Before I knew it, I was dead.

The day began like any other. I had woken up this morning to an empty house. My parents both worked overseas in America so it wasn't unusual to be home alone. Neither of them had been home in years, so this was just the norm for me.

Packing the lunch I had prepared the night before, I left the house and made my way to school. Each school day was the same as any other. Attend class. Eat lunch. Walk home again. As an average Japanese teenager with average grades, average looks, no friends, and no after-school clubs to attend—I blended completely into the background. A total background character—a background character in my own life even.

But today was different. Today something happened that wasn’t supposed to happen to background characters.

Walking home from school, I had stopped at a crosswalk, waiting for the traffic to come to a halt. The heavy summer's sun was bearing down on me, its oppressive heat sapping away my energy. Wiping the sweat from my brow, I noticed a girl had stepped in front of me, talking and laughing loudly on her phone. From the look of her uniform, she must’ve only been in middle school.

As she stepped blindly forward into the road, oblivious to the oncoming truck heading straight for her, I came to a sudden realization. Ah, this girl is going to die.

Without even a second thought, I ran out in front of the speeding truck, grabbed the girl by the back of her clothes, and pulled her backwards to safety.

It wasn't the kind of thing a background character would do, but my body had moved all on its own. I had pulled the girl to safety but, unable to stop my momentum, I had ended up as the one in front of the truck instead. As the truck hurtled towards me, I closed my eyes in quiet acceptance of the situation I had ended up in, and then... I was dead.

I am dead. I must be.

Opening my eyes, all I can see in front of me is black. I try to breathe but no air fills my lungs. I try to move but the pitch-black walls grip me tightly, holding me in place.

This must be hell. I must’ve died and been sent to hell.

Suddenly, a light appears above me. The walls trapping my body start to writhe and squeeze around my body, pushing me up towards the light. As my head squeezes through into the light, I feel the cool air brush against my face. I take a deep breath. I can breathe again!

Desperately drinking the fresh air into my empty lungs, the rest of my body is squeezed out into the light. I feel myself fall onto the floor. Despite being cold and hard, the sudden coolness feels nice against my clammy skin. I try to look around but a strange, sticky liquid is coating my entire body—dripping down my face and into my eyes. The smell of bile begins to fill my nostrils for some reason.

Maybe I really am in hell after all...

“Fwah! A man! A man came out!” I hear a woman’s voice shout out above me. “Fweh... You’ve really done it this time, Pepper...”

“W-where am I?” I ask, picking myself off the ground and wiping the mysterious sticky wetness from my eyes. “Am I in hell?”

“Fweh? We’re, uh, in some human town, I think?” the voice replies, seemingly either unsure of the answer herself or confused by the question being asked. “We’re not in the Underground so we’re probably still up top maybe.”

Up top? As in heaven? And why does heaven have towns? I was never a religious person in the first place so I didn’t have much knowledge about these things or even give them much thought while I was still alive.

Wait. If I died and was sent to heaven, does that mean the woman I was talking to now...

“Are you... Are you a Goddess, perhaps?” I ask. I can see a blurry figure in front of me but my eyes still haven’t adjusted to the new environment and were still stinging from the sticky liquid.

“A Goddess!” she exclaims with obvious delight. “Goddess Pepper, huh? Fwah~! I suppose I must be then! Fwahaha!”

I see. After I was hit by that truck, I was summoned into heaven by a Goddess and then— Wait. She said we were in a human town, implying the existence of towns that aren’t human. Does that mean...?

“Are we in a fantasy world, right now?” I ask. “A world of elves, dwarves, monsters, and magic?”

“Fa-? Fantasy? I don’t know about that one but, uh, elves and dwarves are supposed to be around, I think? I haven’t met any though. Mostly just goblins and trolls and stuff.”

There it is! It’s that thing! That thing! The thing that's been popular in anime and light novels lately! Killed by a truck to save somebody else, a teenage boy is summoned to a fantasy world of dwarves and elves by a beautiful Goddess! My very own isekai fantasy! I’ve been reincarnated in another world!

Blinking away the stinging in my eyes and adjusting to the new light levels, I can finally take a look around and put a face to the voice I’ve been conversing with—No doubt a stunning beauty, I’m sure. That’s just how these things go.

Looking around and noticing the stone walls, stone floor, and metal bars of the small room, it immediately becomes apparent that I am, in fact, not in heaven or hell, but locked inside some kind of jail cell. Strange.

I look over to where the woman’s voice was coming from and—

Oh... Well, she’s not exactly what I would call beautiful. I mean, I wouldn’t call her ugly either. Well, definitely not to her face, at least. If I had to describe this woman in one word it would be ‘intimidating.’

