Chapter Two: Level One

AS soon as his skin made contact, a big status window appeared, and it showed Drake's information.

Status window:

Name: Drake Skylark

Level: 100

Race: Human

Class: Hero

Title: The Human from the Otherworld. The Destined. The leader of the heroes.

Stats:

HP: 10,000/10,000

MP: 1,500/1,500

STR: 5,000

VIT: 1,000

AGI: 1,000

INT: 800

Skills:

Appraisal

Battle Divinity

Celestial Slash

Flash Step

Light Magic

Rapid Strike

Sword Mastery

Elemental affinity

Elemental Resistance

Physical Resistance

Advanced Sorcery

Superhuman Strength

Armor Proficiency

Foresight

Increased Mana Recovery

Detect Presence

Detect Magic

Limit Break

"Wow! What power!"

"There is no doubt! He is a hero!"

"The Goddess has not forgotten us!"

The men in the robes were chanting and bowing in reverence, their faces lit up with awe and devotion.

"You are the Chosen Hero," the elder who was still holding the orb declared, his voice resonating with authority.

"I am a Hero? Ha-Ha! This is amazing!" Drake had a smug grin on his face.

Aldric furrowed.

'I can't believe someone as despicable as him got the title hero,' he thought as he remembered the beating he got from Drake and everyone else. 'Someone like him should be the Demon King, not Hero.'

"I would like to try it next," Elara was the next one. It was clear in her voice that she was nervous.

****

"I can't believe it! All of you are heroes!" The Queen exclaimed. "We must—"

"Excuse me," Aldric, who has been silent for a while, decided to speak.

He had been ignored for a whole while, not that it was new to him.

All his classmates have their status checked except for him.

"I haven't got mine," Aldric politely said. He was hoping to get the same as everyone else.

After hearing Aldric, the Queen turned her attention to him, finally but then as the Queen cast his gaze at him, she looked at him like she was looking at a pest.

Aldric was familiar with this kind of look. It was either because of his body or—him.

"Yes?" the queen replied without interest.

"I still haven't got my status checked."

As Aldric said this, the queen raised her brow and simply motioned the old man who held the orb to go to Aldric before she went back to talk to his classmates.

'She's ignoring me again. Let's see if you can ignore me if my stats are shown!'

Aldric was confident. All of his classmates were all heroes and had such strong stats. It would be just ridiculously unfair if he didn't have one, too.

'Maybe I can turn my life around in this new world,' Aldric thought with a smile as he put his hand on the orb.

Aldric's eyes widened, and his smile dropped as he saw his status window.

Name: Aldric Fellon

Level: 1

Race: Human

Class: No class

Title: The Human from the Otherworld.

Stats:

HP: 10/10

MP: 15/15

STR: 5

VIT: 10

AGI: 10

INT: 10

Skills:

None

'What is this?'

When Drake saw it, he burst out laughing and other underlings, and they all sneered or laughed at Aldric as well.

"Haha, you've gotta be kidding me! What the fuck is that? Level 1? Damn! Even in this world, you are useless, you fucking pig!" Drake mocked, his laughter echoed through the throne room. "You should have stayed in our room! You're useless! What can a level one like you do? He's so weak, he'd die so fast that you couldn't even use him as a meat shield!""

Aldric clenched his fists, feeling a mix of humiliation and frustration.

The stark difference in his status compared to his classmates intensified the disdain he often faced.

Just when he thought that everything would be better in this new world! It was all the same in the end . He was at the bottom of the food chain again!

Elara overheared the mockery and shot a stern look at Drake.

"Enough, Drake. We are here to work together as heroes, regardless of our initial levels."

But Elara's words were quickly overpowered with insults from his classmates. They don't see her as the Elara who held the authority anymore.

They were in the other world. Her parents have no power here.

"Level 1? And he doesn't even have a class? What the fuck? Haha!"

"What a useless pig!"

"Fatass, you should start crying now!"

"Fucking dimwit! Even in this world, you are nothing but a burden."

Aldric endured the barrage of insults, his fists trembling with suppressed anger. It was not like he could do anything. Because what they were saying were the truth, he was weak—a level one.

"Enough. Let us proceed," the Queen intervened and didn't say anything nor look at Aldric. "Please move into the next room!" the Queen ordered.

The class gave Aldric a mocking chuckle before they filed in behind Queen Seraphina as she turned to lead them away.

