I hadn’t realized it before, but I was actually pretty fit for a small child. Gone was the streamer belly and back pain. Once I got used to having much smaller limbs, I realized that I was much more athletic than before. For someone who had just hatched from an egg, this was quite impressive… Or rather, maybe that was the reason. I probably had some dragon genes or whatever, even if I had no dragon body parts.

Yeah, that had to be it.

Also, maybe I shouldn’t be distracting myself with random thoughts while walking through an eerie and quiet forest like this, lest something ambushed me while I wasn’t paying attention. I couldn’t really help it though – it had probably been half an hour at least, and I still hadn’t seen any animals. Not even a single insect, in fact.

It was freaking me the heck out.

Why was this forest abandoned? Where was my dragon momma? Was this forest a deathtrap that ate all living things?

I picked up a stick in lieu of a proper weapon just to ease my paranoia. It didn’t help much, though. Everytime a gust of wind blew by, I jumped at the rustling leaves, thinking a horned wolf or some crap was going to jump me.

At least it was pretty warm out here. No matter how much the wind blew, I didn’t get cold at all.

…That was also probably because of my dragon heritage, wasn’t it? Yeah, probably.

Or… hold on. Maybe my clothes were enchanted with something to keep me warm? I hadn’t really checked them too much with everything else on my mind, but… they did look familiar… Almost like…

“Wait…” I muttered as I stared at my left sleeve. It was a gradient of cyan and blue, just like most of the outfit. The entire thing fit tightly but was still loose enough that it didn’t hinder movement. And very tellingly, there was that skirt/pants hybrid I was wearing. One that I remembered specifically requesting my momma artist[modern_footnote]Vtubers typically refer to the artist who drew their model as 'Mom' and the person who rigged it 'Dad'.[/modern_footnote] to add.

It was my old Vcuber model’s outfit.

Slowly, carefully, I reached out to my shoulder-length hair, grabbed a few locks, and lifted it in front of my face.

My hair was bluish cyan.

Just like my old Vcuber model.

I groaned.

“Oh, haha! Very funny, Mr. kidnapper dude guy. You reincarnated me as my old Vcuber model, because why the heck not, right?!” I shouted in frustration to the empty forest.

Maybe I should have been more careful to not make too much noise so that predators wouldn’t come to snack on me… but I just wanted to vent my frustration, because dammit!

Also, there was nothing in the forest anyway, so whatever.

“Why my old Vcuber model anyway?! Why not my new one?! I wanna have cool wings and a tail and stuff! Gah!” I threw up my hands, channeling my annoyance. “It would have fit better, even! That one is part dragon and I hatched from an obvious dragon egg!”

Really, this so far looked like some kind of prank. If one ignored the whole isekai reincarnation thing, obviously. Had some bored god decided to troll me for some reason? Was this god one of my usual viewers and I’d insulted them at some point and now they were getting revenge?

“Which one of you was it…?” I growled under my breath. “Jeoff? No, couldn’t be… Spoon? Nah, she’s too much of a sweetie… It was George frickin' Doshington, wasn’t it? Oh, you little… I’ll get you for this…”

It probably wasn’t GeorgeDoshington, but I needed some target to blame, okay?

I continued on, still tense, but now also annoyed with everything. God, if only I had my chat here to talk to… or at least my phone or something. Ugh… One didn’t truly appreciate the convenience of modern technology until they were isekai’d, huh?

I shook away those thoughts and continued trucking along.

Walk through the bush here, hop onto this rock there. It was actually kinda fun having a young and agile body again. Streaming had done a number on me over the years, huh? Maybe I should have done more 3D streams…

As I continued to ponder about pointless things, I spotted a tall hill and made my way up to get a better vantage point from there. Hopefully, I could spot some kind of settlement, although I kind of doubted it, considering just how barren and lifeless the forest had been so far.

As I neared the top of the hill, exhaustion finally began to catch up to me. This body might have been more athletic than I used to be, but it was still a child’s body, after all. This much walking would have tired any kid out.

Regardless, I still did my best to use my last dregs of strength to haul myself to the top. As soon as I did, I froze, my eyes nearly falling out of my skull with how much they widened.

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“What… the hell…?” I muttered in astonishment.

Instead of a settlement, mountains, or heck, just more forest, there was a crater with the wreckage of what looked like a giant friggin’ spaceship. The ground around it was littered in metallic debris and the entire thing must have been at least four storeys high and as long as two football stadiums.

I continued staring at the incredibly out-of-place thing, taking in its massive size, its shattered windows up top, its rusted coating, its giant thrusters that were surprisingly intact, the pool of dubious liquid next to them…

“...Okay…” I murmured. “This… is not a fantasy setting, is it…?”

I couldn’t help but voice my thoughts out loud. A streamer habit, eh…

Once I finally snapped out of the shock, I immediately decided to explore the thing. There was no way I was going to just ignore it, now was there?

A giant figgin’ spaceship…

Even if there weren’t any survivors, there had to be some kind of clues as to what kind of world this was, or what had happened. Maybe even people inside trying to scavenge what remained of the behemoth?

