Three years later…

  Michelle

  “Do you have everything?” Michelle asked.

  Luna rolled her eyes. “Yes, Mom. I’ve checked everything three times.”

  “I know, I know, but it’s easy to forget things.”

  Luna didn’t comment. Michelle locked the front door behind them and they walked together to the prearranged carriage.

  Luna smiled as she spotted her girlfriend, having finally gotten together with her a year and a half ago, much to everyone’s immeasurable relief.

  It really was a fairy tale romance for her, wasn’t it? Her childhood friend and eventual lover was secretly a princess, and she went from having no home and just me as family, to having lots of people who love her and a city that she’ll miss while she’s away.

  Both Luna’s and Nipha’s families were gathered to see them off, as were Izara and other close friends from school. The two girls were going to travel together, and with a group of people they already knew would be good teammates.

  After loading up her luggage, Luna made sure to give everyone a solid hug, which took a while.

  “Goodbye, everyone! I love you!” she called out.

  “I love you, too, sweetie!” Michelle called back to her.

  The carriage began to move once everyone was aboard.

  “And just like that, she’s gone,” Michelle said.

  Her wives hugged her.

  Nipha still hadn’t decided whether or not she wanted to be Queen, but she still had several years to decide. She was currently leaning in the direction of not going for it. Regardless of her decision, Luna would be by her side no matter what.

  Luna and Nipha actually had an advantage that most people didn’t have when traveling. Roumazi created a few permanent ice cubes for them that they could simply shatter if they were in trouble or just if they wanted to check in.

  I don’t normally miss having a cellphone, but right now I definitely do.

  “Moms, I’m going to the library,” Diamond said to them.

  “Okay. We’ll see you when you get home from work,” Sarah replied.

  The remaining teenager sighed and began walking back home. Elana had made great progress since leaving Earth behind, but she still had a lot of issues to work through. She enjoyed the quiet that alchemy provided her, and her Gift allowed her to rapidly shape materials and help in other, smaller ways. They had even experimented with her creating molds out of her barriers and then casting metal in them.

  The additions of Elana, Michael, and Liz to their workshop allowed them to increase production a bit, but they weren’t intending to become some kind of huge blacksmithing franchise or anything, so their current output was fine. Demand for more interesting gear was still gradually increasing, and other smithies were starting to take notice as well.

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  I can’t wait to see what people are wearing at the next tournament now that more interesting things are starting to catch on.

  Michelle had even finally managed to create wearable clothes out of her ice. She had originally intended to create durable clothing for use when riding her bike, but her armor was still the better option. Still, the ability to create regular clothing out of ice and snow was a lot of fun to play with. She just had to make sure it was entirely opaque, at least outside of the bedroom.

  She had the urge to go for a drive right now, but might unintentionally follow her daughter for a bit if she left, so she instead began walking home with everyone. The enchantment for the bike had been finished recently as well, so Michael had also had his share of fun driving it around.

  They were already working on a second version. They also considered eventually trying to build one entirely out of enchantments rather than relying on Michelle's Gift, but it was still unclear if something that complex would even be possible.

  Having a sibling is nice, but then again, I didn’t grow up with him. Luna and Diamond hardly ever had any problems, though.

  Michael had tried going on a couple dates with people since moving here, but found himself much more interested in smithing at the moment.

  He also occasionally tried experimenting with wearing more feminine clothes now that he was no longer constrained by Earth's ideas of what was appropriate, but still had no idea what he was really doing. But that was fine, and no one was forcing him to do anything. Michelle had long since gotten used to wearing whatever she felt like, whether it was masculine, feminine, or both, and Michael would also eventually reach that level of comfort.

  Liz was happier than she had ever been, also getting to fulfill her sword lesbian fantasies just like Amber. She hadn’t consistently been in a relationship with anyone so far, but was quite enjoying the freedom she now had. And she took to blacksmithing just as eagerly as her sister had.

  It’s interesting being on the teaching side of things. It really helps with my own learning.

  With the Gift Senava had abruptly received three years ago, she began looking more into how printers functioned and was working to improve them as a side project alongside some specialists.

  This was not only a favor for Sarah, but having that technology would also be highly beneficial for the Queendom as a whole.

