Yanderes in Cottage Country (Cottage Country #1)

1. Chapter One

Chapter One

Cody

Cody fell to his knees, a wave of nausea coursing through him.

That relocation spell had been a doozy. He could feel rivulets of sweat running down his back and dripping off ?his forehead, landing on his jeans.

Jeans? He hadn’t worn jeans in years. Before he could ruminate anymore on his clothing, he heard a mooo and looked up to see a trio of brown cows chewing their cud and staring at him. Their large black eyes were unamused.

Cody blinked as his eyes adjusted to the late afternoon light, the sun blazing as it descended into the horizon.

He looked around, taking in his surroundings.

He was inside a cow pasture. There was a wooden fence a few feet away, and on the other side there was a dirt road. And on the other side of that…

“No way…” Cody got to his feet and wavered a bit, but he managed to stay standing.

He’d done it. He’d actually done it! After spending a decade in a hellscape fantasy land of dungeons and monsters, he finally collected all the dumb shit he needed for the witch-lady to cast the spell to return him home.

He realized this is where it all started on that fateful night: the cow pasture.

He had been walking through, as he often had when he needed to do some serious reflection.

The family who owned the farm never seemed to care.

He had been thinking things over about his late grandfather and his inheritance, when he had slipped on a cow patty and smacked his head on a rock.

Then he woke up in that other, weird, game-like place: Velasarin.

Now he seemed to be back on Earth—back in cottage country in Southern Ontario, to be exact.

And he smelled like cow shit. It was smeared on his shoes and his jeans.

He also had an intense throbbing in his head.

He reached up, patting his hair, and realized it felt much shorter than usual.

The familiar feeling of warm, sticky blood coated his fingers.

Right, because he’d slipped on the cow patty…

and hit his head. But as he kept prodding his head, he realized there was no wound, just blood.

He frowned, wiping his bloody hand on his jeans.

He had been under the impression he’d essentially been truck-kun’d (or rock-kun’d, technically), and therefore the rock to the head had been fatal.

But now he was back so the fatality had been…

reversed? He couldn’t make sense of it, and he wasn’t going to bother trying.

His head hurt too much to even attempt to think it over more than he already had.

Out of habit, Cody went to place his hand on the hilt of his sword, but nothing was there.

He looked down at his outfit and realized he was wearing a thin cotton T-shirt instead of his leather armor and, yeah, he was wearing jeans.

And black Converse. He was back in the same clothes he had been wearing the evening he hit his head on the rock.

He wondered if that meant he was back, to that very same night…

or had a decade passed while he was gone?

He had lived a full decade in Velasarin.

Either scenario was plausible. And if his sword was gone, and he was wearing his original clothing—

Knife? he asked in his mind, searching for the sentient knife that was attached to his soul.

Yeah, I’m here, Knife’s familiar, gruff voice answered. Cody felt a wave of relief. I think I’m in your Inventory.

“Inventory?” Cody said out loud. He was not in Velasarin. This was home. He was home. No more weird game shit. No more Inventory. But he did the mental pull that would bring up his Inventory and, indeed, there he was: Knife.

Cody had been stabbed in the heart with the knife during one of his first dungeon runs.

It was a little goblin who’d done it. The demon who lived in the weapon agreed to save Cody’s life, as long as he could hijack his mind and live inside his brain.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was either that or die.

And now their lives were tied together, forever.

Not even returning to Earth had severed their connection.

Cody had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, Knife was his friend.

They’d spent a lot of time together. But on the other hand…

he wasn’t entirely opposed to having his brain back.

Knife was attached to Cody’s soul, so he had access to everything: his thoughts, his memories, his useless pop culture knowledge, and he could also see, hear, and even smell the world through Cody.

I saw that, Knife grumbled. Were you really hoping returning home would get rid of me?

No, not…exactly, Cody said, already feeling guilty for even thinking it. But right there was the kind of intrusion he had to deal with, constantly.

There was something else confusing Cody: Knife was the only item in his Inventory. That seemed harshly unfair. His Personal Inventory in Velasarin had been stacked. Nearly all fifty slots were full, and he’d had extra Inventory Chests stashed all over the continent.

