*In a certain place in a world called Tristina

“Welcome, heroes from another world.” A loud dignified voice echoes the hall.

In the middle of the hall, there is a giant magic circle. At the middle of it, several teenagers wearing high school uniforms are standing with confused faces, wondering what is going on.

….

*Inside a cave in the middle of nowhere

*Slap*

Makoto facepalms so hard that the sound of her hand hitting her face vibrates several times in the small cave the group is staying in.

“Or so that’s how our story in a different world is supposed to be.” Yuuko chuckles and decides to end the storytelling after seeing such a reaction from Makoto.

“Isekai is such an overused genre. Though they were quite appealing at the beginning, a flood of cheap copycats of such genre makes the genre become nothing but a joke.” Makoto says while still covering her face.

In contrast to Makoto, Lexar listened to Yuuko’s story wholeheartedly while wagging his tail. Normally, cat wagging tail signifies that he is upset. However, looking at his face, such behavior does not imply so. To Lexar, although the genre was also overused in his world, it is a story of distant past. Hearing it again brings a lot of nostalgia to him.

Before the explosion had the chance to engulf the group of three, at that moment, Yuuko’s katana suddenly shone brightly and a strange chant reached everyone’s ears. When they regained their consciousness, they were all lying outside a wild cave in a forest. It is dark and raining outside so they have to take shelter inside the cave.

“Ironically, we are now in the same situation as those stories. The fact that I can open this table is still quite surprising.” Yuuko fiddles her finger in the air and a small table appears.

Yuuko Kurosawa

Race

Human, (error cannot process)

Class

(error cannot process)

Level

1

Strength

84

Vitality

130

Resistance

120

Agility

140

Magic

(error cannot process)

Magic resistance

60

Skills:

Language Comprehension, (error data overflow)

Makoto and Lexar imitate Yuuko and create tables in front of them

Makoto Tachibana

Race

Human, (error cannot process)

Class

(error cannot process)

Level

1

Strength

25

Vitality

80

Resistance

20

Agility

30

Magic

(error cannot process)

Magic resistance

200

Skills:

Analyze (Max), (error data overflow)

Lexar

Race

Cat, (error cannot process)

Class

(error cannot process)

Level

1

Strength

56

Vitality

70

Resistance

66

Agility

152

Magic

(error cannot process)

Magic resistance

80

Skills:

(error data overflow)

“Setting aside the stats, don’t you feel this irking feeling when you summon these tables?” Makoto slightly knocks on her temple like her head is a jug.

“Yeah, my head feels kinda weird too. It must have been because of these errors.” Yuuko shakes her head around to dissipate the unpleasant feeling.

“(error cannot process), (error data overflow). This really feels like we are in a computer program. Or the world where we are in now is operated by a system working like a computer. Anyway, I don’t think we should feel happy for these bugs. In novels, this may imply we have some cheat power or hidden op trait. But if the system clearly indicates the error type, combined with our unwell feeling, these bugs are bad for our bodies.” Lexar analyzes.

“Urgh, I hate this feeling. I am going to take this out of my body for a moment.” Makoto closes her eyes to concentrate. After five seconds, her body shines brightly then slowly dies down. From her open empty hand, a ball of white light starts floating up.

“Phew. Now that’s better.” Makoto makes a relief sigh and massages her neck like she has just put off something annoying.

“Even though I have already seen it before, it is still unbelievable that you can just take in then extract the status table out of your body like nothing.” Yuuko comments on Makoto’s power.

“Although I know my power is pretty strong, manipulating a system installed in the body is something I did not even expect.” Makoto nods while examining the ball of light.

“System, you say?” Lexar twitches his ears.

“No, not system.” Makoto corrects herself “I think this thing is rather close to a program instead. A program made by this world to be installed inside our bodies.”

“Can you elaborate on that?”

“Remember when we were first thrown into this world? Aside from the pain we received from being swallowed in that explosion, there was this uncomfortable feeling, like having bugs crawling around our bones. It was actually this thing scanning and analyzing our bodies.

While analyzing, this so called program also started merging with us, connecting itself with various parts of our bodies.” Makoto manifests a small human model with various places attached to the ball of light through the cords made of white air.

“And through the program, we are connected to this world’s system, allowing this world’s rule to be applied to us. The first rule is the status table.” Makoto points at the status table in front of Yuuko.

“This table is a world’s rule?” Yuuko surprisingly asks.

