Chapter 1: Part 1

The blue sky was so bright it was almost painful to look at. I was heading to school as usual, and felt the sunshine was particularly intense, which reminded me that summer was coming soon.

It took me a while to make the bento for lunch, so I barely made it on time. I usually prepared it in the evening the night before, but it's been hot lately, so I'd decided to make it in the morning.

The alarm was still set for the usual time, so I had to sacrifice a lot to get enough time to make my lunch. On top of that, I haven't been able to sleep well — not that anyone would notice anyway.

…No, no, don't call me a loner!

The bento was just right; it was made with great haste, after all. It's not luxurious, but it's not bad, either. It's egg and chicken karaage, boiled broccoli, asparagus ham rolls, dashi* rolled egg, and onigiris lined up in a row. (smug)

I slipped into the classroom just before the bell rang and sat as if nothing happened. No one cares about me, and no one would even say hello. Just so you know, I'm not a loner; I have a great friend!

Yes, it's on the internet, so what? I have a lot of friends online!

The bell rang while I was catching my breath from running in such a hurry to get to class. Homeroom lessons were about to start, but there was no sign of the teacher coming in like they usually would. Huh?

Whether you're a teacher or a student, you can't be late, I thought… and suddenly the whole classroom was enveloped in light.

"Gah!?"

"Wha-what's going on!?"

One of the students tried to escape through the door, but they couldn't seem to open it.

"It won't open!"

The student who tried the door then tried to open the window, but it didn't budge either. The whole time, I was pretty cool, just staring at myself.

One student seemed to be elated, saying "It's finally happeniiinng!" but most of the students were panicking. This is exactly what I think it is, isn't it? I never thought I'd get caught up in this.

I put the rest of the chicken karaage in the fridge because I was going to eat it at night, but that doesn't seem possible anymore… It was a shame, but there was nothing I could do about it. Soon after the light enveloped us, we found ourselves no longer in the classroom, but in a large stone room we'd never seen before.

"Where are we?"

Even if you don't ask, someone will tell you what you need to know, but most of the students were just making noise, having completely lost their cool. The noisy ones were mainly the handsome and smart students. The girls weren't making much noise, but I could see one blonde chattering a bit.

I could understand the situation so far. The real question was what kind of people would appear after this, and what kind of story we'd be part of. When the door opened, people in armor came clanking in and surrounded us, followed by people in robes, and then some very well-dressed folks.

"Wh-who are you people? And where is this place?"

Aikawa Takeru, a good-looking guy, spoke to them as our representative, and one of the well-dressed people came forward.

"We are permanent members of the delegation board, and we would like to ask you to help us."

I understand the term permanent member, but I have a feeling they mean something different from what I'm familiar with.

Honestly, this person was asking for a request with a really bossy tone. There's a right way to ask people for help, and I think it's safe to say this person has never once asked anyone for anything.

"What's up with this? You're asking us for help, aren't you?"

As usual, Takashima "Steel Fang" Kouga, a brown-haired nose picker, tried to shove his way through, but was blocked by a big dude in armor. As expected from Takashima, who only trains his physique and nothing else! Up against a hulk like that, he was the one getting shoved to the ground. What an idiot.

"You are the heroes that we have summoned. After confirming your status from this plate, you will each be assigned to a country."

Hoo boy, this is new.

The status plate was just made of iron, but being assigned to each country after that means education and training are carried out separately in each country, huh? Usually, one country summons a hero or dispatches one to some country, but to suddenly separate out all the heroes is just…

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Aikawa asked the man who seemed to be in charge because he didn't understand what they meant. The guy began to explain without at all concealing his disgust.

According to his explanation, this time the heroes' summoning was carried out jointly by a total of fifteen countries, with the permanent delegation of nine countries and an additional six.

We were summoned for the usual trope of subjugating the demon king, but since the demon king isn't alone, it seems the heroes were going to be auctioned off to all the countries. That's just too crazy. They wanted to drop us right into the foreign countries, through a system no different from human trafficking, yet it seems to be perfectly normal in this world.

By the way, he said we couldn't be sent back from this world to our own world. Some of the people who heard it screamed and cried, but about 30 percent of them were making a different kind of noise. While everyone was quite noisy for a while, they finally calmed down under the intimidation of the armored soldiers and started confirming their statuses.

There were a total of 118 students summoned as heroes. It seemed three classes were summoned, and all of us were high school seniors. For some reason, no teachers or adults were mixed up in it.

Every country has the right to at least one hero, but whether they get more depends on how the results of the auction.

If this follows the usual tropes, someone will be found to have a terrible status. Who's it going to be?

The status checks continued. They weren't noisy in a bad way, on the contrary they were basically celebrating, and they'd only finished checking about half of us.

About 80 percent of them have finished now, but the atmosphere from the foreigner side is not bad.

And now it's finally time for me, the last of the 118 people to be checked. I didn't think that was my style, but what's it going to be?

As explained in the beginning, I held the copper brown metal plate and spoke the words "Status Up."