They quickly arrived at a room with what looked like a large magic circle pattern on the floor.

"What's this room for?" Elara asked.

"This is a teleportation magic. It will teleport you to the kingdom you will be assigned to," the Queen answered. "Now, when I call your name, please step forward and enter the circle."

"A kingdom? We're going there already?"

"I'm excited!"

"Aldric," the queen announced, putting everyone on silence. "Please step into the center of the circle."

"Me?" Aldric wasn't able to move at first.

The queen didn't bother to look at him now he was being called first.

He had such a bad feeling about this.

"W-What Kingdom? Will I—"

Before Aldric could finish his words, he was already dragged and escorted by guards, he made his way into the magic circle.

His whole body was shaking, but he gathered his courage and spoke.

"Excuse me, Your Highness?"

"Yes?" she replied with an unimpressed face.

"W-What is this? Why am I going first?" he asked.

The Queen leaned in towards him. The smell of an expensive perfume assaulted his nose.

"Aldric, you know that you are the only one who is level one here, right?" The Queen's voice was low as if whispering to avoid others hearing. "So you…are to be eliminated."

Aldric's eyes widened.

"Wh-what…? Eliminated…?" Aldric felt a chill running down his spine. "What do you mean?"

"This magic circle of teleportation will send you to a place where you can redeem yourself and maybe lose that fat," she declared with a mocking tone. "Dirty and weak humans like you are not welcome in this world. I hate seeing someone as ugly as you enter my domain. It's disgusting. A pig like you deserves to wallow in a mud puddle far away from me."

Aldric eyes widened. He wished that he was just hearing everything wrong.

Aldric forced a laugh, hoping that the queen was only joking.

"Haha... Death? W-Wha—"

"I got a report that there was a spider monster laying eggs at one of my land. If you luckily survive and kill that monster, then you are free to go back here, Pig. You can do anything you want...that is if you survive.."

"Eggs…? No... I don't want to..." At this moment, Aldric was trembling. "C-Can you just send me back to my world?"

For just a moment, the Queen's face changed into one dyed with hatred. However, in the next moment, she makes a soft, smiling face.

"I sure can, but why would I do that? That will only make the heroes want to go back to their world, and we wouldn't want that."

Aldric's eyes widened in shock and anger.

He clenched his fists. He wanted to retort, but he was weak and would only end up being a punching bag by the knights that stood on his sides.

'Why…why is this happening…? W-What did I do to deserve this treatment? Why did you call me a hero? You bring me here, you call me a hero…then you throw me away, just like that?!'

"B-but wait—"

"Ugh."

Aldric was interrupted by a sound of disgust.

"Hey, you pigshit!"

It was Drake.

"You're wasting our time. Just get this over with already." He let out an irritated sigh. "Quit whining!"

"B-But the Queen is saying she will dispose of me—"

"Dispose? What is this pig saying? Did you not hear what the Queen said? She said she would send us to the kingdom we were assigned to!"

"Just get it over with!"

"We're tired, so stop wasting our time!"

"It's just a teleportation circle that will teleport you to a kingdom. What is there to worry about, Level 1?"

The boys and the girls had joined in at some point, and Aldric didn't have the time to explain, or maybe it was pointless to do—no one was believing him anyway.

It was only Elara who had been silent all this time who didn't join.

'E-Elara... she always saved me... maybe she will believe me!'

"Elara—"

"Hey, pig! Just go! Maybe you will be a servant in a kingdom or something!" Drake mocked him again, cutting off her words.

The Goddess smiled brightly from ear to ear as she pushed Aldric to the circle and whispered, "I hope you die in an unsightly and pitiful way, you pigshit."

As the Queen said that a strong, pale light consumed Aldric.

The light subsided, and Aldric slowly opened his eyes.

The knights in silver plate armor were gone, the men in robes were gone, the son of bitch queen was gone, and his classmates were nowhere to be found.

He wasn't in the castle anymore nor a different kingdom like the queen has said to his classmates but a completely different place.

He still couldn't see much, but in the dim light he could at least make out some of his surroundings.

There was bare rock all around, and a jagged ceiling looming above. The ground was strangely bumpy and uneven.

"A-A cave?"

Suddenly, Aldric suddenly felt a chill in his back.

He turned around but what greeted him was a humongous monster with a grotesque amalgamation of scales, fur, and sharp claws—its eyes glowed an ominous red, looking down on him with a hunger that sent shivers down his spine.