《It's About the Journey》 Prologue 1 - The End of the World as They Know It "I''m sorry, hon. She''s gone." And just like that, Joy''s world ended. Joy''s mother held her child close. Well, "child" wasn''t exactly right, but Joy being a non-binary precluded the normal gendered terminology, and "offspring" seemed too informal, not as close as they were. At 40, Joy was lucky to still have Mom hale and hearty, with most assuming Naty was their older sister and not their mom. Joy was unlucky to have a wife taken away by a glioblastoma out of absolute nowhere. Just a few months ago, headaches. And now .... this. And all Joy could see were tears. And their frustration at themself for not seeing the signs sooner. For not being able to do anything. Wracked with sobs, Joy leaned into their mother''s embrance. "She fought so hard, Mom. I needed to be there!" "Shh, baby, you were there for her when it counted most." Mom, as always, was right. Joy was no doctor, and unlike most of her family, not even a nurse. Filipino-Americans were so often nurses, and Joy only barely learned to stomach needles because she''d had to use them for Kylie, at the end. If only to ease the pain when pills stopped working. In the end, Joy''s family flew in from California to help with the arrangements. Kylie''s family was closer, but being rural Texans, old prejudices died hard, and while some of the younger cousins came to the service, her own parents, heartbreakingly, had not. And that entire month was just lost in a haze of grief. But Joy had to go back to their life, regardless. They had an apartment, now much emptier yet messier. They still had a car, the sensible Japanese "bit more than a kei-car" Kylie had insisted on. They still had a job, which was better than the waitressing and retail they had in nevertheless happier days. But the bills were continuing to mount, and they''d burned through their meager savings and Joy''s side-hustles with all the medical expenses which just wouldn''t stop coming. Joy felt the opposite of her name. Dispirited. Tired. Adrift. Even knowing their work at the local food bank (which paid surprisingly well for a non-profit) was doing so much good ... just didn''t help. How could it? Their Important Person, their fellow traveler from Grand Bahama to Kobe, their personal college-age Manic Pixie Dream Girl and sometime cosplayer turned responsible and frugal CEO of "Rodriguez-Thayer Enterprises" - their in-jokey way of calling their relationship turned marriage - was gone. On the way back from a workday filled with condolences from coworkers, which Joy secretly dreaded but bore anyway knowing the messages were out of genuine concern and empathy, and not a way to hurt them intentionally, Joy drove their little car up the East Austin side roads, as if on autopilot. It was then that she saw the young girl running across the street. If there was one thing Alegria "Joy" Rodriguez-Thayer prided themself on above all else, it was that they had never hurt anyone else with her driving since they had gotten a learner''s permit way back in the mid-90s, not even accidentally, like applying a Hippocratic Oath to the road. Today would not be the day to break that oath, but that little girl was too close for the ABS to fully work. And Joy was forced to swerve left. They noticed two things too late: a teenage boy had run out to pull that little girl out of the way, and had interposed himself in the path Joy would have taken had they not swerved. And Joy saw a two-ton Mack truck directly ahead. In that last moment of clarity, the absurd cliche was the first thing to make Joy laugh since they''d lost Kylie. And then the darkness came. --- [System initiating. Soul ''Alegria Rodriguez-Thayer'' detected] The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Wahwaaah wah wah-waahhwaaaahwaahwah. Joy instinctively tried to look around, but saw or heard nothing, not so much as they perceived something like a voice permeating their existence. From nowhere in particular, the sound came, somewhere between the song of angels and the weird drone the adults made on Charlie Brown holiday specials way back when. Odd. It took Joy another moment to understand what was being said, though the voice sounded clearer and feminine, for lack of a better descriptor. Let''s try that again. Greetings and salutations, Alegria "Joy" Rodriguez-Thayer. I am called Hayamisuji-no-mikoto. We regret to inform you that you are now deceased. Joy had been an apatheist in life: it hadn''t mattered to them whether or not one believed in one god or eight million, so long as that path led them to do right by others. That said, they''d secretly been fond of the idea of the Japanese kami and suddenly felt the urge to pump their fists. If they''d had any at this moment. Oh, I am no deity, just a servant of the system. Normally, my job is to escort you to a holding area for other souls to wait for the preparation of the final judgment, but you have been granted an exemption, as your final deeds were deemed above and beyond the call of duty of humankind. Joy intuited that this Hayamisuji-no-mikoto, which they didn''t remembering about in their copious studies of Japanese folklore, could read their thoughts. That would be correct. I only did what any decent person should''ve done. In every simulation we ran prior, we found that to not be the case. What. 81.95% of the time, both children were hit, because the driver wasn''t even looking at the road but their cellphone. 