Isekai Terry: Tropes of Doom (An Isekai Adventure Comedy)

"You're a curse. Did you know that?" asked Terry.

"What? Why am I a curse?" demanded Kelima.

"Because every damn time I spend more than five minutes with you, some of my clothes get ruined. First, my hat. Now, my outfit," said Terry, pointing an accusing finger at her. "Curse!"

Kelima pointed a finger right back at him and opened her mouth to shout something, only to turn away and retch.

"Oh, my gods," she choked out between gagging. "They smell even worse now that they're on fire."

Terry looked over to the fire. That's where he'd thrown the clothes that had been violated by the blood and brain matter of the hobgoblin and its goblin minions. He wanted to make fun of Kelima for having a weak stomach, but she was right. The hellstench rising from that fire was just unspeakable. Terry remembered being back on Earth and driving past literal garbage dumps that smelled better. He couldn't help but wonder what the hell those things could have been eating that their blood could smell this bad. Not that human blood smelled all that appetizing, but this stink was just an affront to nature and all that was holy.

Worse, they couldn't just leave. Well, they could just leave, but it would be the height of irresponsibility. No matter how damp and inflammable the forest floor might look, he remembered a big, friendly bear's advice about just who could prevent forest fires. Granted, that advice was unbelievably self-serving coming from a bear who lived in the forest, but Terry didn't want to be in a forest that was on fire. He could probably survive that by running away really, really fast, but he doubted Kelima was capable of the same feat. And he damn sure wasn't princess carrying her to safety. That would just be too awkward.

Besides, leaving a fire unattended was the first cousin of the classic trope, Ignoring the Doctor. Ignoring a threat that you'd been informed about, like that pesky cholesterol or forest fires, was just begging the universe to drive a boot directly into your nutsack at the worst possible moment. The downside of not ignoring the doctor was that it almost always involved unpleasant things. For example, you'd have to change your lifestyle. Or, you might find yourself required to stand by a fire that was emitting the olfactory equivalent of fifteen roadkill carcasses that had marinated in raw human sewage, which were then thrown on a bed of hot coals. And you couldn't leave until that fire was out.

"This is something they never warn you about," Terry complained to the fire that he was half-convinced would qualify as a Superfund cleanup site. "The stink of success."

It was only then that Terry looked down at the clothes he was wearing and experienced a moment of pure horror. That stink. If it permeated the clothes he had on, he might never get it out. And it wasn't like there were detergent pods he could use to wash them. The best he had was some stuff that had a disturbingly high lye content. Kelima and the other nobles might have access to better stuff, or at least perfumed soap, but he hadn't seen it available anywhere. Dear God, what I wouldn't give for some foaming soap, thought Terry. Either way, he needed to get his clothes away from this fire if he ever wanted to wear them again.

Grabbing their packs in one hand and Kelima's arm in the other, he pulled them all far enough away that they had escaped the reach of the reek. Terry dropped their packs and let go of Kelima, who continued to gag for long enough that he started to think she was putting on an act. Once he was sure she wasn't going to choke to death. He started stripping out of his clothes and hanging them on a nearby branch to air out. The only things he left on were his underclothes and boots. If he was going to go stand by a stinky fire, he wasn't going to do it with his bare ass hanging out or his junk exposed. Not that Kelima seemed to appreciate his deference to modesty.

"What the hells are you doing?" she shrieked.

He looked over to see her staring at him and turning a profoundly red color. He followed the line of her gaze, and it landed on his stomach. He supposed it did look more like a six-pack than it ever had back in his old life. In fact, he looked more muscular and cut in general. I guess magic does have its uses, he thought. Of course, it doesn't matter if I look like a cover model in Chinese Period Drama Hell, the land of unreasonably attractive people. I can't even shamelessly exploit myself to make a buck from it. So goddamn unfair. Looking back at Kelima, she was even redder than she had been.

"What? We can't leave the fire unattended, and I'm not getting that stink into my clothes," he explained.

When she didn't answer after a good ten seconds, Terry was less than amused.

"Hey!" he shouted, and snapped his fingers a few times. "My eyes are up here."

He waited until she seemed to hear him and then pointed at his face. She gave him a somewhat dazed look before she snapped back into focus.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

"What? I know where your eyes are!"

"Really? It was hard to tell."

"Why are you talking about your eyes?"

"Because you should look at them when you speak to someone," said Terry in his most pious voice. "It's only polite. I thought you nobles got etiquette training or something."

