As the eyes with complex emotion left our faces, pope opened the door. Inside, we could see a beautiful girl in luxurious dress, with tired face that contrasted with it. There was a makeup to cover the fatigue, but it was easy to see even with the make up. The black circles under her lifeless eyes, the still beautiful golden hair even after losing their luster, her shoulder that were sagging down. All these showed how tired she was, and how desperate the people of this worlds was.
"Hello, it is nice to meet you all. My name is Sola Tureus. As you might have heard from Sir Fredrick, I am second princess of this city, Rion. We greatly appreciate you heroes being here." She stood up and curtsied, bowing her head slightly while holding her dress. We panickily returned it, with Reed and I putting our hand on our chest. After brief silence to see who is going to speak up, I had to go to front after their silent urging.
"Hello Princess Sola. You have our sincerest gratitude for your welcome. My name is Luxion Walker. On my left is my friends, Reed Veeler with light brown, the one with gold hair is Katy Seeler, with brown hair Sera Drucker, and with white, Luna Wheeler. We are friends of same age." When I told their name one by one, the princess nodded to each of them.
After the introduction was done, each of us went to see at somewhat big round table. Considering the size of the room, the size wasn't out of place, but all 5 of us were still able to sit at opposite half of the table with enough space to spare, as pope, who I am guessing the name to be Fredrick, sat to her left. It seemed that somehow I'm the leader for our little group on this meeting, as I had to sit in the middle with Reed and Sera on my right, and Katy and Luna on my left.
As we got situated in our seats, 7 maids brought us teas, with 2 leaving the room out the only door and other standing by the wall. As we drank teas to moisten our throat and think. I looked out the large windows to my right, and I could see vast stretches of grass lands and fields beyond castle walls. The weather was quite fine, clear sky with some drifting clouds. As I was waiting for the other side to speak, and also what to say, I could finally hear a small cough from the princess.
Turning my head back to her, I could see her staring straight back at me, possibly thinking that I am leader of this group, with the pope wondering why I'm sitting in the middle after the shenanigan at the summoning room, but also giving a look of realization.
"I don't know how much Sir Fredrick has told you, but we have summoned you heroes to help us defeat the demons and monsters, and drive away, or even possibly kill the demon king. Currently, our situation is not very bright, I would say despairing instead.
Many of our cities and villages fell under their attack, only leaving us enough time to barely evacuate most of the people only through great sacrifices, and without enough supplies, we are depending our druids to exhaust themselves everyday just to grow enough crops to not starve our people to death. At this moment there's many refugees who are homeless, children and babies crying from hunger.
Our soldiers are sorely lacking in numbers, only being able to hold the frontlines due to how they were forged through this brutal war. Our enemies are numerous, from monsters and demons from demonic worlds, to different races who have betrayed and defected to them. Even up to now, I do not know if there are any more spies within our ranks.
Yet, I still want to save our people. To give future to the children, and smiles to their families. I know that I'm asking a lot of things from you, but still, could you heroes possibly help us?" As she said with desperation just oozing out of her voice, I could tell that my friends were being very sympathetic, and will agree right away if I didn't stop them.
"Princess Sola, as much as we would like to help, our world does not have monsters, nor often wars large enough to require normal civilians to bear arms. We are in just students in late years of high school, a equivalent of medium or high-level education institution, which would not provide us education on how to wield weapons and kill, let alone survive, on battlefields. As such, I have a question. Is there any way for us to return to our original world?" Hearing my question, I could see her gritting her teeth, tensing of her arms, and despair and hopelessness slowly clouding her eyes, along with the pope's.
"... Yes, we do. We had prepared for such necessity just in case. If we were to prepare the ritual to locate and transfer you guys to the original location, it would take us about a month." She was barely able to respond with lowered head. Hearing this, I looked at my friends.
"You guys heard her. What's you guys' response?" Hearing my question, they stayed still for a little, then finally answered after looking at me from time to time.
"Well, I want to help them out if I can."
"If they can send us back, I want to try my best as long as I can."
"I don't think I would get a sound sleep if I were to just refuse them."
"Well, I'm worried about my families, but I think they wouldn't worry too much?"
As Reed, Katy, Sera, spoke up, they were shocked and nervous hearing Luna's reply, but weirdly enough, let out a relieved sighs. Maybe there was something I wasn't understanding, but they look oddly carefree, a little too much so that I couldn't help tell them off.
"You do realize this is war we are talking about? Where killing is real and blood and gore is not just mosaic, and the situation is gonna be shoved right to you guys' face?"
""""Oh, we'll be fine."""" Was the synchronous response I got, now making me sigh.
"Well, Princess Sola, you heard them. We will stay and help. So please lift your head, and help us understand the situation better. To make sure that we can survive, we need to know estimate on the shortest amount of time that we can actually train without being at the frontline."
