“Say dad, don’t you miss your world?”

The 8 years old me asked a follow-up question, in the middle of another of those sessions where my dad told me stories about his life before he was transported to this world.

It was perhaps insensitive and even a cruel question, considering he wouldn't be able to go back there even if he wanted.

“Japan, huh?”

Said my father, as he looked back into that dusty but never forgotten corner of his heart. The one where he kept his memories from his original world.

Tightly, but also dearly sealed away.

“I do” Kurohara Ichika gave me his answer with unexpected resolution.

“No matter how many years pass, no matter how happy and successful my current life may be, I can’t help asking myself ‘What if?’ questions every day.” He continued

"I want to see them again. My mother. My father. My sister. My friends... I really do."

He did a short pause.

"The desire to see them and the absolute certainty that I will never be able to will probably… No, definitely weight down my heart as long as it keeps beating”

He was clearly, deeply hurt.

I had seen my father come back from battles all worn down, with new cuts spread all over his old scars, all alone and covered in blood.

But never before had I seen him in such a vulnerable state.

In front of me there wasn’t a hero anymore, there was a sorrowful man full of regrets and melancholy. A man with a wound deep inside, one that not even the strongest magic could ever heal.

I, too, felt sad to see the father I admired so much in that pitiful state.

“If… If you could see them again… What would you tell them?”

Even as an immature kid I knew i was being insensitive.

But the question just escaped my lips.

“ ‘Thank you’ and ‘I love you’ “

He answered without any hesitation.

“If I could… If I could just have told them those two things… I may have been able to forgive myself for leaving them behind.”

Just saying a couple of phrases would have been enough.

What crushed his heart was the weight of his guilt.

He had never told them what he wanted to say the most.

And now... He wouldn't ever be able to do it.

From that exchange i reached a firm conclusion:

I would never want to experience a pain like that.

----------------------------------------

“Yo kid, wake up already!” Said a shaddy-looking godly bum as he once again emptied a huge bucket of ice-cold water over my head.

“So cold… ”

Those were the only words I could squeeze out of my teared up throat.

“You actually cried yourself to sleep. You don’t see that often”

“Is that so…”

“Where did all your energy go, kid? By now you should have already made some hurtful comment about my modest room or my humble appearance”

“Is that so…? Sorry…”

“Your dad also got quite the shock when he came here, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as yours”

“Dad…”

I felt the tears pooling on my swelled up eyes again.

“But you see kid, there’s no reason for you to be so sad”

No reason?

I lost everything I had.

I wouldn’t be able to see my loved ones ever again.

So what, are you going to tell me I will be now reincarnated in some parallel world with some overpowered ability and a harem of big assed girls?

Do you think that’s going to be enough to ever forget this pain piercing my right through heart like a knife right now?

“But… I…”

I’m such a mess.

Even though I’m so angry, even though I want to lash out at somebody. I’m just sitting immobile, wallowing in my own sadness, unable to say a word without feeling the tears cloud my vision.

“You can go back to your world”

A serene and serious voice instantly took me out of that pit of sorrow.

“G-Go back? But that’s…”

It didn’t sound like he was deceiving me or trying to cash in on my suffering, but I still had trouble believing what I just heard.

“You can.”

I remained silent, implicitly urging him to continue.

“Usually it’s impossible, as in the case with your dad. Because once your soul is separated from your body in one world it’s impossible to reattach it.

When someone’s soul is sent to this room after death, I can give that soul a new recipient for its reincarnation, the only condition being that you can’t be recreated in the same world.

Such is the divine law that Gods must follow to keep the balance of the universe.”

Quite a simple explanation, but he still didn’t get to the point that interests me the most.

“And you’re saying I’m an exception to that rule?”

“Exactly. You remember this?”

He flipped his fingers and on his hand appeared that red glitter stamp I found moments before my death.

“This stamp is the reason”

Okay, now you sort of lost me.

“This is not your average stamp. In fact, it’s something that shouldn’t have ever fallen into anyone’s hands. It’s imbued with a very special magic that is beyond my understanding”

Indeed, I also felt that stamp was definitely out of ordinary when I found it. What kind of secrets may lie hiding behind its shiny glitter?

“Basically, thanks to this stamp you were teleported to this room barely seconds away from the separation of your body and soul. Normally only the soul of the dead person comes here, but in your case your body came together with your soul”

“But you said I died!”

