Chapter 1: Bland Beginning
The sun's rays beat down harshly on the dry, sandy ground, baking it hotter than a cooking stove. I rose my onyx-black hoe high above my head and mightily slammed it down into the earth. The tool sank through the rocky soil like knife on butter, loosening the dirt with great ease. I lifted my tool again and repeated the same strike over and over and over and over... until a gust of stale wind blew against my face. I paused my repetitive motion, resting my hoe onto my shoulder and wiping the bead of sweat that threatened to stain my eye.
One month. It's been one month since I've started this new life as a farmer in this strange world. A world where the earth is no more than red hardened sand and stones of all sizes; a world that's scorched by the ever presence of the sweltering helios above. Can't really say it's been an eventful time here, nor that it has been easy, but I gotta be honest here; I'm loving every minute of it.
Let me introduce myself. My name is Anonymous le Million de la famille Anonymous, or simply A-Million. As my name implies, I am the one-millionth Anon in my family and I do in fact have nine-hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine full-blooded siblings. It's pretty insane, I know, but my mother has always been known to be a busy woman, if you catch my drift. With a number of siblings like I have, who by a perfectly wise decision all have identical names, people usually tend to mix us up. Actually, it's not usually, they always do that, which is why I specifically prefer people using my other name. It is a name of ambiguity; it can be used formally and also informally because it sounds a lot like "ayy Million", which I think is pretty cool... yeah, forget I said that.
Besides the fact that we're the world's largest living family tree, my family has a lot of strange... traits behind our history. One specific strange trait we have is the amount of family members that go missing on a random but not uncommon occurrence. From what father had told me, it all started with Anonymous the two-hundred and eighty-fourth, who had gone missing after going to one of those college dorm parties. The authorities were never able to trace where he went, saying it was almost as if he just disappeared on spot. Then another Anon went missing in the same manner, and then another. It just burst like a wildfire thereafter, so much so that mother started noticing the decline of Anons. I was a child during that period of confusion, so I didn't really care about my missing older siblings; I was used to the fact we Anons spawned like hydra heads. But then one of the missing Anon came back, and better, he had some answers. It turns out that, for some strange reason that not even the federal investigators could debunk, all the Anons that went missing were in fact transported into entirely different dimensions. The Anon that came back, Anon the seventy-four thousand one-hundred and third to be exact, said he was teleported into a futuristic world that, I quote, " was filled with cybernetic quadrupeds that had colorful butt tattoos."
If I remember correctly, he's still inside that mental asylum ever since he said that. Real shame; I actually enjoyed the stories he told of his time in that world.
Anyways, why all of that information matters is because, well, I'm now one of those missing Anons. That's right, I got my ass thrown into a different world. It was really random to be honest. I could explain how it happened, but I think it's better to just see how it all went down.
" Mister Anon, must I tell you so many times? Please refrain from throwing away your medications!"
I gave the nurse at the side of my bed a side glance before returning my attention to the bland game show playing on the small television in my room. My scowl deepened as the sound of medical machine muffled the audio from the show, increasing my already tense headache to an agonizingly higher level. I was stuck on a squeaky stuffy hospital bed, IVs and everything you'd expect in a hospital room, because of one thing that anyone with a right mind for their own health could avoid way before symptoms even appeared; stress Illness. Basically, I was a dumbass, and had been overworking myself in my job for the past ten years straight. And now, after all that stress has built up to dangerous levels, my body finally gave in and nearly went unfunctional had my coworkers hadn't called the ambulance as soon as they did. Now, after many doctors appointments and many groan-inducing paperwork, all I can do in my pitiful life is sit around and watch crappy cable shows all day long.
" I'm tired of taking that sour shit. Four years, lady, four damn years and I'm still bedridden. It does nothing for me," I snapped rather harshly to the nurse. It was unfair to her, I know, especially since she just recently came into the workforce, but I really couldn't be as happy and kind as I was before.
