So there I was playing a new game on my PlayBox 4 when my mom yelled down to me “Hey!! Can you take out the trash”. I didn’t wanna do it so I yelled “Can I do it later” back and of course she said “no”. So I turned off my PB4 and slowly dragged myself up the stairs towards the garage. I grabbed the garbage and opened the garage door. While I made my way towards the end of the driveway one of the bags broke open and all the stuff inside spilled out.

We didn’t live beside a highway or anything like that, but the road was still pretty busy so I wanted to get the garbage out of the street as quickly as possible. I walked out into the street to pick up a can that had rolled away when suddenly I heard a loud honk coming from beside me. Before I had realised what it was, it was already too late.

It was the same situation you’d see in all those fantasy stories about the “hero from another world” who defeats the demon lord. My only thoughts at the time were “ah shit” I mean… there's not much I could really do but wait for death. I could try to jump out of the way but what good would that do? It's a truck.

So I closed my eyes and waited for my impending doom. This is taking a long time… what's going on. I opened my eyes to see something unexpected… a large man probably in his late fifties with long wavy white hair and a large beard was sitting atop a red and gold throne clad in pearly white armour. Beside him was a tall man in his early thirties with short blonde hair and a large black and red sword with matching armour.

What the hell is this I thought as I took a look around the room. There were around ten other people in the room standing in a half circle behind me. All of them were dressed in dark blue robes and one of them had a large staff. The one with the staff had long messy gray hair and a bear that almost reached the floor, he was probably in his 80’s or older.

Suddenly the man sitting on the throne started to speak “O’ Great Hero, we the kingdom of Reolan have summoned you to defeat the demon-” “Nope!” I cut him off.

“No way! i'm not fighting any demons”

“Why?” he responded

“Because I don’t want to”

“But..”

“No”

“OK… enough... we cannot force you to do our bidding, but please just hear us out”

There's no way in hell I'm gonna fight “demons” for some random people I don’t even know. After I had cooled down a bit the man on the throne introduced himself “I am Augustus Reolan the 14th king of the reolan empire. This man beside me is the head of the magic knights Charles Zerco of the Zerco family” Charles chimed in “Nice to meet you hero”.

King Augustus went on to explain that this world is in danger of being destroyed by the demon race. Normally the demons wouldn’t be a problem, they were an unorganized group and there aren’t enough of them to pose a threat to the rest of the world but… recently a Demon Lord was born.

A Demon Lord is a person born only once every 500 years to the demon race. A demon lord on its own was already a strong adversary but the scariest part about the demon lord is their ability to unite the demons.

Scary. Even after the king said all this I was still hesitant to help them. For all I know these could be demons in disguise trying to trick me… I doubt that though.

“So what's in it for me?” I asked, there's no way i'd just do this for free.

“Before I answer that, why don’t we move this conversation to somewhere more private” the king replied.

The king started walking towards a pair of doors and gestured for me to follow. I followed the king and the Captain of the magic knights through a long corridor with many sets of doors on either side. At the end of the corridor there was a single door painted white with a golden pattern across it. Above the door it said “meeting room”. We continued down the hall and through the door. Inside was a spacious room with a long wooden table in the middle.

I took a seat on the right side of the table and the king sat at the end. “Let's get down to business shall we?” said the king in a serious tone “I'm willing to give you all the treasure in the kingdom along with a noble title on the condition that you personally defeat the demon lord” he continued.

It was a good offer, all the treasure in the kingdom and a noble title… but I don’t want to fight a demon lord. That sounds really hard and I'm not strong enough. I'm a 17 year old overweight kid who has never worked out a day in his life. What makes him think I could beat a demon lord.

“I won't fight the demon lord”

“I see… then I hereby banish you from ever entering the city of insbet again”

“Wait what?”

“GUARDS!” he shouted

Before I even knew it someone had pulled a cloth bag over my head and thrown me into the back of a horse drawn carriage. My hands were tied together so I couldn’t take the bag off my head but I could tell we were moving. “What the hell is going on!?” I yelled, but there was no response. I kept calling out but no one would answer. After at least thirty minutes I felt a kick to the stomach and I fell from the carriage onto the ground

I could hear the carriage rolling off as I laid there on the ground. I moved onto my knees and shook the bag off my head. When I looked out all I could see was grass… grass all around me. There was no city, no people, no nothing. I was alone.

