1. The Hero and the Foreign Worker
1. The Hero and the Foreign Worker
"Hey, porter! Get a move on!"
"Ah, yes. Sorry about that."
It had been two years since I was transmigrated to another world for reasons I still couldn't fathom.
As the party's porter—basically a living inventory—I apologized to that damn woman barking orders ahead of me and tightened the straps of my pack.
"Don't just apologize—move your ass! You're holding up the entire dungeon run! Are you blind?"
"Ah, yes. I'm sorry about my slow feet."
It grated on me that she was throwing a tantrum when she wasn't even carrying a single bag, but I had to endure it. Without this gig, I'd have a hard time keeping body and soul together.
Dealing with abusive customers was just the lot of anyone in the service industry. So a lowly porter like me getting treated this way was well within the realm of what I'd come to expect.
Still, if I were to nitpick one thing... it would be nice if she could at least use my damn name.
"By the way, party leader? I do have a name. It's Woo Hyosung."
Woo from my father's surname, Hyo meaning "to call out," and Seong meaning "voice"—Woo Hyosung.
The meaning was: hold fast to your convictions at all times and speak them aloud.
Ever since coming to this world, I'd grown timid and passive, but if possible, I still wanted to live with my head held high and have my voice reach others.
"Hah. And?"
But my employer, that mage girl, merely glared at me as if the very notion was offensive.
"Do you honestly believe I have some obligation to remember the name of a worthless insect like you?"
"No, there's no obligation. But we're still working together, so I figured at least a name..."
"Shut your mouth and keep up. Step out of line again and I'll report you to the Labor Union and get your rating docked. Understood?"
Grumbling to herself, the mage woman plunged deeper into the dungeon.
Normally, a mage is a backline role and shouldn't be leading from the front. But unlike a porter like me, she was someone the world at large acknowledged.
To put it in perspective—the gap between us was about the difference between an ant and an elephant.
In terms of sheer weight class, she could lord it over all the ants around her, so to speak.
"Heh-heh, this party's Hero sure has a prickly temperament, doesn't she?"
"Far as we're concerned, though, you're practically a kindred spirit, porter friend."
The one saving grace was that, unlike that woman and the other Heroes, the people native to this world didn't treat me with such naked hostility.
If anything, since they suffered the same disrespect from her, what they felt toward a porter like me was something closer to solidarity.
"Haha, well, what can you do. From my standpoint as a Foreign Worker, I'm just grateful to be allowed to attend to her ladyship the Hero."
"Hoho, to put up with a young lady who won't even remember your name... You'll probably treat your future wife quite wonderfully."
"Hard to say. Looks to me like he'll be the one wearing the leash."
Joking back and forth, the middle-aged vanguard and the archer followed after the mage woman.
I trailed behind them with a forced smile, chewing over the words they had exchanged.
A woman who wouldn't even remember my name, huh. Well...
I had a feeling it wasn't quite like that.
***
"Status Open!"
It was break time.
Setting down my pack for a moment, I took a seat and checked my status window.
To confirm the ability I had awakened upon coming to this world—the so-called "Special Perk Ability."
"Oh, doing something interesting?"
The other party members sniffed it out like ghosts and crowded in with interest.
Unfortunately, they were all a bunch of dudes, so I wasn't terribly thrilled.
"Oh, back off. Why do you keep trying to look at my personal information?"
"Heh-heh, why act so sensitive? It's not like we can read it anyway."
"What was it again—spicy, or sex-tate? What's it actually say? Word is you otherworlders are all born with some kind of special ability."
"It's private, so how about you not stick your noses in."
Tch.
The two men chuckled at my half-hearted threat and returned to maintaining their gear.
I pulled my gaze away from glaring at them and studied the status window floating before me.
====
[Transmigrator: Woo Hyosung]
Class: Scout
Unique Ability: Existence Imprint
Aptitude Stats
Body: C+++ | Technique: C++
Intelligence: C- | Senses: C+
Mind: A | Arcane: F
====
"Man, look at this..."
Even at a glance, it was a completely unremarkable stat block apart from Mind.
Class was whatever—as long as it wasn't a Hidden Class, anyone who joined a guild could get one—so I could skip over that...
What needed attention were the Unique Ability and Aptitude Stats.
Aptitude Stats were something even the inhabitants of this world possessed. If you thought of it like a game, they were akin to stats, but they didn't rise with levels.
Basically, they were an individual's parameters rendered as a rank. If you were physically powerful, your Body rank went up. If you were skilled or had good technique, Technique rose. Brains got you Intelligence.
Using Body as the benchmark: the average adult male who'd done some physical labor—which is what I was when I first arrived—ranked around C.
From the various people I'd met, I'd pieced together that trained athletes or soldiers were B-rank. Above that, special forces types with real combat experience seemed to hit A. I figured the strongest in the human realm or beyond that fell into S.
And my Body, which had been a mere C two years ago, had gained three pluses by now from all the grunt work.