" I understand your frustration sir, but you need to follow the doctor's instructions and take your antibacterial medicine to prevent any infection," the nurse responded professionally. I sigh heavily, snatching the orange medicine container she put back on the table after I had thrown it on the floor and flushed down the prescribed two pills into my throat. Satisfied with me taking my medicine, the nurse quickly and rightfully dismissed herself from the room.
I returned my attention back to the ancient TV they never bothered to switch out. The show had changed-- or rather the channel itself, because this thing usually switched through the channel guide like a possessed bastard-- but the constant static disruption made it even more unpleasant to watch. I let out a tired growl and turned off the box of metal shit when the service timely went out. I threw the remote at the wall and slumped my head on my stiff pillow, staring blankly at the creamy popcorn ceiling with nothing in mind. My life has become-- no, it has always been uneventful, but it's so bad now that even my imagination has become stale. All I do half the time is stare off into the unknown distance and sulk while the other half was just me... being there. Essentially, life sucked right now.
Through my usual sulking, I closed my eyes and rubbed them when my vision blurred out a bit. I mentally cursed my rapid aging--which was going into the late thirties-- for trying to make me blind for spite, but when I opened my eyes back I realized my eyes were perfectly fine. It was just that the expanding black spots in the ceiling were real.
" What the hell…" I stared as the multiple small black spots merged together to form one huge black circle, which completely concealed the ceiling. The blackness crawled down the walls in a gradually increasing speed, completely concealing the windows as well. Or was it erasing the windows? I don't know, but I don't really care, because I was beginning to panic now.
The blackness continued, sliding across the tiled floor at a fast pace. The hospital machines were devoured in front of my very eyes in mere seconds, and through a painfully rash decision I yanked the tubing out of my arms before the blackness could crawl onto me. It felt futile, which it probably was, but I was more scared about the fact that I was going to be erased from this blackness than anything else. Was this death coming for me and my past transgressions, or was this an evil spirit trying to devour me? It has to be either one of those two, because no way in the blazing inferno of Hell did this have a normal explanation... maybe I shouldn't be mentioning Hell right now.
The darkness was now under my bed, and it seemed to have slowed down. Tauntingly.
" Oh, fuck off. Trying to make things slow now isn't going to do crap on me. I'm already becoming content and well-prepared to die, so why don't you just hurry the fuck up?"
And It did, with the frame of the bed suddenly sinking down an entire foot before the whole thing was snuffled out of existence. I closed my eyes tightly, ready to feel myself be surrounded by a cold and likely very painful destruction, but nothing happened. Another twelve minutes- yes, I counted- nothing happened again. I slowly but surely opened my eyelids, unsure of what I would be seeing. I saw blackness, unsurprisingly. I opened my eyes wider and looked at my body. My blue hospital gown was gone, and so were my yellow-checkered boxers. I was buck naked in the middle of a pitch black void.
But, if it was pitch black, how was I able to see my body clearly?
" Maybe I've already been devoured and this is my spiritual form being all trippy and shit," I muttered to myself. I could even hear my voice echoing in this void, which made my assumption more plausible. Oh, and it looks like now I'm able to stand again. I should probably be beyond elated by this, no longer being bedridden that is. But I don't think anyone would be celebrating after they died... especially like how I just did.
No, I don't think they would.
Yeah, you'd probably need to be as crazy as the Joker in order for that to happen– wait, who said that?
That would be me. Behind you.
I slowly and hesitantly turned around, towards the voice, and saw thousands of small white specks floating around idly like fireflies. Then, as if responding to my acknowledgment, they started flying towards and past me in long white streaks, somehow illuminating the dark void a little bit. My focus was not on the mesmerizing hyperspace-looking effects around me, however, but rather on the glowing white figure of a man that stood only a few feet ahead of me.
"... God?"
No, I am not Him, though what I'm planning on doing would be under his jurisdiction.
