Fanfic / My Trans Dimensional Overpowered Protagonist Harem Comedy Is Wrong

I, Hikigaya Hachiman, am a displaced Trans-Dimensional Japanese Citizen. I have spent the last two years of my life gathering wealth, destroying monsters, and amassing power in a world with magic, fiends, and heroes. Over the last two years I've beheld the great tragedies this world has to inflict upon all its inhabitants. I've lost good companions, seen greed tear apart families, and seen the depravities that people will fall to when their lives are on the line.

Today… today, I am carrying bags for a group of girls while they're shopping...

Ah, the pain of being a Major Character means that I must put up with this. These moments where the author needs to show his readers that his massively overpowered characters are still indeed people! Though, since this was Zaimokuza we're probably talking about, I'm sure that all the clothing stores we'll be visiting are going to pander to every major fetish. I bet that tubby bastard's going to use up all the illustrated pages on a single section! Save some for the action scenes!

— Hachiman, Leaning on the Fourth Wall so hard he might break it

My Trans-Dimensional, Overpowered Protagonist, Harem Comedy is Wrong, as Expected is a Crossover fanfic by Sage_Of_Eyes. The premise is simple enough: Hikigaya Hachiman, the protagonist of My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong, as I Expected and one of the most cynical, snarkiest Light Novel protagonists out there, ends up in the RPG Mechanics 'Verse of Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? through unknown means. If he reaches the end of the Dungeon (which no-one has fully explored), he'll be able to go home.

So what does he do? Exploit the rules (legal, physical and otherwise), gather power, wealth and leverage, teach other adventurers (for aforementioned power, wealth and leverage), and realize that he's in a light novel fantasy setting. Which means finding the light novel's overpowered protagonist and getting him to do the job.

Hilarity, surprising moments of poignancy, and narration that complains about genre conventions ensue. You can find it here.

Story complete as of February 22, 2022

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This fanfic contains the following tropes:

