“This doesn’t make any sense…” Leaning back in his creaky wooden chair, Lynn rubbed his exhausted eyes and squinted at the scattered documents covering his desk.
The ominous sinking feeling in his gut was only growing heavier by the minute.
“Griffin and Kryuger haven’t shown up anywhere in the news.
There’s zero data on T-Dolls.
What era is this even supposed to be?
Did I seriously miss the Girls’ Frontline universe?” Before this inexplicable transmigration, Lynn had been a Commander.
Well, more accurately, he was a Girls’ Frontline player who proudly called himself a Commander.
As a dedicated fan of the booming gacha game, it would be a total lie to say he had never fantasized about waking up in that world.
Everyone loves the idea of being surrounded by beautiful, heavily armed girls.
Everyone loves the thrill of commanding a victorious army.
And even if the tactical genius route didn’t pan out, wouldn’t a quiet, normal life spent alongside a few gorgeous androids still be absolute paradise?
His death had been practically textbook.
He had been struck by lightning in his room while mindlessly grinding the infamous 0-2 map and starving his M16.
That was the gold standard for an isekai setup.
By all the established laws of web novels, he should have opened his eyes in a Griffin command center.
Sure, the Girls’ Frontline setting was dangerous on paper, but as long as a person stayed within the established human safe zones, the actual risks were manageable.
If he had just worked hard enough to secure a spot in a wealthy district, he could have lived a life of relative luxury.
At the absolute worst, he could have skipped the PMC route entirely and worked a mundane desk job.
Heaven never completely seals off all exits, and his meta-knowledge of the game’s plot would have been an absolute treasure trove.
After the initial panic of waking up in a strange body had faded, Lynn had actually felt pretty confident about his survival odds.
But clearly, the universe had missed the memo.
No cosmic law dictated that dying while playing a game guaranteed a ticket to that specific game’s reality.
He had spent the last few days begging his current roommate—a girl working in the express delivery industry—for old newspapers and public records.
He had scoured every single page.
There was no sign of Sangvis Ferri.
No Kryuger.
Not a single drop of Collapse Fluid.
None of the classic forum memes existed here.
Aside from the fact that he was currently living with a stunning, long-haired girl who vaguely resembled WA2000, there was absolutely nothing connecting this place to the world he knew.
There were no major world wars here.
Instead, the planet was ravaged by continuous natural disasters known as Catastrophes.
The population wasn’t fighting Sangvis Ferri; they were dying from a terminal infection called Oripathy and suffering from Originium radiation.
Everything was fundamentally, terrifyingly different.
Even the girl who had taken him in—the one who looked a bit like WA2000 but cheerfully introduced herself as Exusiai—was a complete mystery to him.
To this day, Lynn couldn’t figure out why she had bothered to save his life.
He knew exactly how pathetic he had looked back then.
Starving in the wilderness for a month had reduced him to a walking skeleton.
When he had desperately clung to the beautiful girl’s leg in the wasteland, he had been fully prepared for her to put a bullet in his head.
But when he had broken down and screamed, ‘God!
Just take me now!’, the girl’s expression had shifted into something incredibly peculiar.
She had crouched down and asked him a few basic religious questions.
Things like, ‘You shall have no other gods before me,’ and a few inquiries about sin and divine punishment from the Book of Revelation.
It was basic trivia anyone who read enough fantasy web novels would know.
Lynn had rattled off the answers, and for some inexplicable reason, the girl had happily dragged him home.
Later, after he tentatively recounted a few more biblical stories he remembered from pop culture, she had become entirely convinced of his divine connection.
Despite being a literal Angel with a glowing halo hovering over her head, she swallowed his incredibly clumsy “amnesia” excuse without a second thought.
Honestly?
It felt a bit like he was scamming a very gullible child.
This lingering guilt made Lynn increasingly desperate to find a job so he could stop leeching off the kind-hearted Sankta.
Other people’s goodwill wasn’t an excuse to be a parasite.
And because she was such an exceptionally beautiful girl, the shame of eating her food for free burned even hotter.
He was a normal guy with a functioning conscience, after all.
But this world was making it impossibly difficult.
“Lungmen.
Penguin Logistics.
Mobile Cities…” Lynn muttered, staring at the clippings taped to his bedroom wall.
“There’s no global internet.
The cities look like they’re stuck in the industrial age, yet half the architecture is ancient.
Plus, people can use Originium Arts to cast magic, and the rocks give you rock-cancer.
What kind of grimdark setting is this?
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun?
Is Originium just Tiberium?” He paused.
Well, he couldn’t confidently say Tiberian Sun didn’t have cute girls, since he had never actually been there.
Squinting at the political trends and recruitment ads Exusiai had kindly scavenged for him, Lynn desperately searched for a single entry-level job he could physically handle.
There was nothing.
If this had been a highly digitized world like his original one, his skills as a chronically online writer would have kept him fed.
If it had been the Middle Ages, the random historical research he had done for his novels would have let him invent something useful.
