The world suddenly disagreed with physics as it appeared to turn upside-down, then inside-out, then magically snapped as tight as a bowstring, hurtling across the distance before spitting everyone out in a large marble audience chamber a brief moment later.
Rather, more specifically, a throne room.
Right, so this is going to be one of those anime series. Where the worst hero gets thrown out like a lost puppy. Or the person in charge makes an example out if killing one of us or something. Really, if there’s no event to make someone the main character, I’ll have to make my own.
I scowled so hard that a twenty-year-old would get permanent wrinkles as I quickly assessed my condition after the transportation spell. I felt faint, a bit weak in the knees, and that made me a bit pissed off at the nature of their summoning ritual.
“Hm, there was only supposed to be four. Why are there so many?” The deep, gravely rumble of words spilled down from the dais at the head of the room, only making my mood worse.
‘Only supposed to be four,’ my ass. It’s like they don’t even know how their own ritual works.
I could easily explain what had gone wrong, but the natives? Apparently their intelligence was laughable.
“I-I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I have no idea.” Good job, Court Mage #1, for revealing yourself instantly.
I scoffed as I took in the scene around me with a frustrated tension in my shoulders. Every one of the other convention goers was on their knees or collapsed on the floor. One older man was drooling onto the narrow red carpet that ran down the center of the room. I was the only one standing, and feeling a bit disappointed that my retirement was interrupted for a display of incompetence.
It was a fairly tasteless ritual. I could taste the living sacrifices in the air. A minimum of a dozen people had been offered up in exchange for ‘four’ Earthlings to become heroes. Then, the spell sucked half of the targets’ strongest energy type to boost things along with the added effect of making them weak on arrival, therefore easier to coerce.
There was an anime that started off with a similar concept… I’m sure of it. I want to flip the tables. I should shouldn’t I? It’s my right, as the inconvenienced party.
The reason for the confusion and extra summoned people was that the spell was also misaligned slightly, so when I’d been caught in it, it drained half of my available energy, which had overcharged the spell to grab about, oh… three hundred convention attendees.
Annoyingly, the residue of the ritual told me that it probably would’ve accepted an offering of magical gemstones to do the same work. The summoners had chosen to sacrifice sapient adults. With the drain of our energy, I was getting the impression my anime adventure was going to be one of the darker story tropes. Unless I changed it by force.
I scanned the guards and mages, ignoring how I’d already drawn some attention to myself just by not being bowled over by their ritual. I was looking for collars or other forms of enslavement. I had time to subtly stop anything unfortunate from befalling my voters before any of them straightened up and took in their surroundings.
Then my eyes landed on a crystal sphere resting on a cushion in the hands of an elderly man who stood at the right hand side of the throne.
Ah, it’s one of those anime tropes.
I let the world slow to a crawl as I considered the situation.
What did I need to take control? Obviously, to not be made subservient to the rabble who commanded the nation, whether they could identify my weaknesses to use them against me or not. To save my voters, of course—I couldn’t achieve my goal without them. Lastly, I was on an unknown world, with a risk of bumping into one of the petty children.
For so many reasons, stepping forward and squishing the whole room while declaring myself a goddess would just not work. I’d almost immediately get roped into divine malarky. No thanks.
Idly, I realized I was going back to eating trash fantasy food again. That realization almost had me wallowing in regret as my eyes met those of the man on the throne. He was only just beginning to notice my majestic presence.
Really, mortals could be so slow.
Right… how to handle things? I mused inwardly.
Then, a lightbulb switched on in my mind. I could get role play points out of the scenario.
The king was a middle-aged guy, or potentially looked a bit older than he really was. He looked like most national leaders did after too many stressful negotiations and sleepless nights. Wrinkles beyond his years, grey hair, and a richly appointed, red and purple courtier’s outfit that caught the light with all the gemstones sewn in. Based on his posture, he might’ve engaged in a few wars in his time, too.
This could actually be fun, I mused absently.
I could make my idea work, if only I bided my time. Besides, I knew what was coming next like it was all on the script.
Slowly, the mingle of people around me began to shake off their lethargy and realize they were in the exact situation I’d come to grips with at least half a minute earlier.
“What’s going on?” “This can’t be real!” “Oh my god, oh my god!” “A real life isekai!”
