Close to the New Year's eve, I decided to part with a drabble of mine.

Only Disclaimer: I ain't own anything I'll ever mention or reference in this story, with exception of the Self Insert. Yes, It's that kind of story, peeps.

- Prologue -

MMO-RPGs. Love 'em, hate 'em, but some of them can be quite amusing. There are good ones, there are bad ones, but pretty much all of them do micro transactions to stay afloat… and the fair share of them also give characters just enough clothing to cover the bare minimum of their modesty because of course there's no better way to lure players into your money making machine than the avatar of a curvy female or a ridiculously ripped male.

Meh.

In any case, that's where I am currently spending my time on: Character Creation. Some waste hours upon hours in it to create the most detailed characters ever (or make something utterly hideous), others despair at the options given to them, some just skip through it and others… yea, they just stare at curves all day.

You pick a race, go in-depth, pick a class, optionally a subclass or job class if the creators were too lazy to properly implement an event within the game itself and then go from there. The races usually have benefits and drawbacks attached to them, making ones incredibly good choices for casters or priests/healers while others seem to be destined to be the perfect brawlers or deadliest archers. There's a reason why Orcs are mostly associated with close combat classes like Fighters and Berserkers while Elves, any kind of them, are predominantly casters or archers. Then you have your oddballs like the alcohol throwing, fire breathing pandas, the thieving tieflings… or, every now and then, races with animal appendages. The most known stereotypes of that spectrum are the wolf-people, catgirls, bunnygirls and the foxkin.

And yea, I'm currently doing just that: Creating a Kitsune Miko… shrine maiden… Okay, she's a druid. It's the closest thing available, alright? And yes, the fox demon had chosen a profession dedicated to warding off demons such as herself. Gotta love the irony, ya know?

Hmm, I still need to add the Scribe job class to make "paper-tags" and "sealing arrays", but otherwise I'm done. After all, when the game lets you inscribe one of the more powerful ice attacks commonly known as Fimbulvetr onto a single strip of paper with only the initial mana cost and the "durability" of your "scribing tools" as a cost, you bet people end up creating tons upon tons of scrolls of that… providing their magic attack stat, their "Intelligence", is that shitty. Then again, you can throw these things around like candy and don't have to account for something as stupid as cast time.

In any case, meet Yuki Kazuhira, the white haired (furred?) Foxkin Druid! And yep, I definitely stole that last name from Metal Gear and have no idea what it actually means.

Well then, without further ado, let's begin this adventure by pressing Enter-

*BOOOM*

Ooof…

When I was young, I had made the unfortunate happenstance of placing my hands on a still hot pan, brief as it may have been. Goodness gracious, it had hurt and putting my poor, hurt hand under a flowing stream of cold water didn't help for long to keep the hurt at bay. And being a child back then, it was quite expected that I teared up.

What I am feeling now… is quite similar, except… Well, for one I could feel the similar burning sensation all over my body, alas muscle cramps, stomach aches and the feeling of being briefly constrained (somehow) were added to it… and goodness, I need to visit the next bathroom. And why is everything so friggin' hot anyways?

… Also, why's my face planted into dirt? Dirt? My room wasn't that dusty last time I checked!

(Then again, that was a week ago…)

… Speaking of dusty, there's Dust around me everywhere and I'm inhaling it and it makes my throat hurt and nose twitch and- and-

AAACHOOO!

*sniff*

Ugh, Gods! What is this infernal smell? It reeks of something burnt and rotten, like someone had cocooned an egg in flesh and hair, left it to rot in a far corner of a room, found it a year later and then decided to cook the thing for shit and... giggles…

*giggle*

… Speaking of giggles, despite the supposed-to-be-deafening sound of the explosion I manage to hear giggles beyond the layer of smoke… or am I actually deafened to a degree and there's actually laughter coming from beyond the dusty dust cloud of watering eyes?

… Probably just gawkers who want to see the result of a gas explosion or something. Stupid idiots probably record everything and point excitedly at the giant hole that is now my room… maybe. Possibly.