" So… an angel?"
My identity should not be of worry to you, Anonymous the Millionth.
" Just call me A-Million. My name can be a mouthful," I responded with a sigh. I looked around the blackness, noticing that the white streaks have quickly grown in number and in colors, looking like we were flying in outer space. " So, mister glowing white being, how may I help you?"
The help I require from you is minimal compared to the one I shall give you, the white being said. He rose one of his palms, producing a spherical image of a planet. It looked like Earth, but it wasn't, because last time I checked we didn't have a freaking supercontinent anymore. Tell me Anonymous, are you familiar with the multiverse?
I nearly groaned in exasperation at his question, already knowing where this was going. " Yes, I do... ah shit, I'm the next one."
Yes, you are the next in line from your family. You've died, but your body has been restored and made suitable for Dimensional Displacement.
" Sweet," I almost deadpanned, looking down at my body, which I've noticed looked a lot fresher than it had before. " So I really did die back there. Did the others die before they got reincarnated as well?"
Yes, that would be the case.
" Hmm, they never said anything about that... uh, thanks for reviving me, but what can I do with a bedridden body like mine? I mean, I can't even use the bathroom by myself."
I don't know how I caught it, but I saw the white being smirk; I don't know if it was about the fact that I need assistance for my toiletry or not. This is your real body. I restored it into your twenties, which was the prime time of your physical abilities.
"… Huh, so I am no longer bedridden," I muttered to myself. It almost felt too true to believe, but I was literally standing in a black void with a ghostly white entity, so I had to give some belief in it. I look at the white spirit with the most thankful smile I could give. " Again, thank you. This... you don't understand how relieving this is to me."
Perhaps. In addition to healing your ailments, I've also added a few other features to your body to stabilize it for the dimensional displacement, the white being continued, dispelling the blue sphere from his hand my closing it. That is, if you wish to do so.
" Oh, for sure. No need to think about that one," I responded with a quick nod. Really, there wasn't much to think about there. My family has had a record of these types of occurrences, so it's nothing new. Not even that, I spent four whole years of my life in bed, so if I moronically deny this I wouldn't have much to return to.
Excellent. Let me explain the procedure, the white being said, clapping his hands together. Now, I am aware you know how this works with such an eventful history in your family. Therefore, I'll be blunt. I will send you to a new magical world that I've pre-selected, where you will live the rest of your life as you truly wish. You will have one wish before you depart.
I put a finger on my chin then nodded at the first thing that came into mind. " Alright, I wish that I'll never be sick again."
… Really? No all-powerful abilities or legendary attributes? I could literally make you an omipotent being.
" No thank you, too much responsibility. I'm more of a casual guy, not very ambitious if you get what I'm saying," I waved my hand at the suggestion dismissively.
I could tell.
" Fuck off, will ya?"
The white spirit sighed. Very well, I'll give you immunity to all known and unknown diseases and ailments. This includes ailments such as fatigue and starvation.
"... Woah, so you're saying that I wouldn't even need to eat or sleep?"
For a duration of time, yes, but your body eventually degrades from the lack of the two. Now, next wish.
Huh? " I thought you said-"
It's fine. State your wish.
Hmm, he's given me pretty much all I've wanted. No sickness and a younger healthier body is something I think everyone would appreciate. But what else could I want… ok, let me take this step by step. Power? Already declined. Money? Not a first necessity. Glory? Eh, I also denied that. Something more practical. I'm going to a new world, which comes with new creatures and cultures– ah, there we go.
" I wish to be able to speak and understand all languages in this world."
That is one of the presets you have. A different wish.
Oh, well that's convenient. Then the next thing would be protection against these aliens. I have no idea if they're inviting or as deadly as, say, the Aztecs. " Then I wish to live a peaceful life with the locals. Wouldn't want to cause some pandemonium because of my existence."
