“Look a kobold!” Prin pointed over the bushes. I looked with eager eyes. I hoped to see my favorite fantasy race, the short stack androgynous lizards but was greeted with group of eastern kobolds. The type you see in the mangas. Dog headed furries. Sigh…

“Who’s there! I can smell you!” One of the kobold’s barks at us. Kobolds are a race of dog-human hybrids. Demons from another realm they obey the Lord of all Demons. His whittle face looking worried. Anon steps into the clearing. I quickly step in behind him.

“Oi, skeleton. How much for the girl.”

“Twenty gold,” Anon states immediately. I nudge him in the leg for making a joke that sick but when I inspect his face he doesn’t seem to be joking.

“Hey, buddy isn’t that a little expensive?”

“Well, She is a princess of a very prominent country.”

The dog’s eyes light up then quickly darken. “Of what country?” His eyes narrow.

“The kingdom.”

The doggie human is in a state of panic under the fur. If dogs could sweat.

“S-she’s the king’s daughter?”

“Yep.”

“That’s the demon lord’s niece you idiot!”

“Is she?”

“Yeah! The demon lord and the king are brothers. You brainless idiot. Oh no!” The kobold looks around. He kneels down to me.

“Hey, little girl. Won’t you come with us? Did this skeleton hurt you? Your uncle is about to resurrect soon. Want to come with us to see him? You’ll be safe.”

I must resist the urge to pet him. He has the color pattern and face structure of a corgi. I shake my head. I don’t know what he’s talking about. Uncle isn’t the demon lord. Uncle was just a large guy who wore fake horns and skinny jeans made of fur. His shoes were cloven. He’d always arrive in the dead of night and be gone in the same fashion.

“Anon. I think my uncle is the demon lord.” I pause to think it through again. There wasn’t anything about this in the game. This is all off-script. This world has become real. “Err... I mean was the demon lord.”

“Cool.”

“Cool?! Do you understand what that means for the eternity of humans on this planet?”

Anon shrugs.

“It means that the two largest warring nations are allied together. That the dungeon system is bogus. That one family controls forty percent of the world. Summoning heroes to fight the demon lord isn’t done to defeat the demon lord. It’s done so the demon lord can face strong opponents.”

“That's politics!” Anon slaps his own knee.

“And according to Mr. Corgi, he will be back soon. They are resurrecting him.”

Anon rubs his chin. “Cool? Not like any of that affects me. Actually, one second.” He rubs his chin. "Yeah, none of this affects me at all. I have no reason to hang out with you anymore."

Anon begins to walk away. I go to follow but the corgi kobold grabs my arm. “Princess. Please don’t leave. The lord will be distressed if he resurrects and you are missing. We can keep you safe. We won't try to sell you off like that shitty skeleton.”

I pause. I don’t know what to do. Anon doesn’t stop. Not even a look back. He just walks on. I need to make a decision quickly! I need to do something. Either stay with my uncle’s dogmen and follow them to my uncle or go with Anon the child murdering skeleton. The choice is ultimately taken away from me as Anon disappears from sight. I could find him if I chased him, but I also could get lost. “Looks like I’ll be in your care.” I sigh.

The dog's bark in joy. We walk back over to their campfire. It is a small thing. No tents. No seats. Only a fire with five dog humans around it. The corgi sits on the ground and goes through a bag. “Princess. Sit next to me. I’ll cook you something to eat. Do you like horn rabbit?”

The kobold sees me inspecting the camp. “Sit. Cmon princess. We will travel to see your uncle in the morning.”

“But there are no seats.”

“Oh! Then sit on me.” He gets on all fours like a table.

“No. I want the princess to sit on me!”

To think that my uncle would have this kind of control over the demons. That they would humiliate themselves in front of me to earn his favor. I smile.

Hero stopped by the city's adventurer’s guild. They smiled and a great cheer went up when he entered. He waved to his fellow adventurers. “Hey, guys. Everyone doing good?” He had a genuine concern for their well being. Hero went to the notice board. A bulky man plants curves himself to peer over Hero’s shoulder. “Gonna kill annotha dragon?”

“No, nothing that extreme. I’m just grabbing the herb quest and the rabbit extermination.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

The adventurer seems confused. “But that’s for low tier adventurers. You’re an actual hero.”

Hero smiles at the man. “But if no one grabs the herbs than Ms. Apoth. O'curry can’t produce potions. Her business would fail if we didn’t do the small quests once in a while. Plus the orphanage has a flu outbreak. I’m going to collect some extra for them. If the horn rabbits get out of control then they will eat the fields barren. The farmers are too weak to kill them themselves. Plus, the orphanage always needs more meat to feed the children.”

The adventurer gives a laugh that quickly turns from jovial to grave and pulls himself away from Hero. “I will never understand people like you. How can you be so nice? Do you get a sick pleasure from altruism? Is there some insider trading going on? I was taught that everything has a price and for you to be helping orphans for free ... What is your angle?”

Hero smiles at the adventurer. “I’m just a nice person.”

Hero go field. Hero pick herb. Hero kill rabbit. For further reading to understand this complicated concept please visit the first two chapters of any isekai ever.

Actually. Wait a second. I’m a do it. I’m going to put on four layers of irony. Witness me.

