Two Isekais for the Price of One

It was Saturday, the day Rei hated the most. Saturdays meant calling his parents for their weekly check-in, lying through his teeth as he told them he was really close to getting a job this time he just needed to wait one more week. It meant his parents chastising him for always playing video games, even though they had no idea how important the game was to him or how important he was to the game and all its players.

When his call, which had lasted several hours, was finally finished, Rei didn’t feel like doing anything. It was a common occurrence for him to feel completely drained after his parents picked apart every bit of his life until it was like he was laid bare on an examination table. Usually, Rei would spend this time lying on his couch and staring at the ceiling as he tried his best not to cry. Instead, he decided to boot up WanderQuest. It had been a hard day, he reasoned with himself, and he deserved to go see his best friend. Maybe he could even show up a little bit early to squeeze in some extra time before Daffodil had to log off.

When he was finally logged in, Rei found himself in his room. One of the taverns in Caspia was player-run and the player had given him the room for free for as long as he wanted because he had claimed it was good business to be the tavern that Asterion stayed at. He was definitely onto something because the tavern was always filled to the brim with players that wanted to see Asterion. It was a bit annoying trying to squeeze past them when he wanted to leave his room, but Rei appreciated having a place to store all his extra items, so he couldn’t really complain.

Even if he wanted to show up early to Daffodil’s valley, it was still a few hours too early. In the meantime, Rei decided to go through his regular routine of checking what he’d missed while he was logged off. First he read through all of the messages he’d received. There were the usual messages people sent telling him how cool they thought he was or asking him for help, as well as one or two people asking to collaborate with him. He had never collabed with anyone before (intentionally), and he wasn’t desperate enough for money yet, so he disregarded those messages. He was a little disappointed to see no new messages from Daffodil, but Rei reminded himself that it would only be a few more hours until he got to see him.

Next Daffodil checked the quest he was currently working on. It didn’t look like there was anything he currently needed to do in Caspia, so he could head to Daffodil’s valley as soon as he was ready. The last thing he needed to do was sort through his gifts.

WanderQuest had a system where players could send gifts to other players’ menus. It was probably originally meant to help party members send equipment to each other, but players had started using it to send fan mail to Asterion. Rei appreciated the gesture, mostly because some players had sent him some really nice swords a little while back, but it was still a hassle to open them all. Usually, Rei waited until he had some free time to open them all at once, and he figured now was the time.

Rei quickly mashed the open button and managed to clear out all the gifts within two minutes. Then he opened his menu to see what he’d gotten. Most of it was junk he didn’t need—Rei didn’t really understand why but players seemed to think it was more important that they’d sent him a gift than the actual contents of the present—but a few things caught his eye. There was a new set of leather armor that had a lot of high-quality enchantments on it. It wouldn’t protect him as well as his current set, but maybe he could bring it to an armorer to improve that. There was also a nice sword. It wouldn’t replace Ol’ Reliable, but it would certainly do a lot of damage the next time he decided to use Blade Storm. Rei also spotted a packet of seeds. He wasn’t sure what use they would have, but they seemed to be pretty rare so maybe he could give them to Daffodil. Daffodil was always trying to diversify his garden, and Rei liked the idea of seeing something he gifted Daffodil flowering in the garden he loved so dearly.

There was one other item in his inventory that hadn’t been there earlier, but Rei had no clue what it was. It clearly wasn’t something that had been gifted to him since those all had a small wrapped box next to them to indicate it as such. The image displayed in his inventory seemed to be glitched out and the item was mysteriously called “God’s Bargain”.

Rei took it out of his inventory to get a better look, but when he clicked on it nothing appeared in his hands.

“Is it a glitch?” Rei wondered under his breath. Then a blinding light appeared. His entire computer screen turned white, and Rei was worried the game was about to crash. Instead, the light faded away and standing in front of him was a very buff blond man wearing a white robe. A text box appeared on his screen that said You have been chosen to defeat the Demon Lord! In exchange, you will receive a great reward. Do you accept?

Rei sat confused for a moment. Many had tried to defeat the Demon Lord in the past and none had succeeded, but he supposed if anyone could do it it would be him. Then he said, “Oh, it must be a quest!” Maybe the reason no one could kill the Demon Lord was because they didn’t have the right quest activated?

“Might as well,” Rei decided as he clicked the yes button. He could always add the quest to his quest log now and start it after he visited Daffodil.

The text box disappeared and the man in front of him looked pleased. Rei waited for the notification that showed the quest had been added to his log, but it never came. He groaned. Daffodil had been telling him about all the glitches in WanderQuest last time they’d met, hadn’t he? This must be one of them.

He hit the control and F4 buttons, planning to reboot the game and hope the quest was still activated, but nothing happened. Rei groaned again and stood up to unplug his computer and plug it back in again. The last thing he needed was to miss his meet up with Daffodil because his computer wasn’t working.

Rei crawled under his desk, unplugged the computer, waited thirty seconds, and then plugged it back in again. “That should do it,” he said as he went to stand up. Then he slammed his head into his desk.

“OW!” Rei yelled, so loud he was worried his neighbor would come complain to him again. His head throbbed as he tried to stand up again, this time clearing the desk. Rubbing the back of his head to soothe the pain, Rei finally stood up properly, but he found his vision starting to go black. That couldn’t be right. He’d hit his head hard, but not hard enough to pass out. Vaguely, Rei wondered about calling a doctor, but he couldn’t get his thoughts straight. His vision was completely gone now and his last coherent thought was, “That’s not good,” before he fell forward, hit his head on the desk a second time, and collapsed to the floor.