Chapter LIII – He that is without a clue among you.

30th of Summer, 5859
Outskirts of the City of Casamonu, Casamonu

A fire raged on. Not a metaphorical one, an actual fire raged on the side of the highway as an errant group had met up to have a rest. Rabanowicz put her steel fire striker back into her satchel and sat on the ground along with the trio she had invited. “By Kiyelm, I’ll have ye all know that we truly have no idea where we are currently located. Except for the fact that this place is named… Excuse me, what was this realm named again?”

Watanabe butted in. “Gemainpuradzu, if I recall right.”

“Yes, Gemaynplodz.” Rabanowicz instinctively readjusted her spectacles as she continued to speak “I’d like to know where we are on the globe as I have unfortunately not heard of this place. Do you know where Lahanezy is?”

Brown, Shinasi and Ayomide all looked at each other looking for an answer. Not a hint of understanding or crumbs of knowledge were found on their faces. The old man had to break the bad news to them. “No, we do not know of a Laheighetzee.”

“Éirois?”

“…No.”

“Molli?”

“…None of us seem to know that place either.”

“Nehoun? Tovkjo?”

Shinasi stood up, getting a bit too excited over knowing something for once in his life. “Yes! That’s- That’s like the capital of some place on Örf, isn’t it?”

Dr. Rabanowicz solemnly rested her chin on her hands, clearly in deep though. “If you know of that place…” She hummed and closed her eyes for a while. “…The only logical conclusion as the we’re on Earth.”

“Doctor, I’d like to inform you of the face that Earth doesn’t have catgirls.” replied Watanabe, ever familiar with his home planet.

“It doesn’t? But there’s one right in front of us, can you actually disprove my thesis that we are on Earth? Have you travelled everywhere on Earth, monsieur? How have you spoken so deeply and fervently about catgirls if they do not exist at all?”

Even the old earthling Brown couldn’t help but doubt himself when facing someone speaking so assuredly. Catgirls could have been hiding somewhere in Africa for all he knew with his 19th century knowledge. Still, he had gone over this issue plenty of times with Harriet Tubman. “We definitely are not anywhere on Earth, Doctor Rabanowicz. This is an entirely different place, though…” The old man paused, noticing a slight issue. “…that begs the question, where are you from?”

“The village of Kiyelm, far north of the empire of the Éirois. We realistically cannot be too far from where we last were…” There was much silence. Both sides had heard of Earth, yet they knew not of where the other came from. Either they were very lost, or they were all going through some sort of mass hysteria.

The only person to have slowly formed an idea was Watanabe, who stood up and grabbed a large stick from the ground. He drew four circles on the ground and labelled them separately in a script that was known to no one else. “Alright, I think I have some sort of idea.” This prospect of someone having any idea caught the attention of everyone else, so they were listening to Watanabe attentively. He pointed the stick towards the circle he had labelled “Earth” and said “So, I come from here.”

“…young man, you come from a nondescript circle on the ground?” replied Brown.

Watanabe retracted his rhetorical stick for a second “Nondescript? I’d say that it’s pretty non-nondescript with that label… Oh, you’re right, it’d be pretty weird if you all knew how to read kanji.” He revised his model of Earth by adding very crude drawings of the continents into the circle. “Anyways, this is called Earth, and it’s where I come from. It has places like Nihon, Chuugoku, Kankoku, Amerika…”

Brown raised his hand “I’m from the United States, so I’d be from Earth as well.”

“Then we’re in a similar situation.” Watanabe moved onto another circle he scratched and pointlessly labeled. “This one’s the place with Rahaneji, Ayuroyu, that place with all the weird names where Doctor Rabanowicz comes from and where I ended up after I died.”

Now Rabanowicz raised her hand in objection “Monsieur, I’d say that ‘Czuvgoku’ is an even odder name, but do go on.”

“And this circle, this one is Gemainpuradzu, the place where we apparently are in right now. From what I can understand, Mr. Smith came from Earth to here. I assume that happened after your death? My original transmigration to another world happened when I kicked the bucket by kicking a bucket and falling headfirst on to the ground while trying to run away from a truck.”

“You would be right Mr. Watanabe. I last remember meeting my timely end and…” Brown furrowed his brows. What had happened right after his supposed death? “…and, and… there was some sort of voice? I unfortunately cannot remember who or what I heard back then, but I remember feeling light and floating in a white, empty space.” He assumed that the voices he heard must have been the chatter of his executioners before his consciousness had finally faded.

Watanabe nodded in response “Interesting, I had a similar experience. I remember… Well, I only vaguely recall, speaking to someone in a big empty space. All I remember was that I was very pissed off before I got sent to the dimension inhabited by the likes of Doctor Rabanowicz.” He suddenly turned to Rabanowicz “Actually, what were we doing before we ended up here?”

