“Okay, guys! You two are horrible at talking, so leave it to me!”

With a disinterested look and a sigh, Queen sat on the ground and gave Ryuji a wave of approval. Jessy was bouncing around happily without a care in the world. He was pretty sure she hadn’t paid attention to the announcement or anything he just said.

He went in search of people who weren’t already in groups of four. Ryuji thought that tons of people would be scrambling around trying to find four members. It turns out that he was dead wrong. Most people seemed to have come in groups of four. He started panicking and darted around the courtyard to find someone, anyone without a group.

He closed in on two people who were together and decided to try his luck on convincing one. One of them was a girl in impressive gladiatorial armor and was carrying a spear. Her long orange hair flowed out the back of her helmet.

The other one was a less impressive-looking man with blonde hair and run of the mill armor. They both stood around the same height of 170cm.

“Hey! Do you guys have a team yet?”

The man spoke up while the girl stared up at the sky. “Nope! But we’re a pair, so unless you have two spots open.”

A sad sigh escaped Ryuji as he looked at the ground. “We don’t.”

“Hey, you’re that guy that beat Rosey, aren’t you? Ryuji, right?”

“That happened ten minutes ago! How do you know about it?”

“Uh, well, everyone’s kinda talking about it. Especially the part where you beat her with one attack." He extended his hand. "Oh, I’m Arc, by the way.”

“Is Rosey that impressive?”

Arc made a face as if Ryuji had just asked the dumbest question in the world. “Impressive? The girl has a blessing that could make her as fast as a comet and is a handpicked member of Commander Rory’s party.”

A name that probably should have impressed him came out of Arc's mouth. “Commander Rory?”

“You really don’t know huh? He’s on the same level as the Sword Saint. He even took down a Dark Moon all by himself. You know what the Dark Moon is, right?”

“You don’t have to patronize me! The Dark Moon are the strongest dark gods on the planet. There’s like 8 of them, right?”

“Well, I think there’s only 5 left now. This generation of heroes has really been wiping the floor with them!”

“Still to beat one of those monsters, he has to be super strong.”

“Well, I think you should move on to greener pastures buddy.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you.”

As he walked away, he heard a familiar high-pitched voice from earlier. When he looked back at Arc, he was getting chatty with Rosey and Jong.

‘That’s why he knew! Guy already had plans to be on their team. Goddamn, did everyone show up to this with knowledge about the first test except us?!’

Ryuji spent the next twenty minutes of his time walking around and chatting up anyone who didn’t seem to be in a group. Everyone he talked to, however, had already made plans. The ones who hadn’t made plans simply didn’t want to join the Sword Saints party out of fear of their lives.

After his twenty minutes of toiling were up Ryuji had a single thought. ‘Fuck it.’ If he couldn’t find anyone in this crowd that would join, then he would just have to pray to a lucky star that his female companions could lure in a sorry sucker. He stood near the outskirts of the crowd, still looking for any loners when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. 'No way. I'm just seeing things.' He wiped his eyes and looked again.

He still saw it. He wasn’t crazy. It was actually there. In the hands of a girl sitting on the lawn was a manga. He couldn't pry his eyes off of the comic book. He even knew the anime it was for. On the cover, it said Gintama. The girl reading had a bored look on her face like she wasn’t reading some freak item that shouldn’t even exist in this world.

The girl herself wore a very Victorian-like dress that was lilac. The kind of dresses you would see in Cinderella. She wore a top hat with a red bow tied around it. On her hands were white gloves that reminded Ryuji of Bugs Bunny. Her eyes were covered by a weird visor that you might see being worn by a snowboarder. Her hair was short and just barely went over her visor in the front. Her last defining feature for Ryuji was her monstrously sharp teeth.

‘Woah! I didn’t know shark girls existed in this world.’

Ryuji felt like he needed answers, so he walked over to her and sat down next to her. He waited for her to give any kind of response to this, but she paid him no mind. All she did was occasionally turn the page on her manga. After getting fed up with the silent treatment, Ryuji made the first move.

“Hey there-”

“Woah! When do you get there?” The girl seemed taken aback by Ryujis ‘sudden’ appearance. Her voice sounded like she was talking out of a speaker instead of her own mouth. Ryuji decided to just ignore it and continue the conversation.

“I’ve actually been he-”

“So, what do you want? Oh, I know you want an autograph!” The girl inexplicably pulled out a brush that was covered in ink and painted over a confused Ryujis face with what he could only assume be her signature.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

“What is your problem?” Ryuji stood up and attempted to wipe away some of the garbage on his face.

“Oh, so ye wanna fight, eh! Take out yer dukes! Yul never get me lucky charms!” With a terrible Irish accent, the lady got up from the ground. Now that she was up, he could tell that she was around the same height as Jessy. The girl then started mimicking boxing moves as if in preparation for a match.

Cringing on the inside, Ryuji was about to counter her stupid proposal when it hit him. “How do you know what lucky charms are?”

The girl immediately stopped her shadow boxing and echoed the question.“How do YOU know about them?”

This girl irritated him. From the bottom of his very being, he was annoyed. “Okay, so now why do you have a manga then?”

“Is that what this is called?” Her voice, full of genuine confusion, made Ryuji's head hurt even more than it already was.

“Do you know anything!?”

“I know that you are really getting on my nerves. Now scram!” Her words became coated with disdain and anger.

Ryuji felt at a loss, but he didn’t want to leave this enigma. He decided to try an age-old tactic that usually only works on grade-schoolers. He sat down next to her again. “Can I read it with you?”

A pause. The girl was as surprised as she could be. Like she never considered that someone would want to read with her. Ryuji didn’t quite understand, but he did notice the embarrassment written over her face. 'Oi, you do know shouting about lucky charms is way more embarrassing, right?' Ryuji kept his thoughts to himself as she mulled over what he said.

