I was, as usual, right to have a bad feeling.

“Wait, so…anything Japanese?”

“I don’t know exactly what they’ll know to look for,” Yoshi admitted. “Maizo knew about chopsticks, so we can ask him what else he might be aware of. Probably there are different, uh, establishments and lineages which have preserved some secret knowledge of Japan, but I doubt any of them have more than a few things to look out for. So anything Japanese might set them off. It’s…probably best to keep it discreet at least until we’re both powerful enough not to be easily controlled. Or…assassinated.”

I stared out over the cavern, my mind racing. We’d set up camp in a large natural cave, complete with decorative stalactites, though it had a mostly even floor which seemed to have been leveled on purpose by goblins long ago; it made for a decent space in which to camp. The caves of Kzidnak were generally warm and goblins didn’t need light, but I decided it felt wrong to camp without campfires, and so I’d made a few. In several spots, fire slimes blazed merrily away, fixed in place by Tame Beast, and I couldn’t help noticing that people had gathered around each one. Yoshi’s party were huddled together by one, and mine around another. Well, partly; Aster stood some distance away, pretending she wasn’t watching me, while Nazralind and Adelly sat hip-to-hip, talking quietly. I noted with amusement that Gizmit, Zui, and Maizo had all joined them, and several other groups of goblins were huddled around the other slimes I’d set out even though they needed neither the light nor the warmth.

Everybody loves a campfire.

Yoshi and I had picked a ledge along the wall a discreet distance away for our chat. I’d been mildly dreading what he had to say, but somehow this was worse than anything I could have anticipated.

“Is that why nobody knows there’s a Hero even though you’re…well, running around being one?”

“Exactly,” he nodded. “Pashilyn and Flaethwyn explained the local politics to me. As soon as anybody finds out… Well, I’m not strong enough yet to stop the bigger powers from stepping in to control me. Even the Fflyr government—even some of the Clans probably have enough muscle, the way I am right now. And that’s only the start. Lancor might actually invade Dlemathlys over this. Over just one of us being here, let alone both.”

“So,” I said slowly, “if this were already a dicey moment in history, what with Lancor and everybody else who matters probably sending agents to investigate every place one of those signs and portents happened…”

“Yeah, they’ll definitely be looking into the Inferno, so it’s an especially good time to keep our heads down.” He turned to frown at me. “By the way, you didn’t have anything to do with that, did you, Omura?”

I impatiently waved him off. “I sure wish I’d known about all this earlier. I’ll…speak to the girls. It’s not like I told them to…”

Yoshi was staring at me, wide-eyed.

“Well, I’ll fix it.” Somehow. “More importantly, Biribo.”

“Boss, you gotta understand,” he said desperately. “This is a prohibited subject. I got your back, but there are non-optional rules I gotta follow! I can’t explain stuff like this until it gets brought up by someone else. As in physically cannot.”

“Yeah, that’s what Radatina said,” Yoshi offered.

“I hate to stick up for the lizard, but he’s not wrong,” Radatina added in what I can only call a performatively grudging tone. “This isn’t his fault. This is something you can’t be forewarned about until someone else brings it up. Yoshi was just lucky enough to have that happen first.”

“Least you could do, I guess,” Biribo muttered.

“Oh, buzz off, you—”

“Okay, what is the deal with the two of you?” I demanded. “Is this another Good versus Evil thing? Because everybody else is managing to be civil while we’re cooperating. Even Flaethwyn, mostly. Sometimes.”

The familiars exchanged a long, loaded look.

“Not…exactly,” Radatina hedged. “It’s…complicated.”

Yoshi raised his eyebrows. “We’re listening.”

“It’s…well… How to put this…”

“It’s about how Blessed with Wisdom usually operate,” Biribo took over the explanation, apparently tired of her dithering. “Wisdom doesn’t come with any physical firepower for anybody except Champions of the Goddesses, so they gotta compensate for that. Especially since other people will tend try to either forcibly recruit or assassinate them; if you’re a mover and/or shaker, you do not want someone with information powers running around your turf and not working for you. Some will link up with an adventurer team as tactical support, but for most, the standard practice is to conceal the fact that you’re Blessed with Wisdom until you can build a power base and accumulate enough perks to be actually, personally powerful. So the one thing you absolutely do not want to encounter is another Blessed with Wisdom, because their familiar will be able to spot you.”

