Everything was dark. Where am I?

I saw a girl sleeping. She had long wavy brown hair and was quite small.

Hmmm? Who are you? a girl’s voice echoed around me.

Could the voice belong to the small girl sleeping in front of me?

To think someone could interrupt my sleep... Who are you? the voice echoed again.

I tried to talk but my voice wouldn’t come out. Everything began to shake as a distant light was coming nearer.

Maybe it’s almost time for me to wake up again, those were the last words I heard before I woke up.

###

My day started out like any other day. I did my daily training with Temma and I did my tasks as an administrative officer. When it was afternoon, a letter arrived for me.

An envelope filled with papers was in my hands. It was my examination results. I got scanned many times by machines and magic. Even my blood was analyzed. And now I got the results. I read their contents and couldn’t believe it.

I was a completely normal human. All of my results state that there was nothing abnormal in me. I looked over my results again. Blood pressure: Normal. Mana level: Very High. Everything about my results told me that I was a normal human.

This was odd... “Normal humans” couldn’t sense the strange energy and according to the bandaged man, humans were also affected by it. Seeing that it was not the case with me, there must be something odd in me. However, there wasn’t anything according to the results... Maybe it’s something that the examinations couldn’t detect...

I decided to take a walk when I finished my tasks. Having no destination in my mind, I wandered the streets of Westa. Everything was peaceful. 3 weeks have already passed since I arrived in this world and many things have happened.

From Spade Echo’s heist to the serial murders to Coco’s rampage, I’ve been through a lot of events.

What are you? the bandaged man’s words returned to my mind.

If I think about it, why did I get summoned in this world? Could it be an accident or a failed summon so I got here? Or could they have planned to summon me all along? The man who summoned me disappeared so I couldn’t have any answers to my questions.

“Help! You’re a knight, right?” a woman ran towards me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“A man tried to protect me and is now surrounded by thugs!”

I ran towards the direction the woman pointed. As long as those thugs were human, I could probably take them on. After all, I’ve been training hard with Temma these days.

“I’m... Sorry...” a man’s voice croaked.

When I arrived at the scene, I saw a tall dark man lifting another man up using just one of his hands. Four other men were grovelling on the ground and some of them had their arms twisted in an unnatural way.

The tall dark man looked at me and grinned. His teeth were sharp and he has one horn coming out from the side of his head.

I could feel that he was very powerful. He was probably a demon. This was bad.... Demons were powerful creatures.

“That’s enough punishment for them, isn’t it?” I asked.

“I don’t know... Some people really need to experience true fear so that they won’t target defenseless women again”, he raised his fist as the man he was holding yelped.

“Don’t underestimate us!” one of the men stood up and took out a knife.

The demon didn’t even look surprised as the man charged at him. When the man got closer, a black fist rose up from the ground and hit his chin. The black fist was made from the demon’s shadow...

“That move!” I couldn’t help but shout since it was similar when I killed Theodore.

“Like it? I call it my Shadow Fist”, he grinned.

“How did you do it?”

“How? Well, I just poured mana into my shadow and then commanded it to form a fist. Then I made it move”, he explained as the fist made of shadow was making a thumbs-up.

A knight arrived on the scene and after talking with him, the thugs were sent to a hospital and the demon got off lightly. Although he said to “keep the injuries to a minimum”, I don’t think the demon would take the knight’s warning too seriously.

“Thanks for vouching for me. If you weren’t around, that knight would probably think I was the bad guy”, he said.

“No problem. You were just cleaning up the trash in society”, I replied.

“Hey... I like that. I’m Oga Aragami.What’s your name?”

“Mikage Kamishiro.”

“Alright, Mikage. I’m taking you to a good place!” he placed his arm on my shoulder and dragged me away.

###

We arrived at a bar called ROBEL. I never drank alcohol before and I didn’t think that I would start doing so in another world. When I told Oga that I never drank before, he then made it his mission to make sure I get a taste of the adult’s drink.

It was still closed but Oga barged in.

“Hey, Roberu! You got a customer!” he shouted.

An orange-haired man wearing a bartender’s outfit got out of the backroom. He had a purple left eye and orange right eye. Were those natural or was he wearing contacts?

“Oga... How many times have I told you to wait until it’s opening time?” he sighed.

“I’m just going to have a drink with my new friend. He’s pretty cool and has no problem talking with a demon like me.”

Oga then talked about how I helped him explain his side of things to a knight after he brutally beat up some thugs.

“Another fight? I thought you would avoid fights since you already retired from the battlefield”, the bartender said.

Retired? Was Oga a war veteran or something?

“My name’s Roberu Yukoku, the barkeeper of ROBEL. What’s your name?” he asked.

“Mikage Kamishiro. Nice to meet you”, I answered.

“Oooh. You’re that Mikage, huh?”

“Have you heard of me?”

“Yes. Temma would often talk about you. You are doing well for an administrative officer.”

“You know Temma?”

“Yep. He’s a regular here. Often comes during the weekends.”

Temma went here? I never expected him to be the type to drink.

“Listen here, Roberu. Mikage never had a drink before so you’d better make his first a good one”, Oga cut in on our conversation.

“I’m honored you chose ROBEL for your first drink... Although I think Oga dragged you here.”

He poured a liquid into a glass and I looked at it nervously... Well, I guess one drink wouldn’t hurt me. I drank it.

“How is it?” Oga asked.

“Bitter... But in a good way”, I said.

“Of course! Roberu is the best when it comes to alcohol.”

“As an owner of a bar, I’ll take it as a compliment”, Roberu grinned.

Oh yeah... I had to ask Oga about something.

“Your Shadow Fist... What kind of magic is it?” I asked him.

“It’s called Dark Magic. It’s not really a type of magic that most mages like since it’s hard to use. Even though I had a hard time mastering it... Why are you asking, anyway?”

I told him about the incident where my shadow killed Theodore.

“That’s odd. You’re saying that you didn’t command it to attack and yet it did it anyway?” Oga asked.

“Why? Is that really strange?”

“Yes it is. Judging from your story, you probably used magic without knowing it. I’ve heard many stories like that... But in their cases, the best they could do was produce a very strong shockwave”, Roberu said.

“Yeah. With a vague resolve like that, it’s near impossible to command your shadow. You see, the reason why Dark Magic was hard to master was because it lacked an image. Wind and fire could be easily used since a mage knows what fire and wind does. Even producing darkness could be a challenge for new mages. That’s why commanding your own shadow to fight in that situation is impossible”, Oga explained.

“But it happened.”

Oga thought for a while...

“Mikage, stand there for a while”, Oga pointed in the middle of the room.

I followed what he said. He stood in front of me and cracked his knuckles... Wait a minute...

“Die!” he shouted and bone-chilling killing intent radiated from him. His punch was headed towards my face and I knew that it was dangerous.

Then, an eerie feeling overcame my body. My shadow rose up and turned into a huge spike. It lunged at Oga but he caught it with his hands and stopped it.

“This is interesting...” he grinned.