Estimated reading time: 10–13 minutes
Chapter 1
○○○
It’s April, the season of cherry blossoms.
The first day of school after spring break.
I walk along the tree-lined street blanketed in falling cherry petals, my expectations swelling for the year ahead.
April is the season of new encounters, after all.
Perhaps I’ll have some new encounters myself.
Even though I’ve already spent a year at this school, we do have class reshuffling.
Maybe I’ll become friends with a secretly kind delinquent girl.
Maybe that serious public morals committee member will turn out to be an otaku kindred spirit.
Maybe I’ll end up sitting next to that beautiful, aloof, cool and standoffish girl.
Lost in a delusional romantic comedy starring myself, I turn the corner of the cherry tree-lined path. The school gate comes into view straight ahead. But I bump into something.
「Ah, he was tying his shoelace,」 I realize what I bumped into the moment a dazzling light envelops me and the guy tying his shoelace.
○○○
I wake up inside a castle.
Utterly confused by the sudden change, I’m at the height of bewilderment.
Seeing the castle’s interior reminds me of something I learned about in high school – some German castle with a name that tickles chuunibyou sensibilities, Neuschwanstein or something.
I glance to the side and see a collapsed man beside me.
This guy – he’s the one who was tying his shoelace earlier.
Looking up to the floor above, there’s a luxurious chair.
Sitting imposingly in it is an old man wearing an unnecessarily heavy robe and an equally unnecessarily impressive white beard.
If I were to say something like 「Who are you, mister?」 matching the words that come to mind, I sense my head would fly off immediately.
Then, supposing this old man is the king, the lined up dignitaries beside him must be the pillars of the nation, no?
And further beside them, the lady wearing a habit that looks like it used an abundance of luxurious gold thread you’d only see online – could she possibly be… the Saint?
As I’m desperately trying to grasp the situation, the old man’s extremely low baritone voice resounds solemnly.
「Have the heroes awakened?」
Crap, I knew it, this is a hero summoning!
「Um, where are we, exactly?」
I fire off an inoffensive question, enunciating each part like some battlefield cameraman.
While asking, I’m wracking my brain.
Alarms are blaring nonstop in my head.
「This is the Arcana Kingdom, O Hero.」
The baritone voice resounds further, contrary to my desire to not hear any more.
「O Hero, will you not save us, this country – nay, this world?」
This is the type of other world summoning I don’t wanna hear about!
I glance at the guy summoned with me, still lying there, and he doesn’t seem to be waking up anytime soon.
He mutters deliriously, 「Uuugh, Mamaa…」
So unreliable.
Holding my head, I heave a mega huge internal sigh at the trying path ahead.
○○○
「My apologies for not introducing myself earlier. I am Yamada Ichiro.」
I try my best not to be rude and introduce myself, figuring it’s not good to not give my name in front of a nation’s king.
「Same here. I am Ryuguuin Ouji!! Please do remember it!」
The guy who finally woke up rides my coattails and introduces himself.
The heck is up with that 「Please do remember it」?! That’s not just rude, that’s on another level!
I’ll omit mentioning the overly stern-faced pillars of the nation, executives, aristocrats, church officials, national officials and so on beside Old Man Baritone.
Hearing things like 「Minister of ○○」 and 「◇◇ Temple Head」 and 「Duke of ××」 is already enough to make me go 「Eek!」 Just talking about people with titles that are sure to cause my stomach stress at Mach speed.
Of course, the ones running the show are Old Man Baritone AKA the current king of Arcana Kingdom, and the Saint (my guess was right) dressed in an absurdly lavish habit that’s the polar opposite of humble.
To summarize the back-and-forth with the king, the national executives interjecting with unnecessary comments, and the Saint with a face of steel: 「There is no Demon Lord in this world. However, please conquer the many dungeons that have suddenly appeared worldwide which could destroy this world.」
Huh? You don’t get any of that?
I figured you’d say that.
Let me explain in a bit more detail here.
Dungeons have existed since long ago, but recently twelve dungeons were born simultaneously.
Investigation revealed that the difficulty of these dungeons is orders of magnitude higher than existing ones. What’s more troubling is that these dungeons ranked as the most challenging are found to be rapidly growing over time.
While it can still somehow be dealt with by humanity, the kingdom’s wish is for us to conquer all twelve dungeons and defeat the dungeon masters and bosses lurking in their deepest depths.
○○○
The Saint declares 「O Heroes, I shall perform status appraisal on you here,」 pulls me and Ryūgūin by the hand, and before I know it, exposes all our personal information next to this bowling ball sized, stupid huge crystal.
The result of Shoelace Guy AKA Ryūgūin Ouji’s status reveal is that he’s a Hero.
His skills are also found to be cheat among cheats like 《5x Growth Rate》, 《Limit Break》, 《Hero’s Sword》, 《Light Magic: Master》.
It’s totally game-breaking – or more like it’s my situation that’s being broken here!
As I shudder at the sheer cheatness of Ryūgūin’s skills,
「Yamada, hurry and get your status revealed too.」
Ryūgūin flips his hair.
Rushing me just ’cause you turned out amazing!
I have an awful premonition filling my chest.
「Sir Yamada is a Holy Knight.」
I knew it, I’m not a Hero after all!
