“It’s time for my counterattack, Beelzy~!” Vi laughed, slamming a piece onto the board hard enough to shake the table. “There, how do you like my full frontal assault, huh?!”

“I’d prefer if you covered up, personally.” he replied, looking over the board carefully. “Nobody’s wanted to see that for four hundred years or so.”

“How rude! I’m still in the prime of beauty, just look at me!” Vi retorted, pushing up her large breasts with her hands and winking.

But he was unfazed by her blatant showing of her body.

-

“Adventure! Let us strike down the very hearts of the evil that plagues this land!” A human man with short brown hair, a blue cloak, and a sword in his hand shouted towards the sky.

“Oh my god shut up!” a blonde elf, her hair tied back into two short pigtails, complained behind him. “This is the third time today, it’s not even noon!”

“Don’t be such a sourpuss, Tyrael. You’ll make him sulk.” with a hissing voice, a reptilian man interjected. “And the only thing worse than excited Akira, is sulking Akira.”

Low level adventurers are often paired together by the guild, so they often don’t get along very well, like now. They hadn’t been a three person team for long, less than a week, and they were already ready to break up.

The main problem was of course, the human man in the party.

[Akira]

[Race: Human][Class: Swordsman][Level: 2]

[Mind:10] [Body: 16] [Soul:12]

[HP: 22][MP:2][SP:60]

[Skills]

[Lightning Thrust]

10 damage Cost: 10 SP: A fast lunge, stabbing your sword forward, pierces armor

[Thunder Breaker]

15 Damage Cost: 15 SP: a rapid series of slashes, hits three times, 10% chance to stun

[Azure Blessing]

Passive: A champion of an otherworldly patron, XP gains are doubled, ability scores increase every other level.

Nobody would believe them if he told them, not even his party, but he wasn’t from this world. Pulled from his room in Tokyo, an ordinary Japanese boy had become a hero in another world, and he was wasting no time getting to the adventuring.

The elven maiden sighed, knowing the lizardman was right. She really hated being paired up with him, but until level 5 the guild didn’t allow one to choose their partners.

[Tyrael]

[Race: Forest Elf][Class: Archer][Level: 2]

[Mind:18] [Body: 14] [Soul:13]

[HP: 18][MP:12][SP:45]

[Skills]

[Triple Shot]

7 Damage Cost 10 SP: Fires three arrows rapidly, deals damage per arrow hit.

[Explosive Arrow]

25 damage Cost: 6 MP 10 SP: imbues magic into the next shot, dealing explosive damage in a 20 foot radius.

The lizardman walked ahead of the bickering others, ignoring them.

“Come, our quest won’t take long.” he said stoically, not looking back at the other two once.

[Gox]

[Race: Lizardman][Class: Berserker][Level: 3]

[Mind:9] [Body: 20] [Soul:15]

[HP: 32][MP:0][SP:75]

[Skills]

[Rage]

Passive: every point of damage makes his rage build, increasing damage resistance and attack damage by the amount of damage taken.

[Cleaving Blow]

15 Damage Cost: 15 SP: A large overhead strike with a greatsword, at rage level 4 or higher does double damage.

-

“Unlike Some~one over there… I introduce my pieces properly when I put them into play, like I promised I would from the start.” Vi smirked, moving the piece representing this party forward one square. “Oh look, looks like my party will encounter yours any minute now, whatever will I do~”

“And I made no such promise to you all that time ago, my adorable little rival.” He replied, placing his index finger on his latest piece. “As the master of this game, it is within my right to withhold my hand’s contents, so I fail to see why you would complain so late into the game.”

“You’re right, it’s all over now anyways, you’re in check and you know it, you senile old man!” she cackled, moving her piece up again. “I have control of the board, and what do you have? A goblin girl who doesn’t know the rules!”

“Well, we shall see, won’t we?” he responded, not the slightest bit worried. “In Shogi, a Grandmaster is capable of checkmate against a novice with only his king.”

-

The reluctant adventuring party traveled down the silver trail, the main road from the low lower town of bridgehelm to the capital city. Their mission was a simple one, defeat 15 goblins. Not even specific goblins, any goblins at all.

And only twenty minutes into their journey, a small, green skinned figure came tumbling down a hill through some bushes, landing on her face right in front of them. She was disguised in a cloak, which, due to being too large for, caused her to trip and fall down the incline. The hood of said cloak had fallen off, revealing that she was, in fact, a goblin.

Most of the goodly races of the surface found goblins to be disgusting, but a few strange individuals found them cute. Big eyes, small bodies, kind of like a stuffed toy bear… with fangs.

“Ouch!” the goblin girl cried, rubbing her nose. She then realized that she was exposed, in front of a group of adventurers. She stood up and drew her sword, holding it in a reverse grip.

The look in her eyes was not fear, but of hatred, Akira noted. This wasn’t a goblin who would run away, they were looking for a fight.

“Akira, you’ll level up with one more kill, yes?” Gox asked him. “You can beat a goblin alone, so I’ll sit this one out.”

The lizardman backed off, finding a tree to sit below. The elven woman followed, not caring what happened to the human swordsman.

-

“Wait just a minute here, why are two of my pieces disobeying me?!” Vi protested, slamming her hand against the cold stone table, causing her crimson beverage to splash up. “If you’re going to change the rules, I won’t play with you anymore!”

“Oh? What rules have been changed, I see only one piece of yours on that particular path.” he chuckled slightly, noting that behind the blue swordsman stood two gray pieces of the Archer and Berserker. “You only have as much influence over neutral pieces as your player pieces do, and this piece of yours seems ill suited for leadership.”

“You… you, you! Urgh!” She stood up, her chair scraping loudly against the floor. “I’m taking a break, I need a moment.”

“Take all the time you need, darling.” the man replied, standing up from his own chair. “I believe I’ll go stretch my legs in the meantime, does an hour’s respite seem enough for you?”

“Whatever, just show me to a guest bed.” she replied, waiting for the insectoid butler to return. After she departed, the man looked over the board and sighed.

“This is no good, this won’t do at all.”

-

“Have at ye, foul creature!” Akira the swordsman from another world charged in, his sword pulled back and ready to execute his skill [Lightning Thrust], the goblin woman standing, waiting for him to come closer.

He shot forward like a flash of light, his sword a split second from piercing though the goblin’s exposed neck. But the sword tip never reached her skin, nor did she retaliate or parry the blow.

Time itself slowed down, slower and slower, until it was at a complete stop.

Only, time was not stopped equally.

I became aware that time stopped around me, became aware that I was that goblin woman, Fiffil… and yet I was looking at myself as though I was not her, an out of body experience?

“Sorry to leave you in the dark for so long, my dear, but I wanted to see the first few moves for myself before committing totally” the voice that had saved me once before rang out, but it wasn’t an echo in my mind.

I turned around, and there stood a man, human in appearance at first glance. His eyes were white, kind of like when my grandfather went blind. I didn’t really get it, but his outfit was so detailed and over designed that he looked much more important than the humans I’ve seen so far.

He slowly clapped his hands as he walked towards me, passing me by and going to the ‘other’ me. He placed his hand on ‘my’ head, and turned back to the me that was conscious.

“Time to ‘promote’ my cute little pawn.”