Screams echoed through the corridors between cracks of thunder and lightning. The labyrinth that had become my home for some time and was normally dark and dreary was now shockingly bright. Illuminating the room and my mud-covered blue robes. The source of the light was a gigantic magic circle left by the ancestors of this world.

My excellent idea to summon a servant in order to cure my loneliness had backfired. Such was my luck. I screamed as my hands burned from pouring essence into the circle. Lightning shot out as it had been and some stray bolts would hit me every few minutes. I didn't care though. If I could get this to work it would all be worth it. This place ate at me until I began going insane. The dark void was easy to get used to after a few weeks but the loneliness was something I could never get used to.

Blood started to drip from my left eye and my nose. The effects of the circle were getting to me. To be honest this magic circle seemed to drain more magic than I originally thought. Maybe the older magic was just more potent and required more magic to fuel it? It didn't matter though, if I stopped then I may never be able to try again.

My screams that were caused by the almost unbearable pain of getting my hands burned were getting louder. Pain surged through my fingers as if being shocked. Looking down I saw that my left hand was crumbling like sand. A feeling of dread came over me as my fingers started feeling less and less functional. I attempted to reel my arm back but it was planted firmly on the circle.

The screams echoed around me to the point that I couldn't tell if they were getting louder or if they were echoing even more. Lightning struck all around me as I finally lifted my left arm. The hand which had been there before was now in a pile of ash-like substance below me. What caused me to scream even more was the fact that my arm was continuing to turn into an ash-like substance. It hurts! It hurts! It hurts!

I couldn't let go of the magic circle with my right hand so I frantically knocked into my staff with my deteriorating left arm until it opened up the center where a knife was concealed. The blade came out only three inches and was stuck the rest of the way inside the staff. Without much thought, I forced my left elbow into the blade while keeping my right hand on the circle. I shrieked in pain as It cut through the fabric and skin. With a bit more force it cut through my flesh until it struck the joint but even with all my body weight it was still attached.

Continuing to slam my elbow into the blade without remorse. My forearm was nearly halfway deteriorated by the time I could finally separate it from my body. Blood dripped from the stub, creating a small puddle at my feet. I lessened the flow of essence to the magic circle in order to use some magic to heal myself enough and stop the bleeding. I wouldn't be able to heal it completely until this was over.

My severed arm slowly deteriorated below me. The lightning continued to shower the corridor in light and the thunder deafened even my own thoughts. I had no ability to stop the bloody tears from my face and nose nor the ability to stop my screams. This was what the extent of pain could be.

It wasn't until my left forearm had completely deteriorated that a huge flash of light blinded me and the circle stopped accepting any more of my power. I fell back with a series of cold sweat forming on my body. My eyes which had adjusted to the dark quite well needed to adjust again. Slowly but surely I started to adjust and before me stood a beautiful young girl, clad in green and holding a metal device that was decorated with wood as I had never seen.

She had long blonde hair and beautiful glowing red eyes. The darkness made most of her other features impossible to discern but she was only about five feet tall. Height didn't matter though. She was absolutely stunning.

"Are you the one who summoned me?" She said in a thick, harsh accent that I didn’t recognize.

"I am…" I said before losing consciousness.

When I awoke I looked up groggily from where I had been laid to see the same girl sitting around a small fire next to the blood-covered magic circle. Attempting to push myself up I remembered that my left arm was gone from the elbow down. Though my stub was now wrapped in the ripped-up part of my robe that I had cut off when trying to remove my arm. Since I couldn’t push myself up with that arm I rolled over and pushed myself up with my right arm.

The girl that I had summoned finally noticed that I was awake and turned to face me. Light from the fire lit up her face to where it was more visible. She seemed like she hadn’t slept in a while and it contoured her face to make her look a bit scary. Though she was still more beautiful than what I was expecting to be summoned. Most summoned servants are animals or a humanoid variants with little to no emotions or brainpower, like golems.