18.05% of the time, the boy alone was hit fatally, because the car or truck involved braked too late. That''s literally one hundred percent. I rounded for your convenience, the actual percentage of neither dying was one quadrillionth of one percent. Joy couldn''t even think anything for a moment. You broke FATE. So we have a proposal for you: you may freely reincarnate into any world you choose, with as much of your memories intact as you wish. However, the one caveat is that we cannot currently accommodate you in an afterlife. Well, damn. So. No reunion with Kylie. There is a slim chance she will eventually reincarnate in your world, but that would involve her leaving her current abode and I''m not sure you want to do that. Wait. Kylie was cheerfully atheist, like, YouTube channels and conferences atheists ... but then she did work in deprogramming cultists for a living. You have NO idea how many points that scored for her. She''s fine. Okay, so if Kylie is in ... heaven, well heaven can wait? And ... okay, bear me out here. Are there any worlds that need saving? Hayamisuji-no-mikoto laughed. Is that what you really want to do? I mean, that is pretty adorable but- Absolutely NOT. I am a person, and I''d like to stay that away, and not be turned into a slime or a dungeon core or a tentacle monster or whatever. I just ... want to travel all around a world just like Earth. Just better. Joy could almost hear the gears in the dei- system servant''s head turning. Well, if Hayamisuji-no-mikoto even had a head. Or a humanoid form. I know just the place. A just reward for an honorable life and an honorable death. May you find what you seek, Joy. Joy could swear in that moment they perceived the form of ... a woman robed in black, her hood down revealing a pale but beautiful face framed in stark black, wavy hair, standing on a strangely elegant but foreboding boat, pole in hand. In the last moment before being whisked away, Joy heard one last ... giggle. How do you feel about roommates? Prologue 2 - The Grass is Always Greener It was the last hour of New Year''s Eve, and tomorrow would dawn the 907th Year of Ascension. Yoshiko yawned and struggled to stay awake, but she looked at her crystal timepiece through bleary eyes and steeled herself. She couldn''t just let the change happen in her sleep: nothing exciting ever happened in [Kanpeki-no-Tokoro] Takasane-machi. Well, that wasn''t entirely true, there had been the nami-tsuchi-namakemono stampede of 774, and they weren''t really all that far off the metropolitan edge of [Murasaki-no-kanmuri] Yoshio-shi, the capital though not the largest city of the great and expansive land of Mikata-no-kuni. But for nearly a thousand years, Takasane-machi was really just a "perfect place" for ... nothing to happen. No duels. No great battles. Not the slightest bit of real conflict. That''s why the Izumi clan had set roots here, so Yoshiko could have a quiet place to grow up until she attained her legal twenty years of majority. Thus she went from her creche, through her mandated education, with one of the few unusual things about her being her relatively rare status as a pure-born human. No antlers, no furry ears, no atavistic or fae or plane-touched traits of any kind. Just regular black hair that only looked shiny if she used the right conditioner, regular skin that held a tan only if she stayed way too long in the subtropical Mikata sunlight, and a frame that made most people assume she was half-grown and not the adult she was about to be in one hour. Hey, she liked putting her hair in twin pigtails! Yoshiko was a vanilla human, and in the Ascended World, this was weird. That was even before her parents told her of the prophecy that she would be one of those rare folks to be blessed upon her majority. Something about an umarekawaru-tamashii. A reborn soul? Yoshiko hoped they wouldn''t be too awful. Some folks who did that reacted really strangely. She''d read up on the few examples, and she really hoped the soul she got was going to be a gentle one. It seemed really random, but at least she was forewarned ... a little? The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. At midnight, she would come of age, and Yoshiko couldn''t wait, because she was bored of this country town. Well, not entirely. Takasane-machi did make the best sausages in all Mikata-no-kuni. But there were no dungeons here, no fast travel nodes, and hardly any wandering beasts ever got into town, and their farmland was not excessively remarkable as to produce gold-quality morokoshi or tama-morokoshi field crops. That certainly wasn''t what she wanted to spend her life doing anyway, but Yoshiko was no adventurer either. Well, not a dungeoneer, anyway, that just seemed too strenuous and violent and all she really wanted to do was get out. She had gained a few levels in the Manamono, Umonotsukai and Kemono-ososhi classes, just so she wouldn''t be thoroughly outclassed by the rogue monsters that occasionally crossed the ancient highway between Takasane-machi and the capital, and because she''d always wanted to see distant lands and, well, taste all their foods. Plus Umonotsukai and Kemono-ososhi were pretty much mandatory for a farm family anyway. Though, maybe not to the point of wrangling wild washikemono for her parents to plow their fields, or taming that katsurugitora to watch their barnyard animals ... that might have been overkill? There was also no sense in doing anymore than that until she knew for sure what this soul was like. Yoshiko watched the time tick down, clearly not having learned the lesson that a watched pot never boils. Patience wasn''t really a virtue she had cultivated quite yet. Please let them be a traveler. As Yoshiko struggled to stay awake, she saw it was 11:59. Almost time for the Starfall Celebration, which she normally never stayed up for. Yoshiko let a stray thought cross her mind in the waning moments of her boring old life. Please don''t be lewd. Okay, maybe a little? [Tamashii no sube- OVERRIDE SOUL MERGE INITIATED] Wait, did the System just change languages? *pop* Chapter 1 - Perfectly Situated She ... no, they opened their eyes. The blinking light on their left