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

I'm just saying that I'm in your mind, complained other-Terry. The universe shouldn't be trope-stomping me for things that are only said in your mind.

Oh, my fucking God, you need to let this shit go, snapped Terry. I already told you my theory. If you don't like it, come up with one that makes more sense. Until then, stop whining about this.

You're the only person I can talk to. I mean the single person in the entire universe I can talk to. If I could go complain to someone else, I would. Mostly about you.

You were doing pretty well right up until the end there, observed Terry.

Yeah, it slipped out.

Terry shook his head. He was a tiny bit sympathetic to the construct, but he'd been listening to it complain about taking that trope full in the face for three days. Initially, Terry had even been half-sold on the idea that conversations that took place only inside his head ought to enjoy immunity, since he usually had to speak out loud to trigger the event flag trope. However, that conversation had very clearly triggered the trope, which meant that his conversations with other-Terry were subject to trope-triggering, at least some of the time.

Terry's theory was that it was the conversational element. By talking to each other, the words had to be carried on some medium to get the words from the construct to Terry and vice versa. Whatever asshole part of the universe that monitored for opportunities to drop a trope on someone had to have access to the mediums that carried words and conversations. Even the one inside his consciousness that allowed him and construct to talk. As far as Terry was concerned, that was fundamentally different than someone just thinking to themselves. He took all the times he had thought things and not been dropkicked in the head by a trope as pretty definitive evidence.

It all seemed very reasonable, but other-Terry remained unconvinced for reasons that were not fully clear to Terry. It mostly seemed to boil down to the construct thinking that he should be a special case. Having been ripped out of his own world and deposited in someone else's body hadn't made Terry special enough to be exempt, so he didn't know why living as a disembodied entity should be enough. Either way, he had long since moved past caring. It had happened. Nothing would change it. And Terry was very goddamn certain that no amount of rules-lawyering by other-Terry was going to make existence-at-large see it his way. Also, Terry had other concerns at the moment, like the inexplicable village that he was looking at.

He didn't even realize that he had stopped in his tracks until Kelima walked right into him. He heard her lose her balance and land on the ground. He didn't even need to look back at her to know she was glaring at him. He could feel it.

"Your face will get stuck that way if you keep making that expression," he told her.

"What expression?"

"The angry, why-in-the-hells-did-you-stop-like-that expression that you're aiming at the back of my head right now."

"You're imagining things," grumbled Kelima, but there was an embarrassed note to her words that told him he'd been right. "Why did you stop, anyway?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"Because of that village," answered Terry.

He heard Kelima scramble to her feet. She appeared next to him, her eyes bright with excitement.

"What are we waiting for? Let's go! Hot food! Baths! Comfortable beds!"

"Are you drunk?" demanded Terry. "We're not going anywhere near that place. We're already too close, as far as I'm concerned."

"Why wouldn't we go there?"

"Because it's obviously an eldritch location or possibly an uncanny village. There's some weird overlap between those two, but it's always bad to go into one."

"What in the world are you talking about?"

"That place is going to be full of monsters, or demons, or something even worse."

"What could be worse than monsters and demons?" asked Kelima, her face scrunched up as she apparently tried to answer the question for herself.

"People selling Ponzi schemes to the elderly? Political call centers? How would I know? The point is, if we go in there, we'll inevitably discover that it's a million times worse than anything we might find in the forest, and we'll have to fight our way out. Plus, one of us will get injured in some obscure way that healing potions can't fix because that will make the rest of this trip harder."

Kelima stared at him before she turned to study the village for most of a minute.

"No. You're imagining all of this. It's just a village."

"Okay, let's say for the sake of argument that this is just a plain old village filled with perfectly normal people. Why are they here, of all places? Why haven't they gone somewhere closer to the rest of civilization? Barring that, why isn't there a trail or road connecting this place to the main road? Do you honestly believe that these people can make everything they need with what they can find nearby? And how are they fending off the monsters in the forest?"

"Look, I'm all for being cautious, but there's a not-so-fine line between caution and paranoia. That's a line that you clearly jumped over a while ago. Maybe they're here because they've always lived here. People who grow up in villages almost never leave them. Why aren't they aching to connect with the rest of the country? I doubt they've seen a tax collector in a long time. I know my parents would love to get out of paying taxes.

"As for that other stuff, they've probably figured out how to live without the things they can't get, and they've probably got a bunch of people with strong fighting skills. They'd have to if they've survived out here. The point is, there are perfectly reasonable explanations that don't involve this place being cursed. So, you can go sleep in the forest if you really want to, but I'm going to go take a hot bath," said Kelima.

Then, before he could grab her, the noble girl dashed off toward the village gate. Shaking his head, Terry trudged after her.

"There better not be zombies in this—"

Other-Terry all but screaming in his head cut Terry off.

Shut up, you moron! Are you trying to bring down a zombie apocalypse on your own head?

It was only when he realized what he'd been about to utter out loud that Terry understood what a catastrophic mistake he'd been about to make. As vigilant as he tried to be, sometimes trope-triggering turns of phrase tried to slip free.

Thanks for that, said Terry.

I live in here. If you get your brain eaten, my home goes away forever. Pretty sure that would also mean I utterly failed in my only job. I just wish you'd been practicing fire magic instead of ice.

You and me both, said Terry as he stepped through the gate.

Once he was inside, he turned to give the gate a suspicious look. He'd honestly expected it to slam closed behind him. Then, if his luck ran as usual, it and the walls would turn into some indestructible metal while growing a hundred feet tall. Instead, the gate just sat there looking innocuous and wooden. That's pretty damned suspicious. He shook his head and started walking deeper into the village. There were people there, but none of them spoke. They just stared at him with blank expressions.

"Great," he muttered. "I'm in the Uncanny Village of the Damned."