Before I could step through the threshold of reality and into the unknown, I had a few… administrative matters to handle.
People think "interdimensional traveler", and they imagine epic speeches and glowing portals.
They don't think about the logistics.
They don't think about the paperwork of the soul.
In my case, "normal" was a relative term.
For me, the morning checklist consisted of packing shelf-stable calories, checking the structural integrity of my survival kits, and throwing several forgotten fallen angels out of my shadow dimension like bags of expired groceries.
You know.
The usual.
First came the supplies.
Even though my Inventory System was an eldritch marvel capable of storing a small mountain's worth of gear, common sense was still a prerequisite for survival.
I was diving headfirst into a world whose environment, culture, and basic laws of physics were a total mystery.
Would the water be toxic?
Would the inhabitants use gold, or bartered souls, or sea shells?
I packed with a methodical, almost paranoid intensity.
Rations that tasted like cardboard but provided 3,000 calories a day.
Iodine tablets.
A portable stove that hummed with a soft, blue magitech glow.
Medical kits packed with everything from sterile gauze to high-grade stimulants.
Emergency flares, heavy-duty climbing ropes, and enough layers of clothing to survive a sudden shift from a desert to a tundra.
Honestly, if a stranger peered into my Inventory right now, they'd think I was a doomsday prepper documenting a month-long survival odyssey for a cable network.
But preparation is the only thing that stands between a "heroic arrival" and "dying of thirst in a ditch."
Usually.
With the baggage settled, I moved on to the more… animate problems.
Specifically, the three fallen angels I had completely forgotten were living in my shadow dimension.
Again.
To be fair, they had been dwelling in the same spatial pocket where Giratina usually brooded.
It was a realm of shifting violet mists and absolute silence.
Technically, they weren't suffering.
The dimension was temperature-controlled and physically stable.
But being repeatedly forgotten by the person who literally owned your existence?
That's the kind of thing that does a number on your self-esteem.
I flicked my wrist, peeling back the fabric of space.
A distortion pocket rippled like a stone dropped in a dark pond, and three very confused, very disheveled fallen angels tumbled onto the floor in a heap of tangled black feathers and bruised dignity.
"Ah," I said, my voice echoing in the quiet room. "There you are."
They looked up at me with the hollow-eyed stare of prisoners who had long since accepted that their captor had died and left them to rot.
Their wings were tattered, their tunics wrinkled.
"Right," I continued, snapping my fingers before they could find their voices.
"Change of plans. You three are going to Azazel."
Before the first "Why?" could leave their lips, I twisted the air.
Space groaned, a vacuum-seal sound popping as I ( by Giratina) shunted them across the distance to Azazel's current coordinates.
I attached a mental post-it note: Explain everything to them.
Azazel would understand.
He was good at that sort of thing.
Probably...
More importantly, he now had the unenviable task of explaining to these poor idiots that their entire race had essentially become my subcontractors.
To think of the look on their faces when they realized they went from "lost prisoners" to "unpaid interns for the guy who threw them in a hole."
My slave-... I meant workers!
I sent a final command to Azazel: Train them. As hard as inhumanely possible.
I genuinely couldn't remember why I kept them around.
Maybe it was a subconscious habit of a collector.
Maybe I felt they'd be useful as cannon fodder later.
Or maybe, deep down, I just didn't feel like being the one to pull the trigger.
Though I think my inner hoarder just wanted to keep them?
Whatever the reason, they were alive, and their survival rate was—honestly—the most impressive thing about them.
"Preparations complete," I muttered.
My conscience was as clear as it was ever going to get.
In the living room, Mashiro and Ravel were waiting.
They both held small, sensible suitcases.
It was a charming gesture, really, considering I could fit a skyscraper in my pocket, but I didn't have the heart to tell them.
"Here," I said, opening the Inventory interface.
With a faint shimmer-pop, the suitcases vanished into the void.
Ravel gave a small, appreciative nod, her crimson eyes tracking the magical flux that she is unable to track, and clicking her tongue.
Mashiro just watched with that same placid, porcelain-doll curiosity she always had.
I stretched my arms, feeling the phantom itch of magic beginning to coil in my marrow (which I didn't even have much).
"So," I looked at them both.
"You two ready? We could be gone for a week. We could be gone for a decade. The clock doesn't always tick the same way where we're going."
Ravel straightened her posture, her expression hardening into one of noble resolve.
Mashiro gave a slow, rhythmic nod. Calm. Spacing out.
It was a good team, even if one of them was technically a walking disaster.
I pulled up the interface and added them to the group.
[Party Members: Zevion, Ravel, Mashiro]
Then, I turned to the tall, elegant woman standing by the window.
"Giratina. Stay in your human form. We're going for 'mysterious travelers,' not 'apocalyptic harbingers.' A giant, six-legged shadow dragon is a bit of a conversation killer."
