2 Change is Nigh

Roku felt weightless for a few seconds as he was gently tugged through a black void. He was half-relieved that the muscular man didn't crush him into a bloody pulp, but he was half-afraid that he wasted his isekai by dying so pathetically.

More moments passed and Roku did not notice the surrounding darkness relenting.

"No, no, no, NO, NO, NOOO!!! I can't be dead! I can't be remembered like this!"

He despaired and clawed his way through the empty space.

Suddenly, he felt a tugging sensation. It grabbed his chest and threw him back into the world of the living.

"Bwuah!" Roku gasped, breathing in great gulps of air.

There was a dim amount of light showcasing his surroundings. Roku swiveled his head from side to side to gain his bearings, but then noticed he couldn't move the rest of his body.

"Nani?!" he exclaimed.

Roku had rope tightly wrapping around his body. Two greenish and short creatures carried him on their shoulders. Their ugly faces sported warts, scars, and flaky skin. More of them walked ahead, shouldering bags, weapons, and even other tied-up people.

The two carrying him glared at Roku.

"Hey, human awake!" shouted the one with a cleft lip.

The other goblins temporarily stopped and looked at Roku with interest.

"A-are you goblins?"

"Yes, and you human! Stop dumb words! We move!" shouted a goblin with an elaborate, yet ridiculous headdress made out of white shirts impaled on antlers that covered its entire head.

The goblins continued deeper into the shade of the forest.

Roku feared the worst. He'd been given another chance just to be eaten at the hands of some lowly goblins! Where was the justice in this?

After a minute of depressing thoughts, Roku realized he had to do something or else he might actually die for real. Maybe goblins could be negotiated with? They didn't kill him immediately, and they captured others too. If he talked with his two close captors, Roku might work something out.

"Hey, Mr. Goblin. Why did you take me?" he whispered to the goblin with the cleft lip.

It looked offended and growled at Roku. Out of nowhere, it slapped him!

"Name Gobrina. I girl!"

Roku gave her a wronged look! How was he supposed to know, with how ugly they all were and how similar their appearances were!

"Ah, I'm sorry, Ms. Gobrina."

Roku heard the other goblin growl and he looked over to see it was offended too!

PAH!!

He was slapped again!

"Gobrina mine. She Mrs. not Ms."

Roku wanted to cry, but not because of the pain, but that goblin accidentally smeared an unidentifiable brown and smelly substance along his face!

"Yes, yes, Goblin, sir. I'm sorry!"

Both goblins growled again. Roku cursed mentally and braced himself.

PAH!! PAH!!

They both slapped him with full force!

"We girl! No man! You dumb human!"

Roku's face felt like it was swelling and he gagged on the stench. He rubbed his face as much as he could on his shirt and then apologized again.

Roku didn't speak under their withering stares, and so, he remained silent. Instead, he wondered why he got so unlucky. Did he already use up his luck?

Both of his two captors were female and they had an illicit relationship! It was beyond shocking for his vanilla Japanese mindset. It would be a totally different story if they were human… Still, how could monster love like this exist!?

Then he thought back to why he was kidnapped, along with what looked like other men.

"No, it can't be…" he murmured to himself in Japanese. "Impossible…"

Yes, Roku was thinking of the worst case scenario. It all clicked. Girl goblins, no men, and kidnapped human men? Goblins were all female! They were uglier than a fetid tumor growing off the bottom of a fungus-covered foot, but they were female!

This was the legendary harem that isekais promised? Damn it! No, it was more like reverse rape! Horrendous, terrifying, manrape!

Roku shuddered. Not like this! He did not want his first time nor the rest of his life dedicated to this! But he just ruined his chances at negotiating with these two already. He had to wait until they calmed down, since it seemed like any word out of himself would cause them to beat him up.

They all finally arrived at the goblin village. It was extremely shabby, with a sparse and flimsy fencing. The home appeared little more than large branches leaned against trees.

There weren't any words. The head goblin pointed and the group split to sort food, weapons, and "livestock." They took Roku and the three other men deep into the goblin village. A gigantic tree about two men wide and over a dozen tall towered majestically over the diminutive goblins.

