I was asleep on the bus.
I want that on the record. I was asleep, minding my own business, having a perfectly adequate dream about nothing, when Soobin shook my shoulder and said "Junho, something's happening" in the tone of voice he uses when something is very wrong and he doesn't want to say it out loud yet.
I opened my eyes to a magic circle.
It was big — carved into stone, glowing blue, taking up the entire floor of what had been, thirty seconds ago, the inside of a tour bus. Now it was a massive stone hall. Torches on the walls. Guards in armor. My entire class standing in a circle looking like they were about to cry.
Oh, I thought. This is one of those.
I'd read enough to know what this was. Isekai. Fantasy world summoning. Chosen heroes. The whole thing. I'd consumed enough manhwa and light novels in the PC bang to recognize the setup on sight.
What I had not consumed enough to prepare for was thirty armed soldiers pointing spears at us while a man in a gold crown stood on a raised platform and announced, in a booming voice, that we had been chosen to save the world.
My classmates started crying. Some of them started praying. Soobin, because Soobin is exactly the kind of person who rises to moments like this, squared his shoulders and said, "We'll do whatever we can to help."
I said, "Do we get a say in this?"
The king looked at me like I'd sneezed on him.
The stat check took an hour.
They had a stone — big, flat, milky white — and you pressed your hand to it and your status floated up in light for the court wizard to read. One by one, my classmates went up. One by one, they got skills that made the court murmur and applaud.
Soobin got Holy Sword Manifestation. S-rank. The whole room gasped. He looked embarrassed and pleased in equal measure, which is his default expression.
Lee Mirae got Absolute Zero Field. A-rank. She didn't react at all, which is her default expression.
Jang Hyunwoo — the loudest, most annoying person in Class 3-7 — got Blazing Fist Mastery and did a fist pump. I hoped, quietly and sincerely, that he punched himself in the face with it at least once.
Then it was my turn.
I pressed my hand to the stone. The light came up.
The court wizard leaned in. Read it. Leaned back.
"...Minor Enhancement. Level one."
Silence.
Then Hyunwoo laughed. Just once, short, but I heard it.
The court wizard cleared his throat. "Minor Enhancement is a support-class utility skill. It extends the duration of scroll magic slightly and marginally improves elixir absorption. It has... limited combat application."
The king nodded slowly, the way people nod when they've already made a decision and are being polite about it.
So that's it then, I thought. That's what I got. Of all the — okay. Okay fine. It's fine.
It was not fine.
"We thank you for your summoning," the king said to me, which was already the wrong tone. "However, given the nature of the coming conflict, we require combatants. Your skill, while useful in a support capacity, does not meet the requirements of a Hero candidate."
Say it plainly, I thought. Come on. Just say it.
"We will provide you with compensation and arrange for your placement in the city as a civilian."
He gestured. A servant came forward with a small pouch. I took it. Looked inside.
Fifty gold coins.
I looked up at the king. I looked at the court wizard. I looked at my classmates, standing in a line, and not one of them — not one — said anything. Soobin opened his mouth and then closed it.
Two words, I noted, filing it away. He said two words. 'Good luck.' That's what I get. Good luck.
I looked back at the king.
"With respect," I said, "you can take your fifty gold and your 'limited combat application' and go—"
I finished the sentence. In Korean. Very clearly.
The translation spell caught most of it. The throne room went very quiet.
I pocketed the coins and walked out.
The city outside the palace was called Valorheim and it was exactly what you'd expect — cobblestones, market stalls, people in medieval clothes giving me weird looks because I was still in my school uniform.
I found a bench. Sat down. Opened my status screen — two fingers pressed to the back of my wrist, held for a second — and looked at it properly for the first time.
Name: Park Junho Level: 1
1 HP: 120 / 120
MP: 85 / 85
STR: 9 (F)
AGI: 11 (F)
INT: 14 (E)
LUK: 3 (F)
SKILL: Minor Enhancement Lv.1 RANK: F
I stared at the LUK stat for a long time.
Three, I thought. I have a luck stat of three. Who gets a three? What does that even mean? Does the universe hate me specifically, or is this just statistical variance?
I closed the screen.
Fifty gold coins. No class. No party. No idea how currency worked here. The clothes on my back, which were a high school uniform, which was going to raise questions.
Okay, I thought. Okay. This is manageable. This is just a problem. Problems have solutions. Step one: find somewhere to sleep. Step two: figure out how much fifty gold is actually worth. Step three: figure out what this skill can actually do, because 'slightly extends scroll duration' is vague enough to mean anything, and I am not going to rot in a fantasy world because a king looked at level one stats and made a permanent decision.
I stood up, straightened my jacket, and started walking.
Behind me, the palace gleamed in the afternoon light. Somewhere inside it, my classmates were probably being fitted for armor and given speeches about destiny.
Good luck, I thought, and didn't mean it nicely.