“So, how much of yesterday do you remember?” asked Sheila, as she gazed into Kai’s eyes with her own look of curiosity. The two of them took a short and silent walk to the cafeteria, during which time Sheila’s previously bouncy attitude had returned.

“Uh, some of it, I guess,” he replied, absentmindedly stirring the bowl of hot oatmeal before him. It was filled with sliced almonds and strawberries, and the young man was getting them all covered in the goopy mix. “So why don’t you just tell me what the hell’s going on? I think it’d make things easier.”

“We already did, silly!” exclaimed the rainbow-haired woman with a grin. “And you forgot. There’s a lot to cover, so just tell me what you do remember and I’ll fill in the gaps. Trust me, it really will be more straightforward for both of us this way.”

The two of them sat at a metal table on a pair of wire mesh chairs. The cafeteria they were settled in was filled with others occupying similar easy to clean furniture, enjoying their own meals. Most were in casual clothes, others in a collection of strange vestments.

Some were in a wide variety of armors, from the now visorless body armor of the guards who’d escorted him here, to full metal plate and chainmail straight out of a renaissance fair. Speaking of renaissance fairs, another group of diners were wearing strangely rustic linen getups or long and flowing silk robes akin to something out of a history textbook, or roleplaying game rulebook. And last of the others who dotted the seats wore the modern equivalent, including camo print fatigues to white lab coats.

Unlike the spartan nature of the furnishings, the food on everyones’ plates and bowls was much more luxurious. Flambéed French omelettes set ablaze in a green flame, sizzling multi-colored bacon where the fat was literally jumping between the individual strips in tall arcs, and in an entirely mundane case, a full English breakfast!

“So are you going to eat that oatmeal?” asked Sheila, pointing towards Kai’s bowl. “It’s cooked in milk, ya know? Way better than the slop you’d find anywhere else that just uses plain water. Just take a bite, you’ll feel better, I promise!”

“Because it’s drugged?” asked Kai.

“Drugs?” asked Sheila confusedly. “Hold on, are you saying that just because of the way I color my hair?”

“N-no!” Kai quickly backpedaled. “I mean, that was my original theory when I woke up today, and why I don’t remember anything.”

“You thought you were drugged and dragged here by us?” Sheila ascertained with a single eyebrow cartoonishly cocked. “Who do you think we are, the KGB or CIA?” She burst into a fit of giggles after making the comparison.

“Well…”

“Well if we were some kind of shadowy government organization, we wouldn’t be treating you this well!” She managed to get out the sentence amidst her continued laughter. “We’d just knock you out and stick a whole bunch of needles into you!”

Kai regarded her cheerful demeanor amidst the horrifying hypothetical with a careful poker face of his own, but soon gave in. He took a small scoop of the oaty porridge and let a small bit of it drip onto his tongue. The young man hadn’t let go of his original theory completely just yet, but with so many people enjoying the high-class food around him, the stuff in his bowl probably wasn’t drugged.

Well, maybe it was drugged, but in that case like Sheila had said, Kai must’ve already been under its influence. Ok, new theory; he was on Pleasure Island and they were going to turn him into a donkey! Wait, a donkey?! Maybe he already was drugged if he was going to think of something as ridiculous as that.

As the oatmeal made contact with his tongue, Kai’s face lit up. He took an even bigger spoonful of the rich and creamy delicacy and shoved it into his mouth. As he took a bite, the individual cooked grains gave way to his teeth, the crunch of the almond slivers providing the dish a much welcome addition to its texture. Perfectly ripe strawberries exploded into a mix of tangy sweetness that bestowed the perfect enhancement to the starchy and nutty flavor on top of that.

All in all, it was the best oatmeal he’d ever eaten in his life, not that that was saying much. All previous fears now forgotten, he kept spooning the mixture into his maw and soon enough, the bowl was just about empty. That didn’t stop Kai, however, who continued to scrape off the individual grains stuck to the bowl’s side.

“Feeling better, mate?” asked Sheila.

Kai simply nodded. With the food now sitting in his stomach, the gears in his mind were starting to turn more effectively. And his first intelligent act of the day was to discard his previous wackjob theories and try to remember what was going on for himself. He’d either come here by his own volition or was brought here by somebody else, and he’d have to scour through his memories to find the answer.

“See, all you had to do was accept my offer instead of running around the place!”

“I guess so, but speaking of which, why did you let me run around like that? You’re not much of a hyper-competent secret government organization if you let your prisoners run around and cause trouble.”

“Kai, I already said we’re not- oh, ha! Ya got me!” laughed Sheila.

“Haha, yeah…” replied the teen in an exasperated chuckle. He didn’t even mean to crack a joke, he honestly forgot who these people were. And besides, it’s not like it was that funny.

“But to answer your question,” continued the Australian woman, “we didn’t think you’d cause any trouble, or at least not that much.”

“And why’s that? I think I was about to cause plenty.”

“I guess,” she said as her smile momentarily faltered.

The young man blushed when he realized that she’d probably remembered the broken drywall by the portal rooms during his frantic escape attempt. He was thankful that it probably wouldn’t show over his dark skin.

“But we had a chance to talk to you yesterday and get a good idea of the kind of person you are. And that all pointed to you being the kind of person who isn’t going to go out of his way to hurt anyone unless properly provoked.”

