It was happening all over again. I ran through my mental checklist, hoping that this time would be different, and yet knowing that it would not be. After the tenth, maybe twelfth time going through the same process, I had nearly given up on trying to change my fate.

“Nearly” being the operative word.

Mental checklist time. Tingling sensation in my gut? Check, although that could definitely be the Flu.

Hmm, there’s also a tugging sensation near my heart. I mean, I could be having a heart attack, along with the Flu. One way or the other, I wouldn’t need to be worrying about the Flu very much, so that was a silver lining.

Ah, but unfortunately there was no denying that a golden beam of light, complete with the voices of an Angelic Choir, was definitely shooting down at me from the Heaven’s themselves. And while I would truly, truly, love to say that I was hallucinating….Well, that just wasn’t very likely, all things considered.

“Time to face reality, Blanc. It’s happening, all over again. Thirteenth time is the charm though, right?” I grit my teeth and spoke to myself, trying to mentally prepare for the unpleasant feelings that were about to come my way.

There were a few hallmarks of the Summoning Spell. At least, I call it that, but Transmigration Ritual, Isekai Call, Dimension Hopping and Divine Placement are all valid terms, I guess. It really is all semantics, pointless in principle and practice. The long and short of it is, one moment I’m in one place, and then, all of a sudden, I’m not.

Anyway, hallmarks of the Summoning Spell. First, it’s often unpleasant. Something about having your spirit and your mind ripped out of your mortal shell and then transferred into a brand new mortal shell across distances too large to fathom is….unpleasant. The first time, it was a bit of an annoying itch somewhere I couldn’t quite scratch or really even identify. Maybe in my soul? Now, it’s closer to having my teeth pulled out, with no anesthetic. Painful, in the kind of dizzying, all encompassing way that really made it hard to focus on what came next.

Other hallmarks? Well, the pain was kind of the big one. Did I mention the beam of light, like a giant spotlight signaling to everyone and saying “Hey get a load of this guy, something interesting is going to happen here!”? Those two together make it fairly obvious that I’m about to be shunted from one dimension to another with no warning at all. Or almost none. There are ways to time the thing, kind of, make sure that I’m at least somewhat prepared.

This time, I was genuinely caught unawares, however. I’d only been on Grimmar for about a month, and it was turning out to be a truly delightful place. A large, overgrown jungle covered most of the surface, and there were all manner of woodland creatures about, and very little civilization to speak of. Not the most comfortable of worlds, I grant you, but it had it’s pleasures. Specifically, a delightful little fruit, the chakbon, that tasted a lot like watermelon, with a hint of citrus. Oh, and it produced a bit of a….hallucinogenic effect. Well, a lot of a hallucinogenic effect. And I should know, because I’d spent the last month or so eating as much of it as I possibly could, and…Oh.

How long have I been here, again?

As the teeth pulling commenced, my vision turned to grayscale, and then to black. The nice thing about the Spell was that it always knocked you out. Goodnight sweet prince and all that, I guess.

***

“Chosen One, do not be afraid. You have been summoned across vast aeons and from the gaps between stars in order to fulfill your destiny, and save the land of Excelsia. I shall be your guide on this adventure.”

Gahhhh! Not again. Not another Chosen One, not another adventure. Dreading what I might see, I opened my eyes.

A cold, stone floor, with candles hanging from a chandelier, and braziers all around. Okay, good. So they’ve mastered fire, stonecrafting and likely have some kind of civilization. Which meant bed and, above all else, bread.

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Bread was hard to come by. I appreciated it a lot more now, after a couple worlds where there had been no real civilization to speak of.

I continued to look around. It was a fairly ordinary Summoning Chamber at first glance. Runes carved into the stone, glowing blue and purple. I couldn’t immediately identify the Runes, but I was fairly sure I’d figure them out given time. The thing that jumped out at me about the room was that it was massive. Definitely not a single person chamber, this was for group summonings, perhaps, or some kind of summoning assembly line.

