[WP] You’ve been isekai’d. For some reason, Fishing is the most dangerous job in this world. You just figured out why

This new world was something I was still getting used to. It was magical and wonderful and terrifying and violent all rolled into one. People could cast magical spells that could level nations and raise crops that could feed a continent. Warriors with swords had the strength to cleave mountains in two and were agile enough to balance on the top of singular blades of grass.

It was like every fantasy video game rolled into one, a literal power fantasy that had no limits to what one could accomplish.

I’m not sure how I ended up here. I was on vacation with my family and the next thing I knew, I was in this world. I tried to make the most of it, but there was this feeling of lose that I struggled to keep up with. My entire life was replaced. Sure, it was replaced with the fantastic and the wonderful, but something is to be said about the basic and simple life that I left behind. My family is gone. My friends are gone. I wonder if they missed me. I wonder if they are worried. I’ve been in this world for about a year now. But I can’t help but think of the life I left behind.

I made new friends here. They sort of adopted me as their newest member of their traveling trope. They needed a new musician, and I had some training, but I was amazed with my newest talents in this world. My music would literally heal the sick and wounded. I would play my violin and the notes would land on the pain and suffering others were dealing with and cure them. It was remarkable. We would travel to areas of need, the war torn countries, the disaster zones, the plague lands, the poorest neighborhoods in the richest of cities to offer some relief and help.

We just left the capital city Gianna, a land torn apart by a civil war between two siblings using their subjects as toy soldiers. We helped those we could before we were ousted and exiled on trumped up charges. The trope told me not to take it personally, our help saved some lives, but we can’t save them all.

Our leader, Fiona, suggest a break, to ease our mind and relax our bodies. She was the one that would talk to leaders of towns, that was connected to basically everyone, that could get us into closed areas and locate the best places to set up our “shop”. She was from this area, so leaving Gianna was especially hard for her, but it wasn’t the land she remembered as a child. She didn’t want her last memory of Gianna to be war and strife. There was a small lumber town nearby, a place her father worked in for a long time.

“Irving is a small quiet town where we can recover, resupply, and relax for a while. There is a wonderful forest full of mushrooms for foraging and the pie shop has some local delicacies…” she trailed off as she saw the town. She stopped in her tracks.

“It is just like I remember,” she said after a while. “My dad used to bring me here sometimes to pick up gifts for our family.”

As we entered the town, I noticed a pier on the western edge of town, a crystal clear blue lake that I swear was bluer than the sky.

As Fiona took Wrexler and Humbold to the forest to forage for mushrooms, and Tyr and Crian went to the general store to resupply, I realized I had nothing to do. For the first time since I arrived in this world, I…had nothing to do. Usually I would be stuck watching the wagon or doing minor repairs or going to the tavern to cure some wounds or make some extra money, but everything was taken care of. I had some leisure time.

I walked over the town, and to my surprise, I couldn’t find any kind of fishing equipment. I could find individual parts of a fishing rod, a line, a reel, a rod, and some bait, but nothing already assembled. I didn’t think anything of it, so I managed to put the parts together on my own. I headed over to the pier and cast my line.

Almost immediately, a bite! The fish didn’t put up any kind of struggle as I reeled it in, it was this beautiful green scaled fish that reminded me of a trout from back home.

Back home. I remember going fishing with my dad. We would always head to a lake near our house and bring home fish for dinner. Sometimes we would travel to other states and go camping and fish there.

After a few more casts, I had a nice haul of fish. I looked into the lake and saw this massive shadow.

Might as well go for a record. As I cast, I looked over and saw Fiona had just came back from the forest. I cast my reel, hoping to fry up these fish with some foraged mushrooms for dinner tonight. But to my surprise, I heard some shouting.

It was Fiona. She was shouting at me. What was she saying? A bite. The massive shadow took the bait!

I started to reel it in. Fiona made it to the edge of the pier and was shouting “STOP! DON’T!”

Uh oh. I know better to ignore a warning like that. But before I could drop the rod, a massive black and white fish leapt out of the water. It’s mouth opened up and a dazzling array of colors and shapes and sounds appeared as it somehow swallowed me.

Then I realized…I was fishing when I was brought into this world. I saw a large shadow in the lake. It was a fish, very similar to this one.

As I entered the fish’s mouth, my entire existence and world changed. I was no longer in the beautiful town of Irving. I was no longer in a world full of magic and wonder. I was in a burnt husk of a world. The sky was yellow. I saw no one around me, only what looked to be a war torn land full of metal. The air smelled of violence and loss. Large metal war machines lay broken and destroyed around me. Bones and debris were the only other things I could see around me. I wanted to shout for help. But what would find me if I did?

What have I done?

I’m not home. I’m not in Irving. Just where am I now? And how do I find my way out of this hellhole?