The Inadequate Summoned Hero

Chapter 2

After a minute of everyone checking their statuses in silence, Chad begins. "My name is Chad, my class is 'Divine Warrior', all my stats are nearing 300, I have an affinity for the heavenly attribute, and I have a large number of skills." I am utterly speechless. He turns his head, glances at me, and smirks. I blame him for all of this, he probably swindled all of my stats while flirting with the angel who brought us here. Knowing him, he probably took away all my information too.

"That is impressive, even for a hero. You, my son, will most definitely become very strong in the future." The only response that came was a, "Thank You." Everyone else started saying the same things as Chad.

After watching the scribe furiously write everything about almost 30 teenagers, the only ones left to share were me and Beck. Listening to everyone else's statuses, they all have stats close to 200, one or two affinities, and a few skills. Only five affinities have been shared so they might be the only ones available; heavenly, land, wind, flame, and rain, in order of least to most prevalent. In any case, it seems like Chad will once again unequivocally be the most popular.

"M-my name is Rebecca, m-my class is 'Divine Mage', a-all my stats are around 250, I-I have an affinity for the heavenly, w-wind, and rain attributes, a-and I have a large number of skills." Wow, three attributes. No wonder she is the Holy Mage. I've always thought that her stutter was cute. That's part of why I tried to become friends with her.

"Another impressive one! Have faith in yourself young one! You are the second most powerful after all. This will be a mighty group indeed! Now that you've all been introduced we shou-" The King is cut off by the scribe whispering in his ear. "I apologize, I did not realize we have missed someone. Please, tell us your status and we will get on with it."

Everyone turns to me at the same time. I pop my knuckles yet again and sigh, really loudly. Then, I say my people with as little enthusiasm as possible. "My name is Charles, all of my stats are one and I have no magic, and no skills." Four specific people struggle holding in their laughter while everyone else just keeps staring in bewilderment. I glance at Beck to see her also staring, but with sadness mixed with pity.

"Please come with me, Charles. I must speak with you. Everyone else, please wait here until I return." The King turns around and exits through the door followed by one of the guards. I follow him through the door and down a square-shaped white hall. The hall is empty besides the door we just came through, a door at the end of the hall, and multiple doors on either side. They walk through one of the doors on the left wall and I follow suit. We end up in a room that looks the exact same as the grey one we were in before aside from another door on the other side of the room.

Without turning around, they stop in the middle of the room. "The things you have shared with us, are they true? Even for an average person, you are incredibly powerless." He says, then turns around. At this point, all nervousness has fated away to pure disappointment in myself.

"I have no reason to lie." I wouldn't even think of saying that my status is higher than it is. If I had told them my status was like everyone else's, they could've ended up working me to death or eventually found out I was powerless and killed me for it or something.

He takes a moment of staring before responding, "When unhealthy babies are born, their numbers are low, as one would expect. The problem is, none of them have ever been below five. A normal, healthy adult would have numbers in the 20s to 30s."

"Does that mean I am less powerful than a newborn baby?"

He continues staring at me, "Yes and unfortunately, the time it will take you to become as strong as the others is far too large. We cannot afford to have you here, training with them."

"So, are you planning to kick me out?"

"You will be given enough money to live for a while but you will have to fend for yourself." Nervousness officially returned, and in magnitude.

"You're the ones that brought me here without my consent. Even if I am completely worthless and probably a nuisance, you can't just throw me away. You should at least give me a room or even a job of some kind. Maybe I could go back to my home."

"Transportation to your home is impossible. There is no use for you being here. Guard, give him 5 silver and escort him outside." After saying that, the King leaves through the door we entered.

I turn to the guard who is holding out a bag in front of him. "Here are your coins, sir." I take the bag and open it to see a handful of coins inside.

"How am I supposed to use this if I don't know anything about the currency? How much is this worth?"

"That should get you a room for ten days at the cheapest rundown inn. Although, if you want to eat as well, it'll last less than that time. Now step through that door and leave." The guard pushes me towards the only other door in the room.

"Wait, hold on, is there any way I can make money?" How am I supposed to live on just this? I need some way to pay expenses.

"If you still want to become a hero or something like that, you could try the Mercenary Hall. Now step outside before I am required to put you under arrest." I suppose that would be a worse fate, although I'd probably get free food, possibly.

Pushing the door open, I step out into what looks like a forest. Aren't castles supposed to have a strategy to protect themselves from other nations? I can only assume this was a castle since there was a king with us. I turn around to see the door close behind me. Except, the door is made of what looks like rock. Looking around the door, I see, it's a giant cliff with a castle on the top. I take back my former statement about the placing of this castle, not very many people would be willing to climb this.

That guard said something about becoming a mercenary. The problem is, I don't know how to get to the top of this mountain, let alone the place he was talking about. I could probably find a pathway up if I walked around. Maybe I could find a different kingdom instead of this one. This place doesn't seem very friendly anyway. Another problem, I don't know where any other kingdom is. I guess my only choice is to find my way up to this civilization.

Let's see, left or right? Which way should I go? Would it make a difference? Probably not, I decide to go around on the left side and start walking along the cliff. I hope they didn't just drop me in a fishbowl. Then I would be forced to climb this thing.

After what seems like an hour, I finally see the sun rise over the castle. Should I have gone the other way? Would that have been better?

Hours and many breaks later I spot a change in the wall in the near distance. It could be a path to the city or another secret path for the castle. At this point, I'm hungry and desperate for any hope.

I run towards it only to get my hopes crushed. It's a cave, but it's strange. There are a bunch of torches lining the wall and the entire place gives me an eerie feeling. "What is this place."

Not knowing what is inside makes me hesitant to enter but the fact that the sun is nearing the horizon and I'll need shelter for the night makes me enter.

After walking through the silent cave a fair distance down the only path, I see an opaque uneven sphere about the size of my head. I walk closer, ignorant as to what it is, and scoop it with my hands to pick it up.

It feels slimy and is melting in my hands or more accurately it's melting my hands. "Ow!" I shake my hands to flick off the substance. "What the hell was that!"

Staring at the slimy sphere, it is no longer spherical. It now looks like a puddle of non-purified water.

{Exp: 1/10}

That is certainly interesting. A golden semi-translucent pop-up showed itself a few seconds after it...I guess it died. Since I don't need to rest at the moment and won't die from dehydration for another three days, I'll go hunting.

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