Oh Well

On the streets of Shinto, outside the Number Five guild Dragon's Eye, reporters gathered en mass. The cameras flashed, and voices raised questions. What happened? How did you get out? Did you really handle an F Rank dungeon on your own?

The subject of their attention, a young man with black hair and piercing red eyes, ignored them and walked into the Dragon Eye's main compound. He entered the Asiatic-themed lobby and approached the overworked and probably underpaid staff member at the front desk.

"I'm sorry. I promise Dragon's Eye will reimburse you for any damages our guide master—sorry, would you hold on a second?" With brown hair and looking three seconds from a heart attack, the receptionist for Dragon's Eye set down the phone and smiled shakily at their newest intern, the rank one first-year student of Voxx Academy.

"Hello, Ryu." She said, seemingly frightened by his gaze, before she started laughing nervously, "I- Uh- I-I've been actually been getting call after call telling me about how wonderfully you handled the F rank boss. It isn't often that they appear in dungeons like that. Looking at how you handled it, I'm sure-"

"Is he here yet?" Ryu asked, smiling with everything but his eyes. It didn't take long for him to spot the excuse on the woman's tongue, "Hu- uh- he- Mr. Cayden says he's swamped right now. If you want to wait in the lobby, I can call him and see if he'll-"

"Actually, I don't think this is going to work out." Ryu interrupted with a smile solely meant to move the conversation along. "I'll be taking Crimson Arrow's offer instead. They said they would still let me work there for the remainder of my winter break."

"But-"

"Here's my reward from the dungeon," Ryu said, putting a clay gourd of ancient booze on the table and a post-it note from the guild master, much to the horror of Dragon Eye's hostess.

Julie, the receptionist, read the note, realized it was probably the only interaction Ryu had had with the guild master since starting his internship a week ago, and nearly threw up.

Oi Red, it read, go to the Joki guild on the corner of Honshu and Sakonji. Should be run by Ma Neko. He owns access to an F rank gate called Imp's Brewery or something like that. Get me the oldest lookin booze you can find. I'm feeling nostalgic.

Julie, so very used to interns and heroes quitting because of her irresponsible guild master's drunken whims, could only watch. As the first and best intern they'd had in ages. Ryu Orion, walked out of the guild and booked a trip to Crimson Arrow.

She had a feeling that, come January, he wouldn't be recommending Dragon's Eye to any of his friends.

....

Meanwhile, in Regalia City, Zeke was replaying that very scene in his head. 

He remembered when it appeared in a chapter where all the characters described what happened over winter break. Ryu talks about how he was snubbed at his internship and ended up completing an F-rank dungeon by himself—something no other first-year student had done before.

In the novel, this dungeon put Ryu's name on the map, whereas before, his status as rank one didn't have a proper backing. Few top rank guilds were willing to risk their reputation taking on a first year with zero background. An orphan student attending Voxx on a scholarship, amidst children coming from families of powerful lineages.

This experience was what brought Ryu's talent to the forefront of everything and overshadowed what could only be considered his 'commoner' setting. Allowing him to jump ship from the fifth-ranked guild, Dragon's Eye, to the third-ranked, Crimson Arrow, before he wasted his internship.

In the novel, he explains the aftermath of it all with an annoyed look.

In Regalia, Zeke was watching the aftermath of this incident play out in real-time. The cameras rolled and caught glimpses of Ryu walking into Dragon's Eye and returning a few moments later, avoiding any interviews and making a B-line to the Hero Association branch for Shinto.

Each stronghold had a branch of the Association, with the main headquarters in Sol. Meanwhile, portals, which were just gates of cleared dungeons that people learned to control and connect to other portals, were in each branch so that heroes could teleport between strongholds—as long as they had the money for the trip and scheduled it at an appropriate time.

A few of the larger guilds had personal ones, but considering it cost a fortune to run the portals, from the technology that controlled the gates to the high-ranking mana cores needed to power it, they were seen as rare treasures and used sparingly. Only guilds in the top ten, with hundreds of heroes on their payroll, would even think of having one.

Crimson Arrow, the Number Three guild, should definitely have one or two, but since guilds had to be picky about which strongholds they placed the portals in, they likely just didn't have a portal in Shinto. 

Unlucky for Ryu, but he could probably afford it. Rank one gets an allowance from the school and the association gives students a discount.

Still, he's probably pissed he had to waste a week and a portal usage for a no-nothing internship.

And Zeke, having to watch as the MC had arguably the second unluckiest winter break of any freshman this year, could only laugh.