She bowed, her golden hair cascading over her shoulders.
Her form shimmered with a heavy, oppressive power that she expertly tucked away.
"As you wish, Master."
Everything was ready.
The air in the room felt thin, charged with the static of an impending jump.
I took a breath that felt like it was half composed of ozone.
"Alright, guys—" I paused, glancing at the three women. "—girls. Time to go. Brace yourselves. We have no idea what the gravity is like on the other side."
I tapped the Dimensional Travel Interface.
Two options pulsed in my vision.
[World #1]
[World #2]
I picked the second one.
Why?
Pure, unadulterated instinct.
If World #1 was a trap-filled hellscape or a dimension made of sentient screaming, I'd rather deal with that on a Tuesday, not a Monday.
I pressed [Confirm: Dimension #2].
Reality didn't just break; it folded.
The room didn't disappear; we were no longer in it.
Space twisted violently, wrapping around us like we'd been sucked into the core of a collapsing star.
Darkness didn't just fall—it consumed.
For a heartbeat, there was no sound. No weight. No 'me.'
Just the sensation of being dragged through the needle-thin throat of a black hole at speeds that defied math.
Then—snap.
A violent, howling gale murdered the silence.
Freezing air slammed into my lungs, stealing my breath before I could even gasp.
My eyes snapped open, and for a second, all I saw was a blinding, endless blue.
We weren't on solid ground.
We weren't even close.
"…Oh," I managed to choke out.
We were miles up.
The ground below was a beautiful, terrifying tapestry of emerald forests and jagged mountain ridges that looked like tiny wrinkles on a map.
Fluffy, white clouds drifted beneath our boots.
And then, physics remembered we existed.
We began to plummet.
Rapidly.
"WAIT!" Ravel's voice was a jagged streak of terror against the wind. "WH—?! WE ARE FALLING! WE ARE ACTUALLY FALLING FROM THE SKY!"
Beside her, Mashiro was falling with her arms neatly tucked, looking like she was participating in a high-stakes competitive diving event.
She looked… peaceful.
I felt a pang of secondary embarrassment.
Ravel was the one raised in a world of devils and magic, yet she was losing her mind.
Mashiro had been a civilian forty-eight hours ago, and she looked like she was enjoying the view.
"Giratina," I called out, my voice whipped away by the terminal velocity.
"Yes, Master?" She sounded as calm as if we were having tea.
"Handle the landing. Preferably without us becoming craters."
She moved faster than the eye could track.
Even as we fell.
She didn't transform into her dragon self, but her power flared.
Before I could blink, she scooped me up into a firm, undeniable princess carry.
My dignity died somewhere around the thirty-thousand-foot mark.
In the same breath, she snared Ravel and Mashiro, hauling them close until they were gripping her shoulders for dear life.
We became a single, blurred projectile.
The friction of our descent began to heat the air, a faint orange glow flickering around us like a re-entry capsule.
From the ground, we probably looked like a vengeful meteor sent to erase a zip code.
"Why 'the princess carry,' Giratina?" I yelled over the roar.
"It is the most secure hold for your frame, Master," she replied.
The ground rushed up to meet us—a blur of grey stone and bright colors.
Just before we hit the point of no return, Giratina didn't just slow down; she rewrote the rules.
Space around us buckled.
The kinetic energy of our fall was redirected outward into a massive, invisible shockwave.
We hit the ground with the force of a tectonic shift, reduced to a small crater.
A crater 4-5 feet wide erupted in a spray of dust and pulverized stone.
But inside that circle of destruction, we landed with the softness of a feather.
I blinked, waving away the dust. As the haze cleared, the scenery resolved.
We weren't in a forest.
We weren't in a field.
We were in the dead center of a massive, stone-walled arena.
The silence that followed our impact was deafening.
Thousands of eyes were pinned on us.
To our left and right were rows of spectators in tunics and fine silks. Directly in front of us were armored figures—dozens of them.
Knights in polished white dress, capes fluttering in the wind of our arrival, hands already white-knuckled on the hilts of their swords.
Magic circles pulsed on the floor around the perimeter.
The air smelled of ozone, old stone, and the sudden, sharp scent of fear.
Great, I thought. A public event.
One knight, decked out in more gold filigree than the others, stepped forward.
He leveled a dangerous wooden sword at my face.
"Identify yourselves!" some random knight bellowed, his voice echoing off the high stone walls. "State your business, invaders!"
I slowly stepped down from Giratina's arms, adjusting my coat and trying desperately to pretend that the princess carry hadn't just happened in front of an entire kingdom.
The good news?
The Translation perk of being in an isekai was working; I understood every word.
The bad news?
Understanding them didn't change the fact that we had just crashed a tournament via orbital drop.
"This," I muttered under my breath to Ravel and Mashiro, "is going to be a very long afternoon."
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