Then again, in that case I should be very dead. That and I don't hear the tell tale sound of a blazing and crackling inferno (also known as the fiery depths of hell) so something else must have happened…

*sigh*

Well then… let's inspect the damage I sustained and see if I can get uuyeooww- owowowwow! Leg hurts! Leg hurts pretty, pretty bad! Owowowow…

Calm down… please calm down, me, ignore the mother-friggin' pain erupting from your left leg-

"Oww…" Not working, not working!

Does the other leg at least… praise Murphy, it's alright!

Thus, with quite a bit of effort it appears, I roll over on my good leg and lay on my back instead of my stomach. I presume suffocating in mud or sand is an unpleasant way to go into the beyond.

Ugh… this better not be part of the MMO-RPG experience or I'll be very, very upset.

It is then that the dust cloud surrounding me was dispersed by a sudden gust of wind.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

… What?

Was that supposed to be an insult or something?

One quick glance around… and aaalright, it appears that either I was - somehow - launched to the outer reaches of france and had miraculously survived the impact (unlikely), I somehow switched from one plane of existence into another (highly unlikely) or… everyone who knows me decided to prank me by learning how to fluently talk in french, don a convincing set of cosplay clothes and dye their hair in ridiculous colors.

I would give the world switching option a second thought before ever considering the third option.

Well then… nevertheless, there's a group of teenage, snobby and bullying brats in cultist clothes fiddling with their sticks (the wooden, ridiculously decorated kind) as they laugh their asses off while a honest-to-pancakes pink haired midget is talking to what I presume to be the supervisor of this cosplay club or whatever.

Apart from the eyesore that are the wannabe cultists and the happenstances bringing me here, the day shapes up to be positively lovely already.

*sigh*

Well then, time to dial down the sarcasm.

I have no idea how I ended up in… a castle's courtyard, how in Helheim I got transported to France of all places and just how bad my broken or bruised leg is - "Owowowow", alright, it's definitely broken!

"Yikes!"

A random female seems to agree, according to the cry of second hand pain I heard from nearby… Must be from behind me since these bigots in front of me are too preoccupied with gloating at the pink haired midget for whatever reason. In any case, I have to see the damage and-

…

Well, whoever transported me here deemed it fitting to put me into a brown cloak of some sort. One that's itchy, too. They really wanted me to fit into this cosplay club, didn't they?

Well, that also explains why my head and ears feel so itchy, too… The hood is covering it and it is as irritating as hell, too. Well, that problem is easily resolved.

Lowering the hood also had the after effect of shutting all those snot nosed brats up. Somehow. They were all shouting "Quelle est cette choose?" or something equally retarded while pointing to something over my head. Did they never see a hood before? Are they cosplaying as some sort of moronic backwater tribes-people, too?

Meanwhile pinkie had her mouth momentarily open before she proclaimed something in joy and pointing at me victoriously.

I deadpanned back and then tried to get up into a sitting position, gritting my teeth and closing my eyes together as a literal lance of pain shoots through my definitely broken leg… anyway, opening one eye and wiping off the tears reveals...

… knees that are much more slender and less hairy-er than I remembered them. What?

Well… I can definitely see an ugly purple and red bruise right beneath the shin. Goodness gracious!

And now my butt feels like it's mangled, squished and pressed together by something pressing from above. subconsciously, I bring one hand to it and-

… tail.

Furry tail.

Soft. Furry. Tail!

And a second one right next to it!

…

The privates are missing, too.

…

I wish I had friends who could prank me instead.

*sigh*

Breathe in… and out...

Oh, hey, look, during the time it took for me to find out that I turned into a friggin' animal girl of unknown origins, unknown faction and even unknown ethnicity the pink haired, ultra smug, 'I-need-to-refuel-my-bottle-of-awfully-smelling-perfume' midget had closed the distance and I don't have a weapon close nearby- hellooo thick tree branch, forget that I had said anything you glorious, glorious skull smacker.

It was an ugly, gnarly thing, looking more like it was made of intertwining roots rather than branches and it became… well, not quite exponentially thicker towards the "head", so to speak, but it did end in some curly, gnarled and root-y, blunt end. One way or another, it could definitely be used as a club in an emergency.

*Smack*

Which is exactly what I did when that pink haired midget had pointed her adorned stick at my forehead and was chanting unintelligible words in a far too loud and high pitched voice that *grated* on my new set of highly sensitive ears.

