qwertcat09

[qwertcat09]

Simping for the Villainess: Chapter 1

Chapter 1: The Most Boring Isekai Ever

Raucous laughter and a cacophany of shouts and commotion filled the brightly lit dining room of the inn. The sign outside the establishment read, "The Sleeping Boar," though it was slightly askew and damaged from years of rowdy guests. The hanging sign creaked precariously outside the door as it was battered by a relentless wind and rain. As a group of people pushed their way inside the warm inn, straining to open the door against the raging storm outside, a chorus of cheers erupted from the corner of the bar as another group of patrons waved them over.

A sigh escaped the employee at the bar, who had plugged their ears with their fingers just before the group of large men at the corner of the bar had begun making even more noise. She stared forward with a glazed-over look in her light brown eyes. She could barely hear herself think, let alone their demands for more beer and food, but she had worked here long enough to know what they wanted just from their personality and body language. She didn't bother confirming their order and instead immediately set about filling eight tankards of beer and several plates of salted pork and steamed potatoes. She set them on the countertop in front of the men, who began eagerly digging into their meals without so much as a nod of thanks. Despite their terrible manners, the largest of the men quickly flicked a copper coin in her direction, which she caught without looking as she turned to another patron demanding more liquor.

It was much busier tonight than other nights because of the storm, she thought to herself as she continued working amidst the ruckus, which was now even worse because of a group of drunken sailors singing sea shanties at the top of their lungs--and terribly off key, at that. Suddenly, the girl heard someone cry her name from the kitchen.

"Kai!" came a man's gruff voice. Kai knew he likely wouldn't be able to hear her response, so she quickly scurried to the doorway to the kitchen located in the back behind the bar.

"What is it, boss?" she said as she poked her head in through the curtain covering the threshold in place of a door, which had been torn off its hinges several months ago by an angry patron. Rolfe, a large portly man with a drooping, weathered face covered in scruffy whiskers was furiously cooking at a massive stove. Flames occasionally shot up from the open fire, licking at his thick arms and threatening to burn him. Black scorch marks covered his arms and clothes, but he was not injured, though he had many scars indicating past burns and cuts, as expected of a seasoned chef.

He threw his head over his shoulder as he called to her. "I'm running low on meat! Run over to Norman's and get another twelve kilograms each of pork belly and shoulder from him." he said.

Kai stiffened and let out a yelp of protest. "What?! Right now?" she exclaimed. "Do you have any idea what it's like outside right now, old man? Have you lost your mind? There's no way I'm going out in the middle of this storm, do you want me to die?!"

Rolfe glared at her from over his shoulders and bared his teeth, a few of which were missing, which made him look even more menacing, despite the fact that Kai knew he lost them in cooking accidents and not bar fights, as one might assume from his large and imposing frame. "Did I stutter, you little urchin?" he growled. "We're the busiest we've been in weeks, and all of these assholes are gonna start wrecking the place if they aren't fed soon, and you know it!" He turned back to the stove and continued hurriedly flipping steaks and serving up a bowl of hot soup with a large ladle. "A little rain never hurt anyone, so quit your griping and get your ass moving!" he added.

Kai glared at him and muttered, "It's more than just a little rain! It's like a goddamn typhoon out there."

Despite her complaints, she already knew she would do as he asked. She huffed an exaggerated sigh before storming away from the kitchen. She grabbed a cloak from the coat hanger and replaced it with her apron. As she put it on, she pulled up the cowl over her short, shaggy brown hair.

"I'm going out to grab more supplies, Miki." she said as she passed a short creature passing out food to tables. He was barely taller than the table it was setting a bowl of soup onto with gloved hands. Sharp claws at the tips of his four fingers threatend to poke through the material but were barely kept at bay thanks to his careful and delicate movements. A hood covering his head obscured his face, but a pair of clear, gleaming  yellow eyes shone through the shadows over his features. Miki looked up at her and he gave a nod before scurrying away to serve another table.

Kai sighed to herself as she watched him waddle away, particularly at the snake-like tail that Miki kept carefully coiled around one leg to keep it from getting in the way or accidentally stepped on. No matter how many times she looked at it, it still amazed her that she was working and living side-by-side with such a strange and foreign creature. Well, he was to her, at least. Hearing a clanging noise from the kitchen area broke Kai from her thoughts and she quickly left the inn, struggling to push past the rowdy crowd and through the door.