• Anyone Can Die: As Hachiman eventually realizes: only the protagonists (Hachiman and Bell) are important enough that their survival is guaranteed in the "story". Everyone else is fair game.
• An Arm and a Leg: Hikigaya loses his left arm saving Bell from the Asura's zombie horde. Hachiman uses his skills to make himself an arm of lighting as a temporal replacement.
• Awesome by Analysis: In combat Hachiman's unique skill allows him to fight like magic-wielding Sherlock Holmes.
• Badass Longcoat: Hikigaya seems to have made this into a uniform of sorts, along with the rest of his students.
• Badass Teacher: Ever since coming into the dungeon this has become Hachiman's default job.
• The Big Damn Kiss: This and a Love Confession are how Lyon gets through to Hikigaya after he's gone full "Monster of Logic".
• The Chosen One: Hikigaya is the Supporting Protagonist, who thinks Bell is this and The Protagonist, while (perhaps willfully) unaware that he actually fits the archetype better himself.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Lyon for Hikigaya, despite being a Kuudere and Deadpan Snarker. She won't even call the other girls interested in him their names and just refers to them as the Amazon (Tiona), Elf (Lefiya), and Princess (Riveria).
  • Riveria is less than pleased when her student Lefiya asks Hikigaya to dance with her.
• Clueless Chick-Magnet: Bell as per canon with Hikigaya being just as bad and possibly even worse.
• Combat Pragmatist: Hachiman is one. He also tries to make his students into this.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Everybody in the fantasy world, by Earth's standards. Hachiman comments that it's such a Crapsack World that people only really mourn death, and often not even that.
• Cool Mask: Hachiman wears one after the first few months of coming into the dungeon to stop people from recognizing him as the Crazy Adventurer.
• Crapsack World: Hikigaya doesn't pull punches describing how much life sucks in the Lower World. He also makes an interesting point about how things that easily could destroy lives and families on Earth are barely an issue in places like Orario where dying is so common. For example, if an alcoholic person has enough of a handle on their vice to survive farming monsters to pay for it, then it's not considered a problem. If they aren't able to do this much, they simply will get themselves killed soon enough in the Dungeon and that's that.
• Crazy-Prepared: Hachiman always carries concealable weapons in case of emergencies. He also taught his students to always carry at least one magic sword of average power as an emergency use weapon.
• Cruel Mercy: Phryine Jamil did not die, but her adventuring career is completely over.
• Cynical Mentor: Hikigaya gets into Danmachi's plot by playing this role and he tries very hard to think he doesn't really care about the people he helps. Ultimately, his Knight in Sour Armor tendencies make him a subversion.
• Dead Fic: But it came back! In June 2016, the author ended the fanfic inconclusively because they had to focus on real life issues. Six months later the author posted a Web Original Fiction heavily inspired by this story, but user comments and dislike of the website caused the fanfic itself to pick up where it left off.
• Deadpan Snarker: Hachiman, and anyone he extensively interacts with (even Bell, eventually). Also, basically all of the elves, so much that Hachiman thinks of them as a "race of Yukinoshita".
• Despair Event Horizon: Hachiman basically went insane after he first got dumped in Orario, the hopelessness he feel because of the chance that he may never return home cause him to break,his skill isn't helping him either.
• Desperation Attack: All monsters have this when near death, which seems designed to catch adventurers off-guard. Hachiman made it a point to research what each species' Desperation Attack is beforehand, and remain very cautious when dealing with unknown types of monster.
• Deuteragonist: From one perspective, Bell is this while Hachiman is the real protagonist. See Supporting Protagonist.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride, Hachiman's refusal to rely on others, his Martyr Complex, and his stubbornness and refusal to compromise ended up getting five of his students killed.
• Flunky Boss: The Asura's near-death ability. It can resurrect dead Adventurers and control them with the ooze on its skin.
• Genre Savvy: Hachiman. As noted in Leaning on the Fourth Wall below, he's aware he's a Light Novel fantasy setting and bases his actions on genre conventions. However, later on it is revealed that this is partly a coping method, to consider everything around him as a cheap story and characters so as to distance himself from them. Considering that he has a bunch of traumatic experiences and how he will (or at least hopes to) eventually leave Orario to return to his old friends and family, it's understandable, though it's still rather Jerkass of him. He is changing in that regards, though it doesn't mean he'll stop snarking at the story convention and tropes of the stories.
• He Cleans Up Nicely: Hikigaya. Seeing him without his coat and mask turns Riveria, Tiona, and Lefiya into bright-red mutes. Until Lefiya asks him for a dance.
• Heroic Safe Mode: After the death of his student, Laulos, Hachiman enters this mode due to his skill.
• In Medias Res: Although the official summary says otherwise, the story begins two years after Hikigaya ends up in Orario. Finding out what he did and how he affected canon is part of the fun.
• Ironic Nickname: Hachiman was given the title of "Quiet Death" while his preferred spells are very much not quiet.
• Knight in Sour Armor/Sour Supporter: Hikigaya swings between these tropes. He really tries to pretend he doesn't really care about anyone and is only helping out of self-interest. But this is suggested to be a lie he tells himself and other people. Hikigaya doesn't want people to die for him to get home, and he will even risk his life to save people he cares about.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall/Meta Guy: Hikigaya is almost painfully aware he's in a Light Novel setting, to the point where he mentally yells at the person he assumes is the author. He lampshades and monologues about genre conventions, and uses said conventions to determine his actions. For example, he thinks (correctly) that Bell is the Light Novel's protagonist - and therefore he should help Bell so he can use him to get to the dungeon's end.
• My Greatest Failure: Hachiman considers the loss of his first party as this.
  • The death of his student Laulos is this as well.
• The Nicknamer: Tiona. She almost always refers to Hikigaya as Hat-kun and later on takes to calling Lyon Gale-chan.
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • When a powerful adventurer kills one of his students in what's supposed to be a nonlethal combat match, Hikigaya doesn't just strike her down, he melts her into several pieces and merges her with the rocks of the arena. Did I mention that because she's so powerful, this isn't enough to kill her?
  • Also, Calamities, especially the one that animates adventurers it's killed and uses them against the adventurers it's fighting.
• One-Man Industrial Revolution:
  • A very, very Downplayed example, but Hachiman's high school-level knowledge of economics and industry are well above that of people in a Sword and Sorcery world like Orario. That and his vast experience efficiently farming resources in videogames, which adventuring in the Dungeon resembles if you can reliably survive on a given Floor, allows Hachiman to make as much as successful party all on his own. The irony being, of course, that living a comfortable life in Orario has never been his real objective.
  • In later chapters Hachiman runs into an area of the Dungeon where someone evidently has been copying his farming methods to produce large amounts of crystals and other valuable resources. He doesn't know who it is, but the Switching P.O.V. later reveal this unknown party is Freya – a side-benefit for herself from her obsessive interest in Hachiman.
  • When Hachiman goes full "Monster of Logic" crazy, he decides to "drag Orario kicking and screaming to a civilized state". He does this by building an economic empire that trains and employs adventurers and small Families with industrial levels of efficiency and productivity and using those profits to get into many other related business and becoming Orario's first proto-corporation. In the process, Hachiman becomes a scary mix of "CEO and Yakuza boss" and de facto ruler of a good chunk of the city, even enacting improvements in its very infrastructure. Once Lyon manages to snap Hachiman out his trance, he leaves his businesses for others to run because they actually give safe and reliable employment to a lot of people and improve the living standards of many more.
• Papa Wolf: Hikigaya. Enemy combatant insults him? He barely notices. Insults one of his students? He notices.
• Power Limiter: Hachiman has one built into his coat, along with the rest of his students.
• Race Fetish: Inverted with Hikigaya. By Elven standards, his personality is actually incredibly attractive. Right after meeting him, Lefiya described his sense of humor as "oddly elvish" and commented that "his words were a breath of home" for Elves living in Orario.
• Rage Against the Author: Hikigaya seems to have gotten it into his head that his school acquaintance Zaimokuza is writing the Light Novel he's in. Thus, Hikigaya's narration often blames events on Zaimokuza's poor writing.

