This World Isn’t What I Expected!

When I opened my eyes, I was in a new place.

I think it’s… a forest? My senses were coming back slowly, so I couldn’t really tell yet, but there were definitely tall trunks surrounding me that I assumed must be trees. It was much less bright than that place I was before, where I met the angel who sent me here. The sun filtered in through the leaves and left dappled patterns of light and shadow on the ground below.

Since I couldn’t see my environment very well yet, I decided to try to gauge my own physical state. I felt tingly all over, a side effect of my sense of touch gradually returning.

I held out my arms in front of me and looked at them. My eyesight had been restored enough for me to see objects that were very close to me, like my own body.

My arms didn’t appear to be injured, but they also didn’t look like mine. They were slightly longer than the limbs I was used to seeing, and they had more hair on them. Was I a Westerner now or something?

My fingernails were elongated, and came to rough, clawlike points. Gross. I would have to find some nail clippers as soon as possible.

I also felt… younger? The sensation of age is a hard thing to define, but I could feel in my bones that this new body I had been granted was more youthful than my old one. And when I say in my bones, I mean that literally. They didn’t creak and pop when I stretched like they had before. Beneath my flesh was the skeleton of a young man.

Another indicator was the speed at which my energy was returning to me. I had never been reincarnated before, but I could say without a doubt that the twenty-eight year old me would have been much groggier and less coherent after waking up in a strange forest than I was now. My rate of recovery reminded me of the relative ease at which I got up after being knocked down in fights during my teenage years.

Was that it? Was I a teenager again? As far as I could assess, it seemed likely.

Something like relief pushed to the forefront of my emotions.

I was barely eighteen when I was sent to prison. The ten years I spent there felt like an eternity, but also like no time was passing at all. Every day was exactly the same. Nothing changed, and so neither did I. My mental state was probably still more like an older teen anyway.

Now I had a body that fit my brain again, for the first time in almost a decade. And I had my youth back? I wanted to whoop for joy!

So, what had I learned? I had definitely been reincarnated in a new form, and I was younger than I was at the time of my death in my past life, but not reborn-as-a-baby young, so I must have been placed here in this state rather than starting from scratch at year zero.

I also still had my memories of the past. To be honest, I could have done without them. But this would give me a head start on trying to live better, so I couldn’t complain much.

By now my sight and other sensations were fully back. I was sitting with my back against a tall, thin trunk in a forest of trees similar to the one I was resting under. They didn’t look like any variety of tree I’d seen before, but I was far from being a botany expert, so it was very possible I had seen them many times and just didn’t remember.

I pushed myself up to a standing position. My eye level was a bit higher than I was used to, which caused me to stumble for a split second before gaining my balance.

There were no clear paths around me, or any indication of where I should go from here. Just foliage above and plant growth underfoot, and a chorus of animal sounds coming from all sides.

It was a different kind of noise than you heard in the big city. It made me feel kind of peaceful. Much more so than the unnatural quiet of a highly regulated prison complex.

…

So, what now? I could pick a direction and start walking I supposed, but I had no idea how big this forest was. I didn’t want to get lost and die of dehydration only a few days after getting my big break.

The problem was, I was pretty much lost already.

As I pondered my predicament, I heard rustling coming from a nearby bush. My guard went up as I turned to see…

…a rabbit.

Before you mock me for going into fight or flight mode over a tiny bunny, let me point out that this was the biggest rabbit I had ever seen. It was the size of a fully grown golden retriever, and it had, just, the fluffiest coat of brown fur, speckled with spots of white all over its back.

The rabbit twitched its nose cutely.

Okay, so it was waaay too adorable to warrant the level of defensiveness I put up. It even had a pair of adorable antlers protruding from its head, just behind its ears.

Which… isn’t a trait rabbits usually have.

Now hold on. I had heard of a jackalope before, but I was entirely positive that they were made up. Not real. Fictional. And yet here one sat, right in front of me, staring at me intently like it assumed I was a second away from pouncing on it. What gives?

A thought came to my mind. What if, when the angel Tenshi sent me to have my second go at life, she didn’t put me back in the world I had come from? That was a world where jackalopes didn’t exist, but I was clearly in a place where they did. Was it possible that other fantastical things might exist here as well? Did I dare hope?

