SCP Corporation: Contain Bonfire

"Oh, eight great Heroes, I pray for your coming, and beg you to save this era that is about to meet its end..."

"May this decayed world receive your gaze..."

"Dauntless and noble Heroes, please heed our humble plea, and descend in this moment!"

Devout calls reached his ears one after another.

Colin was woken up by the noise.

He opened his eyes and momentarily stunned, he saw a group of gaunt villagers in tattered clothes kneeling before him at a distance.

Behind them stood an ancient town, distinct from the modern world, dominated by a conspicuous white church.

The area farther away was shrouded in haze, indiscernible in detail.

Who am I?

Where am I?

What am I doing?

Colin couldn't help but ask himself these philosophical questions, and then he remembered hearing a voice calling out to him as he slept.

Then consciousness faded...

And when he opened his eyes again, it seemed he had arrived here.

Although there were many crucial things that he couldn't seem to recall in a moment's notice, the strangeness of the world before him led to an outlandish speculation in his heart—

I've crossed over again!

Well, why "again"?

"Welcome to this perilous world, eight esteemed Heroes..." A senior priest stood at the forefront of the villagers wearing a red clerical robe, a crown upon his head, and holding a golden magic wand, gazing fervently at him.

No, to be more precise, gazing at a group of people including him.

Colin looked back upon hearing his words, only to find that he was standing on a nearly one-hundred-square-meter altar plaza.

He was at the very front, with eight others behind him.

"These days, does crossing over include a group as well?"

Colin curiously looked at the others who, like him, stood on the altar.

The half-dozen "Heroes" who had crossed over appeared just as bewildered and looked around with caution and guard.

"What's going on?" a young man standing a few meters away from Colin's side, clad in a black woolen coat, asked.

He was wrapped so tightly that his figure seemed a bit chubby.

"Great and merciful Heroes, I am a bishop of the Church of Light. Our world is suffering from hunger, demonic creatures, and black fog. As such, we had no choice but to follow an ancient holy art and pray to your God-given Land..."

"We prayed for kind-hearted you to hear our plea, to come to our land, using your extraordinary wisdom and indomitable will, to start from this little town and save this world on the brink of doom, bringing about a miraculous salvation..."

"If you can save this world in jeopardy, then we will be willing to offer everything within our power as a token of gratitude, everyone will be grateful for your deeds, everyone will know your greatness and immortality..."

The red-robed priest praised the coming of the Heroes while devoutly narrating the basic situation of this world to Colin and the others.

After listening for about fifteen minutes, Colin's expression became slightly peculiar, because in simple terms, the Other World was in deep trouble, there had been prophecies of world destruction since ancient times, and as expected, a myriad of disasters had occurred in the last millennium, putting the human world on the verge of extinction, aside from the small town before them...

Not far away, there were a host of people waiting to be allocated, oh, no, saved: the noble Kingdom Princess, the pure Saintess of the Church, the pitiable noble mother and daughter, the helpless sisters in the village, and so on.

Following an ancient prophecy, they summoned eight heroes to this place who would save the World of Calamities, teetering on the brink of disaster, just as the prophecy foretold.

Of course, the old man didn't state it that plainly, but Colin understood that this was implicitly and explicitly the message conveyed.

Whether they could save the world was not clear, but the old man seemed to understand "heroes" quite well, knowing that all kinds of beautiful girls were the motivation for ordinary people to save the world.

Moreover, the old man spoke Mandarin with remarkable fluency...?

Wait a minute... Mandarin?

How can these people speak Mandarin?

Colin felt a sense of incongruity and realized that something was slightly off.

At the very least, these people should be speaking another language.

Strange, I don't seem to have encountered these people before, so why would I assume they could speak another language? Colin frowned.

On the other side, after the old man finished his spiel in about fifteen minutes, a blonde girl in white cult robes suddenly squeezed out from the crowd.

The moment she appeared, Colin clearly heard the sound of eight people behind him inhaling sharply.

For the girl who had suddenly appeared was indeed beautiful...

She was petite, with a slender and fair neck, dressed in the simple white vestments of the Church, and set against the villagers' poor appearance, she was like a lotus flower unstained by mud, possessing an unadorned, natural beauty that was holy, dignified, and striking.

The air itself seemed to acquire a layer of light and intoxicating fragrance due to her presence...

The sight sent the heroes' blood rushing downward.

At this moment, the girl with her reddened eyes looked at them pitifully and opened her small, rosy lips, "Great heroes, I beseech you to save this world, protect these innocent and kind villagers, and defeat the monsters emerging from the ground..."

"Yes, please save us, Honorable Braves..." a group of villagers followed by kneeling and pleading, a large crowd knelt in a dense mass outside the square's altar.

One of the "heroes" looked beyond the villagers, not even glancing at them, but fixed his gaze on the beautiful girl and made a declaration, "Rest assured! We will definitely save this world!"

"My friend here is right, as Braves, our duty is to help the weak and suppress all enemies!"

"I will spread my knowledge across this land and show those so-called demons what a steel current is!"

"Right, my name is Lu Sheng, may I ask for your name?"

"You may... Honorable Brave, my name is Elisa Kent, and I'm a nun of the Church of Light, you can just call me Elisa..."

Most of the other transmigrants behind Colin had spoken up, willingly assuming the identity entitled "brave," ready to become saviors who would save the world.

At the same time, caught by the scent, Colin's previously calm mindset also began to feel an indescribable restlessness—

This feeling... was like an inexplicably heightened sense of confidence.

His inner self seemed to be expanding.

As if flattered a couple of times, he truly became a savior.

He felt the urge to make promises like the people behind him, to make one impossible commitment after another...

But at that moment, a subtle tyrannical temperament surged in Colin's heart, and almost immediately afterward, his pupils constricted as the world before him underwent a radical transformation.