Tip, tit, tat.
Like the grating shrill of chalk against a chalkboard, the inscriptions of pencils reverberated.
"Yes, I feel it... language is speaking to me!"
Rowan's pencil flew out and about, a dance of lightning as his hand scribbled at blistering speeds, his mind slowly succumbing to the realization of his circumstances.
His room was an absolute calamity--piles of balled-up paper colonized the floor, dried pens and worn pencils scattered like fallen soldiers in a battlefield of frustration.
Only his desk remained untouched, standing tall like an island amidst the chaos, his bed having long since been consumed by the war.
"After years, I've finally begun to do it. The words... they're perfect. The ultimate poem, It's finally here--"
Spontaneously, a blinding flash of light erupted, drowning out Rowan's inscriptions just as he carved the final stanza.
"No... no... no!"
...
Rubbing his aching head, Rowan opened his eyes, bracing for the expected piercing assault of light—but was instead greeted by suffocating darkness.
"Where am I... or, rather, where are we?"
Violently, Rowan recoiled, the sudden voice hammering through the silence and knocking him off balance.
It had been months since he'd last heard another human voice, yet strangely, no pang of nostalgia stirred within him.
"It seems that something flung us into this dark, cramped room."
Another voice chimed in, this time from the opposite side, prompting Rowan to push himself off the cold floor.
He paid closer attention this time—the voice was male, but not fully matured. Sixteen, seventeen, maybe.
"Whatever that thing was, it seems we're trapped with these creepy men."
A new voice rang out nearby, distinctly female, carrying an aggressive edge that made Rowan instinctively tense.
As she spoke, the oppressive darkness began to peel away, Rowan's pupils dilating painfully as weak light seeped back into existence.
Etched beneath them was a massive, ominous pentagram, deep red lines snaking out from its center--one tendril kissing Rowan's foot.
At each of the five points stood one of them--four others besides Rowan, each radiating an unfamiliar, electric presence.
The redhead, broad-shouldered and fire-eyed, wore strength like a second skin. Her upright stance and razor-sharp glare made approaching her feel like volunteering to be flayed alive.
"I mean... how else could we have gotten here?"
Standing just beside her was a petite girl barely scraping five feet, her violet hair cascading down her back, her figure both delicate and embarrassingly conspicuous.
"Yes... perhaps these men surrounding us might know."
To Rowan's right stood two young men, each about his height, though their demeanors split in opposing directions.
One had a composed, almost detached aura, his pitch-black hair hanging low, swallowing the dim light.
The other, a jolt of energy incarnate, sported messy yellow hair that seemed perpetually charged, tiny strands jutting out in all directions like frozen bolts of lightning.
"I say we make a break for it!"
Fwish, fwoohhh!
Suddenly, dozens of robed figures lining the edges of the room collapsed as one, their robes fluttering and slapping against the stone floor.
One of the robed men yelped, "I-I-it worked!"
Some of the robed figures remained sprawled unconscious, while others twitched feebly, struggling to right themselves.
"Hey, wait, damn it! Tell us why we're here!"
The redhead stomped toward the nearest conscious cultist, grabbing him by the collar and hoisting him high.
Thoom!
With the grace of a demolition crew, she slammed him into the wall, cracking the stone in a spiderweb pattern that hissed dust into the air.
The abrupt burst of light spilling through the fractured wall made Rowan recoil, shielding his eyes.
Gasps broke out among the others, but Rowan's focus narrowed in on the redhead herself—she wasn't just strong. She was *deliriously* thrilled by it.
She stared at her palms, wide-eyed and grinning like a wolf catching its first scent of prey.
"You... have been summoned to this world..."
The cultist coughed blood onto the floor, his voice ragged and bubbling, each word struggling past the liquid congestion in his throat.
Rowan froze.
'World?'
No way.
Was this really that?
Was this really the thing every isekai-obsessed teen dreams about but knows deep down could never actually happen?
"Huh!?!"
The four of them shrieked in unison.
The rational part of Rowan's mind battered his skull, screaming to dismiss it as absurd. But something deeper--something primal--scraped at his chest, whispering 'what if'.
"Well, if you think about it, it makes sense."
The black-haired boy's voice sliced through the panic like a scalpel.
"You all saw it—the teleportation, the magic circle. And our bodies feel... different."
Rowan flexed his hand instinctively. It was true. His limbs felt light, almost unbearably so, as though he could leap and never come back down.
"Yeah, honestly, I feel like I could run a marathon without breaking a sweat!"
The yellow-haired boy spun on his heel, laughing, fists pumping through the air like pistons.
"Very perceptive," another voice said, this one thicker, older, and full of a calm authority that made the cultists seem like squabbling ants.
Out from the shadows stepped a man bathed in flowing robes of gold and platinum, each thread shimmering with an unnatural brilliance.
The very air seemed to bow to his presence, the oppressive atmosphere making Rowan's knees feel suspiciously unreliable.
This was no mere summoner.
This was something else.
Something dangerous.
Something... important.