I didn’t get long to think about it. The jackalope apparently decided that my stance looked threatening, but not threatening enough to back down and run. So instead…

It charged straight at me.

Before I had time to react, I was thrown into the air by its surprisingly strong antlers. I landed directly on my shoulder. A sharp pain shot through my arm.

I groaned and looked up. The jackalope was bounding toward me, head bent down and antler prongs aimed straight at my heart.

It wasn’t unnecessary to be wary at all! This thing was ruthless!

I scrambled to my feet, only to be knocked over again by the force of the jackalope’s charge. Fortunately I was fast enough to avoid being skewered, but one of its antlers left a nasty gash in my right side.

Why the hell were they so sharp?! Weren’t rabbits supposed to be herbivores?

No one was around to witness my deadly duel with the world’s fluffiest bunny. I had only one hope of salvation. I ran.

No longer did I have the luxury to worry about which direction I was going. Away from the vicious jackalope was my only destination.

I dodged and weaved between the trees, hoping to slow down its pursuit through evasion tactics. For the most part, it worked. The jackalope had a harder time keeping up with me than it would have if it were charging headlong toward me like before, and my new body showed no signs of tiring even after running at top speed for several minutes straight. Just how spry was I all of a sudden?

I know all these comparisons to my previous form make it sound like I was a fifty year old man in my past life rather than a still relatively young twenty-eight year old one, but my newfound speed and stamina really were that impressive. I probably had a future as an athlete of some kind.

Even so, I still wasn’t swift enough to stay ahead of a jackalope forever. It was slowly gaining on me. I had to do something to stop it before it was too late.

Just then I noticed that the trees were starting to grow sparser, and more and more light was visible through the leaf canopy overhead. That might not have meant anything, but it also could mean that I was getting near the edge of the forest. If I could just push ahead a little more…

I gave it my all in a full sprint. For just a second the distance between me and the jackalope increased. But as the trees grew farther and farther apart, it became easier for the giant antlered rabbit to leap toward me without hindrance.

The edge of the treeline was just ahead. I could see it now. And beyond that, over a grassy hill, smoke rose on the horizon. Smoke meant people, perhaps even civilization. I was so close!

But not quite close enough. The jackalope landed on me, crashing into my bad shoulder and tearing up the clothes I was wearing. Blood ran down my chest. It had dealt me a severe blow. Perhaps even a fatal one.

Satisfied, the massive rabbit turned and hopped away.

It wasn’t even going to make sure I was dead? Come back here and finish the job, coward!

Once again I struggled to regain my footing. For all the strength and energy I had, losing this much blood still made me feel woozy. I stumbled toward the tree line, my mind a jumble of panicked thoughts and feelings, like the dashboard of a car with all the warning lights turned on.

If I could just make it out of the forest, maybe… Maybe someone would…

I took a step, and I realized that I had made it. I was safe!

Relatively, that is. And I wasn’t saved. My head was pounding and reeling, and my sight was growing fuzzy again. Was this the end? I hadn’t even lasted an hour. So much for second chances.

Suddenly, someone appeared over the top of the hill. It was a young woman, and though she was still a certain distance away from me, she seemed like a very pretty one. Her long pink hair was braided behind her back, and she was wearing an apron over an old-fashioned Western style dress, almost like a simplified version of a French maid uniform.

I couldn’t walk anymore. I fell to my knees at the same time the young woman spotted me. I couldn’t make out her expression, but she started running toward me and shouting something concernedly.

“A-are you alright, sir? Sir?!”

As I collapsed onto my side, she got close enough for me to make out her face a bit better. She looked young, not quite an adult yet. Maybe close to my current age. Her eyes, filled with worry, shone a bright azure hue. Her features had an otherworldly, fairy-like beauty to them. Most notably, her ears stuck out to the side and each tapered to a sharp point.

She was an elf.

So this really is a world of magic!

That was the final thought that crossed my mind before I blacked out for the second time since I died, and the first since my reincarnation.

***

I had to stop letting myself get jumped like that.