"Ouch! C'était pour quoi?!"

I have no idea what she's saying, but her absolutely furious and red face as well as the roaring laughter from the sidelines were translation enough. Thus, I deadpanned: "Shove your stick somewhere else, midget."

Cue confused blinking… right before the midget in question stomped angrily on the ground and shrieked in french again. If my guess is right, she's insulting me. An impression which is further reinforced when the midget points her finger just centimeters away from and at my face.

My deadpanned expression doesn't slip when I shove her not-so-gently to my right with my newly acquired, gnarly root-staff, an act which not only intensified the laughter of the mentally challenged, but also made the girly midget fall unceremoniously on her pampered butt. Be as it may, I then used the staff to right myself upwards, a monumental task of self imposed hurdles as my right leg practically begged to be released from the arduous torture I put it through, no matter if I rest my weight on my newly acquired bludgeoning weapon or not.

And all things considered, my mental monologue was infinitely more considerate to common courtesy than the literal waterfall of curse words that was actually spat out of my orifice. And heck, just so every single doofus standing on the sidelines could actually comprehend what my spoken language was all about, I had thrown in the word "MERDE!" every now and then.

From the agape and disgusted looks the group seemed to give me now they seemed to get the gist, too.

Wonderful. I am in France and my knowledge of the local language is limited to one single curse word.

Unless Croissant counts.

And… huh, actually…

My gaze fixated on the supervisor of this… cosplay club, a middle aged (?), bald-headed man who had apparently been watching me for as long as this mayhem had been going on for… and my leg protested like no one would believe as I hobbled my way over to him.

Except… *someone* decided to grab onto my butt- err, tail… goodness, it feels weird to have more body parts!

It doesn't help that the midget is tugging harshly on them, either. And the less said about the otherworldly feeling I get from them, the better.

Keeping my weight off my left leg as best as I possibly could I turn around to send the under-aged, pampered girl a well deserved glare. However, seeing as the pink haired menace exploded in a tirade herself my attention is soon redirected again towards the only adult caught up in this caricature of a cosplay party. Stretching the hand out and doing the universal "Come here, darn it!"-gesture should do the trick in getting his attention, yes?

Thankfully the bald man got the message and walked towards us, albeit warily. I can't really fault him for that I presume, seeing as the midget gets increasingly louder and louder. Fortunately for me, once she remembered that we weren't the only beings in the courtyard of the friggin' medieval castle the brat composed herself and faced the bald man, too.

… Only to throw a tantrum on *him* for some inane reason or another.

Quite mature of her, isn't it?

*sigh* Well then, let's see if the guy in the robes knows enough of the world's language so I can communicate with someone.

*Cough*

The two (as well as the entire courtyard) paused and turned their heads to me. A good sign, I believe. No time like the present, aye?

"Excuse me?" I asked in my accented English that now sounds more akin to a prepubescent middle school girl on helium. Joy. Not. "Can you tell me where I am?"

The two of them, the pinkette and the Old man that is, blinked at me in confusion.

I sigh again. Figures I land somewhere where English isn't widely used to be… useful.

Still, it's too early to give up. "Can you speak English, please?"

Again, they blinked at me in confusion… or, in the case of the midget, openly sneered in apparent discontent. Never mind that she was still holding one of my… tails in a vice grip.

I won't have anything of that. "Parle!"

*That* the two understood, albeit going by the cringing of the midget I had spelled it wrong. Too bad, Captain Jack Sparrow could teach me only so much.

The Old Cosplay Club Captain, hereby referred to as TOC³, spoke in french.

Sighing once again as I balance most of my weight onto my… root staff, I point at my left leg and, with as deadpanned an expression as I could possibly manage to muster, I said: "Hurt."

More confused blinking.

I point at my leg again, this time more insistently. "Hurt!"

TOC³, again, said something in french, still confused..

"Sonofa-" By the Wild Hunt, I am agitated! Not good. Still, one more try… "MEDIC!"

That they do seem to understand! Goodness gracious, to think that the lack of french lessons would come to bite me in the backsides…

TOC³ finally looks at my leg and pales slightly. "Amenez-la à l'infirmerie!"

Thank. The. Gods!

- The Summoner -

This wasn't fair.

