Ryan Chen stared at his computer screen, watching the loading bar crawl forward with all the urgency of a geriatric snail. 2%. 3%. The Excel spreadsheet containing three months of inventory data refused to open, mocking him with its glacial progress.
"You've got to be kidding me," he muttered, glancing at the clock in the corner of his monitor. 11:47 PM. He'd been at the office for sixteen hours straight, and somehow, somehow, Jenkins had sent him another "urgent" request at 11:30.
On a Friday night.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, their sickly glow turning his already pale complexion into something resembling a corpse. Which, considering how dead he felt inside, seemed appropriate.
Twenty-one years old, and this was his life. A glorified data entry monkey in a mid-sized logistics company, working in a gray cubicle, eating gray food from the vending machine, living a thoroughly gray existence.
His phone buzzed. A notification from Chronicles of Destiny, the mobile gacha game he'd been playing for the past year.
"Limited Time Event! Legendary Hero Rate Up! 0.05% chance!"
Ryan's thumb hovered over the notification. He'd already blown this month's "entertainment budget"—a generous term for the meager $50 he allowed himself after rent, utilities, student loans, and ramen—on the last banner. He'd gotten nothing but common drops. Again.
"One day," he whispered to the screen, "one day I'll pull something legendary."
The Excel file finally opened. Ryan groaned. Half the cells were corrupted. He'd have to rebuild the entire thing from scratch.
By the time he stumbled out of the office building, the sun was already painting the sky in shades of orange. Saturday morning. His weekend, what little remained of it, stretched before him like a barren wasteland of laundry and depression naps.
The street was eerily quiet. Most sensible people were either still asleep or at least had been asleep at some point during the night. Ryan trudged toward the bus stop, his laptop bag feeling like it was filled with concrete blocks instead of a five-year-old laptop and a half-eaten sandwich from Wednesday.
His stomach growled. When had he last eaten? Lunch yesterday? The vending machine had been out of the decent snacks by 3 PM, leaving only the mysterious "Cheese Crackers" that tasted like salted cardboard.
Ryan pulled out his phone, thumb automatically opening Chronicles of Destiny. Maybe he could do his daily login at least. Keep the streak alive.
That was worth... what, ten premium currency? Not even enough for a single pull on the gacha.
He was so absorbed in navigating the game's seventeen different menu screens—seriously, why did a mobile game need seventeen menus?—that he didn't notice the bus.
The horn blared.
Ryan's head snapped up. The bus was bearing down on him, impossibly large, impossibly fast. Time seemed to slow. He could see the driver's horrified expression, could read the destination sign: "Route 47 - Downtown."
His body moved on pure instinct. He threw himself backward, arms windmilling, laptop bag flying. The world spun. The bus's side mirror missed his face by inches - he felt the wind of its passing - and then he was falling, tumbling, landing hard on the concrete sidewalk.
The bus roared past, its brakes squealing as it lurched to a stop fifty feet down the road.
Ryan lay on his back, staring up at the pink-tinged sky, his heart hammering in his chest. Holy shit. Holy shit. He'd almost died. He'd almost been hit by a bus like some cliché isekai protagonist.
Laughter bubbled up from his chest, slightly hysterical. "Not today, Truck-kun," he gasped. "Not today!"
He sat up, checking himself over. Nothing broken. His laptop bag had landed a few feet away. His phone was still clutched in his hand, miraculously uncracked. Everything was fine. He was alive. He'd survived.
Ryan climbed to his feet, legs shaky, and started to laugh again. This would be a great story. "That time I almost got isekai'd on a Saturday morning."
He took a step toward his laptop bag.
That's when the pigeon hit him directly in the face.
Not just any pigeon. A massive pigeon, at least fifteen pounds of feathered fury, traveling at terminal velocity.
Later, witnesses would describe it as "freakishly large" and "possibly a mutant." One would swear it had been carrying a bowling ball, though this was never confirmed.
The impact snapped Ryan's head back. He felt something in his neck go pop in a way that necks definitely should not pop. His vision exploded into stars, then darkness, then a weird swirling mic of colors.
His last thought before consciousness left him was:
"A pigeon. I'm going to die because of a fucking pigeon."
---
When Ryan opened his eyes, he was no longer on the sidewalk.
He was standing - standing, not lying down, which seemed relevant somehow—in the middle of what could only be described as a summoning circle.
Glowing runes surrounded him in concentric rings, pulsing with blue-white light. The ground beneath his feet was polished stone, and beyond the circle, he could see towering marble columns holding up a vaulted ceiling painted with elaborate frescoes of heroes and monsters.
"What the hell?" Ryan turned in a slow circle, taking it in. This was... this was like every fantasy anime he'd ever watched. The architecture screamed "magical academy" or "royal palace" or "cult headquarters."
A throat cleared.
Ryan spun toward the sound.
A girl—no, a young woman, maybe nineteen or twenty—stood outside the summoning circle, dressed in elaborate robes that practically screamed "student mage." Her dark hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and her brown eyes were currently very, very wide.
"Um," she said. "You're not supposed to be naked."
Ryan looked down.
He was, indeed, completely naked.
"WHAT THE—" He immediately covered himself with both hands, crouching slightly. "Where are my clothes?! What is happening?!"
The mage girl had turned bright red and was now staring determinedly at the ceiling. "The, uh, the summoning ritual doesn't transport clothing. Usually summoned beings don't wear clothing, so it's not an issue, but you're, um, you're human, so..."
"Summoned?!" Ryan's voice cracked. "What do you mean summoned? Where am I? How did I get here? There was a pigeon—"
"You died," the girl said bluntly, still not looking at him. "The summoning ritual specifically targets souls in transition. You must have died in your world and the ritual caught you mid-passage. It happens sometimes."
Ryan's mind reeled. Died. He'd died. Because of a pigeon. The universe's worst joke.
"Okay," he said slowly. "Okay. So I'm dead. And I'm... where? Is this the afterlife? Is this—"
"This is the Kingdom of Valtheria," the mage said. She was fumbling with her robes now, pulling out what looked like a large cloth. She tossed it in his direction without looking. "You're in the Grand Academy of Mystical Arts. And you, um, you've been summoned as my familiar."
Ryan caught the cloth—a cloak, apparently—and quickly wrapped it around himself. "Familiar? Like, like a wizard's pet?"
"Partner," she corrected. "A magical partner. Except..." She finally looked at him, her expression somewhere between confused and disappointed. "Except the ritual was supposed to summon a legendary beast or spirit. Something with incredible magical power. But instead I got..."
"A naked dead guy?"
"A naked dead guy," she confirmed.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
"This is the worst Monday ever," Ryan said.
"It's Saturday."
"See? Even worse than I thought."