Reality has a very weird way of looking like an absurd comedy at times, a fact I'm sure everyone can accept and has certainly experienced at one point or the other. Personally, I'd never related to it all that much but reality also has a distinct way of slapping you across the face with well... reality.
Take my case for example.
One moment, you're a humble necromancer plying your dodgy trade around battlefieldsand third world countries while dodging scrutiny from the posh magi that liked to hang out in the Clock Tower and think they were better than everyone else.
The next, you're being non-consensually selected to fight in some Holy Church sponsored war in a backalley island nation no one really cares about past the fact that they had two Suns dropped on them the last time they entered a dick-measuring contest with someone.
You try to get out of it, but your oh-so-respected family has had about enough of you coasting through life off their wealth and prestige, and your mum tells you she'll either sell you off to someone as a broodmare for your magic circuits, marry you to your sister or make you an apprentice to fucking Barthomeloi of all people, if you don't actually participate.
The last thing I wanted to do was to be stuck with that uppity bi-... So, after considering options, you decide a war where you're not going to actually physically get hurt might be better. Figured I'd just lose on purpose and waddle off to India or something before turning up at home a year or two later.
But nooo, reality is reality.
You pack your things (mostly different organs and bones) and set off to Japan where you use the catalyst- Ah yes... First I need to talk about what the war actually was. Apparently, some of those chaps had figured out how to summon figures of legend from the past, mythical heroes and villains and what have you. Seven people would summon seven heroes and have said heroes kill each other to power up something called a Holy Grail (not the real one, god no) which would then grant a wish.
Okay, sounded safe enough.
Again, no.
It was most certainly NOT safe when most of my competitors turned out to be angsty
children with fucked-up life stories or whatever that were all too keen on causing grievous bodily harm towards their hormone-filled ends. Don't even get me started on the priest overseeing it who somehow had a basement full of orphans for 'some reason'.
Anyway, you use the catalyst your STAR younger brother gave you to summon... I somehow ended up summoning Morgan le Fay but then then, it turns out SOMEHOW the witch who caused the literal downfall of King Arthur with plotting and scheming has the fucking AUDACITY to look down on you for your preferred branch of magecraft so... yes, we had something of a rocky start.
And no, no matter what she says, I did not care for her, at all. She went and got herself killed for nothing, there was no need to. She's a witch, who are you going to trust? We'Re SiMIlar... nope. I was better.
So right, you fight the war by strategically hiding in a cave outside the city and spawning a platoon of zombies and skeletons to go handle stuff for you... because no one in their right bloody mind would fight a literal mythical legend, right?
WRONG! NO!
There turns out to be a wannabe superhero dickhead that just messes up everything by hero'ing. What kind of magus does that? In the end, your summoned hero(?) ends up giving her life to save you from bloody HERCULES (because a literal demigod's a TOTALLY fair summon) and then you kind of accidentally end up throwing a temper tantrum over the loss which gets you ass-blasted by the hero's widdle gwilfriend... except said girlfriend blasts you with the bloody Jewelled Sword of Zelretch powered by the Holy Grail... as if the sword of the only living magician with the power to travel parallel worlds was something you could definitely account for, right?
So, with your lady dead, and your ass blasted, you're suddenly temporally dislocated and end with your face up and ass down in the middle of a wheat field... In retrospect, the temporal dislocation thingamajig might have been on account of the jewelled sword...
Huh.
BUT WAIT, there's more!
You somehow end up in a tavern after a week of tumbling through fields and forests where some barmaid from a bygone-era marks you for some easy money on account of the fact that you wash your ass when you go the toilet and have the decency to not forgo showers for months on end like the men of this glorious time.
Rivers existed back then too, was it so hard to take a dive every now and then?
Suddenly, the busty ginger's all too keen to 'accidentally' brush your forearm with her tits or fall against you while putting down your food and give you weird smiles. SOMEHOW that ends up hurting the frail ego of the town's token simp who's crushing on her and now you're up against the shoddy wall of a tavern with splinters in your neck and the evolutionary equivalent of an ape in a human body choking the life out of you while people cheer on.
That's where I am now.
The stocky dickhead slammed his head into mine, face all red. I was more worried about the fact that he was going to give me medieval lice than actually cause any damage.
First rule of being a magus, hit the gym fourteen times a week... First rule of being William Ceallaigh, always keep a revolver handy, especially if being nobility let you get away with it. I discreetly pressed the barrel to his kneecap.
"If I'd known you were going to get this bloody pressed..." I grinned. "I'd have actually fucked her."
Unfortunately for him, I was hangry.
"You-"
Bang.
Suddenly, the old boy didn't feel freakishly strong anymore. Busy struggling to stay upright, he didn't have the strength to hold me anymore and when his legs inevitably bucked, I kicked him in the chest, knocking the bloody gorilla to the dirty wooden floor with a loud thud.
The hustle and bustle of the tavern was replaced by an abrupt silence. A few travellers in cloaks sitting by the door quickly made their escape. An older man with streaks of grey lining his beard slowly inched his hands towards the sword lying by his tool while the innkeep spoke some hushed words to a small child that ran out the back.
I made a show of fixing my collar and willfully stopped myself from shoving the still smoking gun in my coat. The last time that had happened, it ended up leaving a burn scar on my left tit.
Tapping the groaning fella on the ground, I turned to our little audience.
"Now, I'm pretty fucking sure we Ceallaigh were still a thing back in the era of swords and knights too. Would someone do me the honor of pointing the way or do I need to do worse things to this idiot? And someone give me some more food already. I'm starving."
The name certainly seemed to ring some bells, at least, providing me with quite some relief when a good few people ducked their heads in an attempt to hide their faces. All the nasty looks and hostility was immediately replaced by grim realisation. It meant we were still a thing and still happened to be one of those families you knew did wrong but no one ever really seemed to do anything about it.
That was because while the lineage had actually been around for some 1800 years, one of us had conveniently shown up with some two thousand armoured knights or something to join King Alfred the Great, the first King of all England, cementing us into the ranks of recognised nobility... We did later betray the fella by joining my namesake, William Wallace, on his conquest... who we also ditched at some point if memory served correctly (My mother had been very strict about drilling in the history). All very typical for a family that got into magecraft courtesy of some passing witch.
Of course, the family being big on dick-measuring contests meant my humble trade wasn't all that well-liked. No, they'd rather fawn over my little brother because he liked to sit around playing with the dirt.
Hmph, skeletons were way cooler than causing localised earthquakes.
The same barmaid, who'd earlier been so eager to serve and please fell to her knees. She looked at the idiot bleeding out on the floor with some concern before bringing both hands together to...
"I'm-... I'm sorry, m'lord! Forgive us! He... He didn't know!"
...
...
"Sure. Food."
I placed my gun on the plank table and took a seat again.
There were definitely going to be splinters on my ass after this.
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