It had been a week since that strange night—the night when my world blurred and cracked, when I heard the hum of a god in a dream that may not have been a dream at all. Since then, something had lodged itself inside me, a system. A word so common in novels and webfics I read every day, but now it wasn't fiction anymore. It was mine.
And yet, for a whole week, I did absolutely nothing with it.
That was the strangest part. A system meant quests, growth, power. At least, that's what the stories promised. Me? I spent my mornings scrolling through feeds, my afternoons lying on the rented mattress in my government-issued flat, and my nights staring at the blinking cursor of a half-finished manuscript I never had the motivation to continue.
The system was silent. Dead quiet. Like it didn't care if I wasted away or tried to change the world. And I hated that silence, because in the back of my head a voice nagged at me, an instinct I couldn't shake: This isn't right.
So, yesterday, I forced myself to move. Just a little. Ten push-ups. A short jog along the cracked pavement outside the housing block. My body screamed at me like it wasn't used to the strain at all, but at least the silence inside felt lighter.
Still, no quests. No messages. Nothing.
Maybe the god—or whatever it was—was laughing at me.
---
I never really wrote down my situation before. Maybe it's time.
I'm an orphan. No family, no ties. The government covers my food, rent, and tuition, but that support won't last forever. I've always known there's an expiration date stamped invisibly on my back, and when that comes, I'll be on my own.
That's why I turned to writing. Not because I was good at it. Hell, I was terrible. My vocabulary was shallow, my pacing was clunky, and my imagination? Mostly recycled from the hundreds of novels I binged. But I liked it. Writing felt like breathing into a void and hearing an echo that belonged only to me.
So, I thought: maybe, if I worked hard enough, I could turn it into something real. A career. Independence.
Except… I couldn't do it alone. I leaned on AI assistants to polish every draft, to spark ideas when I burned out. And even then, my works never reached beyond a tiny corner of the internet. No fame. No recognition. Just another name lost in the flood.
Maybe that's why I hated I Am the Harem God so much. Because its author succeeded with trash. That book, and the one inside it, Dritrea's Blessings, were like twisted funhouse mirrors of everything I despised—cheap power fantasies with butterfly effects the protagonist never cared to fix.
And yet here I was. Living inside the same kind of story.
---
At school, life wasn't much better. I didn't talk to most of my classmates. It wasn't that I disliked them. I just didn't know how to… connect. My world was small: government allowance, part-time dreams, and one friend.
Dian.
We were both backbenchers. Shadows in the corner while the bright ones fought for attention up front. We didn't talk much outside class, but he was the closest thing I had to a companion. Which is why it felt strange when I realized I hadn't seen him for a week.
But today, finally, he walked in.
---
He shuffled through the classroom door like a ghost, head down, shoulders hunched. Same old Dian. He made his way to the back and slid into the seat beside mine.
"Oi, Dian," I said, trying to sound casual. "What happened to you? You vanished for a whole week."
He looked up with dull eyes, lips twitching into something like a smile. "Got fever."
"Ha! Ha! I see." I forced a laugh, shaking my head. "And you didn't even tell me. Awesome." I turned my face away, pretending to be offended.
"Don't be angry. I couldn't. You would have been worried," he muttered.
"Bah! Wonderful," I sighed, half-acting, half-serious.
The silence that followed was familiar, comfortable in its own way. We were back where we'd always been—two boys at the edge of the class, watching life from the margins.
But then something happened.
---
It began with a shimmer under my desk. At first, I thought it was a trick of the sunlight bouncing off the polished floor tiles. But it grew brighter. White. Too white.
I blinked, rubbed my eyes, and stared again.
The whiteness wasn't light—it was spreading. The floor itself was being painted over, slowly turning into a blank canvas. I kicked my chair back and stood up, heart thumping.
"Dian," I whispered. "Do you see this?"
He nodded, wide-eyed.
And then, before I could shout or run or do anything, the whiteness surged upward. It swallowed desks, walls, the ceiling. It devoured sound, air, even the beating of my heart.
The classroom was gone.
---
When I opened my eyes, I was standing on stone. Cold, uneven stone that stretched out into a vast courtyard. Above me loomed towers of marble and banners embroidered with symbols I didn't recognize. The air smelled sharp, like iron and incense.
We weren't in school anymore.
"Where… is this?" a voice whispered. One of my classmates.
And that's when I realized—we were all here. The entire class, every student, gathered in the middle of this alien courtyard.
Figures in armor stood around us, spears planted firmly in the ground. Behind them, robed officials watched with solemn eyes. At the far end of the courtyard, on a raised dais, a man in regal attire stepped forward. A crown rested on his head, and jewels glittered across his chestplate.
He spread his arms.
"Welcome, heroes of another world," he declared, his voice booming across the courtyard. "Welcome to the Kingdom of Altradon."
---
A ripple of shock ran through our group. Some gasped, some cried out, others froze. I just stared, numb.
A kingdom. Another world. Summoned heroes.
Of course. Of course it had to be this cliché. The exact setup I'd mocked a thousand times before. Arifureta, Shield Hero, Konosuba—take your pick.
And now, we were living it.
The king continued, his words dripping with practiced grandeur. "Our world is in peril. The Demon King rises once more, commanding forces that threaten to consume us all. In our desperation, we turned to the ancient rite of summoning. And the gods have blessed us—for you have come."
He gestured toward us with reverence. "You are our hope. You are the chosen ones. And today, you shall begin your journey. The Awakening Ceremony awaits."
---
Murmurs filled the air. Some of my classmates looked thrilled, eyes sparkling with excitement. Others looked terrified, clutching at their sleeves.