Vape Shop Isekai: A Retail Manager’s Guide to a Stolen World

Mark blinked, turned his head slowly to Cody, and blinked again. “Dude.”

The first guard stood, baffled. The look on his face said, “Buhhhhhhhh.”

The second guard, thankfully, fucking lost it. He doubled over in a full belly laugh that stunned the already stunned guard. “Ahhhhhh ha ha ha! He… he said… he said he’s gonna spank our little butts! Bwahahaha!”

Mark couldn’t figure out what happened, but he knew it was time to retreat and get out of this elf girl body. Grabbing Cody by the arm, he tugged. “Excuse my brother, he choked on a hotdog as a kid.”

They quickly dashed into the back alley behind the Pizza Hut, hoping the guards wouldn’t give chase. They didn’t. Mark came to a stop and morphed back to his pale Changeling form. “Holy shit, dude. Did you just nat one?”

Cody pressed his huffing orange cat body against the brick wall. “I believe I did. Do you have extra underwear? I think this game engine pulls random fails like our normal ones.”

Mark’s mind turned. How could they get up to Kristen Stewart’s Bluff? They needed to get to the capital to meet the girls. “I’m perplexed. A lot of the world is still my world, and a lot of things still work like they should, but it's like… the UI has been replaced.”

“Yeah,” Cody shook his head. “Did Craig fucking skin your game like mobile games?”

“What the fuck?” Mark chuckled. “The guy is two months short of an eviction on Earth, and he’s the king of my world?”

Cody scratched his chin whiskers in thought. “I don’t know, but to do this we are going to need some help—”

Just as the word left his mouth, Cody turned translucent and froze.

Mark panicked. “Dude? Cody?”

Seconds later, Cody returned to normal, a look of utter confusion on his face. “Are you kidding me?”

“What?” Mark was puzzled. “Are you okay? What happened?”

Cody gave a small scowl. “I like to help—” Cody flickered translucent again.

But before Mark could say anything, he was back. This time rolling his eyes. “It’s a help—” He vanished into translucence, then snapped back to normal. “—menu. It shows the basic commands, but there isn’t an action with it. It's just anytime someone says the word, I think.”

“Must be a glitch,” Mark said. “Did you find any useful commands?”

“Watch this.” Cody walked over to the center of the alley and pointed at the snowy ground. “Noob Chest!”

A normal-looking wooden chest appeared right where he pointed. He reached down and opened it. “Seriously?”

Mark shook his head and reached into the chest, pulling out a cheap vape, a bottle of vape juice, and yet another discount card, this time with another marketing scheme. “Slay your way to the best vapes in Tawagoto!” Under the vape gift box was a single short sword, a buckler, and a set of leather armor. Cody picked up the leathers and held them up to his feline body. “These won’t fit me, but I’ll take the sword since you probably can’t even lift it with your four strength.”

Mark cocked his head. “At least I’m not ginger.”

“Whoa!” A heavy metal door opened, revealing a drow woman in a Pizza Hut uniform. “Kinda harsh, huh? Catfolk can’t choose their fur color!”

They both looked at the drow. If she only knew.

“I’m good,” Cody responded to her. “He’s my best friend.”

“A best friend who treats me like that is exactly what I want,” she said, pulling out her vape. She leaned her back against the wall and took a long draw. “You shouldn’t be back here. Employees only.”

“Trust us,” Mark responded. “We would get out of here if we could.”

“Why can’t you?” she asked, blowing a massive cloud right between them.

Mark coughed and cocked his head. “Menthol?”

“Yeah,” she said. “So?”

“My shop has a huge menthol selection,” Mark said automatically. "It’s hard to find anyone else who stocks it beyond a few cheap brands.”

Her eyes widened. “You own a vape shop? Where is it?”

Mark stammered, “Umm, well…”

“Sorry to interrupt the date,” Cody cut in, peeking around the brick corner. "But the guards have left the lift.”

“Where are they?” Mark asked.

“They just walked into Pizza Hut,” Cody replied.

