The last thing Raj remembered from his old life was his mother yelling at him to take out the trash.
He never got the chance.
One second he was standing in his bedroom, school bag half-zipped, mentally preparing for another invisible day at school. The next, a blinding white light swallowed everything — his room, his bag, the distant sound of his mother's voice — and replaced it all with cold stone floor and the smell of burnt incense.
He hit the ground face first.
"Ow."
"Oh! Oh no — are you alright?"
Raj pushed himself up, blinking hard. His glasses had survived, miraculously. What he saw through them made absolutely no sense.
A massive stone chamber. Tall stained-glass windows. Candles everywhere. And five people in robes staring at him like he was either a miracle or a catastrophe — they hadn't decided which yet.
There were four others on the floor around him. A tall broad-shouldered boy was already standing, brushing dust off his sleeve like falling out of thin air was mildly inconvenient at best. A girl with silver hair was sitting up slowly, looking around with sharp, calculating eyes. Another girl — softer features, dressed in white robes — was being helped up by one of the frantic robed men. And then there was Raj.
Still on the floor.
"Um," Raj said.
"Hero! You have arrived!" The oldest of the robed men stepped forward, arms spread wide, voice booming with rehearsed grandeur. "You have been summoned to the Kingdom of Aldrath in its most desperate hour! The Demon King rises and—"
"Sorry," the silver-haired girl interrupted flatly. "Did you just summon five people by accident?"
Silence.
The old man's smile flickered. "...The summoning ritual was slightly broader than intended."
"Slightly," the broad-shouldered boy repeated.
"We were aiming for one hero," a younger robed man whispered, more to himself than anyone else. "The mana output just... kept going."
Raj finally stood up. He was the shortest one there. He pushed his glasses up his nose, looked around the grand ceremonial chamber, at the stained glass, at the five panicking kingdom officials, at the four strangers he had apparently been accidentally packaged with — and said the only reasonable thing a person could say.
"Is there any food? I skipped breakfast."
The next few hours were, in Raj's professional opinion, a lot.
They were ushered into a grand hall, given clothes that almost fit, and explained the situation with the enthusiasm of people who had been rehearsing this speech for weeks. Demon King. Ancient evil. Rising darkness. Heroes chosen by the goddess. Destiny. Et cetera.
The tall boy's name was Michal. He had the kind of easy confidence that made Raj feel tired just looking at it. When the kingdom officials nervously measured everyone's holy mana — apparently the key stat for Demon King hunting — Michal's reading broke the measuring crystal.
They brought a second one. It also broke.
"Remarkable," the old robed man breathed. "Truly, a hero blessed by the goddess herself."
Michal just smiled. "I'll do my best."
Raj liked him immediately, which was inconvenient because Raj was bad at talking to people he liked.
The broad-shouldered one was Rael. His mana reading didn't break anything but did make every official in the room go very quiet and then start whispering urgently. Tank material, apparently. The kind that made Demon Kings reconsider their life choices.
The silver-haired girl was Christine. She introduced herself with the energy of someone filing a formal complaint. When her mana reading came back, she looked at it, nodded once, and said "adequate." The officials looked like they wanted to cry.
The girl in white was Lily. She smiled at everyone including Raj, which almost gave him a heart attack because nobody ever just smiled at Raj like that. Her holy mana reading was second only to Michal's. She looked at the result, clasped her hands together, and said she would do her best to keep everyone safe.
Then it was Raj's turn.
The crystal glowed. It ran through the spectrum — red, blue, green, gold — cycling through so fast the officials started muttering. Then it settled. Spat out a result. The old man read it, looked at Raj, read it again.
"...S rank," he said carefully. "With all-type magical affinity."
"Is that good?" Raj asked.
"It is..." the man chose his words slowly. "Unusual."
Christine looked at him for the first time with something other than indifference. Lily smiled wider. Rael gave him a single approving nod. Michal clapped him on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him.
"Looks like we've got a full party," Michal said.
Raj fixed his glasses. Five strangers in a world that wasn't his. A Demon King somewhere out there apparently waiting to be defeated. And an S-rank result that the officials were still quietly arguing about in the corner.
He thought about his mother. About the trash he never took out.
She's going to be so annoyed, he thought.
Then, very quietly, so no one could hear — he smiled.
End of Chapter 1