AN: Welcome to the fic! HDN is a franchise I've danced around for a while. When I first got into it, I fell in love almost immediately. I watched playthroughs of all of the games (except for Hyperdevotion; we don't talk about that one) and watched the anime several times. I even tried to write some fanfictions, but those were...pretty bad. After a bit, though, I got a severe case of burnout and I dropped out of the fandom for quite some time. I don't know what's happened, but I've begun to love this series again, and I wanted to write something for it once more. So I thought: "Hmm...why not start off with what may be the easiest genre to write: self-insert?"

This fic can basically be seen as practice for what I'd like to do next, so please leave your honest feedback and criticisms. Lord knows I need it. Last thing: this story was inspired by HyperDementia Neptunia: Welcome to our Dimension by Shattersoul. It's a great SI story that I highly recommend.

With that out of the way, let's begin!

Sleep is a beautiful thing. It's especially great when you have a freezing cold pillow that has the same texture as mush, and it's even better when snow is falling on you and covering your entire body. And really, it's just the best when you're wearing shorts and the snow is coming into direct contact with your legs.

Unable to take any more, I open my eyes slowly and sit up. I'm in a large, empty field that's blanketed by snow. There are a few major issues with this. First and foremost is that when I went to sleep, I was in a house, under a roof, in a bed, and in my pajamas. My current situation satisfies none of those parameters (not even that last one; for some reason, I'm in my regular clothes), and is pretty dire. Furthermore, I'm not carrying my phone, so I can't just call my family and get a ride home. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, I have no idea where the hell I am.

I fully stand up, unable to tolerate the feeling of the snow on my legs any longer. In the distance, I can just barely make out the outline of a city. Deeming that my highest probability of survival, I start to walk there as quickly as I can. As the snow crunches underneath me, I make an important realization—I'm wearing socks and slippers.

Of course I am. Why would I not be wearing socks and slippers?

I look down to ensure I'm not wearing anything else ridiculous. I'm mostly fine apart from the aforementioned article; I'm wearing a plain gray t-shirt and, of course, my gray cargo shorts. I lucked out, though, since I ended up in my large gray winter jacket, which is doing a good job at keeping me warm. I've actually got my Razer headphones wrapped around my neck, but they're not plugged into anything, so they aren't doing me any good. I tuck them into my hood to keep them out of the snow; they could prove useful later.

I do a quick check of my pockets. No phone, as I discovered earlier, but I do have my wallet. Unfortunately, this wallet has no cash in it, but it does have my debit card, which has a pretty healthy sum on it. I have a few loose coins and a package of tissues, but that's it. Feeling fully prepared to brave the winter frontier, I march onward.

For the sake of my mental health, I start to count the positive things about this situation. First, I'm clothed. Second, I've got my wallet. Third, I'm not home, and finally...I don't actually know. I had to force myself to come up with those three things; this situation is pretty terrible. Well, even if I die, I'll die alone and undiscovered, so nobody will have to happen upon my body by accident and freak out.

Okay, that got dark quickly. Subject change.

The cit's getting closer. I can also make out a huge castle-like building behind it with several different tiers. Each tier has a differently colored roof, and they surround a spire-like structure that juts out high into the sky. I'm pretty sure there's nothing like it on Earth, but I can't have just been abducted and tossed onto some alien world, all while I slept. It's just impossible; I would have woken up.

Right?

I shake my head frantically. This is going nowhere; I need to focus. I steel myself and quicken my pace towards the city. The longer I stay out here, the lower my chances of survival are. I don't know much about surviving in the wilderness, but even I know that snow like this doesn't do me any favors. I've said it before, but things are looking bleak.

After maybe a minute of continuous walking, I make it to the edge of the city. It's a small settlement; perhaps one might call it a town. Every one of the buildings has a domed roof, each with a different bright color. Most of them are reds, blues, greens, and pinks, but there are a few yellows and oranges here as well. I look around for a few seconds and rack my brain trying to think of places I know that match this description. Once I'm satisfied that I still have no idea where I am, I walk into the town and try to orient myself.

The people here are oddly dressed, to say the least. Some of them are wearing armor, but most are wearing more typical clothes that are oddly thin for the weather—though I suppose I can't talk about thin clothes while I wear shorts and a t-shirt under an unzipped jacket. It almost looks like something from a game or anime.

To my left is an information desk manned by two young women (that was a weird sentence). They both look remarkably similar, with medium-length blonde hair and...maid uniforms? Huh. And nobody's saying anything, either. Is this typical here? I swear, this place just gets weirder by the minute...

