Shin'ya's eyes snapped open.
No wooden ceiling. No blue forest sky.
Just blinding, white-hot glare and a mouthful of dry sand. He coughed violently, dragging himself up into a sitting position, and immediately began aggressively wiping his hair and face.
"What in the genuine fuck..." he wheezed, squinting against the oppressive heat. "Where the heck am I?"
He looked around. Sand to the left. Sand to the right. An endless, undulating ocean of desolate golden dunes stretching out under a suffocating sky.
Panic, sharp and cold, began to cut through the heat.
"Did Yuki throw me out because of the Ketsugai? Why, though? She literally said she wasn't mad..."
Shin'ya raised his hand toward the sky, focusing on the spark in his chest. He'd call down a fireball. A massive flare to signal any nearby humans to rescue him from this giant sandbox.
He concentrated. He waited.
Nothing happened. Not even a spark.
He brought his hand down, staring at his bare palm in disbelief.
"Weird... Why am I unable to cast magic?" He froze, a horrific thought seizing his brain. "Wait a minute. Don't tell me that entire world was a dream. AHHHHHHHHH!"
He grabbed his head, groaning loudly, before letting out a massive, defeated sigh.
"No... think about it. I'm still not on Earth. If I was, I should have been back in my room. But I'm here on some random desert. So I did get isekaied. Whatever. Let's just go find some civilization..." He paused, looking around the empty wasteland. "And hold up. Why am I talking to myself?"
Shin'ya forced himself to his feet, dusting off his pants. But as he took his first step forward, his boot struck something hard. Something metallic and solid buried just beneath the surface.
His eyes widened.
He dropped to his knees, clawing at the loose sand, digging furiously until he unearthed a pitch-black sheath. The tachi grip fit perfectly into his palm. It was something that should have been physically impossible.
It was the Ketsugai.
Shin'ya freaked out for a solid ten seconds before his old, reliable anime nerd theorist mode overrode the panic.
"Ok, ok, ok. So the previous world was real because of this," he muttered, pointing the sheathed legendary weapon at the sand. "Which means it should be the same world. But I'm unable to use magic here. Hmmm..."
He tapped his chin, the puzzle pieces clicking together in his head.
"If the Ketsugai is with me, the fantasy world definitely existed. But because I can't use magic, I might have changed worlds again ... Wait a minute. The first time I got isekaied was right after I slept. And the second time it happened..."
A sudden, deep chill sent shivers straight down his spine, completely ignoring the scorching desert sun. He slowly whispered the realization to himself:
"That means I'm either back in the real world in some random place... or..."
He looked down at the sword, then up at the endless horizon.
"Or it's a completely new world. Every time I sleep... I get isekaied again While I Slept."
Shin'ya gulped. It was a terrifying theory, but there was only one logical way to test it.
"To test my theory, there's only one option. I must sleep again." He looked up at the blazing sun, the heat waves shimmering off the dunes. "But HOW THE HECK AM I GONNA DO THAT IN THIS SCORCHING HEAT?!"
He looked at the weapon in his hand. He let out a long, exhausted sigh.
"Alright," Shin'ya muttered, dropping flat onto his back in the burning sand. "Time to use this to cover my eyelids."
He balanced the sheathed Ketsugai horizontally across his face, blocking out the blinding glare, and forced his brain to shut down.
Against all physical odds, he actually managed to pass out.
[One hour later]
A sudden, violent gust of wind whipped against his clothes.
Shin'ya's eyes slowly fluttered open. The heat was gone. The silence was gone. Instead, a roaring, mechanical hum vibrated violently through his entire body.
He quickly straightened himself, looking at his surroundings, and his jaw dropped.
Neon lights bled through a heavy, dark smog. Massive holographic advertisements shimmered against the sides of towering skyscrapers, and dark metallic drones buzzed through the air, scouting the sectors below. It looked like it was pulled straight out of a sci-fi novel.
But the real problem was his current velocity.
Shin'ya looked forward and realized he was moving rapidly fast. The metal structure beneath him stretched out in a long, segmented line.
He was on top of a bullet train.
Instinct overrode his confusion. Thanks to his training and his sharp reflexes, his body didn't hesitate. He subconsciously triggered the shadow ability he had claimed from the legendary blade.
Shadow Slip.[Sorry i forgot to include the name in the previous chapter sowwy]
In a fraction of a second, Shin'ya's physical form melted, sinking smoothly into the rushing shadow beneath him, traveling at extreme, frictionless speed along the metal roof just as the train rocketed under a low-clearance tunnel.
He slipped back out of the darkness, gripping the metal paneling, breathing heavily.
"Oh good," Shin'ya gasped, his heart hammering against his ribs. "So this still works. I did it unconsciously... if it hadn't worked, I would have been instant roadkill. But yeah, I was right."
He looked up at the glowing, cybernetic cityscape.
What he was thinking had come to be entirely true.
He gets isekaied every single time he falls asleep.
To Be Continued