You are (not) the Isekai
Episode One: Welcome to Wizard School
[-] Character Name
She's the first thing he sees as he steps through the portal. Straight, golden-blonde hair, tied back in a knot. Silvery tiara, laden with pearls. White, long-sleeved blouse, so ornate in detail that he had to wonder if it was meant to be writing. Fuzzy brown bear slippers peeked out from a long dress, just as overly detailed as the top. Like someone started drawing in the margins of a book and lost track of time.
Her eyes are light and shadow. That is to say, dark bags framing bright eyes hopped up on caffeine and set to percolate.
There are no windows, and the only light comes from candles scattered haphazardly around the floor. Most of them are standing. None are on desks, because there are no desks - the three walls he can see are bookshelves, end-to-end with books.
He remembers just in time to look up. But there are only shadows dancing in the rafters, and it isn't comforting.
Behind him, the portal swirls like a void projected onto a flat wall, much like it looked in his bedroom. Except, here, it's surrounded by dozens and dozens of diamonds, each the size of a fist or larger, all laid out in an intricately lacy spiraling pattern.
Several of the diamonds start to smoke, turn black, crack, and finally crumble into dust. Several more follow them, and several more again. The portal - his only way home - winks out of existence, leaving a mercilessly featureless circle of wall framed by more wealth than any normal person could ever hope to see in a lifetime. Over half the diamonds were reduced to burnt sand.
He cared more about the lost gemstones than the life he left behind. Anime and games stopped being good after the 90's, and he'd long since run out.
This, at least, promised to be interesting.
"Oh dear," the voice behind him says, and all at once she's up next to him, much closer than any reasonably attractive woman with any taste would dare put themselves, "I'm so sorry, those weren't supposed to break! I'll need months to make replacements! Oh, what do I do?"
She's fretting about something, and that something is his ticket home.
Objective set, he thinks, already mentally rolling for charisma.
"How terrible," he lied, having already come to terms with it. "Now how am I going to get home?"
Brought by portal into a world where magic is real? Maybe now my talents can finally be put to good use!
"That's just it, I don't know! I'll need more diamonds, then to recalibrate the spell matrix, then I have to find your world again, and- and-
hic"
Her crying was not very convincing. For one, she was covering her face with her hands, but no tears were falling down, and her supposed sniffles were perfectly clear and free of runny mucus.
He noticed this, but did not care one whit, for what might've been fair reasons.
She made those big-ass diamonds? Jackpot!
"You made those diamonds with your magic, I presume?" He adjusted his glasses up by the middle, hoping his lenses caught the light ominously. They didn't.
"Of course! Here in Haret, we use magic like you would science!" She'd turned to face him, and there wasn't a single wet spot on her perfectly dry face. "I spent so much time watching your world to find the right man for the prophecies, and-"
Hold the fuck up. "Did you say prophecy? There's a prophecy with my name on it?"
For a moment, she almost looked embarrassed. Almost. "Well, not exactly... you see, I chose you because you
don't have a prophecy. And that's very unusual."
He found himself profoundly disappointed, but not very surprised. It's a feeling he was well acquainted with. "You're saying I have no future."
"Yes, exactly! Your past is perfectly uninteresting, you have no noteworthy skills or talents, and you have no destiny at all! I almost gave up before I found you!"
"I quit," he said, raising a single finger to emphasize his point.
"But I haven't told you-"
"I don't care, I quit."
He turned to leave, which was when he remembered the room had no door. Unless it was behind one of the three wall-to-wall bookshelves, but it wasn't like his flabby dough-arms could move furniture.
He turned back to the strange, clearly deeply disturbed, obviously very magical woman who was apparently holding him prisoner. "Fine. Well played. But I want it said for the record that I'm only putting up with this contrived, predictable plot under protest."
He had predicted exactly none of the events leading up to this point, though to be fair he hadn't learned anything about the place yet.
Her face lit up like a freshly immolated christmas cake. "Here in Haret-"
Is that just Earth with the letters scrambled? Fucking why?
"-we've refined our magic much like you did your technology-"
I give it a week before I die of anime deprivation.
"-which includes prophecy! Our government uses arcane formulae derived from shamanistic weather prediction models-"
I better not have heard that correctly.
"-to forecast the behavioral trends of large populations, looking for statistical outliers with useful talents who might change the world in the right circumstances-"
This premise is beginning to sound uncomfortably familiar...
