Tik... tik... tik...
The clock is ticking.
Hikaru, A 3rd year engineering student, sat at his desk with a blank sketchbook in front of him, staring at it like that shit owed him 5$. Hands clutched to his head, spinning his pencil. He was an aspiring mangaka desperately trying to submit a one-shot for a monthly manga competition. But after getting his ideas rejected multiple times, he had completely run out of shit to draw.
His temper finally hit the ceiling.
"Fuck it."
He snapped the pencil within his palm,swept everything of the desk, pushed his chair back. Top of it, he delivered a full-force kick straight into the desk leg.
"AAAARRRRHHH!"
A second later, he was rolling on the floor in pure agony, clutching his foot.
Trying to cool down, he got out of his room toward the living room to watch TV. Just as he almost reached for the remote, his younger sister speed blitzing outta nowhere and snatched it right out under his nose.
"Gimme the remote... who tf gave you the permission?"Hikaru groaned.
"Permission? For what?" His sister turned her cold gaze at him.
"I arrived here first. Basically, I'm the one true wielder of this remote." Hikaru yelled
His sister completely unbothered
"Yeah, yeah, WIELD it later. For now, fuck off, I have my favorite anime to watch."
Hikaru head straight towards TV, grabbed the TV cord, and yanked the plug straight out of the wall, spinning it around his finger.
"So be it, milady."
"Plug it back in," she growled.
"I think a mosquito is playing violin in my ears. Geez, they're evolving."
"I won't repeat twice."
Both of them went dead silent, glaring at each other. Then, out of nowhere, his sister screamed at the top of her lungs:
"MAAAAAAAM!"
Hikaru mumbled under his breath, "Ouuu shi-"
"From which dumpster did you pick this piece of trash up from?!" she yelled toward the kitchen.
"You should've left him there!"
"Who the FUCK are you calling trash, bitch?!"
Then hikaru went silent for 2 seconds and staring at his sister
"I'll spare you this time,but remember, this isn't over yet."
The TV flickered on. The anime began: Reborn as a Hero with Level 999 System.
Hikaru instantly wheezed. "Heheeehe... so THIS is your favorite show? ANOTHER ISEKAI SLOP!!!"
On screen, a high school boy was just walking down the sidewalk when out of nowhere, Truck-kun spawned behind his back at light speed, sent him flying into the sky, and he sent to another world to set out on a journey to defeat the Demon King.
Hikaru looks at his sister
"Same shit happens every time. How cheap. Don't you have any standards?"
"Speak for yourself! As if you aren't wrapping up entire series just to drool over those bitches in the harem!"
"I mean, that's literally the best thing they got! It's a fact!"
Hikaru suddenly stood up on the couch, placing his hand over his chest.
"GLAZING WAIFUS IS THE REASON MY HEART STILL BEATS!"
"Then why don't you draw an Isekai too? With a lot of hoes, of course. Who knows, maybe you'll get selected since there are plenty of simps out there like you. They'll carry your work."
"Isekai? Me? Fuh naww... Nothing comes before food anyway. Mom, is dinner ready?" He rolled off the couch and headed toward the kitchen.
"Call her!"his mom ordered.
"Don't need to worry about her, Mom,"
"If that thing has a consciousness, it knows when to reach the food."
While having dinner, his mom suddenly asked, "How are your studies going?"
"E-Eh? Why so sudden, Mom?"
"Because I need to know if you're actually studying or back to drawing those craps again."
(Come on, don't call it crap...) "I-I'm doing really, really well!"
(My mom hates that I draw. She thinks it's not a real career. I know that, but I can't just give up on what I actually love to do. She even forced me into an engineering college , but I honestly can't keep up with these mind-devouring subjects and formulas.)
After dinner, in his room , Hikaru sat in his chair scrolling through webtoons on his phone.
"Isekais are just Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V typa shit..." he muttered.
"But still... after running my 3 AM deep brain thoughts, Hinata does actually had a point. Why would those corporate assholes care who has the most unique theme? They just need pennies and popularity, and Isekai does that perfectly. Always that system guy with his hoes and hoardings."