wrist read 12:01 am. One psychic presence took quick stock of their surroundings and saw a room that looked for all the world to be a strangely typical, if feminine room, with a pretty nice four poster bed, dressers, a jewelry case, and a vanity with a mirror - exactly what they were looking for. Not a slime. Not a mimic. This body was human - lighter than they were used to, but still human. Oh, thank goodness. Also, oh wow. I''m cute now, like they were before the huge metabolism hit of middle age. The other presence ... squealed in delight. In the same mind. And then it all hit again that they had become, well, a plural they, and that both of them remembered a whole lot very quickly. That Alegria "Joy", had died and come back, just not with a huge flash of light or trumpets or anything remotely similar to the Jesus sense ... and for all they knew, no one else in the world even knew. That they were now in Yoshiko''s body, and Yoshiko is right there in the same mind, cheering as if she''d won the lottery. Oh wow. Yoshiko. Written with the kanji for ... joy. Okay, universe, pretty funny. The other thing that the merged Joy realized, almost immediately, was a menu. Like some kind of role-playing game, and apparently they had those in this Ascended World? ? Hi, Joy, and wow, you think in the old Hanabusa-no-kuni speech, that is absolutely WILD, I am so glad I learned that, I''m Yoshiko, I guess we''re sharing the same body now, I mean, it''s my body, but I hope it''s okay, wowowowow you must''ve been from WAY before the world Ascended then! ? Thinking in heart emojis. What the hell isekai had Joy found themself- oh, crap, Yoshiko can read minds. Wait, Hanabusa-no-kuni. What the what ... wait. That''s the characters for ... eikoku. ENGLISH. That is such a weird reading. So it was 907 years past Ascension ... which meant nothing to Joy, of course, and Yoshiko being a Manamono (oh, a scholar) didn''t help with explaining when Ascension was but, presumably this meant they were on Earth? Tsuchitama-no-hoshi. We''ve always called it that. Oh. That''s quaint ... tsuchi ... tama. Those were kunyomi for the chikyuu in the Japanese that Joy had learned and studied in college. Whoa, that''s a really archaic form of the Yamato speech you''re thinking in. Like there''s Aya-no-kuni speech in there. And you''re a linguist ... aaahhhh I can tell you''re the best reborn soul EVERRRRRR! Joy knew then that this is definitely some variant form or maybe even future Earth or something like that, because Yoshiko acted to Joy''s perceptions like some sort of particularly upbeat Japanese schoolgirl and, well, frankly, looked like one in the mirror. Uwu. Don''t say that, I''m twenty! And what the heck does, oh, haha, your memories are leaking into my conscience and that''s funny. Though ... oh my GOSH you''ve been WHERE? And ... oh ... They felt heat rising in their cheeks as Yoshiko accessed some of Joy''s memories of things Yoshiko hadn''t experienced yet. And Yoshiko, who Joy had already pegged as something of a motormouth, seemed ... a bit stunned. Hey, boundaries please? You don''t seem offended though, that''s a good sign. Oh no, I wouldn''t be offended, it''s just that love is really beautiful, and I''m glad you got someone like that, cause I want a love like that too someday, and she would TOTALLY have been my type too so ... I think we need to learn to set our identities distinct somehow, oh my gosh I hope I didn''t overstep too much sorrryyyyy- No, hon, it''s okay. You''re a good human ... bean. I think the word we can use is compartmentalize. Hey, how about if I do us a favor - we should get some sleep, but first, I want you to see something, because I think you need to see this with our eyes, and not just my memories, especially if we''re going to be ... compartmentalizing. Sure! The composite of Joy and Yoshiko ... which they decided mutually in that moment would go by Joy because it set them apart from everyone using the Yamato speech, turned and walked over to the window, and opened the blinds. Yoshiko''s bedroom was bathed in pale moonlight, and Joy saw a few things immediately that caught their attention. They were out in the country somewhere, on the second story of a house. The moonlight landscape though -- farmlands on rolling hills, with vast crop fields punctuated by giant oak trees. The crescent moon looked familiar, but then pale wan lights seemed to sparkle on the dark side of the moon itself. Lights moved through the sky ... some kind of transport craft? Oh wow, planes are a thing here, of course. But the similarities to Joy''s earth ran smack into the several lumbering forms of something car-sized lying in the farmyard, with armored plating, like some sort of enormous armadillo-ankylosaur. Wait. A glyptodont? And Joy saw a very helpful little popup in their field of vision, like suddenly the world had gained a tooltip, or something from that old show where they popped in trivia bits on top of music videos. It helpfully labeled the beast as a washikemono, redundantly in what Joy knew as katakana and romaji. It was the tiny italic script beneath, in why Yoshiko helpfully explained was a variant of the ancient hara-no-hito speech but was quite evidently to Joy''s eyes Latin, that was the surprise. [Glyptotherium texanum] Yeah that''s a Mikata-no-kuni washikemono, I tamed it so Mom and Dad wouldn''t have to rely on the mana-tractors so much. Wait. Mikata-no-kuni? No. Way. Oh, we have nagatsuno-ushi too! See, look over there! Out in the moonlit pasture, beyond the sleeping glyptodont, Joy indeed could see them. Longhorn cattle. Oh yeah. Hook em. Joy knew exactly where they were. They probably even knew the town. But Yoshiko seemed a bit confused by her next thought. Joy, what does "weeb Texas" mean? If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.
