If I told my friends I got hit by a truck and transported to another world, it would be hilarious, but since I’m in another world, my phone doesn’t connect.
At first I thought, You gotta be kidding me! too. But after that there were a whole bunch of twists and turns that were no joke, so I had no choice but to just live my life. It’s pretty insane how people can get used to just about anything as long as they’re alive, or more like, life is a force to be reckoned with. Not that it makes it easier.
I even got used to being a sex worker. And I’m even proud of what a pro I’ve become. Plus, I understand pretty well how this other world with a god, demons, and heroes works.
But I still have the feeling somewhere in a corner of my mind that I’m walking around in a dream. Maybe the cheat skills we were given are a lifeline too thick. They’re what makes everything seem so removed from reality. Life feels too much like a game.
It’s a rough time, so I tend to use whatever powers are handy to get by. I always think it’s cowardly to rely on them so much, but actually, they save my butt pretty often.
That’s why I’ll never fully be one of these people. I can tell, even as I feel bad for enjoying my not-at-all-ordinary life like I’m still the high schooler I was that day, waiting for the school festival to come.
This is a story of something that happened one day in another world.
“You lost your underwear at Blue Cat Nocturne? While you were drying them?”
“Shhh!” Kiyori blushed. Lupe hunched her shoulders, conscious of the people around us.
We were having a breakfast meeting at Sumo’s cafe. I got a little over-excited because I smelled a mystery. The old dudes sitting nearby all clicked their tongues in annoyance.
The terrace seating created at our request had been recognized to the extent that other people now used it too, but the customers were still practically 100 percent dudes; the number of women cafe-goers hadn’t really increased at all. The road to turning Sumo’s joint into the type of cafe I knew was a long one.
Well, that was an issue we could deal with later.
“Actually, sometimes a pair or two does disappear. I figured someone was messing with us, so I said not to worry about it. We get harassed and teased all the time.”
“...Oh.”
Kiyori looked surprised, but as Lupe said, this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. For some reason people—both men and women—tended not to take sex workers seriously. Of course it was frustrating, and it pissed me off. But it also wasn’t specific to this world.
Kiyori hung her head. Everyone had experiences with harassment. If we got upset about every little thing that happened to us, there’d be no end to it.
Still, though.
“That’s going too far. It’s robbery at that point! Let’s tell the soldiers!”
“It won’t do any good. The lost item is a sex worker’s underwear. They won’t even give us the time of day.”
The soldiers are like a combination of my old world’s police and self-defense force. I was pretty sure their duty included protecting the people’s panties. But depending on the situation, a sex worker’s status is lower than a pair of panties. Wait, “lower” is going too far. I’m a sex worker too, after all.
“But if we just leave it, then the victims will keep having problems.”
Kiyori said, “Shall we try asking via the Church?” But if we did that, it could cause trouble for Kiyori and the people of the Church, so we said thanks but passed.
“Our only option is to catch the perp ourselves.”
“Huh? You don’t have to go that far, do you? Don’t do anything dangerous.”
“Crying yourself to sleep is worse. You can’t just grin and bear it when something important to you gets stolen. Women and sex workers have to speak up and say something is unforgivable when it’s unforgivable.”
“I think you’re exactly right!” This time it was Kiyori who was getting over-excited. The older dudes around us told her to “Pipe down!”, so she shrank into herself.
“Lower your voices, you two. I can just buy more underwear. In fact, I’ll buy replacements for every—”
“Lupe, you don’t need to do that. Leave this to me. We can catch the thief without doing anything dangerous. My buddy Ukyo says the culprit always returns to the scene of the crime.”
“Who’s that...?”
“Now that they’ve got a taste for our panties, when they realize the soldiers aren’t doing anything, they’ll come back to Blue Cat Nocturne’s drying spot. We’ll set a trap there. So, hmm, well it’s pretty cheesy, but how about we dig a pitfall?”
We caught the criminal right away.
