(“Oi, oi! Wake up, brat! The sun’s already shining on your butt!”)

From the bottomless dark, a weird voice kept echoing, forcing Meng’s consciousness to surface.

(“Yo! The kid’s finally awake.”)

As his mind cleared, Meng looked toward the voice—um… in a gray, directionless, borderless fog, the figure he’d bought, the hand-sized figure of unknown origin, was floating in front of him, glittering. And speaking in a thick male accent that did NOT match the pretty sculpt.

……Let me go back to sleep.

(“Chotto matte! You seriously gonna fall asleep again with that calm face? At this rate you’ll die. I mean it—DIE!”)

Like I care! Who wants to wake up to a beautiful girl figure talking like a middle-aged man—terrifying!

Wait—die?!

Jolting awake, Meng checked his condition.

…A lump of white sweet-potato.

“Nani kore yaaaa?!?!! (What the heck is this!?)”

(“Finally with us.”) A weary sigh came from the figure. (“Calm down and think back.”)

Think back? Sweet-potato-Meng furrowed his… er, tuber, and searched his memories.

Saved money → flew to Japan → Comiket Day 1 → met Chinese exchange-student cover-selling merch → impulse-bought mystery figure → dinner run → saved brat & figure from two separate traffic accidents with athletic awesomeness → show-off jump → slipped on banana peel → skull vs rock…

“Then nothing. So I’m dead? All my coolness ruined by a banana peel?”

(The white-potato wiggled in shame, wishing it could bury itself.)

“Stop narrating, and don’t give me weird nicknames!”

(“Maa maa, chill. It’s not what you think.”) The voice turned sheepish.

Normally that line screams chuunibyou, but given the surreal state of things Meng had to reconsider. Hope sparked—if the voice was right, he might still be alive.

(“Right when your head was about to go splat, I cracked open a spatial rift through the figure and yanked you out.”)

Under these circumstances, he had to believe it.

(“Then… uh… I forgot to add a body-shield, so the turbulent void chewed your meat-suit into hamburger.”)

The tiny flame of hope got stomped out.

“So I’m STILL DEAD!!!” he roared at the figure.

(“C-calm down! Look, dying by banana-peel + rock? Lame. Dying shredded by cosmic chaos? Sounds epic, right?”)

“NOBODY THINKS THAT!”

Worse, actually—at least the first way leaves a body; the second is instant cremation.

(“Sorry! My bad! I shouldn’t have thought ‘If the protag doesn’t technically die on-screen, the censors will go easy on my new serial!’”)

Weird apology, but an apology nonetheless. Normally Meng wasn’t this hot-headed; the setting was just too surreal.

Taking a deep breath (did he even have lungs?), he leveled his mood and asked, “Mind if I ask a few questions?”

(“Within my power—shoot.”)

“Where is here?”

(“The gap between worlds.”)

“Not the underworld?”

(“King Yama owed me a favor; he let me handle your case.”)

“Who are you?”

(“The author of—cough classified. Just know I’m a Very Important Being.”)

“What is this figure?”

(“My blood-sweat masterpiece!”)

Either cultural gap or dimensional gap, but Q&A were definitely on different channels.

“Why save me?”

(“Hmph! Good question!”) The voice quivered with excitement. (“Because you’re the ONLY human who saw its true value!!”)

…Right, even more confusing.

After a dozen more questions Meng roughly pieced it together:

The speaker was a god who accidentally discovered Earth’s 2-D culture, became the lone Otaku Deity overnight, and dabbled in fan-fiction and garage kits. Since no other deity shared his hobby, he sneaked his self-made figure to the mortal world to show off.

The figure was an original “special Misaka Sister” whose personality resembled Mikoto—so buyers kept mistaking her for long-haired Railgun. The hardcore Railgun faithful revolted, everyone tried to resell, and the poor thing became unsellable trash.

(“So… sniff! …when I saw you BUY it… sniff! …and risk your life to SAVE it… wahhh I was so touched!!”)

—Stop crying!

Even accepting the “supreme being” label, Meng couldn’t feel reverence.

“Okay… can you send me back? I’ve got stuff left to do.”

Like Comiket Day 2, and reading the rest of his doujinshi. Thrice.

(“Sorry, kid. King Yama already stamped ‘life expired.’ Best I can do is reincarnate you somewhere else.”)

Figures. Meng hadn’t hoped that hard—honest…

(“But relax! Like the crane repaying a kindness, I won’t screw over the guy who cherished my figure.”)

The figure flared with blinding light and sucked his potato-soul inside before he could protest.

(“Surprise! My model isn’t only cute—it’s also a top-tier soul container. Free body upgrade!”)

Upgrade my ass—my manhood just got scammed!

(“Hm? Want to say something? Sorry, syncing soul to shell uses all available bandwidth—no chat.”)

Explain in words I understand, dammit!

(“Target world… you said you wanted a date, right? Let’s drop you into Date A Live. An anime world, so a fellow otaku can game the system.”)

Never watched it! Saw the title, labeled it harem, dropped before episode one finished! And THAT voice in my head was YOU?!

(“Threat level’s a bit high there. For safety I’ll set your race as top-tier!”)

Fix my GENDER first, moron!

(“Name… ‘Misaka Meng’ was used in the last book. We’ll go with ‘Liangyi Meng-Yue’ to honor the original creator!”)

Who gave you the right to rename me!?

(“No need to thank me—you earned it.”)

Somebody hand me a gun—I’m shooting this idiot!!!!!!!!

——————————I’m the transfer divider——————————

A small city in the Sichuan Basin, inside China.

BEEEEEEEP—

A piercing siren shattered the morning peace.

People dashed into underground shelters; shops and buildings sank mechanically beneath the earth.

Within five minutes the bustling city had become a flat empty plain.

Space-quake—the worst, most infamous disaster on Earth. First recorded thirty years ago in Mongolia, a blast that carved Eurasia and killed a hundred-fifty million: the “Eurasian Sky Calamity.” Smaller quakes have struck ever since.

No way to prevent them—only to predict and evacuate.

Soon after evacuation, the eastern sector of the city warped; a crushing repulsive force carved a crater a hundred metres wide.

Magicians—one of the few groups who know the real cause—deployed. Their mission: exterminate the special life-form responsible… a Spirit.

Wearing Realizer units, they ringed the crater and waited for the dust to settle.

When the smoke cleared, a long-haired girl in a black windbreaker knelt at the centre.

Unregistered Spirit!? Every weapon snapped to ready.

Yet the mystery girl didn’t attack; she simply knelt, wailed, and shouted:

“IDIOT! THIS IS NOT THE ISEKAI I WANT!”