Neil figured out pretty quickly that there's no such thing as a true hero.

He missed the days when making a fool out of himself was the worst he could do. Now though…

Your chances of getting eaten by a dragon aren't high, he thought, glancing up at the sky. But never zero.

A distant roar shook the trees, and Neil did his best to make himself look less appetizing.

Every century, monsters surge across the kingdom of Enkhyria, and only the heroes can stem the rising tide of darkness.

Unfortunately for the monsters, the Pentarchy outsourced and industrialized the process of hero-making millennia ago.

Across the land, hundreds of heroes—summoned in bands of five—are trained, armed, and sent to fight in the Pentarchy's war. The gods themselves have blessed their champions with power, though it is up to each of them to discover what these blessings do.

Until someone makes a mistake.

A band of six is summoned, and one of the heroes… isn't one.

Neil. The mistake—not that he knows it yet. The sixth hero in his band. The gods haven't granted him power; best he can tell, they don't even know he exists. He has to get strong enough to survive this world the hard way, before his keepers figure out who he isn't and they scrap him for parts.

This story is an unironic exploration of the power of friendship and humor in an increasingly chaotic fantasy world. It's based on the Unchosen-One trope, where the main character is a 'normal' human summoned with a group of heroes. He doesn't figure it out right away, but when the others start punching through walls and summoning swords of holy light, and he's still regular-old-Neil, something must be up.

…Luckily, he doesn't turn out totally helpless…