BONUS: FOR TRUCK-KUN SUPPORTERS
Truck Kun's POV
I was born in a factory in Osaka in 1987. The assembly line workers called me "Unit 47-B." My first memory was the sting of fresh paint, with no dreams or purpose. I was simply... a truck.
For ten years, I hauled fish.
Thousands of pounds of dead, glistening fish from the port to the market. Day after day. Night after night. My tires wore down. My engine coughed. My transmission wept hydraulic fluid like tears nobody saw.
And then the first accident occurred.
Her name was Yuki Tanaka, nineteen years old. She wanted to escape her arranged marriage. She stepped in front of me on a rainy Wednesday.
I didn't even see her coming.
One moment, I was hauling mackerel. The next, I was an interdimensional transporter.
The universe shifted. My headlights blazed gold. My horn sounded like a choir of angels having a panic attack. Space tore open, and Yuki Tanaka was reborn as the Saintess of the Blare Hell in a world where magic was real and demons were deliciously evil.
I watched her grow up from the void. She slayed a dragon lord. She married the prince. She had three children and a cottage with a garden.
I did that. It felt good to see her happy.
★★★
I had a support group. We met every third Thursday at a Denny's off the interdimensional highway.
There's Bus-kun—he's been doing this since the Edo period. Over 900 isekai victims; a true legend. Train-kun, always crying about the "one that got away." Staircase-kun—he doesn't actually kill anyone, he just causes accidents, and he's very bitter about it. And Falling Piano-kun, who has had only three victims, but his technique is flawless.
We share our stories. We cry. We laugh. We compare numbers.
My count is respectable: 247 confirmed isekai transports, 12 near-misses, and 1 complete refusal—I'll get to her later.
But Bus-kun... Bus-kun has 1,234.
Do you know what that's like? To sit across from someone who has sent twelve hundred souls to their magical destinies while you're still working your way up to 250? To see his trophy wall and realize your own achievements are barely a footnote in the celestial ledger?
It was humiliating, but it was also inspiring. It was why I kept going.
★★★
After my 47th transport, I started hearing voices. The ones that said, "You're just a truck," and "You have no purpose," and "What happens when the truck stops?"
I went to therapy.
Patricia: "Truck-kun, why do you think you feel this need to send souls to other worlds?"
Me: Silence for 45 minutes.
Patricia: "Is it... is it because you feel invisible? Like nobody sees you?"
Me: I honk softly.
Patricia: "That's okay. Let it out."
Me: I honk aggressively.
Patricia: "You're projecting, Truck-kun. You think if you send enough people to their magical destinies, maybe someone will send you somewhere?"
I didn't talk for a week after that.
★★★
Let's talk about Her.
She was twenty-four. A Korean medical student. She'd been trying to get isekai'd for seventeen years.
Do you understand what that means? She was committed. She wrote diaries about me. She drew pictures of my headlights. She made voodoo dolls of my steering wheel.
And I... I swerved. Every. Single. Time.
I couldn't do it. I saw her standing on that curb, eyes wide with hope and desperation, and I swerved.
Why?
Because she reminded me of myself.
The loneliness. The desperate need to be something. To go somewhere. To matter.
I watched her for years. I saw her leaning against a BMW while trying to call her parents, only for them to ignore her. I saw her eat convenience store ramen alone on a roadside bench. I saw her read stories about magical families with powerful fathers who loved unconditionally while walking home.
She was chasing something. I was chasing something. And I couldn't bring myself to give it to her.
It was depressing. So, I needed to go see my therapist again.
Patricia: "Truck-kun, we need to talk about your savior complex."
Me: I honk defensively.
Patricia: "You said you want to send people to better worlds. But what if it's not about them? What if it's about you? What if you're trying to send yourself, but you can't, so you send others?"
Me: I rev my engine.
Patricia: "I can see you're feeling defensive. That's okay. You're safe here."
Me: I cry hydraulic fluid.
Patricia: "Truck-kun, have you ever considered that maybe... just maybe... you want a family?"
I didn't answer.
But I knew what I wanted. I wanted to matter. I wanted to be seen. I wanted to be loved. I wanted to come home to someone who asks about my day and actually cares about the answer.
I wanted to be more than a truck.
I wanted... I wanted what SHE wanted.
The girl who chased me for seventeen years. She wanted a father who showed up. A family that loved her. A world where she wasn't alone.
I wanted the same thing.
★★★
That day... the day I finally didn't swerve...
I saw her on the curb. Two cats chased her into the street.
I had a choice. And I swerved.
But then I remembered therapy. I remembered the lie I was living. I remembered what I wanted.
So I hit the accelerator.
Boom.
