"I can't believe it! We are really in a fantasy realm"
"Yeah, it's unbelievable! I can finally sleep with waifus!"
"Everyone keep it down I'm trying to assess the situation..."
The sound of amused students echoed around the bright white space they were in with their home room teacher trying to control the situation.
"Will you shut your mouths?!" The goddess who had been staring at these ignorant humans suddenly said with an annoyed tone.
She goddess was beautiful in the way that made you forget she was also being incredibly rude.
She stood at the center of a divine hall that shouldn't have been able to exist, which was made with white marble stretching endlessly in every direction, golden light pouring from nowhere, pillars carved with the histories of heroes who'd come before.
Michael had been staring at the ceiling for a solid thirty seconds because looking directly at Celestia felt like staring into the sun and he was already having a bad enough morning.
He had d been eating breakfast. Toast. It wasn't even good toast.
Then the light came, and now he was here, standing shoulder to shoulder with his entire class in the hall of some goddess who was smiling at all of them like they were exactly what she had ordered.
"Heroes of another world," Celestia said, her voice somehow everywhere at once. "You have been chosen. Blessed. The fate of this realm rests upon your courage."
Yamada pumped his fist. Somewhere behind Michael, two girls were already crying happy tears. Their homeroom teacher, Mrs. Nishida, was nodding with the grave expression of a woman who had been preparing for this moment her entire life without knowing it.
Ryu was still thinking about the toast.
One by one, the awakening began.
A pillar of light would descend, a class would appear hovering in golden script, and the hall would erupt. Yamada got [Divine Sword Saint]. The class rep got [Grand Archmage]. Even quiet Fujimoto in the back, who'd never done anything notable in three years of school, got [Shadow Sovereign] and looked personally offended by it.
Mr. Nishida wept openly when [Saint of Infinite Wisdom] appeared above his head.
The hall was electric. Everyone buzzing, laughing, grabbing each other's arms. The goddess beamed like a proud parent.
Then the light descended on Ryu.
The hall went quiet.
Floating above his head in the same golden script as everyone else's, perfectly legible, completely serious:
[Monster Girl Tamer]
A beat of silence.
Then Yamada burst out in laughter looking at Ryu in disain and it spread until half the hall was giggling and the other half was doing that thing where they tried not to giggle and failed anyway. Even Mrs. Nishida had the grace to look at the floor.
Ryu stared up at his class floating above his head.
Celestia cleared her throat. For just a moment, something flickered behind her perfect expression. She was gazing at him like he was nothing more than an inconvenience.
"This..." she started.
"It's fine," Michael said.
"The class is quite rare—"
"It's fine."
It was not fine. But he wasn't going to stand in a divine hall and beg a goddess to feel bad for him while his entire class watched. He had some dignity left. A little. Maybe.
Celestia composed herself quickly and clasped her hands together. "Unfortunately, the [Monster Girl Tamer] class is... incompatible with the hero program. You would not be able to fight alongside the others."
"Okay."
"So." She smiled, serene as still water. "You'll be relocated."
Before Michael could ask what that meant, she snapped her fingers.
---
He had approximately two seconds of freefall to process that the goddess had just thrown him away like a support ticket she didn't feel like answering.
Then the ground found him.
He hit dirt, bounced once in a way that was deeply embarrassing, and came to rest face-down in the mud with a mouthful of grass that tasted like absolutely nothing good.
For a long moment he just lay there, thinking about his current situation, his bruised pride, bruised everything else, and one very bruised sense of optimism.
A single notification hung in the air in front of his face, hovering cheerfully at eye level like it wanted to be helpful.
[Skill Granted: Universal Language — You may communicate with any living creature.]
"That's it," Michael said to no one.
The notification blinked.
"She threw me into a monster realm and gave me a talking skill."
It blinked again.
"As compensation."
He pushed himself upright and looked around. He was currently in a dense forest where the sky was tinted in purple and the grass was slightly too green.
Somewhere deep in the trees something large shifted its weight, and somewhere closer something small was watching him deciding whether he was interesting or edible.
Michael sat in the mud of a world that wasn't his, with a class nobody wanted and a single skill that let him chat with animals, and thought very seriously about every choice that had led him to this moment.
Then he decided that thinking about it wasn't going to help.
He stood up, brushed the mud off his uniform and looked at the treeline.
"Okay," he said quietly. "I'll figure it out."
The forest said nothing back.
At least for now.
---
Then, from nowhere — no sound, no fanfare, just text blooming pink in the air in front of him like the universe had been waiting for exactly this moment —
[Ding!]
[The Goddess of Lust has noticed you.]
[You have been blessed!]
[Loading gift...]
Michael stared at the blinking cursor.
"...What."