"You do not know anything about the Wandering God?"

  I sighed. "Again: no Wandering God. This world has Venus, the creator goddess, who constantly has to fight against the evil god Khronos." I raised an eyebrow. "If you truly met this 'Wandering God', then that is an anomaly. Gods stay on their planets. Why would there be a god wandering between them? And what reason would they have to summon people to other planets that already have a god that is able to summon people themselves?"

  The little girl seemed disappointed by my answer, so I tried to think of something else to say. "Don't worry. Maybe on your adventure you will meet this god again? Let me catch you up on the conflict with the evil god Khronos: it all began—."

  The girl raised her hand. Instantly, her body language, even her voice, took a complete 180. "Save it. Looks like this planet is another failure." She sighed. "This is getting boring."

  The ground trembled. "What the hell?" I looked out the window to see a giant crater growing on the land.

  "What a shame your little adventure must end." The girl pointed at me. "Worry not, for I will reward you for saving me time. Your reward: a quick death."

  - Rachel, the twice summoned

  Bolera stared at the dead error beast, then glared at the demons bowing before him.

  "Meister Bolera. The error beast came out of nowhere! And Sierra was a part of the squadron, so—."

  "SILENCE!"

  The two demons squirmed. Bolera sighed and walked back and forth. "Now…" Moving his gaze to the other demons who silently stood on the side, all the other demons instantly bowed as well. "How should I punish you all?"

  "Don't be too tough on them."

  Bolara looked up as Chanson came flying down. Like usual she wore a red dress that complimented her red wings. Her luscious black hair was tied into a bun with what he guessed was a hair tie she had nabbed from one of the humans they killed.

  Chanson smiled, revealing her fangs. "Did you forget about your dear childhood friend Sierra? The one that went rogue?" She patted him lightly on the back. "If a musician strays from the orchestra, then naturally the entire symphony suffers."

  Bolara snorted. "I appreciate your suggestion, Meister Chanson, but I will not betray a friend just to save my skin. This failure is mine alone."

  Chanson shrugged. "Whatever you say. Just don't start loosing the beat because of Sierra and her obsession with her naive brother." She leaned in closer so that only he could hear her. "You remember what the Maestro said, don't you? The humans need to disappear in order for us to keep existing. Even though the demon king is in denial, it has obviously not made our species situation better."

  He careful pushed her away. "No need to remind me. I was the one who took the first step for this cause in the shadow swamp. I will follow this cause until my death."

  "Delightful. We may be far away from accomplishing our cause, but at least we managed to send a signal: killing humans for the first time since that dumb Hero intervened."

  Bolera looked at the other demons who smiled at each other and started celebrating at the mention of their feat. Yes, this wasn't a complete failure.

  "You should probably tell dear little Sierra the good news: she can finally stop loitering around and pick up the pace. If she does that, then there is no doubt she will be able to join the orchestra again."

  He nodded in agreement. "That is the perfect outcome for her." Finally, she would be able to return home.

  ***

  Tom's head throbbed. "No way. Did I return by death?"

  "Everyone, the weirdo is awake!" A familiar voice spoke.

  Tom opened his eyes to see that everyone in his squadron was there. Mark and Ilona looked visibly worried for him. Hiro was trying to act cool by not pretending to be worried. Sierra wasn’t even trying to hide her disappointment at his survival. Tom felt like blowing her cover, but he couldn’t refute that her assassination attempt had unintentionally saved his life.

  "What happened?" Tom asked.

  "After we defeated the beast, you disappeared. So we started looking for you," Mark replied.

  "We, minus Sierra," Ilona added.

  Sierra rolled her eyes. "Sorry miss I-have-a-savior-complex, but our mission was to survey the forest, not bring back corpses."

  "You—."

  "Anyways," Hiro interrupted. "We found you in the forest following the trail of leaves you left us."

  Trail of leaves? "What about my wounds? I feel strangely energetic for having gone through a traumatic experience. At least I will probably get a cool scar out of it."

  "Yeah, about that." Hiro hesitated.

  "Worry not, for I healed your injuries." Ilona gleefully interjected. "You had burned hands, and one of your arms fell off. But with the blessing of the almighty, I managed to heal your wounds."

  … So she healed his cool scars. What was the use of going through traumatizing battles if you had no scars to show for it? Maybe he was being too harsh. Tom didn’t expect his arm to fall off, and he preferred to have both of them. Losing an arm in his first battle wasn’t worth it. It should at least be in the middle of his journey somewhere and replaced with an artificial arm with special powers, or something like that.

