"Your hair is scientifically impossible. I'm just saying."
Having been pulled into another world through a fairy ring he found in the forest, Ordinary College Student Damian Nemeth found himself plunked into the role of the Chosen One, destined to save the Four Kingdoms from the tyrannical reign of the Demon Lord, Arcturus, and his Evil Empire. He is joined in his quest by the beautiful, sharp-tongued mage Aria, the proud elven ranger Llewelyn, the cheerful, boisterous brawler Katherine, and the elegant Princess Cecily. After many strange adventures, they stormed the stronghold of the foul Demon Lord for the Final Battle...
And were promptly hit with a spell that catapulted them all back to Earth.
And that's where the story,
written on Spacebattles by Tetradrachm, begins: Damian stuck back in his home world, helpless to stop Arcturus, and Damian’s four compatriots trying to adapt to a magic-less, utterly alien world.
I Went to Another World but Got Sent Back with My Party provides examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: Of Isekai, specifically ones that take place in RPG Mechanics Verses.
- All There in the Manual: Many of Tetradrachm's comments in the thread involve worldbuilding the 'New World', such as history and social structure, and the roles each of the party members played before they were banished to Earth.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Arcturus's plan for Cecily.
- Audience Surrogate: Carlos, an intern helping the party at Damian's college. As Damian is entirely used to the mechanics of the New World and quirks of his friends, having spent the better part of a couple of years there living the Isekai life, Carlos serves as a fresh perspective.
- Bad Boss: We get a snippet of the Demon Lord Arcturus, but after telling his intentions to one of his generals and then blasting said general with dark magic for knowing his plans, it's safe to peg him as this.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: A'cama the Wicked, a Demon Lord from centuries past, decided to expand his rule to Earth after successfully conquering Ka-mash-gi. Despite losing all his powers and stranding himself and his vanguard in Mesoamerica, he still managed to found the Aztec Empire.
- Beware the Nice Ones: Cecily may be a sweet Princess Classic, but she wielded obscenely powerful Royal Magic back in the New World, and her character class as part of Damian's party? Assassin.
- Bland-Name Product: The author uses these: a lingerie store called 'Virginia's Secret' and 'Tylerin' and 'Motrol' for headaches.
- Boisterous Bruiser: Katherine is a Rare Female Example of this, being the brawler of the group with a naturally cheery, gregarious demeanor. At the same time, she has a feminine personality, rather than being The Lad-ette.
- Brought Down to Badass: While their insane physical capabilities remain, the same can't be said for the party's magic, whether it be items or Aria's innate abilities.
- Can't Argue with Elves: Oh, yes you can. It doesn't get to the point of Screw You, Elves!, but Llewelyn's smugness and snark is answered in kind by his companions, particularly Aria, who engages in some lovely Snark-to-Snark Combat with him.
- Casting a Shadow: One of Alton's signature spells is a wolf familiar made of pure darkness: it's so iconic to him that Emelyn realizes that he's nearby as soon as she sees it.
- Character Tic: Damian has a few bristles on his chin that he scratches whenever he's nervous.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Katherine packs enough of a wallop to kill a troll with one punch. Downplayed somewhat according to her, though: it's only because she got a Critical Hit. Would've taken two punches normally. Even in the human world, she's able to run sixteen miles in seventy-four minutes without breathing hard and deadlift 200 pounds. The other characters are likewise in peak physical condition.
- Cliché Storm: The author has gone on record that the New World is meant to be the most clichéd Isekai medieval fantasy possible. All the better for shenanigans with a few of its denizens stranded in our world.
- Cool Sword: Glimmerstone, an ornate sword as big as Damian himself, yet perfectly balanced for him thanks to the enchantments on it. It even protected him from illnesses! Unfortunately, it lost its powers on Earth, and he can't very well lug a huge sword everywhere anymore even if it wasn't completely unwieldy now, so now it's just taking up space.
- Deadpan Snarker: Aria and Llewelyn are tied for first place in this.
