After tripping, Adrian could not keep his balance and fell into the small pond backwards.
Due to his many experiences of tripping and falling due to his clumsiness, he reflexively closed his eyes and held in his breath for fear of the water splashing onto his face, and tried to use his arms to soften the landing.
The problem was…no matter how much he stretched his arms, he just could not feel anything around him except for his body.
Panicking, Adrian thought that the pond must’ve been hiding a huge hole, and tried to swim up to the surface. However, as he tried to make a blind swimming motion, he realized that there seemed to be no water around him. In fact, he couldn’t even feel anything but air with his arms.
Thinking that he could perhaps breathe, he slowly opened a corner of his mouth and tried to inhale some air.
When he inhaled nothing but oxygen after a few seconds, he relaxed and breathed normally through his nose. Afterwards, he slowly lifted up his eyelids in order to see where he was.
Still not seeing anything but pitch-black darkness, Adrian carefully placed his finger above his eyelid and tried to feel himself blinking to make sure they were open.
After feeling that his eyes were indeed opened, he was confused on why he still couldn't see anything.
‘Did I… go blind?! No, wait. Even if I did go blind--which I hope isn’t true--it still doesn’t make sense that I can’t feel the ground around me.’
Puzzled, Adrian tried to ponder what was happening, and thought up of another mystery.
‘If I can’t feel the ground, then doesn’t that mean I’m free-falling? But… I don’t feel air rushing past me, or gravity pushing me down. It’s kinda like… as if I was floating in the air?”
Thinking that the situation seemed very weird and unrealistic, Adrian did not notice that someone else was watching him. And yet, this stranger was more puzzled with this whole situation than Adrian himself.
[I don’t get it… I’m sure I used my powers to summon the hero. But, this person… isn’t the one I picked.]
[Open system menu.]
Scrolling through the menu, the mysterious being stopped to look at two pictures of humans. On the left was a 17-year-old male with natural brown hair, and the other was also a male, but was 2 years younger and had black hair instead. At least, it’s what the ‘being’ determined after inspecting more closely and looking at their profiles.
[Ah…I summoned the wrong person. The other gods will not be happy with this.]
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
Feeling like he could go mad at any minute, Adrian tried calling out to the darkness. Of course, he wasn’t expecting a response, but he wanted to try anyways in case there really was someone else out here.
“Helloooo?”
[...I should compensate this human for my mistake. He didn’t do anything wrong after all, unlike me.]
Not getting any response, Adrian stopped asking and went back to slowly turning insane.
‘Ugh...just what is going on?!’
However, seeing another color other than black slowly appearing in his vision, he tried to focus his eyes on it.
[Hello.]
“GAH!”
Hearing a voice, he yelped in surprise and turned his head to look around him for the source.
[I’m talking inside your head. I don’t have a physical form for you to see.]
???
‘...How exactly am I supposed to respond to that?’
[I know you may be confused, but calm yourself and just listen.]
Unable to do anything but trust this mysterious voice, Adrian nodded his head and calmed himself down, focused on hearing the voice continue to speak.
Seeing this obedient human, the mysterious being could not help but be pleased. After all, the other heroes that were summoned in the past were really loud and obnoxious, demanding the voice they heard for answers instead of just waiting patiently.
[First of all, you may be wondering where you are, as well as who I am. To answer that simply, you are no longer on planet Earth, but rather on another world entirely, and I could be what you call a ‘god’ that manages this world.]
‘I knew it. There’s just no way our backyard could have a supernatural pond.’
Hearing his thoughts, the god felt amazed at his ability to still feel calm in this situation. Human adaptability must be amazing, they thought.
[Instead, you were mistakenly summoned by me to planet Soluvia, which as you can see is just beyond that portal.]
Feeling confused, Adrian remembered the mysterious color he saw earlier, and turned to look towards it again.
Focusing back onto it, he realized that there seemed to be another place just past it, like the voice had said.
“Wait…did you just say I was summoned here by mistake?”
[Yes. I’m sorry. I accidentally summoned you instead of the hero.]
‘Man, I thought I was gonna be the hero I read about in fantasy novels. Turns out, I’m just simply another cannon-fodder.’
Thinking this, he couldn’t help but sigh and feel depressed.
Hearing this, the god decided not to tell him that he could hear his thoughts.
[...But don’t worry, I will be compensating you for my mistake. You can still live a happy life, but only as long as you have the will to work hard for it.]
“I don’t mind working, but could I just be sent back to my home? I’d rather live on planet Earth instead, no offense.”
After hearing what the voice said, he was thinking about his family back at home.
[I’m sorry, but I don’t have the power to send anything back to their world. I can only do a one-way summon. I apologize for my mistake.]
“...”
When Adrian finally snapped back to reality, his confused and excited mood soon turned to despair.
‘I wanna go back home…. My family would miss me….’
[...]
‘I...don’t wanna be alone. I already miss them so much….’
Of course, as he was in the presence of a powerful being, he didn’t voice out his longing to go back home and kept being silent. However, he could not stop his thoughts, and soon tears formed in his eyes as he kept recalling the family he could no longer see.
Seeing his state, as well as hearing his thoughts, the god felt guilty.
