Name: Katsuragi Kenta

Age: Sixteen years old

Occupation: Student

Likes: Gaming

Dislikes: Being summoned into a fantasy world. Being cursed and forcibly married to three girls. Being hunted by several parties for kidnapping this girl, mind-controlling that girl, other framed crimes, or just because.

That's me. A summoned so-called hero that originates from Japan and knew shit about anything but school and games. Despite having the hero-system, which reminds the common moron of an RPG-system, this just sucks.

Especially as the system doesn't follow game rules. While Ara-san—one of my wives—and I have found some regularities of the hero-system, it's largely a mystery. Let's sum up what we have.

First, each hero has three pools of points. [Health Points], [Stamina Points], and [Magic Points], or HP, SP, and MP. HP is used up when a hero receives damage, SP when a hero makes strenuous tasks or uses [Skills], and MP if the hero performs [Skills] that uses magic, and therefore also called [Spells].

Second, each hero has seven [Attributes]: [Strength], [Vitality], [Dexterity], [Agility], [Intelligence], [Persuasion], and [Luck]. The number values lack any unit and from what we can tell, each of them represents a potential a hero can use for specific tasks. So [Strength] 144 isn't always 144, a hero may only use 50 until a situation arises that asks for more. Ara-san has dubbed the unit hero-sparkles for now, but I hate that term!

Third, a hero has [Abilities], each of them is a general term, like [Stealth]. Each [Ability] has a rank, though we don't have any idea what those represent. However, each hero can learn [Skills] associated with the [Ability], if we stay at [Stealth], examples would be [Distraction], [Sneak], or [Camouflage]. Some of them are plain magic, others are at least supernatural, and even the most unnoticeable [Skills] are a huge benefit, like the [Hide]-skill from the [Armor]-ability that allows the user to wear hide-armor like it's a set of common clothes, neither feeling the weight nor the movement impediment.

Fourth, each hero can learn [Classes], each [Class] changes the number-values of the [Attributes] and has another assortment of [Abilities]. There is a hard limit of four [Classes] and every hero has a starting [Class], something that represents their status in the former world. [Classes] can also be classed-up, this means it's empowered and expanded. [Class-up] also increases the [Health], [Stamina], and [Magic] values and therefore HP, SP, and MP.

Finally, each hero has a level. Each level increases the [Attributes] and you need a minimum level for each [Class-up].

Other than these facts, we have thousands of ideas, but speculating won't help, though as past-time activities in this almost medieval fantasy world sucks, thinking about the hero-system is one of the things I do a lot with Ara-san.

Ara-san is an alfr. What an alfr is? Take an elf, suck out all dignity, fill in with bad humor, love for pranks, and an attitude more juvenile than actual teenagers, then you have the basic idea. They're the 'young folk' not because of their longevity, which they also have in plenty, but because they're mentally forever stuck in puberty. The lack of facial muscles makes it hard to read their mood and while the ears move a lot in comparison, don't trust your instincts on what these movements mean, as whatever TV or cats may have taught you is not applicable here.

Thankfully, Ara-san may be the least alfr of all of them. Of course, she looks the part. Her snow-white hair is bound to a ponytail, the form of her nose and cheekbones seem off, her eyes have a double-iris, one dark-blue, the other dark-green, with a cat-like pupil. But personality-like, she's held back by her laziness, causing her to only occasionally play pranks and seldomly on me or my other wives.

Yet there is one thing she's ardent about. She calls herself the hero-sage, someone who studied heroes for a century. Sometimes I believe she has wasted her time, as she 'knows' little, but on the other hand, she mostly studied the hero tales and the numbers given by her fellow alfr-heroes, which had a lot of data that doesn't follow any discernible rule... I guess they wrote down whatever to prank Ara-san.

Well, but she always has several clues to how things will most likely work, she's just sensible enough to not sell her educated guesses as scientific proof and doesn't spread hypotheses without being asked.

Though I still think she was rather inefficient and most likely victim to the laziness she takes so much pride in, yet whenever heroes are involved, she becomes... more alfr. For example, she has stolen a hero-detecting pendant from one of our enemies, the merchant Correo, so the moment she found out about heroes nearby, she sneaked away and visited them, despite knowing that I will be able to follow her.

