Chapter 1: Where is Mizaki at?

In the scenery of a beautifully crafted world, where dragons and fairies lived, lay a young man sleeping soundly under a lush tree.

There was our protagonist for this story.

Look at how he slept, so deeply; heck, he was even drooling right then. How precious.

He must have been unaware of his transportation. I could have let him sleep a bit more under this tree; after all, it was such a beautiful day there in the land of Pandrago Oricle. I hated to disturb his peaceful sleeping face like this, but our story needed him to continue, so here went nothing.

"WAKE UP!!!"

"Hh—?!!!! What?!" Mizaki suddenly awoke from his slumber with a tired stupor. His eyes moved to the figure that stood before him; it was a bit blurry, so he had to wipe them to focus.

"Seriously, onii-chan! Mom and Dad sent you to gather firewood, and here you are napping under a tree. Geez~"

It was a little girl, no older than 5, talking to him as if he were family, which confused him greatly since even his foggy memories, untrustworthy as they were, could still remember that he had no sister, only brothers.

He scratched his head for a moment before responding, "Hey, kid, are you confusing me with someone else? I don't think I know you."

The little girl looked at him with a face that showed more disappointment than anything before letting out a loud sigh. "Haaahhh... onii-chan, did you hit your head while sleeping? Do you have amnesia? Because there's no way I'd ever mistake my lazy brother for someone else."

Still having mental fog from just waking up, Mizaki had been thinking all of this was normal. But then, his brain caught up to him, and he panicked as soon as he realized what was happening.

"AAAAAAAAHHH!!!! WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?!" He screamed like a little girl at the actual little girl who had "intruded" into his personal space.

"A-are you a b-burglar? L-look, I don't have anything valuable, alright! Why are you robbing me?" He crouched and cowered against the tree and held out his hand as if trying to tell the girl in front of him that he knew kung fu.

"I-I k-know kung-f-fu!" He waved his hand to demonstrate his power level.

The girl only sighed more deeply. "Did all that sleeping finally turn your brain to mush, onii-chan?"

"Look here, you..." Mizaki paused mid-sentence. Wait a minute, Mizaki thought as he clutched his hand on the ground below. This wasn't the texture of a bed. This weird feeling in his hand must be...GRASS. Why was he outside with his enemy, grass?

Mizaki took a closer look around at the things surrounding him; the "intruder" girl was wearing an outfit that seemed so familiar yet felt so strange to him. What could they be? He wondered, but then he realized that they were from the game Pandrago Oricle, the game he hated with the fury of a billion suns.

That couldn't be it, he thought, taking in the scenery around him now that he was fully awake. The girl looked at him with concern, clearly thinking her brother had gone mentally insane.

Mizaki leaped to his feet and started to run uphill.

"Wait! Onii-chan, where are you going?!" The little girl ran after him, trying to catch up with him.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" He screamed at the top of his lungs once he took in all the beautiful scenery, crumbling down as his whole world just came crashing down on him.

It took a couple of minutes for him to calm down.

With one more look from the high ground, he let out the biggest sigh of his life.

"Yup... this is Pandrago Oricle. How could I mistake that massive crooked tree in the distance or that entire area surrounded by death and decay, with absolutely no border between it and the human world?"

It was something he had heavily criticized the game for on the forum. That imaginary border ran on nothing but faith that the demons wouldn't just waltz over and begin to slaughter everyone.

"Lore, yeah right!" He painfully smirked one last time before finally accepting that he had been transported to the world of Pandrago Oricle, like those isekai he liked to read.

Why couldn't it have been a better world?  he thought. He also seemed to challenge my authority, it seemed.

"Coward!! Transported me while I was sleeping. If you're going to isekai me, why don't you do it to my face!"

Ohhh, we had a feisty one. I liked feistiness.

"Hhhhnnnngh… hmmmmm... I guess I am stuck in this place. Hehehe..." He surrendered and descended down the hill with tears in his eyes.

The girl finally caught up to him. "Geez~ What's going on with you today, onii-chan?"

But she quickly became concerned as she saw him crying so pathetically. "Seriously, what's wrong with you today, onii-chan?" She tried to jump up to pat his head. "There, there, Satsuki is here, so you don't need to cry." The gesture made him smile and calmed him down a bit.

Despite still being confused about why her brother had just gone off the wall, she was still trying to comfort him.

"Come on, Kobu-nii," she said softly, her voice gentle, using the nickname she'd called him since childhood. "Let's go home. You'll feel better after some rest."

Satsuki took his hand and guided him toward what she called home.

They walked for a while before Mizaki took a closer look at his 'sister.' 

Didn't she say her name was Satsuki? That sounded familiar, Mizaki thought before realizing that she was one of the heroines in the story.

Satsuki Tama, the designated tsundere of the story, was tall, beautiful, and elegant, exuding an air of cool beauty. But that was teenage Satsuki; this was child Satsuki, who was petite, energetic, and cheerful.

It was something he had always hated the game for: shallow characterization. Characters inconsistently changed their entire personality with nothing more than a few dialogues to justify it, not even a flashback. Some characters had flashbacks; some didn't. Satsuki was the latter. Her entire personality change was only mentioned by her in dialogue.

If that was the case, and he was her brother, then he must be Kobu Tama, the mob character, the guy who would die as a coward while running away when the demons finally invaded, leaving his sister to face them alone. 

The brother Satsuki would grow to despise, though her hatred was only expressed through dialogue, not through any meaningful action.

Mizaki realized that he must be at the prologue; that must mean the MC was out there somewhere, having fun, and Mizaki couldn't accept that. He couldn't accept that the MC was probably having the time of his life with his cute childhood tomboy (Mizaki's top character in the game) while he was designed to die, to be hated.

No. I won't let it happen, Mizaki thought.

"Kobu-nii?" Satsuki's voice was soft and concerned. "You're squeezing my hand really tight."

"Sorry," he murmured, loosening his grip but not letting go.

With spite in his heart, he swore to change the whole story; he swore to live and not die as the designated mob character he was supposed to be. He would never give his sister a reason to hate him like in the original timeline. Not because of some grandeur of becoming a hero, but because he finally had his chance to correct the mistakes of the game.

"Satsuki!"

"Mm?" She looked up at him.

"I'm going to protect you."

"W-where did that come from, Onii-chan?" She was flustered at her older brother's declaration.

"You're being so weird today." She kept walking, though her cheeks were clearly bright red.

Mizaki promised himself to protect his little sister, to make this world a better place for her. And as a bonus, he would prove to MasterRonshi once and for all that his story was simply garbage and that his headcanon was infinitely better.