"Hello," I say as I walk up to the woman on the left. "I'm a little lost; would you please tell me where I am right now?"

She gives me a look as if I'm the stupidest person alive, but she quickly replaces it with a warm smile. She's really trying here. "You're at the gate to 64 Town, on the southeastern end of Lowee." She reaches into a space beneath the counter and pulls out a map, unfolding it and placing it on the counter. She uncaps a marker and circles a seemingly random point. "That's here. I'm sure you can recognize the Basilicom..." She circles another point, "...but I'll circle some other helpful things for you to know."

I just nod along, having not fully processed what she said. "T-Thanks. I really appreciate it."

"No problem," she says, handing me the map after drawing some more stuff on it. "You should try and get back home as soon as possible. Lowee is a rough place to get lost in."

"Y-Yeah. Thanks again." I walk off without another word and start reading the map, before I stop dead in my tracks in the middle of the road. The receptionist's words start replaying in my head.

Lowee. Basilicom. Lowee. Basilicom.

Those words can only mean one thing.

"Damnit!"

000

After being warned by a police officer to not swear publicly again, I'm walking hurriedly to god knows where. I'm in Lowee, which means I'm in Gamindustri, which means I'm in the world of Hyper Dimension Neptunia. I've dreamed of this moment for a long time. Getting to meet the CPUs, IF and Compa, and all the other lovable characters I recognize is something I've wanted to do for about a year. It's obviously just been a pipe dream—I'd never do something so silly as buy a body pillow or claim that anime is real (much as I'd like it to be)—but now that I'm actually here, there's a few big problems in my way.

I will never meet the CPUs. I will probably never meet IF or Compa, either. I don't think I'll even meet RED, for godesses' sake (I need to start getting used to saying that now). I'll probably just end up being some NPC for the rest of my days, serving food or something. I say that, but even that assumes that I survive long enough to actually make it past a week or so in this world. I have no money, and I know nobody here. Well, I know some people, but they don't know me, and it'd probably be best if I acted like I don't know them.

Ugh. Enough panicking. I need to make a plan.

First off, who am I? I'm not me. "I'm" probably dead. What's the first name that comes to mind, then? Graham Augustus. Sounds stupid, but just passable enough to be a Neptunia supporting character (there's somebody whose name is MAGES., for goddesses' sake). I'm from Lowee, and I'm training to be a Guild Agent. Why a Guild Agent? Well, that's the best career path I can think of that gives me a chance of influencing the CPUs' lives, and assuming I regularly take quests, it has a decent income rate.

For now, though, I need a simple job. A job that even I could do. A job that is so banal that it's pretty much a joke among higher-class people. I might actually need two jobs, but I'll figure that one out later.

It's time to become a fast food worker.

I open up my map and read it over, looking specifically for fast-food restaurants. I can pinpoint my own location rather well, since I never moved too far from the gate where I was given the map. There's a Burger Queen near me, and a McDonalds not too far off from there. I'll get a day job at one and a graveyard shift at the other, and assuming they both pay me minimum wage, that should be...

$7.25 per hour for 30 days is...

Wait, they use Credits here. What's minimum wage in Credits? Oh, forget it. I'll just hope that Lowee's generous enough to give me some decent pay and take it from there.

000

Two stressful interviews later, I have two jobs: one at Burger Queen for the day, and another at McDonalds for the night. The Burger Queen is a pretty standard 9-to-5 shift, and the McDonalds shift takes me from 9 PM to 5 in the morning. Those are pretty brutal hours, but damnit, I need money. I'll bear it for a while and see how my pay is, then take things from there.

Now that I have future prospects secured, I'll need to think about what to do about my living situation. I have no house, but there was a back alley around the corner by the Burger Queen that I can sleep in whenever I actually get the chance to sleep. I'll have to skip breakfast and dinner, but I take my lunch break at Burger Queen, and I can just eat food from there.

Next on my list of priorities is hygiene. I am literally penniless, so unless I find some loose Credits hanging around, I can't afford to use a laundromat to keep my clothes clean. Luckily, a quick look at my map reveals to me that there's a public gym not too far away from the gate to 64 Town, so I can bum their shower every so often. It's kind of a degenerate move, but needs must. As far as clothing goes, I'll have to sort that out later, but it looks like my standards will need to be a lot lower from here on out.

