If this had been a random sampling of people torn away from ordinary life and thrust into this extraordinary place, there probably would’ve been a whole lot of screams, crying, panic, general mayhem. At least, I imagine there’d be. Ordinary people aren’t programmed to jive with stuff like this. But these weren’t ordinary people, these were people who’d chosen to spend three days of their lives at a gaming convention. There were no screams, no tears, no panic. Just a collective throb of barely-contained delirium.

It shouldn’t be surprising. After all, we were gamers. After so many years of playing so many games, it’s like we’d spent our entire lives preparing for this moment to arrive.

And then it got even better, from a gamer’s perspective. It was all leading up to this, really. A very special surprise Stratos had planned for us. That thing in the middle of my vision, my Status. I like to think that I had spoiled their big reveal by opening mine early, or at the very least I had spoiled it for Stratos and myself because nobody else could see it. There were probably others who expected, or at least suspected, that this would happen the moment Stratos had called us Players. For all I know, I wasn’t the only one who’d already opened their Status; after all, a large slice of the people here must have read the same manga I had, watched the same anime, drank the same Kool-Aid.

“Now,” Stratos said, “just say: Status.”

Like a swarm of giant bees had appeared out of nowhere, or the worst tinnitus ever but lasting just for one second, the hiss of hundreds of voices muttering “Status” at the exact same time buzzed all around the arena.

Earlier, when I’d opened mine, I said I knew perfectly well what was going on even before I saw it appear in front of me. Once everyone had had a moment to digest this new nugget, so did almost everyone around me. I, and all the other people in that arena, had just been isekai’d.

If you already recognize the term, please indulge me as I spend a quick paragraph or two on exposition for the normies. If you don’t, then don’t sweat it. I’ve got you.

Even if you don’t think you know what isekai is, you do. Isekai is Japanese for “other world,” and refers to a special kind of fish-out-of-water story where the main characters are transported from the normal world into a completely different one. It’s even in the Oxford English dictionary now, look it up. When Alice went through the looking glass into Wonderland, and when those annoying kids went into the wardrobe and emerged in Narnia, those were isekai stories. The presence of a Status screen meant this was a particular kind of isekai where the other world people find themselves in is a game world. Jumanji? Total isekai.

Someone once asked me if I appreciated the layered irony of calling it the Isekai World GameCon. I’m not going to tell you how I responded. In fact, I’ll warn you now: I’m probably going to gloss over a lot of the dumb or embarrassing stuff I said and did. I’ll need to include some of it — if I cut it all there won’t be any story left — but some stuff is just too cringe to mention.

Don’t worry, it’ll still have the adventure, surprise, disappointment, violence, treachery, all that good stuff. There’s a bit of sex and romance, too, if that’s your thing. But this won’t be something cut together by a marketing team. It’s a rousing story if I say so myself. Sure, lots of people died, but it’s fine; most of them came back again.

Too soon to joke about it? Sorry, I guess morbid humor is my way of dealing. But back to the Status thing.

Those ghostly touch screens hovering in front of us when we said “Status” were more than a cute gimmick, they were an essential way for us to track and measure what we could do. Everyone there knew the deal. They’d played Dungeons & Dragons or RPG video games, they knew what a character sheet was. They’d read isekai manga or watched isekai anime, they’d seen a Status screen before. Just never in real life. And they’d certainly never seen their own Status screen.

But there it was, floating in the air in front of me. My very own Status screen showing my abilities. Stratos hadn’t lied. This wasn’t like a game, it literally was a game.

I was almost afraid to look at it. What if my abilities sucked?

I closed my eyes and prayed for magic powers.

Daniel Lamont Affinity: Life - Novice Gifts: Good At Everything Jack Of All Trades Powers: All Shall Be Revealed - Novice Skills: Game Design - Novice Teaching - Novice Trivia - Novice

Crap. No magic. No combat skills either. And Trivia? What the hell?

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I was useless.

The people around me were all staring intently into the space in front of them, clearly examining their own Statuses. I couldn’t see theirs, of course, only my own. Statuses are a very private thing. I looked over at the freckled boy to my right side again. He sat with his mouth gaping open as he studied his. Typical mouth-breathing gaming nerd. In other words, he was me about a decade ago.

I wished I could see what he got.

All of a sudden, a ghostly screen appeared over his head.

Philip Kincaid Affinity: Earth - Novice

I looked around.

Shawn Sung Affinity: Water - Novice

Tracey Wild Affinity: Ice - Novice

Rakesh Bannerjee Affinity: Fire - Novice

What the hell? All I could see were names and affinities, but no powers or anything. I figured everyone must be able to do that. I also noticed that all their affinities were basic elements, so why was mine Life?

Then I wondered what my power did. The moment the thought crossed my mind my Status changed, my one-and-only power expanding to show its description.

All Shall Be Revealed - Novice: See any status

Hmmm. Interesting. So how about these so-called gifts?

Good At Everything - Ability to develop affinity with all elements; Restriction: mastery in all Affinities, Powers, and Skills is limited to Adept level

I did like the idea of being able to develop affinity with all elements. Versatility for the win. But the restriction? I absolutely did not like that my ability to progress was limited. That sucked. Good At Everything? More like No Good At Anything. Of course, I didn’t know then how many levels of mastery there were and what beyond Adept was out of my reach. My only consolation was that being able to have all affinities must be pretty good if it had felt the need to nerf me so badly.

So many questions. I looked around for the help icon, but there wasn’t any. Poor UX design.

I started looking around some more to see what other affinities I could find. The standard elements were the most common: Fire, Water, Earth, and Ice. I would’ve expected Air to be there in the top four instead of Ice, but Air seemed less common. There were other affinities like Shadow, Nature, Darkness, and Light that hardly anyone had. I didn’t see anybody else with my Life affinity. I counted two people whose affinity was hidden and thought perhaps there was a power to do that.

What about my other gift?

Jack Of All Trades - Learn any Skill through observation

I know what you’re thinking. I thought the same. Is that supposed to be a superpower? That’s...unimpressive. Isn’t that how skills were learned in the regular world?

As I was looking around, my attention was drawn by a young woman with long blonde hair a few rows down from me. I immediately recognized her from the convention. She was hard to miss. It seemed strange that she had been abducted and turned into a Player. Like everyone else around me, I had pointed her out to Stratos the day before. But unlike the others, she hadn’t been there to play games.