The Isekai hospital
Osaka, Japan.
29th, March 20XX
"Are you Dr. Sasaki?", a young nurse asks a man sitting down in the waiting room in a hospital. "Yes, that would be me.", the man replied as he stood up and gave the nurse some papers. The nurse read them and after a brief period of silence, "welcome Dr. Sasaki, I'm nurse Chigusa. I've been assigned to guide you around and inform you of your duties. Right this way please.", the nurse guides Dr. Sasaki to an elevator. The nurse presses random buttons before they started going down.
"I believe you know why you're here?", the nurse's tone turns serious as she asks the question. "The letter the hospital sent said something about an urgent project that requires several medical professionals. They didn't tell me any other details though.", the doctor answered, looking curious about what could be so urgent.
The elevators opened and revealed a large corridor with several transparent 'containment areas'. An asylum? That was the first thought going through Sasaki's head. Both he and the nurse walked down the corridor. With the fact that people were indeed inside, the doctor felt a little bit at ease until he noticed something.
"Nurse?". "Yes doctor?". "I've noticed that a lot of the patients are showing similar symptoms.". The doctor spoke out his concern as he noticed that a majority of the patients were acting in too similar a manner. "Well doctor-", "I think that's for me to answer.", a tall but skinny man responded before the nurse could speak.
"Doctor Musashi.", the nurse greets him as he starts walking side by side with them. "What do you make of these patients, Dr. Sasaki?", he asked. "Well, most of them seem to be delusional, with most, if not all of them looking like they don't know where they are.". "Hmm, hm hmmm.", Musashi started humming weirdly for a bit. "Impressive analysis. What if I told you that they're all suffering the same illness.".
"I'm sorry? Illness? I think I know a nut case if I see one.". "You wandered it yourself already. How so many of them seem to be acting way too similarly for it to be a coincidence.", Sasaki couldn't talk back from that. Musashi was right, they all act too similar for them to be just nutcases.
"So, may I ask what it is then?". "That's the thing; we don't know.". "Huh!?", Sasaki was getting more questions than answers in this conversation. "About 12 years ago, the son of a doctor was infected with this 'disease'. At first, they all thought his son just went crazy, but one after another, people kept on getting identical symptoms to the boy. After a few years, the government couldn't look away from the matter anymore. They began recruiting competent doctors across the country to understand what's going on. Any questions?"
WAY TOO MANY!!! That thought ran across Sasaki's head but he simply knotted his brows as he tried to grasp everything. After a few seconds of thinking, "Is there any information about this 'disease'?". "All we can tell is that it's not really infectious, otherwise there would've been an uproar in the matter already.".
So we're supposed to find the cure to something we know next to nothing about? "Do you know Isekai, Dr. Sasaki?", Musashi asked as Sasaki was thinking. "Eh?". "You know, those kinds of stories of someone going to another world? Face the demon king, get a harem, all of that?". "I know what it is! What are you talking about?". "That's the symptom.". Sasaki heard what he said perfectly, but he felt like he was joking.
"Can you repeat that?", he's joking, right? He has to be joking. He wasn't joking. "All of these people have a delusion that they're living in an isekai. That's the only symptom we could find.". "What in the actual-". "Looking foward to working with you."
Guess I'm in then. This'll be interesting.
Author note: Hi and thank you for reading my little idea. At the moment, it's just a one shot, but maybe I'll come back to continue this work. For now, let your imagination do the work
