Gods and Demons Descend

Prologue: The Birth of an Otaku

"Ten thousand miles of wind gathers clouds and mist, forming banners to slay the black dragon!"

William Carter is my name, but its meaning is nowhere near as elegant as the poem my father wrote.

My father is a chain smoker, who loves nothing more than puffing clouds of smoke. The first line about ten thousand miles of wind and clouds is pure nonsense; the "black dragon" in the second line is a dog older than I am. My father liked to take a deep drag and blow smoke into Black Dragon's nose, laughing at its pitiful struggle.

When I was five, Black Dragon died. Even though my mother strictly forbade it, I became the next target for my father's smoke-blowing antics. That's why I absolutely hate smoking, especially secondhand smoke.

In middle school, I gradually developed a dislike for men who smoke. By high school, I simply disliked men altogether. Unfortunately, as a human whose gender symbol points upward, I have very little appeal to women, which means I basically have no friends.

Other than seeking comfort in novels, manga, and games, in other people's eyes I am a very eccentric person. People like me have an unflattering nickname that came from a country across the sea—otaku! But I really, really hate this label, just as much as I hate that country.

Chapter One: I Am a Purebred Human

Although my personality is a bit gloomy, my intellectual development is normal, and my academic performance is unremarkable. Except for the three years after college graduation when I couldn't find a job and had to go to grad school, and then another three years after my master's with no job, forcing me to hack my way through to a PhD, my life has been relatively calm.

Of course, "relatively calm" and "smooth sailing" are two very different things, but at least, after eight years, I finally graduated with my doctorate, and never once did I have the urge to jump off a building and escape to another world.

I endured the last stretch of my student life, and for once, I didn't have to go through another three years of job hunting hell. Less than a month after graduation, I received a high-level job offer from the most famous international company. Just as I was happily preparing to start, I encountered a freakishly unlucky event worse than all my previous misfortunes combined—I was actually abducted by aliens.

I was locked in what seemed to be a bathroom on a spaceship. The aliens injected me with countless strange drugs every day, threw me into all sorts of suspicious machines, and ran endless analyses and experiments on me. They practically stopped just short of slicing me up for research.

For a while, I had recurring nightmares that these alien freaks would cut off my little buddy, then reattach it... cut it off, then reattach it... and each time, the model was different. Thankfully, such a terrifying thing never actually happened.

Who knows how much time passed. One day, when a pleasant voice came through the speaker in my cabin and said the words I'd been dreaming of, I was so tormented I could hardly believe it.

"Dr. William Carter, the experiment we invited you to participate in has yielded fruitful results, so you are now free."

I stood there dumbfounded for a long time before screaming at the top of my lungs, "You damned aliens, what invitation? You kidnapped me! Let me go home!"

"Sorry, we are now hundreds of billions of light-years away from your home star system and are about to return to our home planet. We have no way to send you back."

"Then what am I supposed to do, you bunch of worthless bugs? Are you going to take me to your home planet and put me on display as a pet?" Hearing that I couldn't return to Earth, I felt like I'd fallen from the sky straight into hell, bawling my eyes out without a care for my image. Hell, I probably never had any image in the eyes of these aliens anyway. Who cares which lab rat is more handsome?

I spent eight years getting my PhD. My stingy advisor only gave me 150 yuan a month for living expenses and wouldn't let me take side jobs. I was so poor I couldn't even get a girlfriend. Just when I finally graduated and had a bright future ahead, I got unlucky and was snatched up by aliens as a test subject. Now they're telling me I can't go home, and all I can think of is those damned med students and how they deal with test rabbits—roast them and eat them with pretty girls. My major is electrochemistry, and my test subjects are even more damned mathematical models.

"Without permission from the Homeworld Executive Council, we are not authorized to bring any lifeforms to our home planet. Therefore, we will drop you off on the planet most suitable for your survival."