- Elemental Hair Colors: Cecily has bright blue hair, and Katherine has fiery red hair. As shown by the page quote, the doctor examining Cecily is baffled to find that it's natural. Apparently, it's because Cecily's people, the Dinionites, were blessed long ago by water nymphs, while Katherine, despite being from Lyse has Erzurian blood, Erzur being a land blessed by fire nymphs.
- Emotional Bruiser: Katherine has a tendency to feel her emotions very strongly: normally very cheerful and upbeat, she has a tendency to collapse in on herself and angst when things go wrong.
- The Empath: Elves have a connection to the natural world, able to sense, at least on some level, the ever-present lifeforce of plants and animals around them. Having lost this magical connection on Earth, Llewelyn describes it as the world feeling "dead" around him, which is naturally a really unsettling feeling.
- Girly Bruiser: Katherine: she's a powerful physical fighter with a girlish love for sweets like funnel cakes.
- Good Is Not Nice: The Crones, a trio of witches responsible for bringing Damian to the New World to begin with. Despite being opposed to Arcturus, they are Nominal Heroes at best: they think nothing of sacrificing children to further the fight for the Greater Good and forget completely about Damian after he's banished back to Earth, instead beginning a search for a new Chosen One.
- The Greatest Story Never Told: Judging by their conversations, Damian and his party had been through a good couple of seasons worth of adventures in the other world before the story began, but we naturally never got to actually see them.
- Green Around the Gills: Cecily hates carriage rides due to her proclivity toward motion sickness, and as the party finds out later a car is no different.
- Heroes Gone Fishing: As they really have nothing better to do until they find some way back to the New World, the party has been spending their time doing this, with the added bonus of helping the New Worlders acclimate to their new home. So far they've stopped by a fish fry Damian frequented before he was Isekai'd and gone to the mall.
- Heroic Self-Deprecation: Damian wouldn't be an Isekai protagonist if he didn't engage in this to some degree: in particular, his failure to defeat the Demon Lord hit him hard. On Earth, he's taken it as his personal mission to make sure his friends are comfortable in their strange new world, and when something comes up that throws them, like Aria getting hospitalized with the common cold or Cecily getting carsick, he blames himself for not thinking ahead.
- Human Subspecies: Elves are an offshoot of humans: originally an order of druids who specialized in nature magic, their delving into it slowly changed them until they became their own race.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Llewelyn's attitude is rotten on a good day, and he and Aria butt heads constantly, but he's a good man at heart and sees his party members as genuine friends: he's not afraid to show vulnerability to Damian, opening up to him about his Sense Loss Sadness, which has to count for something. He used to be a straight-up Jerkass before getting all but abandoned by his men and getting the living daylights kicked out of him by Alton. As the story progresses and the strain of the situation starts to wear on the elf, however, he starts reverting back to his Jerkass ways...
- Just One More Level!: Llewelyn of all people gets hooked on a video game called Shades of the Void.
- Medieval Stasis: Ki-mash-gi, through a combination of Demon Lord attacks every couple hundred years and magic being easier, is perpetually stuck in a Medieval Fantasy age.
- Mystical Waif: Cecily, like all other members of the royal family, wielded some manner of "Royal Magic".
- Nice Girl: Cecily is kind, caring and supportive to everyone around her, so much so that her merely getting annoyed means something serious.
- Noodle Incident: Apparently there was something between Llewelyn and Damian that involved a "massage", something neither of them are keen on talking about.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Cecily plays up the innocent, wide-eyed Fish out of Temporal Water bit slightly when interviewed by ICE, in order to make herself seem more endearing and make them relax a bit around her.
- Rage Breaking Point: Llewelyn's rant over tunics in the mall is the result of the stress of the party's situation finally getting the better of him: afterward, he confides in Damian about how horrible it feels to be cut off from the flow of nature. Despite still being a snarky dickhead, he's noticeably calmer and more reasonable after getting it out of his system.