The humans were dropped and then pushed into the impromptu lean-to. They rolled down a dirt stairway leading further down. Surprisingly, it was softer than expected.

Their imprisonment was sparse. It was little more than a dugout with compact dirt walls. Yet strangely, it was not cold. Rather, it was strangely warm.

Roku took this time to squirm around and check out who else got caught.

"Ikemen! They're Ikemen!"

They all looked in their mid 50's, but were exceptionally handsome! It didn't seem any of them were hurt. Actually, it was frightening that they calmly and patiently waited, almost in anticipation. With such suave appearances, Roku couldn't help but feel they were dependable men. Maybe they were planning an ambush or knew how to trick goblins?

"Good sirs! Do you speak Gelsh?" Roku hopefully asked them in English.

"What buffoonery is this kid talking in?" spoke the clean-shaven man on the left.

"Japanese!" Roku couldn't help himself from exclaiming. "You speak Japanese!"

"Did those goblins slap your brains out, lad? We're speaking in Kami-sama," berated the man with a short beard on the right.

"Ano, I'm sorry about that. I was too excited. You sirs know how to get out of here, right?"

"""No,""" all three of them flatly denied.

Roku's mouth fell open.

"What do you mean, 'No?' They're goblins! Don't you know what's going to happen to us?!"

"Yeah, what about it?" growled the bald men in the center. "We chose to get caught."

Roku was dumbfounded. Was this a prank? What kind of isekai was this?!

"W-why?! That's insane!"

All the men mockingly laughed.

"That's easy for you to say, you dirty Raijuu!"

"Shitty Oshare! Do you think us normal men are jokes?"

"Fuck off, with you, Ikemen! You know how it is for men like us!"

Roku shook his head, noticing they spoke in the same order as before.

"I haven't the faintest idea what's going on."

"Of course not! You fell from a tree and into our harem! Do you know how hard it is to find decent-looking goblins?"

Roku gagged and almost threw up. Those goblins were the decent-looking ones? Like that one with a cleft lip or the other that had an absurd overbite that she might as well be a degenerated Neanderthal? And these Ikemen wanted these monsters in their harem?

"We were rejected from humanity for our ugliness! It's not our fault we were born this way!"

Roku didn't understand. Ugliness? Weren't these guys top-class Ikemen?

"We just want to get laid! Just live away from everyone else, without being reminded of our wasted youth!"

Roku paused in his thoughts.

"No, it can't be… Where I come from, I'm ugly. You all are the best Ikemen I've ever seen. Why are you talking like I've done something wrong?"

The three men exchanged looks.

"It can't be…"

"No, not another Kami!"

"Your greatness, we are sorry for offending you!!!"

Roku gritted his teeth, but then let out a long sigh.

"Please explain. I don't understand."

"Well…"

"About 40 years ago, we were hailed as the Triumphant Trio."

"We were the most handsome, talented, and liked men of our generation."

The clean-shaven man regretfully sighed.

"And then everything changed when the foreigner arrived. Kami no Chikara."

"Kami changed our continent's entire language just by existing. We don't even have records or remember using any other language other than Kami-sama."

The bald man began crying.

"Then, he reversed how people see appearances. All the beauties now looked like uglies. All the uglies look like beauties. He's gathered a harem of the most clean-looking and shapely women without any competition. We can't even reject him, because they are physically repulsive to us."

The bald man slammed his head on the dirt ground in frustration.

"Even if we wanted to hurt him, we were forced to challenge him. And he never lost!"

The man with a short beard chewed his lips.

"It was that bastard's teapot. That damn golden teapot with an elongated spout! That shitty thing that he lovingly called a 'lamp!' If we had it, we wouldn't need to find monsters to get laid!"

Roku was shocked and also extremely sympathetic. So, it turned out there was another person who was isekai'd? Why did that bastard get three wishes when Roku had nothing to his name!? He sighed.