I'm connected with my wives via a curse, which is responsible for this forced marriage in the first place. It takes the form of the irremovable [Lion's Wedding Ring], that created other cursed rings for my spouses, the [Lioness' Wedding Rings]. As long as I stay close to my wives, the curse is dormant. If it activates, it will slowly kill me by making me lose more and more [Stamina]. If it hits 0, I guess I will either die or faint because I lift a finger, which also makes it impossible to live.

Also, after the curse reactivates, it will at some point also affect my wives. For some strange reason, the curse gives something in return, a power-boost when we're close to each other and a system that accumulates [Wedding Points], also called WP, to gain other benefits. One of those benefits is the [Spouse Location], which tells my wives in which direction I am and I know the direction of every wife, but not who is who or the distance. No, these are extra purchases.

Of course, I used it to follow her and find her terrorizing four human heroes. All of them look westerner, all of them are oldish. Now I stand before the four of them and I have many questions, but... I don't like people. I'm fine with being alone and something about these four weaklings makes me dislike them even more.

So I look at the first girl that fell victim to the cursed rings, Momokawa Kyou-san. My former classmate, now also a hero. She used to be the popular class-president back home, but after coming here she fell to the position of the useless hero. Now she's also cursed and stuck with me. I guess we get along now, but in our own special way. As she's actually scarily good with people, I leave it to her to talk to the four weaklings.

She combs back her long, black hair and begins to speak in a gentle voice: “Sorry for the inconvenience and the scare. My name is Momokawa Kyou, also a hero. You see, our companion is very eager about other heroes, and she has no idea how to socialize with people appropriately, so she has misjudged how to approach you. I apologize.” She bows perfectly to the people.

“Erm... I'm Keith Jonaway, the leader of our group.” He starts pointing at his members: “Miles, Sven, and Anton. We're the Red Stripes.”

“What an interesting party name. We're the Lion's Squad, because we have these.” She shows off her ring with a smile, but I'm sure, she's boiling inside. Kyou-san is a two-faced person, who acts all nice to others, but in truth sports a personality that's most likely worse than mine. “How did you come to yours?”

“Well, Miles and I are from the USA, Anton and Sven from Canada, so we looked for a common ground. Red stripes, red borders, close enough.” Oh shit, Americans. While I know that you don't need to believe in stereotypes—and there are plenty of them about Americans, starting with their rudeness, ignorance, and greed—I also know enough Americans from gaming chats. Whenever I mention that I'm Japanese, they start to strike a conversation with me about anime, manga, or cosplay. That's totally racist, so they started first! I just like games, dammit! “Long time since I saw gooks,” their leader adds unnecessarily. You see, totally racist.

Kyou-san shifts slightly between him and me, giving me a visual clue that I should not beat that asshole to a pulp. But this way of talking down and that nonchalant racism gets under my skin. So it's good that Kyou-san speaks to them, as she's better at keeping a facade. “Aha. How long since you've been here?”

“Eighteen years.”

Something comes into my mind, so I ask carefully: “Which year did you transfer?”

“1987.”

Kyou-san gasps, I switch to [Student] and calculate with my [Calculator]-skill. This is basically a calculator app installed into my mind. As long as I know how to calculate something, I can do it quickly without a fault.

The thing is that Kyou-san and I have been here for several months. But months in this world's time. The calendar of this world differs from the Gregorian. A hundred seconds are a minute, a hundred minutes are an hour, twenty hours are a day, fifty days a month, ten month a year. A second in this world, however, is only roughly half a second in our world. I think this world's minute was exactly one minute and forty-four seconds or so, something I learned from Kyou-san.

This means, if they have been here for eighteen years in this world, that should be... almost thirty years in ours. Therefore, time seems to be stable.

Kyou-san is about to lose her balance, so I slightly poke her into her side to wake her up from her shock. I can imagine what she has been thinking, but I need her to pull herself together. “Don't think about it for now.” I say to her, while facing the stupid Americans and taking over the conversation for this moment: “Let me correct you, you've been here for thirty years. We've been here for some months and when we were transported, it was 2016. Well, at least now we know that the world doesn't care about us and just continues to turn as always. But seriously, thirty years and you can't even stop Ara-san?!” By the way, my alfr-wife is still unconscious and Rine is looking after her, so both of them are out of sight. For safety reasons. “I mean, Ara-san may have a century as a hero under her belt, but she wasted most of the time. What is your excuse?”

“What!?”

“What is your level? How many [Class-ups] did you have? What about your [Skills]?”

“What the heck is a [Class-up]!?”

“...let me see your status.”

