The sun hung low over PageTurner & Sons, the quaint, slightly creaky bookstore tucked between a ramen shop and a laundromat that smelled perpetually like burnt cotton. Kai Yamazaki practically bounced with every step, his sneakers scuffing the sidewalk as if it were a battlefield and not just three blocks of cracked pavement.

  "I'm telling you, Ren—The Bladebound Saga dropped this week, and if I don't get my hands on it today, I will literally combust," Kai declared, pointing dramatically at nothing in particular.

  Ren walked beside him, hoodie half-zipped, earbuds dangling around his neck like forgotten ornaments. He didn't look up from his phone.

  "You said that about the last series," he muttered, thumb still scrolling. "You combusted. Very loudly. In our living room."

  "Yeah, and I will again if you keep talking like that." Kai shoved him lightly with his shoulder. "This one's different. It's got a protagonist who gets reincarnated as a sentient sword, but with emotions. Like, deep ones. It's totally my kind of series."

  Ren finally looked up, blinking once, slowly. "So... a sword that cries?"

  "Broodingly, yes."

  They reached the corner, the sign for PageTurner & Sons swinging gently in the breeze like an old-timey invitation to nerd heaven. The windows were plastered with posters of new releases and hand-scrawled staff recommendations—Kai already had half of them memorized.

  Ren pocketed his phone. "You do realize we don't have shelf space anymore, right? Unless you plan to start stacking books on your bed again."

  "I'll sleep on the floor if I have to. This is about destiny, Ren."

  Ren sighed, but a small smirk tugged at his lips. "Right. Destiny. And poor life choices."

  Kai grinned. "Same thing, really."

  He grabbed the door handle with the enthusiasm of a man about to dive into a portal of adventure.

  In a way, he was.

  The little bell above the door let out a cheerful ding as Kai bounded into PageTurner & Sons like a man on a mission. No hesitation, no greeting—just a blur of black hair and flapping jacket headed straight toward the "New Fantasy Releases" display like it owed him money.

  "C'mon, c'mon, where is it—YES!" he practically shouted, snatching a thick paperback from the middle shelf like it was Excalibur itself. "Bladebound Saga: Volume One – Cry of the Cursed Cutlass! Oh my god, look at this cover art. It's crying and on fire."

  He held it up triumphantly like a trophy.

  In the corner of the store, Ren had wandered into the Fantasy Comedy & Niche Farming section—his usual haunt. His eyes skimmed the shelves lazily until one title caught his attention: "Reincarnated as a Logistics Manager in a Failing Guild Dungeon".

  He pulled it down, flipping to the back blurb with a faint smile.

  "Hmm... guy dies from printer toner explosion, gets reborn in a dungeon where he has to fix the guild's budget, navigate union laws, and handle monster supply chain disruptions," he murmured. "Finally. Someone who understands real struggle."

  Kai was still narrating his discovery from across the store.

  "He's cursed with the emotions of every blade he absorbs! Ren, you don't understand, the cutlass feels guilt for stabbing people!"

  "I think you just like swords with trauma," Ren called back without looking up.

  Kai pointed the book at him like an accusation. "Swords with trauma are the backbone of fantasy, thank you very much."

  Ren held up his book in return. "Mine's about negotiating weapon contracts with orcs. There's a spreadsheet mechanic."

  Kai recoiled. "You're disgusting."

  Ren just smirked and flipped open the first page.

  Kai wandered over, still cradling his dramatic flaming sword novel like a newborn dragon. He leaned over Ren's shoulder, squinting at the page with exaggerated horror.

  "...You're actually reading that?" he asked, voice thick with disbelief. "Dude, there are spreadsheets in this. Like, literal bar graphs. In a fantasy book."

  Ren didn't look up. "Yeah. And unlike your emotionally damaged sword-boy, this guy actually knows how to balance a budget. Or maintain supply lines. Y'know. Useful things."

  Kai scoffed, waving Bladebound in the air like a weapon. "Please. When the orcs come knocking, your budget's not gonna block a single axe swing. But this guy? He'll parry their war chief's guilt mid-battle and win with emotional resonance."

  Ren turned a page slowly. "Wow. So brave. So inspirational. Too bad he can't cook or make potable water or navigate with a map."