Had he really lost everything? Nothing was making sense.

He pulled Knife out and gripped the smooth, wooden handle.

He realized he was missing Knife’s sheath that was usually on his belt, so he dismissed him back into his Inventory.

Usually, he’d get a quick pop-up notification stating where he was at, such as Forty-Four Out of Fifty Slots Full, but nothing happened.

He brought up his Inventory again and noticed a little infinity symbol in the top right corner; it was an unlimited personal Inventory.

That sure was nice, but it didn’t explain a damn thing.

“What the fuck is happening?” A cow looked over at him and mooed.

Cody turned to face the dirt road that ran along the cow pasture. On the other side of the road was his grandfather’s cottage.

So, that’s the fabled cottage you’ve been thinking about all this time? Knife asked.

Cody started walking to the wooden fence that surrounded the pasture. Yep, that’s it.

It was a green-paneled lakeside cottage.

The white shutters were overdue for a fresh coat of paint and a wooden porch led to the front door.

The cottage was one story, with a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and two bedrooms. There was a gravel driveway that ended in the bordering forest, a grassy yard along the side of the cottage, and a dirt path that led down to a beach.

It wasn’t big or anything fancy, but it was the place Cody had been dreaming of returning to his entire time in Velasarin. Small clusters of pine trees and patches of greenery framed the cottage, with the peaceful lake shimmering in the dying sunlight just behind it.

It looked bigger in your memories, Knife said.

Cody didn’t bother with an answer. His exhilaration at finally being home, standing in front of the cottage, was overshadowed by his exhaustion, and the fact that his limbs felt heavy, his throat was parched, and his head was pounding.

He attempted to pull up his Stamina Bar and groaned when it actually popped up.

The bar was in the red at fourteen percent.

Seriously? Cody wondered. Inventory? Stamina bar?

He thought he’d made it home. Home wasn’t supposed to have any of this game stuff.

He was supposed to be done with it, all of it.

With a sinking feeling in his stomach, he tried to bring up his stats sheet.

Nothing. That was…odd. He tried again, but still nothing.

He decided he’d deal with that later, after getting something to drink and taking a very long nap.

He couldn’t wait to get into that cottage and lie down on a nice, soft bed.

But, if his isekai-adventure-time passed in tandem with his back-home-cottage-time, that meant he was missing from this world for ten years.

That was certainly long enough for people to assume he was dead.

Not that he had anyone thinking about him.

His Grandpa Sam had been the only family he had, after losing his mom to cancer a few years before.

But if he’d been gone for ten years, the cottage could have been sold to someone.

And the inheritance money could be…gone?

He had no idea how any of this shit worked if you disappeared for a decade and then magically returned.

He made his way to the wooden fence, managed to climb over, and stumbled across the road.

He slowed as he reached the gravel driveway.

As he got closer, he noticed his beat-up blue Ford Focus was parked at the end of the driveway, partially hidden by the trees.

That could only mean one thing: no time had passed at all.

The car was definitely his and parked exactly where he left it.

There was no way his car would still be sitting there if an entire decade had passed on Earth.

For a moment, he almost expected Grandpa Sam to come out the front door, smiling and carrying his favorite fishing rod.

But Grandpa Sam wasn’t home. He was dead.

That’s why Cody was here, in the tiny town of Cornerstone.

The funeral was months ago, all the paperwork was done, and he’d driven up to cottage country to inherit his Grandpa Sam’s place.

That cottage was his now. And thanks to Grandpa Sam secretly being a millionaire, Cody had been looking forward to kicking back, fishing, and hiking, and not much else at all, because he sure as fuck wasn’t working another day in an auto factory if he had a lakeside cottage and a million dollars in the bank.

Cody ran a hand through his hair. How long have I been gone?

Just as he was heading up the drive, someone came around the bend in the road. She was wearing jeans and a baggy black polo shirt with the red Food Mart logo embroidered on the left side. Even in her simple work uniform, she still looked just as stunning as he remembered.