The next morning Yoshiko debated on whether or not to tell her parents about her new joint ability as Joy but their insistence on getting her to the local shrine for New Year''s made that a moot point as they all equipped their best kimono using what Joy surmised was some kind of minor item teleportation tech (magic!) and then took a quick jaunt down the road. Joy wordlessly gazed at the orange-red fields of sorghum, interspersed with verdant fields heavy with sweet corn, whose harvest-ready look just clashed with the roadside spring flowers, because shouldn''t harvest be in autumn? The brisk walking pace precluded identifying everything, but Joy knew there were bluebonnets, the harbinger of early spring, but strangely interspersed with fall clematis and high summer firewheels. And the birds - horned larks picking at the roadsides, barn swallows wheeling about in the sky, but also the old-sam-peabody-peabody-peabody of a White-throated Sparrow echoing from a hedge as if in full winter. Not to mention the sheer profusion of mammals that swept through the fields undeterred. Joy had been surprised by the glyptodonts last night, but that was no housecat on their porch but a massive sabertooth napping in the morning sun! But also weird exotics like araragi-kamoshika (eland) and mizujika (sambar) ambled fearlessly through the fields unafraid of the kimono-clad folk. And even stranger stuff, like a small herd of tawny four-horned antelope that ran across the road long enough for them to pop up on Joy''s "radar" as a yotsu-tsuno-kamoshika (Stockoceros onusragus), being chased down by a momentarily startled honest to goodness tiger cub, which ran up to Yoshiko''s mom for a quick chin scratch, as it apparently belonged to their neighbors. Not quite the Texas thst Joy remembered then! On the north edge of town proper, there stood an artificial mound with a few oaks and pines. The bamboo thickets on its flanks wouldn''t have looked out of place in Japan, or, indeed, in the Austin of Joy''s memory - fishtail bamboo had been an invasive species in their Texas so it made sense in this one. But Joy knew there had been no Shinto shrines in Texas, and, well, Mikata-no-kuni had them down to the neighborhood and family level. The flowering sakura trees dusting the steps with loose petals were definitely NOT to Texas standard, but there were also flowering ikiobana (redbud) and even lush blue-purple flashes of kurukazu (mountain-laurel) with its strong grape-soda scent. The stone stairs up the hill seemed to stretch far longer than they appeared. Shrine steps always had, but this seemed much more pronounced than even the real mountainside shrines of Joy''s memory. Surely, this hlll wasn''t more than twenty feet tall, yet if this body weren''t so young and surprisingly athletic, Joy would''ve been winded. Then they saw the bamboo shimmer as they approached the torii (which to Joy''s amusement actually doubled nicely as a Texas ranch gate). Oh, duh. Magic. Some form of dimensional magic, even. And they stepped through the threshold, and suddenly it was incredibly clear, that "weeb Texas" was just the start of it. The shrine, which Joy quickly surmised from the kanji and the myriad red fox statues around was Tanezane-Inari-jinja - Tanezane''s shrine to the fox god Inari! - was packed for New Year''s. Joy hadn''t even seen much foot traffic, but there were so many people inside, but the people were all different from what she expected. No one looked old or infirm, but in the prime of health. And ... the ears. And antlers. And horns. Wait, the faces were all very human, but the ears and tails and occasional patches of body fur clearly weren''t. A country girl with dark skin and blackbuck horns and ears, trading gossip with a gaggle of girls with horns - literal cowgirls - and some guys in what seemed to be some weird hybrid of kimono and overalls? jawing away in the corner, the antlers and ears of white-tailed deer protruding from their heads and inadvertently telegraphing their stares at the rather cute tiger-furred miko walking past, before one of them got gently nudged by another miko with armadillo scales. It wasn''t just beastfolk, either, as Joy could see folks with long ears, yes, elves. Green-skinned girls picking out ema ... goblins? All in New Year''s finery. And Yoshiko, of course, knew them all by name. Of course they all had Japanese names, but again, without any onyomi pronunciations - all kun''yomi or nanori readings! Joy wondered if she could get a tooltip but then Yoshiko''s inner voice chimed in. By the way, it''s really bad form to Inspect people you meet so I have that turned off by default. Please don''t try, I''m weird enough as it is. Oh, of course. They got in line for the traditional greeting (clap, clap, bow, clap, clap - Joy found this part refreshingly nostalgic) and then went over to a small area where the local vendors were selling a shocking-to-Joy variety street foods, some remembered and expected from Japan, but then what must have been pigs-in-a-blanket, and wait, are those kolaches?!?, a whole cart for different sausages, that smelled incredibly familiar to Joy, and then, miracle of miracles ... BREAKFAST TACOS! Joy squeed. Um, what do we do for money? What do you mean OH you''re pre-Ascension and you must be operating on that weird old capitalistic system. You need scarcity for that to work, and since there''s no scarcity, all you have to do is ask. Wait, what? I guess it lets people do what they want, all they need is the skill, and with so many billions of people on the planet, there''s no shortage of hands, though I''d rather let the beasts handle the real grunt work myself. Earth, without ... scarcity? How does that even... Meh, it''s an Ascension thing, I never asked but apparently the world really sucked to live on before magic and now we''re free to be who we want to be. Well, except the Antis, but only scholars like me