"-and after much refining, we've finally reached the point where we can give everyone a happy and fulfilling destiny suited to their own special talents-"
Oh joy of joys, it's a magical communist dystopia.
"I quit," he interrupted, again.
"-and only you can save us from this existential horror!" She cheered. Then, shocked, "wait, we need you! Our free will is at stake!"
"My regular diet of pizza and beer is at stake." He crossed his arms over a prodigious grain silo and stared the woman down.
Her expression became genuinely downcast. It may have been the first real emotion he'd seen from her so far. "I see. Yes, you're already used to a life with no obligations, where all your needs are fulfilled by an administration whose only desire is to keep you distracted with consumerism and shallow wish fulfillment. You'd only be too happy to embrace this tyranny."
His expression became precisely the opposite. "Yeah, I can live with that." Then the rest of his brain caught up. "But wait, I thought you said I have no future?"
"I'm afraid so," she replied. "And with your talents as they are, you'd have to learn the most powerful of magics before the High Lord's prediction models could ever take notice of you."
"Learn badass magic and live in a weeb paradise? I think I can handle that." His confidence was one born of entirely too many fantasy role-playing games. "When do I start?"
Had her expression been downcast, before? It was hard to tell, with how quickly she switched over to the manic joy of a teacher in love with her job. That is to say, mile-a-minute lecture.
"There are three basic branches of magic, and I'd advise learning one before you move on to anything more advanced! In descending order of social strata, they are Arcanomancy, Elementalism, and Quintessence."
"Uh-huh," he grunted, having already pulled out a notebook and pen from his shirt pocket.
Magic... is... organized... by... stratum, he furiously jotted.
Wait, this isn't communism! She's talking about a caste system!
"Arcanomancy deals with internal forces, such as personal magicka and the mind. It's also referred to as law-magic by commoners like yourself since it can be used to alter reality or control thoughts, and for this reason practicing it while not a noble can draw suspicion and mistrust. It's also the most difficult craft to learn, and mastering even a single cosmology-class spell is considered by many to be a lifetime's achievement!"
Arcanomancy... is... OP, got it. Might... be... treason. Did she just call me a commoner?
"Elementalism uses ambient magicka and the elemental forces, and highly organized elementalist workforces allow us to control the weather, heat our homes, and enjoy running water just as you do! Despite its barbaric origins, elementalism has become a highly refined art, and serves as the basic framework for the prophetic predictions our society is based on."
Where the last description was given with something approaching praise, this one was spoken with barely-restrained disgust.
Weather... magic... is... hikikomori. I sure hope this "destiny" isn't them using mind-control on the plebeians, but I can't believe they use weather forecasting to tell the future!
"Quintessence works with the natural exchange of raw mana between the haret and our bodies. It's laborer's work, but necessary! With it, the peasantry can fortify their bodies, refine metals into high-quality tools, and enchant gemstones with practical spells for the greater good."
She nodded at that, seemingly satisfied at her blatant disregard of commoners as the greater good.
Practical is a word for it. Boosted strength and enchanted weapons? Blatant reality warping can't be the only thing keeping the bourgeois in line. Or is it?
He jerked a thumb at the literally diamond-studded wall behind him. "I take it you're one of the peasants?"
It was worth it, just to see her face puff up in rage. "H-How dare you! I-"
It was as if her emotion flipped off like a switch, going right back to plastic cheer. "Oh, not at all! I'm third in line for the throne, in fact! I only learned this so I could find you. Though, perhaps my gemology isn't quite up to par..."
He stared at her, frozen in mounting fear as her thoughts trailed off. Whatever they were, those thoughts were quickly derailed when he thrust an accusatory finger at her face.
"Are you fucking mind controlling yourself?"
"Of course! I had to so the forecasters wouldn't notice any changes in my behavior these last six months. But now that you're here, it doesn't matter! I'm free!"
Her smile was almost genuine. Almost.
Genuinely creepy, yes. A genuine smile, no.
And yet, crazy or not, something wasn't adding up. "Free of what? Your destiny?"
"Exactly! With your lack of any noteworthy history, talents, or even future, you're impossible for them to predict. You're an uncontrolled variable! Everything and everyone you interact with will irrevocably change!"
No matter how much false cheer she magically injected into herself, it couldn't lessen the blow.
He fucked up their perfect society just by existing. They could find him by following the collateral damage, and then he'd be crazier than this...
