When a faintly glowing magic circle appeared on the floor of my college's discussion board, I froze still.
'Wait, is that really how it goes?'
A myriad of thoughts shot through my head, from excitement, through worry, all the way to filial piety and how — if this magic circle was what I thought it was — I would likely be letting my parents down, leaving them to worry endlessly while I was gone.
With those feelings flashing past, the magic circle grew brighter and brighter, quickly attracting everyone's attention…
'God, I'm glad it's a magic circle, not uncle speeding truck,' I thought, gulping down my saliva right as the magic circle grew bright enough to blind me…
Only for the light to then vanish as if it was never there.
Someone yelped. Some girl cried out in shock and panic. Someone else screamed out in joy, seeing this moment as a fulfillment of their childhood dreams while caring not for the brutal consequences.
Most of the class with me in it, however, stood silent, taking their time to let their eyes recover. And as my vision got better, I could only focus on keeping my mouth from opening up in awe.
The boring classroom of the even more boring art college was now replaced by a grandiose hall, filled with nobles, knights, and what looked like mages. There were even some armed guards, each equipped with a heavy suit of armor, spear, and a hefty shield, that…
I gulped my saliva down as the realization struck me.
There was a bunch of guards with weapons in hand that surrounded my entire class. Their eyes, barely visible from beneath the visors of their helmets, darted around from person to person, eagerly looking for a reason to put their weapons to use.
And in that visibly tense atmosphere of the moment, only the lecturer's voice continued to ring in everyone's ears.
"Keep calm, people! Remember, assess the situation, rate it, then act on it!"
Judging by the look in his eyes, the middle-aged lecturer was too focused on his students to actually pay attention to the situation around.
Thankfully, no guard took him speaking for a gross disrespect because from the very second I appeared in this world, I could feel it.
This weird sensation like if a thousand ants crawled underneath my skin, as if my body was reacting to the signs of danger my mind was too relaxed by the modern world to perceive.
'Is it like some sort of a sixth sense awakening?' I could only think as the locals finally made their move.
Or, to be more precise, the very most important person in the room opted to take charge by rising from their throne and stepping up to the edge of their royal podium.
"Welcome, lost travelers from the unknown world!"
The man's voice was as grand as was his presence, filling every nook and cranny of the unusually silent throne hall.
Then, he put on a smile on that royal face of his before lowering his arms from the grand welcome to point them towards one of those mage-like looking guys who held a huge, fishbowl-sized crystalline ball.
"Let us to celebrate the arrival by shining the light of the almighty upon you all!"
They didn't wait even a second to let me or any of my colleagues raise any voices of concern or confusion.
"Now, just wait a moment!"
Finally, the lecturer snapped out of his daze, looked around, squinted his eyes… And put on a tough face as he stepped in the king's direction.
"Stand!"
The nearby guards immediately dropped their spears down, pointing them right at the man's chest while hiding the bulk of their bodies behind their hefty, square shields.
Quite telling of the situation for a fully-armed man to be so wary of an unarmed, spatially kidnapped civilian!
'Just stay where you are, you damn fool!'
I resisted the desire to scream out the warning.
This sensation of uneasiness… From the moment I've decided to trust it, I couldn't help but see this world not through the pink-tinted glasses of it being an isekai.
Instead, I looked at it through the historical perspective of how brutal and unforgiving my own world was before the technology spoiled us all to oblivion.
And judging by our unorthodox way of appearing in here, this situation was even more delicate than one would find themselves in by going back in time to visit bygone eras!
"May the light of Johel ward you of all the evils and reveal your true calling!"
The orb-bearing mage uttered in a strange whisper that, somehow, I could hear without a hitch.
And the very moment he spat out the last sound, the orb in his hands started to shine.
POOF!
Once again, my eyes filled with pain as the bright light blinded me, instantly sending my eyelids into blinking galore. Yet, by the time I managed to recover and see again… I pretty much would prefer not seeing anything than what revealed itself to my eyes.
