The paper bag crumpled as I reached in to gingerly pick up a warm, sugar-coated roasted chestnut. The lovely aroma tickled my nose as I brought the tasty delight to my lips. My mouth watering, I popped it in and savored the flavor.

  “Hmm…slightly burnt,” I muttered as I chewed the treat. Alvin’s Delights was the best roasted chestnut cart in the city. If I had gotten there five minutes earlier, I would have been able to snag the perfect bag directly from the pan. Shame the central plaza was busy and delayed my journey. I’ll have to remember that for next time.

  I leaned against the wooden back of the bench I was sitting on and peered up at the Victory Fountain. It was a large, round fountain roughly 10 meters across. A three-tier design, the top adorned with a man holding a large sword aloft. To his side was a woman in flowing robes with both hands held out to her side. I laughed since it reminded me of the standard T-Pose bug in a video game. From her hands flowed water which trickled down the different levels and into the lower fountain basin.

  Even now, I found the fountain unusual. Not that it had a T-Posing woman shooting water from her palms or a guy with a sword. It was the fact that both of the figures were beast people. The woman was a deer and the man was a wolf.

  When I say beast people, I don’t mean a human with a pair of animal ears sticking out of their head like a cut-rate anime. These are full-on animals standing on two legs like people. They’re even proportioned like humans. The statue of the wolf man sported the classic V shape torso and a physique you’d see on a soccer player. The deer woman had a bust you’d expect to find on a tennis player.

  To be fair, they just call themselves people here. Wolf-tribe, deer-tribe, wolverine-tribe, rabbit-tribe, etc. The region of the world I was in at the moment was populated by mammals similar to those found in North America. Parallel dimensions are strange things.

  I’m the odd duck here. I’m one of only six humans summoned to this world and one of only five still alive. I peer behind me and look at a distant fracas far down the street. Make that four.

  Anyway, I’m the strange one here. One of the things I don’t like to admit is the world has grown on me. I find the women appealing, which is something that is seen as a niche subculture back where I come from. I’m guessing it’s because we’re biocompatible. It’s possible there are beastmen with remote human DNA running about, at least from what the old legends from when the last bunch of humans were summoned here in the ancient past.

  It also is an effect of me being here so long. I’ve gotten used to the concept of different types of people in the world.

  I close my eyes, lean back over the bench with my arms spread out and enjoy the cool breeze plying over my face. The kingdom I was summoned to is situated in a region that reminds me of Ireland in the late summer. 20 centigrade, slight cloud cover and a gentle humid tinge was on the air. People tend to bitch about the Irish weather. The usual refrain is its cold, dreary and drizzles a lot.

  Me? I found it and the climate on the other side of the Irish Sea in Scotland quite pleasant. Had I the opportunity and a decent job to walk into, I would have immigrated in a heartbeat. Warmer places like Florida, where I’m from, may have their charm, but I’m a cool weather boy through and through. So, from that standpoint, after adjusting to the fact I was transported to a whole new realm of existence and a touch of culture shock, I found myself enjoying my new environment.

  The other strange aspect of the world is it operates like one of those literary roleplaying games, or LitRPG for short. It’s a subgenre of fantasy novels where the world operates with a form of video game logic where you do things, level up and get stronger.

  Or is it advancement fantasy? Look, you try recalling the difference between the two after hundreds of years since you read the last one.

  Sadly, it’s not one of those hard data ones. I’m not going to bore you with an exposition dump on how everything works. Let’s just say there aren’t menus or stats in this world beyond a few colored bars floating in the top left corner of my vision to signify my health, stamina and mana pools. My mana bar, which is supposed to be blue, was almost entirely black with only a small sliver of blue visible on the left side. The only text you’ll ever see is in a crystal ball informing you of some form of rare ability and the number of times you leveled up. I believe the “show, don’t tell” form of narration.

  I’m not sure why my mind decided to narrate to itself as if I were speaking to an invisible audience. Maybe it was a little bit of a developing psychosis from what I’ve gone through since arriving here.