This. Was. Not. Fair!

After what seems to be a lifetime of being a disappointment, of constantly enduring the ridicule of her peers, day after day after day after day after day of constant studying, going through the motions, preparing for every eventuality, after pouring every single ounce of willpower into this one spell to ensure it would not fail and exerting herself just shy of the brink of unconsciousness…

She had done it! She had really done it! She had wished for a beautiful, powerful and wise familiar and even though the inevitable explosion had been… massive, Louise certainly summoned something that fit at least one of her criteria, that she had to begrudgingly admit. The... foxgirl she summoned definitely had a certain… exotic allure to her, no matter if she was clad in a third rate robe or not.

It made Louise quite sick that she consciously admitted this.

Nevertheless, after enduring all these hardships, backslashes and the constant ridicule, she was overjoyed, no, ecstatic even in the wake of her first real success at performing Magic, to have summoned something that puts the germanian cow's own accomplishment into the shadow… this moment couldn't have possibly turned for the worse, could it?

Except it had.

The creature she put all her effort of summoning into… rejected her. Without batting an eye no less!

Understandably, Louise had been shell-shocked. Shell-shocked… and then she had exploded on the animal girl, verbally chewed her out, told her what an *honor* it was to be selected to be the familiar of a progressing mage such as herself-

… Only to shortly find out that that beast wasn't cultured enough to speak tristanian. Or… she had thought she was uncultured, seeing as the being spat out an unrecognizable mess of muttered words into the open when she clumsily stood up - a literal assortment of curse words, if her suspicion profed to be correct and the vulgar fox hadn't called out "shit" for the hell of it.

Then… the fox girl singled out professor Colbert and attempted to communicate with him, proving that she knew some tristanian words and its meanings… and that she was injured, more than likely caused by the explosive manner she was summoned.

Thus, in retrospect, a small part of Louise could comprehend why the fox wasn't particularly in the mood to finish the ritual right now. The majority of her however wanted to point her wand at the infirmary's door, let loose a "fireball" and get the binding ceremony done and over with. Alas, this was not the proper way a noble should conduct themselves with, meaning that Louise would wait… and make her discontent noticeable in other ways.

It was more than grating enough that her fellow year-mates ridiculed her achievement…

A shiver ran down her spine. Was it just her or had it become quite cold here lately?

Louise shook her head. It was probably just her imagination running wild.

Maybe she should go to her room-

*Clatter*

The pinkette recoiled. She just hit her feet against-

What… What were these things?

There was a gray and black… something at her feet, with a small rectangle of glass fused to it, enveloped in some form of leather, opened up when it hit her feet. There was a glowing picture of a Lake surrounded by a forest and a mountain on it, reflecting said landmarks on the water's surface… the painting's quality was beyond anything any painter, Tristanian or otherwise, could even dream of accomplishing and-

-and the picture just became dark, without any input of herself.

Did- did she break it?

No. No, the weird casing and the glass were still whole, but… Louise grabbed onto the presumably magical picture casing and it lit up again, displaying the same painting, as well as very… featureless, halkeginian writing and numbers.

"A… shoe? Why is there a four thousand and thirty three- thirty four? It just increased!"

Indeed, as Louise walked to the nearest wall the number next to the shoe symbol increased and only stopped once she halted. Did that mean that this painting was enchanted to count the amount of steps one had taken? Why would anyone do that? What is the point behind that?

Furthermore, there was a far larger number over it, displaying the numbers eleven forty five… which soon changed to eleven forty six just as she blinked. And then there were many, many more smaller symbols (runes?) at the top of the glass pane.

Also, whenever Louise didn't touch the picture, it would become dark. What was up with that?

Be as it may… the pink haired Student decided to keep this artifact for now. It… may be of importance, after all.

Author's Notes

Ah, Zero no Tsuikama, a series I only know because I read a lot of fanfics about it. Whenever I was fighting my writer's block, I tried to break it by giving my other ideas a bit of leeway, hoping to break the curse.

Alas, what was once a drabble quickly mutated into this monstrosity.

The people I interact with on Discord say this has a lot of potential, so I'll give it a go. And seeing as the next chapter is already in the works, who knows?

In any case, I hope you like this little piece of insanity. Have a happy new year. :)