On the surface, nothing changes.
The knights sat in a half-circle in front of the royal podium. The king still stood where he greeted us from, while the guards ensured none of us would leave the circle where we appeared.
And the nobles?
Just like unruly chicks, they continued to move all over the place, treating this whole ceremony — something that at least the king and his knights showed some degree of respect for — as nothing more than an ordinary festivity!
'Just another chance to network and socialize, huh?' I thought, before my eyes drew towards the one big change that the explosion of this bright light revealed.
Right now, there was a status screen floating before my eyes, along with a small box floating not only above my head but above everyone else's head.
With a quick look, I confirmed — I couldn't see anyone else's status screens, nor did the space before me attract any weird looks. When it came to the boxes above our heads, though…
I've looked around, this time fully focusing on the information displayed in those overhead boxes.
"A- Rank Spearmanship system"
"C+ Rank Healer system"
"S Rank Courtmanship system"
"D Rank Farming system"
No matter where I looked, there were systems everywhere, each one with its own ranking that instantly made the new social hierarchy of the entire group clear.
A popular tennis player from back in the college?
As a proud holder of the C- Rank Cooking System, he now had to re-evaluate his whole life plan!
As for the lone SS-Rank Conqueror, currently held by the class's biggest nerd…
I smiled to my own thoughts.
In a way, I felt validated by watching a guy that even I recognized as the bigger gooner than yours truly suddenly turn his social status on its head and become the class's celebrity.
When it came to my own system, though?
The box above my head continued to bug out, with strings of incomprehensible mess of letters and numbers changing at an ever-increasing speed.
As for the status before my eyes?
It was an even bigger mess, with not only its content constantly changing from one mumbo-jumbo to another, even the size of the window itself constantly changed at a rate that should come with a warning about the risks of causing an epileptic attack!
One by one, I could feel more and more stares turning towards me… or, to be more specific, towards the bugging-out box above my head.
Then, everything stopped.
My status window finally came to terms with what it wanted to be and greeted me with several, weirdly technical commands.
Unable to make any sense of this technical mess, I looked up…
Only to be slapped with just a few words.
[FFF-Rank Failure System]
I swallowed my spit, somehow fully aware of the weight of what I was staring at.
Jokes aside, those four words were pretty much a death-sentence!
The number of onlookers increased, soon bringing everyone's attention to my pitiful status.
"I…"
I attempted to open my mouth and say something, to try to salvage my desperate situation with some sort of joke, maybe an anecdote…
Before a single word could escape from my mouth, though, the text above my head changed.
[Sys.local.(Critical_Error)]
[Sys.out.(success)]
[System.restore(hdcd)]
[System.Reboot]
Before I could utter a single word, the winds surged, the light flashed…
And I found myself standing not in the middle of a throne hall, surrounded by pitying and annoyed stares of the onlookers, but in nothing but a vast, seemingly primal jungle!
It was right in this unfamiliar and clearly lethally dangerous place that I couldn't help but refer to the one and only thing that was even remotely familiar.
My own failure of a system.
Yet, the moment I laid my eyes down on my status screen?
[System files cannot execute]
[Designated host exceeds system authority]
[System.abort]
Poof.
Just like that, my only saving grace — as awful as it already was — vanished into thin air, leaving me stranded in this unfamiliar and clearly dangerous world, way beyond the limits of any sort of civilization.
And standing there, with nothing but my plain clothes and backpack full of random sundries, I had to face the freakishly uncomfortable reality.
"Well," I muttered as uncanny silence within this vivid greenery caused a wave of dread to wash over me.
For a place so lush to be so perfectly silent could only mean one thing. And as much as I expected myself to panic, the sense of inevitability that came with the fear…
Somehow, it made me immune to it, allowing me to utter those next words in a weirdly relaxed manner, "so that's how I'm going to die, huh?"