Wrong Toilet, Wrong World

The fluorescent lights in the third-floor men’s bathroom of Otemachi Synergistic Solutions, Inc. buzzed with the quiet desperation of a thousand dying insects. It was the soundtrack to my life. A constant, monotonous drone that promised nothing but another eight hours of pretending to synergize solutions, whatever the hell that meant.

For Akina Suhebe, age twenty-eight, this porcelain throne was more than a toilet. It was a sanctuary. A fortress of solitude. The only place in this entire concrete box where my manager, a man whose face was permanently locked in an expression of disapproving constipation, couldn’t loom over my shoulder and ask if I’d “circled back on the deliverables” yet.

I sat with my elbows on my knees, my thousand-yen tie loosened like a failed noose, and stared at my phone with the laser focus of a brain surgeon about to sneeze. The screen glowed with the shoddy graphics of a third-rate gambling app: Gallop! Grand Prix Gaiden.

Come on, Moist Thunder, I prayed to whatever forgotten god oversaw digital horse racing and corporate wage slavery. Mama needs a new pair of shoes. Or, more accurately, Papa needs a new bowl of deluxe tonkotsu ramen instead of the cup noodles currently staging a hostile takeover of my pantry.

My life savings, a pathetic 3,000 yen I’d painstakingly hidden from my last gas bill, was riding on a pixelated horse with a name that sounded less like a champion and more like a poorly-translated weather phenomenon. This was it. The peak of my existence. Pants around my ankles, gambling away my dinner money in a room that smelled faintly of bleach and shattered dreams. Modern corporate dignity, ladies and gentlemen.

The plumbing groaned, a deep, guttural sound from the building’s ancient bowels. Probably Tanaka from accounting trying to flush his quarterly regrets again. I barely noticed, too engrossed in the spinning wheel of fortune—or, more likely, misfortune—on my screen.

The pipes rattled again, more violently this time. A flicker of movement caught my eye. The grout between the cheap linoleum tiles was… glowing. A soft, ethereal blue, like an energy drink spill that had somehow achieved sentience.

“Must be the cleaning crew,” I muttered, my thumb hovering over the ‘BET MAX’ button. “Using some new-age, gluten-free bleach. Probably costs more than my monthly salary.”

Then the toilet bowl itself began to glow. Not blue, but a deep, violent violet. The light pulsed, turning my cramped stall into a low-budget disco. The buzzing of the fluorescents was drowned out by a low hum that vibrated right through the porcelain and up my spine.

“Okay,” I said to the empty stall, my voice a little tight. “Not bleach.”

My thumb, betraying my brain’s sudden lurch into panic mode, finally slammed down on the screen. BET MAX on Moist Thunder!

The floor beneath me didn’t just shake; it dissolved. It turned into a swirling vortex of shimmering purple light. My phone, my precious lifeline to a world of ramen and disappointment, slipped from my sweaty hand. It tumbled in slow motion, screen still displaying the triumphant fanfare of a lost bet, before vanishing into the light.

A primal scream of pure, unadulterated loss clawed its way up my throat. “MY YAKINIKU!”

I lunged for the phone, a desperate, pants-fettered heave. My fingers closed around nothing but a cheap, single-ply roll of toilet paper as the universe decided my stall’s flush lever was now connected to a cosmic plunger. The suction was immense. My last coherent thought wasn’t of friends, family, or the meaning of life. It was a searing indictment of the office procurement department.

My last words before being unceremoniously evicted from Earth were a testament to my priorities.

“OH COME ON, AT LEAST LET ME WIPE—!”

The Summoning Hall of the Kingdom of Lysvalde hadn’t been used in one hundred and twenty years. It showed. What was once a grand, gothic chamber designed for sacred rituals now resembled a gymnasium after a particularly apocalyptic prom night. Pigeons, who had long ago overthrown the monarchy of janitors, roosted in the chandeliers, their droppings forming stalactites of avian critique. The grand summoning circle on the floor looked less like a conduit of immense power and more like a chalk doodle drawn by a wizard who’d been sampling too much of his own “mana potions.”

Through this cathedral of decay ran King Edward Lysvalde III, his magnificent night robe flapping open to reveal a pair of rather undignified, heart-patterned silk shorts. He was in hot pursuit of a shrieking maid, his crown askew, his face flushed with the thrill of the chase.

“It’s a security drill! A totally legitimate security drill!” he panted, making a grab for the sleeve of her uniform. “I need to test your evasive maneuvers!”

The maid, clearly not paid enough to participate in royal cardio, shrieked again and ducked behind a pillar, vanishing through a side door she probably used to escape conversations about tax reform.

Edward, his momentum carrying him forward, stumbled into the dusty center of the summoning circle. He bent over, hands on his knees, wheezing like a dying accordion. This was not his most kingly moment. In an attempt to regain some semblance of dignity, he tried to lean nonchalantly on the only clean object in the room: a waist-high, obsidian relic box. The box was covered in ancient runes and bore a single, ominous inscription in stark silver lettering:

ACTIVATE ONLY IN CASE OF GREAT EVIL. DO NOT TOUCH. SERIOUSLY, EDWARD, WE MEAN YOU.

His palm landed squarely on the lid.

Click.

The king froze. The pigeons in the rafters froze. The very dust motes in the air seemed to pause their gentle dance. A low tremor ran through the marble floor, shaking a century of pigeon-related debris from the chandeliers. The chalk runes beneath Edward’s feet erupted in a blinding violet light.

“Wait,” the king whimpered, snatching his hand back as if the box were red hot. “Oh no. No no no no no. I didn’t mean to—I was just catching my breath!”