  That’s why I was sitting on a bench, luxuriating in the Irish-style weather right now. Though it was a little hard to enjoy the weather over all the screaming people, animals rushing about, crashing of carts as they sped down the road and other mayhem. There was an acrid burning smell in the air that wasn’t a result of the chestnuts from my bag. The reason for all the chaos? It was the apocalypse.

  “Hero!” I heard a feminine voice shout in surprise. “What are you doing?”

  I opened my eyes and sat up. Standing in front of me was a wolf-clan woman aged 26 in a city guard uniform. She wore a cloth gambeson shirt with the insignia of the town guard crest. The crest was a pair of western-style dragons holding hands. Or were they fighting? I’m not sure. All I know is two dragons painted red in a style reminding me of the Welsh flag stood in a white heater shield. The surrounding tunic was colored blue. She wore tan leggings with her fluffy grey tail sticking out of the back and had boots fashioned to fit her digitigrade feet.

  Her head had a torn padded coif and she had lost her helmet somewhere. A trickle of blood dripped down her grey fur, over her snout and slowly dripped from the end. Her yellow eyes were wide with fear and she was breathing heavily. She gripped her sword hilt like she was attempting to squeeze water out of the wood. Apart from the filth and battle damage, she was quite pretty.

  I looked her up and down. Leaning forward, I leveraged my serious voice and spoke. “Heya, Void. How are your parents?”

  Void’s jaws worked open and closed slowly. Her fear briefly vanished and was replaced by bewilderment. “I don’t recall meeting you.”

  “We dated a while back. I really like you. I also got along well with Doun and Mira,” I said with a smile. I waved my hand vaguely in the air. “Then all this happened and ruined everything.”

  “What? Are you mad? The six of you…” Void started before I interrupted.

  “Technically four for now and…wait for it,” I replied and put my finger up. My timing was a little off and I had to wait six seconds in awkward silence. Then a body flipped through the air, dripping blood over the ground and slammed into the large sword held aloft in the fountain. The impact wasn’t enough to cut the body in half, though it did fold and snap before plopping down onto a lower tier of the fountain with a wet squelch. The head limply flopped over backward and blond hair spilled over the side of the tier. The ends of the hair had small embers burning. The body belonged to Aurelie, a French girl summoned from Earth. She was a fire mage.

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  Surprisingly, Aurelie coughed briefly and her eyes flicked to me. I looked back and gave a sad, apologetic smile. The impact must have hurt. I watched as her eyes dilated and her life faded away. I felt a tinge of sorrow when the young girl, just 19, died. When she passed, the embers at the ends of her hair extinguished, leaving a sad trail of grey smoke in their wake.

  “Three now,” I said after the display. I reached into my chestnut bag and took another bite. It was just as bitter and burnt as the previous one. I had a problem with wasting food and suffered through the unpleasant flavor. Alvin would have been upset if I dumped it in a trash bin.

  Void looked at me aghast. It hurt me after all the good times we had. Though, it was fair she didn’t remember. “How can you sit here at a time like this?”

  I extended the bag of chestnuts. “Sorry, here. Want one? I promise I didn’t steal them. I left the coins in Alvin’s box. He was indisposed and couldn’t take payment.”

  She swatted the bag away in frustration, sending the chestnuts to the ground. I let out a small groan of disappointment. Alvin would be upset.

  “No, not that,” she pointed behind me. “That!”

  I turned and followed her finger. In the partly cloudy sky, a tear was visible. It looked like someone threw a rock through a blue and white stained-glass window. Behind the tear was a sickly green fog threatening to spill into the world. Worse, four giant black tentacles were gripping the edges, pulling at the fabric of reality.

  My eyes scanned down the street. In the distance, two people were battling shadow monsters. A mage fired waves of smoke upward at the monster, the tendrils impotently dissipated upon contact with the tentacles pulling at the seams of reality. A grand castle grown from wood in what reminded me 17th century Romanian architecture served as the backdrop. Large tree canopies grew as the roof over the various towers while colorful flowers sprouted along the columns and arches. It was quite beautiful, even with a black tentacle creature flowing its arms into the world above.

