The first thing you should know about dying in a squirrel costume is that it's not dignified.
There's no white light. No montage of your life's happiest moments. There's just the overwhelming smell of sweat, recycled polyester, and the faint, lingering aroma of the previous wearer's onions.
Alvin Banks knew this because he was currently dying.
"Get... your... Mr. Fluffles... Fun-Time... Voucher!" he wheezed, his voice echoing weirdly inside the oversized, grinning rodent head.
A small child, face smeared with overpriced Dippin' Dots, waddled up and kicked him directly in the shin. Hard.
"Ow! Son of a... " Alvin bit back the curse. The company handbook was very clear: "Mr. Fluffles is always helpful and never, ever uses grown-up words."
Alvin was Mr. Fluffles. This was the Tech-Palooza 2025, and he was the furry, vaguely unhinged mascot for 'GigaByte,' a cloud-storage start-up that was already circling the drain. His job, for eight agonizing hours, was to stand on the sun-baked asphalt—a patch of hell currently measuring a robust 104 degrees Fahrenheit—and hand out flyers.
Flyers that no one wanted. For a product no one understood.
"It's about brand awareness, Alvin!" his boss, a man named Chad who wore boat shoes with a suit, had chirped that morning. "It's about synergy! Now get in the suit."
The suit.
It was, scientifically speaking, an instrument of torture. The body was a single, non-breathable piece of matted brown fur. The giant head, with its dead-eyed plastic gaze and fixed, maniacal smile, had exactly two small nostril-holes for ventilation. Alvin's T-shirt and shorts had been soaked through with sweat a mere thirty seconds after zipping up. That was seven hours ago.
He was pretty sure he was breathing in more carbon dioxide than oxygen. His vision was tunneling, and the grinning, primary-colored logos of the surrounding tech booths seemed to be... melting.
"Must... hydrate," he mumbled, fumbling with the giant, three-fingered paw-glove for the water bottle he'd stashed behind the booth. His fingers, clumsy and swollen, knocked it over. He watched, in slow-motion horror, as his only salvation glugged uselessly onto the pavement.
A tiny, desperate sound escaped his lips.
"Mr. Fluffles!" a mom shouted, dragging her reluctant son over. "Can we get a picture?"
Alvin tried to give a thumbs-up. The gesture felt... heavy. Like his arm was made of wet cement. He raised the paw, but his knees decided, right at that moment, that they were officially on strike. They buckled.
He didn't so much fall as timber.
The world went sideways. The impact of the giant, hollow head hitting the asphalt sent a painful thud through his skull. He was on his back, a turtle in a fur-lined coffin, staring up at a painfully blue sky through two mesh-covered eyeholes.
"Is he... supposed to do that?" asked the mom.
The Dippin' Dots kid, seizing his opportunity, ran up and drop-kicked Mr. Fluffles directly in the fuzzy, grinning snout.
"HA! I got the nut-mouse!" the kid screamed in triumph.
Alvin felt the plastic mask crack against his nose. He tasted blood. Or maybe it was just sweat. At this point, it was hard to tell the difference.
So this is it, he thought, his mind feelingfloaty. Death by heatstroke, in a rented fur suit, while being assaulted by a sugar-crazed toddler. Not even a bonus. Chad better... he better...
What?
Alvin couldn't finish the thought. The world wasn't just tunneling anymore; it was collapsing. The sounds of the expo—the bad techno music, the drone of a marketing presentation, the triumphant shrieks of the Dippin' Dots demon—all faded into a distant, muddy roar.
His last, coherent thought was one of profound and utter disappointment: I... I never even unsubscribed from all those free-trial streaming services. My ghost is going to be broke.
Then, blackness. Sweet, cool, all-encompassing blackness.
Breathe.
The command was simple. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, it was... easy.
Alvin's lungs expanded, filling with air that was crisp, cool, and smelled faintly of pine and damp earth. It was the single most luxurious sensation he had ever experienced.
His second thought was: I'm not sticky.
The sweat was gone. The fur was gone. The oppressive, 50-pound rodent head was gone.
Alvin's eyes snapped open.
It was not a hospital. It was not the Tech-Palooza first-aid tent (which he knew for a fact was just a folding chair and a box of Band-Aids).
He was... in a forest.
He was lying on a bed of soft, impossibly green moss. Sunlight, the real kind, not the angry, asphalt-reflecting kind, streamed down through a canopy of enormous, ancient-looking trees. A small, turquoise-colored butterfly, which seemed to be glowing faintly, fluttered past his nose and landed on a mushroom the size of a dinner plate.
Alvin sat up. He was wearing... not his sweat-drenched intern uniform, but a simple set of brown linen-like pants and a beige tunic. They were clean, comfortable, and actually fit him.
He looked at his hands. They were his hands, but... cleaner. The ink-stain on his right index finger from a leaky pen was gone. The hangnail he'd been worrying at was gone.
