The doors swung open before them while Brock was still processing Mikael’s words, revealing a large, well-lit space filled with pale off-grey cubicles stretching from wall to wall. Their sides were low enough that someone seated at one could see the head of a person seated at another, and the steady burble of chatter filled the air like early morning ocean surf. Brock thought there might be as many as sixty or seventy of the cubicles, though the room looked to be only half-full at most. Everyone in it was wearing either a white dress shirt and black tie, or the same black combat fatigues that Mikael and Brock had on, though theirs weren’t quite as tattered, or, in Brock’s case, almost non-existent.

“Wait, what? I’m a monster?”

Before Mikael could answer, a man stood up from his cubicle near the entrance and waved them over. Brock decided that the word ‘mountainous’ was woefully inadequate to describe the sheer bulk of the figure cheerfully flagging them down. His hands looked like they could easily palm Brock or Mikael’s face with room to spare, and his muscles’ muscles had muscles, straining the fabric of his pressed white dress shirt near to bursting.

“Oy, Starak, Mikael, how’d the shounen hunt go? Looks like it got a little exciting!”

Mikael raised his own hand in response, veering closer so he didn’t have to shout. Obediently, Brock trailed after, hands still secured behind his back.

“Ended up being an Overlord, Ken,” Mikael replied quietly. “He lured us in.” The giant let out a low whistle.

“No kidding? How’d you walk away from that one?”

“We almost didn’t. Verdant’s on her way to a med-unit. And, well...”

Mikael tilted his head at Brock, and the big man, Ken, seemed to suddenly notice the restraints and neck collar. The air whuffed out of his lungs, and he collapsed back into his chair like someone punched him in the gut.

“Aww, damn. Damn! I’m sorry, Mikael.” His face twisted up. “How’s Tara taking it?”

“Not well. She’s holding it together, for now, but...”

“Yeah. Damn!” Ken looked up at Brock with an intense expression of anger, his muscles swelling. “Bastard Sekkies. Wish I could-”

“Easy, easy,” Mikael said quietly. “He’s the reason we walked away.”

Some of the anger faded from Ken’s eyes, replaced by an unexpected gleam of curiosity.

“No kidding?”

“Yeah. Look, I’ll fill you in later if I can, I have to get him processed and then debrief. It’s probably going to be a long one. Drinks at the Unsavory Unicorn after?”

“First round’s on me.”

“Sounds good.”

Mikael led Brock further into the maze of cubicles. As they passed each one, Brock couldn’t help but peer inside, curious about the bustling hum of the place. Most of the cubicle interiors shared the same basic theme - scattered folders and papers filled with incomprehensible jargon and acronyms, taped up notes and stickies with strings of letters and numbers, various family photos and knickknacks placed on desks or pinned to walls, half-full waste-baskets next to ergonomic chairs.

It looked, Brock decided, very much like the corporate office environment his parents spent almost the entirety of their days in, only their workspaces didn’t have green-skinned goblins in fashionable slacks rushing over to the copier machine, or a talking wolf pushing the mail cart, or a group of elves gathered around a water cooler laughing at an android’s joke, or any of the hundred other strange oddities that were apparently quite common on this particular Earth.

Brock was also pretty sure his parents’ corporation didn’t have rocket launchers hanging from easily accessible racks with color coded ammunition charts, or signs emblazoned with ‘In case of emergency Sekkie intrusion, activate this ward and then RUN,’ but it had been several years since he’d been dragged along for the annual ‘make your child witness your job’ day, so he couldn’t say for certain.

As they passed another ‘If you see a Sekkie, say something!’ sign in cheerful pastels, Brock couldn’t stay silent any longer.

“Ummm, excuse me, Mikael?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s a ‘sekkie?’”

Mikael chuckled softly.

“You really are something, aren’t you.”

“Uhhh, I guess?”

Mikael paused next to a cubicle, reaching in to adjust a photo that was slightly off-kilter. On it were five smiling people standing behind a campfire, their arms draped around each others’ shoulders. The one on the far right was Mikael, and Brock recognized three of the other faces, matching them to the people he’d seen the necromancer try to kill. Fiona. Verdant. ‘Cap.’