  I turned back to Void. “Wow, that’s rough.”

  Anger started to build in Void’s face. “Rough? Why aren’t you over there helping?”

  I shrugged. “Simple. If you were to test me now, the crystal ball would be lucky to bring the tub temperature up to lukewarm bathwater.”

  Her face shifted to perplexion. “I know you were the weakest of the six, but you’re still a legendary hero! How can you still be as weak as a 12-year-old child? What were you doing for the last three months?”

  “I felt like taking a break,” I replied. I stared down at the chestnuts on the ground and back at Alvin’s cart. His other pan was now spewing a stream of black smoke into the air. I sighed in disappointment. I’ll have to get a fresh bag later.

  Void sputtered. “A break? Our world is under attack and you were taking a break?”

  “Hey now,” I protested. “To be fair, you didn’t even know that thing was coming until two days ago. I was only summoned here because your king wanted to test out some old scroll he found in the basement.”

  Before Void could reply, she was distracted by a blood curdling scream behind me. By the look on Void’s face, there were now only two heroes left, including myself. Her face became pleading. “I beg of you, please help. Anything. Our world is ending and you’re lounging before the fountain eating chestnuts.”

  I wanted to respond with snark and point out the chestnuts were now dirty on the ground. Her sad face full of despair tugged my heartstrings. Sure, the world was ending and I couldn’t do anything about it, but I really couldn’t say no to that expression. I did love the girl.

  “Fine,” I said as I stood up from the bench and gave my lower back a slight stretch. “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Oh, thank you!” she said with a mixture of fear and hope.

  As I walked down toward the fight with the remaining two heroes, I noticed the rogue got taken out and now all that was left was the damage dealing warrior and the shadow mage. The Japanese kid getting himself killed a week after arrival ruined the party dynamic and deprived them of their best defender. Not that I was ever part of their party, considering how weak I was when I arrived.

  I watched as the swordsman, a man from Kenya named Damu Njeri, swung his sword at an approaching shadow monster. He moved with an impossible grace as he flowed around incoming attacks like a fleck of dirt you try to pluck out of a glass of water. He contorted around to simultaneously slice through attacking enemies and avoid their counterattacks. Whisps of black smoke were holding him up, using him as a puppet. He had clearly died and was being used out of desperation as a protector.

  My attention span wavered. My eyes were drawn to a shop on the side of the wide boulevard. There, I saw a four-story tall shop designed in a similar fashion as the castle. The people here grew their buildings. They were still proper buildings as I recognized them, not carved out of trees, though they all had canopies of leaves and branches as roofs. A large pane of glass separated the interior from the street.

  It was a clothing store and my eye was drawn to a dashing outfit in the window. It was a man’s purple blouse with gold frilled sleeves on a mannequin. Gold buttons set within gold embroidery were sewn down the center of the chest. Tight black pants adorned the mannequin’s legs and a pair of shining black calf boots were on the feet. What drew my attention was the brown, wide brimmed hat with a rainbow-colored feather sticking out of the top.

  I walked over to the shop and gave the main door a tug. It was locked. Of course it was locked. Even in the apocalypse, a good shop owner would secure the doors.

  “What are you doing now?” Void said in a frustrated tone.

  “Give me a moment,” I said as I peered around the area. I found a stone trash bin on the side of the road, hefted it up and, after taking a look back and forth down the street, heaved it through the window. I have no idea why I looked for the law. Void, a guardswoman, was standing right behind me.

  Void was left speechless in face of the tinkling glass. I gingerly walked through the opening, set the hat on my head and turned to Void. “What do you think? I’ve always wanted to try this on.”

  Void’s face was in disbelief. Her hands slowly raised to the sides of her head. She reached under her padded coif, gripped her grey fur and pulled. She screamed loudly. “My family is going to be killed by a creature from beyond and you’re stealing a hat?”

