Part 1

“You’re awake. I’m so happy to finally meet you.”

I opened my eyes to a beautiful girl smiling at me.

I was lying down under a blanket on the floor while she sat down next to me.

She had long dark hair and sparkling eyes.

She seemed familiar but I feel like I would have remembered meeting someone this pretty.

Who is she and what’s going on?

I was definitely in my apartment just last night.

After weeks of non stop playing, I finally beat my new game Light World but as soon as I finished, the power went out.

I ended up just going to sleep right after.

Why am I in this situation now?

Am I still asleep?

… That must be it.

I’m dreaming right now.

I look back at the beautiful girl who greeted me.

Hehe…

It must be one of those special dreams.

I heard a voice coming from behind.

“I am glad you are finally awake sir. We are all very excited.”

I turned around.

Wait a second.

Who the hell are you old man?

Who are all of you people?

I looked around the room and finally noticed, I’m surrounded by a bunch of guys.

God I hope this isn’t one of those special dreams anymore!

I sat up quickly.

Wait, where did my shirt go?

Where did my pants go?

I’m completely naked under this blanket!

This is not good!

They all started walking towards me.

Ahhhh!

I started pinching myself to try wake myself up.

Oh god, they are way to close now.

“Woah woah woah! Calm down you guys! Let’s talk about this!”

“Welcome hero. Thank you for coming such a long way.The kingdom will be forever grateful.”

“Huh?”

Everyone in the room got on the ground and bowed.

Who are all of these people and why did they just call me hero?

“Excuse me. Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

Another old man chimed in.

“Mr. Hero, please let me introduce us. We are priests of Goddess’s Church. We have been awaiting your arrival.”

He said hero again.

I must be important to these guys.

“A message from the goddess came down from heaven just a few days ago. It told us that the goddess would teleport a great hero from a far away land. We gathered here today and now you have appeared.”

Okay, this is getting a bit weird.

This doesn’t seem like a dream but can this whole thing be real?

Goddess this, hero that.

If you think about it, it sounds kinda cool.

It’s something straight out of a cartoon.

One of the priests spoke up again.

“Oh great hero who has been brought to us by the power of the Goddess. With your strength, we will finally be able to defeat the demon army. With your help, the kingdom will be saved.”

People started clapping.

What should I do?

They want me to save their kingdom?

I’m not used to getting all of this attention, but this feels really nice.

…

Welp, I guess this is it.

This must be my destiny.

I was chosen by the goddess to become this great hero and save the world.

I’ve waited my whole life to be cool and it seems like the time has finally come.

This is my moment!

“Everyone! My name is Hero-kun! Remember this day. It marks the beginning of a new era of peace across the kingdom. I will defeat the demon army!”

I stood up triumphantly.

The applause died.

Wait what happened to all of the cheering?

Did that sound too cocky?

I thought they would eat that up but maybe I acted too much like a stereotypical fantasy hero.

I looked around the room.

“Why is everyone acting so weird?”

I turned and caught the eyes of the beautiful girl from before.

What is she staring at?

“Oh crap!"

I forgot!

“Excuse me! Can I get some clothes!”

“Eh, yes of course! You two! Take the hero to his chambers! Everyone else, we must prepare a feast! This is a glorious day! We must celebrate our hero!”

The applause started up again.

Damn, my cool moment ended up being ruined.

Next time the stupid goddess better keep my clothes on when I’m summoned.

Part 2

I was escorted to a fancy room and given some clothes.

The room was nicer than my apartment.

The bed was the softest bed I’ve ever been on.

I had my own bathroom and a small living space in the room as well.

It was a room fit for a king, or I guess in this case, for a hero.

The room was so high up that I could see the whole town from the window.

While I was exploring, I saw this weird card on the table.

“What is this?”

I picked it up.

It began to shine and filled itself out.

Adventurer: Hero-kun Age: 20 Height: 173 cm Weight: Average

Job: Holy Knight Level: 1 Stats: Strong All Around

It was an Adventurer’s card.