The face he didn’t recognize was that of the black-haired man in the middle, both hands held in a thumbs up gesture, eyes squeezed shut in happiness. A smile spread across his lightly bearded square jaw, and his hair stuck up in wild tufts and spikes.

Mikael unbuckled the scabbard from his waist and placed it in the cubicle, leaned up against the desk, and Brock belatedly realized this was probably Mikael’s workstation. Before he could ask anything else, they were moving again. More cubicles passed by in silence.

“A Sekkie,” Mikael finally said, “is what we call the people who travel to our Earth from whatever Earth it is you’re originally from. It’s based off one of your words. ‘Isekai.’ It means ‘different world.’ You’re a Sekkie.”

Brock thought for a moment. He couldn’t deny that he was definitely in a different world. Literally everything that had happened to him so far was proof of that.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Yeah, okay, sure. I guess that makes sense. How’d I get here?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

Brock shrugged.

“How would I know? This is all new to me.”

Mikael frowned.

“Hmm. That’s... different.” He rubbed his chin with his hand. “This should really wait for processing, but screw it. You seem like a decent sort. And you definitely saved our asses earlier.” He looked at Brock thoughtfully. “Do you remember anything from your world? The last thing that happened?”

Brock blushed.

“I... uhhhh... thought I saw a cat about to get hit by a truck. I tried to jump and save it.”

Mikael laughed.

“Now that’s a classic. Didn’t make it past the truck in time, eh?”

Brock felt his cheeks flame up even hotter. He was surprised steam wasn’t coming out of his ears.

“Uhhhh... I didn’t make it to the truck. I tripped and hit my head on the curb. I’m pretty sure I died.”

To Brock’s surprise, instead of laughing even harder, Mikael’s mirth cut off like someone had flipped a switch. He came to a sudden halt, forcing Brock to stop as well.

“What happened next? Did you close your eyes, and then wake up here?”

Brock shook his head, confused at the urgency in Mikael’s voice.

“Uhhhh... no. There was this grey place. It was real empty, like there was just nothing, forever. It felt kind of sad. Then there was this voice, only I’m not sure what it was talking about. Then there were some numbers, and some shadows fighting, and some more voices. It was really weird. I wasn’t expecting to wake up there. Or here. Or, well, anywhere, really.”

Mikael cocked his head to the side, brows furrowing. He seemed to be having an internal debate with himself. Finally, he put a hand on Brock’s shoulder.

“Look, I’m gonna offer you some advice, and it’s entirely up to you if you want to take it or not. Like I said, you seem decent enough, and you saved us when it would’ve been easy not to. Call this returning the favor.” Brock nodded, eyes wide, and Mikael continued. “There’s a script to these things, how they happen, and what you said definitely ain’t it. When they ask you what happened, and they will ask, you tell them you closed your eyes and then woke up here.” He scowled, looking away, and it seemed like his next words weren’t addressed to anyone in particular. “There are plenty of proper assholes for her to experiment on already.”

Mikael didn’t wait for Brock to respond to his cryptic statement and started moving again, bringing them to a door with a glowing pad beside it. He placed his hand on the pad, which beeped softly, and the door slid open. He ushered Brock into another wood-paneled hallway, tastefully adorned with wall sconces and a deep blue carpet so thick it could double as a mattress.

“Anyways, back to my original point. No matter how you got here, you’re a Sekkie, which means you woke up in someone else’s body, and that’s the issue. It’s not your body.”

Another pair of guards brought their barbed weapons to attention as they passed, both eyeing Brock uncertainly. Brock felt a sinking sensation in his stomach.

“You don’t mean...”

Mikael turned to face him, expression serious.

“Yeah. Sekkies are parasites. It’s murder. Well, technically it’s involuntary beingslaughter, according to our legal codes, but the end result’s the same. Whoever that person was, you evict them to make room for yourself, and they don’t come back. You’re a killer, whether you wanted to be or not.”

Brock felt bile rising in his throat. He was... a murderer? As he looked down at the coarse black hair covering powerful hands not his own, he couldn’t help it. His stomach clenched, and then vomit sprayed across the immaculate walls, dripping down to soak the plush carpet.

“Huh,” Mikael remarked. “Seems like you get it. Weird. If you don’t mind my asking, how old are you? Or, were you?”

“Eighteen,” Brock coughed out, trying to wipe his mouth against his shoulder.

