Episode 03 — The Rules of the Stagnant Sanctuary

Ever since my entire house got yeeted into another world, I’d spent the first few days doing nothing but shaking in fear.

Outside the window, birds in impossible neon colors flew past, and at night, the massive tree nearby glowed with a pale blue light. This was clearly not Earth. But the moment I held Tama’s dying body in my arms, any courage I might’ve had evaporated. Opening the front door was simply not an option.

I noticed the first “anomaly” on the third morning after the transfer.

“…Huh?”

I opened the fridge and froze.

The last pack of frozen udon I’d eaten the night before was sitting there—unopened.

Next to it, the bottle of cola I’d finished was back to being a sealed, ice-cold, brand-new drink.

At first, I thought fear had finally broken my brain.

But the same thing happened the next day.

The empty chip bag I’d tossed into the trash vanished by morning.

The greasy stains on the kitchen stove faded little by little each day, until the metal shone like it had just been installed.

And most of all—Tama.

Her fur, which had been matted with mud and blood that night, recovered at an unbelievable speed, returning to a glossy, perfect black.

“Tama… you really are back to normal.”

“Mrrp. (Obviously.)”

Tama lounged in her usual VIP spot in the living room, acting like nothing had happened.

By the time a month passed, I had fully understood the “rules” of this house.

At exactly midnight—when the date flips—everything inside the house resets to the state it was in on the day we were transferred.

The “point of stagnation.”

A thought suddenly hit me.

There were no power lines, gas pipes, or water systems in this world.

Yet the lights turned on when I flipped the switch.

The stove lit when I turned the knob.

Water blasted out of the faucet like normal.

(…Wait. Where is this electricity coming from? Who’s paying for this? Is some fantasy power company going to send me a bill?)

I thought about it seriously for a few seconds.

Then I gave up.

(Whatever. It works. And if everything resets at midnight, then the utilities reset too. Infinite free resources. Lucky me.)

This ability to “not think too hard” was probably my greatest survival skill.

“Man… this is paradise.”

While the otherworldly night wind tapped against the window, I sank into a steaming bath up to my shoulders and let out a long sigh.

I filled the tub to the brim and dumped in a ridiculous amount of bath salts.

At midnight, the water and the tub would reset to their pristine, freshly-cleaned state.

No scrubbing required.

I held up my phone in the bath and watched the video I’d been streaming before the transfer.

Despite being in the middle of nowhere—literally—the phone kept the “loading” screen from that night and continued to slowly buffer the video.

At midnight, my data usage reset too.

Unlimited streaming. Zero consequences.

At night, Tama slipped out through the small gap in the window.

At first, I nearly died from worry, but every morning she returned through the same gap, purring at my feet like nothing happened.

“…Well, whatever. She used to be a stray. She probably needs the outside world. Forcing her to stay inside with a shut-in like me would be cruel.”

“I really have no reason to go outside.”

One step beyond the door was a world of monsters and survival of the fittest.

But inside this house, I would never starve, never age, never get a bill, and never lose my peace.

All I needed to protect was this “unchanging daily life.”

Even if a demon lord was rampaging outside, even if humanity was on the brink of extinction—

at midnight, my cola would refill and the lights would turn on.

That was the only truth that mattered to me.

—And so, after half a year of hiding in this “sanctuary,”

the peace I treasured was shattered by the arrival of a certain noisy goddess.