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[Ding dong. "Social Bao'er-jie" has joined the Transdimensional Mercenary Guild.]
[Ding dong. "I Am Not a Pet" has joined the Transdimensional Mercenary Guild.]
[Ding dong. The Eldest Princess of the Kingdom of Arendelle has joined the Transdimensional Mercenary Guild.]
"???"
Sam's eyes flew wide open.
Holy crap… three people actually joined the Transdimensional Mercenary Guild?!
In that instant, his vision went blurry.
Tears. Actual tears.
Heaven really hadn't abandoned him after all!('😭)
I waited five whole years for this moment.
Five. Years.
Do you have any idea how I survived these five years?!
Please, I beg you, don't quit the guild!
Sam remembered it clearly. Five years ago, on a freezing winter day, he was so poor he barely had clothes to—
Ah, crap.
Can't keep making this up.
Fine. The truth was, five years ago he'd gone out to buy salted duck eggs, and somehow, out of nowhere, a strange, mindless voice started echoing in his head.
He didn't know what was happening, but he instantly went on alert.
Because in his memory…
It felt like…
Yeah, he'd just finished reading That Time I Reincarnated as Shi Aotian, where the protagonist unlocked all sorts of insane abilities while unconscious at the moment of death.
So whatever the situation was now—
For the sake of not living an ordinary life,For the sake of one day wrecking heaven, earth, and the air in between,For the sake of… whatever,
Sam started blurting out every famous power and ability he could remember from anime and manga.
And then came the pleasant surprise.
Which was…
Absolutely nothing happened.
Yep, he did transmigrate.
But all those abilities he'd yelled out during transmigration?
Not a single one showed up.
He was still a weak little nobody.
What made it worse was that other transmigrators either landed with ridiculous wealth or god-tier combat power. Him?
His body came along, sure, and he even reverted back to being thirteen years old.
But the real problem was…
Where the hell did he end up?!
A floating island. Pretty big, sure, but there wasn't a single blade of grass on the whole damn thing.
So yeah, he still had all his knowledge from his previous life, but when you're literally the only person around, what are you supposed to do with that?
Luckily, he had the Transdimensional Mercenary Guild as his cheat. At least he wouldn't starve to death.
With over twenty years of being single and grinding games under his belt, he quickly figured out the guild's daily sign-in feature.
The coins he got from signing in were only useful for buying food and basic necessities. Nothing fancy.
But honestly, with an island this big and just one person on it, there wasn't much else to spend money on anyway. Might as well live comfortably.
The most important thing was this: even though the guild activated the moment he transmigrated, for five entire years, this floating island had only ever had him on it.
Just him.
If he didn't find something to do, he was going to lose his mind.
Which was why he'd started wondering if the reason he'd automatically become the guild leader was simply because there was no one else.
To be fair, food and daily supplies were dirt cheap in the guild. Half a month of continuous sign-ins was enough to cover an entire year's expenses.
So for five years straight, Sam signed in every single day, hoping someone—anyone—would join.
And when he wasn't doing that, he worked on turning the floating island into a dreamland.
Sadly, five years passed.
No one came.
"Finally… finally!"
Sam was on the verge of sobbing. "Is this it? Am I finally about to rise?"
At the beginning, he'd been full of passion. Fired up. He signed in religiously every day for five years straight and even drafted an entire set of detailed guild rules.
Then he realized something.
No one might ever join.
So those rules would just end up restraining him.
He scrapped the whole thing.
Later on, even with comics and stuff to pass the time, the loneliness slowly warped him.
By now, he'd become someone with basically no shame and a slight case of split personality.
"Five years without a single member…" Sam sighed quietly. "Thinking about it now, it's actually kinda heartbreaking."
At this point, though, he didn't really care about building some grand guild anymore. He just wanted someone to talk to. Something to do.
Sure, everyone dreams of becoming extraordinary, but Sam had long since accepted that he was a salted fish.
After five years, he'd learned one truth.
A quiet, ordinary life was the real deal.
"???"
Before he could fully come down from his excitement, "Social Bao'er-jie" spotted Sam lying there like a corpse and spoke first.
"A light suddenly drilled into my head, and then boom, I was here. Uh… so, what kinda place is this?"
Sam rolled over and scrambled to his feet. With teary eyes, he stared at the scruffy girl with the words Social Bao'er-jie floating above her head. He grabbed her hands and shook them enthusiastically.
"Welcome, newcomer! Welcome to the Transdimensional Mercenary Guild! I'm the guild leader, Sam!"
Five years.Five damn years.
He finally saw another human being.
〒▽〒
For some reason—either a design choice or a sick joke—everyone who entered the guild had their nickname floating above their head like they were in a game.
The moment Sam saw "Social Bao'er-jie" paired with her appearance, his mind immediately jumped to Feng Baobao from The Outcast.
In the entire anime world, someone called Bao'er-jie who spoke with such a heavy Sichuan accent…
Yeah. Pretty much only her.
"Uh… can you let go of me now?"
Feng Baobao scratched her cheek. "Also… who are you?"
"…"
Sam stared at her. "Didn't I just say it? I'm Sam, the leader of the Transdimensional Mercenary Guild. This place, basically."
"Oh~"
Feng Baobao nodded in sudden realization. "Hi. I'm Feng Baobao."
"…"
It really was her.
Over the past five years, Sam had already figured out that the guild connected to countless worlds.
Which meant novels, manga, anime—worlds he'd seen or never seen before—could all be real.
Knowing that was one thing.
Experiencing it firsthand was another.
The gap between the third dimension and the second dimension was… real.
Not recognizing someone right away was totally understandable.
"What's going on here?!"
A fox with nine tails, "I Am Not a Pet" glowing above its head, glared fiercely at Sam and Feng Baobao.
"Where is this place?! What are you to Senju Hashirama?!"
"Damn it! Why has my body shrunk to your human size?!"
"What did you do to me?!"
Sam: "…"
Feng Baobao: "Wow~ that's a big fox."
"....."