Ajax Leonid stares at the ceiling, awakening from his sleep. He is lying on his back on a bed. He stares at the grey, concrete ceiling in a slight daze at the dream he just had.

The dream was… complex, for lack of a better description. He was walking through a field with his best friend, Shaula. A song started playing which he recognized: Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers. They were dancing together in unfamiliar clothing. There was a lot of ice, some trees which somehow shattered from the cold of the dream, fire… 

Shaula was there. Her best friend, a woman of exquisite beauty, long, chestnut hair and immaculate light-tan skin. A magnificent woman with thin, well-defined arms, milky-white voluptuous breasts with small circular areolas and flat nipples and a toned abdomen. Her legs are long, shapely and athletic. Her pelvis–

…I saw her naked in the dream. Fucking hell… she looked even better than I imagined. And, in that dream, she was crying… blood?

Normally when he has a dream, he can barely remember its details and it becomes more difficult to remember the dream after a few minutes. But not with this dream. He remembers everything about it.

Was... was it... a dream... but no... I... I can remember it clearly. The frozen trees, the lake of fire, Shaula’s dress... Shaula crying blood... we were... running through a fire?

Ajax is confused. He continues to look at the ceiling while blinking his eyes a few times. He seems to be under a blanket up to his neck, a soft pillow supporting his head. It’s not uncomfortable but... it doesn’t feel like his own bed.

Ajax darts his eyes around without moving his head. He can see light streaming into the room from a window to his right. He turns his head to the direction of the window. He flinches as the sudden, intense brightness of a cloudless, blue sky hits his eyes. As he gets used to the light, he sees someone sitting in a wooden chair looking through the window.

It is a woman, a beautiful woman in a long blue dress, covering her arms and her torso with a long skirt down to just below her knees. She is sitting cross legged, her blonde hair styled into a twisted bun, the bun covered by a white cloth wrapping. Her atmosphere is very prim and proper. Her face is turned away from Ajax at the moment.

She isn’t Shaula.

Wait. Wait, where... where am I?

Ajax has woken up in a strange room. A stranger is sitting next to him. He doesn’t recognize anything about this room. How did he get here?

The last thing he remembers is doing an English exam in class with Shaula sitting next to him; his last English exam before graduation from high school. His morning had gone ok. Shaula had woken him up and he had a normal morning with his mom, his little sister Rita, and Shaula who had been staying with his family for a while.

He walked with her to school, had an unpleasant encounter on the way and his classmates were shitty like always when he got inside. But, Shaula was with him the whole morning. Where is she now… 

His memory went blank about what followed the exam. It feels like something else happened after that but he can’t remember it at the moment. He’s blocking it out. It remains right at the edge of his periphery but… he doesn’t want to remember it right now. Tension fills Ajax’s heart. He slowly rises from the bed to sit up. He calls out to the women in the blue dress.

“...Where am I? Wh-Who are you?”

Ajax speaks and surprises the woman. She turns towards him from the window. A quite lovely face indeed, matching her attractive body; Ajax can’t help but notice her appearance at this moment. She doesn’t answer his query however, she just looks at him as if she’s unsure of how to proceed. This just fills Ajax with even more uncertainty.

“Um–”

The woman rises from her seat and runs towards the exit door of the room without saying a word to him. Right outside the door, she speaks to someone Ajax can’t see in a loud, uncertain and questioning tone. He can at least still see her through the slightly open door from his bed. Still confused, he doesn’t say a word and listens closely to what the woman is trying to say.

However… he can’t understand a word.

Huh? What language is that? Who is that woman and who the hell is she speaking to? Where the hell am I!?

The woman finishes her conversation and Ajax sees a man run off. He didn’t get a good look at what this man was wearing but apparently he had to leave in a hurry to get someone? To tell someone something? The woman returns, closes the door and sits in her chair to the right of Ajax’s bed.

“Um, who... who are you?”

“□□□□□□□□□□□□”

Ajax cannot understand her words. She speaks clearly and slowly in acknowledgement of his lack of comprehension. Her expression is... bright? She looks at Ajax with a dazzling smile.

Huh? Why does it look like she likes me? Am I reading this wrong?

The woman is looking at Ajax with a look of adoration.

“□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□□”

She clasps her hands together and says a prayer, at least what appears to be a prayer. Tears fall from her closed eyes.

What is going on?