The wheels of the wooden rickshaw groaned with protest as Kai hauled it out of the shed behind the inn and onto the thoroughfare. "Yeah, I'm not happy about it, either." she muttered to the rickshaw as though it could answer her back. She had a habit of talking to inanimate objects, but only tended to do it when other people weren't around so she didn't get any weird looks. She looked up at the sky as she began to pull the cart with relief. The storm had subsided somewhat; the rain and wind had died down, and the clouds looked like they were starting to clear. "Looks like I might be able to get there and back without that much trouble, after all." she thought to herself. The thought of getting back to the warm inn without being completely drenched to the bone motivated her to move faster, so she broke into a jog.

After arriving at Norman's butchery, Kai quickly purchased the items her boss had requested, plus a few extra things for herself and the other servers. "Treat yo'self," she muttered to herself with a chuckle. What he didn't know wouldn't hurt him; she would just tell him that the meat cost a bit more than usual. Even if he found out, Kai knew he wouldn't punish her too much. Despite their frequent bickering, she knew that he cared about her in his own way, and she was rather fond of him herself. After all, he had been willing to take in a random stranger and not only give her a job, but a place to live and delicious, hot meals to eat. Not many people would have been willing to do any of those things for someone they had just met, even back in her world.

Kai stiffened a bit when she noticed Norman giving her a knowing look as she selected some pork loin roast. She smiled and put her forefinger to her lips in a "shh" motion and winked at him. He paused for a moment before winking back at her, and continued to prepare the meat for her. Norman was a man of very few words, but was studious and reliable nonetheless. In fact, his taciturn nature gave him an aura of trustworthiness, in Kai's opinion. He was also tall and muscular, with handsome features and pretty green eyes. Despite being somewhere in his late thirties, his hair and beard were already generously peppered with gray and white, but that just gave him a distinguished element to someone who was already a very handsome and very eligible bachelor.

As Norman finished packaging the meat, Kai loaded it all up in her arms. Norman looked concerned, but had learned by now not to bother voicing his protestations. Kai has suprised him on more than one occasion by her physical strength. Well, physical labor was probably the only thing that she really excelled at, according to her own assessment. Kai pushed the door open with her shoulder and loaded up the rickshaw with the supplies.

Just as she positioned herself at the front of the cart to begin pulling it again, a loud crash of thunder cracked directly above, startling her so much she shrieked. She looked up just in time to see a bolt of lightning streak through the sky that was so bright it lit up the surrounding stores as though it were midday. As if on cue, as soon as the lightning bolt faded from the blackened night sky, an even harsher deluge of rain and more merciless wind descended, almost knocking both her and the cart over immediately. It took all of Kai's strength to right the cart again and keep both of them from being swept away. In no time at all, the rain that had collected on the ground rose up to her ankles. As soon as she noticed Kai tried to tug the cart forward before it could be stuck in the mud, but it was too late. Even with her impressive physical prowess, she couldn't get the rickshaw to budge even an inch. After a few minutes of trying in vain, she let herself slump over the side of the cart with a frustrated cry that was drowned out by the thunder overhead.

"Great, just my luck!" she screamed into the storm. "Why couldn't you have waited until I was already home, you stupid storm?! Fuck you!" Kai screamed again and kicked her legs and flailed her arms like a toddler throwing a tantrum. After getting that out of her system, she covered the cart in a tarp and secured it as best as she could before heading back inside the butchery in defeat.

Norman looked up at her as she entered and gave her a sympathetic look when he saw how she was drenched and covered in mud. The apathetic, miserable look on her face and glazed-over eyes told him everything without words needing to be exchanged. He reached under the counter and offered her a towel and headed to the back of the store, returning a few minutes later with a basin of warm water. Kai gratefully accepted both, and began to clean herself up and dry off. She set the towel down and groaned in resignation.

"Boss is going to be soooo pissed!" she thought anxiously. But it wasn't like she could do anything, right? The storm had picked up again in full force, even more dangerous than before. "If I try to get back to the Sleeping Boar in that thing, I really will die!" she thought to herself as she rubbed her temples. She had no choice but to wait out the storm here at Norman's shop, but it didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon, so there was no way she was going to be able to make it back to the inn with the meat in time. She hoped Rolfe was exaggerating the rowdiness of the patrons and they didn't actually start rioting because they ran out of meat to serve. After a few moments of contemplation, however, Kai came to the conclusion that it was actually a very real possibility, given how drunk everyone had been.

