> Part 1 - Acclimation

Awareness came to me slowly and gradually. All I could grasp was that I was immensely tired. My mind was empty, my body heavy like a rock, and I wanted nothing more than to keep sleeping.

I heard a gentle voice talking to me, but I couldn’t make out what it was saying. All I knew was that it probably wanted me to keep sleeping.

Well, there was no harm in sleeping longer, right? Not like I had to wake up for school or a job. I streamed exclusively in the evenings, after all.

Yeah, no need to wake up just yet. Let’s go back to sleep.

I absent-mindedly nibbled on something sweet right in front of me and fell asleep again.

…

When I woke up for the second time, it was with a bit more clarity than last time. I was still groggy and dazed and my eyes refused to open even as I mewled and shifted my body. But I could now tell that there was something odd going on.

For one, I was in a fetal position. Why? I never slept like that. Usually, I would sprawl my limbs all over the bed.

But man, it felt really nice. So warm and comforting… Like something soft was hugging me from all sides. And honestly, since it was so soothing, I didn’t mind it at all.

I dozed off once more.

…

When I woke up for the third time, I began to feel like there was something acutely wrong happening. Sure, the warm and soft thing surrounding me was still incredibly nice and comfortable but… What even was it? That wasn’t my blanket, right?

I slowly opened my eyes and complete pitch-black darkness greeted me.

Was it still the middle of the night? Damn, I shouldn’t have streamed till three in the morning last night. My sleep schedule was beyond repair at this point, wasn’t it?

Wait, hold on. It shouldn’t be this dark, even if it was the middle of the night, right?

I moaned as I tried stretching my limbs. But the dark and soft surroundings didn’t let me. They kept me nicely tucked in and told me to go back to sleep.

But that only made me even more suspicious. Something was definitely wrong here.

I began to stretch once more, pushing against the soft walls surrounding me. The walls resisted, but I wasn’t giving up anymore. I kept pushing. Harder and harder–

And then it cracked.

Wait, what the hell?

There was a crack in the dark soft space I had been in, letting a trickle of light inside.

Incredibly confused at this development, I untangled my limbs and decided to try and poke my head out through the crack. In the process, I broke off even more pieces, widening the crack and letting even more light in.

I blinked as my eyes slowly adjusted and the brain fog started packing its things to leave. I saw all the light streaking in through an oval-shaped passage in the wall.

Was that my window? Shouldn’t it be rectangular? And hold on… I hadn’t moved the curtains, had I? There shouldn’t be any light getting through!

I crawled forward, annoyed at the light assailing my eyes. Only for my entire bed to flop forward as it made another cracking sound. I fell out of my bed with a squeak as my comfy bed shattered under my hands.

“Whuh…?!” a high-pitched voice squeaked.

And then I realized that my bed shattering into pieces was probably a bad sign.

I blinked, utterly bemused as to what was happening, then looked around myself as my eyes finally seemed to have adjusted to the light.

There were… rough stone walls surrounding me, and the light was coming from an opening in those rocks rather than a window.

I frowned and made a confused sound as the last remnants of the brain fog finally left.

What the hell? Who had overlaid my room with rocks and made a giant hole in it?

And then I finally looked behind me to check out why my bed was breaking down and froze, my jaw going slack.

That wasn’t my bed.

I was sticking through a crack out of some smooth cyan ball… no, not a ball. An egg-shaped object.

Huh…

Slowly, but carefully, I crawled out of the thing completely, while keeping my wide eyes on it.

It really was egg-shaped. And it looked really cool, what with its white to cyan gradient, and a blue flame-like pattern at the bottom of it.

And I had just crawled out of it. I’d been inside it.

“What…?” the squeaky voice asked again.

“Wait… Hold on…”

That squeaky voice had come out of my mouth, I belatedly realized.

Then I looked down. And I saw a tiny naked body.

“What?!”

On reflex, I used my tiny hand to touch my tiny stomach. And then, I, of course, noticed the distinct lack of a certain something that used to be between my legs.

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“What?!” I squeaked.