"You're the one who undressed in front of me!" shouted Kelima in a voice filled with overwrought defensiveness.

It was so difficult to keep a straight face that Terry worried he might start bleeding from the nose. He prevailed in the end and kept right on taunting the girl while she was still unbalanced.

"No. I tactically disrobed to go deal with that fire while sparing us both the misery of enduring the smell in our clothes. You're the one who clearly has her mind in the gutter. For shame. What would your mother think?"

Sensing that invoking Kelima's mother was probably going to be his high-water mark in the verbal sparring, Terry walked back toward the fire while the noble girl spluttered behind him. His amusement vanished as soon as he got back into the radius of the smell. It seemed the goblin and hobgoblin remnants on his clothes came with the added bonus of burning slowly. He had to wait for the better part of twenty minutes before he was sure they were done burning and he could put out the fire. Something he did by entombing the fire in a thick layer of ice. He went directly from there to brave the hazards of the nearby river and his probably corrosive soap.

"It's a good thing that my skin seems tougher than Kevlar now," he said as he scrubbed at himself.

You don't know how tough Kevlar is, noted other-Terry. I know that you don't know that.

Oh, zip it. It's not like it makes a difference.

You're right. It doesn't make a difference, because your skin is almost certainly tougher than Kevlar.

Then, why did you make it a thing?

Honestly, said other-Terry, because it annoys me when you say wrong things like that out of ignorance. However, since you're the one saying wrong things, I maintain that the problem is you, not me.

You're just aggravated that I got one over on Kelima, aren't you?

I can't let you get a swollen head because you managed to outwit a teenage girl. A teenage girl, Terry. You were feeling way too smug about that.

You couldn't just let me have it?

There was a pause while other-Terry thought it over.

No. No, I could not. By the way, you forgot to bring dry clothes with you. You planning on showing Kelima your birthday suit, tiger?

"Goddamn it," said Terry. "Couldn't you have reminded me to do that?"

Sure, I could have, but why would I? This is a lot funnier.

"You're such an asshole."

You're the one who put on a peep show for Nobility McJailbait back there. Pretty sure you don't have the moral high ground, Anakin.

Yeah, yeah, thought regular-Terry. I get it. I'm the bad guy here.

Not at all. I mean, unless you think flashing people is wrong. I don't have an opinion, but it sure seems like the people in your world did.

First of all, I didn't flash her. Come on, man. Even I'm not socially incompetent enough to think that's okay.

Debatable.

Second of all, is she jailbait? I have no idea how old she actually is.

Gosh. Kinda seems like the sort of question you should have asked before bringing a vulnerable, sexually inexperienced girl into the deep, dark woods. Definitely something you should have asked before showing off the abs you got at Cultivator Gym. As suspect behavior goes, that's super suspect.

Wait. So, she really is jailbait?

Nah, said other-Terry. She's twenty.

How do you know that? demanded Terry.

Someone you weren't paying attention to said it at that dinner party her mother threw.

If you knew she was twenty, why did you try to give me a panic attack?

You say that like giving you a panic attack isn't its own reward, offered other-Terry. But there was a point to all of this.

What could that possibly be?

That not finding out information just because you hate talking to people could cause you huge problems down the road, jackass. Sure, it might be fine for you to do the horizontal mambo with this girl, but what about the next girl? What about the one you gave an S&M kink?

I'm not going to sleep with Kelima!

You keep telling yourself that, champ. I don't even have a sex drive, and I know you two are going to sleep together. It's a bad idea. You both know it. But it is one-hundred-percent going to happen.

It is not going to happen. And what the hell are you talking about with me giving someone an S&M kink?

So many girls, so little brain capacity. Am I right?

Out with it!

Have you already forgotten about that farmer's daughter you took to spanking town? You might have forgotten about that little incident, but I'm betting she didn't. Did you really imagine that was never going to come back to haunt you? In a world full of tropes?

Uh, though Terry at peak elegance.

I'm just saying, you might want to invest in a paddle or something.

Seriously? That's the advice you've got?

Well, that, and you should probably talk to Kelima about what she thinks of harems.

I'm not building a harem!

I know that. You know that. But I'm betting Kelima isn't going to realize that when Miss Red Cheeks shows up looking to call you Daddy, said other-Terry with borderline maniacal laughter. This part of the world is so anime that I bet harems are pretty common.

This is some bullshit.

Do you know what the best part is?

What?

You did this all to yourself!