Chapter 1: Death by Discount Tire
Section 1: "Just Another Tuesday in Tokyo"
Rex Tanaka never liked grocery shopping. The fluorescent lights, the jostling elbows of elderly women hell-bent on getting the last discounted daikon, and the soulless elevator music that looped endlessly—it all grated on him. But when you're nineteen, jobless, and living off your grandma's rapidly thinning patience, grocery duty wasn't optional. Especially when said grandma bribed you with leftover curry and the promise of Wi-Fi access.
Rex trudged through the narrow aisles of the local Seiyu mart in downtown Tokyo, clutching a plastic basket half-full of life's saddest essentials: one pack of instant ramen, two eggs, a lone banana, and a roll of toilet paper. His hoodie was two sizes too big, his jeans were riding the dangerous edge of "are those holes intentional," and his hair looked like it had lost a war with gravity. Basically, he looked exactly like someone who had recently googled "how to avoid adult responsibilities."
He paid at the register, ignoring the cashier's mildly judgmental stare—Rex liked to pretend that if you didn't make eye contact, their disappointment couldn't hurt you. He stepped out into the Tokyo afternoon, grey clouds hanging low like the city itself had hit snooze too many times. Traffic hummed, bicycles zipped by, and somewhere, someone was loudly advertising grilled squid on a stick.
And then it happened.
It wasn't dramatic at first. There was a strange pop, a sound too loud for bubble wrap but too quiet for fireworks. Then came the screeching. Rex turned just in time to see a delivery truck veer violently across the intersection. One of its massive tires had come loose—yes, loose—and was now bouncing through the air like a bloodthirsty rubber meteorite.
"...Huh?" Rex managed.
The tire, with all the glee of a bored god playing dodgeball, chose that exact moment to announce its retirement from normal physics.
It hit him square in the chest.
To say it was "brutal" would be an understatement. It was as if Wile E. Coyote's worst day had been fused with a Quentin Tarantino blooper reel. The tire folded Rex like a badly written anime script. His groceries exploded in every direction—ramen noodles rained down in slow motion, one egg survived just long enough to splat dramatically on the pavement, and his banana achieved true airborne freedom for a solid five seconds before it, too, perished.
The tire continued down the street, utterly unrepentant, bouncing merrily as if it hadn't just ended a life in the most undignified way possible.
Silence.
Then chaos.
Pedestrians screamed, phones came out faster than paramedics could respond, and someone shouted, "Did anyone film that?!"
But for Rex, there was only darkness.
When he came to, he was in a tavern.
Not a hospital, not a morgue, not some celestial waiting room with harp music and clouds. A tavern. The kind you'd find in a cheap RPG or a drunk uncle's Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Wooden beams, flickering candles, and the unmistakable scent of stale ale and existential dread.
Rex blinked.
The room was quiet except for the soft hum of medieval ambiance and a woman sitting behind the bar. She was tall, wore a leather jacket over what looked like a ballgown, and was smoking what could only be described as a suspiciously plastic-looking cigarette. The tip glowed blue like a broken LED. She exhaled a puff of smoke that smelled like burnt bubblegum.
"You're finally awake," she said, deadpan. "No, it's not Skyrim. Yes, you died. Brutally. And no, you're not dreaming. Although… it was a pretty funny way to go."
Rex stared. "What?"
"You got Final Destination'd by a rogue truck tire. Not exactly noble. But hey, points for originality."
She slid a mug across the bar toward him. It sloshed ominously. The label said "Post-Mortem Ale – 7% afterlife proof."
"Drink up. Helps with the transition."
Rex didn't move.
"Right. Forgot. You're Japanese. You people never drink anything that isn't sealed in plastic and mildly sweet. Fine." She snapped her fingers, and the mug turned into a can of vending machine coffee. "Better?"
"Who… who are you?"
"Goddess," she said with a shrug. "Don't worry about the name. It's long, unpronounceable, and mostly vowels. You can call me… Chiyo. Everyone else does. Even though I made it up five minutes ago."
She took another drag of her fake cigarette and blew a heart-shaped puff into the air. It hovered for a moment, then popped with a sad plop.
"Anyway, you're dead. But lucky you—rebirth slot just opened up in another world. We're short on 'heroes,' and you've been selected. Yay!"
"You… what?!" Rex stood up, knocking over the stool. "You mean, like… isekai?!"
"Ding ding ding. We have a winner. One-way ticket to sword-and-sorcery land. Dragons. Magic. Pointless skill trees. Probably slavery. You'll hate it."
"But… why me?"