“And then once they get powerful,” Radatina rushed in when he paused to breathe, “they also become, let’s say, intolerant of competition. So, basically, familiars never have the opportunity to, um…socialize with each other.”

“It’s super rare for one of us to even see another familiar who doesn’t have to be regarded as an enemy by default.”

Yoshi and I glanced at each other and blinked in unison.

“Wait,” I said. “You’re territorial? Is that really what this is about?”

Both of them buzzed around our heads in erratic loops, a characteristic sign of agitation. I noticed a striking lack of any rebuttal of my observation, though.

“Go easy on them, okay?” Yoshi urged. “It’s not like they can help being what they are. I…sorta relate.”

“You?” I have to say, that took me by surprise. “It looks to me like you’ve taken to isekai like a fish to water. You’re even in much better shape after just a couple months.”

He ducked his head, blushing faintly in the dim light of the distant fires, but didn’t smile. “I…thanks, Omura. It actually helps to hear that. I’ve been…really trying. Now that I’m in this crazy situation, I want to do it right. I just don’t want to screw anything else up. I’m trying not to be a Subaru, you know?”

I squinted, trying to parse that. “A… You mean the…constellation?” Surely he wasn’t talking about the car company.

“Oh! No, Subaru. You know, from Re:Zero?”

“From what?”

Poor kid flushed again. “It’s an anime.”

“Ah. Of course it is.”

“But it’s really good! Seriously, it’s amazing. I bet you’d like it, Omura, you even liked Konosuba! I can’t recommend it highly enough.”

“Well, sure, Yoshi,” I said pointedly, “I’ll hop right on that train. Where’s it streaming?”

He winced, looking around the dark goblin-filled cavern below the medieval shithole in which we lived. “Oh, uh. Right. Sorry.”

And now he looked so depressed even I was forced to take pity.

“So who’s Subaru, and why don’t you want to be him?”

Yoshi instantly perked back up, of course. Otaku; if you’ve met one, you’ve met them all, and there’s nothing they love more than a chance to blather on about their bullshit to someone who doesn’t really care. This guy had been in anime withdrawal for months until I opened the floodgates.

“Oh, it’s great! It’s an isekai, but it’s a deconstructive one, see? It’s all about the otaku mindset and how self-defeating it is. Subaru gets transported to a fantasy world and immediately finds out that acting like an isekai hero just gets him dunked on. The whole story is about him learning that…well, the problem isn’t the world, it’s him. Being a social outcast in real life…you’d be the same anywhere, unless you learn how to deal with people. You can’t accomplish anything without convincing people to work with you. It’s sort of…um, it’s something a lot of otaku needed to hear.”

“Huh.” Well, damn, now I kinda wanted to watch that. Now that he’d said the name, I was pretty sure I’d seen some merch for it in the game store. I had tried hard not to learn anything from that place, but cultural osmosis can only be resisted up to a point. “And it’s…popular? I can’t imagine most of the target audience would enjoy being called out like that.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, well… I can’t say it’s a fun thing to be told, but it’s pretty cathartic to hear something you really needed to. Even when it’s rough.”

“And you’re trying not to be like this guy? If he gets better, he sounds like a role model.”

“I meant…him at the beginning.” Yoshi fell silent, staring moodily into the distance. I let him think; this was clearly not a dramatic pause, he was just struggling to put something into words. Not everybody can be as articulate as me. “The Fflyr have this proverb that really hits for me, I dunno if you’ve heard it yet. ‘You don’t know whether you’d take a devil’s deal until one appears before you.’ That just seems to get more and more relevant, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard that one. I like that too, seems like a solid point.”

He nodded, still staring ahead with a glum expression. When he spoke again, his voice had dropped almost to a whisper. “Yeah, well… I found out. A beautiful goddess offered me adventure in another world and I jumped for it. I begged for it. I didn’t pause even for a second to think about my parents, or my big sister, or my friends… Anyone who’d miss me back home. My last memories of Earth are of you yelling at me for being an idiot, and…you were right. You didn’t want to take the goddess’s deal, so…I guess we know which of us is smarter, huh.”