“Interesting. Most kids your age are arrogant pricks.”

Brock thought back to his short lifetime of failures.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever had the chance to be one,” he replied honestly. Mikael laughed, a rolling guffaw.

“Dammit kid, don’t make me start liking you. Things are messed up enough as they are. You okay now?”

Brock nodded, chest muscles still tight around the acid burning in his esophagus.

“Okay, onwards then. Don’t worry about the puke, the cleaning spells will take care of it.”

Coruscating sparkles were already descending on the despoiled carpet as Mikael pushed open another door set into the side of the hallway, the silhouette of an eye outlined in purple above it. The small room beyond was taken up primarily by a chest-high desk of gleaming granite. Behind it was a stern-looking robot in gunmetal grey, its eight insectile limbs busy tapping away at six different holographic interfaces, a pair of massive cannons mounted over its sleek triangular head. What looked like an entire rack of missiles protruded from its bulky, spider-like body, and its eyes glowed like portals into the furnace of hell. Brock felt like the thing was supposed to radiate an aura of unmistakable menace and imminent death in at least a ten-mile radius.

Brock also figured the effect was spoiled somewhat by the yellow smiley-face stickers, peace signs, rainbow flags, large-eyed kitten portraits, and extremely wholesome graffiti covering every available surface of the machine.

“Yo, KB, how’s it hanging?” Mikael called out. The robot extended one of the limbs not currently engaged in data entry, and Mikael slapped it back and forth in a complicated rhythm.

“It is good to see you, friendly flesh-sac designation One I Will Flense Last As The Screams Slowly Fade,” the robot replied once the ritual was complete. “New admit?”

“For sure. Give him the full workup, KB, but keep the probing to a minimum.”

“That is an unusual request from you for a new admit, Mika, especially considering my processors identify this being as one already designated Suitable As Biofuel Only In The Most Extreme Circumstances. What is the status of the meatbag?”

“He’s a Sekkie, but he kind of saved our asses, so try not to break his, yeah?”

“Duly noted.”

The insectile limbs suddenly stopped their tapping and flashed in towards Brock, splitting and multiplying like an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare. He cringed, but all they did was surround him entirely in knife-edged gleams; a sadomasochist’s blender. Small portals irised open along each one, revealing a multitude of ominous devices. Several started spinning in high-pitched whirs, and Brock felt his stomach drop.

“I will now process you, meatbag. Do not move.”

Before Brock could do more than draw in the first breath one takes before a lifetime of endless screaming, a blurring rush of metal descended upon him. Despite the horrible screeches and squealing sounds, the only sensation he felt was a light tickling across his skin, as if someone was running a feather across it. Barely a second later, the metal nightmare extending from the robot withdrew into its previous arm shapes and resumed their monotonous tapping on the holographic panels. Brock whimpered slightly.

“What are the approximate revolutions around your local star you have accumulated, meatbag, and are they comparable to our own?”

Brock forgot how to talk.

“Buh?”

“He’s eighteen,” Mikael volunteered. “Sounds like Earth-standard.”

“Duly noted. What nomenclature do the inferior beings of your homeworld normally mewl in order to attract your attention, meatbag?”

Brock couldn’t do anything other than stare at the robot. Again, Mikael came to his rescue.

“His name’s Brock.” Mikael turned to him. “You got a last name, kid?”

“Gnnnggh. Unnhh. Manly.”

“‘Unmanly’ accepted as secondary designation, meatbag. Are there tertiary ideograms, equations, or other mathematical expressions associated with your existence that this system would recognize as pertinent and not a lifelong insult worthy of unrelenting retribution?”

Brock felt what little grasp he’d had on the conversation vanish like a moth dive-bombing a jet engine.

“Whut?”

“No tertiary ideograms, equations, or other mathematical expressions observed. Enter the scanning chamber, meatbag.”

Again, the robot’s spindly limbs expanded and engulfed the area around Brock, forming an unmoving enclosure, only this time it wasn’t a full imprisonment. An archway led to a doorway off to the side, harsh white light shining through its rectangular frame.

“Looks like I’m done here, kid,” Mikael called through the uneven gaps in the gunmetal spikes. “Good luck, and if we ever meet again, drinks are on me!”

A firm prod from behind propelled Brock towards the doorway before he could respond.