I woke up with my face snuggled into something very soft and comfortable.

For a split second, I thought that the entire isekai situation could have maybe been just a weird dream, but then I quickly realized what was going on.

“G’morning, chat… G’morning, Mr. Gargles,” I mumbled while hugging my awesome turtle plushie closer.

I continued to lay there, already thinking of how I would have to go into the dungeon and probably figure out how to beat that stupid tentacle. But then I remembered that I’d decided today would be my break day.

“Too bad for you, chat. I’m not getting up anytime soon. I’m just gonna stay in my grassy bed and laze around all day,” I declared and closed my eyes again. “Stream is canceled today. Go home, chat.”

I was very grateful that it hadn’t rained since that one time it had woken me up. I didn’t want to have to choose between sleeping in the rain and sleeping in the dungeon with the tentacle monster on the loose.

From the corner of my mind, I noticed chat blowing up with messages again, but I firmly ignored it the same way I always did during fights, and just snuggled further into my plushie.

If I were to guess, it probably took an entire hour for me to finally relent and get up again.

I stretched with a yawn and blinked away the sleepiness, but continued to lay there while Mr. Gargles rested on my chest.

I squinted at the trickle of sunlight coming through the trees above me and let out a little sigh. I had absolutely zero willpower to get up and start doing things. I just wanted to lay here the entire day.

…

Wow, I had been really stressed out, hadn’t I? I knew I would crash at some point with how much had happened since I’d gotten isekai’d, but I’d never realized just how much I needed a break.

People were still trying to catch my attention in the group chats.

“Today is a rest day, chat. I ain’t doing no nothing. I have my pizza, my ooze lake, and my plushie. What else could one need?”

I would have to get up at some point, but that was for future me to deal with. Present me wanted to enjoy the peaceful morning of laying in grass with my plushie in an empty world where no annoying neighbors would be shouting at ungodly-hour AM.

I guess being stranded alone in another world had its perks.

Now if only I could turn off the stream…

Ugh. If I found a way home, would it let me finally turn it off? I didn’t see a reason why it would, unless I lost all my skills in the process of getting back. Would the system still work on Earth? I didn’t see a reason why it couldn’t, considering that it clearly had some amount of power over Earth as well.

But if I returned home with the system intact, would I have to live with having every moment of my life streamed to the world until I died?

I hadn’t really thought about that.

Worse still, if I kept all the skills upon returning, I would probably be pestered by all sorts of people because of it. Scientists would want to find out how my superpowers worked. Governments would want to use me as a weapon of war. All sorts of nefarious people would want to steal my magical items.

I hugged Mr. Gargles to my chest again as anxiety crept inside me.

Unless of course, this was just a simulation and therefore when I woke up from it back into the real world, I would naturally lose everything.

Or alternatively, I might never get back to Earth. I might be stuck in this world forever, forced to clear dungeons until my Phoenix kidnapper was satisfied with whatever evil plan they had for me.

I still had no idea what their deal even was. Who were they? Where were they? Why me? What was the point of this? What was my goal? What even was this world? Why was it empty? What were the dungeons? Was the Phoenix in cahoots with the Fate Weaver who created this world, and now I was here to be the tester? Or maybe the Phoenix was the Fate Weaver?

I sighed again.

And there I went spiraling again. There was a reason why I’d relentlessly thrown myself into clearing the dungeon. No time to overthink things.

I should do something. Leaving myself with just my thoughts always led to a depressive or paranoid echo chamber inside my own mind.

Hmm… But…

I was never alone now. There were people who could help me with all of this. In fact, I had created a new group chat for this exact purpose just yesterday, hadn’t I?

I hummed to myself and narrowed my eyes as an idea passed through my mind.

I considered it for a moment before finally getting up. I put Mr. Gargles back into the backpack, looked over the sapling – which had grown a little since yesterday – and then headed back toward the dungeon.

But not the entrance. I walked to one of the walls separating the dungeon from the outside.

