{Emperor’s Diary}
Mostly everyone would think about some cheesy anime or Asian novel when they’re told about other worldly summoning. An individual, or a small group, will be summoned by some kingdom to fight some larger than life battle. Then there’s me. I’m not a young man by any means. I’m just turning thirty. I have always been a game fan and enjoyed a good fantasy book. I’ve never had a girlfriend, or even been with a woman either for that matter. Unemployed, I live with my family that’s lost patience with me. I’m out of shape and lazy too. In essence, I’m a loser. I smooch off my family and the government, and I don’t even try to support myself.
Well, I did have dreams before, but most of them involve being with a scalie anthro dragon1dragonspecies girl. We all have our fetishes after all. And then I died. Or rather, my mortal shell from my previous world gave out on me and I was transported to a new world in a new and healthier body. When I woke up, I had no idea what was going on. I thought I entered heaven, or maybe even hell. Turns out the latter was correct. Instantly, after becoming aware of my situation, I was bound in chains and had a tattoo put on my chest. Which I will later call my greatest asset. After that, my consciousness faded for a time while I was beaten to near death via spartan combat training.
I have always been timid, but there are always those who are timid, but with an angry side. I’m one of those such people, but my tolerance is exceedingly high. I find myself as some sort of pacifist. I avoid fighting whenever I can. I don’t enjoy bloodsports, nor do I find near death experiences thrilling. The moment that tattoo was put onto me though, the claws of those that I have come to hate for the remainder of my life were in me. As much as a mosquito is for a large animal.
When there was a break from training, I looked at the menu that everyone had. It was divided into four default options; skills, abilities, talents, and stats. Skills were action skills. Swing a sword, get the sword skill. Do a combo, get a combo skill. Perform a one hit kill, get a crit skill. Abilities are what those skills apply. With the sword skill and combo skill, you can perform a double strike. Then there’s talents. These are passives that your born with or acquire. For example, greater intelligence. For me; I started with intelligence, tactics, and mute. With the knowledge of my former life, I was obviously intelligent. Even commoners were intelligent to a certain degree, but they usually didn’t have the skill. I assumed that this skill came about from my knowledge to do math, more than anything.
As for tactics, I have played and read a lot of strategy oriented materials. I know how to be at least smart in my movements to my plans to a certain degree. As for mute. That’s a fail safe for the slave tattoo on my chest, but it was actually a godsend instead. I had no magic5magicstory mechanic power in my body, but I can’t perform magic acts without chanting spells, so the mute skill heeds my progress anyways. I have no means to raise said magic power, which is how the tattoo affects its target.
Now, I will explain the fourth option, stats. Stats are a numerical value of the characteristics of the world. From the basics of strength, vitality, and wisdom; to the more uncommon commerce and leadership stats. Naturally, there are two ways to raise these stats. The first is to raise one’s level, and the other is training. This is why my strength stat went from 8 to 11 in the two months I was doing spartan training. After my basic training, I was taken back to the palace I was summoned at. Of course, I didn’t know the language initially, so they had to cast translation magic on me. Now that I was strong enough to be a foot soldier, at the least, the summoning ceremony began. They explained a bunch of different things to me; why I was summoned, what sacrifices were done in order to do so, what they expected of me, and what reward I will receive for doing so. As I looked at the princess, my lustful desires peeked for a moment because she was by no means unattractive.
In fact, she had the face of an actress, her body was well portioned, and by her looks, I could tell she wasn’t pleased with this situation either. Not as much as I was, but enough to show that I wasn’t her type. Still, she was willing to deal with that small detail knowing full well she can control me, which is what I thought. Now, the question is; do I want to stay or not? Fundamentally, I’m a support character in my eyes. I would, with no other choice, at least care for myself to a minimal degree. I know how to cook and clean at least. I also know some medical stuff and I can use a bow. That was the one activity I used to do with my father when I was young. In fact, that was when my old body was probably in the best shape. It has been over a decade since I last hunted something, but I could still do it if I tried.
After the ceremony, I was shown around the castle town. In essence, they just showed me the basics, then threw me out into the open world and told me to earn my own keep. After forcefully becoming an adventurer at the last stop on the tour, I was given a small pouch of coins and left to my own devices. Seriously! I have no voice, I can’t read other languages, and I don’t even know how much money they gave me! Can I buy supplies with this? What about an inn? I sighed, then I looked at the notice board. There were obvious divisions by rank. The top one I saw had an image of some sort of animal like a boar on it. What they explained to me was the more stars there are on the board, the higher the ranking of the task is. Of course, I was ranked half a star since I just joined, so I could only accept up to one star tasks, which are on the end of the board.
{Narrator}
Summoning, a method humans have developed to drag souls from other worlds to their own. The process isn’t very easy either. First, you need no small amount of power via magic, or miasma to perform it. Next, it requires a sacrifice of one individuals soul to trade for another person in the body it will be taking. The tradeoff of knowledge and rapid growth rate for the new soul often makes the choice of lesser nobles over common folk. After the soul is exchanged, the process of mental manipulation via carrot and stick methods, as well as brainwashing through magic is applied. This will wear down the new soul to do the bidding of the summoner, given time of course. By the time the new soul has regained their individual thoughts once more, they are fully driven by the cause the summoner set forth. The cost of a royal heir is a small price for the ruler of such powerful beings. As any child born from the summoned and the mate of choice of the royal bloodline will be put to death and replaced. Through these methods, this ensures that the summoned is content and the summoner keeps full control of their investment.
