'Of course I'm the Extra,' I thought.
But as my heart began a frantic tap-dance in my chest, a new fear set in.
I wasn't glowing, but I certainly wasn't invisible.
Usually, after a summoning, you meet the royals and get the 'you're-trash-get-out' speech.
I was already waiting for the "get out" speech. It's what happens to people like me in these stories.
I felt a weirdly calm sense of dread.
Did I just jinx myself?
Right on cue, a voice like a practiced choir reached us.
"Welcome, Heroes from the Other World,"
The voice was beautiful, followed by a confused whisper from someone nearby.
"This is the Divine Grace? But... why doesn't the sixth one have the same radiance?"
I took that personally, even if it was true.
Yeah, yeah, I'm missing the HDR lighting. My bad. But then I looked up, and wow.
For a second, I forgot to breathe.
I stared at the woman in charge and felt like I was looking at an SSR-rank character.
Just a few steps away stood a woman who redefined the word nobility.
Long white hair, golden eyes, and a dress that probably cost more than the combined rent of my entire neighborhood.
She was draped in dawn-orange silk without a single wrinkle or stain, looking down at us like we were a set of interesting new pets.
In the face of such absolute perfection, my own lack of "radiance" felt less like a mistake and more like a final verdict.
"I am Princess Sophia," She seemed to have not paid attention to me yet, her silk gown rustling as she performed a curtsy that seemed to stop time.
"I know this must be confusing—"
But then she saw the shadow in the light. She saw me standing awkwardly in the back.
"Noa? Why is that one... dim?" The expression was like they were the latest iPhones, and then she saw me, like the cracked screen model from four years ago.
The silence was so loud it made my ears ring.
I watched the five kids turn around to look at me, and I've never felt more like an intruder.
'So much for staying invisible,' I thought. I gave a small, half-hearted wave that felt pathetic even to me.
The silence stretched until it felt like a wall had formed between us.
Noa pulled out a crystal monocle and started "stat-checking" everyone.
She looked satisfied with the others, but when she got to me, her face went pale.
"Princess..." she whispered. "There's been a casualty."
Sophia retreated a half-step, her royal mask slipping. "A casualty? What do you mean?"
'Is this Opera?' I thought, but continued to listen anyways.
"He has no mana capacity at all. Nothing. His soul is... silent." Noa looked at me with something like pity. "He didn't even catch the translation magic. He's only following the conversation because the spell's residue lingered in the room." Her report felt like a death sentence.
"Once the hall clears, he will be unable to comprehend a single word we say."
My heart sank in, and same for the Princess.
Sophia looked like she was having a mental breakdown.
Despite the beautiful gown, she suddenly looked like a girl who had just realized she'd failed the most important exam of her life. She was supposed to summon five legends, and she'd ended up with a 'dim' sixth who didn't even fit the physics of her world.
"What do I do?" she whispered, a tear actually falling.
I shuffled back, my boots making an awkward squeak on the marble.
'I know how this goes, it's comming,' I thought. In every webnovel, the 'useless' guy is the first to get the boot.
In the story I'd read, they get a happy ending but after a lot of suffering, for which I wasn't ready yet. I didn't have the cheats or whatsoever system they spoke of.
But Noa didn't care or even bother to lower her voice as she continued her rant.
"He was likely caught in the circle by accident. No mana, no skills." She caught me looking and narrowed her eyes.
"So… not a Hero?" Sophia asked, her voice small.
"Barely even a tourist, Your Highness," the maid finished, putting the monocle back in her… pockets I guess. "He's just… some guy in the wrong place at the wrong time. We should inform the King immediately and allow him to dispose of the situation."
Dispose? Wow. Talk about a warm welcome.
I was already mentally checking my "survival guide" for how to live in a fantasy dungeon.
Step one: make friends with the rats. My heart was thumping, but a part of me was just tired. Of course this would happen to me.
In the novels, the "Heroes" usually ignore the "Extra" because they're too busy admiring their new stats. I was already mentally writing my own obituary.
My mind raced through every "bad ending" I'd ever scrolled through on a Sunday night. A damp cell? Sold to the black market as a mana-less curiosity? Or just... silenced so the Princess's reputation stayed intact?
The shimmering radiance of the "Chosen Ones" died down, but as they returned to being just five kids from Earth, I realized something about them had changed.
I totally expected the "Hero Party" to just move on without me. That's how the scripts always go, right? But I was wrong.
The teenagers didn't distance themselves; they condensed. They became a single, defiant unit. Marcel, the group's mood-maker, took a heavy step forward. He positioned himself like a shield between the icy Noa and me.
"Whoa, hold on a second," he said, his voice echoing through the citadel.
"'Dispose'? That's a human being you're talking about. Our 'friend'. You can't just discard someone like broken equipment just because your magic didn't stick to him."
I looked at his haircut and wondered if the summoning had affected his memory. We hadn't spoken or rather never met in our life.
Then, the other group members did something totally unexpected. They didn't leave me behind. They grouped up—around me.
Amber, the girl who'd been so worried about the window seat, stepped up beside him. Her hands were trembling, but her eyes were fierce.
"We were willing to listen because we were confused," Amber joined the front line, her "I-want-to-speak-to-the-manager" energy reaching 100%. Looking the Princess dead in the eye, she spoke harshly.
"But seeing how you treat 'failures'? Now, we're just angry. This isn't a story where we're okay with one of our own being discarded because you messed up. We're not your soldiers if this is your morality. Whatever you did to bring us here... undo it and send us back."
I almost laughed, despite the terror. They were actually doing it.
Sophia looked like she was having a mental breakdown.
This was supposed to be her 'Grand Hero Summoning' moment, where she had to do a warm welcome for them, greeting the summoned heroes, calming them as she slowly explained about this world, but she'd accidentally triggered the 'Hostile Party' flag.
She was getting a front-row seat to their resentment. By insulting the guy who didn't fit, she'd become the villain in their eyes.
"I... I apologize," Sophia stammered, her face turning a panicked shade of red.
"You weren't shocked, you were let down," the quietest boy in the group interjected. He gave me a brief, acknowledging nod, one outsider to another.
"But he's one of us. If he's a mistake of your making, then you're the one who owes him an explanation."
"The ritual... it's designed for the descendants of heroes. I was simply shocked by the anomaly… I was overwhelmed… In the history of Solemn…"
"Forget the history!" Marcel barked at Sophia. "I don't give a damn about the situation! We're not going anywhere until you apologize. He isn't some 'thing.' He's a person."
Sophia looked at me again. This time, the lack of a magical aura didn't seem to matter.
She saw me for what I was, I don't know what expression I'm making, probably: a guy with a bloodless face, shoulders pulled inward, expecting the floor to drop out from under him.
Please," Sophia said, taking a shaky step forward.
"Overwhelmed is no excuse for negligence, Highness," Noa interjected, her voice dripping with frustration. She looked at Marcel like he was a child.
"You don't get it. You defend him out of sentiment, but you do not know the burden. A man with no mana capacity is a dead weight in our world's ecology. He cannot even interact with the most basic tools of survival. To keep him here is to watch a fish try to breathe on a mountain top. It is not 'disposal'—it is mercy."
I felt the weight of her words. She wasn't just being mean; she genuinely thought I was a walking corpse.