It was morning, the sun was rising and the sky was coloured in warm orange.

A forest with many different trees and plants behind me.

A river with clear water next to me, you can see the bottom of it which certainly was made out of stones, but if you search for it, you might find a place where the small rocks were even and you would be able to lie down in the river.

A hill with grassland beneath me, there were many flowers, I recognized some, but there were many which I never saw before. Not that I’m well known with plants to begin with.

There was a path which leaded seemingly somewhere.

If you look slightly further, you’ll notice the city, maybe you could call it also village? But it seemed rather big. It looked like the ones which were described in certain fantasy novels.

Basically from the dark ages, the time were witches were hunted, people believed in magic and demons and the time were swords were in.

Also the most common time used in MMOs, which nowadays work as inspiration for certain novel authors of a certain genre, which I really liked to read.

A gentle breeze drifted past me.

Incidentally, I was crouching in the grass and was trembling.

I exhaled and inhaled unsteadily.

Well, let’s start the self introduction.

My name is Anoki Soma.

I’m sixteen years old.

Usually the protagonist would say now, he was an average high school student, but I’m far above average yet not a genius.

Most likely I’m something which could be called “jack of all trades and master of none”. I learned that term just recently and I think it fits perfectly.

Basically I’m good at all subjects and get top grades the most times. As long as I can learn, I get the grades.

The other traits of the usual protagonists, I do share some of them actually, well except the “He is so dense as f_ck” part.

Wait, can I actually judge how dense I am? Aren’t other people supposed to say that?

Anyway, I share other traits: I’m kinda a loner, have not really any friends, I see the life in a apathetic way, sit next to the windows in classes..

And with this right now here, I got also in a strange situation, which would be a cool start for certain novels.

Oh yeah, I guess I should mention those too.

I really love novels, to be more specific, the Light/Web Novels known mostly from Japan.

Though I love those books, I don’t really speak or read japanese, so I usually read the translation of them which I search and find plenty in the internet. Naturally I don’t question or reveal from where those come from.

Sometimes I also use a cheap translator machines to translate a raw version of the novel. They look so terrible and hard to read but I at least get more of the content I want. The reason why I would do that are simple of course.. Some silly translator had to end a chapter with a cliffhanger and thinks that I would wait one week for him to release the next one? Yeah.. nope.

The genres which I love the most are “romance” and “isekai” . It's more likely I’m obsessed with the japanese versions of them to be frank.

With “romance” I mean the romance manga/novels which usually show those cliche things, typical in anime or shoujo manga (corny love story for girls in manga) like for example the many different -dere types of girls, which I really don’t think to exist in real life or the drama and the way too cool and handsome dude which always happens to come at the right time.

So let’s call is “2D romance”. The love to those “2D girls” and their relationship to the protagonist in each of those stories. Even if they are corny as hell I like them. I guess I would be something like a member of a love squad who would rather enjoy watching a couple with those character than getting pissed at them and be jealous of the protagonist.

Incidentally I don’t really insert myself as the protagonist, rather I’m more like ghost which just enjoys the story within the story. So I wouldn’t really get jealous of that guy anyway.

The other genre I like is “isekai”. Which would happen to be in the novels where someone gets reincarnated/transported to another world. You could call it the “other world genre” too. Those novel have a pretty high popularity rate in japan, to some point that even some publishers officially banned to submit such a story. I guess the editors are bored of it because there are way too many of them maybe even the japanese fans in general are getting sick of them. At the same time everyone else (not japanese) is starting to get in the hype train of that genre because all those novels get animes which in turn get published to us too.

One key similar point in that genre is the fact, that the world is game-like yet fantasy. Most authors got their inspiration from the MMOs which were really popular at their time. That’s why the other world stories have many game like elements which resembles MMOs but it also isn’t lacking in fantasy in the slightest. It seems those guys are trying their best to write a good lore for the world.

Naturally not every single one of those stories go in the same direction, but one of the things I really like is how they all have those japanese cliches known from the romance novels, manga and anime. Those things which you start to recognize after indulging yourself with the culture. (anime-fandom, including the manga and novels but since the animes are brightest advertisement tools, I shall call it anime-fandom). I guess I search for the romance too in isekai. Can’t help it.

The authors really struggle sometimes how they want to introduce that world, they reached that point were they didn’t even bother to write how the protagonist got there in the first place. I guess they are way too hyped about the world which appeared in their mind, about the story which has to unfold. They can think of a befitting backstory later anyway.

It would be waste of their time, to explain why the main character came to this world, it would be hassle to think of a good reason for it, because they would also have to think of the lore which usually it explained later in the story, so why bother explaining how he get there instead of just throwing in right into the story and release their wonderful ideas for it.

So they just write, that he just is there and deals with the situations they thought of. Incidentally it seems, that I could be one of those unlucky protagonists.