The door opens once again. A man walks into the room. He is a man in a red robe, wearing a hood. It appears like a religious habit. Ajax has seen this kind of outfit before (at least something similar to it) in teachings about devout, medieval Christian priests. However, unlike a normal religious habit, the man’s clothing is decorated somewhat extravagantly.

Religious habits are known to be worn by particularly monastic sects. Strange. The man walks up to Ajax and says something.

“□□□□□□□□□□□□?”

“I-I don’t understand you. Do you speak any english?”

The man seems to understand something as if realizing he’s made a stupid mistake. He shouts, calling for someone to attend to him. Another man soon arrives into the room, holding a case. This man is wearing a similar, less lavish, blue, religious habit. The less lavish man hands an adorned, white case to the red-garbed man.

The less lavish man walks out of the room carefully, showing deference to the authority of the red-garbed man. The red-garbed man opens the case with a key that he takes from his sleeve. Inside the case is a cube that looks like it was plated in gold, perhaps even made of solid gold; it has an extremely complex pattern on its surface.

The red-garbed man asks Ajax to do something but Ajax cannot understand. He points to the golden orb. He gestures towards it. It appears he wants Ajax to interact with it, to touch it maybe?

He wants me to do something with this thing? C-Can I really touch something that looks so expensive?

The man continues to gesture at Ajax with a solemn smile on his face. Ajax looks over at the beautiful woman again. She smiles wonderfully. Ajax feels slightly comforted by her smile. He has yet to fully acknowledge the circumstances but the environment here isn’t ugly at the moment.

In the back of his mind, he considers whether he’s been kidnapped here. If he was, what can he do in this moment to escape? Ajax considers carefully assessing and going through with whatever this situation is before making any rash moves. He reaches out his hand towards the cube slowly and the man nods in affirmation that Ajax is doing things correctly.

Ajax touches the cube with both hands. The moment he does, he feels a sensation in his mind. Something is happening to him. He doesn’t let go of the cube because of... curiosity. The sensation isn’t unpleasant. It feels like his perception is somehow increasing. As he continues holding onto the cube, it starts to shine, becoming brighter and brighter.

Ajax feels like his consciousness is being stretched. Like he’s about to fall unconscious. Suddenly, the light coming from the cube stops. The priest pulls the cube away from Ajax and shouts.

“Boy, take this back with you.”

...huh?

Ajax hears the red garbed man speak what should be foreign words. It’s not English, the only language that Ajax is fluent in. Yet... Ajax just understood the words the man spoke without any issue. The blue garbed man returns, takes the white box and rushes out of the room once again.

“Blessed hero, did the language crystal work?”

The red-garbed man says another thing that Ajax understands. He responds in the same language.

“Wh-what do you mean? Wait, how can I communicate with you!? Wh-What just happened?”

Ajax speaks in a new language with perfect fluency, almost unconscious of that fact, as if this language is the one he was born speaking. He has greater fluency with this language than even English. His internal monologue even thinks in this new language as if English is something unnecessary to him altogether.

“Divine hero, that artifact you placed your hands on is a tool that imparts the language of Sapiora. You can now read, write and speak in our language now.”

This... this is unbelievable. How... how can that...

“Oh, yes, I have been told that such tools don’t exist in your world. But, you can see the results, yes? You can understand my words, correct?”

“Y-yes, I-I can… um…”

“Hm? What is it?”

“You called me something… a divine hero? You’re referring to me?”

“Oh, yes! You may be a little confused about the situation from your travel here. My name is Andal Frasia and I am an Archbishop of the Church of Sapiora within this nation, the Holy Sapioran Federation. Welcome to the world of Omicron!”

~

Shaula Seikennith awakens. She is lying on her back on an unfamiliar bed with her head resting under a comfortable, unknown pillow. Shaula stares at a concrete ceiling for a second and sees a man sitting down to the right of her bed, staring at her.

She doesn’t recognize him.

What... who the fuck is this?

Shaula jolts up and backs away from the man into the corner of her bed. The man is wearing a strange, black, religious garb. She has never seen it before. It is very immodestly decorated. Shaula is wary of the man, in fact any man who has been watching her sleep. She is under a blanket and wearing clothes but... these aren’t her clothes.

They aren’t her pajamas or her school uniform or any other piece of clothing she owns. Complete confusion pervades her mind at the moment.

“What’s... who are you?”