  Sarah also decided to create a bookbinding tutorial with detailed illustrations from her wives. She then grew annoyed when it became her most popular book practically overnight. While there already were blank books for sale, many of them weren’t exactly formatted for writing stories, so there were many who found bookbinding an interesting idea. And writing things out by hand was much more common in this world where computers didn’t exist, which made it much more valuable.

  Sarah’s stories were gradually picking some regular readers. She was still quite far from being a famous author, but she was happy that people were interested. She was still self-publishing, but the demand was starting to be a bit much for just their family to make all the copies.

  She’ll probably have to talk to publishers again.

  Michelle hopped into the conversation pit with her wives. They were all feeling a little forlorn that one of their daughters was now on her own and the other would likely be moving out soon as well.

  Luna’s powerful and skilled, and we put everything we had into her armor and sword. She’ll be fine. She’s an adult now.

  She awoke several hours later by Michael opening the front door to let the royal throuple in.

  “Ahh, that looks cozy,” Senava said, seeing the Woods polycule all rubbing the sleep from their eyes.

  Roumazi laughed, “Sorry. A nap just seemed right, after seeing them off.”

  Rayna smiled. “I took one, too. Didn’t get to sleep in a pile, though,” she pouted at her wives.

  Amber yawned and stretched. “Game night?”

  “That’s still the plan, yes.”

  Elana stayed in her room for most of the night, but did come out to chat for a while. Diamond simply returned to her own room after her workday was finished. Michelle didn’t miss that the wolf paused for a moment before entering. The sisters had been by each other’s side for twelve years, after all.

  Be well, Luna. Come back with interesting stories.

  The Sandwich and the Egg, was written with no plan whatsoever, and I was running out of energy in only chapter 4. I forced myself to rush an ending there, because I knew that if I didn’t write it then, then I would never get to writing an ending for it at all, so that's why that story only has six chapters.

  IOI is the sole exception to this, and you could consider that one an experiment I’m doing to see if I actually can write more than one story in the same universe. No progress on that yet, though. I don’t have enough ideas to even attempt writing it right now.

  Dialu is not only the longest story I’ve ever finished, but it’s also an older project of mine that I managed to pick back up and complete! I have literally never finished an older project before. Every single story I’ve posted on this site has been completed in one go, with the exception of this one. That’s nearly always because I hyperfixate until I lose interest, regardless of whether or not I have a complete story. As I mentioned earlier, I’m gradually figuring how to work around that.

  Adventurer’s Guild: Seems like there always has to be one of these, doesn’t there? The Slayer’s Guild here is basically the same thing, except there aren’t any dungeons to explore or ancient and powerful relics to discover.

  Bandits: It's a really common trope in isekai for bandits to attack. And they always only want one thing. So I mentioned that these bandits were only after their supplies and nothing else.

  Cheats: The characters do get special abilities from the gods, but the abilities are much more personal than just “you can cast any magic” or “you’re super strong”.

  Genderbend: Michelle doesn’t just go “Oh I’m a woman now, I’d better start acting feminine and wearing makeup” and then learning really stereotypical feminine behaviors and skills while still insisting she’s a man. She instead ends up on a journey of self-discovery about her genderfluidity, and other than some feminine clothing, which she doesn’t even wear all the time, she makes no effort to act any specific way.

  Gods: They always show up in isekai stories pretty much from either accidentally killing the protagonist, summoning them, or being evil. I had mine fail to prevent the summoning, and instead then spent a lot of time making sure all the thousands of Earthlings at least had a chance in this new world. The slavery thing was prevented, the gods directed the Kingdom’s soldiers to the base to take care of them, and the gods also personally met every single Earthling to give them a Gift. Also, the gods in this world are more about maintaining how mana flows than by doing anything that requires worshipers.

  Happy Ending: This one is more complicated I think, because I didn’t neatly have everyone achieve their dreams and become the best there ever was and all that. This is more of a “life goes on” ending. The store is still going just fine, but interest in more interesting equipment is still low. The kids are grown up and going their own ways. Michael still isn’t entirely sure about his identity. Sarah’s books have only achieved minimal success.

  none of that is canon. Maybe some of it eventually happens, maybe it doesn’t.

  Harem: There is a relationship between four women, but they are all with each other, rather than everyone being in love with some guy and instead being only friends or possibly even enemies with each other.

