Takumi Sato woke up to silence.
Not the gentle, birdsong kind of silence. The weird kind. The kind of silence where something's missing — like the sound of neighbor Tanaka's alarm blaring through the paper-thin walls, or the early morning honking traffic, or the washing machine upstairs that sounded like it was summoning demons.
Takumi blinked, rubbed his eyes, and sat up slowly on his futon.
He checked the time on his phone.
6:32 a.m. Too early to question reality, too late to go back to sleep.
He slid open the curtain and squinted.
No buildings. No alleyway. No rusted vending machine with suspiciously warm soda cans.
Instead, a thick green forest filled the view, sunlight piercing through the trees in glowing shafts. Beyond that, a gentle river wound its way through a grassy clearing, its water shimmering like something out of a travel agency commercial. Birds chirped cheerfully. Something in the bushes made a sound that was definitely not a cat.
Takumi stared at it.
Then he did what any overworked 30-something salaryman would do in this situation.
He sighed and shuffled toward the kitchen.
The kettle boiled. The toaster popped. The coffee, blessed caffeine, remained instant but miraculously present. The whole house — walls, fridge, flickering Wi-Fi router, leaning coat rack — was still intact. Even the bent garden fence outside and the half-dead bonsai he'd forgotten to water had made the trip.
Kuma, his 60-kilogram Saint Bernard, lay snoring on the living room floor like a furry boulder with occasional foot twitches. Takumi had bought him four years ago during a bout of burnout, reasoning that if life was going to be exhausting, at least it should come with something soft and drooly.
He padded across the tatami and nudged Kuma's side.
"Kuma. We've been isekai'd."
Kuma let out a deep, vibrating snore that rattled the cup on the coffee table.
"Glad we're on the same page."
After finishing his toast and brushing his teeth with bottled water — the tap didn't work anymore, and he didn't trust the river water yet — Takumi put on his sandals and opened the front door.
Warm wind. Birds. A sky so blue it looked photoshopped.
He took a cautious step onto the lawn. It was still patchy and sad, the same way it had looked in Tokyo, only now surrounded by lush wilderness instead of grumpy neighbors and garbage bins.
Kuma waddled outside behind him, yawned enormously, and flopped down in the grass like he owned the forest.
They walked slowly toward the river. The morning dew soaked through Takumi's socks. His breath came out in little puffs.
The river was clearer than any water he'd seen in real life. It flowed gently, bubbling over stones, and sparkled like someone had dumped a bag of glitter into it. He bent down, splashed some water on his face, and immediately regretted it — it was ice cold, like mountain spring water during tax season.
Kuma sniffed a bush, sneezed, then plopped his entire body down onto a sun-warmed rock.
Takumi sat beside him, shoes now thoroughly soggy. "Well," he muttered, "this isn't Shibuya."
They wandered a bit further, enjoying the quiet strangeness of the forest. The trees looked mostly normal — oaks, maples, something that might've been magical pine — but the animals didn't.
There were birds with feathered mustaches, squirrels with glowing tails, and once, a rabbit that looked like it had six ears and was debating quantum physics with itself (possibly).
But it wasn't until they started heading back to the house that they saw it.
From behind a moss-covered boulder waddled a creature.
Round. Feathered. About the size of a small beach ball.
It was unmistakably a duck.
Except it had majestic, curling deer antlers rising proudly from its head like it was cosplaying as a forest god.
The duck stopped. Stared.
Takumi stopped. Also stared.
Kuma sneezed dramatically, which made the duck raise its head higher, as if insulted.
Then it quacked — loud, throaty, commanding.
The sound echoed off the trees like a royal decree.
And just like that, it turned and waddled back into the forest, antlers bouncing with every step.
Takumi turned to Kuma. "What the hell was that?"
Kuma licked his paw like he didn't see anything weird.
They didn't say a word on the way back.
Takumi walked briskly. Kuma followed, ears back, occasionally glancing over his shoulder like he half-expected the antlered duck to show up with backup.
Once home, Takumi stepped inside, gently closed the front door, locked it, then slid the chain across with dramatic finality. Just to be sure, he shoved a chair under the handle.
Kuma lumbered in behind him and flopped down in the genkan like a hairy rug that had given up on courage.
"…Right," Takumi muttered. "We've angered the Duck King."
He peered through the peephole.
Nothing.
He tiptoed over to the back door and locked it too. Then the windows. Then the kitchen vent. Then—just for good measure—he duct-taped the cat flap shut, even though he didn't own a cat.
Out in the yard, the fence remained crooked and unimpressive. But when Takumi stepped outside and tossed a rock at it experimentally, the pebble bounced off with a metallic ping and a flash of blue light.
He narrowed his eyes.
The fence was the same crooked mess it had always been — rusted corners, a bent support pole, and a suspicious stain that might've once been from neighbor Tanaka's failed barbecue.
But now, it shimmered faintly where the pebble hit, sending out a ripple of pale blue light before going still again.
Takumi reached out cautiously and poked one of the posts.
The moment his finger made contact, it buzzed softly — not enough to hurt, just enough to say "I noticed you."
He jerked his hand back like he'd just touched an electric toothbrush with a grudge.
"…Noted."
Kuma watched from the doorway, tail thumping once like a sleepy drumroll.
Takumi picked up a stick, gave it a skeptical look, then gently jabbed it at the fence.
Nothing happened.
He pushed harder.
Still nothing.
He took a few steps back, wound up like a middle-aged Little League pitcher, and hurled the stick with all the pent-up frustration of a man who had once worked 14 hours just to be told his overtime wasn't billable.
The stick hit the fence squarely—
—and bounced back at twice the speed, spiraling through the air before lodging itself into a flowerpot with a loud THONK.
Takumi blinked.
Kuma sneezed.
"…Okay," he said slowly, brushing soil off his pajama pants. "The fence is booby-trapped. But only from the outside."
He walked around to the inside of the gate and gave it a little shove.
It opened normally. No sparks. No magical alarms. Just a creaky hinge and the faint scent of iron.
"Self-defense mode," he murmured. "Passive until provoked."
He turned to Kuma. "This is either a magical sanctuary or the world's weirdest Airbnb."
Kuma flopped onto his side in agreement.
Back inside, Takumi peeled off his muddy socks and made a beeline for the kitchen.
He opened the cabinet. Rice, soy sauce, instant miso — all there.
He flicked on the electric kettle. Still working.
Then the fridge.
Still cold. Still humming.
He hesitated, then opened the freezer.
A single ice cube tray. Full.
He laughed. Not a loud laugh — a quiet, fragile, post-reality-crack sort of laugh. The kind that said "I'm fine," but in Morse code.
Kuma barked from the genkan — not a warning bark, more like "you forgot to close the door again."
Takumi shuffled over and slammed the front door shut.
Then locked it.
Then slid the chain again.
Then shoved the chair back under the handle.
He sighed deeply, checked his phone (no signal), and slumped onto the couch next to Kuma, who was now trying to fit his entire body onto one floor cushion with the dignity of a beanbag wearing a fur coat.
Takumi stared at the ceiling for a long moment.
"…Maybe I'll go insane by Thursday."
From the porch, there was a distant quack.
Kuma didn't move. But his tail gave a single thump.
Takumi rolled over and groaned into a throw pillow.
"We definitely angered the Duck King."