Thick, jet-black hair falls messily over her head and shoulders—small, wild tufts of hair lick up in odd directions at varying levels of untidiness. Her piercing crimson eyes carefully study me up and down below two thick, unkempt eyebrows. I can make out the rows of pointed teeth inside her mouth—reminiscent of some kind of carnivorous animal—as she picks at something in between them with a sharp, black fingernail.

This kind of wild and dangerous look could definitely be considered attractive among certain circles but the fact that this woman is absolutely ripped on top of all that kind of narrows down those circles quite a bit. Despite her physique, she doesn’t feel particularly big though. She’s not particularly tall or broad either—it’s the sheer definition of her muscles is what stands out to me. Unlike your typical bodybuilder, it's as if she hadn’t built her muscles up in size but in pure density instead. Either way—not my type. Not at all.

Strangely—she's also completely naked.

“Is, uh... Is it normal to be naked in this world?” I ask, making sure not to break eye contact. It’s not very difficult though, seeing as I’m not interested in such a masculine body in the first place.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Fwah? Oh. Right..” she responds blinking down at her naked body. “Goblins stole my clothes.”

“I-I see. Sorry to hear that...”

“Yeah.” She nods sadly. “I got revenge though! I squashed their king and took his cloak instead. The guards took it though. Said it was evidence or something. Whatever that means.”

Guards? This is just a jail cell after all! Why am I—? No, no. I’ll worry about the setting after. First of all, let’s get a better understanding of what kind of isekai fantasy I’ve ended up in. This is very important after all.

“So.. I’ve been summoned here from another world, right?” I ask. “And you were the one who summoned me here, yes?”

“Fweh?” The woman tilts her head in confusion for a second before coming to some sort of realization and nodding her head in agreement. “Oh! So it leads to another world, huh? That makes sense! I guess I did, yeah!”

“For what heroic purpose? Rampant monsters? Civil war? Revival of the Demon Lord?”

“Oh, no.” She shakes her head. “It was an accident. Sorry.”

“W-what do you mean? How do you accidentally summon somebody from another world?”

“I dunno. I was looking for some cute clothes and you came out instead. That’s the first time a person’s ever come out.”

“Come out? Out of where?”

“Out of here.” She points a thumb toward her mouth and opens her jaw wide.

‘Y-your mouth? What kind of...” I look down at the sticky liquid slowly dripping from my body and pooling beneath me. “Wait, is this—“

“Fwah! That!" The woman suddenly shouts out and points down at my hand, tearing me away from my bubbling feelings of disgust. “What is that?!”

“Hm? What is...” I look down at my hand. Balled up in my fist was some kind of familiar clothing. Holding it up and stretching it out in front of me, I could see what it was that I had unknowingly been holding onto this entire time. “Oh. Sailor uniform.”

When I grabbed the back of the middle school girl’s clothes to pull her away from the speeding truck, I must have still been holding onto them when I got summoned into this world, bringing them over with me.

“Sailor uniform!” the woman exclaims excitedly. "Can I have it? You don't need it, right? I'll trade you for it! I don't have anything on me right now but I'll let you massage my biceps! Both of them! I'll even throw in one of my calf muscles too! Just the left one though. The right one is kinda shy around other people."

“N-no, that’s okay. You can have it. I don’t need anything in return.”

With a giddy look on her face, the woman takes the clothes and starts to dress in front of me. Struggling to get the zipper to close on her new skirt, I reluctantly hand over my belt for her to use, holding my own pants up by stuffing my hands into my pockets.

“Fwaha! How do I look?!” She asks, giving a sloppy twirl to show off her new clothes.

Like a grown woman wearing a child’s school uniform, I want to say but decide not to.

The middle school uniform was clearly much too small for her. The bottom of the shirt stopped halfway up her torso, leaving her chiselled abs completely exposed. Its breezy, sleeveless summer design served to show off her muscular arms as well. The skirt itself, held up by the belt tightly buckled around her waist, was also quite noticeably short in length—exposing quite a lot of her grotesquely defined thighs.

All in all, it was a fairly bizarre sight that, under different circumstances, might have been exciting for a hormonal teenage boy but, in this case, wasn't.

“It looks, um, c-cute," I tell her, forcing a fake smile.

“Fwahaha! Of course it does!” She laughs happily, clearly in a good mood as she admires her new clothes. “Pepper Black is a woman who will become the cutest in the whole Outside!”

“D-definitely! Now about being summoned to this world again... Can I learn magic in this world? Like creating water, shooting fire and lightning, stuff like that?”

I attempt to steer the conversation back to the details of this exciting new fantasy world.