"Okay," Alvin said aloud, his voice sounding strangely clear in the quiet woods. "Either I'm dreaming, or that tech-expo heatstroke was way worse than I thought."
He pinched his arm. It hurt.
"Right. Not a dream. So... coma? Or... no. No, it can't be..."
He'd read the webnovels. He'd seen the anime. This whole setup was... familiar. The absurd, pathetic death? The sudden transportation to a pristine, magical-looking forest?
"Am I... Isekai'd?"
The word felt ridiculous on his tongue. But as he looked around, what other explanation was there? He'd died. He was sure he'd died. You don't come back from that level of internal cooking.
Just as the full-blown, existential-dread-slash-manic-excitement panic attack was about to set in, a sound chimed in the air. It was a soft, digital ding, like a message notification from a cheap smartphone.
And then, a translucent blue box flickered into existence in front of his face.
[Welcome, User #8,388,609, to the 'Aethelgard' Primary System!]
[Your soul has been successfully migrated. We apologize for any inconvenience.]
Alvin stared at the box. He poked it. His finger went right through, sending a faint ripple across its surface.
"User... 8,388,609?" he muttered. "That's... a lot of users. And apologize for the inconvenience? I died."
The box remained, patient and silent.
Okay. Okay. He could work with this. A System! This was the good stuff. This was the fast-track to being overpowered. He just had to find his stats, his class, his cheat skills. He was probably a... a 'Furry Avenger' or 'Mascot Slayer' or something.
"Stats," Alvin said, trying to sound confident. "Status. Status Window? Open... please?"
The box flickered and was replaced by a new one.
[USER STATUS]
Name: Alvin Banks
Level: 1
Title: N/A
Class: N/A
[STATS]
Strength: 5 (You can lift most groceries)
Agility: 6 (You don't trip every time)
Stamina: 3 (You are... winded)
Intellect: 8 (You know better, but you do it anyway)
Mana: 0 (Dry as a bone)
[SKILLS]
(1) New Skill Available!
Alvin's heart sank. Those stats... they weren't just weak. They were his stats. His actual, real-life, 'gets-tired-walking-up-a-single-flight-of-stairs' stats. And Mana: 0?
"This is a rip-off," he grumbled. "What kind of Isekai protagonist has zero mana? How am I supposed to do the cool-..."
He stopped. His eyes snapped back to the last line.
[SKILLS]
(1) New Skill Available!
"A skill!" Hope surged. This was it. This had to be his cheat. His one-of-a-kind, OP, world-breaking ability. Was it [God's Eye]? [Infinite Sword Works]? [Insta-Kill]?
He mentally focused on the line, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Open! Show me!
The screen refreshed.
[SKILLS]
[Submit Support Ticket (Lv. 1)]
...
Alvin stared.
And stared.
He read the words again, just to be sure.
[Submit Support Ticket (Lv. 1)]
(Active Skill)
Allows user to file a formal query with the System Administration.
Cost: 1 minute of focus.
Cooldown: N/A.
Current Ticket Queue: 48,151,623
"You have... to be... kidding me."
His voice was flat. Devoid of all hope. He had died a pathetic, sweaty death only to be reincarnated as a... as a disgruntled customer. His one and only "magic" power was the ability to file a complaint.
This wasn't a power fantasy. This was just his old job, but with more trees and, presumably, man-eating monsters.
A dark, bitter laugh bubbled up in his chest. Of course. This was his luck. This was the cosmic punchline.
He sat there for a long time, watching the glowing butterfly. It landed on his knee, and he just... stared at it.
"Fine," he finally whispered, the anger and absurdity welling up inside him. "Fine. You want a ticket? I'll give you a ticket."
He closed his eyes and focused, just as the skill description said. He pictured a keyboard. He pictured a blank text box. And with all the pent-up frustration of a man who had died in a squirrel suit, he began to type.
To: System Administration.
From: User #8,388,609.
Subject: WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL?!
Body: I have been transported here without my consent. My stats are garbage. My mana is zero. And my only skill is THIS ONE. This is, without a doubt, the worst new-user experience I have ever had. I demand an explanation. Also, where is my New Player starter pack? I'd better be getting some kind of compensation for this.
P.S. There is a bug. A butterfly. It is glowing. I don't think butterflies are supposed to do that. Please advise.
Sincerely,
Alvin 'Extremely Dissatisfied' Banks
He "hit" send.
He felt a tiny whoosh in his brain, as if a small bit of energy had been spent. And then, the blue box reappeared.
[Thank you for your query!]
[Your ticket (ID #00000001) has been successfully submitted.]
[Your request is important to us. A System Administrator will review your ticket shortly.]
[Current Estimated Wait Time: 485 Years]
Alvin looked at the number. He looked at the glowing butterfly. He looked up at the sky.
"Shortly," he said, to no one at all. "Right."
He put his head in his hands and, for the first time in this new world, began to laugh. It was not a happy sound.