even know about them, and they got exiled centuries ago. How is there even enough space for billions of people and all this land though- Joy barely had time to get out the question before she knew the answer. Duh. Dimensional magic. Physical space wasn''t even a limitation any more. I peeked through your memories, and I think the world you''re looking for is "rad". It is. Also, compartmentalization, hon. Whoops, sowwy! And then all thoughts were whisked away by the prospect of sausage breakfast tacos, and as Joy looked at the sign, in their mind, the weird Yamato-no-kuni speech melted away and was replaced by the English she knew, as if Yoshiko was now translating for Joy in real time. And the sign that heretofore read Torugoto-ie no Takasane-machi no kawata melted away in reformed in their eyes as the now all too familiar name of Meier''s Elgin Sausage. "A proud survivor of the Ascension!" Elgin, Texas, and its hilariously lame motto of "Perfectly situated" was their starter zone and somehow Joy''s favorite Texas sausage place had survived a millennium. Impossible. Joy had to suppress a giggle fit entirely unsuited to the barely middle-aged person she had been, because, in life, she had lived just twenty minutes down the road. Oh please don''t tell me you want to stay here now! Yoshiko sounded a bit panicked now. No no no no, I just know where I am now. I fully intend on us taking a field trip. All the field trips. But this sausage is amazing and just as good as I remember it from before Ascension! Except the curly-haired and pleasantly plump woman who handed them the sausage and greeted them with what now sounded like the thickest dang Texas drawl imaginable was wearing Japanese festival clothes and had doe ears. While selling venison sausage. Best not to think about that too hard, but people are people, and beasts are beasts. Um, okay! When faced with absurd situations, Joy''s dad Marcelo had always given one piece of advice, one he himself had taken to heart when Joy had come out, and fell in love with a girl they met online, and found out to his happiness that Kylie wasn''t one of Joy''s seemingly endless line of intense but short-lived interests but became the great constant in their old life. "Just roll with it." Joy had lost that along the way somewhere, but the wisdom and compassion and kindness and even mischief in his words now rang true now that her dad was beyond their reach. It was not the time to dwell or worry. In this world, Joy for the first time, again, truly felt she could live up to her name. And in that moment, Joy and Yoshiko understood - it was time to go see what this world could offer. They were, indeed perfectly situated for the first step of their journey. Chapter 2 - The First Step Yoshiko''s parents were totally not surprised when she told them about the presence of Joy after coming back from the shrine. Nor when Joy introduced themselves in a voice that was not entirely their daughter''s. In retrospect, Yoshiko''s parents had told her of the prophecy themselves, so the fact that there was no Earthshaking Quest was really the bigger surprise. "Well, before you leave then, we need to discuss a couple things." Yoshiko''s pleasantly fluffy-haired mom Haru, written as "spring", was always calm and collected, the borderline extreme planner of the family who always seemed to know just how to manage the skill sets of her household, without helicoptering her daughter or overwhelming her mild-mannered husband Hasu. Haruna seemed to be what Joy would characterize as a druid, but a sneak look at her stats earlier revealed she had no fewer than three maxed classes: [Lv 100 Master Gardener / Lv 100 Mistress of the Greataxe] and a third that Joy hadn''t quite caught. Similarly, bespectacled and tall dad Hasu, written as "lotus flower", showed up, unexpectedly, as a [Lv 100 Spirit Summoner / Lv 100 Palladium Chef]. Retired dungeoneers, Yoshiko psychically explained with a shrug. "First off," Haru continued with a smile while pouring some rather unusually fragrant coffee ... which the hovering tooltip was gleefully reporting as Master Brew Kopi Luwak, "Before the myriad questions I''m sure you must have, we really need to look at your classes and abilities now that the soul integration has happened. Shall we?" Hasu nodded in the background, content to let his wife handle the conversation. "Um, sure." Yoshiko brought up her main "identity screen", which Joy realized was some kind of heads-up display, projected so as to be visible to all those present. Joy was very thankful as well that the display no longer appeared to her in that weird variant of Japanese that seemed to veil everything around her before, but was being translated in her mind to the English which she primarily used to think. Convenient!
IZUMI Yoshiko [Soul Symbiont: Maria Alegr¨ªa "Joy" dela Cruz RODRIGUEZ-THAYER]
Level 20 Druid / Level 20 Beast Tamer / Level 20 Scholar
inherited Level 40 Expert of Languages / Level 25 Forest Ranger / Level 20 Bard of the Voice
Skills: Archery - Crossbow, Archery - Longbow, Beast Handling, Blades - One-Handed/Short, Cooking, Enhanced Athletics, Enhanced Mana Manipulation, Enhanced Research, Green Thumb, Soul Symbiont
inherited Skills: Blades - One-Handed/Long, Enhanced Perception, Enhanced System Manipulation, Enhanced Vehicular Driving - Ground, Firearms - Pistols, Firearms - Long Arms, Limited Fast Travel, Martial Arts - Arnis/Kali, Music - Voice, Music - Woodwinds, True Universal Translator
SKILL Soul Symbiont rescinds all skill point and level limits. More inherited skills to be unlocked as requirements are reached.
Yoshiko blinked at that last one. And .... True Universal Translator?
[Skill: True Universal Translator. Allows user to pierce the veil of Yamato speech and perceive the true meaning and etymology of the words around them. Unlocked through full fluency in languages from three separate unrelated language families.]