“That’s true. For all definitions of the word the fact that you turned up here means that you’re ‘dead’, but for some unexplainable reason you kept your original body intact”

I see, according to the divine law a dead person can’t return to his own world because he lost his original body.

But if I managed to keep mine then I just be sent back, body and soul together.

“So what are we waiting for? Send me back alrea-…”

“Unfortunately, it’s not going to be that easy”

Seemingly having predicted my suggestion, god cut me off decisively.

“I already told you, the divine law is absolute. And a case like yours is something that goes against it”

It can’t be, is he going to kill me, even after I miraculously recovered my hope of going back home?

I can’t let him, but what can I do against a god? Should I pick some sand from the ground and thow it to his eyes? Maybe I could throw a silver coin and run away while he is distracted. A bum of his level would definitely jump right after it.

“I get the feeling you’re thinking something very rude right now, but rest assured, I won’t do anything to you”

He told me that just as I was about to execute my carefully elaborated escape strategy, I guess you won’t be getting any alms today either, my homeless friend.

“Your existence contradicts the law, but I can’t punish you because it wasn’t your fault.”

“But even if I wanted to, I can’t send you back to your world right away. The divine law doesn’t allow me to send a soul right back to its original world. The movement of souls must always follow a straight line from one world to another.”

“You kept your original body, so it’s possible to eventually send you to your original world, but right now I can only send you to a different one.”

So that’s the catch. Like my father, I will be sent to a different world. The only difference is that i will be able to come back.

That still sucks, but…

“I…”

Damn, my throat still hurts too much.

“Thank you… Thank you so much…”

Even though I should have cried enough to fill a pool and the bags under my eyes were still painfully swelled up, a pair of tears managed to escape from each of my eyes.

“That Kurogane sure raised a crybaby. And you call yourself the son of the legendary hero that saved the world?”

“You shouldn’t spew so much bullshit, old man. Those dark yellow teeth of yours look like they could fall at any moment.”

I wiped my tears, and finally found the strenght to reply to god’s attempt to make fun of me.

“Ha Ha Ha! That’s more like it.”

There it is again. That drawn out and dry laugh.

But for some reason it was pretty contagious. Before I realized I was also smiling.

An honest, relieved smile.

I can go back.

No, i'll definitely go back.

----------------------------------------

We discussed the details of my “reincarnation”. I would be sent to the same world my dad had come from, but I would be assigned an extremely important mission.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

I had to search for a glitter stamp, like the one that I found before dying. According to the old bum, if there was one in my world it means that there's going to be one in the other.

Meanwhile, god would investigate their magic and try to find out who was the one that created it, as he was unable to leave his little pigsty of a room.

Once I found it, I should be able to use them to teleport back to this room, and ask god to take me back to my world.

Seems like our friend, the illegal stamp maker is making god very worried, as the old man kept going about the “dire consequences of breaking divine law”, “world’s end” and some other similar stuff.

The guy should learn to control his stress, specially being so old and having such deplorable living conditions.

I decided, when I go back to my world I will refer him and Waldek to the best psychiatrist a can find!

As a help to adapt better to the other world, god will embed in my brain an auto-translator for the main languages, and another condition was that a seal must be placed on me to limit the amount of magic I can use.

According to god and what my dad told me, magic doesn’t exist in that world, so it’s a shame but I won’t be able to just cast fireballs and throw them to whoever dares to mess with me.

You can’t let those city boys get away with poking fun at you for being a farmer from the countryside. You must be ready to strike back by setting their hair on fire at the very least.

Such insolence shall earn you the punishment of suffering the infernal flames as they consume thy own flesh. The only one allowed to bully the weak is no one other than me, and i'll let make you learn it with your own blood.

Hmm, if I become good friends with god would he let me work as the gatekeeper of hell? Chasing evil-doers around with a trident sounds like a nice way to spend your afterlife.

“Say old man, if we all reincarnate when we die then does that mean that there’s no afterlife?”

“Well, I guess it won’t hurt telling you.

Only a limited number of people are allowed to reincarnate, the souls of the rest indeed go to what you may call the ‘afterlife’”

“That a fact?”

“Yes, the main condition to be elegible for reincarnation is that you must have died and unnatural death before your time had run out”

So that’s how it is, my dad said he died when some sort of vehicle ran him over after all.