Okay, so far, this was promising. A high level of magic, which meant either magical co-operation or extremely strong individual magic stamina. Which of course meant plenty of ambient magical energy (call it mana or chi or qi or whatever you wanted. Didn’t matter, it was the same fundamental thing), so I wouldn’t be completely helpless without weaponry.

And who, exactly, had spoken to me? There were a number of women dressed in what looked like the standard regalia of some form of Priesthood. Long, flowing robes, a white hood trimmed with scarlet, and some creatively intricate insignia sewn onto the back of the robes. The one nearest to me looked positively…bored.

Disdainful, even. Well, that was new. I was used to adoration, fear, anger, even fainting spells. Boredom and disdain didn’t typically factor into the standard “Summon an Isekai Hero to solve your problems” template, but any departure was good news at this point. As I was trying to see if I could figure out anything else about the place, she spoke again. Her voice was a little bit more monotone than it had sounded when I was asleep, even though it had a very nice, lilting melody to it.

“Head to Room 7 for Processing.”

“Head to…Wait! Is that any way to talk to the Chosen One? I mean, I didn’t say I accept, but still, at least give me some information on what I’ve walked into?”

“Huh?”

“I’m the Chosen One! So, what problem do you guys have? Demon Lord?”

She continued to look a little stunned, so not a Demon Lord then? Well, I’d solved a lot of problems, for a lot of people. This one couldn’t possibly be that unique.

“Giants? Giant Insects? Losing the Mana concentration?”

“What…what are you talking about?”

“I’m the Chosen One, right?”

“No.” The Priestess looked a bit bewildered, and a shade amused. I didn’t notice, and continued on, speaking loudly and slowly, as if to a child. Which was very embarrassing in hindsight, but inter-dimensional translation has been known to break before.

“So then what am I being Chosen fo-Wait. No?”

“No.” This time her reply was a little faster, and I caught the fact that she was seconds away from bursting into laughter. “The Chosen One is in the next chamber. She was carefully selected, her histories were examined by our most trusted Seers and her future was carefully calibrated by the Oracle himself. We spared no expense in her Summoning, since it is truly an event that marks the beginning of an Era.”

“…..”

She sniffed a little bit. “Truly something no summoner would ever wish to miss.”

Her tone implied that she blamed me. Listen, lady, I didn’t ask to be brought here. Send me back to Grimmar, I had a nice stockpile of fruit to chow through! Still, I had questions.

“And me?”

“We…used a carrot and a dead rat. Rush job, by order of Magus Emeritus Aastor VII.”

“A dead rat? A dead rat?!”

“Well, it was alive when we started.”

So, I wasn’t a hero or a Chosen One. Well, that was almost good news. I wasn’t going to celebrate until I knew exactly why I was summoned, but at least I didn’t have the highest death rate, lowest job satisfaction occupation in any of the multiversal worlds. That had to count for something.

“So, why am I here then?”

“Rush job by Magus Emeritus Aastor VII. Did you…do you not understand me?”

I sighed, and rephrased my question.

“And why does this Magus want me? I have…a lot of skills and talents and all that. Why does he need me around?”

“Please proceed to Room 7 for Processing.”

Okay, so the Priestess either wouldn’t say anything else, or didn’t know anything else. Well, that was fine. Talking was overrated, hopefully Room 7 had some answers.

“Okay, just give me a quick second, okay? Status.”

Just needed to make sure I had all the skills I wanted and…

Oh no. The floating window before me had exactly the message I didn’t want to see.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

Congratulations! Your System has been updated. Welcome to Isekai Hero V2.0Beta!

New Progression Options are Now Available.

New Quests are now available.

All Skills and Points have been reset.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Oh good. Well, this would lend credence to my story of being a legendary hero, wouldn’t it? Is this a punishment for not following the Questline on Grimmar? Answer me, dammit! I demand to know if someone is looking down and pulling at the strings!