With a gentle nod of approval, he moved in closer so he could read. She flipped to the start of the book, and he began to read. He was surprised at the authenticity of it. The back had all the printing companies and normal advertisements on it, and the language it was written in was Japanese.

He felt a wave of nostalgia as they flipped through the pages. He didn’t particularly like the last world, but he definitely did miss his daily weeb intake. He laughed at a classic joke written on the page and noticed that the girl was laughing too. She seemed to be having the time of her life at the moment.

Ryuji definitely understood where she was coming from and how she felt. The feeling of sharing what you like with someone else and them liking it too is something grand and hard to describe. He imagined that nobody knew how to read kanji in this world, meaning to everyone else this was just a weird picture book. Thinking about that only made him further question who this girl is though it seemed like she had no intention of talking about it at all.

After about twenty minutes, they read the last page, and she closed the book. They sat in silence. He imagined that she was still embarrassed, or maybe she was just taking in the moment. Either way, it looked like he had to be the one to strike up a conversation.

“Do you have a team?”

“Psh me? Nah, I just wanted to see what this place was all about. Didn’t think the first thing we would do here was play friendship is magic.” She added a high-pitched mimicking voice to the last part of her sentence and looked off into the crowd. “What about you, mister?”

“I have two teammates but am currently missing the ever-important final one. Everyone here is taken or too scared to be associated with us.”

“Oh? Sounds like you have it rough, buddy.”

“It's not buddy, it's Ryuji. Now you tell me yours.”

“Oh-hoh doust thou really want to know mine name?” With a hoity-toity accent, she pulled a fan out of nowhere and used it to hide her face like some aristocrat.

“Oh, pure and sweet maiden! Please tell me thy name! Tell me so I may call upon you and hear its sweet vibrations!” Playing along, Ryuji bent on one knee and spouted some garbage that sounded like it belonged in Shakespeare.

The girl got up and curtsied with her dress. “My name is Patricia Vanderlin Von Ankerberg Dottington! Otherwise known as just Patricia. Although you can and will call me Dot!” Her aristocrat accent wore off on the last sentence, but Ryuji still had to stifle a giggle at that ridiculous fake name.

He took a formal bow. “It is very nice to make your acquaintance Ms. Dot.”

“Ten minutes remain!”

“Guess I should head back then.”

“Wait a minute! I could be your fourth!” She puffed out her very small chest and put her hand on it.

“You sure about that? Our groups probably gonna do a lot of dangerous stuff after we leave, and I hear most people who group up at this place stay a group after leaving.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I don’t care about that. I have one condition that needs to be met first, though.”

“What is it? Just so you know, I’m not rich or powerful or anything like that.”

“Read with me more later!”

He was expecting something way more serious than that. In fact, Ryuji felt like that might have been the cutest thing he’s heard since his encounter with the Sword Saint. “It’s a done deal! Now come with me. We need to find an idiot and a bitch.”

“Ooo, you are making your party sound lovelier by the minute.”

“Oh, that reminds me, do you have some kind of baggage.”

While putting a finger to her chin, she seemed to be thinking. He was sure that unlike the last girl he saw do this, she was doing this purely because it was a cliché. She suddenly had a look of realization and slammed her fist down into her palm.

“Oh yeah! I’m clinically insane, by the way.”

“I don’t like how nonchalantly you said that. Whatever, I can’t afford to be picky.” Ryuji moved through the crows mulling over what she just said. ‘I’m not much better anyway.’

He walked dot back to the spit he had left his teammates. Queen was still on the ground doing nothing while Jessy was brandishing a gun. “Hey, listen… you know you can’t shoot that thing here, right?”

“Relax I’m not dumb.” As she said that, she started unloading the gun and taking the bullets out.

“Stop lying through your teeth!”

“Oh? I see the hero brought back another girl. Are you trying to start a harem? Disgusting.”

“Don’t spit on the floor near me! Look, no one else was available. Anyway, everyone, this is Dot, Dot, this is everyone.”

The two girls got up and presented themselves to their new teammate. “Howdy! I’m Jessy, and these are my guns. I know we’ll get along famously!”

“I’m Marie, but the idiots call me Queen. I don’t really care if we get along or not.”

“Wow! A bakadere and a kuudere. This is a nice party you got going on my man. All that’s missing is a tsundere. Hmmm, oh, I know! I could be it. How about it?” Dot nudged Ryuji in his ribs while she wore a playful smile.

“Please don’t. That sounds like hell.”

“Whatever b-b-baka!” Dot hid her fake embarrassed face behind her gloved hands and did her best to make what Ryuji considered to be the default tsundere voice.

“How the hell do you know this stuff?”

“Wait, you can understand what she’s saying? Literally, half the words that come out her mouth sounded like gibberish to me.”

“That’s one thing me and the gun nut can agree on.”

“Time is up! The first test is over!” The overseer standing upon the pedestal spoke through the microphone once again. “Well, now that the teams are organized, we are going to have a fun activity for you all. Every team member will step forward and draw a ticket from this box. The ticket will assign you to a sector. The sector you're assigned to will determine which free for all you participate in. There will be four sectors total and four free for all's. We don't want you worrying about winning though, we just want everyone to be familiar with the stadium tech."

Ryuji had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach as he drew his ticket. "Sector D huh? Hey, what did you guys get?"

A Pumped-up Jessy announced first. "I got A! Me and my guns are gonna annihilate em!"

Then a moody Queen told hers. "I got C."

Finally, the weird one announced hers. "I got D. Looks like I get to kill you Ryuji! Ooo what fun!"