The girl piloting the mecha seems to be no more than sixteen to eighteen years old. I can obviously tell because I see girls my age every day at school. She is also extremely beautiful. She puts even the hottest girl in school to shame.

In that moment, I felt many emotions: gratitude, embarrassment, a little bit of lust and euphoria. Thank god, I thought to myself. I’m not the only human being in this place. I mean, she can look like Danny Devito for all I care. I’m just happy to finally not be alone in this vast desert like environment.

“In there?” I asked. “With you?”

She took a look down at my soaked pants and made a face. She didn’t say anything, but I knew that it was an automatic no. To be fair, I wouldn’t let my a stranger who soiled himself ride in my car either.

“You can sit on the hand.” The girl did something in the cockpit and the mecha raised its left hand.

I still can’t believe it. A real life mecha! I have always dreamed about being a Valkyrie pilot or a Mobile Suit pilot. I even built numerous model kits to satisfy that itch. If this is a dream, at least for this moment, I don’t want to wake up from it.

“But you gotta wait for a bit, need to claim my trophy first.”

The girl turned the mecha around and headed towards the freshly dead lizard monster that almost had me for lunch a while back. I wonder what she plans to do with the monster.

“Are you going to harvest it?” I shouted to make my voice heard.

“Something like that.” The red mecha put its rifle away on its hip and then drew out a sword from the backpack. “Meat tastes like shit, but the horns are very valuable.

The mecha’s sword glowed red and then began to slice away at the monsters horn. If the weapon is anything like a Gouf’s heat sword, then the surface temperature must be thousands of degrees Celsius.

I expected to see the sword cut the horns like butter, but the process still took a fair while. Just how dense are those horns? No wonder why they are so valuable. You can probably use the material for a lot of useful applications.

“That thing, what’s it called?” I asked the mysterious girl.

“This ugly lump of flesh is what we call a Sunkisser.” The mecha’s backpack opened up it dropped two freshly cut horns into the compartment.

“That sounds like a fearsome name. You must be quite skilled to be able to take it down.”

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“You kidding me?” The girl responded. “These things are the bottom of the food chain. They’re everywhere in these parts.”

This thing is WEAK? Holy shit. I don’t even want to imagine what the Apex predator in these parts look like. This is some messed up world I found myself in. She better not tell me that the mountain over yonder is actually an Adamantoise.

“But at least the horns are worth something. Or else you wouldn’t be so adamant on cutting them off.”

“These horns trade in for the equivalent of my dinner.” The mecha pointed towards its backpack with its left thumb. “I collect about six sets everyday. Could get more if competition wasn’t so fierce.”

The more I hear about this world, the more warped my sense of reason gets. If I am going to be stuck here for a long time, then I need to do better to adapt. If I’m going to be stuck here…Oh shit, I’m stuck here!

“Hey miss!” I shouted to get her attention. “I don’t belong here! This world I mean. I was minding my own business and then all of a sudden I found myself over here.”

I know how much of a tall tale this might sound to a native, but I have to hope that she believes me. Don’t natives in Isekai generally know of a way to send me back home? Or did I fall into one of THOSE isekais.

For some reason, I moved my hands to swipe the air in front of me hoping to see some sort of menu pop up displaying stats and level. Nope. Nothing. A rush of disappointment set in me. I didn’t meet a goddess either, so I’m a powerless human in a world of monsters. Great.

“I think the heat is making your head act all wonky.” The girl didn’t believe me after all. “What company are you with, or are you an independent contractor like me?”

“Company? Contractor?”

“You seriously don’t know?” Now it was her turn to be confused. “I better get you back to the Wallbase before you go completely bonkers.”

“Hey! I’m completely sane here!”

“Ok then. What’s your name? Where are you from?”

“My name’s Caleb Wong. I’m from Toronto. TO-RON-TO.” I tried to convince here that I’m not from here. “It’s a city in Canada, on the planet EARTH.”

The girl seemed to be confused.

“Also, shouldn’t you introduce yourself first before you ask for mine?” I don’t feel right calling someone you all the time.

“The name’s Amber. Amber Shields.” The girl seems to finally believe me. “You really aren’t from around here, are you?”

Finally! We are getting somewhere. I have a name to put to on the face. And she knows my name too. We should have done this from the start. Imagine a writer trying to describe a conversation between two people who don’t know each other!

“I’m glad you believe me now Amber.” I tried to get her to empathize with me. “I really don’t belong here. As much as I like giant robots, I need to go home back to my world. Do you know of anything about people being summoned from other worlds?”

“Let me be honest with you Caleb, I’m having trouble wrapping all this over my head too.”

Damn.

“It can be a myth or an urban legend that you happen to remember.” I am desperate now. “Anything is fine!”

“Sorry, handsome.” Amber responded. “I’m not really that educated. So even if such a legend exists, I wouldn’t know about it.”

She called me handsome! A beautiful girl called me handsome!

…

That’s really not the point here. But on the bright side, Amber did not discount the possibility that I might be able to return home.

“Oh right.” I finally remembered to ask the other important question. “What is this place called? This ‘world’ I mean.”

“This place here is the Frontier, the biggest unexplored land in this continent of Aetica.” Amber gestured to the vast desert around me. “Welcome to the edge of the world!”