This...
"... How are
you a princess?"
Her smile didn't budge an inch.
Her existence, however, did. She vanished with a flash and pop that his brain filled in as
teleport, leaving him in a tiny attic with entirely too many books, no reliable lighting, and a lifetime's supply of impossibly huge diamonds.
Which, he realized only too late,
must mean they're just worthless rocks here.
That was about when he noticed the titles on the books.
Introduction to Magical History, part one of sixteen? These books are huge! There are eighteen shelves! She can't expect me to read them all, I'll die of starvation before I'm through!
Another pop and flash, and something shiny clinked to the floor. A neatly folded paper drifted after it more sedately, slow enough that he could angrily snatch it from the air.
It read,
"don't forget to wear this! Your natural mana system is as frail as a newborn's. Until you get some practice in, you won't be able to weave even beginner spells without help. Once you've learned the basics, I can enroll you in a school where you'll make everything better by just being yourself. Thank you so much!"
He crushed the paper in his hands, reveling in the sweet crumpling noise and trying not to think about how little effect his defiance had on his situation.
A golden gleam danced in the candlelight, drawing his eyes to the floor. A ridiculously ostentatious necklace lay there, inset with three sapphires each as big around as his thumbnail.
Papery parchment confetti drifted to the floor, serene amidst his screams of frustrated impotence. "Fuck this, fuck magic, fuck princesses, fuck this house, fuck these books, fuck my-"
=== A thoroughly relativistic sum of hours later ===
"-and so ended the governance of Marquess Amos Roderick, who extracted the essences of his war prisoners to create the spell Fimbulvinter, that horrid storm which consumes the lives of those it slays to grow in strength. With the Eighth War so concluded, a special council was convened to question the matter of Necromancy, and ultimately declared it among the most forbidden magics. All known tomes were seized and burned, even those passed down since antiquity by ancient noble houses of the High King's Land. To this day, Fimbulvinter still rages in what is now called the Fellhar wastes, which was once Marquess Roderick's realm of Springfall."
He turned the page, pointedly ignoring the entire shelf of books right next to his spot on the floor, cheerily titled
A Practical Guide to Necromancy, I-XXV.
Sixteen history books for an empire that didn't exist. Eighteen books purporting to profess magical theory. No less than twenty more for each of the twelve recognized categories of basic and advanced spellcraft, legal or otherwise. Each book thick enough to need a full day to finish. And yet, somehow, he hadn't noticed time passing at all. He hadn't realized until just now that he wasn't hungry, wasn't tired, didn't even need to stop and shit between one oversized tome and the next.
Something fucky was going on, and Princess McCasually-Bends-Space-and-Time-Over topped his suspect list.
Cosmology was supposed to be the most difficult class of spells, far and above the others. Mastering even one was thought to be a lifetime achievement. Yet there she was, ripping the dimensional veil a new one, teleporting just to leave a conversation, and whatever bullshit she was doing that let him accidentally read somewhere in the order of thirty four thousand pages without noticing.
Oh, he'd learned much about magic since starting. So much so, in fact, that he was just finishing their equivalent of middle school. When all the little witches and wizards first began touching on the advanced courses of whatever branch they'd been born into.
Not that they couldn't learn outside that. They just... didn't. Either by choice, or all these history books were written by a thoroughly delusional nobility. Which wasn't impossible, given prior experience.
Ah, but the magic. Deceptively simple. Using any one branch by itself would inevitably destroy a civilization. It was as if the world wanted everyone to get along and work together, and instead it got despotic overlords and peasants too scared of shaking up the system to revolt. Whoops.
The world produces raw mana, which pulses through globe-spanning leylines. Ancient cities used to align themselves to this invisible grid, but modern cities use conductive metals to siphon off mana and form the infrastructure their spellcasters have come to depend on, bringing magic to everyone instead of a few isolated pockets. As magic became more accessible, the iron grip of a magical elite crumbled, and what was once a masquerade has since become a stratified society based on the types of magic and their uses in civilization.
A living body takes in mana, refining it into magicka which can be shaped into spells. The magicka of spells remains in the air where it was cast, where it eventually builds up to become wild magic. Wild magic is drawn into leylines, where it is grounded and degrades back into mana.