So a high charisma. Very well, you will have a peaceful existence with all the locals. I've even given you a good background in their eyes, so you're all set, the white spirit explained, checking off something on a clipboard.
" When the hell di--"
Now, how about another wish?
" Uhh…"
Just hurry up and make it.
I paused, scratching the back of my head. " ...Man, you've given me so much I'm not sure what else to wish for. Like just me being healed is already a miracle enough, and I don't get me started on whether I can even repay you."
Like I've said before, the help I will need from you is little to none. Living your life as you wish in this world is your compensation to me. If you are not sure about what you want to wish for, then how about an occupation?
" Occupation?"
Indeed, like any MMORPG or tabletop rpg, there are different occupations, or classes, you can expert on. You could be the greatest swordsman in all of existence, or you could be the most powerful magician there is.
Again I put a finger on my chin. Now that's a good idea there. There's no guarantee that my work-force skills will be valuable in the next world, so having a backup occupation would be a good idea. But then again, I did say I didn't want some flashy powers and stuff, so being a swordsman or magician ain't for me. Maybe an advanced level of my architectural skills? No, that'd be a waste. Teacher? No, I'm not that good with people.
What occupation could I have that's both fruitful and casual… oh, right.
" Ok, I've decided what my occupation will be," I said to the spirit.
Ok, speak it.
" I wish to be a farmer."
... You're one lame son of a--
Chapter 1: Bland Beginnings
I sat inside my small living room, piles of short logs beside me as I carved out nails and screws under the low light of the fire pit.
After saying I wanted to become a farmer, the white spirit—which I've named as Light ( very unique I know)—gave me the most deadpanned expression I've ever seen in my life. He accepted the wish though, but only after having a heated argument over the phone with that one high pitch voice you hear in any cartoon. He said that the wish was one of the few "they" had least expected and left it at that. My occupation must not have been as adventurous as my siblings. I didn't push any further questioning, or rather I couldn't do so since he quickly teleported me into the world with a vague after message.
Oh, by the way, try not to do a lot of things above PG in this world. It's got some regulations to uphold.
I'm still unsure what he meant by that, even after spending a month in this new world. Why he'd put a television rating on a dimension could possibly mean that it was a world from a cartoon or comic show back on Earth, but so far I have yet to see any familiar characters. Although, I haven't really seen anyone in the matter for the past month.
Anyways, I'll keep my recap short. My first day in this new world wasn't so eventful, but all beginnings tend to be like that. I had found myself lying in a thorny bush in the middle of a large desert, which was already a bad start. After unpleasantly getting thorns out of my skin and the comfy clothes Light gracefully gave me, I realized that the desert looked to be a lot like the Sonoran Desert. Lots of cactus and bushes spread as far as I could see, and they amusedly looked oversimplified compared to the ones on Earth.
Since I was in a desert, my common sense told me that I needed to quickly find shelter from the sweltering heat. I couldn't see any nearby rocks that I could use as shelter, so the next best thing available was to use the little toy Light gave me as a feature to my farming occupation. He called it the Multiple Purpose Labor-Intense Tool, or simply MPLT. It worked exactly as it was named; I could change the tool to any physical labor tool I needed, such as a shovel, a sickle, hammer, etc. It was an item only I was able to wield, so much so that I could store it inside my body with "storage magic". Pretty weird, but it is something only I could do, so it was cool in my books.
I had remembered that snakes and other ground animals burrow underground to escape the sun's heat because temperature regulated better beneath the surface . So I had changed my MPLT into a shovel and began digging. Not the smartest idea to work so vigorously when stranded in the desert, but I'm immune to fatigue and apparently heat strokes as well. And including the fact the MPLT could pierce the rocky ground like butter, I was able to create a sizable diagonal shaft into a small cubical room in just under thirteen minutes.