Yeah, time to explore a spaceship…

I got up from where I’d fallen on my butt from the shock earlier, remembered that I was exhausted, and sat down.

…After a bit of rest.

I always preferred fantasy over sci-fi, but hey, cool spaceships were still cool. Maybe I could find laser guns or something inside? Or heck, maybe I was expected to repair the damn thing and then fly it… Oh god, was that why that stupid paper said ‘Good luck ;)’?!

I scowled as my eyes continued scanning the thing, taking in all the details.

There was no way I could do that! Someone as technologically challenged as me had probably no chance of understanding even how the damn doors in that thing worked, much less being able to repair something this massive! Especially in this body!

Yeah, no. Not happening. With any luck, I could find something useful inside that wasn’t completely broken.

“Or maybe a bed…” I said to myself as I noticed the sun slowly but surely going down. “Don’t wanna sleep in the forest no matter how empty it looks…”

Feeling rested enough, I steeled myself, got up, grabbed my trusty stick, and began descending the hill into the crater. It was pretty steep and I had to be careful, but I eventually made it, crossing the threshold where grass stopped growing and turned into dust and ash.

As soon as I did, though, I felt a chill go down my spine. I gasped and swirled my head around, looking for any danger, but nothing had changed.

What the heck had that been about?! A premonition? Did I have some kind of danger sense power? Should I leave this be, after all?

I stopped in place and kept looking around, my entire body tense.

Nothing happened and after a few minutes, I finally lowered my guard and let out a sigh.

“Nothing…?”

Well, nothing for now, but if I continued to explore, that might change.

Ugh, but… I couldn’t just leave this, could I? It was a giant spaceship! You couldn’t make a more obvious point of interest if you tried!

“Ok… Here’s the plan. Keep going, but be careful. As soon as anything even remotely dangerous pops up, leg it.” I nodded to my own plan, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t walking straight into my doom.

And so, against my better judgment, I kept walking into the debris-filled crater.

There were pieces of metal of various shapes and sizes strewn all around the actual spaceship. Some were small enough to fit into my palm, others were probably over a storey tall. I took my time looking around the outside first, hoping to find something I could maybe use, just in case the spaceship itself proved to be a death trap.

To my surprise, I actually found something. Hidden under several strategically placed metal beams, there was a little passage between them, just big enough for me to squeeze through, and at the end of the little passage, I could see… a treasure chest.

“Seriously…? That’s gotta be a mimic, right?”

I couldn’t imagine the treasure chest getting flung from the spaceship as it had crashed, catapulting it into such a perfect spot and in the upright position as well. This was way too suspicious. Either someone had put that chest there after the ship had crashed – which… Why would they do that? – or it was a mimic.

Even if I realized that, I couldn’t help but want to try and interact with the chest somehow. Not opening it manually, obviously. But maybe… throwing a rock at it…?

…This was incredibly stupid. What if the mimic woke up and chased after me the moment the rock hit it?

I shook my head.

“Okay, no. Let’s not test my luck.”

I ignored the juicy treasure chest and continued exploring the surroundings. I found another treasure chest, placed on top of a little hill made out of debris, which kind of confirmed that this place was apparently infested with mimics.

That was probably what the weird feeling was about, wasn’t it?

“Ugh… Should I try to go inside…?” I murmured. “I wish I had chat with me… I could straw poll it…”

I snorted to myself at the dumb thought. Chat would have probably made me do whatever was the most exciting and therefore dangerous.

Well… I was curious what was inside. And if the mimics didn’t wake up as long as I didn’t bother them, maybe it would be fine…?

Gah, I should have curbed my gacha addiction when I could. Now I was gambling with my damn life. Well, maybe I could respawn? Or maybe my mysterious kidnapper troll would reincarnate me again?

Probably shouldn’t bet on that…

“...Just a peek,” I finally decided.

I avoided exploring any more of the debris and headed straight for where I’d spied a hole in the hull, hoping to get inside through there. Unfortunately, it was right next to the pool of dubious liquid. It was probably some kind of futuristic alien fuel or what have you. The dark green color made it seem like a stage hazard in a platformer game, though. Especially with that pile of scrap floating in the middle of it.

I stopped at a fair distance and peeked in through the hole. I could see some piping and machinery, as well as something that looked like a boiler. Futuristic boiler, at least. Maybe that was the ship’s engine? Seemed kind of small to be powering the entire thing, but hey, not like I knew anything about regular cars, much less spaceships.

Not seeing anything dangerous jumping out at me yet emboldened me to step closer to the hole.

That was a mistake.

As soon as I stepped too close to the pool of liquid, the scrap floating inside it moved.

I jumped with a gasp and my eyes went wide as the scrap began reassembling itself piece by piece into an uncanny humanoid shape. Its long arms had blades sticking out of it in place of fingers, its legs were like mechanical tentacles, and its face was blank save for two bulbs where its eyes would be.

My instincts screamed at me and I didn’t wait another second for its transformation to finish before turning around and bolting with a terrified yelp.

Nope, nope, nope, nooope! Nobody told me there would be killer robots!