“Waking up in a place as weird as this and being confronted by a pair of armed guards was proper provocation, if you ask me,” Kai deadpanned.

“But not enough for you to actually hurt anyone. Beird, one of our researchers who you ran into earlier, told me you were staring at him so hard that he felt you were practically petting him with just your gaze!”

“Wait, petting? The dog…”

“Yup, that’s him! And how can someone who loves dogs like that be such a bad person?”

“You got me there,” replied the teen with a smile and a shrug. “Still, a talking dog. Are you sure I haven’t been drugged?”

“I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere if I just try and explain things,” said Sheila with a snort. “So from the top, what do you remember about yesterday?”

“Well, I remember going to school like normal, but then everything went wrong at lunch…”

Kai was dead and all his dreams had come true. At least, that’s what he thought as soon as he came to within the large, obsidian circle laid into the marble floor. Surrounded by a large group of other young men and women… no, boys and girls, Kai felt a strange sense of relief amid the quietness of the hall and smell of incense wafting through the still air.

A moment ago, he was in his school’s cafeteria tackling another classmate out of the way of what he believed to be some lit fireworks. He didn’t have much to look forward to in his life, so he figured it’d be a worthy trade-off, his own pitiful existence for the other kid’s hopeful future. What he heard next only solidified that sentiment.

“Young heroes,” came a booming voice from in front of the crowd. Seated upon an ornate, golden throne situated above a marble dais, was a regal figure. Flowing red robes and jewel encrusted platinum crown did plenty to create an air of grandioseness amidst his apparent age and pot belly. “You have been summoned to aid in a battle against a foe most vile! From a land too far away from even our fastest [Horse Riders], you have been brought to bring peace and prosperity to My kingdom!”

“No way,” came a young, masculine voice from the crowd, unmistakably excited.

“Yo, we got frikkin isekaied!” shouted another girl. “Do you think we’re going to get a chosen boyfriend? Oh! Or maybe a chosen girlfriend? How about a bunch of both!”

“Hold on, are we even the chosen ones? I mean, I think we are if we’re here…” said another.

“I want to go home!” wailed a little kid. The entire group standing in the shining black circle turned to face him, the whole throne room growing silent. Kai was able to make him out from the crowd, and saw that he was nothing more than a 7 or 8 year old child. With a bowl cut made of brown hair and a single missing front tooth, the kid regarded the king with a heavy pout and tears forming in his eyes.

“As the ancient prophecy has foretold, you will carry My light to those wretches who dare threaten My way of life! As people from another World, you will gain strength and levels at an incredible rate, becoming the ultimate soldiers!” The man seated on the throne continued his speech unabated.

The rest of his court watched with held breath, their eyes shifting between the king and the young boy.

“No! I want to go back to my parents!” shouted the young boy once more at the top of his lungs.

This time, the king was forced to stop his speech mid-sentence due to the volume of the bellow cutting him off. The robed woman that stood next to him, whose presence Kai just noticed, cleared her throat and jerked her head between the crowd and her liege. She seemed like the closest person to the King there, and if she was getting scared, then there wasn’t much time left before…

“Enough!” shouted the man sitting upon the throne. “You stand in the presence of King Reginald III, grand sovereign of the Valenloft Kingdom under the grace of the goddess Allivaine!”

The members of the court all seemed to shrink several inches as their leader’s voice boomed across the room.

“For the crime of speaking out against Me, the king, I sentence you to torture and execution! Guards, take the boy to the dungeons, he will be dealt with later.”

Kai’s eyes widened as everyone around him registered the terrible words. In an instant, all of his worst fears were confirmed, and he realized what was waiting for them all. Chosen heroes? Please, they were going to be thrown into a fucking meat grinder! At least with someone like this in charge. And that little kid… Kai shuddered at the thought of what was going to happen to him now.

Wait, that didn’t have to be the case. The surrounding guards were hesitating at their king’s draconian decree, and the young man might’ve had enough time to grab the child and make a break for it. Chances were, he’d get cut down before he left the castle, and even after that, they’d be on the run from this asshole Reginald. On the other hand, he did mention how Kai and the other Earthers would grow powerful incredibly quickly, and that could mean the means of carving out a life away from the king’s influence! There was hope!

Yet, as Kai willed his feet to move, they stood still. Despite his consciousness screaming at his muscles to be a hero, they refused to. They preferred to stay a coward. He preferred to be a coward. Kai closed his eyes and gulped his spit with a terrible grimace. Was this the kind of man he wanted to be? No, but it was the kind of boy he was.

As the first armored soldier took a clanging step, the room went quiet again. Kai opened his eyes to see who amongst them was braver than he, and came across a different sight entirely. All over the throne room, several large, vertical discs appeared out of thin air, surrounded by strange symbols and a purple-backed swirl that seemed to be a hole in the universe itself covering the rest of its surface.

Out of those circles came a new stream of armed soldiers, dressed completely differently than the ones lining the throne room.

One of the newcomers, who looked the same from his compatriots yet carried himself with an air of authority, spoke up in a deep and commanding voice. “This is the Terran Defense Force! You stand accused of abusing Earther Summoning Rituals! Stand down and you will be spared!”