The royal palace of Mynoghra.
A pathetic king sitting on his throne as always, receiving pampering from the twin girls as always.
An unremarkable day, an unremarkable scene.
It was a time that, while not without its share of tension, could be called smooth and even peaceful—another day drifting along as it always did.
Until that very moment.
"What's going on?"
Takuto abruptly stood, muttering in a slightly flustered tone.
Sensing the king's unusual behavior, the girls standing at his side stared at him with puzzled expressions.
"Your Majesty, what happened?"
"Did something occur?"
"Quiet for a moment."
Both of them flinched as if scolded, slowly bowing their heads and completely falling silent.
What could have happened? The strange atmosphere made them anxious.
It was obvious from Takuto's demeanor that a serious problem had arisen.
They wanted to know immediately what was going on.
But they had the good sense not to blur out unnecessary words and disrupt the king's thoughts.
Moreover, Takuto had no bandwidth for that. Under normal circumstances he might have managed something more tactful, but the situation he had just confirmed left no room for such things.
Dragontan. A massive horde of barbarians had appeared south of the city.
(That's an impossible way to show up. Did some kind of event trigger?)
The initial report had come from the long-legged bugs Takuto had stationed around Dragontan.
They had originally been deployed to detect threats to Dragontan and investigate the cause of barbarian outbreaks, but...
Whether their purpose had borne fruit or simply shown him something he would rather not have seen, the sight shared through the long-legged bugs' field of vision chilled him to the bone.
(First, I need to order the long-legged bugs to gather detailed intelligence on enemy forces and eliminate them if possible... No, wait—should I confirm whether they're actually hostile first? No, at this point there's no time to be leisurely about it.)
The long-legged bugs, originally scout units, excelled at reconnaissance. Their wide-ranging, long-distance vision made it easy to assess enemy forces. On top of that, as insect units, their combat ability had been boosted by Isla's skills.
While Hill Giants would be tough, goblins and orcs could be mowed down with ease.
They did cost a bit to produce, but they weren't irreplaceable. Going on the offensive was clearly the best move.
(The number of enemies is... bad. There are at least 10 stacks!!)
Converted to legion units, roughly ten. In raw numbers, that meant no fewer than ten thousand enemy soldiers.
The count was despair-inducing, but there was no time to lament.
He was used to handling sudden emergencies.
Besides, in Eternal Nations, he had clawed his way through even worse predicaments than this.
Having confirmed that his fate remained undetermined, Takuto received real-time intelligence from his deployed long-legged bugs and calmly issued instructions.
He had to whittle down the enemy forces as much as possible, however slightly.
He still did not know what was happening, but one thing was clear: the decisive moment had arrived without warning.
Still standing, Takuto made for the palace exit.
Feeling two small presences following behind him, lost in the torrent of his thoughts, he asked a single brief question.
"Where's Isla?"
As King of Mynoghra, Takuto could monitor the status of every unit he controlled.
He could certainly locate Isla and issue her orders directly, but he deliberately posed the question to the twin girls instead.
One reason was that he wanted to make amends for having treated them carelessly.
The other was that confirming their presence reminded him of exactly what he needed to protect.
"Mama Isla is in the city—"
"Mama— I mean, Isla is scheduled to be inspecting buildings in the city of Mynoghra. Shall we call her?"
"No need— actually, that's fine."
Having caught the faint high-pitched hum in his ear, Takuto changed his answer.
It seemed Isla had already noticed the shift in the situation.
Before long, the small buzzing grew to the volume of a sports car engine, and then escalated into a deafening roar that made him want to cover his ears.
Just as Takuto stepped outside the palace, a tremendous boom rang out and Isla descended before him.
"My lord, please give your command."
Those words reminded him that Isla, through the insects under her command, already had access to every piece of information.
Then the conversation could be brief. Time was of the essence.
If the barbarian horde was not dealt with swiftly, it would become a fatal blow for Mynoghra.
Especially given that Dragontan was involved. He could not afford to lose the dragon vein node he had worked so hard to secure.
Takuto also turned his worries toward Atou.
