It was a consolation that I was born without my previous life’s memories.

 

No. Really. Heaven was considerate.

 

My memories came back to me bit by bit. At first I started thinking weird things like “Alarm set for 3h 27m” and reflexively sighing at it, but I didn’t know why I thought those things, and why I reacted how I did.

By the time I was 12, I just woke up one day and it all clicked, like—Ah, right. I’m a Heaven-sent hero. Heh.

 

I really wish I could remember my name in my last life, though. It must’ve been a terrible name, because I remember my friends harassing me about it back then, but dear God, that name must still be a hundred times better than whatever I go by now.

My name is…

 

……Kaba Akiino……

 

I got bullied for that name so many times in elementary school. If you don’t get it, go ahead. Bully me too. Say “Kaba” fast enough, go on. Maybe if Philippine society wasn’t weebanized, this wouldn’t have become a joke in the first place…

It’s come to the point that no one becomes my friend without making that stupid joke. Are they even really my friends? Some days, I tell myself that I’ll get used to it. That I’ll swat away such a dumb joke with ease as time goes by. What a joke I tell myself. Goddamnit all.

 

Now here’s my previous life talking: Akiino.

I can’t believe I was born into this family.

 

When I realized it, at first I thought it was because someone up the ancestry was weeb enough to do the name change. Although that is an actual, unfortunate fact, there’s a deep and dumb reason—no, unfortunately-solid basis—for this.

 

I was born in the year 2222, which means that a bit over 200 years had passed since I’d died.

And man were those 200 years crazy.

If the history books were any good, apparently the Philippines got invaded three more times: first by the Chinese, and then the Chinese, and then the Chinese.

 

No, okay, to be clear, China as a country stopped existing by around the 2100’s, so the flags weren’t really the same, but the invaders kept coming from China anyway. I’m not really smart enough to know why, but… that was a thing.

 

Each time they invaded, they also got pushed out, and each time, there was always help from other nations. At first, it was the United States who helped out during WW3 around the 2060’s, but then the United States collapsed around the 2090’s, so they’re just The States now. The other two invasions happened during the 2130’s, and both times, it was the Japanese who helped out.

At some point, they put up permanent bases here, then next thing you know, the two countries’ economies got so intertwined that the Philippines got weebified.

 

The words are real—the Philippines got weebified.

 

Weebified. Weebanized. Weebed. Those were all words in the dictionary now, you know?

 

And that’s why my last name is Akiino. Any proper nouns that can be spelled in Romaji gets spelled in Romaji.

 

 

Kaba Akiino. 17. I hate it here.

 

 

“Kaa-kun!”

 

Oh my god, she’s actually saying it unironically. That fiendishly-cute voice was my older sister bursting the door open, one hand on her hip, and the other pointing straight at me.

Meanwhile, I’m still on my bed. I’d just woken up 10 minutes ago. I didn’t think this much cringe first thing in the morning could wake someone up so fast…

That grin on her face… Yeah, she’s about to dump a whole lot of responsibilities that were supposed to be hers on me again.

 

By the way, all our doors are sliding doors. My sister did not burst through the door, but she burst the door itself. My room’s metal door is currently crumpled at an unnatural angle towards me.

 

“What do you want?!”

“!”

“??”

“!!”

“?!”

“…”

“Fine! Fine! I’ll do it!”

 

I had a younger brother in my previous life, but we weren’t really close. If anything, I think we were both isolated by our parents from any feelings of filial affection. Depress-o Express, really. For better or for worse, it’s in this life that I first discovered the possibility of siblings actually becoming close—so close, in fact, that it was possible to have a conversation purely in gestures and facial expressions.

In this instance, she wants me to go buy our groceries because she has a date with her boyfriend, who’ll be coming to pick her up in 30 minutes.

 

No, yeah, I’m also amazed at the level of detail we could achieve.

 

Sis left for the dinner table. I could hear the triumph skip in her step all the way from here. I’m still so groggy, though…

 

“Alright… I mean, alright! Naw, no good…”

 

I even tried slapping my cheeks. In this life or the last, it’s really just impossible for me to hype myself awake in the morning.

Areh? The clock says 13:01, though?

 

The door to my room’s still a crumpled foil. How sad. It’s unfortunate that I wasn’t hallucinating any of that.

Incidentally, in this godforsaken future—okay, maybe not completely godforsaken, because they spared a thought to send at least me down here, though I’m not sure if I’m any good—the technology’s so advanced that it’s capable of imitating magic.

 

There’s a catch, though. A very big catch.

 

Mana? What’s that?

 

Some weird ethereal thing like “mana” just conveniently floating around and waiting to be absorbed and turned into magic doesn’t exist. At least, it doesn’t exist here.

So, what did humanity do? They forced it to exist.

The technology here was basically nanotech, and we’re all constantly surrounded by nanobots called nanites. How original. Well, it’s not like people need to call them anything else, because that’s what they were…

The nanites were a two-in-one package of energy storage and energy converter. As long as you had enough of the right type of nanites in one place, you could tactically dump all that energy in a specific way and achieve “Magic”. Basically.

 

But, but—that’s not what’s concerning here.

 

Indeed, if someone just told me all the stuff I just said, in my head, there’d be no functional difference. I’d still be able to be a protagonist following a half-assed magic isekai plot, completely ignoring the contribution of the fact that magic is actually just really advanced technology.

 

You see, the concerning thing is, around here, things cost money.

 

Get it yet? High technology is really expensive, okay?

 

 

Access to magic is a paid service, okay?

 

 

My room’s crumpled door? My sis burned a million pesos just to do that.

