An Effort Not Wasted

A bright light pierced through the office window, followed by a bellowing thunder.

“Gah!” I jumped off my chair and spun toward the noise. “Wh-what the…”

My shoulders gradually relaxed when it dawned on me. “Oh, right, of course.” I let out a sigh and sat back down. “It’s just the fireworks.”

To think I’d forget that my town was having a summer festival. I must’ve been working too much.

I leaned back on my chair and briefly watched the spectacle before returning to my monitor. In it, a screen—half filled with code and half in pixels as colorful as the fireworks out there—lit up before me.

Again this year, I’d chosen work over leisure. And once again, I chose to work overtime like the corporate slave I was.

“What a shame,” I mumbled, yawning and stretching my arms. “I guess I should finish up and treat myself to something at least…”

But as I stared at the unfinished game, a strange feeling swept over me.

Even though Crownless Saga belonged to the company, I couldn’t help but feel a little attached after working on it for months. Why wouldn’t I? It was almost exactly my type of game, a classic RPG fantasy where players could decide the fate of the whole world by their actions.

Keyword: almost. The only thing I disagreed on was the story. It sucked.

Besides that, the game was pretty solid. At least, I thought so.

I’d always imagine what I’d do in the main character’s shoes instead, but alas, my role here was to make the game work, not write the story. My niche opinions could never compare to dozens of other developers responsible for the story direction.

I’d hoped that if I proved that I cared for the game by working overtime more often, the higher-ups would at least hear me out, but the results spoke for themselves. What a shame indeed.

“Oh well,” I murmured, reaching for the power button. “Time to go home. I guess I should buy something fancy to eat and—”

Before I could even finish uttering my plans, another blinding light flashed me, along with an ear-deafening explosion. It wasn’t from the night sky this time. Louder than the fireworks, brighter than the sparks... It was as if lightning had struck this very room.

Next thing I knew, I found myself sprawled on the floor, staring dumbfoundedly at my computer.

A dark blue cloud. A growing, electrical, twitching, glitchy abomination, with dark matter randomly circuiting around a pitch-black sphere floating at the center of it all. Some sort of… otherworldly, static orb thing had swallowed my computer, released a gas filled with electricity, and started absorbing other computers nearby like a mini black hole.

“Wh… wh-wha… huh? What the…”

My mind went numb, and my heart started racing like never before.

What the hell is that thing?! Am I supposed to scream first? Should I run instead? No, this is all a dream, surely. This can’t be happening. Right, I should pinch myself! Nothing about this is normal at all! Or is this some sort of prank?! How is that even possible?! What’s even going on anymore?!

A swarm of thoughts and questions as such clashed against the alarms ringing through my head to the point I couldn’t do anything but freeze up like a terrified rat.

I was just a normal game developer, working on a normal RPG at a normal office of a normal company. Everything in my life was normal and should’ve stayed normal, so why…

Just why…

“Why is this happeniiiing?!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, flailing around as the black hole effortlessly pulled me in. “Nooo! Wait! Waaaiit! Please! I didn’t get to enjoy the festival yet! I don’t want to diiieee—!”

And thus, those were my final words before it all faded to black.

⮽⮽⮽

A pained grunt escaped me as my eyes fluttered open. With my mind still foggy, I stared blankly at the bright blue sky, the clouds, and the passing birds.

“Huh… I’m… outside?” I blinked a few times and looked around. The trees surrounding me swayed their branches, and the grass beneath me tickled my hands as if they were wishing me a good morning.

…How the hell did I end up out here?

I scratched my head and closed my eyes.

Right, I was working overtime before planning to head home, but a glitchy black hole showed up out of nowhere and sucked me right in. If I could remember that so vividly, then it wasn’t a dream.

So, could that mean…?

I checked my pulse, pinched my cheeks, and sighed in relief.

Nope, I wasn’t dead. This place was not the afterlife.

“Where the hell am I then?” I mumbled, massaging my head. It was only when I tried to get up that I caught a glimpse of my clothes and widened my eyes. “What the?!”

My clothes… I couldn’t come up with the right words to describe it properly. They looked… absolutely incomprehensible.

My right side had my usual clothes I’d been wearing for work, but my left side… They were entirely something else: a set of robes and armor straight out of a cosplay but shredded in half and merged with my clothes.

“Wh-what the hell happened to my clothes?!” I grasped around my clothes, and the more I investigated, the more questions I had.

First off, my phone, keys, and wallet were gone, and second, there weren’t any signs of patchwork between the two heavily contrasting outfits. It seemed like my clothes really had been merged somehow.

I massaged my temple and paced around, trying to sort my thoughts, but as the wind brushed against my hair, another question made its way the moment my fringes fluttered over my eyes.

“Wait, why is my hair blue?! And it’s long?!”

I gripped my hair around, barely realizing that I woke up with an entirely different hairstyle, one with a long blue ponytail with some shades of brown. What an unusual color combo.

And yet, this ponytail… Now that I’d remembered it, the protagonist of Crownless Saga also had a similar hairstyle, but it was fully blue. It was probably a coincidence.

But that crazy black hole that teleported me to the middle of nowhere, these unusual clothes, and this oddly familiar hairstyle… It was almost as if…

“No, that can’t be real,” I mumbled, striding toward the trees. “There’s no way I’ve been…”

Before I got to say the magic word, I saw it first: a single, small, adorable blue slime sliding around a dirt path. When I stopped in my tracks, the little thing also stopped and turned in my direction. It squirmed around while I blinked at it.

Yep, this was the final hint.

There was no doubt about it anymore.

I… I had been…

“Isekai’d!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, hopping around and pumping my fists. “I’ve been isekai’d! Hell yeah! Wooohooo! Banzaaaii! I don’t know what happened to my appearance, but thank you, God! Whoever you are!”

Goodbye, endless corporate work! Goodbye, boring life! And hello to a new adventure! I couldn’t believe it! It was real! Isekai was real! It was actually real!

“Hahaha! Hello to you too, little buddy!” I said gleefully, pointing at the slime. “That’s right! I’m from another world! The name’s Kurimoto Haruma from Japan! Or maybe I should say Haruma Kurimoto. That’s how Western names work, right? Bet you think I’m crazy, haha! Ahaha… ha…”

My laughter gradually died out as the slime approached me. In its path, a white butterfly fluttered by, but the moment it got too close, the slime stretched out a part of itself and snatched it in the blink of an eye. Barely seconds later, the butterfly was dissolved until nothing was left.

“O-oh, wow, you can do that?” I took another step back and swallowed. “R-right, of course you can…”

I frantically checked the pockets around my half coat, half suit attire again, even though I’d already done so minutes ago. I just didn’t get the chance to register an important fact at that time, but now, I got that chance.

I was transported here empty-handed.

In other words, I had no weapon with me. No guide to explain things. No cute pet companions. No friends. Absolutely nothing.

Even though my dreams of getting isekai’d came true, it appeared I had overlooked something crucial, something that could crush my hopes in an instant.

I… forgot to check if I could even make it past day one in this new world.

I took a step back and awkwardly chuckled, locking eyes on the slime. “Uh, hey there. Haha, hold on a minute…”

Unfortunately, before I got the chance to run, the slime lunged at me faster than the blink of an eye.