unlikely possibility of turning back the Demon King into a respectable probability.”

  “This is bullshit.” Spat Drake. “Summon another hero then.”

  “Then you would not be the hero, the prophecy no longer applies, including your return when the job is done,” replied the wizard slowly.

  “Just send me back. You got me here. Send me back.”

  The wizard held up his hands in a placating gesture, “I understand your frustration, Drake-dono. But if it were so easy to move people, we would have done so.”

  The castellan nodded, “There are rumors of people attempting to escape Tenka, we don’t know if it worked. We are all bound here, you have a better chance of escape than anyone else.”

  “You guys are just pulling me down into the shit with you!”

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  “Drake,” said the castellan. “I also have children I want to see on ‘Day 0’. We’re stuck with each other. I intend to do my best for you. I can only hope you will do the same for me.”

  Drake pushed away from the desk and left abruptly, Runa trailing in his wake. As he walked out the door, he heard the wizard chuckle, “Baggage!”

  They walked back to the quartermaster’s warehouse.

  “This is a sick joke, Runa.”

  “I wouldn’t know, Drake-dono. I have it on good authority that I’m insane.” She grinned smugly.

  “Don’t wait for an apology,” he said darkly.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it!”

  At least she was keeping a respectful distance between them now.

  The quartermaster’s warehouse was a flurry of activity, even at this late hour. Orders were being shouted by large, beefy men with scrolls. Thinner, muscular men were moving large crates, bags, or raw material such as lumber.

  “Hey! You’re the hero, right? We were told you’d be here.” It was one of the less athletic quartermasters.

  The man handed Drake a scroll written in a peculiar alphabet that could almost be Japanese hiragana. He could read it, but the words had no meaning. He knew magic here was real, but the list seemed like names of children’s toys.

  “What am I looking at?”, Drake asked.

  “Hero equipment.” the quartermaster said. He paused and added, “for your team. A list, that is.”

  Drake wrinkled his brow, then handed the scroll to Runa. “Check this over. I’ll see if the quartermaster needs anything.”

  Runa smirked, “Oh yes, hero-dono. As the Wizard it is my duty and privilege to assist.”

  Drake walked a few places away from her with the quartermaster.

  “Hero-dono! Such an opportunity. I have many questions about Earth science.”

  Drake had been a consulting manager and a convict. His skillset was unlikely to contain what the man needed.

  They walked to a table while Drake ignored the quartermaster’s questions. The man had started by asking “How do you make uranium-235 on Earth?” There was no point in attempting to answer.

  Drake put his sword, gun, emergency radio, and his father’s smartphone on the table.

  “The gun and the sword are probably worth most of your time. The radio and smartphone may be kind of advanced.”

  “Thank you, hero-dono!”

  They went back to Runa who said, “The list is good. You’ll also need to load him up on armor charms and enchantments.”

  “They don’t last long,” warned the quartermaster.

  “We only need them to last two weeks,” she said confidently.

  The equipment he received looked impressive. Drake didn’t know anything about magic, but Runa wasn’t complaining, that was a good sign.

  Most of it was the magic equivalent of camping gear. There were also some ‘charms’ that were meant to decorate his sword or worn on himself.

  The charms provided short-term durability, a couple of weeks’ worth. It was enough that he wouldn’t have to concern himself with scratches on the sword or minor injuries to himself.

  “No sprained ankles?” Drake asked.

  “Yep,” chirped the quartermaster. “Use the armor ones carefully. I can give you actual armor, but it would be the generic stuff. Nothing crafted to fit you well.”

  “I’ll pass,” said Drake. “I haven't practiced using armor since college.”

  The quartermaster showed him how to use the magic tools. Runa was quiet, a welcome change. Drake was thankful until he discovered she had been asleep.

  By the time Drake finished with his magic item tutorial, an artificer returned Drake’s Earth equipment.

  He wasn’t a happy guy. The ‘T10 tool steel’ in your katana’s blade is something we might have some hope of reproducing. Using tungsten is an interesting idea. Everything else? We’re too far behind.”