He sits in a locked in pose and expression.
"I just need to use my trillion brain cells. If I break into the crowd with a cliché, I'll have a stable ground, and then I can create something better out of it. Hehe... potential strategy."
After his lame-ass deep thoughts, he glanced at his phone screen.
"Holy shit... it's already past midnight."
He yawned loudly and leaned onto his desk. "I'll think about that shit tomorrow..."
He fell asleep.
Everything went black...
Somewhere in an unknown place, a group of people gathered in a chamber. Four of them stood in the center, looking like mages. Suddenly, a bright, eye-piercing light flared up.
THUD.
Hikaru dropped out of the sky like a sack of potatoes.
"Ouch!"
As some light rays pireces his eyes, he stood up slowly. "What do you mean that It's hardly been 15 minutes since I fell asleep and it's morning already?"
"Somebody must be secretly controlling time at this point!"
He fully opened his eyes. What he saw was definitely not his bedroom.
Hikaru paused for a couple of seconds, trying to render the scene.
(I'm pretty sure this isn't my room... Where am I? These people,they look weird the way they're dressed...)
(Perhaps I'm dreamin...? More like a lucid dream that comes with an inbuilt interactive feature?)
He dramatically lifted his arm, brought his palm close to his face, and pinched his cheek as hard as he could.
"Ow... it.... HURTS... does that mea—" His face turned ghostly pale.
"THE SUMMONING WAS SUCCESSFUL!"
Hikaru whipped his head toward the guy who shouted. "A successful WHAT?!"
"Where am I?! Why am I here?! I have a LLLOTa questions for ya, guys!" He marched right up to one of the mages. "Make sure you answer every damn one of them!"
"OF COURSE WE WILL!"
A beautiful voice echoed through the chamber. Everyone turned to look. A girl walked toward them with dazzling platinum-blonde hair that stood out like crazy.
Hikaru got instantly folded.
(Goddamn... she's EXACTLY the typa baddie I've been imagining in my fantasies...)
(Nonono, this ain't the time to lose yourself over! LOCK IN!)
"I will answer all your questions," the girl said softly. "First, we need to present you to our king."
"Who are you, milady?"
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am Alisa von Froselia, princess of Valoria."
"Cooool."
"Please come along with us."
Hikaru followed them like he had any other choice.
In the king's throne room:
"Your Majesty, the summoning was successful!"
The King lit up with joy like he had just won the lottery. But he was the only one—everyone else in the room looked like fed up, and completely done with this shit.
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Hero! I am King Arthur von Froselia, ruler of this kingdom. We'll be counting on you! Spread this good news all around the kingdom!"
Hikaru stared at him for a solid five seconds.
"So you're the crackhead who ordered to spawn a random guy from nowhere? And for what... who tf thought this was a good idea??"
The King looked at his advisors. "You didn't tell him?" He sighed. "Listen, Mr. Hero. Humanity is in grave danger, and we need you to lend us a helping hand."
Hikaru stared at him, confused as hell.
"???"
"The war between the demons and us is escalating," the King explained. "They are getting stronger over time, and we are failing to push them back."
Hikaru smirked. (Wait... is this old man LARPing some fantasy shit right now?)
"Their lord is overwhelmingly strong," the King continued. "It won't take long for them to take over and destroy us all."
(No... he looks dead serious. Though it's none of my business.)
"YES, OF COURSE I WILL!" Hikaru shouted dramatically with courage.
"I WILL DEFEAT THAT BIG BAD DEMON LORD AND SAVE THIS WORLD!..."
"is that what you thought I'd say, LOL."
Hikaru puts his both hand into his pocket. "I'll give you a better solution: tell your boys to send me back where they picked me up from. I'd be real fucking grateful for you."
The mage in the back spoke up. "That is not possible."
Hikaru side-eyed him, stomped over, grabbed the mage by his robes, and lifts him up.