Meaning there was room for Aptitude Stats to improve if you pushed yourself hard... but goddamn, every time I looked at these numbers, I just felt hopeless.
The only noteworthy thing was my Mind being A, but that basically just meant I could keep my cool no matter what exploded in front of me.
The stats that actually mattered in a fight—Body, Technique, Intelligence—were all C-rank. I couldn't be satisfied with that.
No, what I really didn't get: why the hell was my Intelligence C-rank?
My college entrance exam average was in the top third—decently in the upper 20%. Shouldn't that be worth at least a B? So being second-tier gets you disrespected even in another world? Is that it?
"Jeez. That damn exam's still rotting my guts even after I've been isekai'd."
Getting transmigrated to another world meant a lucky few could soar to new heights, but the problem was—ironically—that I had absolutely zero of that luck.
Namely, this Unique Trait.
The single special skill granted to every otherworld transmigrator. The very thing that made the people of this world obsess over Transmigrators.
======
[Unique Trait - Existence Imprint]
[Those who meet you will not forget your existence. No matter who they are, no matter what happens.]
======
...Yeah. That's it. Being remembered by name.
No matter who they were or what happened, they wouldn't forget my name.
What the hell is this.
What am I supposed to do with this crap?
"Hey, porter. Grab all this and follow me."
While I sat there scowling at my status window, something came clattering down in front of me.
I looked down to see what it was: the spoils of the mage's hunt. She'd been clearing the dungeon even during break time.
Fist-sized fangs, leather, hefty magic stones one after another... Wow, did she wipe out a whole monster cluster on her own?
No wonder the people of this world went googly-eyed over the talented.
"What are you doing? Put that stuff away."
"Yeeees~ Yeeees~ Right away, ma'am~"
"The way you're talking is grating. Do you have a complaint?"
"Ah, a complaint? Who am I to complain? I'm just grateful to be making a living, ma'am."
"...I'll be watching you, so keep that in mind."
Tsk. The mage woman clicked her tongue and turned her back on me.
Once they finally finished prepping, my fellow party members hesitantly tailed after her, rubbing their hands together as if to placate her mood.
"Miss? You were pushing yourself even while we rested. Perhaps you ought to take a break? Your mana must be running low."
"My mana is more than sufficient. Shut up and follow me. All you need to do is follow my orders—I am the Hero."
Oh, yessir. Of course. Total scrubs like us just need to do as Her Heroic Highness commands.
Sarcastic though my inner thoughts were, in the end, all I felt was self-loathing.
"Man, how did I end up getting treated like a Foreign Worker..."
Right. She who awakened immense power through transmigration was a Hero. And I, who awakened a laughably useless power, was an otherworld laborer—a Foreign Worker, for short.
I'd gone to all the trouble of getting isekai'd, and now I was being treated like a slave just because of rotten luck. Life's full of ups and downs, sure, but this was way too much down.
"Kyaaaak!"
A scream suddenly echoed from ahead.
Startled, I whipped my head up. The mage woman who'd been charging forward had been caught by tentacles rising from the floor.
That damn fool. She got cocky and charged in without properly checking for an ambush?
"Wha—what is this?! Let me go right now!"
"No! The party leader's been caught! The tentacles are too thick—I can't get close easily!"
Huge, thick tentacles spread outward in all directions. Before she could react, I saw the mage woman's limbs being gradually constricted.
The vanguard ajusshi clearly figured that if we left her like that, something horrific would happen. He whipped around toward me with panicked urgency and shouted.
"Dammit! I could get swept up too if I charge in there! Hey, porter friend! Isn't there any way we can save the young lady?"
"I mean, she's a damn piece of work even if she's a Hero. Can't we just leave her to it?"
"Sure, like you said—that Hero's got a foul mouth that's always running, she lives with her head up her own ass, squanders her earnings like crazy, and is basically a scumbag with a shit personality... but still, isn't she pretty and well-endowed? Who knows! If you save her, she might even let you cop a feel!"
What a way for this guy to talk.
Is copping a feel really worth risking your precious life?
Was there any guy who'd be worth it just 'cause he looked like some idol and had a big dick?
...Actually, now that I thought about it, yeah, there would be.
"Heeek, you monster!"
But even while I was entertaining that thought, the mage woman's body was already completely bound by the tentacles.
"D-don't tell me..."
The moment she took in the grotesquely writhing tentacles before her eyes, her face rapidly drained of color.
As if she had glimpsed her own fate in their movements.
"Y-you monster! Don't tell me you're going to violate me!?"
-Riiip!
Before she could mount any sort of defense, her limbs were torn apart by the tentacles' strength.
"Urgk..."
The damn woman's eyes rolled back as her head lolled forward.
It was an unequivocal, flawless instant death.
"Aaaahh! It's a limb-tearing tentacle monster!"
A scream erupted from my throat reflexively as my body scrambled in the opposite direction.