1 - The Shadow Of The Isekai

I was fourteen when I decided it.

“I want to write an Isekai!”

Back then, it was all possibility.
Magic systems. Chosen ones.
Girls with unrealistic hair colors and tragic backstories.

I wanted to write something beautiful.
Something brave.
Another world, full of adventure, heartbreak, and heroism.
Something where a loser like me could change everything just by falling into a magic circle behind a vending machine.

I had notebooks. I scrawled my masterpiece within them.

“Sword King of the Lost Moonlight, Vol. 1 (Rough Draft #6).”

I remember the first Sword King like it was yesterday.
Three swords. One for blood. One for love. And one just because it was sick.
Like Z**o from O** P****.

We all grow up, though. That’s life.

Now I’m about to start college.
I’ve edited over 900,000 words.
Lost sleep. Lost faith.

Everyone else was doing it too—better, worse, faster.
Didn’t matter.

We barely read each other’s work.
Let alone built fanbases.

But that’s okay.
I can’t help but smile.
Despite it all, I had fun.
I made some friends—even if I never met them.

And recently…
For the first time in a while…
I felt inspired again.

I started a new web novel.
No more portals. No more cheat powers.
No more Isekai dreams.

My journey as a writer?
It’s just beginning.

So I closed my laptop, and took a long overdue stretch. 

Only...

There’s just one problem.

I gave up on my Isekai dreams.

But the genre’s still coming for me.

For the last year or so...

I’ve been dodging portals.
Magical summons.
Sacred prophecies.

Then there's the mysterious trucks that try to run me over.
I don’t even think anyone’s driving them anymore.

It was only a matter of time before I messed up.
And mess up I did.

Ripped through a portal in space, time, and genre.

Though, like all good Isekai—
Well… bad ones too.

Like all Isekai, I was given a chance to be great.
Overpowered, even.

That’s why I accepted the cheat skill.

I found myself at the nexus between all worlds.
Her words, not mine.

The Goddess appeared before me—
Twenty feet tall.
Face like an angel.
Body like the idea of seduction.
Honkers like a chapter header.

She wore clothing that was more suggestion than substance,
Defying gravity, logic, and possibly narrative cohesion just to keep “all of her” contained.

I was equal parts aghast… and kind of impressed.
A goddess? Really?
I mean, come on.

She told me I could have one of the Great Powers.
Powers she’d kept sealed for chosen heroes like myself.

World Flame.
Perfect Memory.
Instant Death.
Time Stop.
(Gonna stay far, far away from that one.)

So I made the obvious choice:

[Return] — The ability to, under any and all circumstances, go back to my room.

Like, my real room, on Earth, in Japan.

Instantly. Reflexively.
No cooldown. No warning. No cost.

Let me reiterate:
Any. Time. I. Want.

No universe, god, story, legend, prophecy, or sub-genre can stop me from going home.

If Truck-Kun kills me (he has), I can Return three seconds earlier—
Or maybe just end up in a version of reality where it didn’t happen.

I don’t know which.
I never saw the Goddess again.

Thank god.

It’s a pretty awesome power, honestly.

Too bad it doesn’t work in my own world.

Public transportation is the real villain.

And if getting summoned, falling into a portal, or getting hit by a truck wasn’t enough—

There’s also the reverse-Isekai.

Heroes and heroines from other worlds have been showing up in mine.

Each elven princess more gorgeous than the last.
Hair like moonlight. Eyes like supernovae.
Zero sense of volume control.

They don’t stop talking.
Never. Stop. Talking.

I dropped one off at the police station last week.
I think she was still explaining her ancestral bloodline as I got on the train.

She waved.
I think she was still explaining something to me.

Still…
Despite it all…

I’m still standing.

Driven by caffeine and momentum—like the boy in his last year of high school that I am—I paced out the opening chapter like a literary god.

800 words down.
1,700 to go.
2,500 was the goal.

Ordinary.
Respectable.
Herculean, really.

I’ve got coffee, a broken keyboard, and a dream no truck can hit.

Even living in the shadow of the Isekai—
I will write an awesome web novel.

A knock came like a curse.
Three soft raps. Precise. Familiar.

My heart dropped.

I knew that knock.
Only she knocks like that.

Childhood friend energy.
The strongest force in any high school setting.

“Shuu?”

I gulped.

It’s her.
Normal. Brown eyes. Brown hair.
Not a single streak of color-coded destiny.

She lives two doors down.
I’ve known her since I could hold a pencil.
Her mom makes me coffee and pastries on Mondays.

Aiko.

I love her.
And I love her mother.

But—why now?
But also—why not now?

Shut up, me. Focus. Jeez.

So like I was saying—

Nothing will stop me.

...
Except maybe that.