She was assigned to Dragontan's defense. With her current abilities, he believed she could handle the barbarians regardless of numbers, but the situation was undoubtedly critical all the same.
There were mountains of things to think about and things to do.
In a game, time only advanced when you progressed the turn, so lengthy deliberation was possible.
Reality, however, was not so forgiving.
In a crisis where every second counted, prolonged thought was worse than foolish—it was farcical.
But in this world, Takuto was not alone.
Reliable subordinates were devoting every fiber of their being to supporting him.
And beyond them, he had someone he trusted above all else.
Perhaps his worry had reached her.
The face of the hero he trusted most had just surfaced in his mind when a communication arrived from the very same person.
"Lord Takuto. You may already be aware, but a massive horde of barbarians is pouring in from south of Dragontan!"
"I've confirmed it too. This is a disaster. What's your situation?"
Isla tilted her small head.
Was she consulting with Atou? was the implication of that question.
He nodded in response, and at the same time processed multiple tasks in his mind.
Delayed initial response would have cascading consequences later.
There was no time for floundering.
First, gather as much intelligence as possible as quickly as possible.
He would be fine. For an aberration of this magnitude, he was confident he could resolve it.
Takuto assessed his own capabilities accurately and made that judgment without a shred of misplaced optimism.
If anything, a barbarian raid had the upside of strengthening his heroes.
If they could hold a siege, it would be a fine event for feeding Atou and Isla experience points in the form of barbarians. Once they were defeated, he could leisurely investigate the root cause.
That was what he had been thinking.
But then...
"Before that, an urgent report. When we defeated a Hill Giant amid this horde, its corpse suddenly vanished—and it dropped a gold coin. Upon inspection, the currency is not from this world."
"Tch—!"
Takuto involuntarily cried out.
It was a possibility he had completely overlooked.
No—he had been aware of the possibility but had driven it from his thoughts.
If he and his people had been transported into this world as game characters, then it stood to reason that others from the same situation could exist as well.
He ground his teeth at the recklessness that had led to this.
(What a blunder! Why didn't I notice this sooner! No, I did think about it, but I guess I told myself it couldn't really happen... Damn it!)
He felt every piece of information rapidly converging into a single point.
Quolia was tied up dealing with the disturbance to the north.
What if that disturbance had been caused by the summoning of a civilization like his own?
The Holy Knight of Quolia's pilgrimage to the Great Cursed Realm, carrying the Saint's trust—what if that too had been a sign pointing to the emergence of a new civilization?
And now, if a fresh threat had arisen south of Dragontan...
He and his people had been reborn and were in the process of forging a new nation.
With a living example right here, there was virtually no guarantee that other countries had not done the same.
(Could it be from Eternal Nations? If so, the most likely candidates are the Guo-Guo-Gwago Great Chieftain's clan or the Natural Disaster Promotion Committee Apocalypse.)
His mind raced through a list of probable nations.
Barbarians—goblins, orcs, Hill Giants—had existed in Eternal Nations as well.
There were civilizations that could produce barbarian units for their own forces, and others that could incorporate barbarian forces into their own armies.
If those civilizations had also been transferred over, the danger would be incalculable.
Both were evil civilizations, and the concept of cooperating with other nations was virtually nonexistent among them.
That said—
(No, the likelihood that this is an Eternal Nations-derived civilization is slim.)
The probability was low.
Takuto made his judgment in an instant. While not certain of every detail, the situation Atou had described to him was entirely different from their own. At the very least, whoever was behind this had not arrived under the same circumstances.
When he analyzed all the information gathered so far, the barbarian outbreaks appeared to have been escalating in stages.
Initially, when defeated, they died just like ordinary barbarians—their corpses remained. But according to Atou's recent reports, the corpses had vanished and even dropped gold coins.
(The periodic barbarian raids were reconnaissance in force, then? But more importantly, the moment the corpse-vanishing phenomenon appeared, we should treat it as a sign of summoning... The increase in barbarians was the precursor?)
As if on cue, a massive barbarian horde appeared, a national crisis erupted, and the city was forced into defense.
As though heralding the beginning of some grand story...