  "He doesn't need to," Kai shot back. "He's got passion. And passion saves kingdoms."

  Ren finally looked up, deadpan. "Passion also burns down supply depots when someone doesn't read the fire rune labels."

  Kai narrowed his eyes. "You saying I wouldn't survive in a fantasy world?"

  "I'm saying you'd trip over your own sword trying to make a dramatic entrance."

  Kai crossed his arms. "Okay, okay, mister dungeon tax forms. When a dragon shows up, what are you gonna do, invoice it?"

  Ren blinked. "Yes. For unpaid rent."

  Kai opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

  "...Okay, that was kind of good."

  "Thank you."

  They stood in mutual judgment, the silence between them thick with sibling static and a thousand unresolved Mario Kart matches.

  "Still think a sword can beat taxes," Kai muttered.

  "And I still think a ledger can outlive a hero," Ren replied coolly.

  And somewhere, high above them, a tall, ominously wobbly cardboard display for the Epic Fantasy Fall Collection creaked.

  Their argument continued, sharp as enchanted daggers and just as immature.

  "Oh right," Kai jabbed, "because nothing says legendary hero like dungeon paperwork and monster tax brackets."

  Ren raised an eyebrow. "Better than crying into your sword because it accidentally impaled a thief."

  Kai rolled his eyes and turned to make a grand exit back to his fantasy display—except his elbow clipped the corner of a nearby stand labeled "Collector's Edition: Oversized Fantasy Hardcovers & Replica Swords – Please Do Not Touch."

  The top shelf gave a tremble. A dramatic creak. Then—

  Thump.

  A plush dragon slid from its perch like a sleepy assassin, landing with a soft fwump on a wheeled book cart parked too close.

  Clatter. Whirr. THUNK.

  The cart rolled forward—straight into a support column holding up the oversized fantasy display. There was a moment of stillness. A breath. Kai and Ren both looked up.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  "Oh no," Ren muttered.

  "Oh YES," Kai whispered, just before—

  CRASH!

  The display gave way in a cacophony of hardcovers, prop swords, and promotional cutouts of brooding elf princes. Kai had just enough time to yell "I REGRET NOTHING!" before the world was swallowed in an avalanche of fictional tomes and glittery steel.

  Then—darkness.

  A beat passed in the quiet.

  Kai's voice floated out from beneath the rubble, weak and muffled.

  "...This better not count as a game over..."

  And just like that, the bookstore—PageTurner & Sons—was gone.

  Kai groaned as light poured into his eyes, burning white and sterile like someone had cranked up the contrast on reality.

  The air smelled faintly like lemon-scented paperwork.

  He sat up slowly, rubbing his head, and immediately noticed three things:

  1. He was alive.

  2. He was not in the bookstore.

  3. He was surrounded by an endless desert of... filing cabinets?

  Towering metal drawers stretched into the horizon like a bureaucratic nightmare. Above them, floating signs flickered lazily in the air like glitchy streetlights.

  "Newly Deceased: Pending World Transfer"

  Kai squinted. "Okay... that's not ominous at all."

  Ren stood a few feet away, arms crossed, looking extremely unimpressed. "Fantastic," he muttered. "We died in a bookstore. That's how we go out."

  Kai blinked at him. "Wait—what? We're dead?"

  Ren pointed to a glowing placard on the nearest cabinet. It read:

  Yamazaki, Kai

  Cause of Death: Blunt trauma via hardcover fantasy literature

  Status: Pending

  "...Okay," Kai said slowly, "in my defense, it was not the plush dragon's fault."

  Ren stared at him.

  "And also," Kai added quickly, standing up, "I don't regret anything. It was an accident. A heroic, unfortunate, very avoidable accident."

  "You knocked over a weaponized display of elf swords," Ren deadpanned. "That's not heroic. That's physics."

  "Look," Kai said, gesturing to the white void with both hands, "the important thing is we died doing what we loved. You, being smug. Me, buying fantasy novels."

  Ren sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Great. We're in the DMV of the afterlife."

  Kai was gearing up for a full-blown defense of his "accidental but noble" sacrifice when a voice rang out across the void, flat and echoing like it had better places to be.

