Chapter 1 - A Royal Summoning
"Huh?"
I was dropping by the neighborhood library for a quick read.
I, Iwatami Naofumi, am a sophomore[1] from a local university. I'm quite self-conscious about being somewhat more of an otaku compared to other homo-sapiens[2].
I've embraced countless anime, games, and other aspects of otaku culture, but I do take my studies seriously so that I can lead a proper life.
Actually, my parents had swiftly given up on me and invested their hopes onto my little brother by sending him off to attend some famous cram school.
This brilliant eyesore of a brother finally snapped one day and transformed into a delinquent due to all the accumulated stress. He bleached his hair and went full yankee mode once he arrived home one fateful day, and thus marked the start of our family's dark age.
That was when I, the messiah, made his debut!
I tenderheartedly welcomed this ill-humored and tongue-clicking brother of mine and recommended him to a famous galge[3].
"Haha!? Would you look at this mess!"
"Wut, I was fooled, just wait until I get the hang of this and you'll see."
I knew it all. All about the cause of my delinquent brother's transformation.
On one hand you have me, who grew up doing whatever the hell he wanted, while on the other hand my brother was forced to study like a mad man.
Therefore, once a slacking-specialist like me baited him with a few games, he instantly became hooked like an addict.
As far as I was concerned, the world's otaku count had once again increased by one.
Afterwards, his room turned into a castle of galge goodies from the games I recommended.
However, the vexing part was that once all the steam and stress vanished from his system, he graduated from that certain famous cram school with ease and headed straight down the road to becoming one of society's top dogs.
As a result, thanks to my heroic achievements, my parents pampered me to an even greater degree. I was granted a fulfilling college life with the utmost freedom included.
To sum it all up, I am the useless leech of the Iwatami household.
Now enough with the rant, I was dropping by the neighborhood library for a quick read.
My monthly war chest, funded by my parents, amounted to 10,000 yen. Such a meager amount lasted only for a moment when faced against manga-adaptions-of-light-novels, eroge[4], erohon[5], and other great products from far and wide.[6]
Part-time jobs during the summer and winter seasons got me another 50,000 yen worth of war funds, but when one decided to partake in the local festival, this amount of money would soon disappear.
Yet when my brother desperately begged as if his life depended on it, our parents agreed to provide us with lodging within the festival's general vicinity for its entire duration, but that still wasn't enough...
Well, to maintain one's livelihood, one has no choice but to learn how to conserve one's wallet; which is just barely enough for tuition and basic life necessities.
Thus in order to save money, even though it pains my heart to do so, I have to read old books from second-hand bookstores and the library.
During my free time, I usually play net games that proved to be infinitely time-consuming as I tried to master each one of them.
I'm the type that likes to play around with a wide array of trivial knowledge to begin with.
Reaching max level in a game wasn't as interesting and addictive as hoarding money to me. Even right now, the character that I created was currently vending on the streets while trying to sell off rare items.
Hence, the real me with nothing to do was quite bored.
That's the reason.
The reason behind the incident that was about to occur.
I was lurking around the section that dealt with old fantasy books.
At any rate, when compared to mankind's history, the fantasy aspect seems to be quite outdated. Even the Holy Scriptures could be considered as a type of fantasy.
"Four Heavenly Weapon's Manual?"[7]
For some reason, only this ancient looking, retro-sounding book had fallen from the bookshelves.
Most likely, some random guy must have quickly shoved this book onto the shelf and went on his merry way.
This must have been a sign of destiny calling.
I sat down on a chair and started reading the Four Heavenly Weapon's Manual.
Flip... Flip...[8]
The story began with the description of a parallel world.
To summarize, it prophesied the world's demise.
Sooner or later, waves of disaster will assault this world one after another until it's finally destroyed.
To escape the impending doom, they have to summon heroes from other worlds and request their aid.
... Ok. The plot's a bit overused, but since this is a retro-fantasy book, it doesn't seem to be out of place.
The four summoned Heroes all possessed their own respective, unique weapons: Sword, Spear, Bow, and Shield.
Aiya ~ to begin with, a shield can't even be considered a weapon, right? ~
I chuckled sarcastically as I continued with the story.
The heroes then ventured separately, in order to gain power in preparation against the waves of disaster.
"Fuwaaa[9]"
Crap, I'm getting sleepy.
A regal urge to sleep swept through my body. Even though this book is ancient, there has been no cute heroine appearing at all.
Although, even if a princess were to appear, she would undoubtedly smell like an irritating slut in heat with a harem involving the four heroes.
Enough with the princess, let's take a glance at the heroes' characteristics, onto the first one.
The Sword Hero probably had overwhelming combat strength, while the Spear Hero was probably the considerate type of guy.
I wondered if the Bow Hero would be able to get rid of a horrible dictator like Robin Hood did.
Huh? The story was shifting towards the Shield Hero.
"A-re?"[10]
As I flipped to the next page, I instinctively let out a voice.
The page concerning the Shield Hero that spread out in front of me was white.
No matter which angle or direction I looked at the page, it was pure white through and through.
"What the heck?"
Right when those words left my mouth, my consciousness drifted away.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever thought that I would awaken in a parallel world.