Savior steps up to the white podium and places a hand upon it. A blue screen with white text floats above him. His stats are laid out. Name, race, age, level and class. If we were back on Earth his class would have been something like “student” as would have been mine, but his is listed as sage.
The king claps “A great sage. You will be a great help in defeating the demon lord!” Savior gives a nervous laugh accompanied by his signature “Yeah.” To Savior ‘yeah’ was a very versatile word. It was a blank slate that his tone and timing could inscribe any meaning into. That yeah was the ‘yeah’ of him nervously humoring the king. Who wouldn’t be nervous. Savior hadn’t read as much isekai as Heckles, Seraph, or I. He knew the concept but this must be a very odd experience for him. Savior’s girlfriend, Saharah, approached the podium next. She was even more of a normie than Savior. She stood next to him at the podium and placed her hand on it as Savior placed a hand on her shoulder. Her class was Priest. “Oh, that’s not that bad.” She breathed a sigh of relief. She was worried that she might have to fight on the front lines.
“A very good class indeed.”
Next to join my friends on the podium was Heckles. He strutts to the podium and slams his hand down on it. “Sword master.”
“No fair. I wanted to be a sword master. Squeaks out Seraph from next to me. I laugh at him. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you can still wield a katana with whatever class you get.” This is literally his dream. We often made jokes about offering ourselves to truck-kun just so we could be isekaid, not very tasteful jokes, but still jokes.
I am next to place my hand on the podium. My status screen shows to the crowded throne room.
Anon Y. Mouse. Level: 1 Age: 23 Race: Human Class:
The class is left blank. There are murmurs from the crowd. I look at the worried faces around me. They once gave grand smiles and cheers for my friends, but nothing for me? They look disappointed and worried. While I was scanning the crown Seraph had snuck up next to me and placed his hand on the podium. The crowd roars so loud that the marble bricks around us begin to shake. They stomp their feet and clap their hands in excitement. I look at my friend's class “Hero.”
“Finally a hero has been summoned! The evils of the demon king will no longer go unpunished!” The king stands up and claps his hands. The cheering stops. “Hero and his friends. You have a tough road ahead of you, but for tonight we feast!” We are all led through the crowd and into an impressive dining hall. The table is as long as a school bus and carved from purewhite wood. Monster heads are stuffed and mounted on the walls, each more ferocious looking then the next. The seats have armrests with gold plating.
We sit together at the far end of the table from the king. I take the seat on the end while my friends sit around me. The king clears his throat. “Ahem. Could you let the hero take the end seat. I’d like to look at him while we eat.” The king is sitting at the far end at the other head of the table. I recognize that I’m being snubbed, but it’s be stupid to care about something as trivial as a seat. I stand up and jab Seraph in the shoulder. “Looks like someone has a crush on you already.”
“What where?” He looks around. He was not following along with the conversation.
“The king made me swap seats with you so he can stare into your pretty eyes while you eat.”
“Eww dude. Don’t go there. He’s like fifty. Where’s his daughters? Shouldn’t there be some royal cuties around here? If I marry the princess then I get to be the new king, right?”
He is already thinking like an isekai hero. I take my seat as plate after plate of meat food is placed in front of us. I waste no time selecting my fill. I eat with both hands shoveling food into my face. It’s a trick I picked up. It’s more efficient to eat with two hands then one. The only drawback is that you have to be careful when breathing or you’ll suck food into your nose. I finish eating before anyone else and regain awareness of my surroundings. My other friends are putting on a fake air of aristocracy. We are in the presence of a king and I’m treating it like we are back in the lunchroom at school. “So Heckles, how do you feel about blademaster? You always struck me as the black mage type.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“Are you being racist?” Saharah speaks up from the other side of the table.
“No, he’s calm and calculating. When he discovers a new game he immediately tears the meta apart. Something a mage would do.”
“But why a black mage?”
Seraph speaks up in between bites of turkey. “Cause he’s black.” He then laughs at his own joke.
“That’s so disrespectful.”
Heckles speaks up. “Can you not white knight me?” He tells Saharah. Then he turns to me “It’s 50/50 sometimes I like to calculate the area of effect to damage over time ratios. Something I like to stand still and hit things until they stop moving.”
I didn’t know that side of him. He always shows off his intellect when we play together. Alone is he the type of person who plays a warrior with a three button rotation?
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? You’re classless.”
I cringe, but hold out hope. “Maybe I’ll pick up class along the way or something.”
“That’s impossible.” A strange voice speaks from right behind me. I jump in my seat and quickly crane my head to see a cute girl in a white fluffy dress. Her hair is immaculately styled with golden flower hair pins in it. It looks like a golden waterfall carrying flowers. She wears diamond earrings larger than my thumb. “Is someone having a wedding?”
Her eyes peak towards Seraph, the hero, and then back to me. “Hopefully soon.” she muses. Then we jump back to what she was saying. “Hello, I’m the first princess. I was waiting for you to finish your conversation before introducing myself, but I just had to cut in. It’s impossible to pick up a class. Classes are given by the Goddess when you are born. There is no way for you to gain one.”
“Then what about learning a trade? Surely there are classless people. What do they do for a living?”
“Clean sewers mostly.”
I cringe as I realize what has happened. I just joined a theocratic caste system as one of the untouchables.
“But people can still learn things. You can teach a classless person how to farm and it’s not like the plants will complain.”
“Anything someone does that is outside of their class is destined to fail.” She states coldly. “Crops will rot when a classless person tries to grow them. Any pottery a classless person makes will explode in the oven.”
I break out in a cold sweat. I’ve read this before. I turn to Seraph who has his eyes on the princess. “Hey, friendo, doesn’t this seem like the plot to that one manga? The revenge ones Kicked out of the hero’s party because X now I must X to X?”
“Huh, what?” He takes his eyes off the princess and looks at me.
“Were you listening?”
He shakes his head. I quickly recap him on what is going on.
“Well you can come with us while we defeat the demon king.” he states with a carefree tone. "I'm the hero. I can easily protect you from the monsters."
The princess cuts in. Almost pressing her cleavage into his face. “Sadly he can not. His classlessness will cause your adventure to fail.”
“Oh. Tough luck buddy."
“But he can stay here in the castle. We will take good care of him.”
Savior locks eyes with me. “Take care of you like the yakuza would.” He’s smart. Even without the background of anime he picked up on what’s happening. I nod repeatedly. He even coded it in a way that the medieval princess wouldn’t understand.
“What’s that mean?” Seraph asks. His lack of intelligence showing.
My nerves eat at me to get this resolved as soon as possible. “It means they are going to fucking kill me as soon as you leave to slay the demon king.” I try to whisper, but with the princess almost clinging onto Seraph she ends up hearing too. She gasps. A long and practiced gasp. “We would never do that to the esteemed friend of the hero’s party!”
“So what? I can just stay here rent free and get everything provided to me? Am I on mascot duty?”
She nods.
I smile. “Hey. NEET life time. Maybe having no class isn’t a bad thing after all.”