The direct use of one's personal magicka is considered the noblest form of spellcraft, thought to be an art fit for rulers and the powerful. It focuses inward, with more advanced practices controlling everything from perception and cognition, the "spark of life," and one's own position in space and time. But with the end of the masquerade, Mentalism - the mind control magic that princess what's-her-name enjoyed too much - is now viewed with suspicion by the vast majority, and Necromancy - magic that sought to control the spark of life - was outright banned after eight wars featuring sentient spells of mass destruction and reanimated horrors that grew stronger after every battle.
That left only one advanced form of Arcanomancy: Cosmology, the magic of space and time. Mentalism was a hotbed of red flags, and Necromancy was an outright war crime.
The other two magic branches didn't have this problem. Somehow, he wasn't surprised.
Elementalism was about using ambient magicka, or wild magic as it was often called. In the absence of their casters, spell patterns would degrade into disconnected parts, and their loose magicka tended to seek out sources of energy in the environment. Wildfires, thunderstorms, the first-year chemistry class's latest foray into exothermic reactions, any of these could become the catalyst that sets off a chain reaction of randomly assembled spell pieces. Summer rains became hailstorms of frozen frogs, the chemistry class found themselves fighting off tentacles surging from their beakers, and the wildfire left a perfectly assembled and fully staffed circus in its wake.
Elementalism gave order to magical disorder. It required less personal power than arcanomancy, but controlling raw chaos was not easy. Even then, it needed ambient magic to work at all, which meant it tended to be useless outside settled areas with an artificial leygrid.
But without elementalists, residual magicka could build up until some cataclysm set it off. He'd gone through all sixteen history books, and a full dozen cities had literally exploded before the nobility deigned to allow 'barbaric shamen' to practice their crafts in civilized cities. The number of "incidents" dropped drastically after that.
Quintessence draws on leylines for power, using raw mana and natural resources where others would use magicka and refined tools. The whole branch barely uses magicka at all, instead preferring to construct spells one piece at a time by imbuing natural materials with power. They were the builders, the crafters, and the tinkers. They were the labor caste, but they were also the ones with the greatest long-term potential.
Technically, all modern cities were giant quintessence spells.
He closed the last book, and jiggled in surprise when the necklace he'd been wearing flash-popped away. Something heavy clicked and grated behind him. Wobbling to a stand, he watched the blank, diamond-ringed wall slide down, exposing a staircase he hadn't even suspected was there.
"It's about fucking time," he grumbled. He may not have noticed said time passing, but a library like that shouldn't have taken any less than a month to power through.
It said scary things about his captor's power.
Time to meet the Piper, he thought.
[-] View the character sheet, and distribute up to five skill dots into basic skills.
The candlelight faded as he left it behind, forcing him to paw his way through a fathomless tunnel descending into unknown depths.
He expected the stairs to break under his girthy weight, and every step groaned dangerously when he lowered himself on it.
He expected it to be one of those neverending staircases, just so his captor could show off a little more before the big reveal.
Neither happened. He counted a mere fourteen steps before stubbing his fingers on a door. It opened to a cozy cottage lit by hanging lanterns and a fireplace. It was all one room, with a bed in one corner and a cleared space with a cauldron for the kitchen. There were two doors and no windows, parchment strewn all around the floor by a barely-illuminated desk, and more fucking bookcases.
Too many fucking bookcases.
She was at a coat rack, selecting pieces for what vaguely resembled a school uniform sized to fit someone approaching three hundred pounds. Much like himself.
Just like himself, in fact.
"Oh, hell no. You can't make me wear that poncy shit. How'd you even get my measurements?"
Rather than answer his question, she hung the finished outfit back on its rack, kicked her fuzzy slippers off, and strode to the front door.
The view beyond killed any further words he might have said.
Burnt black sand stretched to every horizon, both above and below. There was no sky, and darkling grains mounded dunes and waves for earth and firmament alike. Pillars of sand spanned the distance between them, rising or falling in vast columns from surface to surface.
Dust staggered in the air, swirling and stopping and speeding and slowing to a rhythm he could not feel. It was like watching a whole server lag out mid-game, with individual dust flecks desynching randomly to meander without direction before snapping back to subjective reality.
Nowhere, not a single home. No ruins, no sign that civilization ever existed. Just one lonely cottage in an endless sea of burnt black sand.
One thing was for sure: time had no meaning in a place like this. Or, time meant everything here. There was so much ambient magicka that reality was breaking down.