  "Next."

  The twins turned toward the sound. A glowing aisleway of flickering signs parted ahead of them, leading to what looked like a lonely office desk wedged between two skyscraper-sized filing cabinets. A crooked nameplate that read "Divine Intake – Temporary Desk B" sat in front of it.

  Behind the desk, a goddess—if one could call a frazzled woman in a coffee-stained blouse with a half-braided halo floating askew above her head a goddess—furiously flipped through a stack of scrolls while muttering under her breath.

  "Double bookings, artifact shortages, budget cuts, cursed filing spells—do I look like I can process a resurrection with a stapler?"

  She didn't look up as Kai and Ren approached, just waved them toward a pair of conjured chairs that popped into existence with an annoyed poof.

  They sat.

  She finally glanced at them, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Yamazaki, Kaizen and Renji?"

  Kai winced. "No one calls me that."

  She ignored him, rifling through the stack until she found two glowing files.

  "Cause of death..." she muttered, squinting at Kai's. "Oh for the love of—blunt-force trauma by fantasy hardcovers and falling decorative weapons?"

  Kai pointed a thumb at Ren. "It was mostly his fault."

  Ren didn't look up from the sad little welcome pamphlet on the desk. "It was mostly your elbow."

  The goddess exhaled deeply, as if she had done this a thousand times and each one shaved a decade off her immortality.

  "You two died in a bookstore. That's... not the worst today, but it's close."

  Kai leaned forward. "Do we at least get points for creativity?"

  She stared at him.

  "No."

  He leaned back, defeated.

  Ren raised a hand slightly. "So, what now? Reincarnation? Spirit intern program? Do we get to haunt our apartment?"

  The goddess rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers. A glowing form floated beside her—some kind of cosmic flowchart labeled "Post-Mortal Routing: Prime Realm Division" with way too many footnotes.

  "Normally," she said, "you'd be slotted for a clean soul transfer into a fantasy-adjacent parallel world. Standard stuff. BUT—" she stabbed the air with a quill, "due to a recent divine artifact heist, budget cuts, and a minor celestial war over coffee machine privileges—"

  Another scroll popped out of a drawer and smacked her in the face.

  "—you two get one item to share. That's it."

  Kai frowned. "Wait. One item?"

  Ren looked up. "Please tell me it's not a stick."

  The goddess snorted. "Worse."

  She reached under her desk and slapped something onto the surface with all the enthusiasm of someone tossing out expired yogurt.

  A worn, oversized leather bag with a broken drawstring and mysterious stitchwork sat between them. It gave off a faint... gurgle?

  The tag read:

  "Bag of Holding (Possibly Sentient) – Last One in Stock"

  Kai stared at the bag like it had personally insulted his ancestors.

  "A bag?" he repeated, voice cracking. "We get isekai'd and all we get is a bag?"

  The goddess didn't even look up from her paperwork. "Correct."

  "What are we supposed to do with a bag?!"

  She sighed and waved a hand dismissively. "That's for you to figure out."

  Kai threw his arms up. "No sword? No staff? No shiny magic trinket with a tragic backstory?"

  Ren crouched beside the bag and gave it an experimental poke. It... shuddered slightly, then gave off a soft, suspicious blorp.

  He blinked. "It's warm."

  The goddess continued, flipping to the next scroll with the grace of a DMV worker two minutes before closing. "You weren't actually meant to be summoned," she explained flatly. "A nearby realm sent a bulk request for heroes. You two were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the dimensional lottery is legally binding."

  Kai looked personally offended. "So we got pulled into a fantasy world on accident?"

  "Correct again," she said, stamping a form with unnecessary force.

  Kai slammed his hands on the desk. "We're not gonna last five minutes without a weapon!"

  Ren shrugged, slinging the bag over his shoulder. "Maybe it's got snacks."

  The goddess didn't even blink. "You're going with the bag. And whatever it turns into. Try not to die. Again."

  A circular portal began to open behind them, swirling with a pastel whirlpool of stars, runes, and faintly disapproving jazz music.

  Kai backpedaled. "Wait, wait, wait, we're actually going now? What about training? A manual? A map?!"

  "Good luck!" the goddess chirped with the energy of someone who definitely didn't care.