How was this supposed to make any sense? He was in the Final Frontier? He was a student at Voxx? Jay Haze. The guy who wasted bandages and spent his first winter break trying to kill himself instead of doing...

Well, anything else, honestly. A club retreat? Hang out with friends... Did this kid even have any friends? Probably not.

"Maybe you had the right idea," Zeke murmured, flipping through the channels as he tried to collect any information that might be helpful. The date was 12/9/2069, so Jay registered in fall of that year. And considering most student IDs expire one year after graduation, this dude was supposed to graduate in spring of 2074, matching with Voxx's five-year hero program. 

He was in year 1, the same year as Ryu.

And much lower on the leaderboard if he went off that ID.

Jay's stats were probably shit.

"How do I check those again?" Zeke wondered as he tried to recall how they did it in the novel. It was something everyone could do once they awakened. They'd do something, say something, maybe? Think something? Fuck what was it? It had been explained in like the first ten chapters, so long ago that he forgot what he was supposed to do.

The fact that he was from a world without mana, and therefore couldn't tell how the fuck to use it or what to look for, wasn't helping.

"What a drag," Zeke sighed as he gave up and tossed the remote to the side, leaving the channel on some Crimson Arrow girl's interview, and lying back. Looking up at the dingy ceiling, he tried to think about what else he could do. He was in someone else's body, someone who didn't like living in it all that much, and he was stuck in a light novel.

One that had a... pretty inconvenient ending, all things considered.

"Four strongholds were wiped out," he recalled, as both Gigalith and Axel fell in the third invasion 10 or so years from now. With Shinto and Chi-Yu following after a pincer attack that no one had seen coming, since the Pacific Ocean was now so vast and treacherous, filled with Krakens and Monsters of the Deep, it was believed only a madman would try to cross it.

Or a demon, crazy-ass demon. Levi, the demon of Envy, one of the Demon Kings 7 Dukes, and Silent Night, the guild of humans that had made contracts with demons in exchange for power, launched a sudden assault against Chi-Yu and Shinto.

Both fell and suddenly, humanity faced enemies on both sides. Forming a wall on two fronts, humanity hunkered down and tribes to protect the five strongholds they had left. It was looking bleak.

But in the end, the whole idea of the book, was that the connections Ryu made throughout the story with the other three races, unintentionally portrayed him as a representative of humanity. And when the other races were able to repay the favor, the three different kingdoms of Igea, once split, came together to assist the human domain on the eastern front—saving humanity from extinction once again.

After that, the rest of the novel is about Ryu and other powerful alliance heroes and warriors invading the western continent of Gaea. Ryu slaughtered his way up the demon King's Army chain until Gaea was freed, and humanity could turn its attention to the war on other worlds.

Humanity joined its allies, causing such a ruckus on other worlds that the Demon King himself had to appear to stop their assault.

In the final battle, Ryu killed the Demon King, nearly dying in the process, and a friend... a few... maybe a couple of his friends died?

Who were they again? Zeke scratched his head and failed to come up with anything. It had been years since he read it. He just remembered that Ryu won.

From what he could recall, the story ended with the Demon King dead, Ryu alive, a lot of dead humans but not a world full of dead humans, and a main cast that probably suffered a few losses along the way. Overall, the ending was sad but not devastating—bittersweet at most.

It was pretty okayish in terms of how good Zeke's chances were.

He'd probably be able to live as long as he didn't settle down in Axel, Gigalith, Shinto, or Chi-Yu.

"Does this dude have any money?" He wondered as he started looking through his wallet. He was halfway through planning all the ways he could find a job that didn't involve nearly dying all the time in Voxx's shit show of an academy, when a holographic blue screen popped up in front of his face.

[Greetings.] It reads in white letters, with no voice or anything, just typing: [Due to the danger of this world no longer matching the estimated values, you have been chosen to assist this world against the dark forces of the Demon King. I am a system designed to guide you and assist you on your journey. Feel free to ask me any questions.]

[Quest: Assist the protagonist and his allies to find a better ending in a scenario more complicated than the one prophesied. The more you assist the main cast, the better chances humanity has of survival.]

[Rewards: Survival]

[Failure: Death]

[Do you accept?]

[Yes/No]

Zeke looked at the screen briefly, reading it a few times before scoffing. So that's what this was.

"Yeah..." he rolled his eyes, tossed Jay's wallet on the ground, and laid back in bed. He was getting comfortable since, apparently, this was a short trip he was on. Oh well. This world was fun while it lasted.

"I think I'll pass."

But Zeke had probably already died once.

[!?]

He didn't mind dying twice.