Reaping of the Scythe Hero

Chapter 2 : Sowing the Seeds

The noise of the muttering died down as footsteps were heard echoing from the hallway. A guy with brown hair and green eyes walked in holding a scythe with the same kind of look as our weapons. He looked around and I could see him becoming uncomfortable with all the staring. "H-Hello." He cleared his throat. "My name is Riku Kanashimiki. And I'm here to save the world as the Scythe Hero."

Riku POV

A man who I assume is some kind of royal stood up from his throne. His advisors looked at him. "Your majesty, what are we to do?" The apparent king remained silent for a moment. "If he holds the scythe vassal weapon, then he is a hero to be honored and respected. However, to properly accommodate a fifth hero we will need to prepare adventurers for parties for each of you." The king proclaimed.

Everyone went quiet and the four guys in front of me with similar weapons got confused. "Any idea what's up with a scythe hero?" A guy with a shield asked the 3 other guys by him. They all seemed as clueless as him. If he's the Shield Hero, I need to keep an eye on him to make sure he stays safe. That's my job as his scythe. Elidibus and the others made that crystal clear.

I looked to the king and stepped past the 4 other heroes. These 4 are at the same level as me as far as strength. Their skill with their weapons is probably the same as well if they were just summoned. I bowed for a moment in respect. "King, if I may. Why can't the five of us just party up together?" I mused. There has to be a reason for gathering other people for a party instead of having the summoned heroes work together.

The sword-user sighed. "As they explained to us, we must each recruit a party of our own to enhance and level up our weapons. Apparently, the weapons won't work as well if we join the same party." The guy with the sword explained to me.

The five of us were led to our own private room in the castle. It reminded me of most royal chambers in fantasy stories and European kinds of movies. We all chatted over dinner about our understanding of the situation, and I learned everyone's names.

"Doesn't this kinda seem like a video game?" Naofumi asked us. "That's 'cause it is a video game. It's exactly like Emerald Online." Motoyasu responded, and his answer confused me. "I haven't heard of that one?" I weighed in on the conversation out of curiosity and Motoyasu seemed surprised by the fact that neither Naofumi nor I have heard of it. "What? Seriously, it's huge." He chimed.

If it was such a big game, I think I would've heard of it. Itsuki looked at us and spoke up. "What are you talking about? This isn't some online game. It's a new console game I'm playing called Dimension Web." 'Heh, console scrub.' I thought to myself which surprisingly got a light chuckle from Zodiark.

"You're both wrong. Everything about this is identical to a VRMMO called Brave Star Online." Ren brought in his comparison that actually caught my interest. I turned to him and asked him. "Wait. Like a full on VRMMO? That kind of genre is barely starting, and the tech is still constantly evolving." He nodded, answering my question.

I looked at the other three. "You ever heard of anything like that?" I was getting confused. Are we from different points in history or something? "I saw light novels explore the concept, yeah." Naofumi answered me, oddly enough I haven't heard much from him. Does he not have a game like this?

"Interesting. I play an MMORPG pretty similar to this kind of layout, but I never heard of any of your games. And Ren, from what you said, I'm confused how I never heard of the game you mentioned. I keep up with gaming news and VR updates. I never heard of the tech being up to the specs of what you describe." I mused out loud what my thoughts were and now we all seem lost on what's going on.

Motoyasu stood up from the bed. "Ok let's compare general knowledge. Whose face is on the 1,000-yen bill? One, two." He counted and we all have different answers. "Wait who?" We asked each other. After more questions and time passed by we came to one conclusion. "We must be from different iterations of Japan. I guess that infinite universe theory was true." I spoke.