• Replacement Goldfish: When Hachiman realized that Elves are "like a race of Yukinoshitas," he intentionally modeled his interactions with Lyon after his everyday Snark-to-Snark Combat with Yukino. He let this go on for a year and a half, which would come to bite him in the ass because Lyon became emotionally invested in their Odd Friendship for real. The attempt on his life in the fourth Story Arc brought her Dark and Troubled Past right to the front of her mind, prompting Lyon to try to track down and kill whoever ordered the hit on Hikigaya.
• Shock and Awe: Hachiman's preferred elemental attack spells seems to be this.
• Superpower Lottery:
  • Hikigaya won it big time. Hikigaya has unlimited mana, which means he can keep spells powerful adventurers consider quick-burst damage spells going indefinitely. Also, he and one other isekai hero from Earth can level up themselves or others without divine assistance, which freaks the Gods right the Hell out when they finally find out about it.
  • He wins it again with his third skill. The skill is simple: the longer he fights, the stronger he gets. Combined with his unlimited mana, it's essentially borderline Story-Breaker Power.
• Supporting Protagonist: From one perspective, Bell Cranel is the hero of the light novel while Hikigaya is the protagonist who helps him. See Deuteragonist.
• Team Dad: Hachiman is this in spades.
• Tranquil Fury: Hikigaya after seeing Laulos dying right in front of him. Lightning ensues.
• Villain Takes an Interest: Many of Hachiman's problems comes from Freya taking an obsessive interest in him after she met him during his early months in Orario. She tried to seduce him on a whim, but after constantly failing despite trying many different approaches and disguises, she finally snapped at him out of sheer frustration. A severely beaten-up Hikigaya then smiled at her and thoroughly mocked for her for the love-starved Attention Whore that she really is at the core of her being. Freya got such a rush out of his utter, genuine revulsion of her exposed self that she now wants his hate as much as she wants Bell's love.
• World of Snark: Everyone Hikigaya interacts with eventually becomes a Deadpan Snarker, while the Elves are basically a race of Deadpan Snarker. At some point, everyone becomes some sort of Deadpan Snarker, though to a different degree.
• Yandere: Freya for Bell like in canon with the addition of also wanting Hikigaya for the entire opposite reasons. See Villain Takes an Interest above.
• Younger Than They Look: Pretty much the entire cast, including his own students, just assumed that Hachiman was an old man until the day they finally saw him without his mask for a formal event. It's believed his "dead fish eyes" (normally visible through his mask), the dull timbre of his voice, and his thoroughly cynical and pragmatic worldview are to blame. This Internal Reveal is a big factor in the He Cleans Up Nicely moment above.

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