Alice looked at the ominous blue circle in front of her, wondering what the hell was going on. I did my homework, ate dinner, chatted on Discord with my friends for a bit, and went to sleep. How the hell did that result in waking up in the middle of a goddamn giant circle of-
Suddenly, the blue circle faded away, and Alice was deposited into the middle of a giant room.
“Hero! You have come!”
A guy with black hair and green eyes looked at Alice, his eyes shining with excitement as he looked at her.
Alice felt… disturbed. This guy’s gaze was a little…. No, WAY too intense. And-
“Wait, hero!? What the hell?”
“I know things must seem strange to you, hero, but we have paid a great price in order to summon you to our world. Now that you have come, you must embark upon a journey to slay the evil demon king before he destroys this world! Quickly! We have granted you a primary boon is that you grow faster, and that means you can level up skills and your class much more quickly than others. With the [Hero] class, you can provide the hope that this world needs! We must-“
“Wait, hold up. You just said you paid a huge price to summon me?”
“Yes, hero! We paid a massive price in order to summon you to this world, all in the hopes that you might slay the demon king!”
“And then, during the summoning, you decided that the best boon to give me was the ability to grow faster?”
“Indeed! Along with language translation, which we need to communicate with you, we also paid a hefty price to ensure you would grow much faster than others! It isn’t incorrect to say that half of the annual budget was spent on this summoning! All of this is to ensure that you can pick up many {Skills} and [Levels] along your journey!"
“And this seemed…. Optimal to you?”
“Opt...iii...mull?” The man wearing a steward’s robe tilted his head to the side, trying to sound out each syllable. In the end, he still seemed confused.
“So, you paid a huge price to graft a boon of growing faster onto me, who came from another world. Can I ask why, if you possess the ability to ALREADY GRAFT THIS ABILITY ONTO SOMEONE, you decided that it was a good idea to pay however much it costs to drag someone from another planet ONTO THIS ONE WITH THIS ABILITY INSTEAD OF JUST GIVING IT TO ONE OF YOUR KNIGHTS OR SOLDIERS?”
“I… I didn’t think of that.” The man seemed dumbfounded. “Truly, this is the wisdom befitting a hero!”
“What? Wait, no that’s just straight up ridiculous. If I’m not mistaken, just based on some guesswork I can figure out that reaching into another dimension must be expensive as hell – otherwise I would have heard of people on Earth occasionally being summoned to other dimensions, not just as a standard Isekai story I read as a guilty pleasure sometimes, but as a normal, frequently occurring part of everyday life. So you decided that, rather than giving someone who is already loyal to your kingdom or nation or whatever the ability to grow faster, thus dealing with whatever threat this planet is facing, the optimal solution was to reach into another dimension, paying dozens of times the cost of the actual ‘growth’ ability, just to summon a random person who MIGHT help you and then give them the growth ability? What the hell is your brain made of, cheese?"
“Well, when you put it that way it just sounds silly,”
“I wonder why,” said Alice, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Fuck this, I’m going home. This just makes no sense.” And in a puff of logic, the entire dimension disappeared.