“□□□□□□□□□□□□”

Shaula doesn’t understand. The man picks up something from his feet. Shaula considers running right now away from this place, but her situation is completely uncertain. She had a dream… about her and Ajax, her best friend. Before that, she should have been in an English test. Right after the test… 

She remembers. She had met Him. God. God had brought both her and Ajax to an unfamiliar place and told them something. God had also given her something. Something… God had said that Ajax and she couldn’t remain in their world.

Was that real? What the fuck was that? He told me and Ajax that… that we would be gone from the face of the world for… decades… no… no, no, no… it couldn’t just have… shit. Shit, shit, shit! This fucking can’t be happening… Why me and him…  

Her heart rate spikes. Unlike Ajax, she remembers most of the details of their meeting with God. She isn’t repressing anything about that encounter and she feels the requisite fear and despair at the realization of what happened to both her and Ajax. She just doesn’t understand why. God told them both a number of things. God knew about her and Ajax.

God paid attention to her and Ajax… 

“Ahem.”

Shaula returns from the swirl of her own thoughts and notices the man is now holding a small white chest in his hands. Now, this guy as well… a complete stranger. She recalls the dream she had prior to waking up. A dream where she was on fire and commanded fire. There was a wonderful sensation to it like a living liquid extending from her pure will.

A more appealing thought than this strange man who had been watching her sleep holding a box towards her.

What the fuck is this… I was… I had just burned everything away in that dream… Can I… can I just burn him away– Wait... where’s Ajax? We... we were just in the dream together. Where is–

The man opens the white case and Shaula lays her eyes on a pure golden cube. Shaula starts looking around the room cautiously and sees a brunette woman in a wooden chair next to a window streaming light into their room. She has a writing implement in her hands and a clipboard, a professional look on her face; she is writing something down.

Am I a fucking test subject or something!? What does he... how do I get out of this?

Shaula has no makeshift weapons. She checks her ears... her earrings aren’t there anymore…  Shaula sits still. She doesn’t breathe.

“Where did you put my earrings?”

Slightly panicked, she speaks sternly to the man before her. The man fears her abrupt reaction for a moment and then bows his head towards her. He extends the cube to her, still in its case, without closing his eyes. He cannot take the valuable object out of his sight, at the very least.

The woman in the room has a slightly fearful expression but behaves towards Shaula just like the man. She stops writing and bows her head, her eyes closed. Shaula... is confused. She feels slightly more secure knowing that a woman is in the room with her and not just the strange man.

...What did God say about where we’re going again?

Reluctantly, Shaula reaches her hand towards the cube. This seems to be what they want. The man gives affirmation with a head nod. Relenting to the situation, Shaula touches the cube.

Wh... wait... hold...

Shaula feels her consciousness thin slightly while the cube shines brightly. After some time, it dims abruptly.

“Are you alright, divine heroine?”

“Huh?”

The man retracts the white chest back and closes it, locking it properly. Another woman walks into the room and the man hands her the case. She behaves in deference towards him and walks out, closing the door behind her. Shaula makes a note of the door’s location, behind the man’s back.

But, her escape can wait while she sorts out the unbelievable events here.

“How... how can I understand you? Wait, how am I speaking to you? What language is this?”

“This is the language of Sapiora. The artifact I presented to you is known as a language crystal. It allows anyone who touches it to learn the language of this world, of Omicron.”

“How the fuck can such a thing...”

She could even swear, just like in english. The syntax structure was somewhat different and the translation wasn’t perfectly direct but her mind had assimilated everything about a completely different language such that even her style of speech didn’t change. This is too good to be true, even more dreamlike than her dream where she walked through fire.

The man lowers his eyelids slightly at her profanity.

“You may not be familiar with the concept but it is a type of lost magic. The artifact presented to you is actually extremely rare. But, the important thing is that you are able to speak to me clearly.”

“I...”

“Blessed heroine, my name is Cardinal Gratia Loqus. May I ask for your name?”

Shaula hesitates to answer... but feels that right now the best thing, in order to most easily secure her own answers and her safety, is to comply.

“My name is... Sh-Shaula Seikennith... Cardinal of what exactly?”

The word for “Cardinal” in Sapioran roughly translates to “Cardinal” ala Roman Catholicism.

It’s the position right below the pope, right?

“I am a Cardinal of the Holy Sapioran Federation. This is the nation representing all of humanity on this world called Omicron.”

“Omicron...”

“Yes. You were living in another world before you arrived here. But, you are now in Omicron to help our people of the human race. Let me explain the rough details for you...”

