Unable to sleep out of excitement, Watanabe woke up very early. The sun was mildly bright, the birds were mostly absent and it was a bit cloudy outside. Yet, despite the quite average day, to our galliard hero it seemed like as if it was the best day in his life, death and re-life.

Watanabe was most ready to progress the plot, as well as the “plot”. He was ready to march forth and dispel himself of the problems plaguing him once and for all.

He was ready to actually become worthy of being narrated as a “hero”.

With such noble intentions did our hero march forth, ready to scale the walls and conquer the castle that is the heart of a maiden. He, of course, had never actually scaled the walls of any kind of castle, but he was the protagonist and by Brassicus was he going to become the best damn climber of castle walls on this not-Earth.

Speaking from my bountiful experience, thought Watanabe, women in these fantasy worlds love dense teenage protagonists. Unfortunately, I am neither dense nor am I teenaged, but I possess the most important quality out of them all, for I am the protagonist! One who is destined to rule the world, and with my genre savvy tricks, rule over a harem so great that the author might need to pay for an extra artist to draw all the girls I’ll be meeting!

Holding pure and heroic thoughts like so, our hero then began preparing himself for such a story-defining encounter that it’d make the last eight chapters of maidenless nonsense seem worth it. He first decided he’d fix up is looks a bit, as protagonists such as himself couldn’t afford to look unmarketable.

Or, he would have begun making preparations if he could find a suitable surface in which he could stare at his own countenance, also called a mirror if the author decides not to be pretentious while explaining what a mirror was. Watanabe searched the whole tent, careful not to wake anyone up, yet there was not a non-crystalline, transparent amorphous solid that could reflect back beams of light that bounced off from his generic face.

“[Mirror]!” he shouted in English with the hopes that he might somehow end up casting some sort of magic that’d help out his situation.

I thought this was an opportune time to satisfy the LitRPG readers again, so above is a piece of much needed exposition showing how much MP he’d need to cast [Mirror] if LitRPG mechanics actually existed in this setting (for American readers using the inferior imperial units, he needs exactly 2337,209399030 kMP/in3 to cast [Mirror]. Google is an amazing thing, I just typed in “cube decimeter to cube inch” conversion and there was a convertor for those who regularly need to convert their decimeters to inches).

After having clearly satisfied my readers by bringing the beloved blue box of information back (and having confused readers who are reading this outside of RoyalRoad who are probably wondering what significance a blue box holds), we can return back to the story.

Seeing no mirrors being cast, our hero resorted to using a cup of water that was in the tent as a makeshift mirror. Seeing his reflection, this would be the part where the author would waste a paragraph describing how their character looks. Thankfully, the author avoided this cliché of narration by making their character need no explanation. If you need a description of Watanabe, type “stock light novel hero” into Google (or any other search engine if you want to do that for some reason) and you’ll see approximately how Watanabe looks like.

If you are somehow reading this story after the internet has disappeared off of the face of the Earth (or the planet that you currently inhabit), then I am terribly sorry for your loss. Or, well, the world is probably better off without the Internet.

Listen to this poor author from the past and never make an Internet ever again hypothetical post-apocalyptic reader.

…Where were we again? Oh right, our hero was getting ready to acquire a jade beauty or whatever. The author honestly wishes that we could just skip to the part where we get some fanservice. Unfortunately, our hero’s tardiness has prevented even one drawing of a woman appearing in this story (except for the one in the third chapter, but I don’t think she counts). We must bear this slog together in hopes that our hero’s venture in this chapter will be successful.

Watanabe combed his hair with his hands, resulting in his hair being only marginally in order. He straightened his trusty tie that had followed him in life and buttoned one button that had been left unbuttoned when he was in Japan. The only thing that Watanabe was now dissatisfied about was his facial hair, he already had grown a noticeable stubble during his short stay.

Of course, Watanabe as a professional man of the office had always taken care to have a clean shave. Yet, this stubble now presented an obstacle greater than being reprimanded by his boss. A protagonist is just like an office worker, he should never be seen with facial hair, thought Watanabe. I have already broken a few rules of protagonisthood, like by being legally an adult instead of being a plucky teen.

Indeed, most of the protagonists he saw were vaguely young enough that they didn’t grow facial hair. The ones who were old enough to grow an unfortunate stubble, in a fashion more fantastic than the words they were transported to, somehow never had to shave.

Yet, Watanabe looked to break new ground. In the world of business, one needs to push the edge of the envelope and blow open new ground… Or that’s what that guy at that webinar said once anyways, thought Watanabe as he bitterly reminisced about the many webinars he and his coworkers were forced to sit through. You’re a genre-savvy, self-aware man, Watanabe, you’re basically the alpha of protagonists. An alpha must lead, and I want to lead by setting a new fashion standard! Yes, this stubble, it gives me a rough, masculine appearance, it is a designer stubble meant to impress the lady which I am about to court. What to those teenage protagonists lacking in manliness have over me anyways? Nothing I say; today, in this very chapter, I shall open the way for real men to take over their rightful place at the top in the protagonist hierarchy!

With new-found confidence, our alpha protagonist felt like he had been born ready for this moment. Watanabe flexed the little to no muscle he had and smiled towards the cup of water that held his reflection.

Suddenly, a voice came from behind Watanabe. “Morning, Sir Watanabe.” said Hans who had just woken up. Watanabe quickly stopped flexing as his underling instincts took over. “Good morning, Sir Hans!” he replied in kind.