- Royal Brat: Countess Rhiannon was the obligatory foul-tempered Tsundere Ojou Damian met, who delighted in disparaging him as an "idle-minded buffoon" and inevitably fell in love with him after fighting alongside him.
- RPG Mechanics 'Verse: The other world is hinted to be this, with Katherine directly referencing scoring a "Critical Hit" (capitalized in-story) on a troll at one point.
- Sense Loss Sadness: Having lost his magical connection to the natural world on Earth, Llewelyn describes his surroundings as feeling "dead". Likewise, Aria likens her sudden inability to use magic as almost having a phantom limb: she can feel it start to move, but then she realizes it's not there anymore and it make an uncanny, unsettling feeling.
- Serial Numbers Filed Off: In-Universe — according to a side story, Shades of the Void is the story's answer to Dark Souls.
- Sorcerous Overlord: Arcturus isn't actually a demon, despite what his title would imply: he's "merely" an incredibly powerful dark wizard. Aria disparages him as a puffed-up nobleman with a god complex. According to
Word of God, the title's history is complicated: on top of actual demonic Demon Lords, there have been multiple self-styled mortal Demon Lords throughout history. Notable among them were Zetchlor, an Evil Sorcerer who slew the strongest demon, took his Crown of Skulls, and became the first mortal to claim the title, and "Gelmar the Terrible", an Evil Vegetarian elf who wanted to exterminate humanity to protect nature from them: apparently he's served as a case study for "going too far for nature" and cautionary tale for the elves for generations afterward. - So What Do We Do Now?: The big problem facing the "party" now that they're stuck in the boring-ass human world, next to the magic-users trying to get used to not having their magic anymore. To make matters worse, they can't even find comfort in the fact they at least succeeded in their quest because... well, they didn't. The Demon Lord won and is wreaking havoc unimpeded in their world, and they have no idea how to get back to stop him.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Damian and his friends are almost immediately tossed into medical isolation upon the doctors realizing they aren't being lied to and that they're dealing with visitors from another world: a virgin contact scenario could be a medical disaster. Indeed, Aria is stricken so badly by the common cold she has to be hospitalized. At the same time, it's not presented as an over-the-top doomsday event, and Aria is fine with bed rest and antibiotics.
- Sweet Tooth: Katherine is especially fond of funnel cakes.
- Straw Vegetarian: Elves play with this trope: their connection to nature pretty much requires them to be vegan, as they're attuned to the suffering of animals in a way that would make eating meat agonizing, and they're definitely snooty enough. Llewelyn himself, however, comes across as reasonable on the topic and shows no real issue with his party members eating meat, but he's quick to anger when he feels animals aren't getting the respect they deserve, like a Decadent Court's menagerie of Crested Deer. Elven society gave rise to a Demon Lord in the past named Gelmar who went about ten steps beyond this, but as mentioned prior their view of him is really, really not kind: they refer to him by the moniker "the Terrible".
- That One Attack: In-Universe: the Sewer Beast boss in the game Llewelyn plays has a lightning-fast charge attack that leaves the elf nearly tearing his hair out as he dies to it over and over and over again.
- Tough Leader Façade: Cecily: according to Damian, she's a real Stepford Smiler and slow to show vulnerability.
- Trapped in Another World: Before the story began, Damian was living the Isekai formula of a guy from Earth in a Medieval Fantasy world. But now it's the denizens of the Medieval Fantasy world trapped in another world: ours.
- True Companions: While we didn't get to see their adventures for ourselves, it's clear that at this point the five main characters are dear friends (even Llewelyn, as nasty as he can be). Aria in particular seems to have the strongest bond with Damian, having been the first friend he made in the parallel world.
- Your Magic Is No Good Here: One of the biggest issues facing Aria, Cecily and especially Llewelyn is the complete lack of magic on Earth. While Aria and Cecily are able to cope reasonably well, Llewelyn is cut off from feeling the natural flow of nature that elves are attuned to, leaving the world feeling 'dead' around him. And of course, this lack of magic means the heroes can't easily return to battle Arcturus, either.