She spoke, startling him out of his slack-jawed horror. "Cast no spells until we return, and follow my footsteps exactly. Fail, and it could be..."
She stopped for a minute, week, second, pondering what word might be appropriate.
"... unfortunate," was her choice.
What could he do? He numbly nodded, stopping only to cover his nose and mouth with a sleeve so the razor-sharp grains didn't find their way in.
She lead, and he followed. Their trail twisted and wound, adhering to whatever semblance of reason this place pretended to possess. He couldn't see what invisible threats she was leading him around, but he could guess. Patches of stopped time where he'd be frozen forever, or accelerated time where he'd decay to dust. Maybe worse.
Which at least showed she wasn't
all powerful. She'd lived here long enough to learn its ways, but was hardly its master.
The thought did little to comfort him.
Distracted as he was with matching her steps, he nearly ran into her when she stopped before a massive column of flowing sand. Comparing its size to a building wouldn't do it justice. It was a weather phenomenon, and this close it was a wall. Sand pulled in from the ground and under his shoes to stream off into the sky, until it hit the other wasteland above.
She reached out for it with her left hand, letting the grains flow around her fingers, then held her right to him. "How old did you say you were?"
It was enough to bring reality home. He backed away, hands up to keep her at bay.
"Nuh-uh. Nope. No way in h-"
"Tell me, or I'll guess."
And that was enough to make him stop.
She could kill him by accident. He couldn't survive here without her power.
The two thoughts juxtaposed, and he could see there'd only ever been one right answer.
I should never have stepped through that portal.
"T-Twe... twenty five," he managed.
"Nine years, then?" She beckoned, and he glumly obeyed. "It'd be strange if you were too old for school. Can't have them guessing what we're up to!"
The false cheer was back.
She placed her hand on his sweaty, stretched t-shirt, and infinity grew by a couple more inches. Fat rippled and swelled. His shirt tore, exposing glistening, hairy man-boobs. His pants grew uncomfortably tight, until the button snapped off, the zipper broke apart, and the seams ripped.
She blinked down at him, now slightly taller than he was.
"How were you fatter at sixteen?"
He didn't say anything to defend himself. He was just glad he'd always preferred his boxers loose. No one, no matter how evil, deserved to see his pants-worm.
When he didn't answer, she continued. "I was hoping you might pass for human, but this-"
And with that, he exploded.
"Screw you, you crazy, time-fucking bitch! Take me from my home, fine, my world is trash. You want me to learn fucking witchcraft and save your world, I know how that goes. But drag me into this Lovecraftian wasteland untime horseshit, toy with my life like a deranged fairy queen, and say
I don't pass for human? Sorry princess, but you stopped being human when you stopped playing by the same rules as one!"
He heaved for breath, only just now noticing that this place had no wind on top of everything else. Sand just drifted along in the air because it wanted to, apparently.
She waited for him to finish, smiling that fake smile all the while.
Her hand was still on his chest. He swatted at it feebly, but missed when his arms moved like they used to nine years ago instead of two minutes ago.
She pulled it away on her own time, staring at the sweat still on her fingers with morbid fascination. "Have you read the History of Races, Volume Thirteen?"
History of what? He only remembered The History of Magic, and Britannian History. "Don't tell me you're racist on top of everything else."
She wiped her hand off on her dress, leaving a dirty yellow stain against the pure white. Then she reached up for her ear, tugging it out from behind her hair.
The tip alone was a full inch long, and pointed.
"You're a fucking elf?"
She waved him off. "If you had let me finish, I was going to say you look like a young ogre. They aren't incapable of magic, but... well. Let's say standards should be lower for you. Doesn't that make it easier?"
But there were more important things on his mind. "You stocked that attic with every history book
except what fantasy races I'll deal with every day? What is wrong with you? Do you want me to fail?"
"Stop flailing your arms, or I'll teleport back and leave you with the fallout."
He shut up.
"Now, then." Her plastic smile came back in full force. "I'm so sorry, but I'm just used to it! What you call fantasy is my reality, and I guess I took it for granted."
He still didn't speak up. But he did think.
That is a fucking lie. You're setting me up for something, I know it.
"Come along! We might have all day year week here, but I'm sure you don't want to spend another second hour minute with me."
She walked off before he could make up his mind, taking an entirely different path than the one they'd followed to get here.
"Wha- hey, wait! Don't leave without me!"
