Christa Rowfield is currently walking up a flight of stairs. She has been climbing these solidly built stairs for about four hours now.

She has been given the task to walk up this windowless flight of stairs until she reaches the final door of the staircase. She has been told that if she walks at a normal pace, she will reach the top of the staircase in six to seven hours.

At her pace however, it’ll likely take seven hours in the best case and nine if she has to take a break to catch her breath, eat and/or drink. But, she hasn’t exhausted herself just yet so perhaps this is the right way to go, like in the parable of the hare and the tortoise.

Do they have hares or tortoises here on Omicron? I wonder if they have an equivalent to Aesop...

Christa isn't walking alone. She is walking with a beautiful, red-haired woman beside her and a man. A heavily armoured man carrying food and water for the three of them.

The man must be a tremendous athlete because he has not succumbed to exhaustion at any point on their climb.

The staircase itself is a wide circular staircase enclosed within smooth, silvery-grey walls. It has been built so you cannot see down over any kind of railing.

Considering you’d have to climb for many hours to reach the top, it was probably for the best to not be able to see any clouds below you.

Christa is with strangers. Nice people from what she’s experienced but… strangers. 

She wishes she knew more about what's happening to her. When she had woken up, the woman climbing up the staircase with her had been there. She had given Christa something incredible. Something Christa never imagined existing in real life.

A device that allowed Christa to learn a new language instantly. To someone who received their Masters in Literature, a device like this is nothing less than a gift from God. Fluency without any trouble.

She became fluent in the language so completely that she was amazed beyond belief. If she wasn’t waking up in a room with strangers with no idea where she was, she would have simply marvelled at the fact that she could speak so fluently in an unknown language.

Even her thoughts were in this new language, referred to as the language of… Sapiora. An entity she’s heard a lot about from this woman, named Ponyi, as soon as they could converse with each other.

A being revered as God. The being that had brought her here apparently.

Her mother was a Presbyterian but Christa stopped believing in God at a young age. There was a point in the past when her mother died that she sincerely wished she was a believer; but, once she abandoned her faith, it would not return to her, no matter how much she wished.

She couldn’t unring the bell.

But these people… they not only believe in god, their god can actually enact miracles. Christa herself is considered a miracle to them.

Divine hero. Some kind of champion of humanity like... Goliath or Achilles or something. I think that’s how the archbishop had explained it. Brought here by God to slay the devil. Or something like that. So… Now, I’m the protagonist? Well, at least one of them.

Christa had asked about her students, their whereabouts, their safety. She had been told that there were a number of other children here who arrived on this world with her. She didn’t get any names but apparently she was brought here along with three hundred others. 

To another world called Omicron, this world.

Perhaps if Christa wasn’t already exposed to the language crystal, she would have found this fact hard to believe but she has no real choice except to believe what they told her.

No, wait, there can’t be fucking three hundred main characters, that means I’m a side character? Sigh… 

Christa considers the request that these people had made to her.

Christa had been brought here without a path to return home. She had made her peace with that. She had cried for quite some time so perhaps not ‘peace’ but she could at least handle that she is here for the moment.

When she met with an archbishop who called himself Jultrem, he had asked Christa in a very dignified way to help humanity fight a war. Apparently in this world, there’s a race referred to as ‘demons’ who have waged a war of extermination against all of humanity.

The divine heroes are those sent by God to fight against the demons and their ‘empire’.

They want me to train in close, mid-range and long-range combat and magic. Real magic. Then they want me to fight and crush this race of demons for them… So, they think we’re some kind of human weapons and they need me to strike down another race I have no idea about. I asked what made them ‘demons’ and it had to do with physical characteristics. Horns... and apparently when they die, they don’t leave a corpse but some kind of crystal or something. They’re an intelligent race though and when I asked them why they were fighting us, I just got fed propaganda. Shit. Let’s… let’s keep it together… I could… I’m this close to fucking exploding. Being taken from my home with no way to return, put here and asked to fight on behalf of the people here against another group of people I know virtually nothing about. This is… a nightmare… But… I can’t escape.

Christa has thought about escaping but… she has no idea how this place operates and she knows that it is swarming with guys like this armoured man walking with her.

Christa isn’t an athlete. She is a physically fit woman who takes good care of her body but this man… he’s a monster. The metal armour he’s wearing has to be extremely heavy.

He’s carrying that and their food and water at the same time, with no sign of tiring (not that she can see his face through his helmet). No sign of heavy breathing or fatigue.

Christa even saw him produce a sphere of light to illuminate this otherwise pitch-black staircase. The sphere is still floating next to them as they walk up the stairs. At his waist is… a sword.

So, I can at least guess that these people live in an age before gunpowder? How long ago was that? Although, they could have advanced differently compared to the world I’m from. Maybe… Maybe they don’t need guns because of their magic.

Versatile magic. It seems integral to this world. Apparently, she cannot use it at all now but with training…

Two hours pass. Christa continues walking up the stairs, the exhaustion starting to reach for her heels. She looks over at the armoured man. He had called himself Brunlit when he introduced himself to her.

“Hey, Brunlit? Are you tired at all? Do you want to rest?”

“No, my lady. A climb up this staircase at this pace would not make me tired. Actually, when you reach your full potential as a hero, you could run up five of these mountain staircases without losing your breath.”