Once I had the underground shelter built and the entrance covered with shrubs to hide it from any snooping eyes, I began to articulate a plan for how I would play things out. Water and food (mainly water) were a top priority for me before anything else. For water I had decided to dig a separate tunnel to find an unground source, which had a better success rate than looking on the surface. For food I had decided to just forage around for anything edible, and maybe hunt if I was lucky. Unfortunately, I wasn't. I had spent a few hours looking for edible food first and unsurprisingly found nothing but more cactus and shrubs, so I spent the rest of the day digging for a water source. Luckily, possibly miraculously, I was able to hit a large stream by the time the sun had set, but I quickly had to patch it up before it would flood the tunnels I made.
A shelter and water source on the first day. That was progress I was a bit proud of, so on the second day I went exploring the desert for some useful material, i.e. building materials and food. I collected lots of dead trees and dry plants lying around, but yet again I couldn't find any familiar vegetation and not a single damn animal in sight. Even though I couldn't feel hunger, I was aware that I could still starve, and seeing that I wasn't having luck with any meat source, I decided to just eat the cactus fruit. Even though I was immune to any and all possible poisons, it wasn't pleasant eating those sour-ass bastards. Like, c'mon, prickly pears are supposed to be sweet!
The third day was spent collecting as much wood as I could so I could put up support beams underground for the tunneling and rooms I had planned to add. The wood I collected before wasn't much, so it all went into the making of the wooden latch for the tunnels. At that point I was content with temporarily living as a hobbit, so I decided that to might as well make it look nice. When I expanded the room and tunnels enough so that I could fully stand, I used the rest of the wood to make wooden utensils and bowls. By the time I had gone through all of the wood, the morning of the fourth day came.
Right, before I forget to mention, how I've kept myself warm throughout the nights is all thanks to the small fireplace I built into the wall. It was a simple but easy process; carve out a hole in the wall and drill ventilation above it. I've been using some of the dry grasses and over rotten wood as fuel, but I'll need to think of a better, more effective venting system later though, because even now I'm having issues with soot buildup in my home.
At the end of my first week, after repeatedly harvesting cactus fruit and doing home renovations such as the water pump I drilled, I realized I hadn't been doing anything farm-related. So I went up to the surface early in the morning, turned my MPLT into a hoe, and began plowing out dirt around the tunnel entrance. It was only after the fifth hour that I stopped and facepalmed loudly, realizing I didn't have any seeds to plant. Now that I had realized it, I was in a shit place for farming; barely any edible plant life, no animals, and likely no civilization either. The best I could be here is a cactus farmer, and my review on those fruits at that time was already in the negatives. Plus I didn't really want to gamble and wander off into a random direction, because I had no clue how big this desert was and if I would ever be lucky enough to get another water source like this.
Though seeing all the work I had already done, I grumpily continued plowing until sunset, where I went back underground and practiced on utensils and dishware. Oh, I had also made an extra three rooms in my hobbit home. Two were connected to the main room, one being the storage room that I easily did overnight and the other being a small kitchen. The third room was the lavatory, which I built separately from the main tunnel on the sixth day. I could always just shit outside since I have yet to meet any creatures, but I have decency and I would like to keep it as such.
Day ten was probably my best day of the month. While plucking out the thorny pink fruit from a nearby cactus, I had just barely noticed movement at the corner of my eye. It made me go stupidly rigid for a long time, keeping all my attention at the very spot, and to my holy delight a small brown rabbit eventually bounced out between the bushes. It was the first creature I had seen in this world, and although it wasn't something like an oversized earthworm, I felt very giddy about it; mainly because it was a source of meat. I nearly turned my MPLT into a javelin right there and pierced that chunk of meat into oblivion, but then I saw the bundle of kits following closely behind the rabbit, carelessly flopping around in the dirt.
If I didn't have starvation immunity, I would've sautéed those little bundles of fur for dinner that day. But I have starvation immunity, so although it slapped my desire for smoked meat hard in the face, I had simply let the rabbit family go on with their day. I don't even think they noticed me.