But the societal chaos of Terra was simply appalling.
Even the lowest-tier jobs required strict identity documents.
The communication networks were fragmented and weak.
Any underground job that didn’t ask for an ID demanded lethal combat skills.
And to top it off, literal mages existed.
Their Industrial Revolution wasn’t powered by steam; it was an Originium Revolution.
The tension between the infected working class and the ruling governments was a powder keg soaking in gasoline.
If a single spark dropped, a full-scale rebellion was guaranteed.
The Infected had the numbers, the capability, and the motivation—all they lacked was a leader to light the match.
Lynn absolutely refused to go anywhere near the Originium mining zones.
The data made it explicitly clear that stepping foot in those was a delayed death sentence.
But back in the safe zones, even sweeping the streets required a valid Lungmen ID, which he didn’t have.
Did this mean his only option was selling himself to a pharmaceutical lab as a test subject, just like the dark rumors on the streets suggested?
But what kind of high-end lab would want a physically weak shut-in for their experiments?
Besides, the pay might be astronomical, but how many test subjects actually walked off the operating table alive?
His life might not be worth much right now, but he wasn’t about to throw it away.
He couldn’t even fall back on his writing.
He had spent the last week drafting a massive stack of fantasy manuscripts, pouring all his worldbuilding expertise onto paper.
But when he proudly showed them to Exusiai, she gently informed him that publishing houses wouldn’t even look at a manuscript without a registered ID.
Plus, there was a very real chance that his standard isekai tropes wouldn’t appeal to a demographic traumatized by rock-cancer and Catastrophes.
Damn it, what does this world want from me?
Is it actively forcing me to be a deadbeat?
Staring at the chaotic web of social events and job listings plastered across his wall, Lynn felt a headache throbbing behind his temples.
“…Whatever.
I’ll just bake an apple pie.” Today was officially a wash.
Looking at the messy pile of rejected manuscripts on his desk, he shook his head, pushed himself out of the chair, and walked toward the kitchen.
The short-term rental wasn’t large—barely forty square meters in total.
Aside from a cramped shower room and a small bedroom barely big enough for a bunk bed, the rest of the apartment was entirely swallowed up by the kitchen and living space.
Pushing the door open, the refrigerator and stove sat directly facing the main entrance.
A standalone oven rested on the counter, looking heavily used.
The apple pie he had prepped earlier was resting on the counter.
He pulled an egg and some leftover flour from the fridge, quickly whisked an egg wash, brushed it over the lattice crust, and slid the heavy pan into the preheated oven.
Before long, the rich, comforting aroma of baked apples, butter, and cinnamon began to waft through the tiny apartment, cutting through the sterile smell of the city outside.
“It’s still not going to be as good as the one Exusiai makes…” Lynn muttered, leaning against the counter.
His own baking was perfectly fine, but inhaling the sweet scent filling the room, he had to admit his roommate’s cooking was simply on another level.
It was strange, though.
Even though Exusiai was a phenomenal cook, she rarely ever stepped into the kitchen herself.
Did she have some weird quirk about it, or was she just too busy dodging bullets at work?
Pushing the random thoughts aside, Lynn grabbed a paperback Exusiai had bought a few weeks ago off the dining table and sat down to kill time.
But before he could even flip past the table of contents, the sharp click of a key turning in the lock echoed through the room.
Less than a second later, the front door swung open, accompanied by a bright, energetic voice.
“Yahoo~!
That smells amazing!
Prophet, did you bake an apple pie?” “I just made it,” Lynn replied, not looking up.
“I was about to put it in the fridge to cool.” “As expected of the Prophet!
Did you foresee exactly what I was craving today and prep it in advance?
Love ya~!” “No, I just happened to think I should make one…” And could you please stop calling me Prophet?
I’m really not a prophet, okay?
Just call me Lynn.
Closing the book in his hands, Lynn finally looked toward the doorway.
The Sankta girl, her vibrant red hair tied into a messy side ponytail, kicked her shoes off and bounded excitedly toward the dining table, her halo glowing brightly in the dim apartment.
But as Lynn’s eyes drifted to the second figure stepping through the doorway behind Exusiai, he froze.
“Miss Texas?
What brings you here?” “Grabbing a meal with a coworker.” The tall Lupo woman stepped into the light.
She reached up, pulling a cigarette-shaped stick of dark chocolate from her lips, and snapped it in half with her teeth.
Her smooth, dark wolf ears twitched slightly as her sharp eyes swept the room, finally locking onto Lynn.
She did not look pleased.
Her cold gaze dropped to the garish pink paperback resting in Lynn’s hands, clearly reading the title: How to Make Friends Quickly.
Lynn sat there, blinking back with a completely innocent expression.
“It’s you, Lynn.” Texas’s voice was flat, but the temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees.
She stared down at the strange book, her expression growing even more dismissive.
“The fact that you’re still here is…
surprising.
And you’re still reading garbage like that.” She crossed her arms, her dark eyes narrowing.
“Let me guess.
You still haven’t found a job?”