Chapter 22

In the words of Truck-kun, nothing dissatisfies a customer more than dying. While this bit of wisdom seemed more relevant to his line of work than where I worked in a large travel management company, the principle made sense.

Getting shot in the face hurt, but there were some advantages to it. First, it was too sudden for the Isekai spell to give me flashbacks, rifling through my memories for clues on which dream world it should try next.

Truck-kun reassured me that this would give him more control over which dream I would enter next. I also suspected he wanted to shoot me in the face after the platypus gacha ball incident.

Second, it forced the transition to another Isekai, which was key to our plan. Truck-kun needed this world to dissolve so he could hack the Isekai spell into a special kind of malfunction. That was key to Nyarin’s plan.

The entire time the plan had been explained Truck-kun seemed too nervous. There was something he was hiding from me about the plan.

The deal was simple. Everyone would cooperate and everyone would get what they wanted.

First, I would get what I wanted. I would find a place where I could be happy, just like I had hoped when I drew the first eye on my daruma doll.

Truck-kun even promised to travel to the real world and make sure the other eye of the daruma was painted into signify I’d found a place where I could finally be happy.

I had no idea what he really was, but he reassured me that he could accomplish it. He did ask me one question though, “Why do you even care what happens back in the real world?” I assured him that it was a human thing and he groaned.

Next, Truck-kun would get what he wanted. He would get out, assuming that the plan all went according to… well according to plan.

Finally, Nyarin would be credited with the successful capture of a long-term customer. I had asked her if that would fulfill her quota for the quarter and she gave me a sad smile. “I’ll find a way, somehow.”

We didn’t look at each other directly during explanations. The memory of Café Isekai was now fresh in my mind. She probably thought I was silly for obsessing about such a short-lived imaginary world. She didn’t bring it up.

Now I’ll admit that getting shot in the face was one big downside to this plan. I really can’t recommend it, but it didn’t last long.

When I awoke I didn’t have any amnesia. I could remember everything.

I sat in sand. Around me there were rocks and carefully arranged trees. It was a garden, large enough that I couldn’t see any nearby buildings, even when I stood up.

Nyarin was supposed come find me. Truck-kun was busy, mucking about in the innards of the Isekai spell, preventing it from starting its usual trouble.

This place wasn’t an Isekai. Well, technically it was another reality, another world, but it wasn’t meant for lulling the customer to sleep. Truck-kun had described this as a sort of staging ground, a place meant for modifying and debugging the spell itself.

He had been excited about the details that he had to restrain himself from nerding out too much. Apparently, customers weren’t supposed to be allowed here. This place was both too dangerous and too powerful. This was the true center of my mind, or a simple representation of it.

The plan was to give everyone what they wanted, and the best way to do that was to cheat. I sat back down on the sand, listening to the sounds of the garden, feeling the crisp and fresh air on my skin, and pondering the beauty of everything around me. I hoped I was doing it right.

Once, when I was a child, my parents took me to a famous garden. I was nervous about properly enjoying it considering the trouble of travel and cost of admission. I had it in my head that I would somehow disappoint my parents if I didn't sufficiently enjoy the beauty around me.

I studied every tree in minute detail, determined to take in the garden perfectly. I noted the color of every flower, and annoyed my parents by how much time I spent counting and appreciating every flower petal.

I think I ruined my parent's garden experience when tracing the paths of tree branches overhead so carefully that I walked right off a small bridge and into a decorative lake.

I wasn’t the smartest kid then, and I was still rather dumb now. As I sat, trying to appreciate the garden I found myself instead itching to open my phone and read the latest posts from people that I only knew online.

I started humming, and wished that my headphones and my music collection.

This wasn’t going well. I tried appreciating a rock. But despite my best efforts it was just a rock and I really wanted to log in to get some better equipment for my level 80 mage. I focused on a small blue flower. It looked pretty enough, but I wasn’t sure it was trying very hard.

Was I doing this right? My part of the plan was to sit in the garden and appreciate the beauty of it. Nyarin would be along shortly and inform me how well I was doing. I thought I was doing rather well. It was the garden that wasn’t holding up its part of the bargain. Stupid blue flower.

“Hey, flower,” I said to the little blue plant, “I’m under a lot of pressure to enjoy your beauty here. Do you think you could kick it up a notch?”

I’m not sure if it heard me, but it did seem to try.

Maybe flowers were a bit advanced for me. It had been ages since I had been to a garden. When was the last time? I winced when I remembered the date with Sachiko. It had been one of our last dates before everything went wrong.

It isn’t very easy to appreciate beauty, especially when your life is on the line. I decided the blue flower was no good and went to find something beautiful enough that I could learn how to generate worship energy for a goddess to keep Truck-kun from making my head explode.