Prologue - The End of a Joke Life

Prologue - The End of a Joke Life

Farmboy Mage Volume 1

Author: Raikiri_Sorcery

I was 47 years old when I died.

An age where most people have a job, a family, or at least a dog. I had none of those. Not even a potted plant, because I’d once forgotten to water a cactus for six months, and it withered right in front of me, not right away of course—it took time for it to actually wither, but still withered in the end.

I wish that was a joke, but like everything in my life, it was just the pitiful truth.

My name was Paul Gapor. A human from Japan. But in my world, that kind of detail did not matter—not when orcs ran for mayor, elves starred in pop idol groups, demi-humans ran multi-conglomerate banks, and dragons were actual pets. Laws around them are strict, such as no country-to-country flying, and you actually need a permit to fly one, not like everyone had a dragon—they don’t.

I was born in a world where so-called fantasy creatures weren’t hidden or living in shadow realms. They were just... there. Co-workers, classmates, and neighbours. Hell, my childhood doctor was a half-ogre, half-cyclops. Dude with three eyes—what is he, a tri-clops? Hah! He was a nice guy, just with terrible handwriting. Typical for doctors, I suppose.

Despite that, despite all that diversity, I ended up like this.

I was a shut-in loser, a useless man who lived in his mother’s home for two and a half decades. At forty-seven years old—a skinny man—I had kissed no one, never held a job longer than three weeks, and the only time I traveled was to attend a manga convention. Even then, I almost passed out from anxiety in the train station. These were traits born of isolation and long years of negative thinking and low self-esteem.

So yeah, not the hero type you might expect from a story like this.

Sigh...

I wasn’t always like this, you know.

There was a time when I had dreams. I really loved chemistry. Spent nights curled up with textbooks instead of comic books—even now, I still remember all the elements in the periodic table like it was yesterday. I even earned a master’s degree, thinking that hard work and passion would open doors, but reality wasn’t some neat chemical formula. Really, it was just chaos in a darn bottle.

Every interview ended the same way.

“Thank you for coming. We’ll be in touch.”

Liars. They never were.

I even travelled the entire country of Japan for an entire year—relying on my father’s money to do so. Time after time, I’d see the job I wanted handed to someone else, but my competitors.. Ugh!

An elf with an ageless face and a resume a hundred years long. A dwarf with a perfect attendance record from a guild older than my family tree. A demon who knew twelve languages and flirted with the recruiter mid-interview.

Maybe it was because, historically, humanity has been the one that was obsessed with conquest, so we’ve gotten a pretty poor reputation already even before I was born. Next are demons, which are even more diverse; some have generally worse attitudes, but they are known for having one of the best life spans in the world, just below elves, which, having a really long life span, are very valuable.

What about fairies? They don’t particularly live that long, around 50 years max. But here’s the thing: they’re practically in demand through crop farming; their pixie dusts are very valuable for agriculture, especially in a total population of combined races of intellect, 17 billion. The world is really overpopulated, and the government has even placed artificial lands for the extra people.

And what about humans, you may ask?

I was a human, below average to the standards of this society. You might even call us disposable. Maybe it was because, as I already mentioned, historically, humanity has been the one that is obsessed with conquest, so we’ve gotten a pretty bad reputation; that probably contributed to why I did not get any of the jobs I wanted, and eventually... I gave up.

Also, did I not mention humanity is dwindling? Like, I have seen research on media that humanity will be coming to an extinction in the coming centuries due to us having lower birth rates. Harsh, isn’t it? It’s not fake news, at least; I’m certain it isn’t. It’s literally shown on television and in podcasts through graphs and research papers.

Twenty-two years. That’s how long I wasted.

I stopped trying. Stopped hoping. I deleted my job board apps and replaced them with gacha games. I stopped talking to friends (what few I had left) and locked myself inside my room. Morning, noon, and night blended together until the only calendar I followed was the one tied to seasonal anime releases.

Well, I do have a job. Translating manga to English on the internet, a freelancer, not like it pays well, just enough for a meal. For my age, that was just the worse. I was just a skinny loser, stuck in my room within my mother’s house like a damn baby.

My parents had divorced during those twenty-two years. I was supposed to have a sibling, but.. her.. The head did not develop. Thus, dying in the process. It caused my family great distress, and eventually, they divorced. My mom stayed in Japan while my father moved out of the country.

My mother... She never gave up on me. We lived with her new husband, a demi-human rabbit. A bit of a prick, but we don’t talk much.

She brought me meals. Paid the bills. Left the TV on for background noise, pretending it was for her. Sometimes she talked to me through the door, even when I didn’t reply.

My father? He moved to Australia. Married a dwarf woman from New York, of all things. I heard she was nice. He tried to reach out, now and then, but I ignored him. What was I supposed to say?

“Hey Dad, I’m still unemployed and living like a ghost in Mom’s house. Sorry I turned out this way, haha..”

Seriously, the @#$%..? Shame. SHAME!

I didn’t have the courage, nor did I have anything.

Then, one day, he called again and said he missed me. Said he wanted to see me. He sounded... tired. Not angry. Not even disappointed. Just... sad. To my surprise, Mom didn’t stop me, and she just nodded.

“You’re still his son,” she said. “Go.”

And so I did.

I packed a bag, my first time doing so in decades, and boarded a flight to Australia. For once, I thought... Maybe things could change. Maybe, even this late in life, I could start over. But fate is cruel. Even in a world of countless possibilities, humans still find ways to ruin everything.

The plane was hijacked. By humans.

They had covered their faces with ski-masks, and one of them even wore a condom to cover his face. They’re terrorists, if I wasn’t making it obvious enough. Desperate, angry terrorist with guns and a cause I didn’t understand.

I was sitting near the front; I was too close to them.

One of them grabbed me. Pressed a barrel to my neck. Yelled something about opening the cockpit or he’d shoot me. I remember the pilot’s voice over the intercom. He was surprisingly calm, and he refused the terrorist’s request.

I remember the shaking in my legs. The cold sweat dripping down my back and then... Something inside me snapped.

I thought,

Screw it.

If this was how I was going to die, I wanted to at least go out doing something right. It’s most likely I elbowed him, and then I grabbed the gun.

And what you guys might expect, I failed.

I heard the shot before I felt the pain. My chest exploded with heat—oh, that stinging sensation. Then another shot, and another. The world spun in my vision, and people screamed. My knees hit the floor; afterwards, my face followed. There was blood, so much blood.

“Damn it... Is this how my life is going to end?”

That’s all I could think as my vision blurred. Not regret, not anger, but one just lingered. Shame. Shame that I died like a side character in a tragedy no one would read. A meaningless life & a pitiful death.

But..

Something strange happened. When I felt my senses dying out, my hearing, my vision, and my sense of touch... I suddenly heard crying. It was faint at first, but it got increasingly louder by the second. Not from me, and definitely not from a crowd.

A baby..?

Then I realized something instantly: no, wait. I was the one crying...!

It was a strange feeling; one moment I felt everything going dim, and suddenly I heard my own voice loud and clear.

My eyes opened. The world was warm, blurry, and loud. Two giant figures hovered over me. A woman with golden hair and powerful eyes. A man with a calm smile and weathered hands. I had tiny fingers, I couldn’t speak, and I couldn’t move properly. And yet, in my mind, I was still me, Paul Gapor.

[End]