After snapping out of my confusion, I used my mouth to untie the rope tying my hands together and stood up and took another look around just to confirm that there was nothing around me. To my disappointment my eyes did not deceive me; it was an endless plain with a few small hills.

I walked my way over to the closest hill hoping to get a better view of my surroundings. I almost gave up but then I saw it. Not so far off in the distance was what seemed to be a forest. It's not the best thing that could happen but at least it has food in it.

I started walking towards the forest while trying to ignore the loud rumbling of my stomach. I walked for what felt like miles but there was still a way to go. It felt like I would die from hunger, either that or I would go deaf from the sound of my stomach grumbling. Finally after what felt like an eternity… I made it.

My first instinct was to search for berries I could eat. It only took around thirty seconds to find a large bush full of berries but… “are these edible?” I thought aloud. A loud “ding” sound rang in my head and a semi transparent hologram popped up in front of the bush.

[Preshop Berries] [Edible: Yes] [Status Effects: None]

About: preshop berries are a common edible berrie. They grow mainly in the Preshop Forest.

“What the…?” I said. I was surprised at first but as soon as I saw the “[Edible: Yes]” part I didn’t care anymore. I started throwing them down my throat`. I'm pretty sure I stopped chewing after a while. They were sweet and sour, similar to a lot of candies from my world.

After I finished eating berries it hit me “what the hell was that screen?” I asked aloud to no one. Suddenly it popped up again “ding”.

[Menu]

About: The “Menu” is an interface given to humans and human-like species. It shows the skills, traits, titles, equipment, etc of the person who calls upon it. You can call your menu by simply saying “Menu” aloud or by thinking it in your head. Certain skills allow you to see the “Menu” of the people and things around you.

Woah… I almost forgot this was a fantasy world. It was similar to a lot of rpg games I used to play so I was already pretty familiar with how it worked. “Menu?” I said slightly questioning if it’d work or not.

[Menu]

[Name: Gillian Marx Andrews] [Nickname: Gill] [Gender: Male] [Species: human] [Level: 1] [Age: 17] [Job: None] [Class: none] [Current Title: Abandoned Hero]

Stats: Strength: 11 Speed: 4 HP: 36 MP: 15 Intelligence: 92 Luck: -2

Skills: [Inspection Lv. Max](legendary) [Staff Martial Arts Lv.1](rare) [Steal Lv.1](Ultra Rare) [Pain Endurance Lv.1](common)

Titles: [Abandoned Hero] [Hero] [Loser] [otherworldly coward]

Traits: overweight, tall, brown hair, short hair, greedy, stubborn, decisive, rude

Equipment: grey hoodie, white T-shirt, black jogging pants, Bordan 1’s, heart pattern undergarment

Wow… those titles and traits kinda hurt but I can’t say they’re wrong, I've never been the most virtuous person but who can blame me. When you’re put in a situation like this you can’t just be a pushover and agree to what everyone says. You have to stand up for yourself and do what's best for you. There's no way I'm gonna endanger myself by fighting some evil demon lord.

How am I supposed to know what any of this stuff even means anyways. Some of the stuff is self explanatory like “[Pain Endurance]” but what is “[Inspection]” none of this makes any sense. “Menu… Inspection” I said in hopes that it would show me what it does. Thankfully it worked.

[Menu]

[Inspection Lv. Max](legendary)

About: Inspection lets you see the Menu of any person/thing. By focusing on your target and saying “Inspect” either in your head or out loud their “Menu” will appear in front of you.

Ah, I see.. This kinda seems like cheating but… who cares. It seems really useful to know everything about the person you're talking to but it also seems like it’ll make life pretty boring. I'll only use this when I need to.

“So… what do I do now?” I asked not really expecting anyone to answer. There's not much I can really do, I've found food and learned about the menu, there's nothing else I really wanna do. I guess I could go look for a place to stay tonight since it's getting pretty dark.

So I made my way through the dense forest with only the fading sunlight to guide me when suddenly I heard something. “Crack” the sound of a twig snapping somewhere around me. I looked at my feet to see if I had stepped on something but there was nothing there. Suddenly everything went silent. I was frozen in fear. Straight ahead of me, staring straight into my eyes there was a...