“Why are you… Running around and staring at a cup this time of the morning, Sir Watanabe?” asked Hans. “Even my late grandfather, all the way over in Erzen and six feet under, probably woke up hearing you run around just now.”

“You see sir, I have a meeting with destiny, and needed a mirror to get ready for it. I am truly very much sorry if I have disturbed you.” replied Watanabe as he microwaved a ready apology and served it to Hans.

“Even if it is a meeting with Holy Theodore himself, I’d like it if I wasn’t woken up for it.” said Hans as he tactically retreated back to bed.

I’m safe, thought Watanabe. Apologies are a dish best served piping hot. He then proceeded to comb his hair one last time, and satisfied with his protagonistly appearance, proceeded to get out of the captain’s tent.

To find his way, he needed to find someone so that he could ascertain the directions to the potential harem member’s location. Thankfully he found a familiar face, that of Nicholas, who had woken up early. Greeting Nicholas, Watanabe asked the directions to wherever Rabano-ichi, or whatever she was called. Nicholas thankfully understood who Watanabe was trying to refer to, and after a short minute Watanabe had found his way to the makeshift canopy that this new harem member was staying under.

Forget ghosts that humiliate me and cause great fear, I am now at the verge of greatness! Couple steps forward, and I shall reach the so-called jade beauty, a woman worthy of that title, thought Watanabe as he found, among the forest of makeshift lodgings, a figure that he could just barely recognize from the night before.

The woman seemed to be sleeping, so Watanabe started with a soft and polite “Hello, Lady Rabanowicz?” to wake her up from her slumber.

An annoyed groan that didn’t fit a “jade-beauty” in any way came out of the woman’s mouth. “Mmrgh? Who in the name of the Divine are you?”

The woman in front of Watanabe was far from ugly, but she didn’t fit the description of a “jade-beauty” either. Her light brown hair, or the wig she wore to be more precise, flowed like a river yet it lacked color and luster. Her face was clearly tired, starting to develop wrinkles here and there from stress. Her eyes were just uninterestingly brown and nothing else of interest could be written about them. Her lips were cracked from lack of any care put into them and lacked luster similarly to the rest of her face. Outside of her face, the loose doublet and baggy pants she wore didn’t really show anything off anything about her plain figure.

Most surprisingly to Watanabe, who expected female characters to be equal or younger to the protagonist in age, the woman looked to be around ten years older than him.

Quickly getting out and putting on a pair of spectacles from a bag next to her, the woman stared back at Watanabe. “Wait… Right, you’re that Watanabe fellow.” said the woman as she quickly shook off her sleep and took out a journal of some sort. Before Watanabe could say anything back to her, she had already turned to the page she was looking for.

“Right, Monsieur Watanabe, before we proceed any further, could you read this?” said the woman as she pointed at the page that she had opened.

Despite being completely confused by the response the woman had given to just a simple greeting, Watanabe obliged and read what little was written on the page. “Kore yomeru ka… Yeah, of course I can read plain old hiragana.” replied Watanabe confidently.

“You can?” asked the woman again.

“Of course I can. I learned how to read that at kindergarten… Wait a second, how do you-”

“-know how to write in my language, is what you want to ask, right?” said the woman as she concluded Watanabe’s sentence. “Before being asked questions, I’d like to introduce myself.”

“I would have liked to introduce myself before getting a question too.” interrupted Watanabe.

“Perhaps you’d like to be more honest while doing the introductions with me.” said the woman and continued “I am, as you might have heard yesterday during the impromptu book reading session, Rabanowicz of Kelm. Most call me Lady Rabanowicz, but it’d be better to refer to me by my proper title of ‘Doctor Rabanowicz’.”

“Isn’t ‘Lady’, like an actual noble title? Isn’t it better?” asked Watanabe.

“You see monsieur, there are thousands of ladies on this continent, a lady is born to a noble house by achieving nothing. I am not a lady; I am just the daughter of an insignificant commoner in the far-off village of Kelm.” replied Rabanowicz. “Furthermore, there are thousands of women who are ladies, yet there is one woman that I know in this entire forsaken continent who has earned the title ‘Doctor of Philosophy’.” Rabanowicz proudly pointed at herself, “That one woman, who spent six years disguised as a man in the University of Cyouc, is the same one now standing in front of thee.”

Watanabe remembered how Anton had mentioned how women couldn’t become clergy either. No clergywomen, no university education, no women in the army… What are these people supposed to do I wonder, thought Watanabe as the potential archetypes in his harem diminished faster than his evaluation of the world he had been sent to.

“As admirable as your achievements seem to be doctor, I still can’t see how you could just manage to write a sentence in a language you have never apparently seen, nor do I see why you would be interested in me.” said Watanabe.

“Well then Watanabe, who has managed to come here from very very far away,” said Rabanowicz “if you’d like to learn the how and the why then I implore you to sit down and listen.”

As Watanabe reluctantly sat down, his eagerness to engage in this conversation had disappeared when he noticed that Rabanowicz was not as physically beautiful as he had hoped, Rabanowicz brought out a small sealed pitcher from the same bag she had took out the journal from. “I don’t know much about where you are from, but where I come from, it’s unheard of to leave a guest without something to drink or eat.”

Watanabe’s eagerness to listen to what Rabanowicz has to say increased tenfold as she handed him the pitcher full of drink.

“Now, just be careful to stay sober while we speak.” added Rabanowicz as she began to relate what she wanted to relate.