Well, having the ability to isekai when laughing to death was something. Yet, it was extremely specific and uncertain. What would happen if he didn't die from laughter? Would he isekai again, regardless of how he died? It was too risky to test, so Roku decided to laugh himself to death if caught in a terrible situation.

Speaking of which, Roku wanted to laugh to death right now. It's just that he was planning to do so when the two horrifically ugly goblins from before showed up with the head goblin.

"Gobrina. Bring good one here."

"Yes."

Roku was dragged over, feeling the searing hatred from the jealous Ikemen.

"It's not like I want this to happen, okay?"

They ignored him as Gobrina set Roku sitting upright.

"Oh. He look good. Lots of features. Dark eyes. Thin face. Just my type."

Roku shivered as he heard its raspy voice. When it slurped in anticipation, he felt his butt clench up.

"Untie him."

"Eto… there, um, is no reason to get hasty. We just met, right?"

"I want it, I get it."

"Don't you have something else to do?"

"No."

"Can I—?"

PAH! PAH!! PAH!!!

The three goblins slapped his face red! Roku moaned in pain and his brain began to shrivel from the sheer stench of their hands. By now, Gobrina fully untied Roku. However, there was a big problem.

"M-my legs! What did you do to my legs!?"

Roku's legs were twisted in the opposite direction. Miraculously, he hadn't felt a thing. Sadly, that was because he couldn't feel anything below his waist.

"What wrong human? Why shock?"

The three Ikemen sucked in their shocked gasps and guiltily looked away after discovering Roku's crippled condition.

The head goblin was surprisingly gentle as she touched Roku's legs.

"Don't touch me!!" he roared. "You'll make it worse!"

Both Gobrina and the head goblin backed off from him, causing Roku to fall on his side.

"My legs! Oh, God, I can't feel my legs!"

Roku flailed about, and in dead silence, pulled himself onto his stomach.

"You! You did this!" he shouted, jabbing a finger at the goblins. "If you unclean and lustful monsters hadn't disturbed me, I would still be able to use my legs!"

The goblins fell to their knees and began apologizing. It was now that Roku realized something.

Goblins gained confidence with numbers. Now that there were more humans than goblins here, even if the humans were tied up or crippled, they would obey confident commands. If he didn't take action, he would live as a toy.

Newly empowered, Roku started to maniacally cackle.

"Die alone! You don't deserve love!"

With those last words, Roku was overtaken by laughter. He laughed at the goblins! He laughed at the Ikemen! He laughed at isekais! He laughed at the universe!

The turmoil of being oppressed and oppressing others changed him.

And with that, Roku's laughter died down and his head dropped onto his arm as he breathed his last.

The goblins and the Ikemen shivered, hearing the echoes of his laugh intrude their thoughts. For the future, they would be more meek and cautious, especially when expanding the goblin village.

However, that story was for another time.

Roku felt weightless for a few seconds as he was lightly pulled through the nothingness. Its familiarity soothed his mind. Here, there wouldn't be anything to hurt him. After enjoying the calm, Roku focused on leaving this place.

"Gah!"

When Roku woke up, he found himself in a bed. Sheets swaddled him like a newborn. Nothing disturbed him in the quiet of the room.

He checked his surroundings and discovered himself to be in someone's home. It was a stranger's room, with a bed, a desk, and a nightstand. Eerily, it was quite normal and unassuming.

Roku went to the door and listened for a person. Hearing no sounds, he cracked it open a slit and peered through. It was bland and simplistic. There was nothing unusual.

Paranoid by the lack of danger, Roku scrounged through the whole house. He discovered it was a small home sitting atop a green hillside. A forest grew off in the distance and if he focused his sight, there was smoke off in the horizon that blocked the setting Sun.

"...Am I safe?" he questioned himself. "Huh."

Facing so many extremes without rest completely exhausted Roku. There were too many things that happened. It just so happened that he also appeared in a place to rest.

With his reconstructed body, Roku laid himself in the bed. He was determined to protect his life and break through the cycle of isekais.

But, for now, he needed to sleep. As he drifted off into unconsciousness, night came uneventfully.