She leaned forward, eyes half-lidded, smirk curling like a glitching emoji. "Because, Rex Tanaka of Tokyo… your death made three gods laugh so hard they wet themselves. That's a rare honor. Also, the guy we originally picked slipped on a churro and broke his neck, so…"
She slapped a scroll on the bar. It unfurled dramatically, revealing words in glowing golden ink: "Standard Reincarnation Contract – No Returns, No Complaints, No Refunds."
Rex squinted. "What's this fine print?"
"Don't worry about it. It just says you can't sue if you die again. Or if your soul explodes. Or if you're reincarnated as something weird. Like a mushroom. Or worse—a minor NPC."
Chiyo clapped her hands, and a portal sparked into existence behind her. It shimmered with all the subtlety of a rave.
"You got five minutes. Choose a skill, pick your starting class, and try not to die in the tutorial. Oh, and don't fall in love with the first elf you see. That's so overdone."
Rex opened his mouth to protest, to scream, to demand a refund on reality itself—but the portal started sucking him in like a cosmic vacuum cleaner.
"Wait—what about my family?! My grandma?! My unfinished anime backlog?!"
Chiyo waved lazily. "Tell your grandma I said hi. And don't worry—there's anime in the next world. It just sucks."
And with that, Rex Tanaka was yanked into the glowing abyss, flailing and cursing in three different languages.
Chiyo exhaled another puff of fake smoke and snorted.
"Truck-kun strikes again."
Section 2: "Bleeding, Crying, and Spanish Slimes"
Rex Tanaka hit the ground hard.
Not metaphorically. Physically. Like a sack of wet laundry thrown down a flight of stairs. His face met cold stone, his ribs protested with crackly disapproval, and the rest of his body was an ongoing group chat of ow, pain, help, please stop. The worst part? He could still feel everything.
"...Ow."
He pushed himself up slowly, his palms slick with something wet. His first thought was water. His second was oh no. He looked down and—
"AHHHHH—WHAT THE HELL?!"
Blood.
His blood.
Still on his hoodie. Still soaking into his jeans. Still leaking out from what looked suspiciously like a very large dent in his chest.
"I'm still bleeding?!"
He stumbled to his feet, heart pounding like it wanted to stage a protest and walk out. Every breath felt like sandpaper. His chest screamed. His back screamed louder. His left arm wasn't exactly thrilled either.
"Isn't reincarnation supposed to… you know… heal you?! Fix the fatal injuries?! What kind of bootleg isekai is this?!"
He looked around, panicked and wheezing.
The cavern he'd landed in was massive—high, shadowy ceilings arched overhead like a cathedral made by someone with a grudge against light. Moss-covered rocks lined the walls, glowing faintly with blue bioluminescence. A waterfall roared nearby, cascading down into a dark underground lake, the spray catching some unseen moonlight that made it shimmer like liquid starlight.
It might have been beautiful if he wasn't actively dying. Again.
"Okay… okay… calm down," Rex muttered, clutching his chest. "You're not dead. You were dead. But now you're… like... undead? Half-dead? Quarter-dead?"
He checked his pulse.
It was there.
Faint.
Sluggish.
But there.
"So… I'm alive?" He winced. "Kind of? This sucks. This suuucks."
The stone beneath his feet was slick and cold. His shoes squelched unpleasantly with every step. He staggered toward the sound of the waterfall, hoping maybe he could rinse off the blood or find a magical glowing herb or just sit in the water and scream into the void.
That was when he heard the sound.
Squish. Squish. Squish.
He froze.
Another squish. Closer.
Then a high-pitched voice with a cheerful tone echoed off the walls:
"¡Hola, amigo! Bienvenido al mundo de mierda!"
Rex blinked. "...What?"
Out from the shadows bounced… a slime.
Yes. A literal slime. Like from a JRPG. Except this one had horns. Two tiny, curly black ones sticking out of its jiggly blue head like a demonic cinnamon roll. It also wore what looked like aviator goggles, even though it clearly had no eyes. Or ears. Or a face.
"¿Qué pasa? ¿Por qué estás sangrando tanto, hermano?" the slime asked, tilting its gooey body in concern.
Rex just stared at it. "Are… are you speaking Spanish?"
"¡Claro que sí!"
"…Why?"
"Why not?" The slime bounced closer. "Most slimes speak Slurpish. It's kind of basic. Me? I took a cultural immersion course in the Fourth Dungeon. Spanish sounded cooler. And now look at me—first contact with a freshly reincarnated hero. ¡Estoy haciendo historia, chico!"
Rex stumbled back. "I'm hallucinating. I've bled out and I'm hallucinating. That's it. Truck tire to the chest, now I'm bleeding in a cave talking to a Spanish-speaking slime with horns. This is what dying looks like."
