Fantasy Galaxy: Why Are There Goblins and Orcs in Space? - Chapter 1

When I looked up at the sky, I saw the Milky Way shining brightly; it was something that couldn’t be seen in the city. At fifty-five years old, having retired from my job at the government office, I had come alone to a campsite in Yamanashi Prefecture to start a leisurely life.

“All alone in the world, huh?”

I was born in Kansai and moved to Kanto with my parents when I was twelve. I studied international politics at university and chose the life of a public servant.

Now, I live alone and remain single. I’ve always felt a sense of dissonance with the world around me, as if this world wasn’t where I was meant to be. Because of that, I rarely made friends and often spent my days alone.

However, since I began my leisurely lifestyle, I’ve started to consider trying out various things in order to enjoy life more. Camping was one of those activities.

The campsite was nestled in the woods, with a river nearby, making it a hidden gem for fishing and camping. I set up my tent in a clearing in the forest, boiled water over the campfire, and began preparing dinner.

I’m not one to brag, but I was well-suited for places like this, having been working out at the gym twice a week. Standing at about 180 centimeters tall with a reasonably handsome face, I probably looked the part of a rugged older outdoorsman.

As the sun set behind the western mountains and darkness enveloped the area, the sounds of cicadas faded away. I put instant noodles into the pot of boiling water and started timing it.

The instant noodle dish I was making was a deluxe version enhanced with chicken broth, kelp soup, cabbage, green onions, boiled eggs, and char siu pork. After enjoying the finished noodles, I planned to start stargazing.

I wasn’t all that serious about the act of stargazing though; I would simply use binoculars to observe the Milky Way, constellations, and the moon. Sitting on a folding chair, I gazed up at the Milky Way.

At moments like this, it felt as if time was flowing slowly, allowing me to relax. While searching for Deneb, the brightest star in the Cygnus constellation, I suddenly saw the night sky get momentarily warped.

“Hm? What was that?”

Tilting my head, I observed the night sky again. It was a perfectly normal starry sky. There was nothing strange about it.

“Speaking of which, I think I saw some weird news online about this.”

It was a report about the increasing number of missing persons. The story was about individuals who disappeared while alone in nature, as if they had been abducted by someone. There were wild rumors online suggesting it might be the work of aliens.

In this day and age, missing persons were not uncommon, but it seemed that these incidents often occurred in places like campsites where few people were around. Another commonality was that these disappearances happened on nights when the starry sky was particularly beautiful.

There were rumors about it being the work of aliens, but… that seemed questionable. While pondering this, I chuckled and returned my gaze to the night sky. At that moment, I heard a peculiar sound from a distance. It was akin to mechanical whirring. As I wondered what it was, the sound came again.

The sound seemed to be getting closer, causing me to feel uneasy. When the noise grew louder, a nearby tree branch rustled.

I stood up from my chair and looked around nervously. The light from the campfire was obstructed by the surrounding trees, failing to reach deep into the woods. I sensed something moving in the darkness, but I couldn’t see it.

Feeling that something was off, anxiety enveloped me. I decided to head to the campsite’s management office to consult with the manager.

I grabbed my flashlight and smartphone and started walking along the paved road towards the management office. Feeling as if I was being illuminated by headlights, I turned around. Then, blinding light filled my eyes, making me incapable of seeing anything around me. A crackling sound followed, and something pierced through my body, sending waves of pain all over, making it extremely hard to breathe.

Lights began to dance around me. I felt a sense of danger and tried to escape, but my body felt paralyzed. …Move, move… I concentrated hard, but my body didn’t budge an inch.

As the light approached, I thought it was all over, and my consciousness was swallowed by darkness.

***

I am Jinguji Zen, and from the depths of darkness, my consciousness began to surface, alongside a feeling of cold. I tried to open my eyes, but I realized my eyelids wouldn’t budge at all.

“We are now injecting the body adjustment nanomachines following the antibody immunity and language comprehension nanomachines.”

“Just hurry up, will you?”