This is super cool.

It's just like a fantasy rpg.

Holy knights are an advanced job in pretty much every game.

I don't really know what to make of these stats but I assume they’re pretty strong.

I am a hero summoned by a goddess afterall.

Still, I have some questions about my situation.

What’s going on in my home world?

Why was I chosen to be the hero?

Which girl did the the guy fall in love with in my favorite anime?

“Hey goddess. Think you can give me some answers?”

…

“Of course not.”

Jeez this goddess is a real pain.

I think that she’d be a little more helpful after bringing me here to do all this work for her.

There was knocking at the door.

I opened it to find the beautiful girl from before.

“Hero-kun, the feast is ready. I’ve come to escort you to the dining hall.”

I walked with her through the halls of this huge castle.

Now that I’ve gotten a better look at her she really is super familiar.

I still can’t figure out why though.

“Excuse me miss who are you?”

“My name is Heroine-chan. I’m the captain of the city guard. While this castle is used by the church for important events, the knights in this town have barracks here as well. My squad was tasked with watching over your arrival.”

“Oh. Well thanks for watching over me then. Since you’re the captain of the knights, you must be strong. Maybe you can help train me in swordsmanship.”

“I can help you with that, but my biggest strength is my magic skills.”

“Wow. That’s impressive as well. I hope to have your support against the demon army.”

How cool!

This girl can use magic.

I wonder what spells I’ll be able to learn.

Maybe I’ll learn a memory altering spell so I can erase that embarrassing moment I had.

“Hey Heroine-chan. While I have you I should apologize for early. I didn’t realize I lost my clothes when I was brought here.”

“No no. We should apologize to you. We were all so excited for your arrival. We should have put more effort into making you more comfortable. I hope this feast will convince you to forgive us.”

“Uh… that’s alright. Let’s just call it even.”

God this girl is so nice.

She’s strong and beautiful too.

She’s like the perfect storybook heroine.

“Teleportation magic is rare so I’m not well versed in it, but it does seem odd that your clothes didn’t come with you. Where did you teleport from?”

“Country.”

“Country? I’ve never heard of it. It must be very far away.”

“Oh I guess you wouldn’t know about my world huh.”

“Your world? What are you talking about?”

I guess that the people here don’t know that I came from a parallel world.

It’s probably best to keep quiet about my world.

I don’t know what effects it could have if I told these people about it.

“Eh… my country is so different from this one. It felt like a completely different world. But yeah it is really far from here. You could only get there by teleportation.”

“Oh.”

I’ll just put my world in the back of my mind for now.

It’s not like its that important to me anyways.

I was bored and lonely all the time.

Loving a bunch of nerdy hobbies made me the black sheep of my family full of normies.

It’s also hard to make close friends when you prefer to stay home and play games all day.

I’ll use this time to start a new chapter in my life.

The dining hall was finally in sight.

“Hey you two! Hurry up! We’re about to start the feast!”

Part 3

Wow, the hall was huge and there were more people than before.

All the tables were covered in delicious looking food.

Everyone was so rowdy, especially the table behind me.

Food and drinks we’re flying everywhere but I didn’t mind.

This rugged adventuring life style is now the life for me.

Even if they are loud, eating together with these folks is much better than what I’m used to.

“Hey Hero-kun try some of this!”

“Hey Hero-kun drink with us!”

I was pretty popular in the dining hall.

Everyone was trying to have me sit with them but I chose to sit with Heroine-chan and her squad of knights.

Heroine-chan was quietly enjoying herself but her knight squad was a talkative bunch.

“Wow Hero-kun you’re so brave to go up against the demons.”

“Nah, it’s my duty. I’m proud to be fighting for all of my new friends.”

“For real Hero-kun I could never be on the front lines of the battle. The demons are super scary.”

“Eh… no those guys are no problem for us when we work together.”

“No way Hero-kun, it’ll be up to you. If I ever saw a demon, I’d run away instantly. One slash from a demon’s claws could cut you in half.”

