Chapter 3 - A Hero

"No"

With one word he crushed all of Chase's hopes of being a hero.

"What? You just said you used a hero summoning portal."

"I used an altered summoning portal" the elf stated calmly

"What's the difference?"

The elf entered lecture mode, a state that seemed to fit him like a glove.

"Well, first I stripped all of the prophecies and foretelling. That was a real mana sink. I removed the filter that searched for people that liked to champion causes and most of another one that searched for high base stats. I even had to remove a filter that looked for people who were either orphans or had abusive parents growing up. That was a weird one. By the end of it the only things left were the inter-dimensional summoning portal, a filter looking for people near death, a velocity cancelling spell and a search for people with a high Luck stat. Oh and a filter that made it so the hero had to be between 17 and 24. I couldn't figure out how to disable that one. I added back the translation spell after the experience with Subject 1 though. So in the end anything that would make you a hero was removed."

Chance stared blankly at the elf for a moment while he tried to make out the useful information from the overwhelming info dump the elf had just given him. He decided to make a quick mental list.

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1. He was not a hero. This really shouldn't have been a surprised him since he'd never done anything particularly heroic. He was in college about to start his second year of computer science. He hadn't died pushing a kid out of the way of a truck. Instead he'd been about to fall to his death as the result of a freak accident. Still, for some reason being straight up told that he wasn't a hero hurt.

2. Magic - Magic was a thing here, this meant he was definitely in a fantasy world. He was quite happy with that since the only other conceivable possibility he could think of was a sci-fi alien abduction and those always seemed to have a lot more dissections in them than fantasy settings. Also space was scary, travelling around in a metal box and likely dying if anything damaged the too thin walls that separated you from billions of miles of empty space. Chase would give that a hard pass

3. Asking Rhuyn for a more detailed explanation about anything related to magic seemed like it was going to end up with him getting an absolutely overwhelming barrage of info. He had met some people like that in real life who took any opportunity to talk about their passions but he'd definitely be better asking more focused questions if he didn't want another lecture, the professor kind, not the angry mom kind.

4. Rhuyn actually seemed reasonably friendly if you ignore the whole restraining him to a table. He had also apparently saved his life, Chase shuddered as he remembered the sight of the ground rushing towards him. Yep saving his life definitely earned Rhuyn some brownie points. Overall Rhuyn gave off vibes that were a lot more wizard savant rather than mad scientist though the the two were quite similar and the restraints were indeed a point in favour of option 2. 

5. Magic - There was magic in this world. This may have been covered in point 2 but it bore repeating because magic was freaking awesome. He probably would have been making some very unmanly noises somewhere between squealing with joy and giggling at that fact if not for the turmoil of other emotions he was already experiencing.

6. Subject 1 - If he was Subject 2 then what the hell had happened to Subject 1?

After completing the list he looked around the room again to see that while he'd been processing the data and working out a plan the elf had gone back to writing furiously in his notebook.

Deciding that point 6 was the one that he most needed to pursue he asked the question he'd decided was most important as the answer would likely have a large impact on his immediate future.

"Sorry" he called out catching the elf's attention "What exactly happened to Subject 1"