The heroes the god summoned were specifically picked loners who felt no attachment towards their homeworld. Thus, they would usually just happily accept the situation and go past the portal once he told them everything. However, the god did not get anywhere to explaining yet before the human started to break down and cry.
[...]
Hearing the voice stop talking, Adrian forcefully calmed himself down and wiped away his tears and snot onto his shirt.
“I’m…alright. You can…sniff...keep talking.”
Understanding the emotional state he was in, the god knew that they had just ruined this human’s life.
The god thought, ‘This human is much easier to communicate with than the other past heroes. He hasn’t yelled at me yet, or even ordered me to send him back. I should compensate him properly.’
[...]
“...I’m fine, really. As long as I can live a happy life, I don’t really mind this whole situation.”
After he forced his mind to calm down, Adrian could now talk normally.
However, the god knew he was lying, and was assaulted with constant guilt. It did not help that the human was also very polite and understanding.
Still though, they had to finish explaining before they could discuss their mistakes with the other gods.
[Known as planet Soluvia, this world has the unique property of having special particles all around it, and thus allows the creatures to use it to their benefit. Known as ‘mana,’ these particles are recycled back to the planet when used. Thus, they can never be depleted as long as it’s used within the planet’s atmosphere.]
Not hearing any response, the god couldn’t help but sigh at the human’s dull state of mind.
Although Adrian may appear to be listening, forcing down his emotions had caused his mind to go into a state of dullness.
Knowing that he may never see his family again, he kept recalling back every memory of their time together, tuning out the voice to the very back of his mind.
Realizing that the human wasn’t listening, the god stopped talking and instead tried to think of a way to help him.
Knowing that they won’t be able to get through to this human when his mind is currently going down memory lane, the god decided to explain later when the human had returned back to normal.
[Remember before how I said I was going to compensate you? Well, I still have to talk to the other gods about what I’m allowed to give. However, once you go past that portal, we should be about done with our discussion due to the time difference. Do you have any questions?]
Hearing still no response, the god couldn’t help but sigh. Still, they had no rights to tell this human about manners. After all, this was all their fault for accidentally summoning the wrong person.
Snapping back to reality, Adrian heard the voice tell him to go past the portal.
Realizing that he hadn’t been listening, he felt sorry for his lack of manners, and decided to not waste the god’s time with his questions.
“Ah, sorry. My mind is still adjusting, so I apologize for not listening to you earlier.’
[That’s alright. I’ll continue explaining when you’re in a better mood. I’ll be with you soon after I’m done with the meeting.]
After the god left, Adrian felt a pull coming from the portal, and felt himself floating towards it without his control. He was pulled inside, directly landing on the familiar solid earthen ground a second later.
However, due to the mysterious experience of going past a portal, Adrian could not control his balance and directly fell to the ground, face-first.
“Oww….”
‘Ugh...it’s much easier traveling through the portals in games than in reality. I feel so dizzy....’
Trying to regain his composure, he pulled himself up from the ground, and wiped off the dirt that got on him.
‘Wait, no. With my terrible and slow computer, going through a portal with those bad pixelated graphics was much worse. In fact, other than feeling dizzy, it was quite fun to pass through.’
Remembering the experience, Adrian recalled seeing himself go from darkness to light in one split second, and thus couldn’t quite adjust his eyes. Therefore, that was probably the cause for becoming dizzy.
Although, it was still embarrassing to fall down flat on the ground.
‘Hmm…am I supposed to wait for the god now?’
After his eyes finally adjusted, he slowly looked up to see the…sky?
‘Huh? Why are the trees so tall? I can hardly see the sky at all. Yet, it’s somehow still bright around here?’
Organizing his memories, Adrian tried to recall the name of the planet.
“So this…is planet Soluvia.”
--- To be Continued ---
Author’s Notes :
Hello again. I’ve told you it would be a shorter chapter right? Or did you not read the author’s notes last time.
Anyways, this is just a rough draft that I just recently made today with only a few hours worth, so it may not be much. I’ve fixed a few mistakes here and there, but I really wanted to go back and finish my classes before I continue to dwell on this and use up my time.
I will be going back to fixing up this chapter if there are mistakes, as well as work on the next chapter after I’m done doing school work, but know that it won’t be till late next week. As I’ve stated before, my life comes before this novel.
I hope you understand, so please review this chapter and tell me what mistake, or just overall plot holes and etc. to fix once I come back.
Edit : YO I’M BACK!
So sorry for not updating like I said. Just had to procrastinate and catch up on all the stuff I missed. Anyways, I’ll be trying to work on this novel for now.
Ook, so I tried re-reading the prologue and the first chapter, and found out some… well, a LOT of mistakes. The prologue only required some new additional stuff and fixing grammar and punctuation, so there wasn’t much, but chapter 1 really had me redo a lot of stuff. Hopefully it’ll be easier to read and understand, because I realized that I accidentally just turned Adrian into a mindless human after this experience.
Look, humans can adapt. Same for Adrian. I gotta be realistic, so I won’t just completely change him in the span of just one chapter. Anyways, I’ll be working on the new chapter, so hopefully I can release it soon.