“I see that you are finally awake. You had bled out a lot and it was quite messy,” she said harshly before handing me what looked like one of my ration packs. She had already opened one up and was eating the contents.

“Did you patch up my arm?” I asked.

“Who else would,” she replied.

“Fair point. So what’s your name?” I asked.

“Sasha, and yours?” she replied.

“Nero,” I replied.

“Okay, why did you summon me? I assume that because of your age, you probably want me to sleep with you,” she said before pointing her wood-decorated metal device at me. “Answer carefully.”

“I was just lonely. To be honest, I didn’t expect to summon more than an animal or a golem servant.” I said as I pushed the front end of the device away from my face.

“Alright then. What would you ask of me?” she asked as she pulled the device away and set it on her lap.

“Just tell me about yourself I guess,” I replied as I took a bite out of my rations.

“I don’t know anything about myself other than my name. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth, Sir,” she said in a way that sounded like she was talking to a higher-up in the military.

“You can drop the Sir. It doesn’t suit me. Though it’s fine. If you don’t remember then you don’t remember. However, what can you tell me about that device you’re holding?” I asked.

“This is an AK-47. It’s a gun. In fact, it is one of the most reliable guns in my world.” she explained as if she was trying to sell me the damn thing.

“You remember that but nothing about yourself?” I asked sarcastically.

“I’m afraid that is true. How I remember this but nothing about myself is a mystery. Perhaps that is just what happens when you summon a Hero.” she replied.

“I guess that’s a possibility. Wait a minute! Did you say, Hero?” I asked with a bit of worry in my voice.

“Yes, were you not aware?” she asked as she cocked her head to the side for emphasis.

“No, I was not. It’s a major war crime to summon a Hero in just about every country!” I yelled as I could barely contain my shock. She seemed a bit taken aback by my tone but wasn’t showing much emotion.

“Why is it a crime?” she asked.

“Well, you see… heroes were originally summoned by each country to be a trump card in their wars though after a treaty was signed by the weaker countries that banded together and destroyed the empire which had a monopoly on hero summoning techniques, it was considered taboo. Since then the use of such rituals was banned under a new treaty and it was considered a war crime.” I explained as I pinched the bridge of my nose with my right hand. Ugh, I knew it was odd for an ancient summoning circle to still be usable. However, I let my desire for company blind me. I’m such an idiot!

“So this world has war crimes too. Neat!” she said without much care for anything else I had said.

“Do you even care?” I asked.

“Not really. You’re the master here so I don’t think it’s my job to worry about that kind of thing. Plus, I don’t know how this world works at all.” she said before throwing another stick on the fire.

“Well, what would you like me to explain first?” I asked in hopes that talking about something else would ease my mind.

“Magic, I guess. I don’t have magic in my world so tell me how it works,” she said.

“Okay, where to start… so there are three main classes of magic. Basic, Rune, and Ritual magic. All three are usable by anyone. However, the skill required to use them greatly differs. Basic is the easiest and consists of magic that turns one's essence into an elemental type of magic that can be used in numerous ways.” I said as I waved my hand a small bit of fire shot out.

“Cool,” she said without much enthusiasm despite her eyes being fixed on my now flaming hand.

“Runes are another form of magic that uses symbols imbued with one’s essence to increase one’s abilities and also make things stronger. It’s fairly simple to use but is incredibly expensive to get as those who can craft them are rare. I have a few runes on my staff that I placed on them when I was learning about them.” I said as I reached over and grabbed my staff to show her the runes lining it.

“Alright.”

“Then you have Ritual magic. It uses specific sites and a series of runes to create things or summon things from other places. However, rituals come with a cost. Usually one would sacrifice a dead body or perhaps a series of animals. Gold and treasure can also be used but it isn’t a very good sacrifice. The most common type of ritual is that of a servant summoning ritual and a teleporting ritual. Though both require an expensive sacrifice and are more commonly used by royalty. I just happened to find an already assembled ritual plane here and decided to use it. Which is how you appeared.” I explained.

