“Hey, Porko! Go buy me some bread!”
“Hope your wallet’s as fat as your gut, Porko!”
Cue crude laughter.
At lunch, a bunch of guys called me out behind the gym like always and stuck me up. You know what they say about looks being deceiving? Well, these guys looked like saints but acted like devils. There were some idols at the school—especially the famous ones—who’d treat me decently. But even then, it felt like they were trying to show the world how nice they were for putting up with a monster like me.
I went to buy the bread they wanted from the vending machine, and after I got back, they gave me the “honor” of being their punching bag.
“Have a knuckle sandwich, Porko!” One of the guys slugged me in the gut, and I let out a heavy grunt.
I fell down to my knees, coughing.
“Hahaha, damn, that felt good! Nothin’ like a good ol’ punching bag, right?”
“Hold up, guys, isn’t class starting soon?”
“Already? Dammit, guess we better get goin’. Later, Porko!”
They headed back to class, guffawing to themselves all the while.
I tried to stand up, but my knees weren’t ready to hold me up yet. I couldn’t take even a single step before falling back down. I grimaced, waiting for the pain to subside.
“H-Hiiragi-kun?!” One of the girls noticed me and ran over. “Are you okay? What happened?!”
She had earthy-brown hair that was kept back by a hairband. She had large, double-lidded eyes, and perfectly round dark eyes. Her lips were a delicate shade of cherry blossom pink. She was one of the prettiest girls in school and my classmate, Hino Youko. As it happened, she was also one of the rare few people in school who didn’t care about my stink and treated me normally.
“Can you stand?” She reached out to help me up.
“Y-yeah.”
I’d like to go on the record and say that I wasn’t the kind of sorry sap who’d get the wrong idea if a girl treated me nicely. I knew how I looked. Man, I hated thinking about it. I wanted to cry.
“What happened, Hiiragi-kun?”
“N-nothing you need to worry about, Hino. You’d better get to class. You don’t want to be late, right?”
“Yeah, but—”
“You’d better get going then. You go first. I don’t want anyone to see you with me.”
“Why not?”
“People might get the wrong idea, y’know. I’d hate to get you wrapped up in my mess.”
“What?”
With that, I forced myself to stand and walked off.
I bet she really was just worried about me but thought she’d better keep her distance. Sure, that caring side was what made her so popular, but I didn’t want her to get bullied because of me. I hoped she had finally gotten the hint this time.
Class started and ended like usual after that, but when everyone was getting ready to go home, a chime rang out and the intercom came on.
“Hello, everyone. Could everyone stop what you’re doing and sit down?”
Everyone stopped to look up at the intercom, and a moment later, they all sat down in unison.
“The hell?!” someone cried out.
“Okay, who pushed me?!” called another.
Even I was forced to sit down by some invisible force.
“What the heck?” I muttered. I tried to stand up, but—
“I can’t move!”
“What’s happening?!”
Nobody could move a muscle, as though we were all paralyzed. The whole classroom began to devolve into panic, and the intercom came back on.
“Hello there, kids. Let me introduce myself. In this world, I’m who you might call ‘God.’” The voice had a strangely androgynous quality to it, making it impossible to tell if the speaker was young or old, man or woman. “It looks like you’re all rather confused, but that’s hardly surprising. The unknown and incomprehensible have always bred chaos in the hearts of men. Honestly, you’re such comical little creatures.”
Wait, did they just call themselves God?
Normally, I’d assume they had a few screws loose, but that couldn’t explain why none of us could move.
Maybe they’re not nuts. Maybe they’re telling the truth.
“Explaining things to you humans in detail always exhausts me,” the voice continued in a jovial tone, “so I’ll keep this simple. I’ll be transferring each and every one of you to another world now.”
The room went dead silent. Someone opened their mouth to protest, but no words came out. Everyone turned to look at others in confusion for a moment before the intercom turned on again.
“Oh, and since I’d rather not deal with you all squabbling over each other, I’ve taken away your voices temporarily.”