  I frowned. My heart hurt again. What was I doing? I was hurting this poor woman, someone I had loved, for what? Maybe I was going mad after all. I was covering up my stress by being the asshole variant of Florida Man. It was already bad enough I’m narrating my actions in my head in the first person.

  I sighed. “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me. The stress is bringing out the worst in me.” I put the hat back on the mannequin and stepped out of the display window.

  Void’s features softened. “I understand. You’ve been asked for so much with so little time to prepare.”

  If she only knew. Void turned to join the battle down the street. Even though she was severely outmatched and all the other guards have either died or fled, she didn’t back down from the fight. I paused before joining her, pulled my coin pouch from my side and tossed it into the shop. That should cover the replacement cost of the window.

  I paced Void as we ran down the street. I watched the stamina bar in my vision shrink rapidly as we moved. As it fell, a grey-green bar started to fill in the empty space from the right. I was terribly out of shape and fatigue was already setting in. I was huffing for air only a hundred meters into our jog. If I ran much more, the green-grey bar would start to turn black, indicating exhaustion. Then I’d need a few days of rest to clear the effect.

  We passed a mangled corpse of a woman on the street. She was wearing leather armor and dressed as a stereotypical rogue. It was Carolina Herrera, a 17-year-old girl from Peru. She had the ability to see how various traps worked and was a great asset inside dungeons.

  Void and I ended up behind the other two. The last of the summoned Humans was Disha Raval, a 16-year-old girl from India. She could instantly learn any spell she read from a book, so long as it was shadow attuned. She still had to practice to develop the muscle memory.

  Disha was sweating as she pulled on her dwindling mana and formed spikes out of shadow. Tendrils of light smoke drifted from her body as she moved. She sprouted tips from the surface of the spikes, spun them rapidly and launched them at the coming horror from beyond in the sky. The drills impacted with a loud whine of what sounded like metal on metal before puffing out of existence. The creature’s tentacles were none the worse for wear. Disha gasped for air, clearly experiencing mana fatigue.

  I continued looking up and watched the creature’s ugly face come into view. It was an immense hairless monstrosity with black, oily skin. Tentacles existed for a mouth and fire blazed for eyes. It was your dull, bog standard Lovecraftian horror. Boring, really.

  “I see you grace us with your presence,” Disha said through huffing breaths. She was struggling to form more spells while trying to use Damu’s body to keep a dozen shadow monsters at bay. The monsters ranged in appearance from vaguely humanoid to large gorillas and sabretooth cats. It was one of the gorillas that flung Aurelie’s body down the street.

  It didn’t matter. The dozen was merely the warmup as two more tentacles breached into this reality and began disgorging hundreds of the monsters into the street a hundred meters ahead.

  “Can’t you do something?” Void pleaded to me.

  I looked up at the sky and peered into the eyes of the hideous force. I took a deep breath and shouted. “Hey! Calamari! What’s taking so long?”

  “Why are you taunting it?” Void shrieked.

  I gave her a sad smile. “Because this is going to lead to the best outcome. If I do anything else, it’ll be unbearable agony for you and I don’t want to see that anymore.”

  Void didn’t have the opportunity to respond before the monster’s eyes subtly flicked our direction. It was trying to dig its visage into my soul. The effect sent my two remaining companions to the ground where they convulsed from terror. I had to keep my eyes fixed on the sky since I couldn’t bear seeing Void in pain. To me, it was old hat. I used to watch old 70s and 80s horror movies as a kid. “Nice try, squid brain. Got anything better?”

  Another tentacle appeared from the green fog in the rift and hovered over me. I raised my arms out to the side and shouted. “Finally! Get this farce over with! I have better things to do!”

  The large eyes squinted. The monster complied with my request and sent the tentacle down. It was large enough that it first crashed into and flattened the castle in the distance before rapidly folding down on the street. Buildings splintered and the ground ruptured beneath its impact. It, mercifully, painlessly crushed me out of existence. My last thoughts before everything went dark was I was happy it wasn’t the green fog this time. Your skin melting off your body really hurt.