“Oh, really? That’s… hold on, you said mountain staircase? What exactly does--”

“Oh, my lady, did I not tell you about the nature of this staircase? I apologize, forgive my insolence! I will accept your punishment if you would offer it now.”

The woman Ponyi bows her head in preparation for Christa’s scolding with an expectation of physical punishment. Truly Christa’s level in this hierarchy is… good to be aware of.

“N-No. That’s alright, no need for… j-just tell me then, what is this staircase?”

“Well, my lady Christa. I’ve explained about how this is an underground facility but your room is actually about ten floors below the base of a mountain called Ver in the forest region called Ystria. This flight of stairs has been tunneled out through a form of advanced magic from the basement floor where you awoke, all the way to the peak.”

“Oh. So that’s why it’ll take… many hours to climb. We’re literally climbing a mountain.”

“Yes. We apologize for this situation but we really couldn’t help it with the security issue we’re dealing with. I have always been told that we would never have to use this backup facility but… well, I suppose that’s why we have back-ups.”

“So, did I wake up underground or...”

“You actually arrived near our primary facility. After the security issue was revealed, we were forced to bring you here.”

Christa had been told that she had been asleep for a day and a half because of the effects of something called the divine protection of the hero. However, she didn’t know what that actually meant. She still doesn’t.

“Could either of you tell me what the divine protection of the hero is?”

“Huh? Oh, perhaps Archbishop Jultrem didn’t explain it properly.”

The archbishop had asked a lot of questions to Christa but he wasn’t upfront about the knowledge that he had. Perhaps now, Christa can get answers to some important questions.

“Well, I don’t know the exact specifics of how it works but apparently Lord Sapiora gives humans from that world a blessing to allow them to reach their potential extremely quickly. If heroes from your world weren’t given the divine protection of the hero, they would still be able to reach their potential but it would take them a few decades compared to around a year through the providence of the protection.”

“So… in a year, if I train properly, I’ll be able to… actually, what will I be able to do? You’ve mentioned something about stamina but what else?”

“Hm. Maybe you can answer that, Brunlit?”

“Ah, yeah, I’ve learned a lot about past heroes. In terms of the difference between heroes and normal humans of our world, I think your lifespan is extended significantly. Your mana capacity becomes extremely high after some training. Your physical strength allows you to perform amazing feats of strength. Like, hmm… how could I explain it better…”

Brunlit furrows his brow while Christa considers the benefits of being a hero. She doesn’t understand what a ‘mana capacity’ is and physical strength is low on her list of priorities. But lifespan… now that’s--

“Oh! For example, take this mountain we’re walking up. I’ve heard that an awakened hero is able with only their physical strength to destroy a mountain like this with a single sword-strike... without even reaching exhaustion.”

Christa stops walking forward.

“Wait. Wait, hold on. That’s... impossible.”

“No, my lady. Brunlit is telling the truth. I myself have heard similar tales. There were incidents in the past where a single hero fought and killed a hundred dragons. I think the hero Rurik once told my father that he could split the clouds while standing on the ground.”

“Come on… that’s… that’s… I’ll be able to do that?”

(Wait, dragons? What are--)

“I don’t see why not. If you train properly, your strength will reach any of the heroes of legend, my lady!”

Brunlit gives Christa his enthusiastic encouragement.

“...You know, if it’s alright with you, could I take a break here?”

Too much information. Too much information. A potential she had never dreamed of.

Christa, Ponyi and Brunlit take a break on the stairs, taking the opportunity to have some food. Christa can’t even taste it.

About a half hour passes. Christa observes both Brunlet and Ponyi as they eat. Brunlit is a handsome man indeed. Both Brunlit and Ponyi have immaculate skin and clean teeth.

Hm. That’s interesting. If this were a medieval society or even a society prior to the invention of toothpaste and toothbrushes, their teeth and skin would be badly taken care of, at least yellower, right? 

Ponyi in particular is extremely beautiful. A woman with medium length hair, styled in what Christa would describe as an angled bob cut. 

Maybe it’s their wealth? Right... If they truly value me as a ‘divine hero’ then they’d only let the highest in society take care of me. This maid and the man might be rich people or at least upper class.

“Hm? Is something wrong, my lady?”

Christa had been staring too long.

“No, it’s nothing. I just thought that… you two are very attractive people. Are you like… wealthy or something?”

“Ah, well, actually, my father has the rank of Earl among the Enkel nobility, how perceptive of you!”

“What about you, Brunlit?”

“I am the fourth son of the venerable General Oster Brada of the Brada family of knights.”

“Fourth son… How many brothers and sisters do you have?”

“Twelve brothers and fourteen sisters. I am actually the third son of my father’s legal wife.”

“Oh… wow. So, it’s like that here...”

Nobility of rank Earl. Polyamory. Family of knights. A feudal society then... Probably pre-industrial before merchants gained power and became bourgeois capitalists then? And I’m stuck in this world with the potential to become god-like. Wow, that’s--

“Brunlit, do you hear that?”

“Yes, those are footsteps. Another hero is probably being escorted up the stairs with us.”

“Oh, by the way, what’s at the top--”

Around the corner of the staircase, a woman’s face appears. A familiar one. The woman runs towards Christa with a beaming smile on her face. Christa feels a tight embrace as the woman hugs her.

“Ms. Rowfield! Thank goodness you’re here!”

“Juliana!?”