Headlights blazed.
Space tore open.
She died smiling.
And in that moment—
For the first time in my existence, I felt seen. I felt powerful. I felt like I mattered.
I sent her to a world where she could be loved. Where she could have a father. Where she could be everything.
And I... I wanted to go with her.
She was days old when she first manifested in the Dream Library.
I expected anger. I expected tears. I expected the classic "Why did you do this to me?" breakdown that most of my victims have.
What I got was... confusion.
"Truck-kun? Is that really you?" She was in her adult body. "You came!"
And then she ran toward me with her arms spread wide.
I was confused by her behavior. I didn't know how to communicate with her. I kept asking myself why I even came here. Why I wasted my time on this nonsense. Yet I found myself looking forward to her visits, listening to her ramble, and watching the chaos she brought into my quiet little corner of existence.
Time passed. I watched her grow from a newborn to an infant, then into a child.
She changed my whole space. She even knitted me a steering wheel cover. I loved it more than anything else.
After that, I held an emergency session.
Bus-kun: "So, you're emotionally attached to your victim."
Me: "I'm NOT EMOTIONALLY ATTACHED—"
Train-kun: "You knitted her a steering wheel cover."
Me: "SHE knitted ME a steering wheel cover!"
Staircase-kun: "That's worse. That means she's emotionally attached to you."
Falling Piano-kun: "You're in a codependent relationship with a child."
Me: "I AM NOT—"
Bus-kun: "Truck-kun, you have to face the facts."
Train-kun: "He's right. You had a stalker."
Me: "She's not my stalker! She's just... enthusiastic!"
Staircase-kun: "You developed Stockholm syndrome."
Falling Piano-kun: "I'm going to write a book about this: 'My Truck, My Stalker, My Love.' It's going to be huge."
Me: "NO ONE IS WRITING ANY BOOKS!"
Bus-kun: "Too late. Train-kun is already taking notes."
Train-kun: "I'm not taking notes. I'm documenting."
Me: "THAT'S THE SAME THING!"
★★★
I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone.
I'm not actually a truck.
I mean, I am. Technically. But that's not what I am.
Before I was a truck, I was a man. A father, actually. I had a wife and a child. A daughter. She was beautiful. She had hair like honey and eyes like the blue sky.
And I lost them.
I don't remember how. The details are fuzzy. Maybe I was cursed. Maybe I made a deal I shouldn't have. Maybe I was just unlucky.
All I know is that one day, I woke up as a truck.
And I've been trying to find my way back ever since.
Every person I send to another world is a prayer. A desperate attempt to give someone else what I couldn't give my own daughter or find for myself. A second chance. A happy ending.
I don't send them for the glory or for trophies. I send them because maybe, somewhere out there, someone is sending me back to my family.
And when Hania appeared, with her desperation, her loneliness, and her desperate need for a father who loved her...
I saw my daughter, the little girl I left behind.
And I couldn't swerve.
I had to give her what I couldn't give my own child.
So I hit the accelerator.
And I sent her somewhere beautiful.
I gave her everything.
And now...
Now I'm stuck in a cherry blossom tree, wedged between branches, my engine smoking, my radiator leaking, waiting for Hania to come back and rescue me.
Because that's what she's always done.
She rescues people. Even when they don't deserve it.
POST-CREDITS SCENE
Truck-kun: Stuck in tree, engine smoking
Cherry Blossom Tree: "You know, you're really heavy."
Truck-kun: "Says the tree that's literally growing out of a grave."
Cherry Blossom Tree: "Don't judge my life choices."
Truck-kun: "I'm literally a truck crying in a magical garden. I'm not judging anyone."
Cherry Blossom Tree: "That's fair."
Pause
Cherry Blossom Tree: "So... you want to talk about it?"
Truck-kun: Honks softly
Cherry Blossom Tree: "I've got time. I'm a tree. I've got literally all the time."
Truck-kun: "...Thank you."
Cherry Blossom Tree: "That's what I'm here for."
Long pause
Truck-kun: "You know, she's going to come back and rescue me."
Cherry Blossom Tree: "I know."
Truck-kun: "Because she's brave. And stubborn. And she never gives up."
Cherry Blossom Tree: "That sounds familiar."
Truck-kun: "Yeah. It does."
Another pause
Truck-kun: "I'm going to tell her everything when she comes back. I'm going to tell her about my daughter, about my family, and about who I really am."
Cherry Blossom Tree: "That's brave."
Truck-kun: "No. That's just... that's just what she deserves. The truth."
Cherry Blossom Tree: "And what do you deserve?"
I didn't answer.
But I was thinking about it.
And I thought maybe, just maybe, I might deserve to be happy, too.