I was at home as usual, grinding out more levels on a character for some MMO when I felt a slight itch on my back. Attempting to scratch said itch, I reached behind my back and started scratching at where I believed the itch to be. Instead of stopping it however, the itch only grew more intense and started spreading throughout my whole back. Within seconds, the itching feeling turned into intense pain and my back suddenly caught fire. I jumped out of my chair and tried rolling on the ground to put out the fire but it only kept burning. By now smoke was filling the room and I could smell my flesh cooking and hear my skin sizzling. As I continued rolling around on the ground I felt myself fall and hit my head on something. I opened my eyes and I was in what looked like a very expensive room, there was even a woman dressed in a maid outfit who had blue hair and very long ears for some reason.

'Oh that's right, I was summoned to another world then enslaved overnight.'

The beautiful elf woman noticed I woke up and bowed slightly while introducing herself.

"Good morning Master Hero, I am Elen Idrith and I'll be your handler for the foreseeable future."

'Handler? What am I, some kind of animal?'

"I apologize for the rude awakening but I was ordered to get you up as soon as possible."

'Ah, so that pain was from the mark. It even has some kind of remote function? I'll need to find out more about this thing later.'

"I placed a change of clothes on the table for you. I will wait outside while you change, you have two minutes. If you don't finish in time you will feel pain similar to what you felt before. It will only get worse the longer you take, so I suggest that you hurry."

With that she left the room and closed the door. I got up quickly and started changing while remembering the things I learned about this mark.

'So, it seems like if I don't follow a command the mark activates on its own and the pain felt will slowly increase, but to what end?'

I wondered whether or not the mark would kill me after enough time past and I ended up taking too long with getting changed. I exited the room as quickly as I could once I felt a familiar itch on my back.

"Good, you're finished. Now follow me."

Elen started to walk down the hall and I noticed several other people being lead as well. Most of the summoned people looked to be between sixteen and thirty with some being much older and younger. There was quite a bit of yelling at first which then turned into screams of pain and were finally silenced all together. I even saw one person trying to attack one of the maids only to immediately fall to the ground paralyzed.

'I guess it's a good thing I didn't try to do anything stupid before.'

We were both walking down the hallway when Elen spoke.

"Wow, I didn't think that everyone else would have so much trouble. I guess I got lucky with you Master... ummm."

'Oh right, I haven't given her my name yet.'

"Adrian... Banner."

"Master Banner then."

She smiled at me as she said this.

'You know, if I wasn't currently enslaved and forced to do whatever I'm ordered to, this might not have been so bad.'

Eventually we made our way to the throne room where we were summoned. The seven thrones were currently occupied by seven individuals that looked like they were ready to face off against a demon king or something.

'Hmmm, now that I have time to look at them, they seem strong enough to handle just about anything. If people like them couldn't win against whatever is threatening them then what hope do we have?'

Elen and I were one of the first to arrive and we had to wait while the rest were quite literally dragged in due to them not being able to move. Once everyone was present woman seated in the middle throne spoke. The same one who seemed to summon us here yesterday.

"Finally you're here, I was getting bored waiting so damn long. Didn't I tell you to hurry?"

All of the maids bowed at once and said in unison "We apologize Queen Elisabeth!"

"Don't let it happen again. Now all of you "Heroes" will now be trained and should be ready for combat within a few months."

'Months!? Is she serious? Does this woman really think ordinary people will be able to fight what they cannot in just a few months? We'll all be slaughtered!'

A few people started to speak out but then screamed in pain and fell to the ground. Seeing this I decided to do something sensible and raise my hand.

"Oh? It seems like one of you at least has some manners. You there, what is it?"

She looked to me and I asked my question, I had a little time to think about it on the way here so I decided on one thing.

"May I be allowed to visit the library?"

Since I'm not a fighting type, my best chance at surviving this whole thing is to learn as much magic as possible. Since this is a fantasy world they should have a library with a lot of books on magic right?

When she heard my question she showed a smile and laughed a bit.

"Library? That's your question? You're not going to beg for freedom or ask why I've done this to you?"

'Well, even if I was free to do what I want in this world, my living conditions would go from a room in a royal castle to the street. Even if I am enslaved I'm still living like royalty, I just need to find a way to get rid of this damn mark so I don't have to die.'

"Yes."

"Very well, you're allowed to visit the library when you have time and you may read whatever you want. I'll now give you all your orders. From now on you're not to speak to anyone of your first two days here. If anyone asks about the mark on your back you will tell them that it is the mark of a "Hero" and whenever speaking of it you will always refer to it as such. Lastly, you must follow every order given to you by your handler and in public they will act as your bodyguard. That is all, you're now free to head off to training."

With her talk finished, we were lead out to a large yard somewhere in the castle and split into three groups. The first group was made up of those that fought with swords, the second had those that fought with bows, and the final one that I was in, used magic. I was given a staff and allowed to cast spells with the condition that I didn't cast a spell at anything except the targets I was given. The only thing we were really taught was how to aim the spells we already knew. Aiming the spell was much harder than I thought. When you fire a spell at a target the spell only goes toward where the target was at the time you cast it. Firing a spell was much like firing a gun that shot balls of fire and it wasn't easy considering I've never fired a gun before. By the end of the day I hardly made any progress with hitting the moving targets.

'Damn, to think hitting targets was so hard, I really should practice more.'

As we're walking back from training Elen turns to me and gives me a slime.

"You did quite well on your first day Master Banner."

'Quite well? Sure I could hit regular targets, but I only managed to hit about ten percent of the moving ones.'

"Thanks. Could we stop at the library?"

"Oh that's right, Queen Elisabeth did give you permission after all. Of course, follow me!"

After she said that we changed direction and walked for a few minutes before we reached a massive building which was apparently the library. It looked to have at least three floors and was made of stone that looked like marble.

'For them to have a library that big, just what kind of people summoned me?'

I walked into the library with Elen and thought on what I should learn first.