  “I thought you guys knew about guns?” Drake asked.

  “Gunpowder is easy to detonate with magic, we never bothered with it. Don’t worry hero-dono. In your case, it’s worth the expense to provide charms against such a spell. For an army? Yesterday I would have said no. The accuracy, power, and capacity of your ‘Glock’ compared to the last firearm we saw a hundred years ago is indescribable. We will look into it after this coming invasion.”

  “The bullet primer is probably different. The spells might not work.” Drake agreed, skipping the part where he had learned from personal experience “How about the radio and smartphone?”

  “We gave up on both. Our society barely knows how to make vacuum tubes. We’ll have to hope the next hero brings a book on how to make transistors or anything else. Similar good fortune has happened before.” the man smiled ruefully.

  Drake closed his eyes. He was about to ruin an entire civilization’s day. “The smartphone has dozens of books on it. It’s my father’s so it’s all military history and politics. I don’t think you’ll be seeing another Earth book for a long time.”

  The artificer staggered at the news. “Dozens?! I- I don’t suppose you know any engineering, hero-sama?”

  They should have grabbed his son. Ethan knew all that stuff. Drake had tried to follow along, so he could understand his son’s homework but he could never keep up. The artificer must feel a little like Drake had.

  “I can remember Maxwell’s equations.” Drake offered.

  “Thank you hero-sama, we know those; they’re over a hundred years old. Well, even learning such marvels can exist will help us, I’m sure.” The man said it bitterly.

  Drake nodded, and powered off his phone. He might need it and there were no charging stations.

  Drake went back to the room his small team was using to sort and pack gear. A lot of his Earth things wouldn’t be needed.

  The temperature was warmer than in North Vermont, by about thirty degrees. Drake commented on that, Runa revealed modern Tenkans used the metric system. They had picked it up from an Earth hero. What was worse, Sayaka used antique measurements, and Runa used whatever all the magic books were written in.

  “That’s insane,” said Drake.

  Runa agreed, “I’d like to see magic texts updated to use modern measurements, but progress was slow on account of the magic academy’s destruction.”

  She had said it without guile or irony.

  “Runa, I don’t think you’re trying to irritate me on purpose, but you’re doing a good job. I’m going to step out for some air.”

  “You already did that!”

  “And now I’m doing it again!” he slammed the door on the way out.

  Of course, he immediately ran into Mio, and behind her was Sayaka.

  “I’m sorry for bumping into you Drake-dono!”

  “I don’t care Mio, why are you here?”

  Mio stammered and was useless. A part of him, an increasingly small part, understood why. Her confidence was shot, which made her nervous, and nervous people make mistakes. The new mistakes piled up on top of the old ones, eroding her confidence even more. A negative feedback loop of incompetence. He had to bring Mio on this stupid trip, so he had to be patient.

  “I need to pack too,” she finally said.

  “Fine, Mio. I have a question for you though. How come I don’t know kanji anymore?”

  “What?!” Mio stammered.

  “Kanji. It’s part of the actual Japanese. I had a fairly poor fluency with it. I probably knew three hundred kanji. That wasn’t good, but now I know zero. I also don’t know any other real Japanese writing. My katakana is gone and what you guys call hiragana is shit. No offense, Sayaka.”

  “None taken, Kai.”

  “When the hell did I become ‘Kai’?” Drake asked as politely as he was able.

  “At the same time, I gave you permission to call me ‘stupid cunt’,” Sayaka responded.

  Drake pressed his hand to his forehead and nodded, “Fair. I’ll let it go. Back to you Mio. My Japanese?”

  “I asked you if you knew it,” Mio said defensively.

  “As I said, I’m not good at it. It was enough for me to use it as an international business skill and I’d hoped to use it again. The Japanese I know now is… Sayaka I don’t want to offend you again.”

  “You won’t, Kai. We had a hero about a hundred years ago who was from there. He told us our language sounds impolite. And Mio? We pulled him out of his world. Why do we expect these men to be coherent when they get here?”