Doesn't sound all that good for a best day, but it was what happened after that made it the best. I was returning back to my little underground home all bummed out about the missed opportunity for meat, a terribly woven grass basket of that godforsaken cactus fruit strapped on my back, when I noticed some greens around my plowed field. I suspected it to be some strange weed that grew in place of the empty land, which didn't help with my soured mood, so I semi-tossed my unfavorable food into the storage room and stomped over to pull them suckers out. But then again I went rigid, because instead of finding a legion of weed to vent my frustration over, I found myself staring at a field of tomato, corn, and bell pepper seedlings. When I say my jaw had slacked to the ground comically right there, I am frighteningly serious about that.
Literally, I had to calm my nerves about the impossible physical act my jaw did before even freaking out about the miracle crops.
After calming down and inspecting the seedlings, which additionally included squash and potatoes, I had deduced three possibilities. One, Light pitied me after seeing my dumbass plowing desert soil with nothing to plant and gave me these plants. Two, I was blessed by some entity in this world for not eating that rabbit family– though that's just my imagination running. Three, my MPLT had some sort of magic that allowed these seeds to grow. I wanted to believe theory one was correct for the lols, but realistically I was leaning over theory three. Honestly though, what was realistic about any of this? Not that I had complained about it.
Anyways, I had transformed my MPLT into a watering canister and used the rest of the evening pumping water from ungrounded and watering the plants. Feeling definitely satisfied with this change of events, I had celebrated that very night with some cooked cactus fruit, which still had the usual shitty taste. After that things pretty much went into a pattern. I started the day early with tending my newborn farm, then spent most of the day exploring the near surrounding area and collecting materials. I think I've cleared a total area of one hundred miles and have yet to see any civilization or other biomes, so either I was really stranded in a super desert or I just have poor luck. My afternoons were spent back in the farm, sometimes even going into midnight thanks to the torches I set up around my area. Another thing I should mention is that I built a wall surrounding my home and the farm using a bunch of rocks and mud (I was beginning to see a shortage of wood in the area, so I became frugal with it). I built it to fend off any wild critters than would like a snack from my precious crops. Though after the rabbits I didn't see any other creatures, but I was now aware there were creatures around and I needed a defense against the situation of them finding my farm.
Home improvements and expansion had gone stagnant after the tenth day. I didn't really have much to do other than expand it outwards and eventually build it on the surface, which I plan to do in the coming future. For now though I just kept it clean from soot and the occasional dirt that falls from the ceiling, like right now. I wiped the crumb of dirt that fell on my nose and stared up at the cracked ceiling with squinted eyes. Actually, now that I think about it, I do have something to do with my home; I need a ceiling.
...
Author's Note
" I'll keep my recap short," he said. Oh, Anon, you talk too much.
I'd like to take a second to thank all of you for reading the first chapter of this story, a story I'm gradually putting together in my head. Like I've noted in my other unfinished story, I have a crap load of other stories just sitting inside my google docs, waiting for me to add more to them and publish. Most of them are actually at a point where I can comfortably start publishing, but I have this nagging feel that I must make them as good as possible before I do so. I think that's just me trying to be an overachiever. 😅
This story is actually quite new compared to my unpublished works. I took heavy inspiration on a manga called Isekai Nonbiti Nouka, a slice of life manga about the average middle-aged protagonist living as a farmer in a fantasy world. Some of you who know about this manga might've noticed the correlation of the Anon & Light scene with the beginning of the manga. That is because I'll try following the structure of the manga while making it into my own story. A bit unoriginal, but I'll just see how it goes.
As a new writer and generally a new person on this website, I'd really appreciate all comments and critics about this chapter and the story as a whole. Also, if you catch a grammatic or punctual error in my writing, I'd really appreciate it if it's called out in the comments as well. Next chapter might not be coming so soon, that's for sure. 😂
Thank you gratefully,
Phoenix_Feathers