Looking at it up close, it actually looked a bit unnerving. It was a tall featureless concrete wall like a prison would have, rather than the fence that surrounded floor three.

At this point, the chat seemed to notice that I was doing things again despite saying that I wouldn’t be and began pestering me, but I ignored them for the moment. Just pretended that the stream wasn’t on.

I idly hummed and reached into my backpack before pulling out an item that I’d thought for sure was useless before – the Ether-powered pen.

I popped off the lid and tried to scribble something on the dungeon wall just to check that it worked and was happy when it did. Although it was actually quite odd. The surface of the wall was very rough and uneven, and yet the pen had no problems writing on it.

Well, magic. No point in complaining.

I stepped back and thought about this for a moment.

It was impossible to keep chat in the dark completely no matter how much I tried. But maybe… Okay, I needed to get all the Streamer upgrades eventually anyway to unlock the next tier of skills, so might as well get this one now. Hopefully it worked the way I thought it did.

Purchase the [Streamer] skill upgrade [Faithful Cameraman] for 3 skill points?

Y/N

‘Faithful Cameraman’ skill upgrade unlocked!

Without saying anything, I curiously prodded the new mental switch and once I figured out how it was supposed to work, I used the subskill.

A new system window popped up, but instead of text, this one was playing a video. A video of a cyan-haired girl in blue and cyan outfit staring at the camera with wide sky-blue eyes.

My Vcuber.

Or rather, me.

“Helloooo… Testing, testing,” I murmured and saw the reflection mirror my movements back at me perfectly. I smiled. She smiled too.

I had known that I looked completely different now, sure. But it still felt… really nice to look at this girl in the video and know that it was me.

I briefly glanced at chat and immediately noticed people commenting on my appearance. Saying that I had pretty eyes and a cute face and…

I had to turn away from the camera for a moment to hide my embarrassed grin.

Ahem.

Anyway, this probably meant that the new system window showed me what chat was seeing, which was very convenient.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

Once I got my composure back, I turned to where the cameraman presumably was and narrowed my eyes at the empty space. I mentally tried to move him to the left and he did so. I tried making him turn up and he listened. I tried to command him to spin in circles and was rewarded with a nauseating recording of him doing just that.

I stopped him and made him float closer to me. Then I reached out and tried to poke the spot where he would be, to see whether his sight would phase inside my finger like in video games.

To my surprise, the cameraman bounced back off my finger in response, even though I hadn’t felt my finger touch anything.

In hindsight, it might have been dangerous if he had phased inside my hand… Good thing he hadn’t.

“Huh… Weird. Well, alright. I’ll call you… John. John, the cameraman.” I nodded in satisfaction.

Was it weird to give my skills names and treat them like people? Maybe. But whatever.

“Alright, John. Let me set things up first…”

I stepped away from the scribbles I made on the dungeon wall to a clean part of the wall and pulled out my pen again.

Then I wrote ‘Stream starting in a few minutes…’ in big letters and decorated the surroundings with hearts and a few quick drawings that would be significant to any long-time viewer. A dragon, a phoenix, a mermaid, a slime, and a horned demon.

Then I had John stand in front of the wall and stare at it, while I walked off to the side and began writing more stuff on the wall nearby.

I could see chat speculating what was going on and being annoyed that they couldn’t see what I was doing. Some of them were amused by my improvised pre-stream screen.

It didn’t take too long for me to be done with my preparations, but I took an extra few minutes to do my daily push ups and squats that I’d kinda forgotten about, and also munched on a few slices of pizza.

When everything was done and I was ready to go, I stood just outside of John’s view, stuck my hands into the frame, and then counted down on my fingers from seven.

Six, five, four, three, two, one…

“Goooood mooorning, my precious little Aquamarines!” I said with as much cheer as I could muster while making John turn away from the wall and face me instead. “It’s me! Aoto Nana, your favorite isekai protagonist!”