That was… great? No, that was amazing! I couldn’t believe–

No, hold on. That wasn’t important right now. What the heck was going on?!

Let’s think back… What did I remember?

I had streamed late into the night, trying to beat that one boss on stream, yes… Then what? I’d ended the stream when I beat him, taken a shower, and then gone to sleep, right?

Yes… What then? Had something happened afterwards? Had I gotten kidnapped by someone? Had I met with a god who told me I would get reincarnated?

No, I didn’t remember anything like that…

I remembered… heat. It had been much hotter than it should have been in early March and I had trouble falling asleep. So hot, in fact, that I’d tossed my pajamas to the floor and slept naked. But then it had gotten hotter and hotter and…

And then I’d hatched from the egg.

I eyed the blue flame pattern on it, feeling like that was an important piece of the puzzle.

And then, of course, I did what any self-respecting adult would do in my situation. I lifted my thumb and index finger to my face, and pinched it.

“Ow!”

I didn’t wake up.

I stared for a few more seconds as my thoughts tried to catch up to what I was experiencing.

Then I took a deep breath.

“What is this?! Where am I?! Did I get reincarnated?! What the hell?! Why did I hatch from an egg?! What was the heat about?!”

My twenty questions with the egg were interrupted by the echoes of my own voice resounding in the cave that I had apparently hatched in.

I clamped my mouth shut and looked around in panic, trying to see whether I roused anything that might want to snack on me. Or maybe even the bird that had laid my egg… or you know, maybe a dragon or something.

But there were no signs of life around besides me. I seemed to be safe for now.

I did notice something strange off to the side, though. There was a… neatly folded stack of clothes with shoes and an envelope on top of it.

It looked incredibly suspicious, but also very clearly meant for me. I was naked, after all.

Slowly and carefully, I crawled closer to the suspicious pile of stuff, my eyes trained on it. Then, once I got close enough, I poked it with a finger.

Nothing happened.

Then I poked the envelope.

Nothing happened.

I was beginning to feel stupid. But hey, I couldn’t help it, alright?! All those party games with other Vcubers had taught me to never trust anything, even if it looked safe. Who knew if that envelope was secretly another player trying to hide from the hunters?

Ahem, anyway…

Seeing as the inanimate pile of objects didn’t seem to be keen on growing teeth and biting my hand off, I reluctantly reached out for the envelope and grabbed it. I turned it around and looked at it from all sides, but it was completely white with no text or a stamp on it.

Without any better ideas, I decided to open the thing, using my tiny fingers to pry open the top.

It held a single piece of paper and once I pulled it out and took a look at it, I couldn’t help my mixed feelings.

It featured a single line written in large letters.

‘I’m sorry.’

“Wha…”

I turned it around and my mixed feelings immediately turned to indignant annoyance.

‘Good luck! ;)’

“What the hell?! Good luck?! Who are you?! Where are you?! Why did you reincarnate me?! Good luck with what?! What am I supposed to be doing?! Where are my instructions?!” I shouted at the damn smug paper.

The paper said nothing. Smug jerk.

And so I tossed it to the side with a growl. After staring daggers at it for a few more seconds just to make sure it got the point, I turned to the rest of the items my mysterious kidnapper had left me.

The stack of clothes looked kid-sized… but I was also kid-sized at the moment. Those clothes would probably fit me perfectly.

So, although reluctantly, I poked the stack of clothes again, checking for any traps, before standing up on my tiny wobbly legs and putting the clothes on.

As soon as I put on the underwear and oddly-familiar skirt/pants hybrid, I had a thought that this stuff could be cursed or something. After all, since I’d hatched from an egg in a cave and whatnot, this was probably some kind of fantasy world, right? That was how it usually went, wasn’t it?

“Well, crap…” I muttered.

After a moment of deliberation, I shrugged and put on the fancy top and the socks and shoes as well.

Not much I could do about it if it was cursed. And honestly, unless I wanted to run around naked, I didn’t have much of a choice right now.

To give credit where it was due, the clothes felt super smooth and soft on my skin. Part of me wondered what it was all made from.