“Oh, Grungar and Spence are good guys,” the drow said, letting out another cloud. “Are you two… in trouble?”

“You could say that,” Mark said, starting to spin ideas for them to get out. It was usually the players who came up with the creative stuff, and he just came up with the stupid pop-culture drenched world to play in. “We need to get up to Kristen Stewart’s Bluff so we can get to the capital and meet our friends.”

The drow took an overly long draw from her vape, staring into Mark’s eyes the whole time. “I can get you up there.”

“How?” Cody folded his furry arms over his chest. “And why? We don’t even know your name.”

“Raven,” she said, letting out the long draw overly slowly. “Because you are going to take me with you. I need to go home to visit my family, and the only way I can do that is to get to the capital or Watershallow, but that’s much further and more dangerous.”

“You want us to bring a drow to the Plunderdark?” Mark was incredulous. “Why? So you can plan an uprising?”

She stared at Mark for what felt like eighty-five years before she spoke. “Yes. Now do you want up there or not?”

Mark thought for a moment. Drows weren’t changed much in his version of the game. They were easy to dunk on, so he left them alone, but this one was clearly safe enough to make pizza, so he would have to trust her for now. She was the only lead they had. “Okay.”

“Are you sure, dude?” Cody asked. “We always figure shit out with enough time.”

“Yeah, but I’m not the strategic one, you guys are.” Mark felt exposed. “I’m the creative, you are the military, Simon is the tactician, and Sara is the legal mind. I have no idea how you guys come up with your ideas.”

“What are you even talking about?” Raven wondered.

“Nothing,” Mark sighed. “How do we get out of here?”

Raven’s apathy seemed to fade some, and she bubbled up with nervous energy. “Wait right here, I gotta go get my stuff.” She slipped inside the door.

“She’s a drow,” Cody said quietly. “She’s just waiting to backstab us.”

“Maybe,” Mark shrugged. “But what choice do we have?”

The door clicked open again, and Raven came out, holding a Vape Much, My Friend? plastic bag and a large pizza box. “Hope you guys are hungry. Follow me.”

Raven opened the box of pizza, pulled out a slice, and passed it to Mark. “It’s displacer bacon and mushrooms.”

Mark took a slice, staring at the thick, almost sweaty bacon. “You got bacon from a displacer beast?”

“No, Jeff did that,” Raven said, taking a bite and chewing. “I just cook.”

“Why are we walking straight toward the lift?” Cody asked, already on his second piece.

“You want to go up, right?” Raven ducked under the gate and threw a heavy iron lever. “Better get on, fast.”

The lift groaned and creaked to life, and Mark’s adrenaline flooded his veins. “We just get on?”

Raven just stared at the wooden lift, which was now rising past Mark’s knee level. “Coming? You might not want to be here when they get back.” She pointed to the guards who were now running out of the Pizza Hut, swords drawn.

Mark jumped on, followed by Cody. “We are just going to ride it up?”

“Raven!” The lead guard screamed. “I’m gonna tell your manager about this!”

“Go ahead, Spence!” She jerked her thumb up the lift. “Chadwick’s in Sunnydale! I’ll let him know you’re looking for him!”

The one Mark assumed was Grungar slowed to a halt and stopped, realizing the lift was going up, and their asses were toast. He cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted up. “Tell Viola I liked her cakes! Marta and Senna say they miss her!”

“Will do!” Raven responded casually with a wave as they ascended up the side of the sheer stone face.

“Do this often?” Cody smirked, already leaning against the corner post, his hands folded over his chest as the icy wind picked up.

“About once a week,” Raven shrugged. “I got family up there. Friends. Just because that slimeball appeared out of nowhere like a god doesn’t mean he owns me.”

Mark completely deflated of panic and rage and into concern. “You mean Craig?”

Raven shot a deep scowl into his eyes. Her black pupils were like an angry void that sucked him up. “You know him! I saw it all over you. You know that store, you know that world, and you are going to help me stop him.”