As I came to (how many times is that now, three?) the first thing I felt was pain. Dull, but throbbing and ever present, especially in my side and chest. The same place where that budget Batman had stabbed me. What stupid irony.

The amount of pain I still felt suggested that I hadn’t been out for very long—no more than a couple days. That was probably a good thing. Although I wouldn’t have minded sleeping through a bit more of this hurt. Ouch!

I tried to shift around in the bed I was lying in, but that turned out to be a very bad idea. A sharp burning shot into my wounds, making them feel fresh. Looking at myself, I saw that my surprisingly muscular torso was fully wrapped up in white bandages, stained dark with dried blood. I was clearly in no condition to be moving around.

Speaking of… I was in a bed. In a room. A moderately sized room, but it was still larger than the entire apartment I had been renting at the end of my previous life. It had a cozy countryside vibe to it, with walls made from rows of rough cut wooden boards and interior lighting in the form of what looked like oil lamps rather than electric lights. It was the kind of place you’d be more likely to see in a medieval fantasy story than modern life.

The door to the room opened, and in walked the elf girl I saw before I passed out, carrying a tray stacked with a round loaf of bread and something that looked like it was probably cheese. She nearly dropped it when she saw me half-sitting up in bed, staring at her like she was a goddess descending from the heavens to grace my presence.

To be fair, I had never seen a real elf before, much less one this beautiful.

“Oh, you’re awake! That’s wonderful! Would you mind telling me your name, sir?”

She set the tray down on a small table next to me and stood looking down at my face, her expression a mixture of pity and relief. Up close, her eyes sparkled like the sun reflecting off the surface of a sapphire sea.

“I’m… I’m Seiji.”

I decided to stick with just my given name for now. It most likely sounded foreign to her, so lengthening it any more than was necessary would just be confusing.

“Hm. You can talk. That’s a good sign.”

The elf girl nodded contentedly to herself.

“You’ve been unconscious for nearly a full day, so I’m sure you’re hungry. I brought you some food, free of charge! Hopefully it helps.”

“Thanks,” I croaked. I was capable of talking, sure, but my throat was so dry that it hurt to speak.

“If it’s not too much trouble, could you get me some water too?”

“Oh, of course! I can’t believe I forgot! Hold on, I’ll be right back with your water, um, Saygee, was it?”

Close enough. I nodded.

The elf girl stepped out of the room, then rushed back a minute later holding a wooden tankard filled with water. She handed it to me, and I drained the whole thing in a few gulps. Phew, that felt good.

The girl remained standing next to me, hands folded in a servile manner. Was she waiting for me to do something? I didn’t know what the protocol was when thanking a pretty elf maiden for nursing you back to health.

Wait, when I put it like that, wasn’t this a pretty unbelievable situation? It really felt like I was in some kind of fantasy book or game. This had to be scripted, right?

How did I even understand what my savior was saying, anyway? She wasn’t speaking Japanese, and I wasn’t hearing her words in my native tongue, yet I could easily intuit their meaning. Was that one of the perks of my reincarnation?

I had a million questions, so I decided to start with just one or two.

“Um, miss? Where exactly am I?”

I asked my question in the same language she was speaking. Yup, this was definitely some kind of magical language acquisition.

“You are in Tomkin’s Tavern and Inn, just outside the city of Debustadt,” she responded cheerily. She spoke with a customer service employee’s practiced care. She wasn’t trying to sell me something, but she wasn’t not trying to, either.

“And… you work here?” I guessed. Not that it took much intuition. She was clearly a maid.

“That’s right! I’m a maid here at the tavern. My name is Blanche LaRue, by the way, but feel free to call me Blanche. Master Tomkin was kind enough to put you up here in a vacant room when I told him about your condition. Unfortunately we didn’t have the spare coin to get you any healing magic, so you will have to wait to recover naturally. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

She bowed deeply to me as she said this, hands still folded in front of her.

“N-no, please don’t worry about it! If anything, I should apologize for inconveniencing you.”

Wait, back up a minute. Did she say healing magic? Like actual spells and stuff? Those were real here too?

“I must insist that you accept my penitence. As an elf originally from the Holy Empire, I should have learned at least the basics of white magic by now. I was never a very good student.”