“So you lost your arm in order to summon me?” she asked.

“Well, yes. However, I used a bunch of different animals and monsters that I killed down here as the sacrifice. I guess it wasn’t enough.” I replied with a shrug of my shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” she said as if she felt bad about it. Though I couldn’t tell with her eyes looking so cold and dead.

“Don’t worry about it. I was the one who miscalculated and the one who decided to do it in the first place. Didn’t you say before that it’s not your job to worry about that kind of thing?” I said in hopes of cheering her up. To be honest, I don’t know why I cared about cheering her up.

“Oh, before I forget. I picked up your book. It was about to get blood on it and I wasn’t sure if it was important or not. Though, I can’t understand a word of it.“ She said as she picked up a book and handed it over to me.

“What book?” I said with a confused look as I took it from her.

The book read in the common Imperial language of Terra: “Guide to Being a Hero Master” which confused me a bit. I guess I was thankful for the instruction manual but did this get summoned with her or was it here from the start? I didn’t care though so I cracked it open and started reading.

Dear Reader,

If you are reading this then congratulations. You’ve just summoned a Hero. Though you may have asked yourself, how does this Master Hero relationship work? The answer is simple. As the Master, you have been given a crest located on your chest. It will allow you to issue commands as well as talk with your summoned Hero from anywhere in the world. Your Hero will also have a similar crest to show that they are your servant. However, theirs acts as a control device to make sure that they do not attack you or betray you. As an extra precaution the crest will also kill them if you die, so don’t die.

After reading this I looked down my robe to see that there was in fact a crest tattooed in blue. I then looked at Sasha. “Show me your chest!” I said.

“Excuse me!” she exclaimed before pointing her gun at me.

“Not the whole thing. Just unbutton your shirt a bit and show me just below your neck. This book explains a bunch about how summoned Heroes work so I just need to check something.

“Like hell I am.” she said before she tried to hit me with the butt end of her gun only to stop just before striking me. It seemed like she was stopped by an invisible wall and it was causing her some discomfort.

“Well, I don’t need to see if the crest is there anymore. It seems to be working just fine.” I said before going back to reading.

“You are a piece of shit,” she said as she sat back down like she was pouting.

I ignored her and kept reading. It continued on like this:

As for what a Hero is, they are humans from other worlds that died committing great deeds or inhuman feats. These Heroes are summoned in their prime as they are usually dead before being summoned. Though be warned, just because we have labeled them Heroes does not mean that they are necessarily good. Heroes and villains are two sides of the same coin as committing a massacre can be classified as an inhuman feat. If you wish to know more about your Hero then please turn to the background part of this book. In it are the important memories of said Hero that have been written down with magic by reading their mind during the summoning process. Though, you can only learn as much as the Hero knows. If they have lost their memories or suppressed them due to trauma then the contents will be blank until they remember or they are unrepressed.

I read this and quickly turned to the background pages of the book where it had her name, age, height, and weapon, but nothing else. I guess she wasn’t lying about losing her memories. After the background, there was a detailed description of her weapon and the style of ammunition is used. Which baffled me as it did not use arrows or magic to work. In fact, it used a similar substance that was used in fireworks.

“Learn anything else?” Sasha asked with a somewhat annoyed tone.

“Not much. Just how your weapon works. Though I will say to conserve your ammunition. We don't have much like it in this world.” I said.

“Don’t worry. I have a bayonet,” she said before pulling out a large dagger which she connected to the front of her gun in order to make it like a spear.

“Nice,” I said as I started to stand up. Though the pain of my arm was starting to get to me so I clung to my staff as I did.

“Where to? Sasha asked.

“I don’t know. I guess to the surface. However, I have no clue how to get there. I’ve been stuck in this labyrinth for nearly a month.” I said dishearteningly before walking towards a passageway at the end of the room.

“Great...” Sasha said sarcastically with a roll of her eyes before following me.