Mathematics Exam.

I sighed as I tucked the small but comically fat book labelled, 'MATHEMATICS', into my bag.

'Shit... Let's hope the question paper isn't going to fuck me in the ass...', I sighed again.

Despite my looks and hobbies as a high schooler addicted to games, I was quite serious when it came to my studies. I was quite good at it too, always ranking in the top 20 or sometimes even 10 in my whole grade.

"Eric! How's it going man?", A heard a voice calling out to me.

I turned towards the door and met eyes with a tall, mediocre-looking boy, about the same age as me, black hair, decent figure.

"Oh hey, Raymond. Its going fine, I guess... Just worried about the exams...", I sighed yet again.

"Hmm, same bro... But I'm sure you'll get better scores than me!", it was nice of him to try and cheer me up.

"Haha! Of course! Who do you think I am?", I wasn't one to accept free optimism though...

"Why are you like this?", He said with a disappointed face.

"Shut the fuck up."

"How are you in Trigonometry?", Raymond asked.

"Ah, man! Don't even start with that shit! It's fucking garbage!"

"Same here! So many fucking identities! And I had to revise all of the polynomial identities on top of that and even derivations of proofs of theorems in Geometry! I hate the education system!", He said with an annoyed face.

I was glad that I wasn't the only one who thought so...

"I know right! *Sigh... but there's no use in complaining though...", I keep sighing today...

"Hmm..."

Suddenly, as I was recalling the syllabus, a weird thought came to my mind.

"Wouldn't it be great if we all could suddenly get isekaied to some fantasy world? We could avoid giving the stupid math exam!"

Raymond looked at me with eyes filled to the brim with cringe.

Even I realised how cringe that sounded.

"Well, I agree with you on the math exam part... maybe not the isekai bit...", now he was the one who sighed.

We seemed like middle-aged men with wives who constantly yell and ask for a divorce, drinking all of the pain away...

"What's that?", I heard someone speak out, pointing to the ground.

Curiosity took over me and I peeked over.

"What the? A magic sigil? Pfft! Is some guy trying to actually isekai us to avoid the math exam?", I scoffed.

"Wait, Eric... Isn't that thing drawing itself?", Raymond said with slight disbelief in his voice.

"The hell? What do yo-", I was interrupted by the shock I felt.

The magic sigil suddenly started glowing and rapidly expanded all across the classroom, illuminating every nook and cranny.

"WHAT THE? WHAT IS THIS?! IS THIS SOME KIND OF PRANK?!", some people yelled out.

I was in a state of shock and confusion.

"Eric! I-I think we're losing consciousness!", Raymond yelled out, but the voice sounded so distant...

'Ah, Shit... are we really about to get isekaied? Haha... I hope I get a busty elf chick and a goth girl sorceress as my allies in the fantasy world... I don't want a harem or anything, since I believe in quality over quantity, but one or two big-breasted women would be nice...', pointless thoughts filled my head as I collapsed.

--- an unknown amount of time later ---

"..ric..."

"...eric..."

"ERIC!", an extremely loud voice interrupted my slumber.

"...Jeez... why are you so loud, man?", I fumbled out.

"LOOK AROUND, YOU DUMBASS!", I don't appreciate insults.

"What did you call me? Fuckin' imbecile!"

"URGH! JUST LOOK!"

"Okay, oka-", I got interrupted by shock once again!

I was, or rather, my whole class was no longer inside the school building. Hell, it looked like we weren't close to any buildings whatsoever.

"What... the...fuck...? Where the hell are we?", I asked in a daze.

"Get up first.", Raymond replied.

I noticed that I was lying down on the grass and quickly got up since I don't really like dirt.

I scanned the environment I currently found myself in-

A forest. A very dense one at that. We were all gathered in front of one tree of monstrous size, as big as those ancient redwood trees I saw some pictures of. It seemed like this tree was one of the bigger trees in the forest, as no other trees or foliage was close to its vicinity.

The forest line started from about a hundred metres away from the boss tree.

The area almost looked like an oasis in the middle of a dense, almost untraversable forest. It had no water though...

Beyond the tree line, I could see absolutely nothing. It was simply too dense. The canopy created by the trees cast an inconceivable shadow on the ground and nothing, absolutely nothing could be seen.

"I don't know where we are, but things don't look too good...", Raymond interrupted my observation and indicated me to look around.

There were around 40 students in my class. All of them were present that day since we had the math exam.

Only about one-third of them had woken up, the rest were still unconscious.

Some students were trying to call their parents and friends, while others had started to panic and started praying.

"Indeed... things REALLY don't look good...", I concurred.

"Have you tried calling anyone?", I asked Raymond.

"Of course, that was the first thing I did... but the phone has no signal, it's useless...", he sighed.

"...", I didn't say anything back.

"Do you think we were kidnapped?", Raymond asked.

"... If we were, it doesn't make sense to throw us in the middle of a forest. I don't even see any roads anywhere... bringing in 40 whole students would be too great of a task to be done manually... there must've been vehicles to carry our unconscious bodies... But I don't see any tire marks or any roads leading outside this place...", I concluded after thinking it through rationally.

"...That does make sense... But how are we here, though?", Raymond inquired.

"... Remember the magic sigil we saw before we were knocked unconscious?"

"Oh come on... don't tell me you actually think we are in another world right now...", Raymond said with a disappointed look on his face.

"Tsk! If you don't like my theories, don't ask! I'm merely speculating based on the evidence we have up till now!", I retaliated.

"Fine, Fine. Sorry.", Raymond gave me my deserved apology.

We waited around for almost 30 minutes. All of the students had woken up now.

Panic was spreading quickly in the group.

As the whispers and outbursts grew stronger and stronger, everyone suddenly got silent.

The reason being-

[Welcome to the world of ORION.]

[Booting up the {System}]

[Picking a random class for you, please wait...]

'THE HELL IS THIS?!!?', I screamed internally as I stared at the black, translucent notification window with golden text and borders, floating on thin air in front of my face.

"...Eric... I think you might be right...", Raymond spoke first.

I gulped down my own saliva.

"Holy shit...", were the only words that escaped my mouth with a shaky voice.