Hero Party

The "Hero Party" (パーティー) was a group of students from Earth who were summoned to Tortus by Ehit.

History
When the humans of Tortus were at a disadvantage in their war against the demons after the latter found a way to control monsters to fight for them, Ehit summoned a classroom of thirty students, as well as their teacher, from Japan in order to aid humanity. Ehit had granted each of them a Job and imbued them with magical abilities and Skills to aid in the fight. When they first arrived in Tortus, they were approached by members of the Holy Church inside their main cathedral, and were given an orientation by Pope Ishtar Langbard about their current situation, and explained that defeating the demons would be the only way for them to go back home. For the next two weeks, they trained under Knight Commander Meld Loggins of the Heiligh Kingdom, and would then be sent to fight in the Great Orcus Labyrinth in Horaud in order to gain combat experience. During their first excursion, the were accidentally teleported to the Labyrinth's 65th floor, and were trapped by an army of Traum Soldiers by the exit, as well a large monster known as a "Behemoth" on the path forward. In order to escape, Hajime Nagumo, the weakest members of their group, stalled the behemoth long enough for them to clear a pathway back to the surface. Once he bought everyone enough time to escape, Hajime attempted to return to his classmates while they further distracted the behemoth with their magic in order for him to rendezvous with them, but he was secretly targeted with a fireball spell by Daisuke Hiyama, and fell down towards the Abyss. In order to survive, Hajime mutated into a human/monster hybrid by eating the Monster meat, and being able to absorb their powers and as a result. He would eventually clear the Labyrinth, as well as gain a companion in the vampire princess "Yue". He would also learn the truth about Ehit's true nature from the records of those that created the Labyrinth, the Liberators, and discovered that all beings in Tortus, including those of his classmates, were no more than pawns to Ehit's game of death. Hajime, however, did not care about this revelation, and instead focused on finding a way back home.

Meanwhile Hajime's supposed death severely traumatized the rest of the students to the point that some of them refused to resume their training. While the most powerful members decided to return to the Orcus Labyrinth, several others instead chose to support their teacher Aiko Hatayama, who would travel throughout the kingdom to use her special magic to aid in their agriculture. When they arrived in Ur, one of their students, Yukitoshi Shimizu, disappeared from their group, but they would incidentally reunite with Hajime when he was continuing his own journey. That night, he secretly told Aiko about what he discovered in the Great Orcus Labyrinth about Ehit, in the hopes that she could be of use to him in the future. The next day, he discovered that Ur was about to be invaded by an army of monsters, but Hajime and his companions managed to defeat them. It was later revealed that they were controlled by Yukitoshi, and that he had betrayed his classmates to work for the demons by attempting to kill Aiko, in order to become a hero amongst the demons. In the end, Hajime killed Yukitoshi after the later was mortally wounded by the demon that recruited him for their cause. Hajime then left his teacher to resume his quest.

As the students that choose to fight resumed their training in the Great Orcus Labyrinth, they were ambushed by the demon Cattleya with a detachment of powerful monsters under her command. She was assigned to either recruit or kill the members of the Hero Party. When she presented this offer to them, the "Hero" Kouki Amanogawa immediately rejected it and began his attack against her. They tried to fight, but Cattleya monsters were too strong, and they were forced to retreat. Afterwards, they sent Kousuke Endou, the party's assassin, back to the surface to warn everyone about the impending demon threat in the Labyrinth. Although Kousuke managed to escape, Cattleya would kill all of the knights that escorted them, and then captured Meld Loggins. She would later find the students and further attempted to recruit them, but the refused and resumed their battle. Despite their best efforts, the Hero Party was overwhelmed and were about to be killed, but was saved by the sudden arrival of Hajime, whom Kousuke found in Hourad and managed to convince him to help their classmates. Hajime effortless managed to kill all of Cattleya's monsters before killing her in an extremely ruthless manner. Seeing Hajime's incredible power both amazed and scared his classmates, with Kouki in particular outraged with how he killed Cattleya without mercy. This prompted Hajime to threaten to kill Kouki, if he chose to oppose him and that he had no plans to rejoin the Hero Party. As Hajime was about to leave his classmates again, he was approached by Kaori Shirasaki (who was in love with with him) and demanded to accompany him. He reluctantly accepted her request due to Yue wanting her to join them as a way to show Kaori that Hajime was her partner. However, Kouki challenged Hajime into an unarmed duel in attempt to take his companions for his party, only for Hajime to easily defeated his classmate by dropping him into a pitfall filled with teargas grenades. Daisuke and his gang tried to plead with Kaori to reconsider but she refused. Instead, they attempted to manipulate Hajime with a false apology in order to remain close to Kaori. Hajime however, was already aware of Daisuke's failed attempted to kill him back at the Great Orcus Labyrinth, and secretly threatened to expose him, which prompted Daisuke to have his friends leave Hajime alone. Just before Hajime left his classmates once more, he gave Kaori's best friend Shizuku Yaegashi a new sword after her old one had been destroyed during the fight against Cattleya.

After the battle, the Hero Party became severely demoralized from their recent defeat. Three weeks later, Aiko and her party retuned back to the capital, and she was about to reveal what Hajime had told her to everyone, but was captured by the apostle Noint that was disguised as a nun.