“Wait, before that... where are my earrings?”

“Your earrings? Oh yes, this is a result of the summoning process. All things that are not implanted within your body, under your skin, are destroyed in the transference. You arrived here without earrings, without clothing, without any possessions at all.”

“Wh...what?”

“Fear not, when you landed on the summoning area, you were clothed by female attendants including the one behind me. You were then carried to this room by them. Normally when a hero is summoned, they are unconscious for a few hours after landing. You arrived with the others about 2 hours–”

“Others?”

“Yes, about 300 other people have been summoned along with you.”

“300!?”

“Yes, thank the almighty Sapiora for helping you in your battle.”

“...”

“So, let me explain to you now the details. I understand that this may be quite confusing to you in the beginning of your time in this world. This is the world of Omicron. Right now, you are in the nation of Enkel, a state within the Holy Sapioran Federation. It is... the last state–”

“Wait... hold on...”

Shaula catches her breath for a minute. Even though she has just learned an entire language, the man is moving things as quickly as possible. She, however, cannot move at such a pace. She recalls what God had said to her. About being summoned to this world called Omicron as a heroine, at least that much is familiar to her.

No, forget that. Where...

“Where’s Ajax? Do you know where my friend Ajax Leonid is?”

“I’m afraid I can’t give details since no one else but you has woken up yet. You are actually the first to awaken so far. Don’t worry, after they wake up and receive the language, we will ask them their names and find the one named ‘Ajax Leonid’ for you. Nadir, please take note of that.”

The woman behind the cardinal sitting in her chair writes down Cardinal Gratia’s instructions.

Shaula cautiously inspects the cardinal before her. He seems to be in his late thirties. His head is covered by a hood. His face is fairly handsome and without facial hair. He is physically fit. Extremely physically fit. She has seen cardinals on television before around the Roman Catholic pope, but they were all unshapely old men.

She doesn’t have any confidence she’ll last in a fight against this man or even be able to escape from him.

What should I--

“Let me explain the situation currently. You are a heroine granted to us by our beloved Sapiora, King of the Wise. Currently, Shaula, dear, we are in a battle for our very existence.”

“Your existence?”

Where does the God from Earth I know fit into their theology?

“Yes. This nation Enkel... is the only nation still standing among the nations of the Holy Sapioran Federation. All other nations have been wiped out already. It is safe to say that extinction may await our race.”

“...”

“About 10 years have passed since a race of beings known as the demons launched an extermination campaign against us. They are a race that does not exist in your world. They destroyed the nation of Therea first, then the nation of Reind and finally, Wilhem was successfully conquered about 3 months ago. We have measures to ensure that their army cannot encroach our territory for a very long while. About 8 million humans in total have died. 10 million humans remain on this nation of Enkel. If they break through our defences with their unholy army, humanity will die out.”

“...oh my God...”

“Child, I do not know your customs but please do not take the name of our Lord in vain.”

“I-I’m sorry.”

“It is alright. This is not a holy place so it can be forgiven but I am a cardinal after all. Furthermore, please limit profanities if you could.”

“Y-yes. I apologize for that, it’s a force of--”

Suddenly, a man bursts into the room. A man in a red robe similar to the one that Gratia is wearing, however more reservedly decorated.

“Andal!? How dare you enter this room without my permission!”

“I apologize deeply, your eminence. However, this... this cannot wait... oh, another one of the heroes has awoken!”

“Andal...”

“Right, right. Your eminence, I was just with a hero, at least someone who was supposed to be a hero...”

“What do you--”

“Your eminence, the test has been administered. He does not have the grace of God. He is not a hero!”

The cardinal rises from his chair in anger and shock. The chair clatters hard against the ground, making the woman, Nadir, pull back slightly.

“Is it a spy then!? But... but that’s impossible... they could never have gotten so close...”

Shaula holds her breath. She remembers what God had said, something crucial. God had mentioned that neither of them… were compatible with the divine protection of the hero. Perhaps, that was why the two of them were singled out?  This must be what they mean by the ‘grace of God’. If that is the case, then the one that this new person is talking about… 

“Is his name Ajax? Is his name Ajax!?”

The red-garbed man freezes. The cardinal sees his reaction of affirmation. The cardinal rises and prepares a defensive stance. His eyes pierce her soul, their ferocity and animus clearly displayed. Shaula disregards it all, their gazes doing nothing to make her fear.

“Take me to Ajax!”