I heard a strange, gravelly voice with an odd accent. The words were not in Japanese, yet I understood them completely. What exactly was happening? Was I in a hospital?

A sharp pain shot through my shoulder. It seemed I had been injected with something.

“How long until it can move?”

“Approximately one aux – about an hour.”

I felt a strange accent in the voice, as if air was being released every time the owner spoke.

As soon as I heard the term “one aux,” I instinctively understood that it referred to about one hour. It was as if the words got translated automatically inside my head.

“Once this one’s able to move, you’ll be in charge of its training. Understood?”

“Y-Yes, I understand.”

What were they talking about? Training? Where exactly was I?

Time passed with me being completely immobile. Eventually, I felt warmth slowly spreading throughout my body, and I was able to gradually regain my body’s faculties.

My eyelids fluttered open, and I was finally able to see my surroundings. But the very first thing I saw was a dog-headed person with a human body from the neck down. Its face kinda resembled a Shiba Inu’s.

Was this some kind of Halloween event or something? Don’t tell me the hospital staff were wearing cosplay during working hours. What anime was this character from anyway?

“Heeey, you’re already awake, Banatsu.”

The dog-headed person addressed me. The way he talked sounded quite odd. Perhaps I only heard it wrong. And what the heck was a Banatsu?

“Am I in a hospital?”

When I posed a question in Japanese, the dog-headed person’s face contorted in a grimace. Wait, it wasn’t a mask?

“I don’t understand those words. You should already be capable of conversing in Gapan, the common tongue.”

It looks like this dog-headed person was unable to properly pronounce ‘s’ so it turns to ‘sh’ instead. Putting that aside, I was about to refute him, but realized he was actually right. Somehow, I already had knowledge of the Gapan language within my head.

“Who are you? Is this a hospital?”

I tried speaking in Gapanese and found that I was actually quite fluent in it. What exactly was going on?

“I’m Sario Barakel of the Kuusi tribe. This isn’t a hospital. You’re currently aboard the Braba, a supply ship of the Gonuva Empire.
A ship… Does that mean we’re at sea? I sat up on the strangely shaped bed. Scanning the surroundings, I found that we were inside a small room surrounded by what seemed like metal walls. There were four strange beds that resembled oxygen capsules within, and I was lying down on one of them earlier.

“Let me off. I have to go back…”

I ended up at a loss for words when I realized that I was no longer in Japan. The dog-headed person looked at me with pity.

“What are you saying? We’re in outer space.”

The dog-headed person brought me to what seemed like an observation deck. I was rendered speechless when I looked at the scenery outside the window. Countless lights glittered against the backdrop of a pitch-black void.

Then I noticed something strange. There was no water below. Just what was going on? Don’t tell me we really are in outer space.

My skepticism was completely blown away when the dog-headed person brought me to a warehouse-like room next. The moment we stepped inside, my body floated up uncontrollably, and I ended up hitting my head on the ceiling. There was no gravity. I managed to get back out with Sario’s help.

“Ugh…”

I felt confused and helpless. I was only supposed to be enjoying a leisurely camping trip…

“Now you get it, right? We really are in space.”

“B-But there was gravity in that room earlier.”

“That’s artificial gravity. We generate it within the crew quarters.”

It wasn’t Earth’s gravity, but artificial gravity that felt quite similar to Earth’s. At this point, I was already convinced that Sario wasn’t human. His dog head was very, very real.
Then I asked why I was actually on a spaceship.

“You were abducted by the Demon Race Dark Syndicate and bought as an illegal lower-class citizen by the goblin military, Banatsu.”

Apparently, he was addressing me as “Banatsu.” But that doesn’t really matter. I was abducted by a space crime syndicate and sold as a lower-class citizen to the goblin military. I was more or less a slave.

The ship I was on was a supply ship built by the goblins. A model of the ship was on board, and Sario showed it to me. It resembled an old, dark green diesel locomotive and was 170 meters in length. Apparently, the goblins always painted their ships dark green.

But what exactly were these goblins he was referring to? The only goblins I’m familiar with were the short, ugly creatures that were a staple of fantasy stories.