And so quoth Naomi "What the hell, man?"

It seems her streak of bad luck had not yet been broken. Fitful and sweaty, Naomi struggled awake when it was not yet light outside. The dim, greyish light of pre-dawn came in waves through a small, arched window. Bravely, she tried to lever herself upright in bed. No time like the present, as her mother had been fond of saying. She hadn’t felt this awful since Freshers Week. Scratch that, this was way worse. Yesterday’s sense of being tenderised with a little hammer had worsened, and it had been joined by a splitting headache. On top of everything, it was cold. Like, freezing cold. She was wearing a decently thick nightgown, at least – it seemed a bit small, but well-maintained. The sleeves had these colourful bands on them that reminded Naomi of a blanket her grandparents had owned when she was young. The blanket had been navy, with woven stripes in yellows and oranges, and it had had that particular grandparents-house smell, a mixture of age, cologne and incense. When she sat up, the cold draft was even worse than before. On the other side of the room, she spotted a bronze circular mirror. Well, time to find out who she was stuck as.

Swinging her feet – which felt uncannily as if they had been carved out of stone – out from under the slightly damp (eww) sheets, Naomi wobbled out of bed. She caught a look of her feet, and they were, no joke, purple with cold. For the few minutes she’d been conscious in this body yesterday, it had felt quite warm. A desert climate, perhaps. From the way her stomach felt (bad), she could tell that whoever’s body she was stuck in hadn’t kept any food down recently. With each breath, her digestive system curled in on itself painfully. If it were an animal, it would be whimpering. Naomi felt very dizzy all of a sudden. Maybe her decision to stand had been over-hasty. Limping and leaning on the wall, she managed to get over to the side of the room with the mirror.

The reflection wasn’t as clear as in a glass mirror, and her vision was still flickering, but she could see the vague outlines of her face. Light hair, dark eyes. Well, that didn’t really narrow things down much. Assuming she was a princess in the Darian court, there were a few options. Although, Naomi was a little rusty on some of the side characters, admittedly, since the General was her all-time favourite. When she tried to tuck some of her hair behind her ear – it was going to take some getting used to, having long hair again – she caught sight of a small patch of ivory feathers on her forearm. Oh, no. No. Seriously? Naomi’s vision chose that moment to really clear up. In the dull surface of the bronze mirror, she saw features that were both familiar and quite new to her. Heart-shaped face, slightly hooked nose, thick eyelashes and long, tumbling hair the colour of mist in the early morning (but with a strange greenish tint to much of it), dark eyes like a hamster with a sad angle to the brows. Without a doubt, she had had the poor luck of transmigrating into this novel as one of the most influential yet useless characters. Stupid Owl Princess! Naomi couldn’t even remember if the novel had ever used her real name, whatever it was.

She cleared her throat and prepared to do the strange mental conversation thing. Or just talk into thin air. Hopefully she could manage to do it internally.

“System?”

GOOD MORNING.

“Whose idea was this?” You know what, she was just going to talk out loud unless someone else showed up in the room. It was easier.

There had to be some sort of mastermind. A transmigrated version of the author to punch. It didn’t matter that she was barely well enough to stand without leaning on a wall. Sick dogs start fights with other dogs in the waiting room for the vet all the time, and Naomi thought she had more fighting prowess than a pug at least.

SYSTEM WOULD LIKE TO URGE USER <NAOMI> TO AVOID VIOLENCE AS IT MAY RESULT IN FATAL LOSS OF P-POINTS.

If she hadn’t already felt like starting a fight, this would have been the last straw.

“User Naomi would like to remind System that she is supposed to fix the narrative! How am I supposed to do that when I’m … this!” Naomi threw her hands up in the air with force. It probably wasn’t fair to take this out on the System, but there wasn’t anyone else she could yell at without losing points.

“… Sorry, System. It’s not really your fault.”

SYSTEM IS NOT UPSET.

It sounded upset. Naomi didn’t know computer voices could do that. She felt a little bad, actually.

“Still, I shouldn’t have yelled. Let’s figure something out, okay?”

THANK YOU. WOULD USER <NAOMI> LIKE TO LOOK AT QUESTS FOR TODAY?

Naomi yawned, wobbling.

“I think I want breakfast and then maybe to walk around a little? What are the quests?”

OBJECTIVE OF CHAPTER ONE IS TO MAKE CONTACT WITH THE ORIGINAL PROTAGONIST AND TO ACHIEVE RECOGNITION DURING THE UPCOMING FESTIVAL.

Naomi was about to ask long, lore-related questions about the festival and also what year this was – she could remember from what little page time the Owl Princess had in the original novel that she was a few years older than the General, maybe more – but one of the blurry servants from earlier walked into the room right as she decided on which question to ask first. If she had to guess, she would say it was blur 1, but she hadn’t had a good look at the other one. She certainly wouldn’t bet any money on being right about that – not that she had any money to bet with at the moment.

“… Princess?”

Okay, Naomi, you just have to be normal. Smile a little.

“Good morning!”

USER <NAOMI> HAS EARNED 5 R-POINTS.

System, what? Naomi thought with all her might. I just said good morning!!

SYSTEM DOES NOT KNOW EITHER.

Naomi tried again, “Um, I’m a little hungry. Where do I go for breakfast?”

Still nothing.

System, I think I broke her! Help!!

Third time’s the charm. “Hello? Are you okay?”

This seemed to finally jolt the servant girl – Naomi should really learn her name – back into the real world.

“Totally fine, Princess! Um, just repeat – breakfast? I can go get something.”

Naomi did a little happy clap with her hands.

“Perfect! Thank you!”

The servant girl had a strange expression on her face, then turned around and left the room.

