-- April 21st, 2012 - Chiba Prefecture --
In a quiet suburb of Chiba Prefecture, night had fallen and a gentle drizzle was coming down on the asphalt. The lights from the streetlamps were distorted in the humid air, projecting long and brilliant reflections onto the wet pavement. A small, 24-hour convenience store continued its constant hum, a solitary beacon in the stillness of the night.
"This is dogshit."
Asher Mugen, a 19-year-old, raised his weary gaze from the counter. At 1.83 meters tall, his disheveled frame barely managed to hide the exhaustion that consumed him. His hair, a messy long wolfcut who is dark brown, framed his pale face with sharp features. Although not conventionally attractive, the combination of his taciturn gaze and the dark circles under his eyes gave him a unique charm. He wore a worn, olive-green military-style jacket over a plain white t-shirt, paired with black sweatpants and basic sneakers. Despite his generic appearance, a silver crescent moon necklace hung from his neck, a small detail that set him apart.
He slid his finger across his phone screen. On a 2ch thread about local safety, someone had posted a blurry photo of a robbery at a pawn shop. The comments that followed, full of Japanese characters he recognized as abbreviations for insults and complaints, mentioned the same type of crime in other areas, attributing it to foreigners.
"Things are just getting worse," he sighed, scrolling through the thread.
"In fact, this is the second time this store has been robbed this week," he added. "Maybe I should consider quitting."
Wouldn't be a bad idea. I'm sick of having to deal with those apes in ski masks spitting out English slang while putting a knife to your throat. Someone should shove that fucking knife deep up their asses to see if they get an internal tear and die for good.
Asher leaned back in his chair, stretching languidly. The shift was a martyrdom: 12-hour days, shitty pay, constant robberies, and the boss's whining about them, as if he expected Asher to defend the day's miserable dollars with his life.
Time passed slowly as he scrolled through his phone, distracted. A short while later, the automatic door slid open, the sound making him look up.
Luckily for Asher, the person who entered the store wasn't an ape in a ski mask but a young boy with spiky black hair, dressed in a black, white, and orange tracksuit. The boy seemed just as distracted as Asher as he inspected the shelves.
"H-hey, do you know where the instant ramen is?"
The boy's voice snapped Asher out of his drowsy trance.
"Yeah, they're in the back on the right, man" Asher replied, a noticeable weariness in his voice.
The guy just turned and headed to the back of the aisle, without a nod or a thank you, lost in his own world.
You're welcome, you dumb fuck.
Asher rolled his eyes and went back to his phone. He wasn't handling the stress well, given what had been happening lately, plus the lack of sleep and the long shift.
After a few minutes, he felt something, a sensation he didn't recognize. He felt the counter trembling slightly, and he felt...
"Static?" he asked himself in a low voice, touching the counter with apprehension.
"I think I should go to the hospital," he added a moment later, assuming his mind was playing a bad trick on him.
"H-hey" the boy in the tracksuit said, gesturing to the items he had placed on the counter.
Asher stood up, grabbing the items and scanning them. He glanced at the tracksuit boy from time to time; when their eyes met, the boy quickly looked away, avoiding eye contact.
"That's 1200 yen," Asher said, putting the items in a plastic bag.
The boy awkwardly pulled out a crumpled bill and a coin to complete the payment, placing them on the counter.
"Hey, you're 100 yen short," Asher said, pointing to the money.
The tracksuit boy mumbled something in a low, unintelligible voice and completed the payment before taking the bag abruptly and leaving the store.
"Sure, you're welcome. It was a pleasure serving you," Asher said with clear sarcasm as the brat walked out. The gesture faded into an exhausted sigh.
He looked at the time on his phone.
9:30 P.M.
He still had two and a half hours left until his shift ended and the next guy came in for the handover. Still, the bright lights of the store and his lack of sleep were making him anxious. He wasn't feeling well today, and the static sound hadn't gone away, which didn't help.
"I need some air. This place is making me sick."
No sooner said than done, he came out from behind the counter, grabbed a cold bottle of water from the fridge, and walked out of the store.
Outside, he noticed it was drizzling, but it was so light he didn't care much. He opened the bottle of water and drank the whole thing.
As he drank, his eyes fell upon the street outside the store. The simple act of watching the street helped him calm down, but not for long. He saw strange things, like purple waves that became more and more visible, distorting the air around him.
"I think I've gone crazy," he said to himself, letting out a stifled laugh. He put a hand to his face to rub his eyes, as if the exhaustion were playing a trick on him.
When he opened them, he was dumbfounded. In front of him were no longer the suburbs of Chiba, but a scene straight out of a fantasy book. A massive stone plaza stretched out before his eyes, surrounded by buildings in a distinctly medieval style.