  The portal pulled at them, wind whipping as their chairs slid back. Ren let out a tired grunt. "You just had to knock over the swords, huh?"

  "You were supposed to catch me!"

  "You're not a crate of cabbages, Kai!"

  As the vortex yanked them toward their new life, the goddess finally glanced up with a sudden realization.

  "WAIT!" she shouted. "There are rules you need to kno—!"

  ZAP.

  Gone.

  The portal fizzled out with a pathetic pop.

  The goddess stared at the empty space, then sipped from a mug that said "#1 Immortal Underpaid Worker."

  "...They'll be fine," she muttered, and turned back to her mountain of paperwork.

  WHUMP.

  Kai landed face-first in cold, wet mud with a sound like a deflating pudding.

  "—mffgh—!"

  Ren hit the ground a half-second later with a less dramatic plop, landing square on his butt with a grunt. The sky above them was a heavy sheet of gray, rain pelting down like the world itself was trying to wash them off its surface.

  Before either could move, a rickety horse-drawn carriage barreled past on the road, wheels slicing through a puddle like it was doing it on purpose.

  SPLOOSH.

  A tidal wave of brown water engulfed them.

  Ren blinked slowly as mud dripped from his ponytail. "Charming."

  Kai exploded upward with a strangled yell. "YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!"

  He flailed in the rain, caked in muck from head to toe, eyes wild with fury. "That overworked, budget-hacking, caffeine-gobbling goddess dropped us into traffic! No sword! No instructions! Just—'figure it out!'"

  He kicked a rock and immediately regretted it.

  Ren peeled himself off the ground and looked down at his clothes. Their hoodies and jeans were gone, replaced by rough, slightly itchy linen shirts and plain trousers—basic fantasy starter gear, complete with fraying laces and the faint smell of hay.

  "Yup," Ren muttered, tugging at his sleeve. "We got full tutorial town drip."

  Kai groaned. "I'm gonna storm back to that void and demand reincarnation as a dragon. One that eats goddesses."

  Ren looked around. "Wait... where's the—"

  SQUELCH.

  Something landed in the mud beside him with a thick, wet thud.

  The Bag of Holding sat there, soggy but somehow smug, its flap opening just enough to emit a small, echoing burp.

  Ren stared at it.

  "...Bo's here."

  Kai stared too, hands on his hips. "It burped. Did you hear that?"

  Ren wiped a streak of mud off its side. "Yeah. It's probably digesting someone's lunch from 600 years ago."

  "Great," Kai muttered. "Our only divine artifact is gassy luggage."

  Kai crouched down and grabbed the soggy bag by the strap. "Alright, gimme that. If I can't have a sword, I'm at least carrying the loot bag."

  He stood up, proud and dripping.

  For one glorious second, it was his.

  Then—FWUMP.

  The bag vanished from his hands in a puff of damp mist and reappeared back at Ren's side with a smug little shlorp.

  "...Seriously?" Kai deadpanned.

  Ren looked down at the bag, then at Kai. "Bo likes me."

  Kai threw his arms up. "You're telling me the only object we have—the one thing we got from Miss Paperwork-and-Plotholes—is bound to you?!"

  Ren shrugged. "Not my fault. Maybe try being more emotionally available."

  Kai looked like he was going to challenge the sky to a fistfight.

  Ren crouched beside Bo and gave it a casual poke.

  The flap fluttered open, and with a wet splurt, the bag coughed up a moldy apple core and a confused-looking toad.

  The toad blinked. Twice.

  Kai stared. "This is our legacy."

  Ren nudged the toad. "Could be worse. Could've been a cursed marionette."

  The toad burped.

  "Okay, that's enough nature," Ren said, standing.

  Kai squelched forward through the mud. "So what now? Wait for a caravan? A hero recruiter? Some suspicious old man with a hood and a quest?"

  Ren looked around at the gloomy forest edge. "No one's coming, Kai. This isn't a cutscene. We need to find a town, shelter, something with dry socks."

  "I say we wait!" Kai said, crossing his arms. "Someone's bound to come down this road eventually."

  "In this weather?" Ren gestured at the downpour. "It's not exactly tourist season."

