08 - ... the Hardest Part

… Not!

Pfft! Yeah, right—as if I'm gonna just let them reincarnate me that easily!

The goddess today at the counter tries to sell me on yet another generic Diet Fantasy (by the way, I've got a trademark pending for this term, so you'd better not think of stealing it) world.

As I 'listen' to her pitch, I yawn exaggeratedly, and check the time on my bare wrist.

"Booo-ooooring," I say, when she's done. I make an obnoxious buzzer sound, the kind you hear on game shows, as I yell, "—REJECTED! … Too bad. Aw, schucks. Guess I'll just have to try my luck again tomorrow."

The goddess sighs. She's actually pretty familiar with my whole schtick by now, having called my number several times in the past few weeks.

"Come on, Odd-kun. You come here to the Waiting Room every day, and turn down every single world we present to you."

A protagonist-in-waiting yells at me from his seat, coming to the goddess's defense. (… Simp.)

"Yeah! She's right! You're just holding things up for the rest of us, who actually like isekai! All you do is waste L.I.M.B.O. time and resources! You're just causing trouble for the beautiful, stunning, brave, gorgeous, funny, intelligent goddesses of Point Parallax!"

I stroke my chin triumphantly, chuckling, "Heh heh heh. It's almost as though that's my entire … 'keikaku'." (**See TL note below.)

Unfortunately, several other waiting room protagonists also share Mr Simp's frustrations, and it's not long before the growing crowd starts boo'ing me.

Yeah, so—I don't know if I've mentioned this yet, but I've sorta attracted a wee bit of negative attention here at L.I.M.B.O. …

Turns out people really don't like it when you barge into their beloved hobby and start insulting everyone's tastes, calling it garbage.

And they especially don't like it when you call their favorite genre boring—no matter how stale, trite, formulaic, unimaginative, risk-averse, or carbon-copied their works have become across the entire industry.

And hoo-boy, do they absolutely hate it when you point out that the harshest critics of stochastically neural auto-slop will turn around and quite literally clap like seals for the ten-trillionth just-as-anodyne permutation of the same setup, plot progression, character beats, and overused jokes, just re-arranged slightly, with the dogmatic over-adherence to the hero's journey and saving household pets as last season's fad-of-the-week whose title everybody's already forgotten as soon as it finished airing.

And you'd better believe they want nothing more than to collectively dropkick me straight into the nearest forestry mulcher when I point out how, if this is the current state of fiction, then Ms Jessica Limbo herself might as well send me back to Earth, that I'd rather go back to staring at spreadsheets and eating reheated bentos in my one-room apartment every night while scrolling through carousels on one streaming app to the next, finding nothing I actually want to watch on the multitude of subscription services I somehow still pay for, for some fucking reason, given that I never actually end up watching anything these days, I just scroll through titles endlessly and then go to sleep unfulfilled and wake up and do the whole goddamn thing over again.

"That doesn't even seem like you have a problem with isekai!" cries one member in the growing mob. "That sounds to me like severe anhedonia. You don't need originality in modern entertainment, you need professional mental help."

But unfortunately for that dude, I've enacted a ban on listening to reasonable and rational arguments from strangers, so instead I choose to continue picking fights with the crowd, who have started sharpening their torches, and lighting their pitchforks.

As a result, aspersions continue to fly at me from all directions.

"Odd-kun, you complain all day about half-assed cookie-cutter fantasy worlds, but didn't you basically slap a bunch of floating platforms together with crystals and then call it a day???"

To which I knit my brow, baffled for a moment, before answering, "What?! … No, dude—that wasn't me." And then, after adopting the smuggest possible look I can muster, I add: "… Ehhhh!? Wait a sec, don't tell me you're one of those media-illiterate people who conflates the character with the creator!? Masaka … Kimoi …"

They have no idea what I'm even talking about at this point (… honestly, neither do I, holy shit), so another mob member butts in and says, "Okay, fine, smart-ass—prove you're not just a contrarian hater and give us some example of fantasy anime settings that do meet your oh-so-lofty standards."

Aw, shit. … I always get embarrassed when I have to talk about the stuff I like. (Unless, of course, we're talking about the masterpiece that is T**-kyu. Or its lesser-known spinoff, Takam*ya Nasun* Desu!. Or its other, even lesser-known spinoff, Usak*me.)

Rubbing the back of my head, self-consciously, my face red, I say, "Well … If we're talking about fantasy settings … there's, um … Hous*ki no K*ni was good. M*de in Ab*ss. They're both fantasy. But the difference is, you can feel the authorial intent behind them that's missing from … let's face it, any isekai setting. Which all just re-use the same bargain-bin My-First-MMO template."