  "Thank you, saintess." Whoops, the saintess part slipped out of his mouth.

  "No need to flatter me, I am no saintess." She hurriedly replied. "But, we do have some bad news… Jeremia, I wasn’t able to save him." Tears trailed down her cheeks. Her hands were shaking, but she still stood her ground taking a deep breath to calm herself. "The error beast devoured him, and … the corrosive acid from its stomach made his body unhealable. My connection to the archangel also weakens in demon territory … I'm sorry." She stared at the ground, defeated.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  "Who?"

  Hiro sighed. "The nobleman in our squadron you kept ignoring."

  Jeremia. So the background character nobleman died. Honestly, Tom didn’t care. "Don’t beat yourself up over nothing, Ilona. Sacrifices are inevitable. This is technically a war, I think." He was confused about that part but the demons had technically attacked them before the error beast appeared. "At least we all survived. We should look at the positives."

  Mark gave Ilona a handkerchief. "I guess you’re right," she mumbled. "But—."

  Sierra rolled her eyes. "What happened to you?"

  "After running I found this strange ruin. There I found an aura sword," Tom nonchalantly answered.

  That caught everybody’s attention. "An aura sword," Mark said. "No wonder we were sent to look for those ruins. That is a legendary sword. Wow, you are one lucky person, boss."

  Hiro pointed at Trash placed on a table at the feet of the bed. "This must be it. I took it with us because I felt it was something important. I took the trouble of getting a sheath to hold the sword, and you’re welcome for that. Anyway, good for you. According to the aura sword convention, if you find one you get to keep it. But you should still be careful, killing you and stealing the sword isn’t out of the question."

  "I doubt anyone wants to steal that sword," Tom grumbled. It had no OP one-shot skill. "Anyway, then I got ambushed by error beasts, but I got saved by a strange thing. It was tall and looked as if it was wearing the night sky as its cloak. They must have been the one to lead you to my location. But anyways, I am more worried about those vile error beasts. What even are error beasts in the first place?"

  The room fell silent. "That must be the night witch," someone eventually said. "There were some rumors of her being spotted in the forest, but I guess it must be true."

  Everyone turned towards a bulky-looking lady. She was old, full of muscles, and looked intimidating.

  "And, if it’s about what error beasts are, you obviously know what they are called so you should try and remember what your fancy private tutors taught you."

  "Who are you?" How did he not sense her? He could so easily sense the error beasts aura from a distance; Trash really does strengthen his abilities as an observer.

  "Right, we haven’t met yet. I am Olg a, the instructor in charge of the commoners. The Commander wishes to speak with you. Go meet her, now."

  "Now?" Tom exclaimed. "Don’t I get to have some rest?"

  "Rest is a luxury for a soldier, also Ilona must have healed your wounds, so there’s no excuse." Then she turned her back to walk away.

  Give them one saintess, and they slave you even more. Tom could sense Trash humming in agreement.

  Olga stopped, remembering something. "Also, you seem to have lost your satchel. Don’t forget to get a new one. You will have to pay for it yourself."

  "What, but I got attacked! Why do I have to pay for a replacement?" Tom protested.

  Instructor Olga chuckled. "It’s just how it is." Then she left.

  "Sorry Tom, the instructor isn’t that fond of nobles. You can probably buy one in the nearby town," Mark said. "We have to go back to the training grounds now. Good luck meeting the Commander."

  They all left Tom alone, to scream into his pillow.

  Trash hummed. "Though day?"

  ***

  Instructor Olga didn't tell him where the Commander's office was; she is by far his least favorite background character. Tom walked out of the infirmary that was located at the side of the training grounds, and his body did not ache at all. Ilona was a formidable healer. She obviously had to be the healer for his OP party in the future.

  Even though his body felt fine, his mind wasn’t. Tom was not a brave person. Experiencing being fatally wounded like that, and having a near-death experience was terrifying. He pushed all of those worries to the back of his mind. Such thoughts would interfere with his EPIC ADVENTURE. He was in a dumb isekai world after all. Even though he had no OP skills, and almost died, further down the line; yes further down the line it would all get better. "Let's focus on learning as much as I can," he told himself.

  "Hey, Trash. Why were you locked up in those ruins?"

  Trash hummed. "I was sealed there by someone, but I don’t remember why. They were probably scared of my immense power."

