5 The Library

King Grathazor watched on as Martin left the room. He straightened his back, slowly returning to his royal grandeur. He turned to the head priest and inquired "So Gabriel, what do you think about the young man?"

"A fine young man your majesty. In my opinion he is exactly like what he stated- A sharp blade of vengeance."

"He seems to be pretending to be a sly individual, but is actually quite straightforward"

"That he is."

"Your majesty I didn't quite understand why you let him dominate you throughout the exchange."

"One must be humble when asking for help. I did have to show my sincerity."

"Yet, he does have a problem doesn't he?"

"Yes, my king. He seems to have just suffered a big loss and had his beliefs shaken."

"That's good, moreover he is still young , that means he can still be moulded. The blade of vengeance cuts both ways, we can turn him into a blade of justice."

"Of course by the time you are done, you will surely make a hero out of him."

"Yes I will Gabriel, yes I will."

---

Martin entered the room and closed the door.

Leaping onto his bed he couldn't help but lament

"That sly old bastard!"

Martin knew that the king wasn't as simple as he let on. Unfortunately Martin was never as good at scheming as Lucas was.

was...

It seems that he had already started to refer to Lucas in past tense.

The fall of the Anarchists really hit him hard. They were once an unstoppable force. Nations would tremble at their name. Anarchy at its finest. Yet, he knew that they never really embodied the soul of anarchy. Anarchy was after all- order in the absence of governance, but they ran along like a bunch of edgy teenagers yelling power, vengeance and chaos.

He wasn't as shaken by his summoning as by the deaths of Lucas and Vincent. He knew he had to accept it. One thing he had learnt over the years was that escaping from the truth only hurt more than accepting it.

At least he now had an outlet to direct his bloodlust at. If the Demon King was actually how he was led to believe, he was the perfect target.

Sighing to himself, Martin shook his head and stood up.

"I still know too little about this world."

He walked to the door and requested to be led to the Library.

---

The library was huge with pillars of marbles, towering bookshelves and murals all over the walls and the roof.

Martin froze, It was because he just realized a huge problem. The language of this world wasn't English, but he didn't seem to have any problems communicating with the people. He looked up and read an inscription.

"The Place for the cure of the soul"

It wasn't written in English but he could understand every single word written. It seemed to be a side-effect of the summoning spell. It seems that magic here wasn't as simple as throwing random spells at each other. That aside this discovery made him extremely excited and terrified at the same time.

Excited, as it meant the end of all language barriers.

Terrified, as it meant that this world was slowly getting even more difficult to understand.

Magic, by definition is science so advanced that one doesn't understand how it works.

The unknown, after all has been the biggest source of humanity's fears since time immemorial.

He slowly looked at the murals to learn about the history of the realm.

The first one depicted God forming the realm and all the creatures receiving his blessings.

Mermen rose from the sea, Beastmen from animals, Elves from the trees and dwarves from the mountains.

Humans were raised from the earth, but that's when shit hit the fan.

In the second mural, Humans started learning the art of magic and spread it to the other races. God impressed by their ingenuity decided to turn some of the humans into his angels to serve him.

However that seemed to be a huge mistake.

They faithfully served god until some of them got fed up. One angel decided that enough was enough and decided to stab God right through the back, both literal and figuratively. He later came to be known as Diablo the Ist

'Damn, that brings up some memories!'

In the third mural, God seemed to be in his dying throes. The rest of the angels scattered and those who had chosen to follow the traitor were all cursed. They were stripped of their power and became the new race of demonkind. Finally they were banished from the plane just before god breathed his last.

Marcus moved on to the fourth mural, but it seemed to be incomplete. It depicted the demons returning to invade the land time and time again before a human hero would kill the demon king and force them back. Sometimes the hero died with the demon lord, at others he would fail after which the demons would retreat after a war of attrition. The world appeared to be stuck in a vicious cycle.

"Beautiful aren't they" a voice said from beside him.

"What?"

"The murals."

"Yes Indeed." he replied. "but history is full of as many lies as there are truths."

"Of course, Lies are often the most beautiful things in the world, while truths are what hurt the most."

"Sorry for interrupting you. My name is Freya. I am the head mage of this nation and your magic instructor."

Martin turned and found a beautiful woman dressed in - well mage clothes, robe and all standing next to him arm outstretched. She was a typical western beauty with blond curly hair, sparkling blue eyes, cherry lips and- ahem! This might not be the best time to mention it but Martin wasn't the best around girls.

Putting on his most 'Lucas' grin so far, he shook her hand.

"Nice to meet you, Miss Freya. You may call me Martin."

"Nice to meet you too, Mr. Martin. So I take it you are interested in learning more about our world"

"Yes indeed, but for the time being I would like to know more about how magic works here. Especially regarding how I was summoned."

"Very well Mr.Martin."