Chapter 1 – Corporate slave → stress → anisakis → other-world reincarnation

Corporate Slave → Stress → Anisakis → Isekai Reincarnation

“N-No way…! That’s impossible! You can’t just change the deadline out of nowhere…!”

“…Haaah, Miyamaru. I don’t care about your side’s problems. You get that, right?”

Countless small and medium enterprises prop up giant corporations. Laws like the Subcontractor Act are supposed to protect them from being bullied with unreasonable demands by those big players… but.

How well those laws actually hold up on the ground depends entirely on the situation, the timing, and who’s got the upper hand.

“With the original deadline we’re already barely breaking even…! If you move it up on top of that, we’ll have to redo orders and—”

“That’s why I’m telling you! Your circumstances don’t matter! I’m speaking as the representative of Toyooka Commerce! Do you really think you’re in any position to argue with a decision we’ve already made!?”

A woman old enough to be my aunt is yelling at me in the middle of the office. The office ladies glance over, wondering what’s going on.

I, Kuhei Miyamaru, bow my head to our client, Ms. Yamagure, right in front of everyone.

“I-I’m really in trouble here…! We’ve already accepted price cuts, but moving the deadline up is—”

“That’s your job to figure out! What the hell is wrong with you!?”

Ms. Yamagure used to work at the Tokyo head office, but a few years ago she got shipped out to the sticks.

She’s desperate to rack up some wins here and claw her way back to headquarters. She’s notorious for throwing impossible demands at every subcontractor.

Sure, the Subcontractor Act exists, but out in the countryside it’s basically worthless. Hell, I’ve heard it doesn’t even work that well in the cities.

And even if we reported her, we’d be the ones screwed. Losing Toyooka Commerce as a client would put our company in serious jeopardy.

Toyooka has tons of affiliates. We only get to do business with the others because of the trust we’ve built through direct deals with the parent company.

If we piss off the main company, they’ll pull all those other contracts too. Ms. Yamagure would absolutely squeeze us dry that way.

Unless she suddenly develops a conscience about the law, there’s no way it’s going to help us.

“If you can’t do it, then this is the last deal we’re doing with you, Miyamaru. Next time we’ll go with someone else.”

“Th—”

“What? It’s your own lack of ability, isn’t it?”

Some SMEs have unique tech no one else can replicate… but sadly, we’re not one of them. It’d take time, but they could find a replacement if they wanted.

She knows that, which is exactly why she’s kicking us while we’re down and forcing her demands down our throats.

“Please… anything but that…! If we lose Toyooka Commerce’s business, our company is…!”

Watching me desperately bow my head, Ms. Yamagure narrows her eyes.

“That’s right, it’s you who’d be in trouble, isn’t it? Did you really not understand your own position until I spelled it out?”

Right now, she’s probably riding high on the rush of wielding power over the weak, getting off on the one-sided dominance.

Plus the thrill of making me grovel in front of everyone.

“Go back and tell your president. Deadline moved up one week, price stays the same. …Your answer?”

“…Yes, ma’am.”

■

That night, I drag myself back to my forty-year-old rundown apartment, set up the wobbly round table on the tatami floor, plop down on a floor cushion, and set out the half-off sashimi and cheap canned chu-hi I bought at the supermarket.

“Sigh…”

pssh I crack open the tab and chug it down. Then I dip a piece of sashimi in soy sauce and toss it in my mouth.

“I wanna quit my job…”

After high school, I went straight into a local company. A lot of my friends moved to the big city, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave the town I grew up in.

Plus, the owner—who’d always been nice to me since I was a kid—offered me a job. That was a big part of it.

Things got way tougher after Ms. Yamagure showed up, and sales have been sliding every year… but even when I think about quitting, I don’t have the guts.

I’ve known the president forever. Just imagining telling him I’m leaving is too awkward. Like, “never show your face in this town again” levels of awkward.

I scroll through X and see friends who moved to Tokyo posting glamorous city views and fancy food pics. One of them landed a job at a foreign firm, right…? We’re living in completely different worlds.

“Man… am I really gonna spend the rest of my life getting bullied by big corporations, living in a crappy 1K apartment…?”

Days off: play games, read manga and novels… Weekdays: drag myself into a suit with a heavy heart. That’s probably how it’ll keep going forever.

I slump over, picking at the sashimi. It was half-off and still had the membrane on, so it felt like a steal and I couldn’t resist.

“Ms. Yamagure’s gotta be terrible at her actual job… yet she makes way more than me…”

I’ve dealt with her enough to know. She’s incompetent. Doesn’t even understand the documents we send, can’t read the numbers.

She never argues with logic—just throws around the weight of her big company. All she does is bulldoze her opinions onto everyone.

But she always frames it as “This is Toyooka Commerce’s official stance!”—making the subject as huge as possible while swinging it like a club.

Even her coworkers probably think she’s useless…

(Status, huh…)

Even someone like her gets to lord it over SMEs and talk down to us constantly. Why? Because of the status her company gives her.

The company’s power lets her stay in a strong position despite having no ability. And the pay’s fat too.

While yelling at me, she was definitely thinking, “This guy makes less than me and has the nerve to talk back—he’s just some small-company peon.”

Yeah, in the end, status decides how strong you are and how you live.

And there’s zero chance of the status flipping between me and Ms. Yamagure. Meaning unless she gets transferred, this relationship lasts forever.

(No… that part’s not really about her.)

Even if she got transferred, the next rep would treat us the same. The status itself never changes.

(I’ll probably stay at the absolute bottom forever…)

I really… don’t want that. I gulp down the rest of the chu-hi.

“Kaaaaah! Don’t fuck with me, you goddamn hag!”

Maybe it’s the alcohol, or maybe it’s because she screamed louder than usual today. I’m feeling the worst stress I’ve had since becoming a working adult.

The irritation won’t stop. My vision’s gone red. I want to claw my own throat.

“Gaaaaah! Fuckiiiing biiiiiitch!”

What am I even mad at? Ms. Yamagure? The life of constant bowing? The unchanging status, the eternal bottom rung? My own lack of courage to quit, clinging to my hometown?

I’ll keep getting looked down on and screamed at by that incompetent bitch who makes more money than me just because of her position.

“Oaaaaaaaah!”

■

Now… this wasn’t the first time he—Kuhei Miyamaru—exploded like this at night. Ever since Ms. Yamagure got exiled to the countryside, it had been like this nonstop.

Come home exhausted, drink, scream in rage, smash things, hurt himself… this routine had gone on for years.

And intense, prolonged anger and stress cause inflammation in the brain. They raise blood pressure and increase the risk of stroke and other issues.

That day, while screaming, a sharp pain shot through Kuhei Miyamaru’s brain. He ignored it and passed out anyway.

The next day he met with Yamagure-san again, only to be hit with excruciating stomach pain. The discounted sashimi with the membrane had been infested with anisakis parasites.

He vomited on the spot, and Ms. Yamagure unloaded a torrent of abuse.

Swallowed by even greater stress and rage from her words amid the agony, his sympathetic nervous system went into overdrive, spiking his blood pressure… and that’s when he suffered the cerebral hemorrhage.