"Shit." she sighed out loud.

She leaned back in her chair and warmed her hands on the steaming hot cup of tea that Norman had brought her. Staring into her reflection in the greenish-brown liquid, she thought over the events of the past year. Come to think of it, she realized, it had been exactly one year since coming to this world just a couple of weeks ago. The truth was that Kai was actually from a different world than this one, though that was something she generally kept to herself. After all, if anyone heard her they would either think she was crazy or somekind of evil sorceress. She had just told Rolfe that she was from a far away country and had been abandoned here to explain her eccentricities and cultural ignorance.

Kai looked up to the ceiling and thought back to her life in her previous home world, Earth. The last thing she remembered from there was merrily making her way to her favorite restaurant to celebrate the news that she had gotten into her university of choice and would be studying Sequential Art. That is to say, making comic books. Besides physical labor, the only other thing Kai was good at was drawing comics. She was especially good at drawing in a manga or anime style, which was her specialty. Of course, none of that mattered now. She wasn't sure if she had died somehow on her way to get dinner, if somekind of portal opened up beneath her, or if she was summoned somehow, but whatever happened she suddenly lost consciousness and then woke up in this world.

She had been shocked, to say the least. It took several hours of panicked wandering and staring off into the distance in shock before she finally began to understand that she had been transported to another world. Not only that, but as she began to explore she realized that she actually knew where she was. As unbelievable as her situation already was, she was in the land of "Lubanes," a fictional continent from her very favorite fantasy novel series, "The Saint of Swords." How it happened was beyond her, but she had consumed plenty enough anime, manga, and web comics and novels to know that she was experiencing an isekai; being transported by one way or another to another world, typically a fantasy world.

After coming to this revelation, Kai had initially been absolutely elated. Here she was, not only in another world, but one from her favorite novels; one filled with magic, monsters, enchanted swords, and epic adventures! For a geek like her, this was a dream come true. From her knowledge of the isekai genre, she began to try and deduce her situation.

Generally speaking, there were three types of isekais: transported, transmigrated, and reincarnation. Transported meant just that; the person in question is transported from their world to the new world as themselves in both body, mind, and soul. In the case of transmigration, the person's consciousness or soul are placed inside a character that already exists in the world; this is the only type of isekai that requires there to be a preexisting world from a work of fiction, usually a novel, as in her case. Reincarnation, meanwhile, was also relatively self-explanatory; it meant the person was reincarnated into a different world after dying in their previous life. Usually the person is reincarnated with all of the memories from their past life in tact from the very beginning, but in rarer cases the person's memories of their past life don't awaken until later on.

After going over this knowledge in her head, Kai quickly set about trying to figure out which kind of isekai she was experiencing. She had awoken to her current situation in the middle of a town, inside of a stone alcove set into a wall near a well. Because she was still in a young adult's body, she immediately ruled out reincarnation. If that had been the case, she would most likely be an infant by this point, or at least a young child. That meant the only possibilities were transportation or transmigration, but which one?

Struck with an idea, she had bolted over to a shop, almost getting hit by a cart in the process, to look at her reflection in the shop's window. If it was the case of transmigration, then she would look differently than she did in her previous world, possibly even radically so. In most cases, since those types of stories were often written by Korean authors, the people went from having typical Asian features--dark hair and dark eyes--to having more European features, with light-colored hair and vibrant blue or green eyes.

Unfortunately, when Kai gazed into the window, the reflection she saw staring back was entirely her own. Short brown hair, brown eyes, and altogether unremarkable features with a body that was neither skinny nor fat. A person who was average in every aspect. Kai wilted and let out a disappointed sigh. She had hoped that since she was in the world of a book she had been transmigrated as a character in the series. While a main or supporting character would have been nice, Kai would have been satisfied with even being a background character with no part in the novels. Instead of that, she was instead transported, probaby the most boring kind of isekai.