  Kai pointed dramatically down the road. "A hero waits for destiny!"

  Ren pointed the opposite way. "A survivor looks for an inn!"

  They stared each other down, rain pelting their faces, thunder rumbling in the distance like the gods were tired of their nonsense.

  The toad hopped between them, uninterested in philosophical debates.

  The rain kept falling.

  Thunder growled somewhere behind the hills, like a reminder that neither of them had a plan, a map, or an umbrella.

  Kai and Ren stood there, shoulder to shoulder, soaked to the bone, still locked in their highly unproductive standoff—until both of them caught the same thing at the same time.

  Smoke.

  Not the ominous, dragon-just-roasted-a-village kind. The gentle, curling kind, pale gray and rising in the distance beyond a thick patch of trees. Cookfire smoke. Chimney smoke.

  Civilization.

  Ren didn't say anything at first. He just turned and started walking.

  Kai squinted after him. "Where are you—?"

  "To civilization," Ren called over his shoulder. "You know. That place with roofs. And maybe soup."

  Kai hesitated, arms still crossed. "Tch. Fine. Go wander into some cursed village alone. Probably haunted."

  Ren raised a hand and waved lazily. "Cool. Ghosts don't lecture me about destiny."

  Kai stood there for three more seconds—four, tops—before throwing his hands up and jogging after him.

  "Wait for me! You're not gonna eat all the soup without me!"

  Ren didn't stop walking. "No promises."

  The bag jiggled slightly on Ren's shoulder, as if smugly enjoying the conversation.

  Kai caught up with a groan. "This is exactly how horror stories start, you know. Two brothers, muddy road, weird bag, suspicious town—next thing you know, the toad's our landlord."

  Ren glanced at him sideways. "At least he's quiet."

  The toad, still hopping after them like a loyal squire, let out a wet croak.

  Kai sighed dramatically. "I miss my hoodie."

  The rain had eased into a steady drizzle by the time the treeline opened up to reveal rolling hills and a dirt path that curved toward that faint ribbon of smoke in the distance.

  Kai trudged along with slumped shoulders and mud-streaked legs, dragging his feet like a fantasy world had personally wronged him.

  Which, to be fair, it kind of had.

  "I'm supposed to be the hero," he muttered, not for the first time. "You're supposed to be the guy behind the guy."

  Ren adjusted the strap on his shoulder, the bag bumping gently against his hip. "Technically," he replied, "I'm the guy holding the guy's sword. Or potion. Or possibly chicken."

  Kai shot him a look. "I'm being serious."

  "So am I," Ren said with a smirk. "Bo's inventory system is chaos incarnate."

  Kai sighed, wiping rain from his forehead. "We're going to die, aren't we?"

  Ren didn't even flinch. "Probably. But I'll make sure we do it stylishly."

  Kai couldn't help but laugh, just a little. The kind of weary, reluctant laugh that crept in around the corners of a bad day like sunlight trying to peek through storm clouds.

  "Thanks," he said.

  Ren bumped his shoulder. "Anytime."

  Behind them, the bag gave the faintest shiver. A ripple pulsed through its seams, too subtle to feel, too quiet to hear.

  And somewhere in the impossible depths of its stomach, something ancient stirred.

  A low chuckle echoed in the dark.

  But neither brother noticed.

  They just kept walking.

  To be continued...

  Author's Note

  And that's the end of Chapter 1! Thanks so much for reading the start of Kai and Ren's absolutely chaotic, hopefully-not-fatal journey through a fantasy world with nothing but sibling banter and a semi-sentient bag on their side.

  This story will be full of:

  ? Heartfelt moments between brothers

  ? Ridiculous magical mishaps

  ? Dungeon-crawling with side hustles

  ? And one very opinionated Bag of Holding.

  If you're a fan of Konosuba, Campfire Cooking, or That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, this story's definitely for you.

  Also!

  Chapters of Next Door to Chaos and my Konosuba fanfic are coming very soon—so stay tuned!

  As always, don't forget to vote, comment, and let me know y'all's thoughts. I love hearing from you—it keeps me going and helps shape the adventure!

  That's all I've got for now. Thank you for reading, and in case I don't see you:

  Good afternoon, good evening, and goodnight.