Electrifying tendrils of sensation began to spread across Rowan's body, the hairs on his skin rising up in anticipation.
Hrnggghhh!
Rowan could've swore he heard the clattering of teeth as himself and the surrounding heroes all emitted sounds of deep, primal grunts, their legs and arms violently shaking but not moving further than an inch.
As the forced irresponsiveness of Rowan's body continued, the surrounding summoned all seemed to slow down, each action of his seeming as if he were travelling through molasses.
His arousal was at an all-time high, and yet, it felt as if there were nothing he could do as each attempted movement was rendered more and more futile.
Seconds began to feel like hours as Rowan struggled in vain to move, a welling feeling of red, hot frustration broiling and engulfing his entire psyche.
A force, perceptible but not conspicuous, began to hang over him as dark tendrils slowly slithered across his skin, then into his bone, eventually coming back up through his brain to darken his conscious.
"Sorry, this is not typically how I do introductions, but seeing as your red-haired friend here was practically burning through me with killing intent, even knocking out one of the kingdom's best mages, I feel it's necessary to quell you folks, first."
The man stood at a rather modest 5'6, his hair silver with a beard several inches long that reached out to connect to a mustache.
He was clearly physically able and experienced, scars with varying size and shape spanning all across the skin visible through his vibrant armor.
Accompanied by this was a body with such muscular tone that if Rowan were in his previous world, he would've assumed him to be a body builder.
The man raised his hand before positioning his thumb below his middle finger, finally using it to produce a 'snap' that resounded across the eerie room where they'd been summoned.
In contrast to the impossibly constraining atmosphere that had made speaking virtually impossible, it was almost surreal how quickly sound returned, the collective heavy breathing of the summoned dispelling the dreary.
Testing the newfound normalcy, Rowan moved his arm up and down, his cheeks folding to show his teeth through a smile.
"Well, then, have we all calmed down--"
Slam!
The man was forced to raise his hand, his palm meeting the end of another's fist.
However, what was most surprising was who attacked him.
All at the same time, the red-head and the other two guys all rushed towards him with a devastating blow, the still air transitioning into a violent storm of bellowing hails as Rowan's feet began to lift, the air just barely resisting earth's influence on his body.
Fwoosh!
The storm grew with such intensity that the four were made entirely inconspicuous. The sounds of the pounding of flesh could be heard, but by no means could Rowan tell what was going on.
Only after their clash ended and the winds began to retract was the result made most evident.
"Hahhhh... hahhhh..."
The one heaving was the woman, her legs folded and her arms slack.
She exhibited a profuse wobble, the spontaneity of her movements striking in such a manner that one could've imagined she would tip over from a light breeze.
Standing perfectly upright was the man, seemingly unharmed as he held onto what looked like a book.
The stormy winds hadn't yet disappeared, but still Rowan looked on in pursuit of the other two who'd been fighting with the lady.
"Oh~ you're quite the feisty one. I'm sure you'll be transcendent in Koudo, seeing as you've already naturally adopted the art of physical enhancement."
The winds finally quelled as the area surrounding the man began to become distinguishable.
Looking on at two slumps positioned in opposing sides to the man, Rowan saw the already familiar black and yellow hair forming a contrast to their mainly bland clothing.
"However, I would like to emphasize that I am not the ene--"
"You two, get out of here!"
The red-head turned towards Rowan and the other girl who were both still in the previously dark room, eyes wide as their mouths hung open.
Rowan was the first to break out of his stupor, reaching out his hand to grab the purple-haired girl's.
As soon as he made contact, he began a single-minded escape, bolting it out of the room and to the left of the hallway away from the corridor the four had been fighting in.
Making it just past the corner, Rowan looked back on the red-head, the convulsions of her body growing even more in intensity.
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah, I'll be fine!"
Hm, quite the bravado, but even Rowan wasn't nice enough to help someone throwing down their life if it meant saving his own.
"Wait, I really am your guys' friend here--"
"Don't believe his lies, he's just trying to coax us into allowing him to kill us."
The black-haired guy on the ground spoke up, interrupting the man's speech as he reached out to grab the man's leg, keeping him from stepping forward and almost tripping him.
"Yeah, you all felt it, right? The aura leaking from this guy was so dangerous that it felt as if just being near him would kill me."
The other guy spoke up, also grabbing the man's leg.
Both of them pulled at him, a thud echoing across the corridor as the clattering of hard metal impacted.
"Hey, I'm really just trying to help you guys here--"
Again, the man was interrupted by the slamming of stone, the red-head jumping into a forward punch that prompted the man to just barely weave his head to the side.
"Okay, that's enough!"
As soon as the words escaped the man's mouth, cracks and smears began to run across the walls, a wind again propping forth from his book.
This time, however, it was different. It felt different, as if whatever the man was doing were something foreign.
All five of the summoned present in the corridor flew back, the sheer force of his outburst slamming Rowan and the girl he was holding into the far end of the corridor, almost back to where the red-head had created the hole.
"I do not wish to harm you, heroes, but I am simply the chosen messenger sent to escort you to king Viral."