JamieWasTaken3: lmao the og intro

trelipideliberitation: woooo

There was a mix of reactions in the group chat. Some people cheered with me and a couple were amused by me using a modified version of my normal intro.

“How are you all doing? I’ve been really stressed lately…” I shook my head with a sigh. “I guess that’s kind of a given when being isekai’d though, right? There’s no way you can keep your cool when jumping from one life or death situation to the next.”

I began slowly walking back and had John follow me.

“For those who somehow don’t know, I am a Vcuber from Earth who, for some reason, got one day kidnapped and reincarnated into this weird alien world! It was…” I paused as I mentally tallied the days. “...exactly a week ago, actually! Anyway, this world has been eerily empty and devoid of life! I haven’t seen a single insect, much less a person in here!”

I proceeded to recap everything I knew about this world as well as all my experiences, but to give people some kind of summary, as well as to organize my own thoughts.

“–escaped the tentacle with my infinite pizza and Mr. Gargles. And since it’s all sunny today, there’s no reason for me to rush straight back into the dungeon. And that’s why we’re doing something different now! No dungeon diving at all today! No. Today, we will be solving a mystery!” I made jazz hands and pointed them in the direction of the section of the wall I’d written on and then had John turn that way.

On that wall, there were three questions at the top – ‘What is this world?’, ‘Who is the Phoenix?’, and ‘Why was I kidnapped?’ – and below them, I’d drawn a vertical line separating the wall into two columns. One of them was labeled ‘Evidence’ and the other ‘Theories’.

“This here–” I stuck my head into John’s view and waved my arm at the wall. “–will be our ultimate mind map while we solve the mysteries that have plagued us since I got isekai’d!” I walked to the wall as I explained.

I then summoned my key sword and pointed it at the first question.

“The first one is: ‘What is this world?’ It’s really strange, isn’t it, chat? This world is completely empty! There’s just trees, bushes, and, weirdly enough, dungeons. Dungeons that feel like remnants of civilizations! It’s very strange and could mean a number of things!”

I pointed at the second question.

“The second one is ‘Who is the Phoenix?’ I’m, of course, talking about the one who apparently reincarnated me in this world, according to the skill I got from it. Who are they? Where are they? What are their nefarious plans? And most importantly…”

I smacked the key at the third question.

“‘Why was I kidnapped?’ Why did the evil Phoenix feel the need to kidnap someone? What’s the purpose? And why me? What’s so special about me? Why not someone else? How do I get back?”

JamieWasTaken3: obvsly ur in postapocalyptic world

FouxMoux: you probably have a special mission that you need to complete

JamieWasTaken3: dungeons are memories of the past or smthing

repeaeaeat: I’m thinking you are a tester for this world’s system

More and more messages poured in as everyone chipped in their two cents. As they did, I scribbled down their theories and ideas on the wall.

“Okay, but if I’m the tester and this is a freshly created world, then why do the dungeons feel like remnants of past civilizations? And also! I had the quest, didn’t I? It has a side objective of figuring out what civilizations used to live in this world! It pretty much says that there were civilizations in the past.”

repeaeaeat: that might not mean anything

repeaeaeat: the quests seem to be based on your own thoughts and feelings

I hummed.

“That’s true, I suppose… The whole ‘past civilizations’ might be a red herring.”

I hoped it wasn’t, though. Being in a post-apocalyptic world was one thing, but being in a world where there had never even been any living beings at all before me was just unsettling.

JamieWasTaken3: maybe its all just simulation

I pursed my lips.

“Yeah, that is possible. And it’s what I’m afraid of. But at the same time… There’s too much detail for it to be a simulation. Look–” I reached into the backpack and pulled out the ‘Good luck ;)’ letter. It was still stained with dried blood and the folds from being made into an airplane were still visible as well.

I waved it around to accentuate the point.

“If this is a simulation, then someone must have programmed every little possible interaction. Like the physics of waving around a piece of paper stained in a bit of blood and with folds in it.”

repeaeaeat: not to mention the processing power and storage space needed for all that data

I nodded to Repeat’s comment.