Mark’s brain broke. In that exact instant, over the rhythmic, heavy grinding of the iron lift gears, he realized what he had done. By making this world real, he made the people real. And their problems. Fear, joy, deep sorrow, revenge…

“Ok.” Mark shook his head and stepped closer to the railing, really looking at the woman. He saw the harsh lines etched into her face, the dark bags under her eyes, and the slight hunch in her shoulders. In human years, she looked 50, but was no more than half that. “I will absolutely give you everything I can to shut this asshole down.”

Raven studied him hard. She had likely heard it all before. As she thought, Cody slid a cat finger up his nose, unintentionally drawing a near eruption of laughter from Mark at the sheer juxtaposition of his view.

“Ok,” Raven finally said. “When we get to the top, let me do the talking so we can get off clean.”

Mark sighed, relieved. “I’m Mark. Cat is Cody. We know the world well, but our knowledge is pre-Craig. What can you tell me about him from your perspective?”

Raven looked up the side of the passing stone cliff. “It takes about five minutes, so I will give you the short version.”

“Yeah,” Mark said, raising his voice to reply over the wind. “Give me what you think are the most important beats.”

“Everyone loves him.” She shook her head, a sad smile touching her gray lips. “I… I don’t get it. He’s ruining my world.” She pulled a vape out of her bag and waved it in front of her. “He got me… doing… this thing. Something I can’t stop!”

“Real quick,” Mark said, his voice dropping to a serious register. “You want to quit today?”

Raven cocked her head. “Yeah. But I can’t. I say that every day.”

“Let me tell you what made me quit,” Mark said. “Every person I’ve told, it works so far.”

“What is it?”

“Why do you vape that?” Mark asked. “In the simplest terms you can think of.”

She narrowed her blue eyes. “To make me feel okay again, I guess.”

“It doesn't make you okay, Raven. It makes you obedient,” Mark said. His voice was quiet, but it carried a heavy, undeniable weight over the grinding gears. “There is a poison in that oil called nicotine. It doesn't cure your panic; it creates it. Before Craig got here, your mind was your own. The first time you breathed that in, it carved out a piece of your peace. It left you empty.”

Raven stared at the metal device in her hand, her gray lips parted.

“Every time you feel that urge you can't stop, that’s just your body begging for the wholeness he stole from you,” Mark continued, leaning forward. “You crawled out of the Plunderdark. You cut yourself out of the Spider Queen’s webs so you could finally own your own mind. And now you’re letting a guy named Craig wrap you in a new one. You’re paying him for five minutes of the freedom you already bled for. He broke your world just to sell it back to you in pieces.”

She lowered the vape and looked at it. She looked back at Mark. “Escaping was…” She stared at the device, raised it above her head, and—

“Stop,” Mark said calmly, catching her wrist. “Don’t throw it away. Not yet. That is a trap, too.”

Raven cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

“Turn it off,” Mark said. “Put it in your bag and challenge yourself to make it one day without using it. Then two days, and so on. I still have my last pack of cigarettes. Just in case I need it. Although, it's probably old and stale by now.”

“Cigarettes?” Her eyes narrowed again.

Mark nodded. “Bag!”

He reached into his materialized pack, pulled out a box of cigarettes, and opened them, showing them to Raven. “This is what they used on us before the vapes in our world.”

“Why do you keep them?” she asked. “If they are so harmful?”

“In case I need them.” He shrugged. “Nothing deeper than that.”

Raven put the vape back in her bag and tucked it securely against her side. “Ok. Thank you.”

“Free will over control any day,” Mark smiled. “What’s that music?”

As the lift approached the top of the wall, festive music played, and people cheered. The rich smells of roasting foods wafted across the night sky.

Raven’s eyes went wide with dread. “Oh no.”

Mark's gears spun a million miles an hour, but he had nothing.

“Fuck yeah!” Cody screamed as they peaked on the lift and looked out on a sprawling festival glowing brightly in the colored streetlights. “It’s Alvistide!”

[SYSTEM ALERT: Quest Complete.]

[XP Awarded: 4,000]

[Level Up Available! Unspent Attribute Points: 2]

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