Chapter 001: Day of Descent and the 1,000 Chosen

This darkness was comfortable for me. 

Hiding in the dungeon filled with silence and death, I would strip the equipment from the now voiceless corpses of the explorers, and sell them to the black market.
That’s how I somehow manage to get by in my meals. 

At the burial chamber that’s intimate with death…

Cloaking myself in darkness, I curl up and hold my breath today as well.

So that no one sees me. 

So that I don’t gather the attention of anyone. 

And…

So that everyone forgets about me…

◇◆◆◆◇

From amongst the earthlings of various ‘births’, ‘upbringings’, ‘genders’ and ‘ages’; God has chosen 1,000 people to be sent to a different world —an isekai— that’s like the embodiment of swords and magic.

This madness, that enveloped the whole Earth and still continued to do so, began one morning in June when I was finally starting to get used to my high school life. 

For me, Kurose Hikaru, this event will be a turning point in my life. 

No, to be more specific…it would be the ‘incident’. 

A humanoid shape that could only be described as a light silhouette suddenly appeared in ‘all the unused displays’ around the world and stated this…

[I am God.]

At that time, I was in my classroom, in the middle of my first class of the day.

The first one to notice what was displayed in the big TV of the classroom was a female student, and the next instant the sudden scream surprised everyone in the class, the words of ‘God’ had resonated in the weak speakers of the television.

[Descending in this manner must have been surprising for you all.
I have been waiting for my dear children to grow, you see.
The time has come.]

It was a tone of voice that felt as if it were seeping deep inside my heart. 

A voice that could be taken as male or female.
I couldn’t pinpoint an age from the voice either. 

Even the female student that screamed had a dumbfounded face as she froze in place. 

The teacher doing the class until now was suspecting it was some sort of prank or a malfunction, so they tried to use the controller to operate the TV, but ‘God’ didn’t disappear, and it was the same even when plugging it off. 

The teacher went to check the state of the neighboring classroom, and it seems like that class as well had ‘God’ displayed on the screen of a smartphone someone had taken out. 

[I have chosen 1,000 people from amongst you all.
Selected people from the countries around the world mostly blindly.
Of course, with no distinction between male and female either.
Those that have experience in society, those that could still be called young boys, those at an advanced age; a variety.]

By stating 1,000 people, it confirmed that this phenomenon was not only happening in our school.
This school doesn’t even total 1,000 students after all.

Even so, it is saying that this encompasses the countries around the whole world from all races and nations.
This must be happening in the whole world in the literal sense of the word.
It doesn’t feel real, but there’s no way something like this would feel real in the first place.
To the point that I am even suspecting if I fell asleep in the middle of class out of boredom and am dreaming now.
There were even students who pinched their cheeks to confirm.

[I will have those 1,000 people go to that ‘one other world’.]

Those words of God stirred up the class.

Another world.

Meaning, an isekai. 

[By that one other world, I mean a different world that’s outside from this one that’s within my jurisdiction —a parallel world.
To be more precise, ‘the one other world that was made reflecting your likes’.]

The classroom grew noisier at those words of God. 

But I myself couldn’t get that excited. 

Because if you think about it calmly, the likelihood of getting chosen, and the likelihood of someone in this school getting chosen, are like the chances of winning the lottery. 

Babies and elderly are most likely going to be excluded, but there’s 7 billion people on Earth.

1 in 7 billion.
If put in terms of the lottery, it would be like drawing the winning ticket in 1 or maybe 2 tries.
On top of that, if there’s division between countries and races, the more disadvantageous you are if the population is high.
It is on a level that you could even consider the chances to be 0.

1 or 2 japanese high school students might get chosen, and it is not like I am not interested at all in a world of swords and magic though…

[I will have the transferred people live their lives in that other world as they wish.
There will be no demanding or forcing from us.
You are free.
However, the price of freedom is that there’s obviously the chance of death.]

Looks like this is not a story where they tell you to become a hero and defeat the demon lord.

I can’t tell what’s the aim of this ‘God’, but it can’t be helped to think of it as a being that’s outside human intellect. 

[Of course, I don’t intend to have you go just like that.
I pla