The aftermath of the attack was devastating. Rivers of blood and organs flowed throughout the street mixed with debris. As for the buildings, they weren’t spared either. The slash was so powerful it annihilated anything hapless enough to be in its range.

“Captain, you never fail to amaze me.” one of the soldiers spoke up in astonishment.

“Save your praises for later.” he gasped for air, “We need to get to the teleportation circle.” 

The remaining survivors of the squad fled from the battlefield and followed behind the squad leader. Due to the built-up fatigue from countless confrontations, they moved at a much slower pace which made it a lot easier for me to keep up with them.

We soon arrived at the area where the teleportation circle was located—the town square. The square had craters and corpses riddled throughout. Furthermore, the soldiers still holding the position struggled to resist against the enemy forces encroaching on them.

The squad leader clenched fist and gritted his teeth, “Damn, I could have taken these guys out if I hadn’t used all my mana up in that attack before.”

Fireballs and other offensive spells were being fired at each other in rapid succession setting the area ablaze. Meanwhile, the soldiers not preoccupied in dodging or firing the spells engaged in intense close-combat.

“We’re going to have to break through their encirclement.” The squad leader deviously smirked, "You notice those guys standing there?" 

My eyes followed where his finger was pointing, "What if they started attacking their own men?" he asked.

"They would be distracted dealing with their own men but, how exactly are you going to pull that off?" I put my hand to my chin.

The squad leader put out his left hand and summoned a glass orb filled with violet fumes, "Mania Gas, perfect for making people lose control over themselves and go insane."

“Won’t they just attack each other?” 

“Nope, this is specifically engineered to prevent that from happening.” 

“How many do you have?” 

“Just this one sadly.” the squad leader then stood up and assumed a throwing position, “Here goes nothing.” 

He tossed it as best he could towards the distracted group of men. Upon impact, the orb shattered and the pressurized gas stored within burst out like a storm. However, the moment the gas came into contact with the air on the outside, it dissolved becoming completely transparent and undetectable.

“Did you hear something?” one of the men in the affected range scanned his surroundings.

“Nope must have been your imagine-” his sentence was interrupted by a fist suddenly colliding with the back of his skull. 

“What the shit?” the man who he was talking to assumed a sword fighting stance but it was futile due to the gas already entering his lungs. 

The already chaotic battle soon grew even further disordered, with mindless men under the influence of the mania gas indiscriminately striking friends or foes on sight. 

“Hahahahaha!” the squad leader maniacally laughed at the carnage, “This thing works better than I thought!” 

Taking advantage of the ensuing pandemonium, our group breached through the encirclement and swiftly cut down anyone attempting to stop us. As we did so, the enemy soldiers dealing with their own resentfully glared at us for they knew we were the origin of the issue. 

“SOMEONE STOP THEM!” one of them cried out. 

Thankfully, his order landed on deaf ears and we quickly made it through to our own troops. 

“Alfred it's you! I thought you guys kicked the bucket out there.” the commander commented while preparing another spell.

So the Captain's name is Alfred, good to know...

Alfred leaned against a pillar and sighed, “Regrettably we are still alive sir. Just activate the teleportation circle please.”

“The damn thing is still recharging its mana, we have about two more minutes before we can bail.” 

Alfred bit his lip at the news of having to hold out for two minutes. To most people, holding on for that short of a time wouldn't appear to be that grave. But, to an exhausted soldier that had just returned from a battle, those additional two minutes could feel like an eternity of struggle.

“You heard the man, two more minutes.” Alfred then tapped my shoulder, “You just stay here.” 

I silently nodded my head at his words as I understood that I would only get in the way if I endeavoured to fight beside them. So instead I decided to see what this whole ‘status’ thing was all about. 

I monotonously muttered, “Status.” hoping that the blue window from before would appear but nothing happened. 

“Open Status.” 

“Menu.”

“Open Menu.” 

“Inspect Status.” 

I tried a multitude of different words and combinations wishing for the window to manifest yet nothing happened. Just when I was reaching my wit's end, the blue window finally decided to materialize.