"Rude," the slime said, puffing up indignantly. "I prefer 'linguistically unique gelatin-based lifeform.' And you're not hallucinating. You're just unlucky. But hey, who isn't?"
It bounced up to him and gave a cheerful little jiggle.
"The name's Hugo, by the way. Hugo el Slimo. And you must be the new Chosen Something. You've got that look."
"What look?"
"Confused. In pain. Kind of like someone who walked into a boss room thinking it was the tutorial. Classic."
Rex groaned. "This is insane. I don't even have a weapon. I'm bleeding out. I didn't even pick a class! Chiyo just yeeted me through a portal without any instructions!"
"Ah, Chiyo." Hugo nodded sagely. "She would do that. She's like that one substitute teacher who shows up drunk and gives out homework anyway."
Rex dropped to his knees. The pain hadn't stopped. If anything, it was worse. Every heartbeat was a reminder that something vital inside him had gone squish when it really shouldn't have.
"I think I'm actually dying," he whispered.
Hugo's slime body wobbled sympathetically. "You probably are. This world doesn't auto-heal you after reincarnation. It just respawns you in the state you died in."
"WHAT?!"
"Yup. Magic system's under maintenance or something. Bureaucracy. You know how it is."
Rex clutched his chest. "So I'm just supposed to… suffer?!"
"Well," Hugo said, "there is a way to survive. Sort of."
"Tell me!"
"First, you gotta eat something magical. Something that restores body integrity. Second, you gotta register at a nearby spawn altar. Otherwise, if you die again, you really die. Third—"
"Just give me the first part!" Rex groaned.
Hugo nodded and bounced over to a small crevice in the wall. After a bit of squishing and squeezing, he returned holding a weird-looking fruit. It looked like a glowing apricot covered in glitter.
"This is a Gloopfruit. Super rare. Tastes like sadness. Heals fatal injuries. Just don't bite the pit—it turns your tongue inside-out."
Rex didn't hesitate. He grabbed the fruit and chomped it down like it owed him rent. The taste was… indescribable. If betrayal had a flavor, this was it. But as soon as he swallowed, warmth spread through his chest. The blood stopped. His bones clicked back into place. His lungs expanded. He could breathe again.
He gasped, tears in his eyes.
"I… I'm not dying anymore!"
Hugo bobbed excitedly. "¡Milagro! You didn't explode!"
Rex collapsed to the stone floor, breathing hard. "Okay… okay. That was step one. What's step two again?"
"Spawn altar," Hugo said. "Nearest one is about five miles that way." He gestured vaguely with a wobbly blob of goo.
"Great," Rex muttered. "I've been alive for ten minutes and I've already died once, been traumatized, and now I'm going on a dungeon hike with a Spanish slime."
Hugo puffed with pride. "You're welcome."
Rex groaned. "This world sucks."
"Si, amigo. Si."
As Rex stood up, still tasting cosmic betrayal on his tongue from the Gloopfruit, something flickered in the air in front of him—a soft chiming sound, like a fantasy toaster notification.
A translucent blue window blinked into existence before his eyes.
[STATUS WINDOW]
Name: Rex Tanaka
Race: Human (???)
Age: 19 (mentally intact, physically traumatized)
Level: 1
Class: None Assigned
Title(s): "Accidental Isekai," "Unfortunate Pancake," "Bleeding Hero"
HP: ??? / ???
MP: 0
STR: 3
DEX: 4
INT: 7
VIT: ???
LUK: 1
CHA: 2
Exclusive Trait:
[UNDYING]
"Through a death most stupid, you have achieved something most divine."
You cannot die, regardless of injuries, age, or cause of death.
Physical damage will still be felt, experienced, and possibly leave you crying on the floor, but your life cannot be extinguished.
Regeneration speed: Slow unless aided.
Resurrection cooldown: Not applicable. You just don't die.
Cursed Note: Pain is not optional. Have fun with that.
Rex blinked at the screen. "...Wait. What the hell is this?! I can't die?"
Hugo wiggled excitedly. "¡Sí señor! That's a super rare trait! Top-tier! Not even demon lords get that one."
Rex looked at his bleeding hoodie and poked the spot where the truck tire had folded his soul in half. Still tender. Still very much felt like death. "So… I can't die. But I can suffer endlessly?"
"Basically," Hugo nodded. "You're immortal, but not invincible. Soooo, don't jump off cliffs. Unless you like screaming."
Rex stared at the screen, then at Hugo.
"Chiyo is a menace."
"Facts," Hugo said.
Rex sighed and muttered, "At least I don't have to worry about Truck-kun anymore…"
Just then, from somewhere in the distance, a loud engine rev echoed through the cavern.
"…Right?"