"The fuck you mean you can't?! You had time to spawn me outta nowhere, and now it's 'impossible' to do the same shit in reverse?!" Hikaru growled. "Under Article 18: Involuntary Servitude, and Articles 220 & 223 of the Japanese Penal Code, do you know how offensive shit you just committed?!"
The mage stared at him, scared and utterly confused.
"How about I give you some constitutional lectures?!" Hikaru raised a clenched fist.
Instantly, the royal guards surrounded him, pointing spears directly at him.
"Everyone calm down!" the King ordered. "Mr. Hero, how about we calmly negotiate this? I know a way that can return you home."
"Really?! Yeahaha.... Spit it out then!" He answered with a cold look
"I might be acting rude,i know that.But imagine you're just chillin in yo room, thinking about tomorrow's plans, and suddenly you get thrown into an unfamiliar place and told to fight a war! Is anybody gonna gladly accept that shit?! WOULD YOU?!"
Hikaru took a breath. "I'm fucking scared and panicking the shit outta me! yet I'm standing my ground still where as,i should be screaming and running all around like a lunatic"
"I understand, Mr. Hero," the King said, closing his eyes in deep thought.
(I desperately gave him the idea of returning home... but as the legends say, spatial manipulation like teleportation is only wielded by Ethera-type Nexors, which are extremely rare. I don't even know if they exist in this era. Even if they do, casting such large-scale magic is way out of their league. The summoning artifact created by the top-class Ethera Nexor takes at least 100 years to recharge! Yet I have to give him an answer. If I tell him about Ethera Nexors, he'll waste time searching for them instead of helping us. I need to make up a lie so he thinks this is his only choice.)
"Mr. Hero," the King said, opening his eyes. "You can invert the summoning chamber's effects to reverse it back to your world, but there is one condition."
"What's that?!" Hikaru's eyes lit up.
"The summoned subject must fulfill the purpose for which they were summoned."
"And what's my purpose??"
"The one we discussed a couple of minutes ago."
Hikaru's face went pale again. "Fight the Demon Lord... and make y'all win the war... CAP! You're lying! There's gotta be another way!"
"There is, but you'd have to wait a hundred years for the artifact to recharge. Who knows if we'll even be alive by then? Now I've told you all possible ways. It's up to you, Mr. Hero."
Hikaru went dead silent, hanging his head down.
Princess Alisa stepped forward to calm him down. "I think that's enough for today. You look exhausted, Mr. Hero. How about you get some rest?"
In his castle guest room, Hikaru was rolling around on the bed, sobbing aggressively into the pillows.
"Uwaaahaahhh! They straight-up kidnapped me! I wouldn't call this a fantasy ass summoning, this is a fucking abduction! On top of that, they want me to fight wars and monsters and do bloodshed, and there's no way out! This is a dead end! I don't wanna die here like a bitch! I WANT TO LIVE!"
He rolls around holding a and biting a blanket.
"I had a good life back in my world—except for college hours! The sequel to my favorite movie comes out in two days! My inter-college baseball tournament is next week! I wanted to see those motherfucking opps rolling on the floor crying after tasting my homeruns! Now here I am doing that exact same pathetic shit!"
He buried his face in the blanket. "AND TOP OF ALL... MY 1,051-DAY DUOLINGO STREAK IS GONE!!!!"
Suddenly, he stopped thrashing and stared at the ceiling.
"I still can't believe I actually transmigrated like in those anime and manhwas... manipulating entire spacetime to go to a different world. That shit is clearly impossible by standard science..."
He looked out the window at the alien stars. "I wonder what kinda crazy shit I'm gonna run into out here..."
Far away, in a dark space shadowy entities sat watching Hikaru through a window like screen.
One of them giggled softly.
"No way... they summoned another fodder."
A female voice scoffed. "How long are they gonna keep this up? Haven't they learned their lesson already?"
Another entity joined in. "The other kingdoms already gave up on summoning heroes."
The first voice giggled again. "And they think this one little guy can do what generations of heroes couldn't over the last 1,600 years?"
A cold, calm voice spoke up last. "I kinda pity the boy..."
In the dark, all of them broke into quiet, mocking laughter.
********