“What?”
As the ringing continued, Ruri took a look around her, but she found that neither Asahi nor her four former classmates were paying any attention to it. Just when she decided she must be the only one able to see or hear any of this, the ground underneath them suddenly glowed brightly.
“Huh? What? What’s going on?!”
Ruri heard Asahi’s panicked and clueless question as she shut her eyes to shield herself from the intense light. Once she did, she was overcome with a sense of weightlessness and a knot formed in her stomach, almost like she was taking the plunge on a roller coaster. It brought her to her knees.
Once the sense of weightlessness subsided and she opened her eyes, the familiar city buildings and streets with their cars whizzing past were gone, and she found herself sitting in what appeared to be a temple paved with cold stone.
It was spring and things had warmed up considerably, but they were still stuck in the part of the season where you needed long sleeves to fend off the chill. Nevertheless, the place they were in right now, perhaps because of all the stone, was far chillier than where they’d been a few seconds ago.
But it made Ruri wonder if it was truly the cold that was making her shiver...
“Ooh! It was a success!”
“The Priestess has come to us!”
It wasn’t clear what had just happened or where this even was, but standing in front of Ruri, frozen in wonderment, was an old man dressed in white, priest-like garb and a group of elderly men. They celebrated amongst themselves, ignoring Ruri and the others entirely.
“...Say what?” Ruri’s mind had finally started functioning again, but it was quickly thrown into confusion.
She took a look around her to see Asahi and the four former middle school classmates, the same group that had been with her up until a few seconds ago, mouths agape. Just like Ruri, none of them seemed to have a grasp on the situation at hand.
From the crowd of strange men, a young man dressed like a stereotypical movie prince spoke up. “Greetings and welcome, our long-awaited Priestess Princess...?”
The young man spoke with a smile on his face until he looked past Asahi, who was closest to him, and over to Ruri and the other classmates’ faces, and his eyes widened in shock.
“Priest, what is the meaning of this?! There are three girls here, are there not?!” yelled the man to the crowd of people dressed in priest robes around him, prompting the old man in the most ornate robes to step forward.
The old man gazed at Ruri and the others, who were still flabbergasted, nodded his head, put his hand on his chin, and said, “It would seem that we’ve accidentally summoned extraneous people, in addition to the Priestess Princess.”
“So which of them is the Priestess Princess?”
“The Priestess Princess is said to possess rare coloring and the ability to attract anyone to her, Your Highness”
The young man in the prince outfit being called “Your Highness” took a good look at the faces of Asahi, Ruri, and their female classmate one by one... and finally smiled at Asahi. “Then it must be you. You are the most attractive one here.”
(Wow, talk about rude! He decided it was Asahi after hardly even thinking about it.) Ruri thought bitterly.
The man took to his knee before Asahi and presented his hand like an Arthurian knight pledging his love. Asahi looked at this with flushed cheeks before timidly placing her hand atop his. She was sending passionate looks toward the good-looking gentleman.
Faced with this sight, an idea dawned on Ruri. If Asahi was given her dream man, then maybe Ruri could finally get away from her?! Perhaps entertaining that idiotic thought helped because her once-confused mind was starting to regain its composure.
(We were in the city up until a second ago, so there’s no feasible way we up and moved someplace else. Maybe they abducted us and took us somewhere after knocking us all out? But still, what’s this “Priestess Princess” business all about? Don’t tell me Asahi’s followers are up to something weird again.)
“Asahi’s followers would do something like this” was a nauseating thought that Ruri had more times than she cared to remember.
“Um, excuse me, but where are we? If Asahi is the only one you want, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me go back home.” Ruri addressed one of the nearby priests, but he simply asked the man presenting his hand to Asahi for instructions in a bewildered manner.
“How should we deal with the others, Your Highness?”
“Right. For the time being, reporting to His Majesty takes precedence. We’ll ask His Majesty how we should handle the others.”
Despite basically saying she wanted to go back home and quickly, she was getting forcibly marched off elsewhere.
They were brought and urged to kneel before a middle-aged man in extravagant clothes, who sat firmly on a lavish throne raised high and exuded an aura that practically shouted that he was the king around here.
Asahi, however, was the only one allowed to keep standing.
“So good of you to come, Priestess Princess. I am the King of the Land of Nadasha. We have been looking forward to your visit in order to grace our land with prosperity.”
The middle-aged man’s statement made no sense, but Asahi replied, flustered, nonetheless.
“Um, thank you... very much... But, um, where might this be? I was in the city a few moments ago...”
“This is the Land of Nadasha. You have been summoned here.”
(Is he seriously saying that fantasy stuff with a straight face?!)
“There is a reason why we have summoned forth you all. Currently, our nation is in the midst of a dilemma. However, our nation has a book of prophecies passed down from the days of old, although it has only been read by kings and priests. It is written that when crisis faces our nation, a Priestess Princess summoned from another realm shall usher prosperity to our lands. And so, in accordance with what is written, the one summoned forth is you, my dear.” He then awkwardly tacked on, “Well, you and a few others, apparently.”