At the age of 24, I had just graduated from University and was about to begin my job hunting. When my Degree was handed to me on my graduation day, there was this feeling of intense revulsion inside of me because I realized what I’d work hard for: an over-glorified piece of paper.

This over-glorified piece of paper will dictate how my life will turns out and how smooth my sailing through the sea of reality would become. That implication struck me, for as soon I noticed it, I was staring at it with cynical amusement.

The realization that those six years of higher education, those six years of struggling and cramming my mind with knowledge that I had a vague understanding of had made me feel small and insignificant for some reason. In all honesty, the knowledge that was crammed inside was too disorganized for me to put them to any uses. Maybe I’m just incompetent…

 Meh…

Since there was a graduation ceremony at that time when I had that introspection, they had to physically move me because I was just standing on the stage in front of the Dean looking a bit of a buffoon who should have had moved after I received my certificate, thus had disrupted the flow of that ceremony at that time.

So anyway…lets continue…

I felt like a newly made cog, ready to be integrated into the factory that had shaped me so it would become part of a larger factory that would produce more cogs and parts like me.

That factory that was called ‘human society’, that was mercilessly kept advancing without caring about those that didn’t share the same attitudes and sentiments.

Too many doctors, too many teachers, too little volunteers, the taxes were too high and there wasn’t enough money for everyone to go around or in other words, it was a sad excuse that was also referred to as ‘income inequality’. These and all sorts of other arguments cropped up for the sake of human advancement.

I felt that we humans are the most vicious species that god ever bothered creating. Too much free-will and too little self-restraint, we tainted and corrupted the natural cycle of every lifeform we came into contact with.

And then my thoughts abruptly stopped. It wasn’t because my train of thoughts got de-railed. It was because just as I had opened my eyes, I realized I wasn’t in the room anymore...

Carefully observing my surrounding’s, I realized I was in a totally different room… no, it was a hall since the ceiling was so high, I think it was about 100 metres high and the room was very wide.

On the floor underneath me, luminescent lines, sparkling with intricate patterns, were forming into a wide circular symbol and within that there were even more circular symbols with countless smaller circular symbols.

Also, around me, there were ‘creatures’ that as far as I can comprehend.

A quadruped creature with scales? A beautiful woman with bat-like wings attached to her back? A brutish, towering grey-skinned beastly looking humanoid that was wearing a monk-like robe with a sling bag? These were some of the creatures that I saw and there was also some other humans and humanoids together with creatures which resembled what people would call ‘monsters’ too.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Beyond these ‘creatures’ and the other humans that surrounded me were human-like figures equipped with armours that resembled something from the middle ages, but they were laced and decorated with colourful feathers and in their hands were strangely shaped halberds and shields.

They were starting to form a circle around us.

I was in the process of recollecting myself and to fully scrutinize this unreal situation unfolding before me. Any normal person would be shocked physically and that was my current state.

Still let’s dissect all the facts that I have gathered as of now. A gathering of various fantasy-like creatures… a group of feathered, armoured knights… a large hall with a weird symbol etched beneath us… well then, there’s no doubt about it anymore… This was definitely a fantasy situation of probably the ‘dragons and magic’ kind.

And right now, this was something of a cliché for otherworld summoning… Or maybe this was a dream…?

Without hesitating, I slapped myself hard with an audible sound. The slap made me shut my eyes for a moment.

Eh…

Maybe the slap wasn’t hard enough since I was still in the same situation. Let’s try that again…

Just as I was about to slap myself again, even harder this time, one of the guards in front shouted something in an abrasive tone towards me. It was definitely not a language I knew or even heard before.

Judging by the fact he was making understandable gestures, giving the notion that I should not slap myself, I slowly retracted my left hand that was about to slap myself again.

And also, I just noticed, everyone’s gaze was now upon me, more specifically, down towards the lower half of my body.

Now, let’s explain why I was having an inner monologue about existential and humanity calamity earlier. You see, when a world-weary man does something monotonous and boorish like taking a shower, in order to entertain oneself, that individual would delve into the depth of endless questions that have many answers that will lead to even more questions. That is the time when that individual would don their philosophical hat and ponders on the meaningless, rhetorical subjects that was hounding his sub-conscious before, thus forcing them to search for self-satisfying answers.

The sacred activity that every modern human indulged in called shower thought.

 [moments pass…]

Did it click? Now, the reason why everyone was ‘showering’ me with their gaze at my lower half was because…

Yes, that’s right; I am totally naked, wet and did I already mention it? As in definitely naked. 

Upon being summoned, I had still been showering.

Oh ye gods…