With the clothes on, I gave the piece of paper one more sneer, before looking back at the egg I had hatched from. It really did look dang cool, I had to admit. But what was the deal with that flame pattern? Did it mean anything? Had a dragon or something laid that egg? Was I a dragon?

A quick double-check of my head and my shoulder blades confirmed that I didn’t have horns or wings or anything of the sort. As far as I could tell, I seemed to be perfectly human, even though I probably wasn’t, considering the whole hatching business.

So, current theory: A dragon god dude guy had decided to prank me by eating me, and then reincarnating me in another world via hatching from an egg.

Because of… reasons?

Also, considering the egg, it was probably a lady girl, not a dude guy.

Or maybe, I was just a presumptuous mortal and even male dragon gods could lay eggs if they wanted to.

…I was probably spiraling. My thoughts were turning into utter nonsense.

“Okay… Okay…” I nodded to myself, trying to pretend like I had everything under control.

Hey, fake it till you make it, right? It didn’t matter if I was internally panicking. I just had to pretend that everything was fine.

“Alright! Let the isekai adventure begin, egg!” I announced as I pointed at my ‘bed’. “What’s our plan then? First step… Get out of this cave and figure out where I am. Yes, great plan, egg. As expected of the egg I hatched from.” I nodded.

I turned around and then hesitated for a moment. After a short bout of deliberation, I walked over to where I’d thrown the smug paper, grabbed both it and the envelope and put it into my skirt pocket.

Maybe it would come in handy, after all. As a video game item hoarder, there was no way I could leave it behind even if it pissed me off.

Another thing…

I looked back at the egg, feeling a bit torn.

I really liked the egg. It was damn cool, for one. But I also kind of felt attached to it in a weird way. I wanted to take it with me, but I also knew that that probably wasn’t possible. It was bigger than me, after all.

Hmm, but I could take some of the smaller broken shards scattered around, though.

Eh, sure, why not? I could be like a good luck charm.

I took the smallest shard I could find and put it into my pocket as well. Then, I gave the rest of the egg a sad smile, said, “I’ll see you around, egg,” and turned around, before walking toward the light.

…

Wow, it had barely been a few minutes and I was already making friends with inanimate objects. It wasn’t even like I was streaming and had any need to act excessively silly here. I should dial it down.

I walked through the opening in the cave and took a moment for my eyes to adjust to all the light. Once they did, I took stock of my surroundings. A massive forest sprawled out all around me, inviting me to get lost inside it.

I slowly scanned the forest and swallowed with some trepidation.

Surely, my mysterious kidnapper wouldn’t have put me in some end-game forest where giant monsters roamed, right…? Being some dragon’s dinner right after being reincarnated would be really unfortunate…

“Okay…” I muttered, clenching and unclenching my tiny fists. “Step two… Don’t get eaten.” I nodded to myself.

Or rather, wasn’t my kidnapper the dragon? Or maybe a phoenix, now that I thought about it? Or, you know, maybe my kidnapper and the one who’d laid my egg weren’t even the same person!

Maybe I had a momma dragon out there hunting for food or kidnapping princesses. Who knew? Either way, they weren’t necessarily the one who had kidnapped and isekai’d me and left me that dumb message.

Now… What was my plan, exactly? I had the option of staying in that cave and waiting for whatever had laid that egg to come back. But I also really didn’t want to. I’d watched some bird documentaries in the past, and the idea of swallowing giant worms whole while doing mouth-to-mouth with a dragon was just…

Uh… Yeah… How about no?

Also, the damn letter said ‘Good luck! ;)’ so it probably expected me to actually do stuff. Not that I wanted to listen to the stupid piece of paper, but still…

“Step three… Find civilization…?”

Probably for the best. Hopefully, I would run into some reasonable people. Maybe some random merchant or a group of adventurers. That was how this kind of thing usually went, right?

Yeah, probably.

Okay. No more stalling. It was going to be fine!

With confidence I wasn’t quite sure I felt, I stepped forward into the forest.