(The numbers confirmed through the long-legged bugs' shared vision are abnormal. That's not something a civilization fresh out of a summoning could muster. And yet there had been absolutely no signs of other civilizations existing until now.)
If they could field this large a horde, their nation must be considerably substantial.
If that were the case, completely concealing their existence would be nearly impossible.
Through the long-legged bugs' reconnaissance, the uncharted territory south of Dragontan had been surveyed to a reasonable extent.
Even though the land was nothing but barren wasteland everywhere, had there been any trace of civilization, it would not have have gone unnoticed.
At this point, Takuto was nearly convinced that their opponent was a hostile military force from another world.
"Atou, do you have that gold coin on you? I'm going to share your field of vision."
"Yes, right now."
In an instant, their vision merged.
Takuto scrutinized the vivid image projected into his mind as though licking every detail off it.
He could not afford to cut corners. If he did not gather every scrap of information, the worst-case scenario—Mynoghra's destruction—was entirely possible.
With a touch of frustration, yet never once losing the steel-like composure he had built up over time, Takuto rummaged through the library of his memory.
"It's a coin I've never seen before either. It doesn't seem to be from an Eternal Nations-derived civilization... Most likely, it was made by a fairly advanced civilization. Do you recognize it, Lord Takuto?"
(This is—this pattern, I've seen it somewhere before!)
The ornamentation on the gold coin.
At the center of a symbol resembling a round sun, something that looked like characters had been engraved.
Takuto furrowed his brow. It tugged at something deep in his memory.
The events of his past flowed past as though projected through a projector on fast-forward.
Memories from days before the present situation, then weeks before...
Time kept rewinding until it reached the world before he arrived here—events in his hospital room.
The conversation he had with his doctor. The news he saw on television. The book he read to kill time.
And when those contents extended to the various game titles he had played in the past...
"So that's it—this crest is..."
Takuto identified the gold coin's origin and, at the same time, could not help but let his voice slip.
The situation was too perfectly orchestrated; he found himself thinking it really did seem like an event.
But then he realized that assessment might not be far off, and his face stiffened.
No—it had begun. At this very moment, a grand story was starting.
And if that was the case, then the worst-case scenario was truly the worst.
(This is bad... the enemy's abilities are an unknown variable.)
Gritting his teeth, Takuto seethed.
His own oversight had placed both himself and Atou in danger, and the frustration burned.
But he was not so mentally fragile that he would lose his composure over something like that.
Takuto gave Atou a few brief instructions and cut the communication short.
He told her to keep the telepathic link open and report developments in real time while focusing on the city's defenses.
First, he needed to lock down a basic strategy with Isla.
When Takuto emerged from the sea of thought and looked up, the twin girls had vanished from sight.
He realized that Isla had thoughtfully sent them to fetch Emuru and Gia, and gratefully turned toward her.
"Isla, we've got a serious problem—"
"What has happened?"
The tension in Isla's voice was unusual—her normally serene tone had gone taut.
She had recognized the gravity of the situation from Takuto's demeanor.
But how much of this had she anticipated?
"Looks like it's an enemy nation. Beings the same as us have arrived."
"The same as us? You mean from an Eternal Nations-derived civilization? Could we negotiate with them? If diplomacy is possible, it would be best to resolve this as peaceably as—"
"It's impossible. We probably can't communicate with them at all. They're not the kind of people who operate that way. They follow different world-rules than ours..."
At Takuto's words, Isla drew a sharp breath.
Having verified her lord's shocking statement over and over in her mind, she understood that he had already formed a fairly concrete hypothesis about the situation.
"You have an idea, then, my lord."
Takuto nodded at Isla's words and replied.
He recalled the pattern on the gold coin Atou had shown him and gave his answer.
"Just a guess, but I'm almost certain. The enemy is—"
"From an RPG game."
A game he had once played.
The same logo inscribed on the title screen of that game was engraved on the gold coin.
In a world of the unknown, military forces from entirely incompatible worlds were about to cross paths...
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A new force has been summoned into the world.
[Brave Questus Demon Lord Army]
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〈!〉 Error No. 447 (Abnormal operation detected)
〈!〉 Automated hero summoning has been suspended.
The World Protocol cannot accommodate this request.
───