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Yoshi sighed quietly, tilting his head back to stare up at the ceiling. I averted my gaze, pretending I hadn’t noticed his eyes shining.

“I hope Ai-nee thinks to feed my fish. And water my philodendron. She probably will, she’s super responsible. At least one of us is, right?”

I stayed quiet for the next minute or so while he composed himself. The bro code transcends Good and Evil.

“So…yeah.” He finally spoke again, a bit roughly, after clearing his throat. “However it happened, now I’m here. The Hero. People are depending on me. I just… I’m giving it my best. I’m determined not to let anyone down. Well…anyone else.”

Damn it. Where did this kid get off, having a complex inner life and relatable emotions? Everything was so much simpler when he was just some dumb nerd I could make fun of. Fuckin’ rude, that’s what it was.

“I don’t think that’s really a fair comparison,” I said slowly. “Yeah, I didn’t want to take Virya’s offer, but…that’s because I didn’t want to take her offer. This isekai bullshit is not something I’ve dreamed about. If a beautiful goddess appeared before me, offering my heart’s desire for free… Well. I’d like to think I’d be smart enough to smell a trap and turn it down. But I think the Fflyr are right, with that saying of theirs. You can’t know what you’ll do in a situation like that until you’re in it.”

“Do you think…we’ll ever get to go back home?” It hurt to hear him trying not to sound plaintive.

“That’s… I’m sorry, Yoshi, but that’s…not a thing,” Radatina whispered.

“There is no traveling the other way,” Biribo added. “The connection to Earth…it doesn’t work the way you’re probably thinking. It’s not a question of persuading the goddesses to send you back. That’s just not within their power.”

“Oh?” I gave him my most pointed look.

Biribo did a nervous loop-the-loop. “Look, boss, I’ve already said more than I should. We cannot explain any further. There’s no breaking that rule.”

I knew when I wasn’t going to get further answers, and pressing would just make me look weak.

“Well, who knows,” I deflected. “The Devil King found a way to crack this thing. Granted, he’s a soul-eating piece of shit whom we should not emulate, but at least that means it can be done. You know, after what we’ve seen recently, I’m wondering if this is all some kind of simulation.”

“Hm.” Yoshi frowned. “I really don’t think so.”

“Oh?”

“Well, I mean… The point of simulation theory is you can’t conclusively prove you’re not in one, but if anything, I think Ephemera is less likely to be some kind of sim than Earth.”

I squinted at him. “Based on what?”

“Well, think about it. We saw the corrupted Spirit and that it was running on some kind of code, right? With an error message and everything. There’s nothing like that on Earth. If you’re able to completely simulate a whole reality, there’s no reason to give the people inside it access to the system.”

Shit, he had a point there.

“I guess so,” I conceded. “Fine, I can live with that. I’m just glad at having a hint of what’s behind all this insanity. Somewhere there’s a machine running it all. If it can be reached, it can be hacked.”

“I don’t…think that’s necessarily the case,” he said, frowning more deeply.

“Oh, come on. You saw that thing! It was an obvious error message, in an Earth language. That’s a computer, it’s a dead giveaway.”

“I’m not sure that’s true, is the thing.” Yoshi turned toward me, intent and animated in a way I hadn’t seen him before. “I mean, think about computer code, Omura. What it is and does. And then compare that to magic.”

“What? You lost me.”

“Both are…sort of comparable, right? Using words and language to give instructions to reality. Code only works on something you’ve built out of microchips and whatnot, and magic is probably based on a similar principle. It’s running on something, definitely. I doubt it’s a natural phenomenon, somebody set up something to make it work. But… I don’t think this is a situation where we’re going to find spaceships and robots if we dig deep enough. Us being familiar with computers means we know an error code when we see one, but magic is definitely something entirely different from computers. It would have to be. It just runs on a recognizable logic, because… Well, it would have to, right?”

Now I was frowning, following his reasoning. And more to the point, finding myself troubled that he had reasoned all this out. I had to acknowledge (silently, to myself) that I hadn’t thought the matter through that thoroughly and probably wouldn’t have. It wasn’t that Yoshi was smarter than me or anything, he just…had more brains than I’d given him credit for, and different areas of interest.