○○○
My skills as a Holy Knight are 《3x Growth Rate》, 《Iron Wall》, 《Light Magic: Advanced》, 《Guardian Deity》, 《Trust and Credibility》, 《Skill Defender》, 《Log》.
The Saint calls for applause, saying 「Sir Yamada and Sir Ryūgūin both have marvelous statuses. A round of applause for the two who will save our nation!!」
In terms of gacha games back in Japan, I’m totally an inferior version of Ryuguuin. Well, but maybe for a F2P player I could be a bit useful in battle?
I mean, they did say that even for me, it’s a cheat level status in this world-
The national VIPs raise a roaring cheer of 「Hurrah! Hurrah!」
Sorry to rain on the excitement, but can I really manage this?
○○○
The King and Saint once again beseech us.
「Please save the world, we beg of you.」
I couldn’t respond right away.
Summoning to another world is no different from kidnapping.
Even if I turn a blind eye to that and take on their salvation, there’s only two of us here.
And I had my concerns.
Do I even have the choice to refuse?
Even if we really do have cheat skills, we just arrived in this world. With no connections and no knowledge, what are we supposed to do if we reject their dungeon conquering request, saying 「We can’t do it」? It’s not hard to imagine that no matter how much of a fuss we kick up, we’d just get killed and that’s the end of it.
That’s why I decided that I must, by any means necessary, extract information bit by bit within a safe extent and return to Japan.
At that moment, Ryūgūin’s hot guy voice resounds beside me.
「We accept!!」
The VIPs go 「Oooh!」
My mind goes 「Oooh!」
The hell are you unilaterally agreeing to, you baldy!!
It was the moment my determination was dashed to nothing.
「As a Hero, I shall save this world – save all of you! That is the duty of those with power!」
There’s no such duty!
Thanks to you guys I can’t even fulfill my three major duties back in Japan!
「With me as the Hero and Yamada as the Holy Knight, clearing all the dungeons is not impossible!!」
This isn’t just collateral damage!
Where’d my free will goooo!!
「U-Um…」
My voice is drowned out by the old guys’ cries of joy.
○○○
It was a hellish time where it didn’t feel like I was alive.
Kidnapped to an unknown land, in a situation where my life was on the line.
On top of that, I’m surrounded by dignified adults glaring sternly at me.
In the end, I’m just a high school student. I can’t put on an act.
I’m not capable of immediately outmaneuvering royalty like summoned high schoolers often do in web novels.
And thanks to that idiot Ryūgūin, my dungeon conquest was decided.
I still have concerns about the dungeons too, but there was something else I needed to ask about.
I wait for a lull in the clamor and ask my question.
「Will we be able to return to our original world?」
The king narrows his eyes and replies.
「Indeed. There are records in texts from a hundred years ago that the Heroes summoned back then returned to their original world.」
「Then please send me back right away. Having never done any martial arts, let alone fought others, and possessing no ability as a Hero, I will be nothing but dead weight.
With just Ryūgūin as the Hero here, he alone will surely be worth a thousand men!」
Fortunately using this chance to push everything onto Ryūgūin, I raise my voice. Ryūgūin takes my words at face value and puffs out his chest, going 「Hehe, I’m a Hero after all. Of course.」
As I’m giving Ryūgūin a cold stare, the king turns pitying eyes towards us.
「My apologies, O Heroes. In order to summon you Heroes, we exhausted all the magic power in the summoning artifact.
It will take twenty years for the artifact to fully recover.」
Isn’t that answer the same as saying we can’t return?!
The school has probably already reported my absence by now. Then my parents, little sister, and grandparents must be worried sick.
Will I have to keep putting them through that worry, that unease, for twenty years?
Even if I do manage to return, will Grandma and Grandpa still be well?
The anxiety is endless.
And even if I do return after twenty years, what will become of me?
I’ll just be a 37-year-old middle school dropout NEET.
I’ve been listening to them talk without even raising my voice so far.
I’ve also been minding my manners so as not to be rude, considering they are royalty and nobility.
But I couldn’t hold back anymore.
I was about to clearly voice my protest to them, giving myself over to anger– At that moment, the Saint standing nearby places her hand on my shoulder.
Please wait just a bit longer– I feel like that’s what she’s saying.
「Returning is not limited to just that method.
By conquering the dungeons, you can obtain various orbs in their deepest depths.
Among them exists an orb called the 《Wish Orb》. This 《Wish Orb》 is an item that grants any one wish of the person who obtains it.
With just that, not only is the Hero’s return possible, it’s not impossible to even return you to the state and timeline from before you were summoned, simultaneous with your return.」
In the end, I have no choice but to conquer the dungeons after all.
Swallowing my words, I had to steel myself in the end.
○○○
From there, things progressed at a breakneck pace.
Over the next month, we would stay in the castle, learn about this world, and since we’re total novices when it comes to combat, study the basics of battle from the knight order said to be the most elite in the nation.
I described it as a hellish time a bit ago.
That was incorrect.
Looking back later, that was precisely the entrance to hell.
The real hell starts from here.
The first step of it arrives with a sense of discomfort.
Check out my Patreon for early access to upcoming updates. Patreon Link
Table of Contents >>