“I think it’s time for me to send you over, if you stay too much time here your soul may get trapped in the limbo”

You irresponsible old bum, you should have said that sooner.

As I was mentally voicing my complaints, he flipped his fingers again, and suddenly the walls of the bum’s little room were replaced by… clouds?

Strong wind started to hit me right in the face.

“W-Why are we suddenly flying? I-I’m sort of bad with heights you see…“

The only thing remaining was the floor, it was as if we were standing in a magic carpet or something. Quite a view, I guess that explains why magic carpets are so expensive.

“What? We’re barely a couple of hundred meters above ground”

Said the old man with a carefree tone.

“WAAAAAAAH! GET ME DOWN GET ME DOWN GET ME DOWNNNNN”

I guess there was no more room for playing cool, I was pretty close to shitting my pants.

“Sure thing”

And after that quick answer, the old fool just kicked me out of the safety of our improvised floating device.

“YOU MOTHERFUKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! I’M DYING! I’M GOING TO DIEEE! WAAAAAAHHH!”

“Heh, a crybaby to the end.”

And so, I made my heroic arrival to the parallel world.

----------------------------------------

“Damn that godly bum, he could have at least been gentler”

I stood up, seemingly unscathed. Such a thing shouldn’t be possible after falling from that height, so either my body is more resistant than normal in this world, or the old man gave me some divine protection.

But now that I look around I realize that I’m in a very dense forest. No, a jungle. It’s hot, the humidity must be very high too, the vegetation looks very thick, so it’s probably going to take a lot of effort to make my way through it.

Luckily, I found some sort of path. Was it made by people? It does look too big for your average animal, but I don’t know much about the fauna of this world.

But something bothers me, according to my dad, this ‘Japan’ he came from had buildings as tall as 20 houses put one on top of the other, roads made out of asphalt where ‘cars’ moved through, pedestrian paths full of ‘salarymen’ going to work in elegant suits, and there were just a couple of trees here and there at the side of the roads.

What I’m seeing right now doesn’t quite fit his description, this place looks as if I was the first human to pass through it.

The complete opposite of the “concrete jungle” where humans had chased nature away.

I kept walking as I evaluated my surroundings.

*pshhh*

Something moved among the bushes, just a couple of meters away from me.

D-Don’t worry, silly young man. It’s must be a friendly animal. Yes, a deer, a very cute deer. Hahaha.

“cumax texé nixi ?” (Who are you!?)

Suddenly a voice surged from behind the bush. A brown-skinned guy in… a loincloth? Came out and pproached me.

“Huh? You talkin’ to me?”

I don’t understand anything of what this guy is saying.

“cumax texé nixi !?” (Who are you!?)

Shit, he seems to be mad. This calls for a very delicate procedure to overcome our cultural differences. I wouldn’t want to offend him in any way.

I collected my thoughts, took a deep breath, plasted the friendliest expression I could make on my face, and said:

“Yo, what are you talking about? Who the heck are you?”

Success. I may as well pursue a career in diplomacy.

“NAYAYAHU!” (Catch him!)

Suddenly, 10 other brown-skinned guys came and took a hold of me, quickly tying my hands and putting a bag over my head. It happened so fast that I couldn’t even try to resist.

Gotta admit it, these guys are good.

Could they be... 'Ninjas'?

Great, seems like my little otherworldly adventure is going to end with me becoming some random savage ninjas’ dinner.

----------------------------------------

“duü~xü~ i togümex_ ?wa ng?xmaxü~!" (We've got a new slave!)

“tama nayaxõ poracü ” (doesn't seem strong)

“nüxü nadawenü ngeã?xü ” (looks dumb)

It’s hopeless, i've tried listening to the gibberish they say but I just can’t understand it.

Great job with the translations, good-for-nothing bum god.

We have walked for a good while, where could they be taking me? Assuming that they want to make me their dinner they’re probably taking me back to their hidden ninja village.

What do I do? I haven’t tried my magic after the seal was put on it, so I’m not certain I will be able to cast fireballs.

I could try to surprise them with some trick and earn their interest. Knowing that true magic doesn’t exist in this world, I would pretty much look like a prophet, or even a god to them.

Or they could mistake me for a monster, panic and try to kill me before I eat their children or something.

Life is all about perspective, isn't it?

And also, even if I could run from them now, could I really get away? The ninjas my dad told me about were extremely good at assasination and stealth. Catching me again should be easy for them.