Filling in the hole—which I’d used my Dig skill craftsmanship at full throttle to create—was an underwear-laden Chiba.
“Oh, it’s you? You walking sexual curiosity.”
How disappointing. I had a feeling this outcome wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility, but for it to actually happen was a real bummer. Chiba used to be so hopeless, but lately he had started to get to know the other girls, and with Lupe’s training, I thought maybe he was changing for the better. Actually, his true nature of not living up to expectations hadn’t changed at all!
“W-Wait a sec. Listen to me!”
“Shaddup. I don’t care if we know each other—a crime is a crime. I’m sorry your fetish got the better of you, but it doesn’t justify breaking the law.”
Right, Ukyo?
“You got it all wrong. I’m carrying these because”—Chiba seemed like was trying to defend himself, but when he saw all the contemptuous looks of the sex workers peering down at him, he gave up, and his shoulders slumped—“...because I couldn’t control my...sexual curiosity...”
“Okay, we’ve got a confession. Someone call a soldier. Let’s ask for a proper other-world execution, cruel and merciless. Like an orc funeral or something!”
“Haru, calm down. Chiba must have his reasons. Let’s hear what he has to say.”
“Lupe, you’re going too easy on him. The more you spoil a fetish, the more it grows. A fetish is a monster that nests in your heart. The whole reason he’s stuck in this hole with a bunch of panties right now is that he lost control of it. People are doomed when they get this bad.”
“It’s true that one time, Chiba tried to uncrumple the underwear I took off to look at them, but when I told him to stop, he stopped. He has the kind of fetish that listens when you talk to it.”
“He did that to mine once, too. He’s just a total panties man. He always peeks when we’re going up the stairs, even.”
“Yep, if you ever wear a short dress, he’ll be staring at your thighs. You can tell he’s just waiting. And when he’s trying to catch a peek from behind, he stares as if he thinks we’ll never notice.”
“Huh? Wait a sec. Isn’t this perv totally lucking out at this angle? He’s probably thinking he wants to stay buried in the dirt forever!”
“Cut it out already! I refuse to discuss this in front of everyone or be a party to this call-out spree. I’ll explain later, so just let me outta here!”
“Listen to this high-and-mighty jerk... We have absolutely no intention of discussing anything with you!”
“Haru, let’s just listen to him first. Please?”
Lupe, are you his mom now or something?
If she was going to say that, then I couldn’t fight her. I was definitely going to tie him up so he couldn’t run away, though.
I unleashed my Bind skill—the one I got from the chokey dude’s little twin brother. I needed to reform Chiba before his fetish was sublimated into a skill like theirs.
“Did you really have to do this?!”
I bound his upper body with a criss-crossing turtle shell pattern and pushed him into the shed. It was a musty spot for keeping barrels of alcohol and old parts and junk. Chiba was kicking and screaming, but I locked the door. You can simmer down in there for now.
There was no telling what Chiba had done with the stolen underwear, so we washed each pair before returning them and explaining to everyone. Then I decided to go to Sumo’s place. I thought I’d buy a cake for all the girls to apologize for the racket. Of course, I’d make Chiba pay me back later.
As I was scraping together some cash in my room, Lupe showed up and said she would come with. “It’ll be hard on your own.”
She really is everyone’s mom. Even I’m letting her spoil me now. As she helped me carry the cake home, I ended up venting to her as usual.
“I’m really so pissed this time. Why should I have to go to all this trouble? It’s like being ashamed of a relative. I was half-serious about executing him, by the way.”
I dunno why, but Lupe was smiling. She almost always smiled when listening to what I had to say. “You’re so nice, though, Haru.”
“Huh? What did I ever do that’s nice?”
“You said ‘like being ashamed of a relative.’”
“What? Nah, I mean, it doesn’t have any profound significance or anything. I just say that ’cause we happen to be from the same town. We never talked or anything. We’re weren’t friends.”