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

“What the fuck happened here?” Simone stared down the empty streets of the Shafted ward of Rocksylvania. “All of this because they left?”

“Yeah.” Mark nodded. “That’s why the rich are begging us to tailor and provide specialized services.”

They looked up toward the massive terrace on the hill, built literally to look down on the Shafted ward. Beady-eyed nobles, getting thinner by the day, peered over the rails not in grim satisfaction but desperation.

“Isn’t this where the source is coming from?” Simone stalked down the picked-clean alleys, feeling somehow intimately familiar with the streets. “Even with free rein over their homes and architecture in Etokuso, they still chose to build everything exactly the same.”

“They really do have lovely architecture,” Mark replied. “Slanted metal row houses with gardens, Moroccan roof cities despite the pricks above, and woonerf streets.”

“But metal,” Simone added.

“Mosh pit urbanism.” Mark paused and rubbed the spot on their chin where their goatee used to be, then pulled their hand back with a snap.

Simone felt the shared pain strike her chest.

Mark. Her Marky. Cracked and all running out.

“Should we go to the upper city?” Simone asked.

“As much as I want to see the classic aged aesthetic, I think we need to keep going.” Mark looked relieved. “Glandalf’s tracking app says we keep going.”

Simone looked beyond the city and saw nothing but stone and rock.

“Keep going? The other side of this neighborhood is the end of the city.”

A loud crash echoed through the undercity. A shadowy figure flitted almost imperceptibly across the dead courtyard.

“What was that, Simone?” Mark pulled closer, a sickened look on their face.

Simone stood stock-still and grabbed Mark’s hand.

“Shh.”

She honed in on her elven hearing and followed the sound. Footsteps moved in the distance. She turned her head, tracking exactly where they went.

She knew that sound from Etokuso.

A child’s step. A teenager at most.

“Hey!” Simone called. “We aren’t here to hurt you! We’re from Etokuso!”

The footsteps stopped.

For a moment, there was nothing.

“Did my mom send you for me, Simone?” a familiar voice called back.

Her brain fired immediately.

“No, Dez. I had no idea you were even gone.”

A young Shafted girl stepped out from behind one of the homes and approached. Her wild rainbow hair cut through the muted tones of Rocksylvania. Something about her looked different.

“I had to come,” Dez said. “I had some things I left behind, and…”

Simone waited, but Dez did not continue.

“And what, love? You know you can talk to me anytime.”

Dez crossed one arm self-consciously over her chest as tears formed in her eyes.

“It’s nothing.”

Simone approached and put a hand on her shoulder. “Okay. If you ever need to talk, you know where to find me.”

Dez pressed her chin toward her chest.

This wasn’t her. Something more was wrong.

“I’m fine.”

Mark approached and gave Simone a look. Simone let her hand fall from Dez’s shoulder and stepped aside.

“Hey,” Mark said. “We won’t tell Lacuna you’re here. You are going home, right?”

Dez’s chest sank, and she released a sharp sigh.

“I…I don’t know, Mark. It’s just…”

She looked toward the horizon and spaced out for a long, tearful moment.

“I don’t want to live in Etokuso. I don’t know any other way to say it.”

Simone’s heart sank. She felt a shock she refused to show. This was the first time she had heard anyone express discomfort about the town.

“Is something wrong?” Simone asked. “Do you feel unsafe?”

Dez stared deeply into Simone’s eyes. It was a look Simone knew and didn’t know at the same time.

“Everything is wrong. Everyone’s so…nice. So invasive. I don’t know…”

Simone’s eyebrow rose. “So nice?”

Dez shook her head and deflated.

“I…yeah. About my gender.”

Simone was bewildered but held her composure. “They’re supposed to be, Dez. Being trans is completely normal.”

“I know. It’s…” Dez’s voice trailed into a whisper. “You got a new body…”

A hammer struck Simone’s chest. She pulled a hand to it, bit her lip, and felt her head spin.

“I…”

“She did,” Mark said. “But I didn’t.”

Dez’s head snapped toward them. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Mark paused to gather their words. “We don’t magically change bodies when we change how we express our identities. That’s the lived reality of approximately forty-three percent of Etokusopudlians.”

“Forty-seven,” Simone gasped quietly, still stunned.

“Forty-seven,” Mark continued. “What we do is live, treat, and love. You’re only a month away from your bottom surgery. You’ve seen how successful the procedures have been.”

“No, but she got a cis body!” Dez pointed at Simone, then covered her mouth to stifle a sob.

“Dez.” Mark stepped close and placed a hand on each of her shoulders. “I won’t get a cis body.”

Dez looked up at them in great pain. “You’re…?”

“Questioning,” Mark said. “I’m using they and them for now.”

Dez took a step back and searched their eyes. “You’re a changeling, though.”

“Dez.” Mark shook their head. “Let me try explaining it in a way you might understand.”

Dez threw up her hands and shrugged. “Shoot.”

“We’re from another world,” Mark began. “When our souls were transported into Tawagoto, they needed vessels. Our character sheets were supposed to create those vessels, but three of them were damaged by the taser.”

