Chapter Text
I really should’ve taken cough medicine.
This was my only thought as I sat in bed, coughing repeatedly.
It had been a nice night up until The Incident, which meant that I should’ve known better, during spring.
Seriously? I don’t want to die like this…
The coughing had reached a point where I could no longer breathe.
Someone, please stop this…
I could no longer stay up, feeling myself fall against the bed.
Fuck, I'm sorry…
They would be devastated to see my corpse.
—------------------
…I woke up, my teeth chattering as I gasped for breath.
Cold? But it was hot as hell when I was-
Looking up, I was at the outskirts of a city, the snow gently falling on the ground. I looked around, the sides of the road bare except for a sign.
But what I saw written on it made my blood run cold.
Welcome to Seattle, WA.
Everything snapped into place.
I JUST GOT ISEKAI’D INTO DUNGEON CRAWLER CARL!?!?
OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD-
Normally, I’d be screwed over.
However, unlike other SI fanfics I’d read before, I actually read the source material.
No solely being dripfed misinfo from Tiktok or Instagram shorts for me!
And man, was DCC a doozy-
Shit, what time was it?
I was then aware of a weight in my pockets.
A phone.
Taking it out, I saw it was 2:19 A.M.
Fuck.
Even if I wanted to warn people, there was no time for it. All I could do here was wait for the starting point of the books. With this in mind, I took a look at my face, using the phone as a mirror.
Logically, I knew that aside from Carl and Donut, there were no survivors in the Seattle starting point.
But still…
AREN’T SI’S SUPPOSED TO INCARNATE INTO ALREADY ESTABLISHED CHARACTERS?!?
The person looking back at me wasn’t me.
Whoever this poor fucker had been before, she was prettier.
….a hell of a lot more pretty than my 19 year-old frumpy ass could’ve ever been.
Putting that to the side-
*SLAM*
There it was. The start of everything.
Surviving humans take note….
I was pretty sure that was Cascadia’s voice, so I’d have to wait until after to see one of my favorite characters~
The System AI(or SAI, for short♥️).
God, what a delightful little freak. SAI always kept an eye on Carl, living out its dark romantasy dreams with him…
Wish I had someone who liked me.
Oh right. I wasn’t Carl, and I would never dare to presume myself his equal, but I could do something to guarantee SAI’s interest, however briefly it may be.
But did I want to, was the question.
SAI had a tendency to harass at the worst possible moments, after all(and that’s what I loved, when this wasn’t my reality)…
Oh, who am I kidding! I’m sticking to the Royal Court like glue! There’s no fucking way I'm keeping my feet covered if I'm going in there anyways!
Staying outside? No way in hell. Dinniman never wrote much about the outside, and all of the outside action takes place in India anyway.
Plus, I’m most likely going to die again if I stay outside in this cold. While the thought of getting isekai’d twice is amusing, it’s not gonna happen.
Taking my shoes off, I found out that the body I took over had some nice feet. Or at least, I thought they were.
Jackpot.
Carl went inside the instant the doors opened, so I had to wait ten minutes to go inside. It should allow me to skip the goblins and find them while they’re still opening boxes…
Did I really spend enough time musing that the clock ticked over to 2:36 A.M? No matter, since I had apparently been lucky enough to arrive near an entry point.
Showtime.