When the demons invaded the kingdom, the Hero Party was trapped due to the treachery of Daisuke and Eri Nakamura. Eri killed many of the kingdoms knights beforehand, and used her powers as a Necormancer to control their corpses to restrain them. After they were restrained, she killed Reichi Kondou and turned him to her undead minion as well. Daisuke and also managed to kill Kaori after she reunited with the rest of her classmates when Hajime party returned to kingdom to rescue Aiko after learning that she was kidnapped. After he rescued Aiko and killed Noint, Hajime arrived in time to see Daisuke to kill Kaori, and responded by killing all of Eri's zombies before killing Daisuke. As Hajime was about to kill Eri as well, she was saved by the arrival of the demon general Freid Bagwa. Despite the Demon's best efforts to intimidate Hajime into surrendering, Hajime easily beat his forced by using a powerful satellite weapon "Hyperion" to wipe out the majority of Freid's forces. This caused Freid and Eri to retreat before Hajime could have a chance to kill them. Hajime the took Kaori's body in an effort to save her.

Six days later, as the Hero Party was aiding the kingdom in its recovery, Hajime returned with Kaori, who was now in the body of Noint. That evening, Aiko revealed to her students what Hajime told her about Ehit, much to their shock. This promoted Kouki and his close friends to want to go on journey with Hajime and explore the Great Labyrinths in order to acquire the Ancient Magic they possessed to make them stronger to fight back against the false gods, to which Hajime accepted. When the "heroes" asked Hajime what happened to him during his "fall" incident, Hajime eventually revealed Hiyama is the mastermind behind of all this intentionally, not accidentally causing his classmates to completely written Daisuke Hiyama off as a selfish, deluded traitor and abandoned the slightest of their sympathy for him.

While Kouki and his friends ventured off with Hajime and his companions, the rest of the students continued aiding the kingdom, with Yuka Sonobe as their unofficial leader. Unfortunately, they were all captured by Ehit's apostles and taken to the demon nation Garland to be used as bait for Hajime. They were also joined by Princess Liliana S. B. Heiligh, a young Dagon that Hajime once rescued named Myu and her mother Remia. Hajime would later be coerced by Freid to visit Garland after learning of their capture and soon confronted the demon Lord, as well as Ehit's retainer Alva (who possessed the body of Yue's uncle Dienleed Galdea Vesperitio Avatarl). After a bloody battle between Hajime's group and the Hero Party against Alva, Ehit and the apostles, Hajime managed to kill Alva and the apostles after almost having been killed, but Ehit escaped while possession Yue's body, and Kouki had been brainwashed and abducted by Eri. Before escaping, Ehit vowed to destroy all life on Tortus in three days in order to use the life-force harvested from such an act to travel to Earth and start his "game" anew there. During that time, Hajime and the Hero Party were preparing for the final battle against Ehit, assembled an army from Tortus' nations, equipped with powerful weapons that were supplied by Hajime. After the others killed Freid and Eri, beat the sense back into Kouki, Hajime confronted Ehit (while possessed Yue's body) until Yue freed herself from Ehit's influence, allowing Hajime to kill the false God to bring an end to his games.

After Ehit's death, the summoned ones remain in Tortus for one more month in aiding the realm's recovery as well as preparing the artifacts needs to return home. The survivors return to Japan one year after they were first summoned, the "Hero Party" officially disbanded, but before they could resume their normal lives as high school students, now publicly dubbed as the "Returnees" (a term that later become quasi-official), they've to weather a brief fervour surrounding their miraculous return, before the media frenzy subsided via the deployment of Hajime's artifact.

Known Members

 * Kouki Amanogawa (leader)
 * Ryutarou Sakagami
 * Shizuku Yaegashi
 * Kaori Shirasaki (joined Hajime’s party/group)
 * Hajime Nagumo (left to create his own party/group)
 * Suzu Taniguchi
 * Eri Nakamura (defected)†
 * Jugo Nagayama
 * Kentarou Nomura
 * Kousuke Endou
 * Ayako Tsuji
 * Mao Yoshino
 * Daisuke Hiyama (defected)†
 * Reichi Kondou†
 * Yoshiki Saitou
 * Shinji Nakano
 * Yuka Sonobe
 * Nana Miyazaki
 * Atsushi Tamai
 * Taeko Sugawara
 * Akito Nimura
 * Noboru Aikawa
 * Yukitoshi Shimizu (defected)†
 * Yuya Suzuki
 * Nao Arakawa
 * Shouta Mori
 * Mei Fujimoto
 * Sakura Aizawa
 * Rika Miura
 * Kana Yokoyama
 * Shiori Mizushima
 * Kotone Hoshino

Note: †; deceased

Trivia

 * The members of the Hero Party have higher stats than most beings of Tortus due to the humans of Earth having endued many years of not receiving most of Earth's World Tree Branch energy, in which they would receive a massive boast upon being bestowed with another form of energy (which is comparable to ). Furthermore, the reason why they are able to use mana is due to the unique properties of Earth's World Tree Branch energy that enables someone to easily adapt to another form of energy.
 * Over half of the artifacts that the Hero Party uses were crafted by Ruth Orcus. These include Hajime's transmutation gloves, Kaori's staff and Shizuku's knight sword.