Outside, a pillar of violent magic erupted from the castle roof, spearing the heavens. In the capital city below, servants screamed. The market bells began to ring, not with cheer, but with panicked, clanging terror. Farmers in the fields dropped their hoes and stared at the sky, wondering if this was part of a new tax initiative. Old priests, who had been waiting their whole lives for this, immediately burst into tears, shouting, “The Hero! The Hero has returned!” before discreetly instructing their acolytes to start selling commemorative holy charms at a 30% markup.

Back in the hall, King Edward stared at the swirling column of magic, his face the color of spoiled milk. “I’m so dead,” he whispered to a particularly judgmental-looking pigeon. “The Prime Minister is going to have me executed before breakfast.”

The magical light coalesced, intensified, and then, with a sound like a wet towel hitting marble, deposited a shape onto the floor.

I landed in a heap, still clutching the roll of toilet paper as if it were a holy scripture. My trousers were still tangled around my knees. My first thought was that our CEO had finally gone off the deep end and replaced the third-floor bathroom with some kind of avant-garde art installation without filing the proper paperwork. My second thought was that I had died on the toilet and this was a surprisingly well-lit version of hell.

“This,” I croaked, my voice echoing in the cavernous space, “is definitely not the bathroom.”

My eyes adjusted to the gloom, focusing on the lone figure standing across the hall. It was a man in a nightgown and heart-spangled boxers, one hand hovering over a spooky-looking box like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“Welcome…?” the king squeaked, his voice cracking with guilt.

Before I could ask for directions to the nearest complaints department, people began flooding into the hall. Priests in flowing robes tripped over themselves, guards in mismatched armor clattered in, and the maid from before reappeared, still brandishing her feather duster like a weapon. They all stared at me—a half-dressed man holding a roll of toilet paper in the middle of a glowing magic circle.

The first priest, a man with a beard long enough to floss a giant, dropped to his knees. “Oh, Great Champion! After one hundred and twenty years, you have returned to us in our hour of need!”

I blinked. My brain was still trying to process the transition from porcelain to marble. “Uh… who?”

A severe-looking man in a long grey coat stepped forward. His spectacles flashed with what I could only describe as ritual gravitas. This had to be the manager. “May we have your name, oh mighty one, so that we may scribe it into the annals of history?” he boomed.

I struggled to my feet, trying my best to look dignified while simultaneously hoisting my pants up. “Akina Suhebe,” I said, my voice hoarse.

The man, Prime Minister Vince, squinted at the parchment his aide had handed him. “Okina… Sukebe?” he repeated slowly, tasting the syllables.

The hall fell silent. You could hear a pigeon feather drop. Then, a ripple of whispers began to spread through the crowd like a virus. “

Okina Sukebe…” “The Hero, Okina Sukebe…”

My blood ran cold. My entire face flushed a shade of red that probably violated several health and safety regulations. “SUHEBE!” I shouted, my voice cracking. “IT’S SU-HE-BE! NOT—”

But it was too late. The train of utter humiliation had left the station, and it was running express. The guards were already murmuring it to each other. The priests were already writing it down in a giant, leather-bound book with far too much enthusiasm. Somewhere in the back, I could swear I saw an artist already sketching my bewildered, half-pantsed face for a hero banner with “OKINA SUKEBE” inscribed beneath it in majestic golden runes.

Just when I thought my dignity could sink no lower, she arrived.

Princess Marie glided into the hall as if floating on air, a vision in a pale blue dress. She was the one person in this entire chaotic scene who looked like she’d stepped out of a painting. Her silver hair shimmered, and her eyes, the color of sharp winter skies, were alight with a dangerous, intelligent mischief. She stopped a respectful distance from me and tilted her head.

“Okina Sukebe,” she said, her voice a soft, melodic bell that carried across the silent hall. “What a truly… unique name for a legendary hero.”

I leaned towards her, my soul screaming, and whispered through clenched teeth, “It means ‘pervert’ in my world. Please. For the love of all that is holy, do not say it out loud again.”

Princess Marie froze. Her impossibly perfect eyes widened for a fraction of a second. Her lips trembled. She was fighting a battle within herself, a titanic struggle between royal decorum and sheer, unadulterated hilarity.

Decorum lost. Spectacularly.

She turned slightly away, covering her mouth with a gloved hand as her entire body began to shake with silent, suppressed laughter. “Oh… oh dear,” she managed to whisper, tears of mirth welling in her eyes. “Truly, the gods have a divine sense of humor.”

I dropped my head into my hands. “Fantastic,” I groaned. “First day in another world and I’m already the ‘Pervert Hero.’ Can I please just go home now? I’ll even pay for the cosmic plumbing fees.”

King Edward, finally pulling his robe closed over his heart-shorts, cleared his throat. “Ah… about that,” he said, looking anywhere but at me. “The last Demon King was defeated over a century ago. Vanquished. Utterly destroyed. So… we can’t actually send you back until a Great Evil or equivalent power arises. Which, um, it hasn’t.”

I slowly raised my head, staring at the bumbling king, the giggling princess, and the rows of priests now arguing over the correct spelling of my new, accursed name.

“Let me get this straight,” I said, my voice dangerously calm. “You yanked me out of a toilet stall, to a world with no villain to fight, branded me for life as ‘The Pervert,’ and now you’re telling me I’m stuck here?”

“Yes, that about sums it up,” said Edward, nodding sagely.

I finished pulling my pants up, straightened my rumpled shirt, and then sat down cross-legged on the cold marble floor with the weary resignation of a man who knew he was truly, cosmically screwed.

“Do you at least have coffee?” I asked the hall at large.

Princess Marie finally let out a small, unladylike snort of laughter. The pigeons returned to their chandeliers. The hall smelled of dust, burnt magic, and the complete and utter annihilation of one man’s dignity.

Thus began the legend of the world’s most reluctant, most misnamed, and most desperately under-caffeinated max-level hero.