So magic in this world was something anyone could learn. Or maybe just elves. I would have loved to ask more, but from the sound of it, revealing that I knew absolutely nothing about magic might make me stick out more than I would like. Miss Blanche was talking about it like it was common knowledge to even someone with the standing of a tavern maid.

“Alright then. I accept your apology.”

I got the feeling she was going to keep bowing until I said those words, and making a girl act that way toward me was seriously embarrassing.

“Great! I’m going to go fetch Master Tomkin now. He’ll want to see you now that you’re finally awake.”

With that she rushed back out the door.

Reincarnated in a fantasy world, with real magic. It was a popular plotline in light novels around the time I died, but it’s not like I got the opportunity to read many of them, so the idea that it could happen to me never even crossed my mind.

I was only just now starting to process what that meant for me. Maybe in this life I could become a powerful magician, or an adventurer traveling around and defeating monsters. Finding myself in a world like this opened up so many new possibilities!

I said a silent prayer of thanks to Tenshi, then started to chow down on my food.

It wasn’t great, but the bread was only a little stale, and the cheese being un-flavorful was a lot better than if it had a bad taste. Just because I’d had better food in prison didn’t mean I needed to be too harsh on these offerings. Japanese prison food is pretty good, anyway.

As I was polishing off the last crumbs of my bread and cheese, Miss Blanche re-entered my room, followed by a large man whose short brown beard took up most of his squarish face. He was wearing a simple white shirt and breeches, along with an open leather vest. A hand towel was slung over his shoulder.

“Well, our unexpected guest has decided to join us in the wakin’ world, has he?” The man bellowed. He wasn’t shouting, his voice simply had a natural projection to it that made it impossible to describe his speech as mere speaking. He grinned at me, and I saw that he was missing a tooth on the top left.

“I’m the owner of this here tavern,” he said proudly. “The name’s Talon Tomkin.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

I tried to sound as polite as possible, but I wasn’t very familiar with the customs of the language I was speaking, so I could only hope that I hadn’t said something offensive by mistake.

Luckily, Mister Tomkin seemed satisfied with my response.

“You were in a hell of a state when Blanche here dragged your unconscious body into the tavern. Jackalope get you?”

I nodded. “How did you know?”

“Those critters are mighty territorial. You don’t want to cross them if you aren’t carryin’ a weapon. People get run down by them often enough that I can recognize the kinds of wounds they leave on you.”

Ah. It was good to know that I wasn’t the only person to ever be bested by a giant bunny. That would have been embarrassing.

“So, how’d you come to our part of the continent, boy? Runaway slave, maybe? Don’t worry, I won’t send you back if that’s the case. We don’t take kindly to the slave trade here in Leauland.”

Leauland. Was that the name of the country I was in? It seemed I had a lot to learn.

“No sir. I’ve never been a slave.”

I knew what it was like to have your freedom taken from you, so I probably could have played along with the runaway slave narrative. But lying to the people who had saved my life would only complicate things.

That said, I didn’t intend to tell them where I had really come from. No need to make them think I was crazy.

“Sorry for assumin’, in that case. We don’t get many beastkin comin’ from down yonder who aren’t fleein’ their masters.”

“Beastkin?” What was that?

“Did you hit your head when you got attacked by that jackalope? Juss look at yourself!”

What was he talking about? I leaned over toward my now clear meal platter and peered at my reflection in the metallic surface.

I stared into a face that was not my own. Well, it was mine now, and I was going to have to get used to it. It had sharp features and a noticeably upturned nose. My skin was smooth and unblemished. That checked out—it was basically brand new. My eyes were a bright yellow color, like a pair of headlights, and the pupils were weirdly slit-shaped. Thick, wild, reddish-brown hair covered the top of my head and hung down into my face.

That was all mostly within the realm of what I would consider normal. Yellow eyes aren’t very common on Earth, but this was a fantasy world, so unique eye colors didn’t seem that strange to me.

One totally abnormal feature stuck out though. Atop my head, partially blended in with my hair, were a pair of triangular, catlike ears.