That last one was what I was afraid of. The spell didn’t grab a classroom. It didn’t grab kids off the street. It had robbed a me-damned convention full of weebs. There wasn’t going to be a single one of them who didn’t think they were the next main character of an anime. That was my role, not theirs.
I was going to have to try to wrangle them into surviving long enough for us to make it home and for someone to hand me my trophy.
“Mess with my retirement…” I grumbled a few extra obscenities under my breath as I waited for the fop on the throne to do his thing.
Right on cue—
“Hello and welcome, heroes! We are excited to welcome the… hundreds of you to our lands, for the prophet has declared a time of strife is coming for our world. We request your aid in pushing back whatever horrors gather out of sight within our realm!”
All that pomp. All the horseplay. Sacrificing a bunch of people, even. All to summon heroes to defend against an unknown threat? Hang on a second. I grinned to myself. What are the odds they just summoned their own doom?
I choked down the laughter that threatened to ruin the man’s grandstanding. It was hard, but he was about one misstep away from receiving a very unfortunate surprise. The only thing holding me back was how much cooler my own plan was going to be!
“Heroes, please, step forward and touch the orb of knowledge. Reveal to us your gifts so we might best equip you for your own talents.” The man ended up sounding a little concerned at the last part. He was prepared to throw relics and equipment at four heroes. Instead, he’d gotten way more.
Seriously, it was getting hard to not laugh at him.
One kid—dressed as the literal Eminence—stepped right up and laid a hand on the sphere. A moment passed awkwardly as nothing happened, followed by a subtle cough and the kid taking off the gloves he was wearing. He touched the orb…
The wall was blanketed with a small, narrow rectangle that read ‘Class C; Water’ and nothing else. Obvious sign that the world was running on a standard elemental system.
For my senses, though? The instant the orb was used, I could taste it on the air. It was an old relic, and one that was much degraded. It had lost a lot of its function over eras past. It showed no names or statistics. Rank and affinity was the beginning and end of the function. It would still give the king a lot of info on who made good hostages and who would be the best tools, though. More to the point, it would show me who was actually worth a damn and who wasn’t.
There was a pillar nearby, so I settled in to lean against it while I waited for more and more of my voters to quietly do their things.
One taller guy stepped up and got ‘Class A, Swords’ when he touched the orb. Something unique and distinctly heroic, that one.
Another several dozen went by, all getting various C’s and B’s for their class, but they were always elemental. Fire, water, wind, earth, light, dark. The usuals, really.
Then a familiar face skipped up the steps, dressed as the samurai girl from Symphogear. One of my competitors in the cosplay contest—RioRio, on socials. The girl, blue ponytail and all, laid a finger on the orb, energy pouring off her despite the exhaustion she should’ve been feeling. Her result was ‘Class S, Hero’ of all things. RioRio cheered, both hands up, totally out of character for her costume.
I groaned slightly, feeling my workload double as I had to find a way to beat the literal hero of the group whenever we made it back. Unless… I could just kill her. She wasn’t a voter if she was the competition. Except that would fall under cheating. So tempting, though.
The willing invasion of privacy continued, and I kept an eye out for any more standouts. My guess was that anyone who got at least an A classification would probably try to go out and have their grand isekai adventure. Those were the ones who needed saving from themselves.
Not one of the weebs got a D classification, though. All C’s or above.
There was a running commentary as the king or his advisors nattered about the results, but I tuned them out. Their opinions on my wards would be quite irrelevant.
Each time a person finished their scan, they stepped aside into a small huddle where cliques were forming steadily. That was to be expected.
More people swept through, hanging their heads, usually. Not everyone got the top tier classes. There was only one more interesting figure, and he was wearing a convention staff badge while shaking like a leaf the whole time. I mentally dubbed him ‘Not a Weeb’ right away. Just some middle aged guy with the classic white button up shirt and black slacks. He ended up with ‘Class S, Prophet’ as his result. Rearranging priorities, I knew I had just spotted a critical target for saving. Not a Weeb was in for a long prison sentence, if my guess about how the country handled their prophets was right.
I straightened up, given that I was the last one left who hadn’t been scanned.
With a grin, I strode forward and prepared for my performance.