Finally comes mental health. Working two jobs like this is terrible for both my physical and mental health. I'll barely get any sleep, and the sleep I do get will be limited to the hours of 5 to about 8:30, to give myself time to walk over to McDonalds and still be early (early is on-time, as some would say). Fortunately, minimum wage in Lowee is pretty generous. I did the calculations and I'm looking at 5,670 Credits at the end of the month. It's not a whole lot, but it's a start. If I spend either very little or none of it, I'll have 11,340 Credits after two months, and that's probably enough to buy a weapon and start my Agent career.

I'm excited now. Just two months of hard work, and I have my ticket to a life filled with fun, adventure, and excitement. Granted, it's also filled with potentially deathly encounters with monsters and lots of arduous work, but nothing in this life worth having comes for free. I'll pay my dues and work my ass off to get to where I want to be.

Which reminds me: am I in the plot of one of the games right now? If I am, then I'm in trouble—in two month's time, the CPU's and their companions will have far surpassed my level and I'll be left behind forever until the plot of a new game starts, and by then, I might be too old to participate. I guess I'll just have to hope and pray that the story starts after two months have passed, and that it's something in my league.

I'm doing a lot of hoping right now, but there's not much else I can do, is there?

000

After a bit of a time skip, one month has passed and I have my first paychecks. I haven't slept properly in a month, nor have I eaten breakfast or dinner, but I signed up for those things anyway. I also smell patently terrible, but that can be fixed rather easily. I've taken (relatively) routine showers at the public gym as planned, and I'm now walking out of a store after having bought some deodorant and some gloves. These two things were relatively cheap and only cost me 300 Credits total, so I lucked out in that regard.

I'm on my way to the laundromat to wash my clothes and sort out a new plan. It's only now that I realize that I don't have any other clothes to wear while this outfit is getting washed, but no one else is here. I guess I'll just have to stay away from the windows or something.

Enough about that; let's just get this done. It's five Credits to use each machine. I slot in the appropriate funds and sit on a nearby chair, thinking intensely. I now have 5,365 Credits available for use. I have the choice to spend some of it now on miscellaneous things, or wait another month and get a much greater budget as previously planned. Assuming I wash my clothes like this once a week, that's 10 Credits down the drain every week for another month, so about 30 total. Under ideal circumstances, that's all I'll be spending before I get my next paycheck, but I never like to assume.

I'm going to prepare myself for the possibility of losing up to 1,000 Credits before the month ends. That would leave me with exactly 10,000 Credits if I'm doing my math right—still not a bad amount, but a good weapon will probably eat up almost all of that money. I'll need to brace myself for the chance of losing at least 6,000 Credits right out the gate, especially since I want to use a shotgun as my first weapon.

Oh, the washer is done. Just toss that into the dryer and load another five Credits...

Anyhow, I have to be very careful with my money, and be extremely careful not to lose any. Doing so will ruin this immaculate plan of mine and basically destroy my chances at survival. That basically summarizes what I was thinking about before, right?

There's something I needed to do, though. I was careful to remove everything from my pockets before putting my clothes into the wash, so I grab my wallet off of the top of one of the washing machines. Opening it, I look inside and take out both my ID card and my debit card. I frown as I look at them. These are useless to me now. I'm not who I was on the ID card anymore; my hair has grown so much that people wouldn't recognize me anymore, and my eyes probably have at least sixteen bags under them. And the debit card is useless to me because dollars are meaningless to the people in Gamindustri. It's funny, in a way—I was so proud of all of my money when I was in my own world, but now that I'm here, it's completely useless to me.

I take out the ID card and take a closer look at it. It lists my parent's names. My heart hurts a bit as I read them and I realize that I'll probably never see them again. I once thought that I'd be glad to be rid of my world and the people in it, and for the most part, I am. But knowing that I'll never see my family again hurts in a way that I never thought anything could. I snap the ID card into two, then into four. I can't stand to look at it anymore. It's just a reminder of a world that I'm not in anymore—a world that I left behind. I bury it in the snow outside.

Next is the debit card. I'm much more reluctant to break this one, and I don't know why. All it is now is a useless dust collector. It no longer has value. It can't buy me anything anymore, and I can't use it as a symbol of status to make myself feel superior to others. It's just a worthless piece of plastic, so why can't I bring myself to break it? Is it because I'm too attached to the concept of money? Because I don't want to let go of the one thing that mattered to me, in my previous life? I growl and put it back in my wallet.

The dryer stops and I hurriedly open it, throwing my clothes on hastily. I open the pack of gloves and put them on, stretching my fingers out and clenching my fists. They fit well, and they'll last a long time. I put everything back into my pockets and set back out to 64 Town, to work for another month and get my new life started for real.

What a wonderful world.