“I do see your point,” I grudgingly admitted. “Well, shit. And I was so happy there for a little while.”

“Happy about what? Why does it matter whether or not the magic is technological?”

“Because magic is bullshit nonsense for babies!” I exclaimed. “It’s fantasy! Pure escapism for people who can’t cope with what’s in front of them. I just… I just want my life to make some fucking sense again.”

“Oh.” He nodded slowly, again staring out across the cavern. “I guess I can see the point. It’s just… This seems strangely personal for you, Omura. Like you’re, I dunno, offended about being in an isekai.”

“That’s a good way to put it, yes.”

He gave me a sidelong look. “I’m probably gonna regret asking, but… What exactly is your problem with otaku?”

Oh, the answers I could give to that question. I’d been chewing on them for years, practically waiting for an opportunity. Now that one of these kids was finally, actually asking the question, though, I found to my surprise that the weight it held for me was balanced by much more recent developments than my long, simmering resentment and disdain.

“Being here, on Dount,” I mused after a pause to collect my thoughts, “working largely with bandits… It’s really contextualized the issue of otaku for me.”

“Otaku are like bandits?” he said skeptically.

“Not entirely, of course, but in an important respect. Tell me, Yoshi. Among your crew of nerd friends, who’s the loli fan?”

His eyebrows lowered slightly, and he glanced to the side.

“What makes you think—”

“There’s usually one in every group. At least one. You’re thinking of him, right? You know who it is.”

“Well, I mean… Fan might be putting it too strongly, but Issei does enjoy—”

“Uh huh. And see, that’s the thing about otaku. Most are social outcasts for no bigger reason than being socially inept and having a poor hobby-life balance. Which isn’t really fair, if you think about it. Some guys just don’t fit in society, and a lot of the time it’s because society’s expectations aren’t exactly reasonable.”

“I’m really surprised that you get—”

“So those guys gather together, because human beings crave companionship, and that’s naturally where the other guys insert themselves. The ones who are outcast from society for very good fucking reasons. Bandits are like that in a busted wreck of a kingdom like Fflyr Dlemathlys: mostly just folks who were pushed out of the normal social order because that order is designed to be as brutally unfair as possible to almost everyone. And that creates opportunities and hiding places for the…others. The minority. So I try to extend some compassion to people who’ve been forced to do terrible things by a terrible situation that wasn’t their fault, and it means I’ve ended up having to deal with a small handful of psychopaths and murdering sadists mixed in with them. You gathered in groups around your weird little hobbies, just enjoying what you like and not hurting anyone, and since you were all outcasts together it never felt right to exclude the obvious fucking pedophiles. Especially when so much of that anime nakedly panders to them.”

Yoshi had gone stiff, fists clenching by his sides, but he wouldn’t look at me.

“I get it, now,” I murmured, staring at the distant fire slime. Aster was now lying down; Adelly had leaned her head on Nazralind’s shoulder and both of them seemed to be asleep sitting up. Gizmit was slowly strolling around the edges of the gathering, on night watch. “You may have accidentally given encouragement to somebody who’s going to horrifically traumatize the first innocent child they’re left alone with. It’s not like that’s your fault, though, or anyone’s but theirs. I do my best to keep control and hold my people to a standard, but… Truth is, I have no way of knowing what kinds of terrible things I’m indirectly responsible for, or will be. I try, as best I can, but there’s just no way to tell. Yeah…I think I understand it a little better, now. It’s not a great look, but maybe I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge.”

He slowly inhaled, and then exhaled, deliberately relaxing his shoulders. “But… You have watched anime, though.”

“Of course I’ve seen anime, I didn’t live under a rock. Everyone has seen anime. There’s some truly great stuff out there, it only becomes weird when you build your whole life around it.”

“How’s that different from music?” he asked, shooting me a look.

“You can get paid to make music.”

“You can make anime for a living! People do, that’s how it gets made!”

“Sure, if you wanna starve to death while working for a corporation that sees you as disposable.”

He turned toward me, staring incredulously. “And how is that different from music?”