⸮

Nothing like an honest day of work. I say to myself as I snipe another rabbit with a throwing knife. Even though I can hit a rabbit with a knife at fifty meters while juggling. I must stay humble. This power is from God. I am merely borrowing it. That’s what skills are gifts from gods we peasants can’t comprehend. I pray to god every day. To offer my thanks for a skill that allowed me to gain the sponsor of the king. With that kind of power, I was able to help every orphanage in the city. I am the sole reason… opps. I almost got a big head. This gift from God is the sole reason that those children have fat on their ribs and thoughts in their heads. After I reworked the entire system a year ago to better serve the lost souls.

I pick up another horned rabbit corpse. That makes fifty. I’ll show the orphans how to dry the meat that way the food will last for a while. I inspect the environment around me. My scan goes out over five hundred meters. It details the specifics of every item. I narrow my search, looking for the specific herb I need. A few red dots ping on my radar and I make my way towards them.

I notice that it’s past noon. I pick up my bag of rabbit corpses and my bag of herbs and head back to town. In a blink, at speeds that only gods could grant, I am at the entrance to the town.

/⸮

“You’ve been hunting on the royal ground haven't you?” The guard at the gate stops me.

“No sir. I’ve been completing elimination requests from the guild. I have the work forms right here.” I pull out both job requests from the notice board.

“Still. That means you were hunting these rabbits, on royal ground?”

“But, they are a pest. Not game.”

“All meat is game! You will pay the tax on it. The law says that you are required to pay 50% of the game hunted on royal land to the crown.” The gate guard raises his voice.

“But this isn’t game and if I give you 50% then I won’t have enough to complete my quest and feed the orphans.”

“If you don’t pay the tax then you aren’t getting in.” The guard crosses his arms and smirks at me. This is a robbery. A law like this has never existed. He’s just bending the law to suit himself. I hear a dark voice nagging the back of my brain. No. He’s a person of the law. There was probably just a new law added. I sigh and hand half of the rabbits over to the guard. Spineless piece of shit. You should have killed him! No. I shouldn’t have. That would not be an equal punishment for his crime. I’ll report it to the king and get him fired.

I won’t be able to turn in the rabbit quest at the guild, but I still give the herbs to Ms. Ocarry and she gives me a potion to help the sick kids at the orphanage, but when I get there there are no sick children. All the kids are outside playing happily. I walk inside to check on what miracle might have occurred.

Hero pushes open the doors of the church. Hiro and his priest stand at the counter. “What do you mean that there are no cute girls who I can ‘adopt’?”

The priest holds up his hands. “There are, but they are very young.”

Hiro pulls his hand back as if about to slap someone. Then quickly calms himself. In a cold voice. “No. It’s cool. It’s fine. All I did was cure the children of their sickness and make a generous donation. Of course, you couldn’t supply me with a new companion.” Despite being calm and collected Hiro looks like he’s about to strangle the priest.

Hero’s knees begin to shake. Even him? Hero never had a great view of Hiro. He was a playboy with too much power, unhealthy for the children he took them away on grand adventurers then abandoned them, it was not helping the orphans with their abandonment complexes, but he wasn’t evil. At least. Hero never thought that Hiro was evil, but adoption? Does Hiro mean the same kind of adoption that the duke was participating in? Hero grabs Hiro’s hand. “I’m sick of you being in here.”

Hiro laughs. “Why’s that?”

“You’re not healthy for these kids.”

“How!?” Hero yells, indignant. “I adopt them. I feed them. I increase their level to insane degrees. I send them on grand adventurer’s and document their journeys. The orphans are a source of entertainment that always has something new. They are self-writing fantasy stories.”

“You’re doing it for your own entertainment?”

“Yeah! And what do you help them for? Because you’re a good person?”

Hero nods.

“No! No one is that generous. Let me guess. You’re secretly on the up and up about ‘adoptions’?”

Hero let’s go of Hiro. He takes a step back and looks at the floor. “I, actually just found out about it.”

Hiro’s eyes soften. “You didn’t know that the church was selling the children?”

Hero shakes his head. Hiro softens again. Hiro was a selfish person to the core, but to be faced with a pure person who just learned of corruption in a system that he had been supplying. It was like watching a child find out that Santa Claus isn’t real.

A broom drops. All eyes turn to look at it. An orphan, five foot, long blond hair, flat chest.

Hiro turns to the priest. “You said that there were no girls I could buy? I’ll take her.”

“Please don’t talk about that in front of the children. Plus he’s a guy.”

“He already knows about your dirty secret better sell him to me quickly before he tells the other. Don’t worry. He’ll be fine.”

Hiro rubs his hands together. “I haven't cared for a boy in a long time. It’ll be a nice change of pace.”

Hero yells. “You can’t just buy people! It’s immoral.”

Hiro shrugs. “Only to a modern person. Slavery was ended in 1863 in America. Serfdom, which is slavery but with the illusion of not being a slave, wasn’t outlawed until 1864 in Russia. It’s a very very modern idea that all men are equal. Even the founding fathers believed that only land-owning people should vote.”

“What?” Hero replies, not understanding a single thing about what Hiro said or what it meant.

“Are you not an isekai protganist?”

“A what?”

Hiro oops faces. He had assumed that Hero was from Earth because he was so strong, but guess not. He looks away from Hero to the femboy running for his freedom. “Hold that thought.” Hiro disappears then reappears with the femboy under his arm. He puts a handful of gold on the counter.

“What you’re doing isn’t healthy for the orphans.” Hero gets in one final jab. Trying to plead the case for why he doesn’t like Hiro in a world where the framework of Hiro being the worse person for the children was just shattered. Hiro laughs at him and teleports away.