Suddenly, it clicked. The voice really was God—or at least something that carried out God’s will. It didn’t help the situation make any more sense though.
“Anyhow, I’ve decided that Earth has far too many people on it, and, as such, I need to move you somewhere new. You humans have had your way with the planet a little too much, you know. I can’t allow your population to continue increasing as it is. Can’t you hear the screams of Mother Earth beneath your feet? That’s why we gods are shipping you off to other, less populated worlds. In short, we’re saving the world from you.”
I could just imagine the speaker nodding smugly.
“You should all be grateful, by the way. The original plan was to quietly erase you from existence, but I went out of my way to grant you the right to live. I believe you all owe me a thank you!”
Who does this prick think they are?
“Your new home, by the way, is a nice little fantasy world. I think you’ll find it rather similar to the RPGs you play here. Makes sense? Good. Now, this means that you’ll have to cope with a healthy dose of monsters, but you’ll have magic as well. There isn’t any ‘science’ there, however, so I imagine you ‘hip kids,’ as it were, will find it plenty inconvenient—not to mention perilous to boot.”
Oof. Getting erased from existence is starting to sound appealing.
“Since your new world is so dangerous, there’s no need to worry about you humans getting too full of yourselves, and none of the gods will lay a finger on your new home. That means no godly pranks but no miracles either. Instead, you’ll have the full gamut of levels, Skills, and Stats to play with, so I encourage you to enjoy it. Since this world is higher tiered than the one I’ll be sending you to, your Stats will be significantly higher than the natives. Oh, and just so your friends and families won’t worry about you, I’ll be erasing you from all their memories, so you can enjoy your new lives without reservation.”
That higher level thing sounded like a nice perk. We’d survive the first few nights at least. I didn’t know if making our parents forget we ever existed would help us forget our old world though … not that I need to worry about that personally.
“I have a few parting gifts for you as well. You’ll all have menus from which you can see your Stats, Skills, and even your Titles as well as an Item Box that you can store things in by concentrating. I’ll also throw in a language-decoding ability and an Analysis Skill. Oh, and remember, anyone in your new world can check their own Stats.
“Now, remember to be as positive as you can. It’s nothing but dumb luck that you’re even getting such an opportunity after all. I should also mention that I’ll be sending you all in groups—and I do mean all of you, though of course not the building itself.”
Wait, so we just got lucky? And if the whole school’s going, that’s almost eight hundred people. And from the sounds of it, we aren’t even the only people getting sent off.
The “presents” he mentioned were all pretty standard fare too. I mean, without that language-decoding ability, we’d be pretty much screwed from the get-go. I didn’t know what they meant by Skills and Titles, but that Analysis Skill sounded useful at least. Now if I decided to eat something off the floor, I’d know exactly what I was getting into.
“Alright then, that’s enough from me. I’m awfully busy, after all. You’ll all have an hour to prepare, so make the best of it. If you’re in a group, then I’ll be able to send you someplace safe. If you’re alone … well, not even God knows.”
With that, the intercom cut out. I tried to move, and I found that the power that had been keeping us in our seats was gone.
The room was dead quiet. See, having really weird stuff happen makes you freak out, but if it’s not just weird but downright crazy, then nothing calms you down more. Nobody had the courage to talk, let alone move. It was as if we were still all bound to our desks.
After a painfully long silence, one of my classmates, Aoyama Hiroki, stood up.
“H-hey! Why don’t we go figure out what the hell’s going on here?” Aoyama wasn’t an idol, but he was the soccer team’s captain and ace player. He was stupidly popular with the girls. “If what that nutjob said is true, then everyone in the school’s getting transported. Check and see if the doors open … oh, and the windows!”
A few more students stood up to try the exits.
“Nope,” said the guy at the door. “It’s not locked or anything, but it won’t open.”
Aoyama nodded. “Alright. I guess ‘God’ might’ve been telling the truth then.” He put his hand on his chin and was quiet for a moment. “Right. We should try to check out our Stats next. If anything comes up, then that’s our answer.”