In that case... To survive i must i either make them my friends or take them all down.

Damn, if only Wassim was here I could use him as bait or sell him out in exchange for my freedom.

Next time i see him i'm going to add the strongest jalapeño sauce i can find to his food.

----------------------------------------

“Naeru! Naeru!” (Princess! Princess!)

My captors came to a halt and got very noisy. What’s going on? Is that their ritual for before eating? 

Go ahead! Eat me, you bunch of fools! I will make sure to give you the worse diarrhea you’ve ever had!.

“ínacu_xuchichiru toxüchiwe!” (Take the mask off!)

I heard the dignified voice of a girl, and then one of the men finally took off that thing from my head.

It took me a couple of seconds to adapt my eyes to the light again, and in front of me stood a woman. No, a girl.

She must be around my age, maybe a bit younger.

Beautiful brownish skin. Long black hair that despite being unkept it nonetheless took my breath away. A round face with puffy cheeks, and a thin but visibly fit body decorated with all sorts of animal skins and feathers.

Not quite fitting with the image i had of a 'kunoichi' (female ninja).

All in all, a captivating girl well in the road towards becoming a woman.

“I bet she’s got a nice ass…”

Oops, I said what I thought out loud.

Well, it’s not like they would understand it.

“How vulgar, this is why I don’t like getting involved with foreigners.”

Shit, she did!

Should I apologize? Nah, times like these call for a clear demonstration of power, I’ll let you know who the boss is in here.

“Vulgar? That’s what I should say, girl in lewd underclothes.”

Indeed, at least her clothes covered the important places, but still 75% of her body was uncovered for the whole world (and me) to see (and take some mental pictures for later, hehehe).

“Hah!? Did you say something!?”

Replied the girl with an harsh tone accompanied by a fierce scowl, like an ireful feline just about to jump straight at your neck.

Hoh, seems like I bumped into a ‘wild’ girl, in various senses of the world, but if you think you will intimidate me with that…

“Forgivemepleasedon’tkillme!”

I said in a squeaky voice as I quickly covered my head with my hands.

----------------------------------------

“So you came from a different world, and god sent you here in a mission to collect those items known as ‘glittery stamps’ in order to go back?”

Inquired the girl in the seductive indigenous attire.

“Yeah, that pretty much sums it up”

“That’s really hard to believe…”

Can’t deny it, now that I had to share my situation with someone else i realize how absurd the whole thing is.

The girl pondered my words for a while, then made her hand into a fist, positioned it lightly over her chest, looked at me with determined eyes and said:

“Let me help you”

“Hah?”

Wait, not only you believed that bullshit-ish story, you’re offering to help me? I strongly suspected you people were funny in the head, but still...

“Please let me help you”

She slightly inclined her head forward, in an earnest gesture of petition.

“I… I don’t mind, but why did you suddenly decide to help me?”

“Your story may sound very suspicious as it is, but it’s actually very similar to an ancient legent transmitted by our ancestors”

A legend? One that described my current situation?

“ He, who fell from beyond the skies

He, who will collect the godly artifacts

He, who shall bridge the gap between our world and the kingdom beyond the sky

The blood of a hero lays dormant within

Thy blood, thy flesh and thy wit shall be put to his service

Thee, who yearns for eternal glory”

‘The blood of a hero lays dormant within’… Even though I didn’t mention anything about my father.

Thinking back, the whole apparition of my father was also predicted by an ancient legend from my own world. Could such legends have some direct relationship with the cycle of reincarnation?

But more importantly…

“Thy flesh shall be put to his service...!?”

For some reason (Hm, I wonder why?) my eyes were opened and directed straight towards the breasts of my attractive interlocutor.

I gulped.

“Hey, degenerate.”

Who are you calling a degenerate? Well, I did instinctively react to the word as if you had called my name, but still…

“Don’t take it all so literally, will you?”

Another fierce scowl.

The blood in my veins froze inmediately.

Man, I’m suddenly very tired. Yep, very tired, surely from walking all day through the jungle.

That must be why my legs are trembling. Totally not because of her. Nope. Absolutely not. Zero.

I shouldn’t be deceived by her womanly charms, this woman is a beast. A wild, carnivorous beast.

----------------------------------------

“You said you didn’t mind letting me help you. So when are we going to find those godly artifacts?”