[Synchronization Incomplete! Please wait until the synchronization finishes before attempting to access the status window. ???%]

I skimmed the text on the window and my jaw dropped. Could my situation get any worse? There are mages shooting fireballs at each other and knights swinging their swords at speeds not even the eye could perceive. Yet I couldn’t even access the basic features of the world. 

“FOR FUCK SAKE.” I yelled in total frustration. 

I was nearing the limits as to how much more bullshit I could handle. At least if this was Earth I would stand somewhat of a chance at surviving but here I was just a goldfish in a container of sharks.

While I was moaning about how unfair the world was and how I was going to renounce my religion because God allowed me to be summoned to this shithole, our situation was becoming dire. Enemy troops poured in from all sides due to the teleportation magic circle being a high-value target. If they were to capture it, they would have a gateway directly to the capital of whatever kingdom this was.

“JUST HOLD ON FOR ONE MORE MINUTE!” the commander announced.

Though, that was a horrible move on his part as the enemies only became more desperate to seize the teleportation circle thanks to the time limit. Nevertheless, the morale of the troops slightly improved knowing they only had to endure sixty more seconds of this nightmare.

“INCOMING!” a soldier screamed.

Alarmed by the sudden outburst I gazed at the sky and noticed hundreds of spears formed from stone descending upon our position. Body trembling in fear, I fervently searched far and wide for a place to take cover only to discover rubble. With no options left I made myself as small of a target as possible and hoped for the best.

The spears hit like a storm, cracking the ground and destroying anything in its path. For every few spears that landed, one more man got added to the body count and my sense trepidation grew. What's worse was that they didn't care that their men were mixed in with ours, making it clear that this was a last-ditch effort on their part.

Suddenly, a loud thud followed by a violent tremor occurred right next to me. My whole body jumped as soon as it processed what just transpired. I apprehensively opened my eyes and discovered a thick, three-meter long spear lodged in the ground right beside me. 

I was absolutely breathless no—I couldn't breathe at all. Just knowing that if the spear decided to deviate a few centimetres and what would have happened to me if it did sent chills down my spine. I thought the fireball bombing from before was terrifying, but this instilled far greater fear.

The battlefield was eerily quiet aside for the painful groans of men injured by the spears. I resolved to examine my surroundings despite knowing the dismay I would get from doing so. As my eyes moved, nothing but spears planted into the ground could be seen; some even had lifeless soldiers who were poor enough to be impaled by one. In other words, it was another bloodbath. 

At this point, I started to feel quite strange. My response to these disturbing scenes wasn’t as intense as earlier. It was as if I was beginning to get used to this like soldiers would get desensitized during a war. Of course, I was still repulsed just by glancing at their organs, limbs and blood spilling out.

“CHARGE!” the enemy commander broke the silence. 

Rumbling in the distance could be heard as they enclosed on us in the shape of a ring. We were in no condition to oppose them after the barrage of spears eradicated our formation and slaughtered the little men we had. All we could do was hope. Hope that by some miracle we will be saved.

“Finally!” the commander suddenly cheered. 

The barely intact magic circle carved into the ground began to glow, radiantly illuminating the whole town square blue. 

“Thank god.” I exhaled, relaxing my muscles, “I can finally get out of this shithole.”

The faces of the opposing soldiers warped to pure rage due to their major failure. I chose to stick the bird at them to provoke them further, but they didn’t know what it meant which only irritated me more.

The magic circle grew even brighter by the second until completely blinding my vision and, before I knew it, I was no longer in the town square but instead in total nothingness. Then something I didn’t desire to see manifested.

[Redirecting Teleportation…]

[Congratulations, you have completed the introduction.]

[Synchronisation Complete! You may now access the status window by simply imagining it.]

[You are qualified for Δ.]

I was at a loss of words for how bullshit this was. What exactly were they introducing other than mental trauma, and why was I being redirected? I had many questions yet, no answers to them.

Seconds later, I arrived at the destination of the redirected teleportation.

“Welcome, summoned heroes!” a cheerful old man grandly announced.

“Is this a joke?” I whispered to myself.

Now I get the standard hero summoning after going through all that?

As I continued to silently grumble, the old man dressed up like a certain wizard from a franchise whispered to the person next to him, “Aren’t there only meant to be three heroes?”

Oh great I can already tell where this is going.