“Erm, uhm…” Rabanowicz scratched her head, adjusting her spectacles and looked around for a second before digging out a thick stack of papers barely bound by leather. She flipped it around for a while before seemingly reaching a satisfying conclusion. “We were going to investigate…” Her eyes flew around her notes “…investigate the phenomenon of people like you entering completely different worlds by conducting an interview with a local nobleman. We had set off on the road before… before… before, what exactly?” She looked completely dumbfounded, her mouth remaining open for a second while it let out incoherent noises which signaled that no coherent thoughts were being made. “…did we die? How? When?!” The doctor patted her own body to check if she still inhabited a corporeal form. “Oh, thank the One Above, I am still left tangible and breathing.”

“Yes, let us thank the Lord for letting us stay alive even in this quite ridiculous circumstance.” Brown and the doctor both quickly muttered some prayers in an odd sync.

Watanabe had to wait for them to finish prayer before he could go on. “…anyways, what I have gathered is that there seems to be a common way which we have all been isekai’d. Empty white space, some sort of chatter, and a sense floating…” He idly scratched on the ground while doing his best to ponder deep metaphysical questions. “…and how weirdly this all coincides with isekai literature found in my world… Gah!” He threw the stick somewhere far away. His head had begun to hurt after having thought too much. “This is all to weird, don’t you think?!” One could hear the stick hit a tree not too far away. Reading about isekai was all too fine, but actually being isekai’d made a modern man like Watanabe think too much about complicated questions. “Damn it, I just wanted to be an overpowered hero in another world, not deal with this nonsense!”

Rabanowicz rolled her eyes, looking away from the raving lunatic. “Here he goes about being ‘overpowered’ again…”

Shinasi briefly jumped into the conversation, finally having something of value to add. “I can understand him. Becoming ‘overpowered’, or ‘OP’ for short, is the final goal of any adventurer.” He jumped out the convo as quickly as he had entered it.

Brown had a more productive question on his mind. “What’d this ‘isekai literature’ refer to, young man?”

Watanabe returned to his senses after being asked a question “It makes sense that an old American wouldn’t know about it. It’s a genre where someone gets transported into another world, just like the situation you and I are in.”

Rabanowicz scoffed upon hearing what an isekai was. “That’s it?”

“Well, there are also subgenres, like otome isekai… and…” Watanabe was about to talk about GameLit and LitRPGs, but he realized that all he said would be moot against people who had none of the concepts needed to understand either of those things. “…a lot of other things which’d take a very long time to explain. I had time to read a lot of them when slaving away in the office.”

“Slaving away?” Now was Ayomide’s turn to suddenly butt into the conversation. “You were a slave on Earth?”

“No, no, no, that was just metaphorical. My boss worked me like a slave, but at least I was free to leave and starve on the streets.” replied Watanabe, his voice becoming louder and audibly a whole lot more annoyed at the mention of his boss. “I’d rather camp out here in the woods forever rather than go back and work as a salaryman again. May I also be damned if I become the type of protagonist to buy a slave! Those types were always such a turn-off for me…” Watanabe would have rather had the ladies flock to him due to his OP powers, not because of obligation. “What good is there in a harem if the girls don’t genuinely love you?!” He was about to continue his rant before he realized that he was getting confused glares from everyone again.

“Slavery? What a deplorable institution.” Rabanowicz followed up with her own monologue. “I’d say that those upmost heathenish cabbage-worshipping men back home deserve to be smitten for what they do unto others in their path to damnable greed.”

Brown liked where the doctor had gone with her overly loquacious monologue. “While I know not of any ‘cabbage-worshipping’, I do know that enslaving others and putting your fellow man below you is a grave sin.

“Indeed, it is.” Rabanowicz took a look at a metal pot which she had put over the fire. It was bubbling hot by now, so she began pouring the water into smaller cups she had also carried with her all the way to Gemeinplatz. “This may be a controversial opinion to hold, but I’d even go so far as to say that the the vanquishment of a slaver is a net good for the moral and material commonwealth of a realm.”

“I’d say that vanquishing my boss would have been a ‘net good for the moral and material commonwealth’ as well.” added Watanabe as he accepted a cup of tea. Being the big damn hero vanquishing bosses seemed like an amicable idea to him. “If there are any bosses nearby, point me towards their direction and I’ll slay them.” he added half-jokingly.

“Interesting. I am glad to have encountered such kindred spirits even if we are from completely different places.” Brown received his cup of tea as well. “I have a proposal to make to you fine gentleman and lady. Maybe you’d like to hear it over tea?”