Impatiently asked this savage ninja? girl as she looked straight into my eyes as I was sitting on a wooden stem after complaining about being too tired to stand.

Come on woman, my legs are still trembling a bit, let me rest. And think.

With so much happening i don't even know what to do next.

Also, stop calling those silly stamps godly artifacts, you’re making this story sound too serious for its own good.

“Are you really the hero from the legend? Such an indecisive man”

“Ahhh you know, maybe i can’t accept your help after all.”

I said in a monotonous tone.

First of all, let’s see if we can domesticate this savage. The ancient principle of ‘the carrot and the stick’ should work in this world too.

“Sorry for my rudeness. Please let me join you.”

Ehm… If you answer so earnestly I can’t help feeling like an asshole…

“Okay okay, I will let you help me.”

“It’s a promise?”

She extended her pinkie towards me, implicitly asking for a physical sort of confirmation.

Her culture seems to be pretty straight-forward.

But because of that she seems like someone you can trust, and that’s something very valuable to have when you’re far away from home.

“Yeah”

I took a hold of her extended pinkie with mine, and she sealed the deal by symbolically severing the link between them with her free hand.

It was sort of heart warming, I recalled some dear memories from my world.

I died, but my heart is still beating.

I died, but i'm still moving forward.

I won't let this chance go to waste, i will definitely make it back.

The small gesture helped me reaffirm my resolution.

“My name is Aria, what’s yours, ‘legendary hero’?”

“Kuroh-… Noah, just Noah”

She looked a bit puzzled by my decision to not say my surname, but she didn’t ask about it.

Honestly I, too, am a bit puzzled as to why I did that.

Perhaps the way she called me ‘hero’ made me subconsciously avoid using my father’s surname?

‘Hero’… .

I’m not the ‘son of’ anymore. For Aria, I am the hero himself.

A saviour from the legends i loved so much.

I was no longer a simple spectator. I had become the protagonist.

Will i be able to... Live up to her expectations?

Did dad feel the same doubts when he first woke up all alone in the middle of a big magical circle, surrounded by a bunch of unknown people who decided to burden him with the label of ‘Hero’?

Did dad ever…

Will I ever…

Feel like running away from it all?

“Noah!”

Aria's voice suddenly took me out of my internal deliberation.

“I said ‘nice to meet you’”

She continued, as she extended her hand forward.

These people must care a lot about presentations, I thought as i mumbled the words “Nice to meet you too” while i extended my hand to return her handshake.

“So, Aria, seeing as we are done with our presentations, mind if I ask you something?”

“What is it, Noah?”

“In which part of Japan are we right now? I guess this is not ‘Tokio’, as there’s so much vegetation. Maybe the so-called ‘Osaka’?"

Well, my dad didn’t seem to be an avid traveller, so he only really told me about a few cities where he had been in his youth.

“Japan? What do you mean?”

Huh? She didn’t understand? Is this translator thing working properly?

“Let me change the question, where are we right now?”

So here’s the plan. First of all, i need to know in which part of Japan we are and find my way towards ‘Tokio’. I can start searching for clues there.

It should somehow work out, my dad taught me enough about japanese common sense to not get completely lost in there.

Also, let’s make the best out of the occasion and do some tourism. I hate travelling in general, but that doesn’t mean I won’t take a golden chance to dip in an ‘onsen’ or watch ‘anime’.

I wonder what face will dad make when I bring him some souvenir from his world?

I will be fine, but as for Aria… Hmm, I accepted her help, but that also means we will have another mouth to feed. According to the picture of Japan that I have, her wild animal abilities won’t get her far in a concrete jungle like 'Tokio'.

Well, if she's a ninja she will most likely be okay.

Or so I naively thought, before hearing her answer...

“Where are we right now? Well, our settlement is not too far from Leticia.”

"L-Leticia?”

I don’t remember any japanese city by that name, actually, that doesn’t sound japanese at all.

“Yes. We are currently in the national park Amacayacu, department of Amazonas, Republic of Colombia”

“I've never heard of that Japan you talk about, but I’m pretty sure it’s not in this continent.”

So she said, in her typical serious and stoic tone. A tone that didn't show a hint of doubt or bad intentions.

She didn't have any reason to lie to begin with, so she was definitely saying the truth.

...

God.

Are you listening?

Fuck you.

Fuck you so much.