He wobbled after her, and tripped when his steps fell two inches short, and his muscles were a little less long and a lot more jiggly.
Sharp diamond sand ground against his palms, the infinite minute wounds feeling more like a burn than any single cut would. He snatched his hands away, glad for the tattered jeans that still protected his knees.
Whirling dust staccatoed around him, and the mad elfin princess was gone.
"Hey! Elf bitch! I'm still here!"
There was no response. Save for the echo, his voice sounding younger and older with each rebound.
But her footprints were still there. The only constant in an unending, ever-shifting blank canvas of gleaming black. Something that shouldn't belong, in a place that shouldn't exist.
I'll bet my doughy weeb arse she's the real villain.
Hefting his mass to his feet, he set out on the path she'd laid for him.
It was that, or stay out in the windless, lightless void where a single misstep might kill him. Who would choose otherwise?
An unobserved value of time later, he saw her walking ahead of him, just like she'd always been.
The sheer incongruity of that thought made him stop, which made him stumble, just long enough that the whirling dust staccatoed around him, and the mad elfin princess was gone.
But her footprints were still there. The only constant in an unending, ever-shifting blank canvas of gleaming black. Something that shouldn't belong, in a place that shouldn't exist.
Hefting his mass to his feet, he set out on the path she'd laid for him.
An unobserved value of time later, he saw her walking ahead of him, just like she'd always been.
The sheer incongruity of that thought made him stop, which made him stumble, just long enough that the whirling dust staccatoed-
He lunged forward and grabbed for her blouse, hoping that
wasn't a time loop he narrowly avoided.
She took a half step to the side, and the object in motion stayed in motion until it faceplanted against ground diamond razor dust.
"I told you to follow me exactly," she chastised.
"Frmf yrv."
Intelligible or not, his point was made.
I am not the isekai. I willingly walked into this trap like a dumbass.
But, given the choice between wallowing in his misery or seeing what other affronts to nature this coked-up world could offer, the latter at least promised to kill him quickly.
And so, with a last mighty heave, he leveraged his bulk off the bloody desert, paused to catch his breath, and waddled after the woman who seemed to know the way out.
He could not say how long it took to reach the cottage again. Only that, when he saw it, he somehow found enough energy to start running.
She stood beside the door, smiling her flawless, lifeless smile, and opened the door for him.
He'd built up too much momentum to stop before barreling through the swirling portal she'd opened behind it.
Reality whooshed around him, and he almost didn't hear her parting words before they were gone.
"Have fun at magical boarding school!"
Reality whooshed back, and he crashed into something solid and wooden, hard enough to crack it.
An unfortunately familiar and poncy set of clothes blatted against the back of his head, proving just enough to finish the door off for good, and he poured out and blobbed to the vinyl tiles below.
Mops and brooms clattered around him, one viciously going for his vulnerable, exposed neck. It bounced off the equally vicious layer of fat guarding him, and clattered to his side with the rest.
Fuck elves. Fuck princesses. Fuck, uhh...
He craned his head up, to get a look at his surroundings.
Fuck dwarves, fuck humans, fuck cat-people, fuck orcs, fuck goblins, fuck lizardmen, fuck... is that a walking warthog?
Humanoids were by far the majority, but the odd demihuman and beast race stood out all the more for it. The world's races were significantly more diverse than one stir-crazy elf would have him believe.
Fortunately, everyone seemed to speak the same language.
"Ew, what
is that?"
"Did that thing come out of the janitor's closet?"
"I think it's an ogre?"
"How can anything that big move?"
"Oh
ew, it's looking at me! Make it stop!"
"That's one fat ogre..."
"Maybe it's a troll?"
"I hope that blood isn't poisonous..."
Anime lied to me. Fantasy worlds are horrible. I want a refund.
Sighing in despair and frustration, then pausing as he strained to breathe back in, he heaved himself to his feet and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
His hand came away red, and his forehead stung for the effort. Several of the smaller females passed out cold at the sight of his exposed bosom. The warthog-thing leaned in closer to sniff, and squealed when he whapped its snout away.
"Someone point me to the nurse," he insisted, already done with this shit.
Fantastic as it should've been to be in, well, a fantastical world, he was the butterfly to their government-mandated, prophecy-based, happy-destiny-socialism. Sooner or later, he'd draw the wrong attention just by existing.
Which meant all he needed to do was nothing at all. How hard could it be?
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