The mob responds, "You're asking for a lot. Not everything can be HnK or MiA. Those are seriously stand-out works. Modern content-focused consumers demand more content be constantly churned out. There's no time to come up with proper worlds. It just has to be good enough to ship and print. It's much more efficient to just use a shared generic medieval template."

And I say, "Well, then we might as well just be fucking reading M*d L*bs at this point! What self-expression is there in churning out story after story for the sole sake of commodifying it!? Do you even have anything to say at that point?! Are you, as an author, really content in having the most ardent defense of your story be, 'Hey, give it a chance, it's really not that bad for an isekai'!? … I mean, listen to yourselves. 'Efficient'. 'Efficient'!? Hey, you know what? Maybe there are some words that should never be used in the context of proper storycrafting. Maybe some words should stay within the realm of business productivity, or mechanical engineering, or sorting algorithm runtime complexities."

"… It's just escapist stuff to pass the time, dude. Stop taking it so seriously."

"So that's all? Is that all we want from fiction? To pass the time? For background noise? To let it play while you grind levels in whatever game you have open on a second monitor? … I'm not saying it's gotta be Cr*me and Pun*shment or Ulyss*s—"

"(You don't need asterisks for those. They're public domain works.)"

"—level of quality, but can we not aim for anything more than remixing the same settings and plot beats?"

"The People (TM) want what They want," somebody says.

And then I counter, totally reasonably, and not at all derangedly: "WELL THEN FU-UUUCK THE PEOPLE!!!!"

The mob is silent. Glaring at me.

I'm basically left talking to myself at this point.

"… I just want something real," I say, in a low whisper. "Something … honest. I dunno. I just—I just want stories to stop seeming like they were written by the equivalent of an SEO content mill. … That's all."

The goddesses behind the counter have seen enough. For the nth time this month, I'm kicked out of the Isekai Waiting Room.

Today, I choose to leave willingly, without any fuss.

As I pass through the doors, I hear among the mob's grumbling:

"Fuck that guy."

"He's the worst."

"I'm so sick of Odd-kun."

"What a loser."

"He pulls this shit every fucking day."

"Smug, condescending prick."

"I bet he didn't even finish Ulyss*s. … What a pseud."

"Dude, like I said … Public domain. You don't need to censor it."

(**TL note: I never actually finished De*th N*te.)

*

After the stressful morning I just had, I'm quite looking forward to lunch.

I make my way to the bathroom, with my cafeteria tray in hand.

Ah, it's a good meal today. My favorite. Katsu curry rice. A side of freshly shredded cabbage, drizzled with mayo.

And not the Western kind of mayo, but the tangy, vinegary Eastern variety. (Condiment: Frowning face. / Condiment, Japan: Eyes wide, mouth agape, arms flailing.)

I stop at the bathroom door. I put my ear to it, to make sure nobody else is in there.

Then I enter.

All the stalls are empty. Fantastic.

I enter the one farthest away, lock myself in, and sit down on the toilet, and set the meal tray on my lap.

Man, eating in the toilet stalls. … It really is like I'm back in high school all over again.

Hey, don't give me that look. It can't be helped, okay?

You see, my constant, highly-opinionated shenanigans in the Isekai Waiting Room have left me sort of a, shall we say … social pariah.

Long story short, I can't eat in the cafeteria anymore.

"Itadakimasu," I whisper to myself, splitting the wooden disposable chopsticks in half.

I'm about halfway through my meal, when I hear voices outside.

"Somebody said they saw him come in here."

"With his lunch!?"

"No way, is he actually eating in there?!"

"I didn't think anyone actually did that, except in anime."

"Yeah, he does it all the time. Come on. This'll be great."

I freeze up, and hope they don't enter the bathroom.

… But of course, they do.

I lift my legs up off the floor, so they can't see my feet.

"Heeeey, Odd-kun, buddy—you in here?" one of them calls out.

Another giggles, voice low: "… I can smell the curry."

They open each stall door, one by one.

When they get to mine, they stop.

Then I hear, in a fake, insincere tone: "Well, guys … I guess Odd-kun's not here, after all!"

I hear a chorus of sarcastic Awww's.

"I know. Too bad, right? Guess we'll just have to leave, then."

A long silence.

… Ugh. Whatever. Might as well just get this over with.

I look up.

And there they are, grinning down at me from above, leaning over the side of the stall next to me.

One of them is holding a bucket of water over his head.

"It's like M*ke Tys*n says," the guy starts, "… 'Social media made y'all way to [sic] comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it.' … So get fucked, Odd-kun. You isekai-hating piece of shit."

(… Yes, in case you wondering, he did the lisp and everything. That quote isn't even applicable to me, anyway. I don't even fucking have social media.)

I close my eyes.

Cold water spills all over me.

I'm drenched from head to toe, like usual.

… Goodbye, katsu curry. You were too pure for this world.

I'm sorry I couldn't protect you.