“Yeah, exactly. This is either the most detailed simulation ever that someone’s running on a few supercomputers, or it’s all real.”

JamieWasTaken3: ok fine not simulation

FouxMoux: I think you are in the future of some dead scifi world and your job is to figure out what happened through the dungeons

I hummed.

“That does sound plausible. Like… I’m supposed to figure out where all the people have gone. What caused the apocalypse or something.”

JamieWasTaken3: ok new theory

JamieWasTaken3: ur in the future but have to go back in time to save this world

JamieWasTaken3: that’s why good luck

“That… could also be it, yeah. I mean, we already know that it’s possible to mess with time and whatnot.” I glanced at my bracelet and frowned in thought. “You think I’m some kind of destined time hero or something?”

FouxMoux: wait there was the thing

“The thing?”

FouxMoux: the thing that the limit break unlocked

FouxMoux: incausal rift

I narrowed my eyes at that, not liking how the limit break was brought up again.

“What about it…?”

FouxMoux: that’s probably time travel, right?

“Time travel? Why would it–” I stopped as things clicked in my mind. “...Incausal rift. As in, something that isn’t causal. Something that breaks causality. As in, time travel.”

I groaned.

“Oh no…”

JamieWasTaken3: time to break your limits

I groaned harder.

“Stop it! I’m already traumatized enough! I don’t need more long-term trauma! I’m not gonna do the stupid limit break!”

FouxMoux: it might be the key to returning to Earth tho

JamieWasTaken3: yea maybe the phoenix will send you back once you save his world or smthin

I sighed in resignation.

“Why do you guys gotta be so damn reasonable?!”

The worst part about it was that I didn’t have many other options. I could either roam around beating dungeons, hoping to get some clues; or do the damn limit break, find an incausal rift, and hopefully it would somehow help me.

There were still a lot of unknowns though. For all I knew, the rifts might kill me instead.

JamieWasTaken3: limit break time?

I glared at Jamie’s message.

“You’re not baiting me into throwing myself into danger again, Jamie!” I sniffed. “You’re being worse than George. Maybe I should time you out too…”

JamieWasTaken3: nonono ill be good

I rolled my eyes but let her stay for now.

trelipideliberitation: ranger is sus

“Hmm? What’s up Trelip?”

trelipideliberitation: retconranger

trelipideliberitation: he knew about the special website

trelipideliberitation: who told him about it?

I narrowed my eyes.

“The website…? Hmm…” Thinking about it, where had Ranger heard about the mysterious website? Had they randomly typed that specific string into their browser? Seemed unlikely. Did Ranger know something more? “Ranger…? You here…?”

JamieWasTaken3: found the phoenix!

FouxMoux: oh crap

There was a moment of silence, but Ranger didn’t say anything. Probably offline then… Or maybe they went silent because our suspicions were right on point–

repeaeaeat: the link is in your snitch bio

repeaeaeat: it says right here

repeaeaeat: StreamerSkill.out

“...Oh.”

I deflated with a sigh.

“Since when? Who put that there? I didn’t!”

Because, of course, the system had also somehow edited my Snitch bio on Earth. Why wouldn’t it?

trelipideliberitation: wait what?

trelipideliberitation: was that always there?

“Probably,” I grumbled. “How else would Ranger know about it?”

trelipideliberitation: maybe he added it now to be less suspicious

repeaeaeat: it was there for a while

My eye twitched.

“You’re the one being suspicious, Trelip!” I shot back. “Stop making me doubt people in my chat!”

Ugh, but now that I had that seed of doubt in my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder. Was the damn Phoenix secretly one of my chatters?

If I was an evil mastermind kidnapping innocent Vcubers to post-apocalyptic worlds, I would totally keep an eye on their streams. After all, why wouldn’t my kidnapper pretend to be just another one of my viewers?

…

Fuck.