Somehow Strange Hero's Party

I used to love those run-of-the-mill hero adventure stories.

Games, novels, comics—it didn't matter.

I loved tales of a hero and his companions setting out on a journey.

A voyage begun for the single purpose of slaying the Demon King.

I loved the little episodes they stumbled through along the way.

Trust building between comrades, friendship taking root, love blossoming.

I loved those human dramas that unfolded before my eyes.

I loved the nobility of people who would burn even the lives anyone would hold precious, never once stopping their feet for the sake of that Demon King.

Why do I keep speaking as if all of that belonged only to the past?

Well… because the moment it becomes my reality, the story changes completely.

I liked watching their stories. I never wanted to live one myself. My own life hadn't been hard enough that I'd want to throw it away.

Then one day I opened my eyes and found myself inside the game I'd been playing. The night before, I'd been deep into a classic hero-adventure RPG: Dungeon in Evil.

An RPG whose main loop was exploring dungeons in search of the Demon King so you could put him down. This was the world inside that game.

A textbook game transmigration.

It followed the cliché so faithfully I couldn't help wondering how long this trope was going to keep going.

I had transmigrated as a member of the hero's party, and now I was expected to personally kill the Demon King I'd slaughtered countless times inside the game.

That alone was unwelcome enough. What made it worse was the role I'd been given. If I'd at least become the hero, maybe I could have lived with it.

Instead, the body I woke up in belonged to none other than the Porter.

The mysterious status window that supposedly always appears after a game transmigration only confirmed what I already knew: I was a porter. Every single trait was the sort of thing a porter would have.

Quick Cooking sounded like something you'd see on a three-minute curry package. I had no idea why a trait for prepping ingredients even existed.

Tidying Up I could accept, but Convenient Backpack Carrying? I still didn't know what that was supposed to do. I'd never once felt more comfortable shouldering a pack.

No hidden traits waiting to be revealed either. I was a pure, one-hundred-percent porter.

Everything else is written in Korean, so why is only the name in English…?

…Anyway.

There was a hero, an archer, a spirit mage, a thief… I'd wondered why I'd been stuck as the porter, and the only answer I could come up with was that I was a female-character fanatic. I'd filled every party slot except the porter with girls. And I was a guy, so of course.

At first I'd thought that was lucky. Looking back, I would have preferred a gender-swap into someone actually useful.

Being the porter meant packing and unpacking every single day, buying every missing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠supply myself—endless annoying chores. And of course I couldn't contribute anything in a fight. Why give me a transmigration if you weren't going to hand out any transmigration perks?

On the bright side, a porter stayed in the rear and didn't have to do anything, so at least I wasn't in danger. And since I'd carefully built the party out of characters that satisfied both performance and personal taste, every single member was beautiful and strong.

Some people might have been perfectly content with that arrangement. Maybe even I would have been, under different circumstances.

But I couldn't. No matter how hard I tried to be satisfied, satisfaction refused to come. All I got was an endless stream of stress. And of course there was a reason for that.

Because…

The door slammed open without so much as a knock. No warning, no footsteps—nothing.

The two people who barged in spotted me and their ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠expressions lit up at once, the way a child lights up when they find a favorite toy.

One human, one long-eared elf. The hero and the archer of my party. At a glance they were both gorgeous, peerless beauties with skill to match, but…

"Loser~♡ What are you doing in here all alone being creepy? Ohhh, were you jerking off by yourself~? Sorry if I interrupted~♡"

"Puhaha! Don't make weird jokes, Erinn. No way he was doing that. Hey, Allen! Stop sitting there and come drink with me~! I'll let you drink as much as you want today!! You know this big sis can't fight tomorrow if she runs out of alcohol, right?"

The problem was that every single party member had something wrong with their heads.

"Don't sit around being all gloomy by yourself—go outside and play~? You're not so socially stunted that you hate hanging out with people, are you~♡"

This damn mesugaki was the hero, Erinn. She'd been the childhood friend of the character I'd possessed, and after years of teasing him for fun she'd fully evolved into this complete brat.

Cute twin-tails, tiny frame… even her appearance was peak mesugaki. It was almost impressive.

…Even if her chest was huge.

"Puhaha, Erinn, stop teasing him. Don't you feel even a little sorry for Allen? …Ugh, I left the bottle alone too long. I need a drink. Quit sitting there and let's go already, Allen!"

The raging alcoholic who couldn't go a single second without a bottle in her hand was Ser-Aria, the one they called the Divine Archer. When I asked why her name was so weird she just said she was high-elf royalty and the prefix was a royal marker.

The Dungeon in Evil I'd played was a so-called dead game; it never had detailed character personalities or lore. Honestly it was closer to a slapped-together cash grab, but I loved the adventure genre so much I played it anyway.

Maybe because the game had become a real world, all sorts of ridiculous settings had sprouted up everywhere. Having extra detail was nice in theory, but…

Why did those extra settings have to be a mesugaki hero and an alcoholic archer?

Every party member had gone completely off the rails. Was it because I'd stacked the party with nothing but high-performance monsters? It felt like some kind of penalty.

And the three who weren't even here yet were even worse. While I stared at them with a deadpan face, Ser-Aria spoke as if she'd suddenly figured something out.

"Is it because you don't have anything fun to do while we drink? Then I'll show you the apple-shooting trick again today, Allen!"

The "apple-shooting trick" this lunatic was talking about was the game where she got wasted and shot an apple off someone's head with an arrow. And the someone who had to balance the apple on their head was always me.

"…I already told you that's way too dangerous."