  A weak-looking sword that had amnesia. That was some obvious sign of it becoming more powerful as they remembered more of their memories, right? Tom still had some hope in this stupid sword. Yeah, that was right. This was only the beginning.

  There were a lot of soldiers at the training grounds. The way people trained was surprisingly flexible. Some were focusing on their stance training alone, others training in pairs or groups, and the instructors walked around helping as much as they could. He did see some flying slashes and fireballs being conjured from nothing, which he rightfully guessed were skills. Even though he felt a bit let down by there being no system windows and stats, being able to use skills was cool.

  Several people were walking past him, and he noticed quite a few glances being thrown at the sword attached to his waist. "Word sure travels quickly around here. Must be jealous."

  "No, you’re just wearing your pants inside out," Trash hummed.

  After going back to the infirmary to fix his clothes, Tom returned to the building where the roll call took place. It did have a massive tower so he assumed it had to be important.

  Two guards stood at the entrance, and when he told them he had a meeting with the Commander one of them went inside to get someone. A lady that Tom guessed was a secretary arrived to greet him. She had a bob-cut, glasses, and she didn’t wear the uniform but a white button up shirt and a blue skirt.

  She glared at Tom. "Tomassio Rossi I assume? The Commander will see you shortly. Please follow me."

  They walked up a lot of stairs, and the further up they went the fewer guards were around. After walking up what felt like a billion steps they arrived at the top, and the secretary side-eyed him for having to catch his breath. She ushered Tom into the Commander's office and told him to wait inside.

  It was a cozy-looking office, with bookshelves on each side. There were two chairs for visitors and one behind the desk. Behind the desk was a circular-looking window. On her desk, he noticed a book.

  Walking over to it he realized he could read the title: Tales of the Mirror Maiden. With nothing better to do, he picked up the book and started reading.

  Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was sad because she was all alone, lost in a world of darkness. Touching the ground under her she found a mirror which she could use to see herself.

  The little girl smiled. If she could see herself, that could only mean she was still alive. But she had no idea where she was, so she cried until she could cry no more. Eventually, she mustered the strength to stand up and walk.

  In this world of darkness, she was all alone. Then she made a wish: "I do not want to be alone anymore. How nice would it be if there was no more darkness, but a fairy before me?"

  A golden glow lit up this dark world, and so it happened: a large lady with beautiful wings appeared before her. From the relief of no longer being alone, the girl cried yet again.

  The fairy queen, a compassionate person, hugged the girl. "There, there, child. Do not be afraid, for I am here." And since that day, the fairy queen would always stay by her side, and do her best to make her smile.

  Tom closed the book. So it was a children's book. He looked at the cover, and there was the girl with the mirror in her hand. Taking a second look around the room he realized it was decorated with mirrors. Far too many mirrors hanged on the wall, and small sculptures made of mirror shards. He looked up at the ceiling and saw small shards of glass scattered around like stars.

  "Are mirrors significant in this world?" he asked Trash.

  "Of course, didn't you just read about the Mirror Maiden? She is infamous in the lands surrounding the Void. A being that arrived at this world from the place between worlds, and said she would unite the people — and all that childish nonsense." Trash hummed. "Forget that. Look through the window behind there. I want to see if you will shit yourself or not."

  Tom was curious about how the view was from here, so he walked to the window.

  It was a stunning view. He could see the whole commoner barracks from here. Further to the right he saw a flat landscape with some ruins in it. To his left in the distance he spotted that stupid forest he almost died in. And to the north … a hole?

  He hadn’t noticed due to the smog and walls surrounding the camp, but there was a giant hole in the ground. There were several clouds desperately trying to hide it from view. But the fact that it was a massive hole made it difficult to hide, revealing some patches here and there of darkness. The hole was so huge that he couldn’t even see where it ended; it was all smoke in the distance. However, when he squinted he could manage to spot a mountain past it that he remembered seeing on the carriage ride to the New Forest. The biggest mountain he had ever seen, yet comparing it with the giant hole felt almost childish. "What the space?"

  First a Hero gone rogue, then a giant hole in the planet? There was no way Tom would be able to manage his EPIC ADVENTURE without any OP powers. "The Commander is late; this is the perfect opportunity to look through her books for information about higher beings," he concluded.

  Trash hummed with a strong frequency which threw him out of his daze. "Look behind you!"

  Tom turned around to notice that the door was slightly open. The secretary had been spying on him. Smirking, she was aiming something at him.

  "Is that a gun?"

  Then she pulled the trigger.