  Magic: There are tons of different magic systems out there, but for this story, I decided to go with the six elements setup (air, water, earth, fire, light shadow). But I felt that was too boring by itself, hence the modifiers. There also exists a sort of additional null type of magic in the world, but that can only be achieved through enchantments or Gifts. I only implied the existence of it in a few small ways. Gifts being able to do otherwise impossible things was one way, the Empire ripping souls in half was another.

  Monsters: I didn't want to lean too heavily on goblins, slimes, orcs, and all the other typical fantasy monsters out there, so I instead made ordinary animals be monster versions of themselves.

  Nobility: It’s super common for isekai protagonists to get involved with nobility in some way or another. Usually by serendipitously rescuing a princess. So I had Luna instead just unknowingly befriend Nipha in school.

  Overpowered: The characters do end up pretty powerful by the end, even having Gifts and fusion magic, but they are by no means the most powerful people in the world or anything like that. Even with fusion magic, Michelle still lost against Worra.

  Past Life Memories: It's really common for past lives to have little to no relevance whatsoever on an isekai story, to a degree that you wonder why it's even an isekai in the first place. In this case, I tried to make them struggle to adapt. The entire first year in the new world was basically Depression Town for them. And then they started a store, hoping to emphasize their ideas from Earth, but the results were lacklaster. Not entirely devoid of hope, however.

  Quests: There will usually be some ancient mystery or grand evil scheme that needs to be prevented. That’s fine, but like Sarah, I prefer smaller stories. Or more specifically, I like to focus on characters rather than action. I do have some ideas for stores that have more action, so I guess I’ll see how they go when I eventually get to them.

  Race/Species Advantages/Disadvantages: So it's pretty common in not just fantasy settings, but a lot of stories where there are multiple species of people, be they elves, aliens, or whatever. I tried to really dial that back for this story.

  Racism: Why does every single isekai story have to have racism? Just no. Instead, the characters were hated at first because they were from Earth. And it should be speciesism, not racism. I know English is a messy language, but when people refer to race in a fantasy story, they nearly always mean species. Maybe I'm getting annoyed at pointless things, but it still bothers me.

  Religion: Pretty much every isekai has one main god that is worshiped and then a bunch of side gods. I think that’s a common thing in stories because people are so used to the idea of monotheism, that when writing polytheism, they still end up having a main god.

  Revolutionizing Something: A lot of isekai protagonists somehow end up revolutionizing some industry. They’ll introduce things like soap, shampoo, Japanese cuisine, water pumps, double-entry bookkeeping, crop rotation, whatever. And so they come off as geniuses and make lots of easy money. I hate that. Side characters in tons of isekai stories only exist to be stupid and weak, just to show off how great the protagonist is so he can save them with his high school knowledge and unearned strength.

  Saving the World: The group returned to Earth and prevented everyone from dying by sealing off the barrier before things could get apocalyptic. It was all Roumazi’s work anyway. The others didn’t even need to be there, and Roumazi could’ve just left it to one of her siblings instead.

  Setting: It’s really common for fantasy stories to take place in a medieval European setting. That’s not inherently bad, but I want there to be more variety. That’s why Efrinteu’s architecture that I only briefly mentioned was generally based on Mexican architecture. And it’s also why there is plenty of magical technology in this world that could be described as modern.

  Slavery: I didn’t want to write about this, so I only mentioned it. When the Empire was going to do that, the gods were like, “No, fuck you,” and personally intervened. Basically, I put it in there just to slap it away, because I despise how frequently it comes up in isekai stories.

  Tragic Past: Isekai protagonists tend to always have a sad past. This is an easy way of gaining the reader's sympathy for a character, while also making it so that the protagonist doesn't have a lot of attachments to their previous life. I didn't really do anything differently for Michelle and Amber. In Michelle's case, her sole attachment to Earth, Luna, came with her.

  Virtual Reality: Stories involving worlds based on VR games tend to have the game world become real somehow, and it will usually keep a lot of the game’s characteristics, such as NPCs still being around or a stat system. So I went in the opposite direction of that trend, and instead had the game be based on the real world of Torneltha.

  Hey, super late additional edit for this. In this story, I intentionally leaned hard into isekai tropes. A result of that was having the characters befriend royalty. That super sucks, to be honest. Royalty sucks. I have various regrets about this story, and that's probably the biggest one. I have plenty of ideas for a rewrite, and if I ever get to doing that, the whole royalty thing will be replaced entirely. The characters would still be there, but not how they were in this original version.