Joy explained in her not-quite-Yoshiko-voice, "Oh, that would be me. My first language was Tagalog, I think in English, and I speak Spanish and Japanese, so with English and Spanish both being Indo-European, that makes ... three. I did try Vietnamese, but that was too hard ... oh, I guess I can understand that now though, wow." Haru and Hasu looked at each other for a moment. "Was that ... normal? Everyone just speaks Yamato speech here." A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Joy shook her head. "I think people perceive speech as what you call Yamato, or in my time, Japanese, but I''m pretty sure I was actually hearing people speaking English and Spanish in my head, and other languages too!" Must''ve taken a bit to kick in though, maybe when I figured out Takasane-machi really meant Elgin! Yoshiko''s parents beamed. Haru, as usual, spoke up for both of them. "That skill is perfect for your dream, sweetpea! You always wanted to travel, and not only do you have a fast travel skill now, but your reborn soul even has language skill to the point you can even traverse the lands outside Yamato influence!" Wait, does that mean... "You can go anywhere." Haru paused. "At least theoretically. For now, you are limited to the fast travel nodes your reborn soul has unlocked, which won''t be as useful if the nearest one hasn''t been." The big weakness of fast travel nodes was that they relied on the traveler to have already been to the destination, and people in the Ascended World tended to be homebodies, or at least stay in their local areas. While Haru and Hasu had evidently traveled elsewhere, Yoshiko had never rarely even taken the train to Yoshio-shi ... or as Joy realized, Austin, and as the mana cost to travel was rather high for her, she was waiting for the age of majority. Wait, I thought we were in a post-scarcity world here. Ah, Joy with the psychic quip! Yoshiko could get used to this honestly. You still need mana to move trains and vehicles, and minors don''t have a whole lot, I guess it''s a protective measure? The next big surprise was that Yoshiko''s mana font was suddenly showing up as well over ten times its total from the previous day, and it was clearly a sign that they were in for some real travel as soon as possible. This was going to be awesome! "Don''t forget your recall pendant. No matter where you are, this will take you to your nearest travel node or to any attuned crystal of your choice, like your room." Haru patted Yoshiko''s head between her pigtails, which now sprouted sakura blossom hair clips. Joy didn''t mind being this femme, but made a quick mental note that they might want to go for a more neutral look later. "And don''t forget, sweetpea, that your inventory does have a limit, but it seems like it''s expanded quite a bit, and there''s also a system message that you have a parcel to pick up in Austin anyway so you''ll want to do that before you head anywhere." Yoshiko laughed at her mom''s fussing. "Mom, to be honest, you seem really chill about this, is everything okay?" Haru smiled. "Your inventory has tons of food, your mana stores are way beyond your peers - do you realize that you have more levels than 99% of people already? And you''re not exactly going dungeoneering, as much as we wanted you to!" Her mom winked, and Yoshiko tried not to wince. "You''ll be fine, and I think your reborn soul is going to be way more helpful there." Haru shifted her eyes a bit. "And please don''t be just a passenger, Joy. This is your life too, now, and we''ve been preparing for this ever since we got the prophecy." Hasu, too, nodded, having raised his head up from brewing espresso. "If you find any good ingredients, please drop off some during your visits home." He smiled gently. "You''re our only daughter after all, and you''ve always had such an amazing eye for them." Yoshiko grinned at the compliment. Her parents always knew how to make her feel awesome and safe and warm, and though a tiny bit of her was loath to leave, the far greater part of her was truly really to spread her wings and fly.
As Yoshiko danced out the door to their home, which was also their nature supplies office and a gastro-cafe, she passed by and quickly belly-rubbed their pet sabertooth whose true name now showed as Ose, and waved hi to her old family friend, the black-furred catfolk Umimaru, who must be en route dungeoneering, because he actually had his battle falchion strapped on. Weird. Umimaru strode in the door like he owned the place, par for the course for catfolk, but especially him in particularly, because he wasn''t just a family friend. "I see your kid''s off on her grand adventure. Ready to get back in the saddle and meet with the rest of the old team?" Haru was already strapping on her long-disused, but now quite polished and oversized two-headed battleaxe, and Hasu was finishing up cleaning the kitchen while grabbing a pair of knives that looked a little too ornate to be regular cookware and strapping those in, as well as a pair of pistols that appeared from a hidden compartment beneath the kitchen counter, and twirled them before popping them into holsters that materialized at his side. Hasu adjusted his glasses. "It''s showtime." Chapter 3 - The Violet Crown Joy pondered the train standing before them as seeming very strangely mundane for a world of beastfolk and stats screens and the casual use of magic spells. Elgin, Texas did indeed have a rail line, but there had been no passenger trains on the Austin Western Railroad in Joy''s lifetime. The train stopped before her at Takasane- Elgin Station wouldn''t have looked terribly out of place on the Yamanote line in Tokyo or the Metro North line along the Hudson River in New York or any number of places on 21st century Earth, if not for the weird aura shimmering ahead of the locomotive, or the fact that the train seemed to fit more people and cargo than physically possible. Oh, dimensional shenanigans, Joy thought nearly aloud, and Yoshiko had to stifle a giggle at the sheer amount of amused snark in Joy''s tone. As they boarded the train, Yoshiko felt a psychic tug as a small bit of her mana went to help power the train''s mana engines, and the train''s cabin seemed to expand into almost a miniature station of its own within. Instead of a one-abreast aisle like Joy was expecting, this