For scale, a decent meal costs Php 1000. Comparing with my previous memories, I really thought that we were just filthy rich. I mean, I’m literally an Akiino. As it turns out, it was just inflation at work. Subtracting the fact that we are, in fact, actually filthy rich, a middle class person would spend right around Php 1000 on a filling lunch.

 

Don’t ask how much our meals here cost. My inner college student is still spooked.

 

So yeah, my sis spent the equivalent of one years’ worth of food in one punch—or two to four months’ worth of working class salary.

 

No, yeah, I’m still more scared about that than the punch itself.

 

Incidentally, my sis took the Strength Build from our magic service provider, NanCo. It’s basically a package deal where they give you a preset bundle of “skills” at a discount.

Out of all those skills, sis uses the Punch preset almost every week. Officially, it’s a momentary activation of Force Amplification around her fist, and Body Reinforcement around her entire self. The first one burns the most cash and delivers violence, while the second one protects her from the collateral damage.

 

Sigh. I hit the “autofix” button on my phone’s app. The phone itself is actually purely holographic, and I’m the only one who can see it. I could actually expand it to the size of a TV if I wanted, but the icons start messing around like a certain ancient word processor. If technology’s this advanced, you’d think they come up with better UX than this…

The door glowed, and slowly, it un-crumpled itself and returned to its previous state. It’s sliding pretty smoothly in my hand now, so I guess I can change into something more outdoors-y and go out soon.

 

…That repair just now cost about 5 million. The repair costs more than the destructive force that necessitated the repair.

 

Getting a new door would be cheaper, actually. It’d just take a really long time. On the other hand, if I replaced it with a wooden door, though it would be cheaper to repair, each of my sister’s punches would shower me in ballistic splinters.

On the other hand, a flimsy metal door like this would just crumple noisily, but harmlessly. Alas, I’m stuck with spending 5 million every week. I’m not even sure why our parents weren’t concerned with a ridiculous bill like this.

 

The moment I thought about changing my clothes, I was covered in a layer of golden light, and after a few seconds, I was in jeans and a simple shirt.

To be fair, this sort of magic is actually reasonably cheap. It’s just that the “magic cloth” it’s made of is relatively expensive, so only the upper middle class and above get to wear it. The cloth itself changes shape, texture, and color, but the underlying material is the exact same. Each transformation’s cost is proportional to how far removed the clothes I was currently wearing were from the clothes I wanted to change into, which was great, since my house clothes were basically just a shirt and sweat pants. Changing into a more-presentable shirt and jeans wasn’t too far from that… I think.

… it’s still a few thousand pesos each time, though.

On the other hand, magic cloth doesn’t have to be cleaned. Whoever invented auto-laundry, I hope you have enough retirement money and are living a decent life.

 

When I left the room and went to the kitchen/dining room down the hall, my sis was sitting there in frilly magical girl clothes.

 

Magical girl clothes.

 

This utter weirdo… Rather, I’m amazed that her boyfriend accepted her just like this.

 

My sis sent me a stabbing gaze. Scary.

 

“…hi, sis…”

 

There was an explosion, and next thing I knew, she was hugging me from behind. In front of me, the chairs and tables had been scattered from the pure shockwave of her speed. Scary.

 

“Call~ me~ nee-chan!”

 

Can I not?

 

“You have~ ♫ no say here~ ♫”

 

Scary—But I still don’t wanna!

…

…Okay! …Fine!

 

“Nnnn…”

“Nnn? Come on, say it~”

“Nee…”

 

My lord, her breathing’s changed?!

 

“Nee-ch-ch”

“Cha cha?”

“Nee… chan…”

“Louder!”

“NEE-CHAN, GODDAMNIT”

“EEEH~ WHAT’S THAT LAST PART!”

 

Alarm bells started ringing in my head—actual alarm bells, courtesy of the Perception Build from NanCo. Her hold on me loosened for a second, and I used the opportunity to duck. Just then, a wall of wind passed over me. I rolled forwards, and, amidst the scattered debris of what used to be a dining table and chairs, I turned and watched my sister spinning around and around in-place, screaming “AAAAAA!”

She eventually came to a standstill and promptly fell down with stars spinning around her.

“Neee! Ka-kun!” she sulked, reaching out to me. Good lord, this sister.

“Ao-nee, you still haven’t gotten rid of your bad habit…”

“I’m sorry~”

“Even if I’m not the one getting hurt here…”

 

When she gets flustered, she reflexively tries to slap me. It was alright—well, annoying—when I was younger, but when dad spoiled her with a magic subscription when she turned 13, she kept accidentally invoking strength magic behind those reflexive slaps.

Up until now in this life, I’ve only ever been hit once.

To a wee kid like I was, the shock—the pure recoil—threw me across the room. She hurriedly scampered to me to check on me. With a flat, disappointed tone, as if my soul had left behind this husk of a body, I called her by her name—“Ao-nee”. She started sulking on the spot.

Ever since that time, if I called her by her name, she’d turn docile and sulky. Pavlovian conditioning is scary.

 

Incidentally, Ao was also a joke name around here. The Japanese themselves wouldn’t understand, but thanks to the oddities of how Filipinos pronounced things, “Ao” ends up sounding like “aho” if you shout it hard enough. Truly, she is the aho to my baka.

 

Maybe the reason why we got along like this was because we’re both bullied for the same reason? We’re siblings after all, huh?

With this, I’m finally going out.

 

“Sis, I’m going out.”

“Haa~ ki o tsukete~”

“Odaiji ni~”

“Ahh…”

 

 

I quickly disappeared from that place and, with my 17 years’ experience sneaking around my sis, I slipped right out the door without a sound. She’s probably sulking from that yet again, but meh, I’ll let the boyfriend cheer her up.