I’m not human. I had been operating under the assumption that I was—I felt human after all—but I had been wrong to leap to that conclusion. I was… what did Mister Tomkin call me? A beastkin?

Yeah, that made sense.

Prison life hadn’t been that bad at first. They kept all of us inmates busy with strict schedules including time for sleep, meals, cleaning our cells, supervised free time, and even paid work that doubled as vocational training for when we were released. I didn’t make a lot, but for a brief time I almost felt like a functioning member of society.

On the one hand I had no one to talk to and was kept on a tight leash, on the other hand I was allowed to do something with my life, even if that something was chosen for me.

That all changed after my first time in solitary.

Japanese prison regulations are super strict. You have to follow the schedule to the letter. There are rules for how and where you can sit, in what manner your bedding should be folded, and more. Inmates can’t get complacent about playing along with the system.

I didn’t understand that at first. I was sloppy, and as a result, I had to be punished.

I was placed in a small cell all alone and forced to sit seiza style for a full day while I thought about what I had done. Twelve hours by myself, unmoving, my only companion being my own mind.

And my mind was a bully. By the end of twelve hours it had stripped away every bit of my self worth as easily as peeling an orange.

I killed my own mother. I deserved to be isolated from others, to be forced to be unproductive, because anything I produced would be tainted. I was less than worthless.

Once I was sent back to my regular cell, I tried my best to be good. I followed all the rules as closely as I could, but one little slip up and I was back in solitary confinement. My third time I got two days for being a repeat offender. And then, when I punched an older guy for making unsavory jokes about my sister after I trusted him with my tragic backstory, I was put in for a whole week. It was a nightmare.

As time in solitary went on, my thoughts started to become even more twisted. I had to disassociate from myself to get any peace of mind.

Eventually, I had an epiphany. I was so hard on myself because I was viewing Itten Seiji as an ordinary human being who had committed an unforgivable sin. But that wasn’t quite right.

Ordinary human beings are the people who walk freely about on the streets, who return to their family every evening after work and say, “I’m home!” They are human because they are free to be.

But Itten Seiji wasn’t free. He was confined in a small room in a large facility full of other people like him, who couldn’t choose where to go or what to do.

Itten Seiji wasn’t human.

Once I started thinking that way, prison life got much easier. It wasn’t worth the effort to hate someone who was less than human. That’s like holding a petty grudge against a beetle. And why worry about what I would do after my ten year’s sentence was up if my life didn’t really matter anyway?

It sounds horrible, but it helped me cope with the guilt, so I kept thinking it. It became a part of who I was—this affirmation that I was not truly human, so it was only natural to accept my circumstances without a fight. I internalized the idea to the point that, once I did make it back into the wider world, it wasn’t hard for me to deal with being rejected from dozens of jobs. Who would hire a cockroach, anyway?

So in this new world, I was no longer a human being? I was comfortable with that. I hadn’t been one for the last decade. Being a beastkin didn’t seem so bad to me. It fit, the same way becoming young again did.

Was it not a coincidence? Did I manifest this form subconsciously when I was going through the process of reincarnation? Or perhaps Tenshi created it according to the specifications she thought best suited me. If so, good job. That’s an A plus angel right there.

“Hey, kid, you alright? You’re starin’ at yourself like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Talon Tomkin’s voice was filled with genuine concern. I guess being distracted by your own reflection is cause for worry. Miss Blanche was still smiling in her friendly, businesslike way. At least she didn’t seem creeped out.

“I’m fine. Just got lost in thought there for a moment. I’m afraid… I can’t tell you much about where I came from.”

Mister Tomkin humphed understandably. “Every man is allowed to have his secrets. I won’t pry. Where will you be off to once you’ve healed up?”

“About that… I don’t really have a place to stay right now. Would it be okay…” I glanced at Blanche, radiating beauty in the corner of the room, “…if I stuck around at your inn for a while? I’d be happy to work to pay for my room and board.”

“Let’s see…” Mister Tomkin scratched at his beard. “I think that can be arranged. Blanche is a live-in worker as well, so it wouldn’t be anythin’ new. You’ve got yourself a deal. Now heal up so I can put you to work!”

And with that, the first stage of my second life had begun.