felt like walking into a moving hotel, with lobbies in each of the cars filled with small fully-kitted restaurants and even a gastropub. Everything was bedecked in high-quality wood paneling, mana-strengthened loblolly pine wood, accented with Texas ebony and Texas persimmon, or so the identification screens told them. The train exuded rustic charm, but the smells of the foods betrayed a much more cosmopolitan atmosphere, with breakfast tacos and kolaches competing for sensory space with more diverse offerings like kitfo and bun bo hue. If this was merely the train to Austin, then Joy was suddenly very excited to see Austin proper, or at least its incarnation in this Ascended Earth. Yoshiko seemed amused about Joy''s ruminations, which she could feel buzzing in her mind. Joy, you never took the train here? We only had one tiny light rail line that didn''t even go to the airport! It was mostly useless until they built the soccer stadium, and even then you could only go to downtown one way and Leander the other. Oh, and there was Amtrak, if you had a whole day to get to Dallas. Everyone just drove or took planes for long-distance travel. Oh wow. Wait, all your travel options must''ve been fossil fuels back then ... the pollution must''ve been off the charts! Honestly, it wasn''t that bad unless there were temperature inversions, certainly not like Los Angeles or New York smog when I was a kid. The cedar fever was always the worst, though. Is that still a thing? Yeah, but not when you control plants! I can just tell the pollen to buzz off! Oh, that''s cool! Yoshiko opened a side door into a cabin that felt more like a full-sized hotel room than a train cabin, but the tall wall-length windows revealed that they''d already begun to ease out of Elgin station, they passed a variety of homes ranging from stately neo-Victorian and more perfunctory bungalow and pseudo-ranch styles, interspersed with a few Japanese-style tiled roofs. Joy was even surprised to see a miniature Mayan-style pyramid, domiciles organically sprouted from live oak trees, and even a set of interconnected hovering geodesic domes tethered to the ground. Pickup trucks and passenger cars shuttled by in no great rush, but also never seemed to actually stop, weaving improbably through a herd of white-tailed deer walking right the middle of town. Joy could even pick out planes in the distant sky and drew an inward sigh of relief at that bit of familiarity. So, to be honest, I didn''t really go to Austin much because the mana toll used to leave me so drained, so a lot of this is gonna be new for me. Oh, cool, I can''t wait to say what I still recognize! Joy wasn''t prepared for the populated part of Elgin to abruptly stop about a mile from the city center. It''s like the vast swaths of suburbs from her time had somehow been geographically condensed, and instead, they sat at the window watching the landscape roll by, low hills with copses of live oak, surrounded by lush prairie and a few farms. Bluebonnets grew in profusion along the side of the tracks; Joy could pick out winecups, firewheels, coneflowers, and sunflowers, and even some morning glories and passionflowers as well. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. It wasn''t just a floral landscape, though. The prairies were suddenly alive with great herds of mammals. Joy recognized bison and longhorn cattle, but the giant long-horned bison were something else entirely. And then, charging right at them ... A mammoth thundering right through the prairie ahead of them on a collision course with the train, and Joy belatedly noticed that unlike their Texas, she hadn''t seen a single barb wire fence. It effortlessly breached the threshold of the tracks and- -phased harmlessly through the train as if it wasn''t even there. Or more accurately, the train phased through the mammoth, which they could no longer see as it had presumably passed through to the other side. Oh, yeah, that startled me too, the first time. I''m not an engineer so I don''t know how it works exactly but there''s some anti-collision barrier that protects trains and those within from harm. We definitely didn''t have that in my time! Well, yeah, or Joy wouldn''t even be here, they thought to themself with only the slightest bit of edge. Isekai yay, mother trucker. They brushed past a cluster of country homes and a platform labeled "Littig", and Joy smirked as they noticed what looked like an Old West ghost town in the distance. A few minutes later, the train slowed and made a brief stop at Manor, where Joy saw the old water tower from What''s Eating Gilbert Grape, still somehow around, or maybe it was a replica or rebuilt, and took a moment to think about whether or not a rebuilt water tower was still the one Leonardo di Caprio had once seen and then smiled at having mulled the idea of Theseus''s Texas water tower. A small group of people walked into the cabin at this stop, an adventuring party who Joy and Yoshiko quickly gathered from overhearing their conversation were looking to challenge the Castle Hill Dungeon. Sitting in the far corner, an androgynous rabbitfolk in all dark leather and denim, repping what looked like some heavy metal band neither of them knew, and covered in bandoliers full of small throwing knives. sat holding a sketchpad, lines of charcoal magically streaking across the paper out of thin air. A scale-armored and well-muscled elandfolk gunner with a minigun strapped to her back, whose horns abruptly ended in some colorful ornament that she adjusted to reveal was some kind of dimensional scrunchie, her impressive arms covered in some sort of dermal implants or perhaps ritual scars. A tanned wood elf girl, in a red shirtwaist Cherokee tear dress, accented in turquoise and gold rectangular patterns, happily ruffling the feathers on the nape of the red-shouldered hawk perched on her left wrist. A batfolk in flannel and corduroy, who would''ve looked completely normal on the 6th Street of Joy''s time but for the halo of crystals orbiting the air around of his body. A dignified young woman in sheer silk Vietnamese ao dai, dark skin and striking white patterns along her cheeks and the straight horns, also protected by a dimensional scrunchie, revealing her as saola-folk; the calming scent of medicine permeated the air around her in a