"Come on, Allen. How many times do I have to say it? Back in my village I was the absolute best at shooting apples off heads while drunk! Just relax!"

…Of course she was. She was the only elf crazy enough to do something like that in the first place.

I hated that I could only say those words inside my head. I had no choice. I was a mere porter, and the people standing in front of me were some of the strongest fighters on the entire continent.

The gap in power between us was so vast that if I ever lost my temper, they could scatter my bones without even trying. All I could do was complain silently.

When I kept showing how much I hated the idea, Erinn snickered and tore into me.

"Scaredy-cat~♡ It's never gone wrong even once and you still freak out every single time. Don't you get tired of it~?"

It just hadn't gone wrong yet. That didn't mean it never would.

Whether they said that because they genuinely didn't understand, or because an arrow to the head wouldn't kill them, these people had zero sense of danger.

If I had a body like theirs I'd play along all day, but one bad hit and mine would be a perfect candidate for an untimely death.

"Aiii, Allen! Hurry up! I'm starting to run out of alcohol and my brain's about to melt, puhaha!!"

……Alcohol-crazed bitch.

I really, truly did not want to go, but once they'd come looking for me there was no option except to be dragged along. If I fought back they'd leave nothing but bones, so if I wanted to survive I had to play nice.

"…Fine. I'll go."

"Ooooh, that's a good answer, Allen!"

"Pfft, you were gonna come anyway and still tried to act all proud~♡"

…This fucking bitch.

The place Erinn and Ser-Aria dragged me to was a tavern in the village that had sprung up near the dungeon.

Think a village next to a dungeon is weird? It might look dangerous, but if you think about it the reasons are obvious.

Adventurers gather near dungeons, merchants who sell to adventurers gather after them, their families need places to live, houses get built, and before you know it you've got a village. This was one of those small settlements. Our hero party was here because traces of the Demon King's army had recently been spotted in the local dungeon.

Right. We were here to work. Tomorrow we had to enter the dungeon, and yet the reality of this party was that we were already drinking ourselves stupid.

And it got worse.

"Allen? What's this? You said you weren't coming and then you show up?"

"Hehe, maybe Allen actually wanted a drink all along."

"……Welcome."

The rest of the party was already there.

Every last one of our precious party members—the ones who were supposed to fight tomorrow—had gathered to get wasted.

The red-haired girl who reacted first was Letisia, the spirit mage who handled overall coordination for the party. At a glance she looked normal… but just thinking about her makes my head throb. You'll understand when you see her later.

The woman smiling gently was Freya, the saintess in charge of blessings and healing. She was a saintess of the church, yet sometimes I wondered if she wasn't actually a saintess of some mad god.

Just look at the outfit that bitch was wearing.

A proper saintess is supposed to be wrapped up so tightly that not a single inch of skin shows. This woman had personally cut the side seams of her skirt so it split open on both sides, leaving her bare legs completely exposed.

And that wasn't all. She'd sliced the shoulder lines of a robe that originally only showed the neck, turning it into an off-shoulder dress. The cut was so daring that part of her upper chest and the full valley between her breasts were on display.

Let me say it again: nobody ordered her to do this. She did it herself on purpose.

…If I've gotten this far, you can probably guess. The woman smiling like a perfect saintess was in reality an extreme exhibitionist.

Crazy pervert bitch.

She deliberately crossed her legs so the thigh and pale skin flashing through the side slit would stand out even more. She still insisted she was a virgin while walking around like that… I could believe a lot of things, but not that.

Last was the silver-haired tanned girl who greeted me in a voice quieter than an ant's. She was the party's thief. She didn't have a name, so everyone just called her Thief. Half dark-elf, orphaned, apparently.

Anyway… the fact that not a single person had skipped the drinking party was honestly amazing. Not even one of them was resting to prepare for tomorrow?

"Is it really okay for all of you not to sleep?"

"Hmm? We can just drink a little and then sleep. It's not like this is the first or second time we've done this."

From Letisia's words it seemed this was completely normal. I'd only transmigrated recently and this would be my first real fight against the Demon King's forces, so I hadn't known. I'd gotten the feeling they drank often, but I never imagined they'd do it the night before a battle.

……How the hell were all of them still alive?

"Come on, stop standing there like an idiot ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and sit in that empty seat, Allen! Right next to the thief!"

"Uh…"

My seat was beside the thief. I sat down planning to pretend to socialize for a bit and then slip away, but as I sat I accidentally bumped her arm.

"Ah…"

Fuck. I'm screwed. I hurriedly apologized to the thief.

"S-sorry!"

"……It's fine."

But it was already too late. The moment I'd bumped her arm there was no taking it back. Her eyes welled up, and soon little bead-like tears began to fall one after another.

"I-I, hic… someone like me shouldn't even be here… I'm sorry, someone like me is just in the way by being alive… hnnk, I should just die…"

"N-no! That's not it at all!!"

I'd already said it earlier. Every single member of this party had something wrong with their heads.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠thief of the hero's party was no exception. The quiet, demure-looking girl was actually someone with catastrophically low self-esteem. End-stage depression probably felt something like this.

Whatever happened, she decided it was all her fault… she was honestly the hardest type in the entire party to deal with.

"Puhaha, Allen! What are you doing making the thief cry again!"

"Uuun, Allen you trash~♡ You made a delicate little girl cry~! There's a trash who makes girls cry over here~♡"

"Hnnk, I'm sorry… hic, I'm sorry for being alive……"

One accidental bump of an arm and the whole place had turned into complete chaos. Letisia and Freya weren't even trying to stop it; they were just laughing like they found the whole mess entertaining.

…Fuck, please just stop her already.