Suddenly, all of them are alarmed. I guess I demanded the same as Ara-san just now, but seriously, I need to see with my own eyes how they fucked it up! “Here, take a look at mine, nothing bad.” I use the option to show them my status. Most of it is Japanese, but they know the layout and it still uses Arabic numerals.

“Phww....” That Miles-guy laughs. “You're acting like a boss, while you're still level 61!? Let me show you a real hero.” He shows me his status, I can read it, because it's in English, and... level 101? Serious!? Thirty years and only level 101!? His stats may be higher than mine, but...

Levels are bullshit. He may act high and mighty, but this only shows that a well-performing body is wasted. [Attributes] are only a potential and he uses almost none of it. But how is it possible!? I mean, level 101 should speak for more combat-experience than I have!

No, there is one way... “Did you level up by beating weak monsters!?” Are they trying to grind to max level at the starting area!? It's not like there is a distinctive starting area, but if you're close to a town, for example, its soldiers usually drive away dangerous monsters, only leaving the weaklings that even a small number of caravan guards can defeat. As animals don't grant any XP, this would be the safest choice.

“Of course! It may take longer, but a level is a level, after all, and there is almost no risk involved. One or two fights per day, if there are no suitable monsters left, we buy a ticket to another city.”

It's not like I don't see any logic in it, but it's stupid. It's astronomical stupid. “WHAT THE FUCK!? ARE YOU CRAZY!?” I yell at them at the top of my lungs.

“What the heck! What's wrong with you!? What's crazy about that, shrimp? Do you want to die in this world?”

“DO YOU WANT TO LIVE HERE!?”

“KEN!” Kyou-san tries to drag me back, but I feel my every heartbeat inside my head. Seeing them reminds me that I may have ended up like them, if I had any less desire to get back home. It also makes me feel worse, because witnessing them being bullied by Ara-san power-wise makes me almost appreciate being put through several meat-grinders.

“Miles,” Keith says while also having that pitiful look at me: “Stand down, he's just a boy.”

“Keith, Miles,” says that Anton-guy, “mind your language.”

“When I was young, the adults beat the shit out of teens that kicked out against them,” Miles says, showing his irritation.

“Fine with me. You guys,” I bark at the three other idiots: “you better join him, otherwise it wouldn't be much of a fight.”

That Anton-guys smiles politely while shaking his head. This causes the other two to stand down as well.

“Ken, you can't just beat everyone up who disagrees with you,” Kyou-san says in a soft voice, most likely to not indirectly insult the four of them. She knows as well as me: Miles was bested by Ara-san, and Ara-san is weaker than me in a fight.

“Miles,” Sven tries to appeal to his companion, “Just cool down.” It's in vain.

Then another duo makes their entrance. “...let me go!” It's Ara-san, who tries to get to us.

Yet the alfr girl can't move, as a blonde one is grabbing her wrist: “Wait, Ara!” That girl is as much of a beauty as Kyou-san, maybe even more by westerner standards. Her eyes burn bright orange and yellow, just like a fire, and her body has a lot to offer. It's my second wife, Katarine von Stolzherz, princess of the kingdom of Feuerberg, nicknamed Rine.

“Katarine-san, two heroes are fighting, I have to watch it!” I assume her superior hearing has heard that two heroes are about to fight despite her being unconscious, and then she just decided to wake up. She works differently than us.

Miles looks at Ara-san and becomes pale. I could see, as he turns to me, that he finally remembers my little skirmish with Ara-san before and how I beat her. “Erm... let's calm down, everyone.” That's right, he's a coward. I don't mind cowards, I'm one as well, but somehow it feels like my cowardice is different from his, though I can't tell why.

Maybe because I didn't waste thirty years grinding with little more to show than a level I might hit in less than one, if I continue at this pace. Maybe because he forgot my prowess the moment I showed them my level and he acted all high and mighty, despite being proved wrong before. I guess, for a superficial jerk as him, seeing me as a [Student] did the rest for some false confidence.

“Phew.” This is a waste of time. “Ara-san,” I say in a cold voice, trying to reign in my emotions: “Learn what you can about them, then we're on our way. Don't expect much.” Then I turn around and walk away. I can do a lot of more constructive things than dealing with shitheads like them. Wait, there is one more thing. “If I hear any of you say 'gook' once more, I'll rip out your tongues.”

Shit, why does every encounter with them make me hate Americans more!?