“Yeah Hero-kun, demons are super strong and have powerful evil magic. I’m scared of that stuff, so I will be supporting you from the sidelines.”

Yikes!

These guys just said something really important.

These demons sound scary!

How am I supposed to keep a straight face going up against them on my own!

Heroine-chan stood up out of her seat and called for everyone’s attention.

“Everyone I would like to propose a toast to the Hero. Cheers!”

“Cheers… hehe.”

How am I supposed to be excited right now?

I’m about to get my ass kicked by a bunch of demons.

Heroine-chan sat back down next to me.

“Hero-kun please, keep eating. This feast is all for you. We are all thankful to you.”

“Ehh! Captain you’re never that nice to us. Are you falling for Hero-kun? I’m so jealous.”

Heroine-chan blushed.

Is she is falling for me?

I am the hero so it wouldn’t be weird that girls would fall in love with me.

What is weird is how freaking OP the villains of this world sound.

I’ve dealt with my fair share of OP enemies in video games, but having to fight them for real seems really scary.

“You guys are idiots. I’m being serious. Hero-kun, without you, the Demon King would get revived and Light World would be doomed.”

Hack!

“Are you ok Hero-kun?”

“cough*. Yeah I’m alright. cough*”

“Wait here, I’ll grab you another drink.”

“What! You’re so lucky Hero-kun!”

“Quiet you guys! Hero-kun, I’ll be right back.”

Heroine-chan got up in search of more drinks

Shit, did she really just say Light World?

The game that has been praised as the hardest rpg of the decade?

The game that took hundreds of retries and weeks of non stop playing to beat?

All of this does feels like a game but can I really be in that game?

OP enemies and the revival of the demon king are all part of it.

And now I know why Heroine-chan seemed so familiar too.

She looks just like the heroine from the game.

God I hope this is all just a coincidence.

There's no way I could survive that reset hell of a game.

“Emergency! Emergency!”

Just then, a knight bursted through the dining hall doors!

“Emergency Captain! Monsters have invaded the “Magic Mines”! There are miners trapped in there and they can’t escape.”

Oh my god!

“Magic Mines” is the name of the first dungeon in Light World!

The room was in an uproar.

“Why would monsters appear in the mining cave? There shouldn’t be monsters anywhere near that area!”

“Monsters have been more common in these times but for monsters to go to that area is strange.”

“What are we gonna do captain? Half of our squad is over in the royal capital! Do we have the numbers to save them.”

This whole scenario of the new hero coming to town, then the “Magic Mines” being taken over by monsters is just like Light World.

I really don’t like where this is going.

Heroine-chan took charge of the situation.

“You there. What is the status of the miners who are trapped?”

“They are safe for now. They have supplies at the ready in case of a cave-in. They also know the mines inside and out so they can avoid the monsters. They should be able to last in there for a few days.”

The room grew silent as Heroine-chan put on her thinking face on.

“I’ve made my decision then. We may be low on numbers now, but we still have some time. We will use tomorrow to prepare as well as we can. Then we leave for the “Mining Caves” the next morning!”

“... Yes Captain!”

Heroine-chan’s looked at me next.

Oh no here it comes.

“Hero-kun. If you would, please travel with us to “Magic Mines”. I will need your help to defeat all of the monsters while the rest of my squad rescues the miners.”

“Oh Hero-kun is coming with us! Now I feel a lot better about this mission.”

“Yeah even if we are low on numbers, if Hero-kun is with us, this will be a breeze.”

Shut up you guys.

I can’t do shit in there.

I level grinded like crazy and still, it took me multiple tries to beat this dungeon in the game.

I may be the hero but I was just a student a day ago.

You guys aren’t scared because you don’t know how difficult this really is.

Heroine-chan smiled at me.

“What do you say, Hero-kun.”

Don’t look at me like that.

This girl is too cute.

How am I supposed to say no to her?

Especially in front of all these people.

“Uh… sure. Hehe.”

The room cheered!

I’m dead.