“Fweh? Magic?..” She tilts her head in thought again. “It’s not really magic but I’ve heard there are some Curses like that. Fire and stuff. You can’t learn it though. You have to be born with it. Like, I don’t think I could teach other people to vomit stuff from another world. That might be kinda hard...”

“I-I see...”

I wasn’t summoned to be a Hero and I can’t learn magic. Looking at this woman in front of me, it’s safe to say that I probably wouldn’t stand a chance in any kind of physical combat against the denizens of this world either.

Oh! I suppose we must be in slice-of-life territory then! This wild woman will slowly be tamed and shaped into a beautiful maiden who devotes her life to me—among others too, I’m sure! It’s not the exciting power fantasy I was expecting but a slow harem life like that does sound very pleasant too.

“This is a little embarrassing, but...” I clear my throat. “H-how do you feel about me? You know... as a man? Am I the kind of guy you’d be interested in falling in love with at some point?”

“Oh. I only like girls.” Completely blank-faced, the woman rejects me immediately.

...

“This world sucks! I’m not the Hero summoned for some higher purpose! I can’t learn magic! How am I supposed to make a harem out of a butch lesbian woman?! And why the hell am I in jail?! This isn’t like the light novels at all! I want to go home! I want to go home to my normal school life back in Japan!”

“Hm? Sure, I’ll send you back whenever you want.”

“... Eh? Wait, you can? Just like that?”

“Yeah, I usually end up sending all the weird stuff back anyway. Seems kind of irresponsible to leave stuff like that just lying around, you know? Like picking your nose in Mom’s room. That booger you pick out better be going back in again or you’ll get in trouble, right? It’s like that.”

I don’t know what’s more surprising. The fact that I can go home just as easily as I was sent here, or the fact that this clearly irresponsible woman just told me she didn’t want to do something irresponsible.

“O-oh, I see. That’s reassuring at least. So... How is this going to work? What do I have to do?”

“I’ll send you back the same way you came in. Just hold still. I’ll be gentle.”

Hm? The same way I came in? But that was...

Grabbing me gently by the shoulders and pulling my body close to hers, the woman slowly brings her mouth close to my face. This would almost be exciting if it wasn’t for the fact that her jaw was wide open and unhinged at a disturbing level. My heart is definitely racing right now but not for the reason I want it to!

“Wait, wait, wait!” I squirm in protest. “I don’t want to go back that way! I don’t want to be eaten! I don’t even like vore!”

“I ‘ed hol’ ‘till!”

"I change my mind! I don't want to go home! I'll stay! It's fine! I don't need a harem after all—"

Tightening her grasp on my shoulders, she clamps her jaw around my head, lifts me off my feet and—

I’m outside again.

“... Eh?”

The intense sun beams down on me as I look up into the sky. It’s hot. The loud chirping of cicadas alongside the low hustle and bustle of crowds and traffic mix together to fill my ears with the familiar sounds of the city I live in.

A dream, huh?

I hadn't died after all. I hadn't been summoned to another world, and I hadn't met a grotesquely muscular madwoman whose clothes were stolen by goblins. It was a dream. I must've dozed off on my way back from school due to heatstroke or something.

“There he is!” I hear a young girl scream nearby. “Pervert!”

I look over toward the direction of the scream to find a middle-school-aged girl in nothing but her underwear, accompanied by a police officer. She points an accusing finger at me as the officer approaches.

“Hey! You!” The officer yells in my direction. “I’m going to have to ask you to come down to the station with me. I have some questions for you, young man.”

“... Eh? W-wait, why do I— I haven’t done anything wrong, officer! You’ve got the wrong person!” I say, throwing my hands into the air. As I do, my pants fall down to my ankles.

“Kyaaa!” the girl screams again. “That’s him! That’s the pervert that stole my clothes!”

Eh? I recognize her. That’s the middle school girl I pulled away from the truck before. But if her clothes are missing then...

“What do you have to say for yourself?” the officer says, shaking his head at me.

"N-no you've got it all wrong!" I shout in protest. "It was for her own good! My body moved on its own!"

“Hey. That was the guy who ripped that poor girl’s clothes off and just disappeared.”

“Gross. That guy just pulled down his pants...”

“Why is he so slimy? Ew.”

A crowd had started to gather and was chattering and whispering away at my expense.

“No, no! You’ve got it all wrong! There was a naked lady! I took my belt off! It was— It wasn’t like that! I was in jail and then—!”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m placing you under arrest.” the police officer says, locking me in handcuffs and dragging me away. “You can tell me all about it back at the station.”

... Eh?

You know, in hindsight...

Being a background character in a fantasy world alongside that woman...

It might not have been such a bad thing after all.