Prologue
“How did it happen?”
The boy asked after a pause long enough to end ice ages. He fidgeted, pressed knuckles to hear them pop, sharp echoing snaps, like the cracking of a frozen river in the throes of midwinter, that reverberated around the grand space.
I knew trouble when I saw it sitting in front of me.
“Who could have predicted a white truck toppling off the top of a multi-storey car park right as you walked past? I mean, they put up railings to prevent just a thing!”
With each word I spoke, a grin spread wider across the boy’s face. A massive chasm cutting through glaciers. See, trouble.
“Aw, man. My fanzines…!”
Had I read the boy wrong? Was this a smile of awkwardness? An errant display of an incorrect emotion borne of an incomprehensible turn of events? Like when adults laughed at a child slipping on a patch of black ice as he dodged fist-sized, not-so-fluffy artillery rounds, breaking bones with a comical backflip and spraying dislodged teeth with each heart-pulling wail, then sent the video into some second-rate Saturday night TV show so others could share in the boys ill fortune, all in hope of winning a small cash prize? They got second, beaten by a guy whose testicles gained intimate knowledge of a toy car at 70 kph. Red. Hatchback. Cast iron. Size of a small fist. The audience felt it. Even those who lacked the anatomy.
In pursuit of similar prizes and fame, the crowd gathering around the crumpled truck also whipped out phones and tablets; quick to record amid the emptying of stomachs. It was twenty minutes before someone thought to use their phone to call the emergency services, by which time this grinning freak was sitting in front of me.
One video reached a million views, another a mere twenty thousand. Then the squabbling broke out: who stole whose video? The hashtags were amusing to a slim degree, at least. Some claimed hoax—AI, CGI; you could see the superimposing if you squinted hard—until #dudegotflat and #pancakeboy hit national, then international news. A funny aside from the weary woes of everyday life.
“...The whole lot are derivative, sloppy fan-fics in comparison. Nothing could ever beat this!”
“I, uh… What?”
“I’ve single-handedly redefined the genre forever!”
A dangerous glint sparked in the boy’s eyes, like the twinkling of an icicle before it sought something soft to pierce in its death fall.
“You’re a goddess, right? And Truck-kun hit me.”
“Flattened,” I interjected. He didn’t hear.
“Which means… I just won the lottery of all lotteries! You’re gonna send me to another world to defeat a demon king. What kinda super cheat do I get? Can I choose?”
As I began to understand some of the weirder comments and hashtags, the boy leaped from his chair, jostling my table. He pumped his fists in the air while my favourite vase shattered on the floor. That had been a gift!
He was not hero material.
“Uh, Guy. Sit down, please. I’m Miyuki, by the way.”
“So, how powerful is this demon king? You want me to rescue all the cute girls he’s chained up naked in his dungeon? Man, I cannot wait to form my waifu harem.”
“GUY CHAPMAN!!”
It was my turn to rocket up from my seat. Blood rushed to my head and I took a moment to compose myself. Taking Mist’s advice, I formed the picture of an avalanche sweeping away my concerns as it rushed down a mountain. Then fixed my clothing, my robes felt tight. Hopefully, the result of a too strong spin cycle and not because I’d taken Mist’s by mistake again.
The cause of my annoyance continued to flail while he said disturbing things. I caught an arm, tried to ground him with a stern stare that should have frozen the world.
“Oh, hey. Are you coming with? Great! First harem girl, get!”
Something had to be done about this impossible guy.
“Sit.”
He sat.
“Listen carefully, Guy, this is important. There are no demon kings left. The last one was defeated yest- Uh, a-are you crying?”
“NO!” Guy sniffled, wiping at his face.
I bit my lip, but a hint of a smile peeked from the corners of my mouth regardless. I hated having a tell so obvious Mist noticed it.
But I had no choice. The active demon kings were sleet compared to the whiteout whimpering in front of me. He had to go somewhere he couldn’t cause trouble. While thinking over this, I stared at the scraps of my vase. This time, the smile I allowed on my face unhindered was no tell. I knew what to do with this bother. More amazing, it would make someone else as happy as a girl learning school was cancelled by a freak blizzard, giving her time to study for that test she’d forgotten about while playing video games. Well, she still owed me. Even if she’d then spent that day playing in the snow, failed the test anyway, and suffered a cold for a week.
I walked Guy through his new life, beaming joy. The boy beamed back, leaning forward, intent on the dream come true that I wove for him.
“Okay, time to go, Guy. Step in that circle and stand still. Keep your hands at your sides, if you want to keep them. Don’t worry, there’s only a point oh oh oh oh one chance of a problem…”
“What kind of pro-”
With Guy gone, I felt like virgin snowfall in those early morning hours before being discovered by children and the young at heart. I enjoyed the moment.
. . . . . .
My new life began with an almighty clang, and a headache, accompanied by an unshakable feeling; the world was wrong. It continued with unintelligible shouting that sounded and itched like static from an untuned analogue television.
Then confirmation.
The sole inhabitants were not nubile, naked girls. They were not desperate to reverse the accidental loss of all their menfolk through the only means at immediate hand.
Things did calm down. After a performance of arm thrashing and eye covering from a girl, who, in a moment of neither thrashing nor covering, slapped a metal collar around my neck. She was fully clothed and decidedly furious. An encore of gesticulating limbs followed. I pulled my trousers up just in time for the girl to yank me to the ground. The force was sufficient to dislocate bones.
If I ever saw that Miyuki again! She’d get an earful or two of some very choice words. Just as “supervisor”, “I”, “see”, “demand”, “your”, and “to” formed a sentence in my left hemisphere, along with the hope Miyuki would understand, I blacked out.