Dez’s expression turned thoughtful as she raised a hand to her chin. “Go on.”

“Mine, Cody’s, and Sara’s were damaged, so we received different vessels,” Mark explained. “Simone’s came through intact. Our souls needed containers, and hers worked the way it was supposed to.”

“Dez,” Simone said calmly and with as much love as she could hold, “what happened to me was supposed to be impossible in our world. I have kept and championed my identity as a transgender woman, and I am always available if you need to talk. It’s a really heavy weight, and I would love to talk through it with you more. We can be processing buddies, okay? At home?”

Dez bubbled over with tears and shuddered.

Simone closed the distance and wrapped her arms around the melting girl. They sank to the street, and Dez sobbed into Simone’s chest.

“My body is mine,” Mark recited from one of Etokuso’s most famous murals, placing one hand on Dez’s shoulder and the other on Simone’s. “My body is beautiful.”

Dez slowly pulled back and looked into Simone’s eyes. She began, allowing Simone to say it with her.

“My body is mine. My body is beautiful.”

Dez paused and looked down.

“I’m just so scared. What if it doesn’t feel right? What if…what if how they treat me changes?”

Simone released a deep sigh of relief.

This was something she knew.

“You’ve been living as a girl,” Simone said. “Does it feel right?”

“Yeah.” Dez nodded. “More than anything.”

“Do you want the surgeries?”

Dez took a steady breath and exhaled with the word.

“Yeah.”

“What else matters?” Simone asked. “You are the authority on you.”

Dez stayed quiet for a long moment.

“Yeah. I guess.”

“Wait.” Mark stared wide-eyed toward the wall Dez had come from. “Why were you over there?”

Simone got to her feet after Dez jumped up in a panic.

“What’s wrong, Mark?”

“I’ll go home.” Dez tried to push past them, but Simone stepped in front of her.

“What’s going on, Dez?” Simone asked firmly as her ears perked toward another set of footsteps approaching from above.

“She went to the Respec Fairy.” Mark turned a severe gaze on her. “Did you use it?”

Dez deflated.

“No. I couldn’t. I love my body. Can we talk when you get back?”

“Of course.” Simone smiled warmly.

“I hate to cut this short.” Mark stared at the tracking app, pointing it toward the Respec Fairy’s shed. “But I think I found it.”

“Yeah, you did.”

A voice called down a second before two combat boots struck the street between them.

“Raven!” Mark said.

Raven held their gaze with broken eyes. “It’s erasing us, Mark.”

“What?” Simone’s eyes widened.

Mark held Raven’s gaze, silent and unflinching for one extra beat. In that fraction of a second, Simone watched their world implode.

“Anyone who used it. Fuck.”

Simone’s blood ran cold. “No…”

“Let’s go.” Mark headed toward the shed with their DM face on.

“Can you get home safely, Dez?” Simone asked.

“Yeah.” Dez nodded. “Please be safe.”

“I won’t!” Simone bolted after them and called over her shoulder, “I love you!”

Raven quickly fell in beside her. “Haven’t seen him look like this since Cody got captured.”

“Them,” Simone corrected casually. “They’re exploring their gender. But yeah. And I’m happy you made it back. Catch up later?”

“Hundo.” Raven slid into the room just behind Mark.

Simone stepped into the dusty shed as Mark pulled out the giant dildo horn and held it between them.

“We have to talk to Conquistador,” Mark said.

“Wait.” Raven shook her head. “After twenty respecs, we’re done. Gone. It was at fifteen when Stomph checked me.”

Mark shook their head. “We need answers. Do blows count or only full respecs?”

“I don’t know,” Raven said.

Mark put the profane horn to their lips and blew. A tiny cummental shot from the end.

“Mark.” Conquistador gurgled. “You can’t use me twice. You know that.”

“Why are you erasing us?” Mark asked.

“Ah.” Conquistador nodded. “Direct. Very well. I’m not.”

“Yes, you are!” Raven raged.

“I’m providing a service exactly as I was written to,” he said.

“So you’re not the source.” Mark did not hide their exhaustion. “You’re the method.”

“What does that mean?” Raven asked.

“The Respec Fairy doesn’t let you choose from a list,” Mark said. “You tell it what you need to leave behind, and it works from what you give it. Once Conquistador performs the respec, it connects us to whatever is doing the erasing.”

“But why?” Simone threw out her hands. “Is it going to bring back your people?”

“No.” Conquistador gurgled. “It’s so Sara can become the Queen of Everything.”

Mark did not so much vomit as purge their lunch through a thousand shapeshifted mouths at once.

They turned a shade of white too pale for existence.

“No…”

“What is it?” Raven moved closer, ready to brace them.

“He has to come with us.” Mark rubbed the horn and summoned Conquistador back inside. “I know the source. We can’t let them get it.”

“Why?” Simone followed Mark into the streets with Raven close behind.

“It’s not just the source of the unwriting.” Mark waved one hand and opened a portal home. “It’s the source of Tawagoto.”

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