  Drake pointed a finger at Sayaka and spoke to Mio, “Yeah! She’s right!”

  Mio mumbled more apologies. Great. Now he’d have to treat her like a fragile vase.

  He said, “I’ll manage. I can listen and follow a conversation much better. I can build from there. Anyway-“

  “No,” Mio said weakly.

  Drake fought to keep irritation out of his voice, “What was that, Mio?”

  She was looking at the ground, “You’ll have to learn it all over. It’ll be harder.”

  Fuck!

  “Sayaka. Handle her.” Drake said loudly.

  “Yeah. OK.” Sayaka’s voice was devoid of inflection.

  Drake took a lap around the castle before returning. He knew his next job would probably be as a janitor or something similar, but finding out one of the few portable skillshad been deleted was more crap he’d have to deal with.

  He returned to the room where they had been arranging their equipment. Tenka had known about the Demon King for perhaps a day before they summoned him. Nobody was prepared. The plan was to pick up extra supplies at a village the ‘hero’ traditionally stopped at.

  As Drake approached the room his pulse elevated on its own, his cheeks flushed, there were other embarrassing symptoms of a familiar nature. ‘Romantic’ would be a polite way to put it.

  “No,” he whispered angrily to himself.

  This was not going to be a journey of bodily exploration, nor was it going to be a juvenile comedy. If one of those women was burning some kind of magic incense, he was going to lose his shit.

  Sure enough, he found Sayaka leaning up against a wall and looking out a window, bored. Runa was breathing heavy and hugging herself. Mio was in a lotus position, the beaded braids on the sides of her head were blowing in an unfelt wind, a magic energy no doubt.

  “What,” Drake said. “The fuck?”

  “I- I was releasing the excess qi in my lowest chakra,” Mio said unhelpfully.

  “Someone who isn’t Mio explain,” Drake ordered.

  “She’s an eromancer,” Runa began. “That means-“

  “I got it. She’s a sex witch, right?”

  “No,” said Mio.

  “It’s complicated,” said Runa.

  “Yes,” said Sayaka.

  Dammit! Shit. He turned to the reliable one.

  “Sayaka, what can she do? What’s her value?”

  “She can heal, but so can most people. Mio’s better at it though. She’s got some defensive spells. Other than that, I think her only purpose is to exist for the prophecy ritual and keep your urges in control, Kai.”

  Mio gasped.

  “Is that correct, Runa?” He asked.

  Runa shot an apologetic look in Mio’s direction.

  “Her magic truly is complicated; it combines mind, body, and soul. Three vectors mean the energies used are mana, Qi, and-”

  “Stop. Just stop.

  I can’t believe I'm listening to this.”

  It was like he was back in management consulting listening to a junior employee explain why spilling coffee on the client was a good thing in the long run. Mio was useless, that was a simple fact.

  Sayaka was still staring out the window. “You girls are just pissing him off,” she warned. “Drop it.”

  Runa didn’t. “Mio knows the most about Earth. She’ll be able to understand your cultural references.”

  “I doubt it, but let’s find out,” Drake said. “Mio, tell me what the internet is.”

  “I don’t know.”

  He exhaled sharply. “At least you didn’t try to bullshit me. They said you’re a noncombatant?”

  She stared at the ground. “Yes.”

  His jaw tightened. “Are these people trying to get you killed? No, screw this. You’re deadweight. Not your fault, but you are. So stop doing any of that qi shit. Stay out of the way.”

  “But Drake-dono—”

  “I said I don’t fucking care,” he snapped. “I don’t want you dead, and your bosses say we’re dragging you along for this prophecy crap. So don’t make it harder.”

  “I’m not!”

  Dammit. She still wasn’t listening. Fine.

  “Mio, you’re baggage. If that’s what it takes to make this stick, that’s your new name: Baggage.”

  He slammed the door on his way out. In the hallway, a few eavesdropping maids giggled.

  Behind him, a meek voice answered:

  “Yes, Drake-dono,” said Baggage.