“Like the other RPG world novels you have read, every creature usually has its own status recorded in its table. That is one of the rules of this world. The majority of the rest you should be familiar. Defeat monsters, get experience, get stronger by level up. The higher level the skill is, the stronger the skill is. Class influences heavily our status and development route. No different from an RPG game.” Makoto dissipates the white human model “However, things are not really that simple.” She expands her hand out at the direction of the white ball. A lot of tables suddenly appear in midair, surprising everyone else.

“This is…” Lexar mutters.

“The true form of the program installed inside us.” Makoto examines each of the tables. However, all of them only have hazy white mist covering all the content.

“When I first extracted the table out, I tried to absorb back and turned it into skill. However, instead of a skill, I learned about its true form and some information about it. Perhaps the reason for our unwell feeling when using table is because of our abnormal power. Although my power is still limited and I can read only a part of this program, I’m still able to learn what happens to us.

Basically, the program cannot understand our white flame power and anything strongly related with it. As you can see from the table, our class, our race, and our skills are the things that the program failed to comprehend. And because of failure to understand, it needs to keep analyzing our bodies until it comprehends us. When we summon the table, the program activates the analyzing process until we close it.”

Hearing so, both Yuuko and Lexar immediately close the table. Makoto continues on talking.

“That’s all I can figure out at the moment. There are still a lot of things that cannot be read at the moment. But it will be no problem. As I get stronger, I can read more from the program. At that time, we can uncover the true nature of this world.” Makoto says with a lot of excitement.

“Then we can figure out the way back to our own world, right?” Yuuko asks with anticipation.

“Uh… yes, that’s right. Figuring out more about the system can help us find a way to exit this world.” Makoto lightly stumbles before speaking fluently again.

Lexar slightly tilts his head. Makoto’s behavior just now was weird, like the time when she talked about the fake “death” experience. He does not want to think about it much, but her action reminds him of a mad scientist he met in the past life. Although he was outstanding with his genius intelligence, he was the kind of person who could kill millions of people just for his idea. Lexar does not want to associate such a good girl with that psychopath, but her manner just now strikingly resembled him, the obsession with world-changing idea.

Realizing that he is having such a strange though, Lexar furiously shakes his head. They are two completely different people. Obsession with world-changing idea is a good quality that any great person has. It is stupid to relate Makoto, a high school girl, with a madman. He should be optimistic and encourage her to develop in that direction. Perhaps, in the future, she can become a great person that will change the world.

“Although it is possible to find the way back through understanding the world, it is still only a possibility. Not mentioning how complicated it is to understand the world, it is still unknown whether we can develop a way to travel back to our world based on the knowledge.” Lexar gives his opinion.

“True, there is also that possibility.” Makoto nods in agreement.

“I don’t think that’s a difficult problem though.” Yuuko interrupts “Based on the pattern of these RPG stories, it is bound to have summoning hero or a reincarnating person. Although it is just illogical intuition, I believe this world has the former type. Since being transported here, I have had this feeling that I am familiar with this world. This sword” Yuuko holds her katana up “It has been telling me that there is a trace of me in this world and the reason we ended up here .”

“To summon a hero from another world, a special ritual is needed. If we can analyze it, along with the knowledge of this world system, we can modify or create our own ritual and teleport us back to our own world. Yes, that way, we have higher chance to succeed.” Makoto realizes Yuuko’s plan “So our objective is to find a human settlement first. From that point, we will investigate the story about the summoning heroes and find a clue where the ritual for summoning took place. During our journey to find it, we will also defeat monster, train and strengthen ourselves. Not only to be able to read the world information, we will get the strength to counter the mastermind behind those red worlds.”

“Correct. I really want to get back to our world and kick that man’s ass. I will make him remember for sending me a truck and a terrorist bomb.” Yuuko punches her hand together makes a ferocious smile.

“However, we need to get a hold of time. We don’t know whether there is a time difference between two worlds. Let’s hope that by the time we get back, the world is not destroyed already.” The cat reminds them.

The two girls nod at the same time. Having set up the general outline of their plan, they move on discussing the details: how they will survive in the forest, where to look for human settlement, what they should do when in contact with humans.

The meeting goes on for an hour and they start to feel sleepy. Although they are also hungry, with the outside still raining and very dark, they decide to wait inside the cave until the next day. After blocking off the entrance, the girls quickly fall into deep sleep.

(Hinami, please hang on there. You are now the only one back in your world that can fight back the evil force. I promise that I will help your friends become stronger and find the way to go back.) It is Lexar’s last thought before also falling asleep.