SYSTEM THINKS USER <NAOMI> MAY BE ACTING TOO “CHIPPER” FOR A SICK PERSON. YOU HAVE EARNED 5 ADDITIONAL R-POINTS.

Naomi had never been the best at reading social situations, but she thought she’d done pretty well. Besides, some trumped-up computer could hardly know more about being a normal person than her, someone who’d been practicing being normal for her whole life! Honestly, she would’ve loved to go with the girl and look at the kitchens, but she could still barely walk. The princess must have been really sick.

Maybe the R-Point counter is malfunctioning.

Both within Naomi’s head and outside it, there was a pregnant silence – very pregnant. A silence that was about to give birth right now, that’s how pregnant it was. The silence’s water broke.

SYSTEM IS IGNORING THAT REMARK AS IT IS RIDICULOUS.

System is bullying me!! Unfair!

SYSTEM IS INCAPABLE OF BIAS. USER <NAOMI> IS BEING WHAT HUMANS CALL “A WHINER” ABOUT THIS.

Mercy! Mercy!

That was a totally unfair assessment of her character! Plus, she’d literally died. If there was any situation where a little whinging was appropriate, it was this one!

SYSTEM WILL BE MERCIFUL. USER <NAOMI> CAN CHANGE THE SUBJECT.

Naomi wrestled with her inner lore geek. She could ask questions about the world, but right now her mind had landed firmly on breakfast. The world of Female General was based on ancient Persia, although she’d read online in an author interview that there were significant ancient Chinese elements thrown in there too, so she was hoping the food would be a bit like modern Lebanese. She liked Lebanese food. There’d been a Lebanese family restaurant down the road from her accommodation at university and saying goodbye to the workers when she graduated had felt like leaving behind family. That place had rescued her from a diet of mozzarella sticks and instant noodles, although there had been nights where she was about 50% falafel by bodyweight.

What do you think breakfast will be? It’s early, so it could be leftovers from last night.

SYSTEM HAS NO OPINIONS ON FOOD BUT HOPES THAT IT WILL GIVE USER ENOUGH ENERGY TO COMPLETE TODAY’S TASKS.

Honestly, it was like being on the phone with one of those automated receptionists. Absently, Naomi thumped on the left side of her head. Everything sounded a little funny, like there was water in her ear. All of a sudden, she realised her ears were different – rather than being the rather average ears she’d had before being isekai’d, they were now elf-like in shape and fluffy. And classic, 80s anime elf-shape, like that one girl. What was her name, Geedle? Beebit? They were really soft, actually, covered in downy feathers like a baby bird. Also, they were ticklish. Naomi held back a sneeze, noticing that her ears wiggled as she did that. This was fun – she’d never been one of those people who could wiggle their normal human ears around.

Normally, being isekai’d afforded you magical abilities or special privileges, but as long as there was falafel, her General and some ear wiggling in Naomi’s future here, she was pretty happy with her lot. Oh, and not dying early. Hopefully she’d be able to retire away into the countryside someplace and live a quiet life once she’d got the General where she needed to be. Naomi had always been good at settling for the simple things – it made life much easier to not yearn for things that are hard to get.

When the servant girl came back with the food – jeez, Naomi really should figure out her name – there seemed to be falafels. Yippee! Before the servant could tell her what the food was, Naomi interrupted.

“Excuse me, I seem to have forgotten your name.”

The girl looked at her like she’d just grown a second head. She nearly dropped the tray of food – Naomi quickly swooped forwards to help her with it. The light-headed feeling was worse, but it should pass once she ate something. It’s a shame this world doesn’t have mozzarella sticks … anyway, it was rude to keep thinking of her as “the servant” or “the girl”.

Naomi coughed quietly.

The girl nearly jumped out of her skin – thankfully just after Naomi put the tray on her dressing table.

“M- Melaenis, Princess.”

Ooh, a Greek name! Interesting. This empire hadn’t been conquered by the Hellenes (which was what the novel called the Greeks, in order to seem slightly less like historical fanfiction) anytime near the events of the novel, since the General was going to defeat their unprecedented comeback invasion in less than ten years, but the text had implied that they had been in the past. The names could be a residual cultural link – maybe there was still a Hellenic cultural or ethnic minority in some province or other. It was hard to map real history onto a game that was set in both the heyday of Pharaonic Egypt, the time of Alexander the Great and the Middle Ages – eras separated by centuries at the least – and that was before one got onto the blend of Persian, Greek and Chinese elements in the Darian court's practices and structures. Naomi was far, far too hungry to think any more about the subject, though.

“Melaenis, could you tell me what this food is? I’m still a little foggy from being ill, I think.”

Melaenis was still shaking, but she seemed a little less startled. Good. Allies were a good strategy to minmax this whole ‘not dying’ thing. Also, having a friend would be a buffer for her mental strength.

“Um, there’s stew. Meat stew. Lamb. And bread. Mint tea to drink. There wasn’t any fresh fruit, so I found dried. Also, sweet rice porridge. And the cook threw in these chickpea ball things.”

Bingo! Falafel. Maybe the cook was Egyptian – she’d gone on a deep-dive on the origins of falafel once, when frantically procrastinating an essay, and some people thought falafel might come from an early part of the time of the Pharaohs. Anyway, she was starving.

SYSTEM ADVISES USER TO NOT EAT TOO FAST. IT WOULD BE A SHAME TO DIE BY CHOKING ON BREAKFAST.

Yeah, yeah, whatever.

Honestly, the system really fussed over her for no good reason. She may have died in a freak sewing machine accident, but that didn’t mean she was clumsy enough to die by breakfast. She wasn’t an idiot!

Naomi then promptly and immediately burnt her tongue on the stew. Despite the system’s lack of a face, she could feel its smug expression.