Welcome to the First Chapter of The Saga of Rudeus the Evil, the partner of Mushoku Tensei: The Military Chronicles of a Little Girl (which I will post in a few weeks).
Prologue: The Salaryman, The NEET and Truck-kun
February 22, AD 2013, Tokyo, Japan
"Why? Why me?!" The abysmal employee asked the Salaryman.
Why? It's obviously because your cost performance is abysmal! On top of that, you've been absent quite a lot. You claimed to be sick however we see evidence that you protested in the streets. And as another nail in the coffin, I have a report from your direct supervisor claiming that you've taken out multiple cash advance loans of who knows how much. We don't even know where you spend it, given that you still live in a hovel. Plus, you adamantly refuse to see the occupational physician at every turn. In conclusion, it's clear that you're becoming a costly employee. More importantly, we can't have you causing some sort of scandal and marring the company's good name.
I'd love to ask you, Is there any reason we should keep you on board? But due to certain laws, I must conceal such sentiments deep within my heart and respond with as much tact as possible.
"You've already failed to complete your PIP twice. The company gave you a perfectly reasonable order to attend PIP completion training, but you refused. And you have numerous unexcused absences." False courtesy? That's just fine. It's not prohibited by law. This is a for-profit corporation, not a charity for the societally inept. "That said, as you've contributed to our company for such a long time, I believe a voluntary resignation, rather than a disciplinary dismissal, would better serve both our interests"
While this may be a huge waste of time, it's still part of the job description.
"I've never had to go on client visits before! How the hell does that count as training?!"
"It combats deteriorating work results by helping supervisors understand sales representatives and find ways to improve their managerial practices. With that in mind, we felt it was necessary for you to undergo this training."
Even if it's all in a day's work, this is still tiring. It's an utter pain to deal with this endless parade of weeping and wailing employees who try to cling to us. If you think crying will change things, go for it. In some parts of the business world, that's a valid tactic, but if you think it'll work after calling me things like a "heartless monster," "boss's pet," or "cyborg," you've got another thing coming.
I've always known that I wasn't the best. Unable to compete with the geniuses and unable to match the gifted through hard work and dedication, my personality has grown utterly warped. I'm a mess of convoluted complexes. My parents suddenly died before I got past entry-level, and celebrating with them was another strike against the belief that there is a benevolent and fair being in this world.
Truly benevolent people are awe-inspiring. As far as hypocrisy is concerned, I have what society as a whole deems to be a healthy level, but knowing I'm insincere makes me scoff "all the more. Despite being self-aware about this—how ghastly I am—I still harbor the arrogant belief that I'm superior to the inept fool wailing before me. At least as far as cost performance is concerned, I've maintained superior results. So even though restructuring departments assigned for consolidation through layoffs is a pain, I take it seriously. From here, I should shoot straight up the ladder and land in the chair of the director of human resources.
My life should have been fairly smooth sailing.
…"Should have been."
Another long day at work, and I leave the building in a sour mood; strong rains late at night make traveling home a bigger headache. I was thinking about missed opportunities if people stopped making irrational decisions early on in their lives. I may not be the most gifted person in the world, but I made do, right? I continue walking down to see an annoying sight. A large smelly man was shuffling at the corner, looking lost and smelling quite awful. There were some bloodstains on his tracksuit, but I have no interest in figuring out why he was in that situation, to begin with, probably a NEET that got kicked out of his house.
"If only I could go back and do it all over again," the NEET(?) muttered, the words slipping from his mouth as I waited for the pedestrian signal to cross, he was approaching me, and I was about to give him a wide berth, people like them are just as bad as communists, relying on other people to sustain their lifestyles. In fact, I think Karl Marx would've been the same as he was if he didn't become famous. At some point, Karl Marx's parents would get angry at the fact that he was a NEET, and kick him out. Young Karl would become so enraged that he won't attend his Dad's funeral out of spite. Karl Marx never took baths and was known for being ungroomed and having horrible hygiene. Come to think of it, the man I fired was a communist activist, too; that's an odd coincidence.
I heard people arguing. I looked blandly at the trio. Was someone having a fight? That wasn't good. People should keep those arguments behind closed doors. Even as I thought that, however, I saw three high schoolers. "Look, you're the one who—" "No, you're the one who—"
There were two boys and a girl dressed in unusual tsume-eri jackets and a sailor suit, respectively. The scene was almost like a battlefield, with one of the boys, an especially tall fellow, in a verbal spat with the girl. The other boy had interposed himself between the two in an attempt to placate them, but his pleas were completely ignored. The NEET was also watching the confrontation and suddenly looked to the side and shouted hoarsely. "Ah, h-hey, look…look out!". And then, I noticed something: There was a truck speeding right toward the group of three students. The driver was slumped over, asleep at the wheel. The kids hadn't noticed yet. I saw the NEET run towards the kids and push them out of the way, only for something to slam into me. Wham! I flew into the truck in oddly slow motion; for a moment, it was almost as if time froze. I couldn't see the fate of the kids and the NEET pushing them, although the rational part of myself knew they were as good as dead. However, some part of me was morbidly satisfied that the person who pushed me, the man I fired earlier today, slipped and is probably getting crushed by the truck too.
As the truck crushed me and turned me to paste, I realized I was dead…
Author's Note :
The Salaryman and the NEET swap places in their respective universes, although their Isekai moment happens at the same event. In terms of MT canon, I would go for LNAnimeManga (largely because the MT manga adaptation is worse than the anime). Due to the strong amount of "fate" and hitogami meddling, some things are still more likely to happen than others. However, there will be large butterflies in between those events. Some parts are also slightly altered so that it won't be a blatant copy-paste fanfic. Salaryman-Rudeus will take a different path in his own heavily misinterpreted way.
For Tanya the Evil, I'm currently at LN Vol 2, although I finished the anime, OVA, movie, and manga. As the story progresses, I'll also be reading the LN, and I only have until vol 9, though, for this series.
While the beginning might sound like a copy-paste of the original LN, there are small details that are in there which would lead to far larger changes. The Salaryman has some changes from what was seen in Tanya the Evil, but I think a different childhood would've led to a different result. Isekai quartet showed how Tanya would loosen up if she wasn't a starving orphan or a child soldier.
The saga of Tanya the Evil has a lot of thinking and self-explanation scenes, while Mushoku Tensei's plot moves a lot faster. For both stories, I will try my best to find a happy moderation between both writing styles and add details from the LN (When possible) that are not found in the Anime.
Excerpts From
Rifujin na Magonote Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation (Light Novel) Vol. 1
Carlo Zen, "The Saga of Tanya the Evil, Vol. 1" Deus lo Vult