“Hey, relax, man. Now who’s taking things personally?”

“I’m not the one who has a chip on his shoulder! And if I was, I think that’d be forgivable, frankly. Being a music nerd just means you don’t spend your life being told your hobby is for children and pedophiles!”

“Hey, I have never thought all animation is for children. Believe me. My dad thought that, and that’s how I ended up watching Grave of the Fireflies alone, unsupervised, when I was six.”

Yoshi winced, sucking in a sharp breath through his teeth. “Yikes. Ouch.”

“Heh.” I had to grin, now that it had been enough years. “I barely remember it, but my mom says I cried for almost two straight days. But yeah, anyway, I’ll cop to finding all of this pretty personal. Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to be so contemptuous back on Earth—maybe—but here? I believe I’m pretty fucking entitled to be pissed about isekai. I live in one. And frankly, it fucking sucks.”

He folded himself up awkwardly, drawing his knees up against his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

“Hey, Omura.”

“Mm?”

“Do you…actually think this is a game? To the goddesses, I mean.”

I made myself breathe evenly. “Well… Pashilyn wasn’t entirely without a point. Whether it is or not, Virya isn’t exactly a reliable narrator.”

“Sure, I know. But do you think it is?”

“Yes.” I can only hold back my frank opinions for so long. “Yes, I am absolutely convinced both goddesses are just bored entities with too much power who’ve been alive too long to empathize with mortal people. I think they’re amusing themselves at the expense of our lives and those of everyone else on this hell planet.”

“Sanora warned me…”

He trailed off, and I forced myself to be content with looking sidelong, not staring with all the intensity in my being. I was deeply interested in learning what Sanora had warned him about.

“I’ve been thinking,” he whispered at last. “It was just a stray thought at first, but after you said that… I…”

Yoshi paused again, swallowing painfully. I waited.

“Suddenly, I’m the only guy on my team. Me, the Hero, alone with three cute girls. And…and I can’t help thinking… It’s clawing at me. Did…did she just… Was Raffan in the way of my harem story? Is that why he died?”

I breathed. Slowly, softly.

This was no time to press the conclusion I wanted to draw him to. I mean, it would be a really shitty thing to do in this situation, but it also wasn’t right strategically. I would get better results in the long term by being reasonable, and fair, and not giving him any cause to think I was trying to manipulate him. I had the luxury of acting this way because I was fucking right. The truth was on my side here, not Sanora’s.

“Well, it’s not like we have anyway of knowing exactly what the goddesses are or aren’t capable of. Still…my gut says no. They definitely have ways of putting their fingers on the scales, but those all have to do with their magic system. There’s a hundred ways for them to decide who gets what spell or artifact or Blessing or Spirit reward, or… It goes on and on. It’s not hard for them to manipulate us all where they want us to be. But a chaotic situation like that, in the middle of a fight? I kind of don’t think so. Biribo told me the goddesses aren’t allowed to cheat directly—that they do, but they have to be careful and subtle about it because if either is caught cheating, the other gets a free action.”

He nodded. “Radatina said that, too.”

“Yeah. So, no, we obviously can’t say anything for sure, but in that case? It doesn’t feel right, to me.”

Yoshi’s next deep breath sounded so relieved I almost hated to continue.

“But.”

He went completely rigid.

I was taking a risk, here. This was flirting with more information than I should betray to the Hero, but if there was ever a time…

“I have a situation that I know was set up by Virya. She didn’t tell me so outright, but it’s laid out in the specific spells and abilities and circumstances she placed right in front of me when I first landed on Ephemera. I…have a spell that enables me to share powers with monster girls, Yoshi. It only works on attractive women, which is the kind of stupid and arbitrary thing that only an aggressively mediocre light novel author or weaboo goddess could possibly come up with. I am practically forced to collect a monster girl harem to survive on this world. So…at least one of them definitely wants to watch a harem show, this time around.”

Slowly, Yoshi lowered his face to rest in his arms. His shoulders moved heavily as he did his best to breathe evenly for the next few minutes. I left him alone to gather himself.

“He was the first friend I made here,” the Hero finally said, in a voice that was muffled by more than his own arms.

“I’m sorry.”

We sat together in silence.