At the time, Kai had gotten a sudden surge of hope as she remembered that in some cases of transported-type isekai stories the main character gained special powers upon arriving in the world, or were given powers as somekind of summoned hero or chosen one. However, that dream got quickly dashed to pieces, as going to the local temples confirmed over and over again that she had absolutely no magical powers. Not only that, she had no talent for magic, either, meaning that even if she were to try and learn she would likely only be able to perform useless party tricks at best. And so, with that, all of Kai's dreams of a grand heroic adventure in a fantasy world were mercilessly squashed.

Thinking back on it made Kai slump forward on the table, resting her forehead on its surface. In hindsight, she considered herself quite foolish for having gotten her hopes up. There had never been anything extraordinary about her before, so why did she think that fact would change simply because she was in a different world?

She still remembered the words of the priests at one of the temples who tried to assess her magical potential, or lack thereof. In his words, "It's a complete miracle that you're even alive. Even the dead have more magical energy than this!" Kai groaned and thumped her head once against the wooden table. Even if it was true, did he have to say it like that? The thought made her even more depressed. Less magical than a corpse? She was practically a Redshirt.

With that thought, she had decided to try and live a quiet, unassuming life here in this world. Even if it wasn't the grand adventure or exciting life she had hoped for upon initially arriving here, it was better than dying in some pathetically tragic way because she was as painfully ordinary as they come. Thanks to Rolfe, who had taken pity on her when he saw her wandering the streets hungry and sullen, she was able to at least live relatively comfortably, for a commoner.

Thinking about that pulled Kai out of her ruminations. She took a sip of the tea and got up, dabbing the towel against the back of her neck as she strode over to the window to peek outside. It was still raining, but less so than it was before. Looking to the wall, where a simple but elegant hourglass was mounted on the wall, she figured it had been about an hour since she had initially come to the shop. Any longer, and Rolfe might actually get pissed enough to stick her with cleaning up the whole dining hall by herself.

Kai put the damp towel on the back of her chair and took one last gulp of warm tea before running back outside. Pulling her hood up, she pushed against the rickshaw until it dislodged from the mud, and then began to haul it back onto the road. The path was paved, so it wasn't as muddy as the side of the road, but it was still a struggle with the added weight of the meat. Kai was also cold and exhausted, but determined to return to the Sleeping Boar to with the goods. She may not be significant in this world, but she took her job at the inn seriously, and wasn't the type to do anything half-way.

After what felt like an eternity, the inn finally came into view. Almost home free, Kai thought to herself. The warm light pouring out of the windows and the cracks in the door filled her with a surge of hope and she began to double down on her efforts, moving faster along the road. Thoughts of a warm meal sprang into her mind as the smell of roasted pork and boiled potatoes hit her nostrils. She could almost--

Then, suddenly, there was a loud rumble that filled her ears to the point where it drowned out all thought and even seemed to make her very bones tremble. This was abruptly followed by a concussive force that threw her, cart and all, flying sideways with a thunderous, ear-shattering roar. Kai landed unceremoniously on the other side of the road, the rickshaw and its contents violently crashing not far from her. The wooden cart broke apart into several dozen pieces upon impact, sending debris flying every direction. Kai felt a few pieces pierce her flesh and rake at her face as she tumbled across the cold, wet ground.

Kai wasn't sure when exactly she stopped rolling--she was far too dizzy and shellshocked to tell up from down--but at some point she became aware of the rain on her face and the freezing mud underneath her. With a groan of protest, she slowly sat up and looked around at the destruction. The rickshaw was in shambles with only a single wheel left remotely in tact, and the meat was currently soaking in a mud-and-splinters marinade that was quickly beginning to ruin it.

Kai quickly jumped to her feet and ran to try and salvage the meat, but another explosion stopped her dead in her tracks. She covered her face and ears as more debris went flying everywhere, and she suddenly came back to reality and realized the spoiling meat was the least of her problems at the moment. She looked around wildly, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. As she surveyed the surrounding shops, several had been completely destroyed, and others partially wrecked. Despite the rain, flames and thick smoke rose up from the destruction, and several imp-like creatures began scurrying from the wreckage. They were a gray-ish green with glowing yellow eyes, sharp serated teeth, pointed ears, and sharp claws. They stood a little over a meter tall, and wielded shortswords that looked more like longswords in their hands. Instantly, Kai realized what they were.

Goblins.