A night of light rain.
Salaryman Yukitaka Goto (25 years old) was on his way home from work.
His look: black hair, black eyes, black-rimmed glasses, suit top and bottom.
Height about 175 centimeters. He had left the countryside, come to the city, and was in his fourth year as a working adult.
He had been staying over at the company for a few days, so he had a business backpack on his back, a bag in his right hand, and a convenience store bag too.
And since it was raining, he held a black umbrella with a silver handle that stood out, walking on the sidewalk.
Ahead of him, maybe on their way home from cram school, a group of high schoolers was walking.
Four of them, boys and girls, were spread out side by side, so he couldn't pass them, and he was quietly walking behind them.
(I don't have to rush, my house is right there, so, well, it's fine... Speaking of which, the anime I recorded these past few days is piling up...)
The salaryman was tired, but he held down the urge to get home fast and walked while thinking about things.
That's when it happened.
The group of high schoolers ahead of him stopped for some reason, and the salaryman, who had been walking absentmindedly behind them, bumped into their backs.
"Ah, sorry!"
He apologized to the high schoolers.
The high schoolers were more shaken up looking around them than about being bumped into.
"W-what is this light!?"
"Eh, what!?"
"Wait, is this a prank?"
"Isn't this the magic circle you see in movies!?" one of them said.
But the salaryman couldn't see that light, and he was confused, going "?" at being ignored.
The next moment.
The high school boys and girls in front of him were vanishing, one, then two.
The last high school girl got scared and quickly grabbed the wrist of the salaryman nearby, asking for help.
"Eh?"
He let out a surprised voice without thinking, and the next moment his vision warped, and at the same time his consciousness faded.
.
.
.
"Ooh! It's a success! Now our country is safe for another hundred years!"
"No, wait! There are still some we haven't appraised!"
"Everyone, calm down! We already know from the appraisal that they are the Hero, the Holy Knight, the Saint, and the Sage. It's the best result, so there's no problem!"
Those voices woke the collapsed salaryman's consciousness.
"...W-where is this? ...Huh?"
When he opened his eyes, in his blurry vision the four high school boys and girls he had bumped into before losing consciousness were standing there unchanged.
But the surroundings were some room with a high ceiling, not the sidewalk from before.
It seemed he was the only one who had passed out.
The high schoolers were talking with people dressed in medieval-style cosplay.
Yukitaka Goto couldn't understand the situation and was confused.
Then, one of the people in medieval-style cosplay noticed the salaryman had woken up. "This one has woken up too! Let's appraise him right away! Come, please stand up!" he said happily.
He happily made the salaryman stand.
"Excuse me... where is this?"
The salaryman, still with blurry vision, thought he had been brought to some cosplay meetup while he was out, and asked for an explanation of the situation.
"I have explained this once already, but I will have my subordinate tell you the details later. First, we will take your belongings, so please, the appraisal..."
The bearded, middle-aged medieval-style cosplayer took the salaryman's bag and convenience store bag, and his umbrella, and the business backpack on his back.
The salaryman was more worried about his glasses than his belongings, since his blurry vision bothered him.
And when he took them off, his vision opened up.
"Huh? My eyesight got better?"
With his vision now clear, the salaryman finally understood the situation around him clearly.
Yes, he was inside a building from a clearly different era.
The room had an expensive-looking carpet, and it was so big you'd think there was no place like this in Japan.
The people surrounding him had a real foreign feel that couldn't be written off as cosplay.
And not just people. There were beast-like beings beyond the level of special makeup, and men and women so beautiful they could only be top models, with pointed ears.
The thought crossed his mind that maybe this was another world.
The salaryman did watch anime, and he liked reading light novels too, so he arrived at a thought that wouldn't be possible in normal thinking.
With his head full of that thought, he was pulled in front of a big crystal ball.
"Now, please place your hand on this appraisal crystal. Please don't let go halfway through, okay? The appraisal crystal is a very expensive item, so just in case..."
Being told it was an expensive item by a foreign-looking middle-aged man who somehow understood his language, the salaryman was pulled back to reality, and there he finally realized he was now present at the scene of the classic otherworld summoning trope.
Probably, going by the conversation around him earlier, it seemed the high schoolers had finished their appraisal while he was unconscious.
Because each of them had gotten results of Hero, Holy Knight, Saint, and Sage, and were happy.
And then, he who had been dragged in, woke up.
In other words, this appraisal result is obvious.
(I'm sure I have a skill nobody here knows about, and the pattern is I'm useless, or judged evil and banished, huh.)
The salaryman guessed from the flow of things.
The high schoolers seemed to be the top of the high school caste, who had lived without knowing the classic otherworld summoning tropes.
Everyone was watching what kind of appraisal result the salaryman, who got dragged in while confused, would produce.
He placed his hand on the crystal, a little excited, thinking a skill would come out that would surprise everyone in a different way.
An old man in priest robes chanted something in front of the appraisal crystal, and the crystal overflowed with light as if reacting to it.
And then, the man in priest robes said in a shaking voice, "No skill whatsoever!?"
"...Huh?"
The salaryman asked back without thinking.
"Wait just a moment..."
The old man in priest robes hurriedly chanted again.
And again, he announced, "...This one has no skill..."
"That's impossible!? In this world, there is no such thing as a person without a skill!? Even monsters are said to have skills, so having no skill means being someone not blessed by this world..."
When another person denied the priest's words, he hurriedly peered at the result the appraisal crystal gave.
"Really... none...? ...Your name is Yukitaka Goto, correct?"
The man, taking over from the priest, checked the salaryman's name.
He must have thought to check whether the crystal was wrong.
"...Yes. Really, no... skill?"
The salaryman also hadn't expected the no-skill development.
The classic dragged-in summoning in light novels is usually a lame skill, or a skill you've never heard of.
And then it shows cheat-level power, and does "serves you right" to the country that banished them.
But with no skill, the story changes.
Not cheat, but no ability at all. In other words, it means he's truly useless.
The man, who had looked at the appraisal crystal over and over, gave the salaryman a look of pity, and quietly opened his mouth.
"...Unfortunately, sir Yukitaka. It seems you really have no skill..." the man said, his voice quiet and pitying.
At those words, the face of Yukitaka Goto (25 years old), in his fourth year as a working adult, went pale, and his mind went blank.
Trivia:
- The high schoolers are described as the top of the high school caste, meaning they are popular students who would not know the classic isekai tropes that Yukitaka, an anime and light novel fan, immediately recognizes.
- Yukitaka's glasses being removed and his eyesight improving is an early hint that the summoning has already changed his body in some way, before the skill appraisal even happens.
- The priest says even monsters have skills, which means having no skill makes Yukitaka less than a monster in this world's system, setting up his status as an outcast from the very start.
Notes:
• Yukitaka - First given name of Yukitaka Goto. He is a twenty-five-year-old salaryman summoned to another world without receiving a skill, who maxed out his level at 99 in half a day without gaining meaningful power, spent about three months at the royal palace before being pushed toward the frontier, and discovered that his black-rimmed glasses let him appraise objects.
• Goto - First given name of Yukitaka Goto. He is a twenty-five-year-old salaryman summoned to another world without receiving a skill, who maxed out his level at 99 in half a day without gaining meaningful power, spent about three months at the royal palace before being pushed toward the frontier, and discovered that his black-rimmed glasses let him appraise objects.