While one falls asleep, another gets depressed
I wake up.
That is, if you can call it waking up.
Because to be honest, finding myself trapped in a flaccid, tiny body, unable to control anything other than my eyelids... that's not really what I'd call waking up. It's a joke. A very bad joke.
I try to move. Result: a wet, pathetic squeak.
Charming.
Arms grab me. A voice whispers, weeping: "He's beautiful..." Another, more serious: "You were incredible... We got him!
Another, more serious: "You were incredible... We did it."
I wish I could understand what they're saying. But seriously? I'm just standing there looking at them, trying to look at them like an idiot, with this fucking body that makes me look like a worn-out handkerchief. The words just keep coming. This language has no logic. It's all gibberish that I can't understand. And yet they seem so moved. Tears, bursts of voices... Why does it all seem so disturbing?
I try to speak. Nothing comes out. Just a shrill, ridiculous cry, like the horn of a broken toy.
And of course they applaud. They cry. They laugh.
You'd think drooling and screaming would be the local equivalent of a Nobel Prize.
Then, as I'm trying to work out what's going on, a strange voice is heard.
[ Launch ]
[ Loading interface... ]
Well, if we can get past the fact that I'm hearing voices in my head, which is already weird, let's see if this one will be more useful.
[Body analysis... Synchronisation... Failure.]
Okay... okay, I still don't understand anything, but for God's sake, talk to Japan at some point, how am I supposed to understand?
[ Error. ]
[Retry system...]
[ Error. ]
[The system is unable to load the creature's profile for an unknown reason. ]
Great. I don't even know what it means, and it keeps bombarding me with incomprehensible stuff. Is this voice supposed to be helpful? Because right now I'm just lost in a flood of sound.
For all I know, I'm getting notifications like a cheap robot. I'm trying to catch something intelligible, but it's no use. It's just a steady stream of noises I can't make out. And what's worse, I'm too trapped in this bloody body to even react properly.
[Complete sync failure... System reboot ]
[System shutdown]
Excuse me? I'm sorry, what? I guess I'm supposed to understand, but it's like none of this makes sense. If I could give a shit, I would. But right now, it just feels like it's telling me that I'm a defective version, with no instructions on what to do. Is he fucking with me or what?
I close my eyes. Not to sleep. Just to isolate myself from the humiliation.
I mean, how did I get isekai in the first place?
According to my last moments and what I remember.
I was at school or that day, and everything should have gone according to plan.
Just another day at school. An uninteresting lesson in a room as inspiring as a toaster. The smell of chalk. The monotonous voices of the teachers. The routine.
I looked around me. Always the same faces.
Shouta, scribbling horrors in her notebook, probably hoping one day to become the school's next Van Gogh.
Reina, hiding behind her phone, half giggling.
And Saiko at the back. Back to the wall. Absent. Almost eerie. An aura of "don't talk to me unless you want your karma to go up in flames".
I don't think she was faking it.
But what about me? I don't even know if I was looking out of the window. Or if I was dreaming. Maybe I was just thinking about how hollow it all was.
Then I started to hear a strange sound so naturally I turned my head.
I saw her. Hanging there, in the void. A ray of light in the sky.
And I knew that either I'd been drinking, which was impossible, or I was in deep shit.
I didn't panic or scream, quite frankly the world was collapsing and what about me? Well, I looked on without worrying too much, quite unperturbed.
If that's the end, then it's sorely lacking in direction!
Then the white.
Not darkness. No. A total absence. As if even the concept of nothingness had been erased from the script.
Then I felt a chill coming from within. As if my soul had been badly rewired.
And now here I am in miniature mode.
Bloody isekai...
And as if the joke wasn't humiliating enough, there's another scream.
Identical to mine.
Brilliant. A twin. Because it's not hard enough being alone, I have to share the humiliation with someone else.
Oh, congratulations. Congratulations. You've just given birth to a lost spirit, sarcastic and deeply vexed to exist in this form.
Anyway, to recap.
I can hear their weird voices but I can't understand what they mean, so clearly they don't speak Japanese!
And there's this robotic voice in my head... As if I needed that to sound crazy. And what's more, I don't even understand what she's saying.
Shit, in isekai, people wake up with at least the ability to understand, or else a fucking goddess of my own explaining to you that you have to raise the demon king. Anyway, even if there was a demon king, I'd let him have his fun in his corner!
"Two children? Bloody hell, I wasn't expecting that!"
A female voice calls out again - probably my mother's? It's hard to say, everything sounds strange to my ears.
"Honey, calm down, let the system settle down quietly!"
"You're right! When I was young, I was afraid there'd be a problem when it set up for me!"
Hello? I don't understand a thing! Do something for God's sake!
I know I'm a child, so it's normal that I don't understand... but it's an isekai!
[ System Relaunch ]
Oh, the voice in my head! For God's sake, give me the ability to understand!
[Multiple comprehension errors have been identified, correction in progress... ]
[Message from Central System]
[The central system has ordered a memory search.]
It doesn't seem to be offering me any abilities, I need to understand something!
[ Launch ]
And before I can understand anything... my brain explodes in infernal heat. Is this thing going through my head or what?! Is it supposed to help me or lobotomise me?
[Memory access failure.]
[Loading recovered snippets...]
The pain is subsiding!
[Testing... can you hear me?]
Oh? I hear it!
"Yes, I can hear you!
[ Test passed. I am the World System. My aim: to help all humanoid beings. ]
[ Current location: Keren Empire, on the outskirts of the Keren'zar capital ]
Ah, perfect. Even the place names sound like something out of a fantasy game.