Chương 22: [That Time I Wasn't Reincarnated in a New World and Instead Got Crippling Medical Debt]

"And here we have this idiot who couldn't even kill himself right," the doctor announced as he swept into my hospital room, finishing a coloring book he had stolen from the child's cancer ward.

"How'd you mess this up? You called the suicide hotline, right?" As it turns out, aspirin poisoning sucks. And not just in the "overwhelming dizziness, vertigo, nausea, and slow collapse of your body" kinda way, but also in the "99% of people survive aspirin overdose" kinda way¹. It's just a really ineffective way to get yourself Isekai'd.

Which might be just as well, if it's one of those 'you get powers based on how you died' systems I can't imagine the ability to reduce inflammation and the risk of blood clots would be the overpowered cheat skill I'd prefer.

"Yes, I called the suicide hotline. They said one bottle would do fine."

"Didn't they offer you the Community Shotgun™? They wipe it off after every use I think."

"I don't have a license."

"Well, neither do I, but I'm still going to charge you 30k for the stomach pump," the doctor noted.

"Also, while you were out, we removed your appendix and gave you a penis reduction surgery. So we're tacking another 100k to your bill for all that." Aw man. I was saving my appendix for my wedding night.

"Now, as you know but the narrator still needs to say, medical debt can and will follow you into whatever world you get reborn in, so I suggest you take some time to consider how you're going to pay us back before we make sure you're [Reborn a Thousand Times, Each Time with Broken Kneecaps]."

"Fine, whatever. I'll pay you back once I've been Isekai'd and I explore my first dungeon or whatever. Could you euthanize me now?"

"Unfortunately, even with the new and approved Hippocratic Oath 2. 0: Electric Boogalo Edition, I can't just kill people on request. They have to be in some sort of generally miserable state or at least be really annoying. And you're too healthy to be miserable and not interesting enough to be annoying."

"What if I started playing the harmonica right now?"

"... harmonicas have been extinct for 20 years now, Jake. I know it's hard, but you have to let them go." Now in a somber mood, the doctor excused themself from the room, leaving me to ruminate on my situation. In hindsight, paying the extra four bucks for a second bottle of aspirin might have been a better financial decision than getting $130, 000 in various medical fees, but this is exactly why I was in such a hurry to be Isekai'd already. I didn't want to make decisions and worry about money.

I wanted to go on adventures! Sexually harass women into becoming my brides! Maybe do some light incest if the mood struck? Or whatever Rudeus Greyrat was doing. I should look that up. It seemed like he was having a good time. If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it. … … alright well we're not doing that. Having a character arch, I mean. Seems like a lot of trouble when you could just not be a sex offender from the start.

The phone rung me out of my thoughts and, although I would have normally just hung up, the fact the narrator made a point of it made me think I should probably answer it.

"Hello. Who are you and how did you find me?" I asked normally.

"It's just me, Jake," Sasha said on the other end of the line, her voice utterly unchanged despite my failing to foil her diabolical scheme of keeping me alive.

"You holding up?"

"No, I didn't bring any DVD's. Why?"

"I just thought it might be a fun thing to watch while recovering. I understand you'll be there for a long time. Last I spoke with the doctor they said you were a public health risk, so they had to keep you in solitary confinement." Ah, right. Before the narrator showed up, I also snorted two straight lines of pure, uncut ebola.

"Oh no. The doctor didn't say anything like that to me."

"Different doctor. You owe him 50k too by the way."

"Ah beans."

"Anyway, I hope you learned a valuable lesson. As long as you're on the anti-suicide watchlist, you're stuck here until we say you're fit to die. I suggest you use this time to take a good look inside yourself and figure out what it is you want to do with your time here."

"I wish I could, but they removed my appendix so I'm missing critical supplementary notes from the author."

"Ah. Well, it's not really my job to solve your problems. Just to encourage you to stick around so they can get worse and the world can continue to extract wealth from your existence. God Bless America." We both stood for the pledge of allegiance, then lied back down.

"Sasha, sometimes it feels like you're my only friend."

"Ew."

"All the same, you know I can't do that. I'm going to get Isekai'd. Not just because I have the sheer force of will to make it happen, but also because a story about a guy constantly failing to kill himself in increasingly whacky ways would both be really depressing and a blatant rip-off of Garth Ennis's upcoming Mr. Magoo remake."

"You could probably extract a few more chapters worth of jokes out of it."

"My life isn't a joke for you to laugh at, Sasha! I'm going to be the coolest hero the expanded LitRPG universe has ever seen. I can feel it in my bones!"

"They did a lot of surgery on you while you were out, huh?"

"Well, it's the first one I'm happy for because I'm going to take this energy with me and really wreck shit up when I'm finally reincarnated. Now goodbye, Sasha! I'll see you in hell!" I pause.

"Not there." I clarify.

"I mean I know for sure it's where I'm going."

"Not there!" I hung up and threw my phone violently against the wall, breaking it into a single piece because I'm not strong enough to shatter anything after a decade of dedicated NEET training. I take my copy of Up (that's what the kids call a Plot Twist, GRANDPA, get with the times) and I throw it as well, deciding I don't need Up when I'm about to get DOWN with being dead if you know what I mean. Little did I realize at the time that angrily throwing my copy of 'Up' would be the thing that would change my life…

forever.