paradox of gentle strength. Yoshiko seemed content to glance at the lively party occasionally while staring out the window at the megafauna, listening to their banter as they got psyched for their dungeon adventure. Gonna say hi? Nah, dungeons really aren''t my thing, unless it''s something overhead like the Lost Pines, and ugh I''d rather not test my directional skills there ever again. Besides, beast taming doesn''t work on dungeon monsters, and if you''re subterranean like most dungeons, you really need a fungus mage, not a plant mage. I''m lucky to find algae in cave dungeons, if there''s anything at all! Yoshiko shuddered, remembering the time she''d gone training with her parents in the Three Oaks Mine Dungeon, and found out to her horror that plant mages couldn''t actually do jack or squat with lignite cause long-dead plants no longer counted as plants! Sounds like you don''t really do adventures. It''s not that, really, I just don''t like the idea of hurting things to get what I want. Oh, that I can relate to. I mean, I know they don''t really die, they just respawn, but that still feels like feeding into a violence cycle and I don''t want any part of that! Oh my God, you are a little cinnamon bun. Um, no, I''m not a bunny? Yoshiko smiled as the prairies began to give way to oak and juniper-covered knolls, and watched as the train buzzed past several giant ground sloths trundling about a field of penstemons. And then they were approaching Austin. As this was an express line, the train passed a few platforms by: Daffan, Colony Park, Walnut Creek, Govalle. As the train passed the eastern neighborhoods of Austin, Joy saw that the city seemed to have sprouted numerous giant antennas ... no, these were moonlight towers, seemingly identical to the surviving few that stood in Joy''s time, but so many more! What Joy did not expect, beyond having so many more, was the odd violet aura they gave in the day. Oh, "violet crown"! Originally, the once-obscure nickname had referred to the appearance of the western hills at dusk. 21st-century light pollution made that phenomenon difficult to perceive, but gracklefolk mages in Austin''s civil engineering department had come up with a novel way to honor the ancient name, which they insisted had absolutely nothing to do with the violet iridescence of their own feathering. Joy could only marvel at the violet light playing off the dizzying array of skyscrapers as the train slowed down to approach Downtown Station. Chapter 4 - interlude 1 [austin] (4 April 2017, Austin, Texas, USA) Joy tapped their hands idly on the steering wheel in the rhythm of the Rosanna shuffle, sitting at the light where Airport Boulevard was diverging from southbound Lamar Boulevard. The train signal jangled as the two-car Metrorail danced across the rail crossing, nearly devoid of passengers as it departed Crestview Station. Joy chuckled, "Man, that train is so freaking quaint. Nothing like Japan, huh?" Kylie leaned back into her seat, brushing some of her blonde bangs out the way, and laughed. "Yeah, it''s no shinkansen. I miss those!" Joy grinned at the memory. Last year''s trip to Japan had been so amazing, with their deer misadventures in Nara, the leaf-peeping in Nikko, and all those hot springs. Finally, one life adventure they''d managed together, even if they''d had to scrimp and save to do it. "Oh the shinkansen was freaking cool, but you know what I miss? Onsen." Kylie nodded. "And we had them all to ourselves." Joy chuckled. "And why do you think I miss them so much? The apartment life sucks!" It was true - no privacy with thin walls. Those nights with their own hot springs were a luxury they''d rarely been able to experience. "At least we''re here in Austin where no one gives a damn about us being together. Not like the rest of this ridiculous state." Kylie pouted, which made her look like a teenager and not the forty-something she really was. "Yeah, I wouldn''t want to imagine trying to get married in, some town like San Angelo, or ... el-dorayyyyy-do, or la-meeeeeee-suh". Joy jokingly drawled out the local pronunciations of mangled Spanish placenames and Kylie laughed. "Honey, don''t forget re-FURY-oh!" Kylie giggled. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "Oh, re-FURY-oh fills me with such righteous! Furyyyyyy!" Joy and Kylie busted out laughing as the light turned, but then Kylie started coughing, and Joy stopped themself. "Hey, you okay hon?" Joy''s brow furrowed with concern as tehy peeked back over at Kylie. Kylie stopped coughing and nodded weakly back at Joy. "Yeah, my throat feels weird. It''s probably nothing." Joy''s "traffic gaze" gave away to a more worried look as they turned off Lamar, and into the parking lot for Austin Karaoke. "Hey, look, this is probably not a great time for karaoke with our friends if your throat hurts, and there''s also been those weird-ass stomach pains you''ve been having." "No, sweetpea, it''s okay, Beth and Steph are here already, and I just got a text from Jamie and she''s got Jamal and Huy with her. I''m fine, and I''m supposed to see Dr. Chaudhry on Friday. Maybe it''s just lymph nodes or something." Joy pulled their car into a conveniently open spot, popped the gear into park, and shut off the car in a couple of deft motions, then took off their seatbelt and bent over to give Kyrie a swift kiss on the forehead. "Well, don''t stress yourself out. It''s Carrie Okie night, and Carrie Underwood is depending on you!" Kylie laughed. "Oh, that guy won''t see what''s coming to his .." And they sang in unison, "Pretty little souped up four wheel driive, carved my name into his leather seeeeeeeats~~"
These were the moments Joy wished could last forever, but now were lost in time, only preserved in their heart. Oh Kylie. I love you so much. I love you so much forever.
... Shitamachi "Downtown Station! Shitamachi Downtown Station! Please disembark here for Yoshio-shitamachi Downtown Austin!" And just like that, Joy was snapped out of their reverie back into the new reality they found themselves in. Joy was never going to get used to that weird real-time Yamato speech rewrite. It was so strange. At the same time, Yoshiko used her hands to wipe away the tears streaming away from her face, in a vain attempt to hide that she''d felt the entire memory as if it had been her own.