The air vibrated with the bustle of a crowd. Merchants shouted about their products, carriages pulled by ground dragons hurried past, and people filled every corner of the place. Asher noticed that while many were human, the rest were demi-humans, a term he didn't recognize but whose forms were unmistakable. Some looked like humans with cat ears or lizard tails, while others were beast-humans in their entirety, anthropomorphic animals with humanoid bodies. The smell of spices, sweat, and the strange aroma of magic permeated the air. Reality, as he knew it, had vanished.
"W-what the hell?!" he stammered, his eyes darting in all directions as his mind was still processing what was happening.
"A-am I in an isekai?" he asked himself, barely audible above the commotion.
Needing a quieter place to process the situation, Asher started walking through the plaza, listening to the conversations around him. His eyes occasionally drifted to people who piqued his curiosity, like a massive polar bear man in fantasy medieval anime-style armor.
His gaze drifted to a fully transformed cat-girl. Despite the simple fabric of her clothes, her feminine curves were undeniable, something that made him blush as he realized he was observing with too much interest.
"What the fuck is wrong with me? She's not even human. I didn't know I was this messed up," he thought, filled with shame as he looked away and continued on his way.
Composing himself and his sick mind, he sat on one of the wooden benches near a fountain. The commotion was almost the same, as he was still in the commercial district, but having a moment to sit and process what had just happened was more valuable and necessary than a small auditory annoyance.
"So... this is an isekai, for fuck's sake" he said to himself, observing the colorful surroundings.
"I'm ruling out the dream theory. I pinched myself so hard when I opened my eyes that it bled," he added, pulling up his sleeve a little to show a small puncture wound with some dried blood on his wrist.
I have no idea how I ended up here. The typical way is for Truck-kun to kill you so the loser du jour can fulfill his escapist fantasy and get a harem that, in real life, would see him as a weirdo. Although 'real life' isn't the right word, since this is real, too.
"In any case, there are two theories."
1. "This isn't a generic isekai."
2. "I should stop thinking stupid things and get serious," he added with a genuine laugh.
"Look, Mom, that weird guy is talking to himself!" a demi-human kid with a wagging dog's tail pointed out.
"Don't look him in the eyes, honey," the mother said, pulling her son away and leaving.
"That's harsh," Asher muttered, a little dejected, watching the mother and child walk away.
"Whatever. I think I need to ask myself the right questions. Do I have any special powers? Can I read the writing here? Is it the same as in Japan?" he said to himself, stretching and getting ready to continue exploring.
As he walked through the busy streets of the Kingdom, his ears picked up several words that were repeated more than others.
"Lugunica" he thought. I'll assume that's the name of this kingdom, since they keep referring to it as 'here' and 'the place.' There are copper, silver, and gold coins; not much to say, a classic isekai economy. What's interesting is there's an even more valuable one: the holy gold coin, with a dragon emblem. Having one of those would ensure financial stability for a while.
Other assorted terms entered his head, like the names of fruits and vegetables that were a bit different from his world. "Apples" here were called "appas," a grumpy green-haired guy was shouting it at the top of his lungs. He also heard about the "Royal Selection" and that the kingdom had no king, so it was ruled by martial law and a council of wise men. Among the candidates' names, Crusch and Anastasia were the most famous he heard. Reinhard Van Astrea, mentioned by the girls as "the Sword Saint," was a constant topic of their gossip—apparently a popular guy. And other terms, like "mana" confirmed that magic existed in this world.
Asher decided to duck into an alley to think more clearly. When he turned the corner, he was in shock for a moment, swallowing hard.
"W-what?" he stammered.
In front of him, on the pavement, lay the tracksuit guy, seemingly dead. His eyes were lifeless, with a bizarre post-mortem expression, and a dark puddle of blood surrounded him. A closer look revealed a deep stab wound in his abdomen. Judging by the blood's viscosity, the stabbing had occurred about thirty minutes ago.
"It's that boy from the store," he said, a hint of apprehension in his voice as he tried to stifle his nausea from the strong smell of blood. "He was transported here, too?"
Looking closer, he realized that whoever assaulted him hadn't even bothered to take his plastic bag or his belongings. It seemed they panicked when they saw they had stabbed him and ran off. Asher checked the bag's contents, confirming it was the same stuff the guy had bought at the convenience store.
"This means that being transported to an isekai doesn't make you invincible. The fool thought it was like in anime and ended up dying minutes after transmigrating, almost a record."
"I feel for you, buddy. Rest in peace. If you don't mind, I'll be taking your stuff." The words left his mouth before he could stop them. He felt like a piece of shit for being so insensitive, but he couldn't help it.
"Whatever," he thought, reaching into Subaru's pockets, pulling out an old cell phone, and then grabbing the plastic bag with the food.
"I should get out of here fast. I think tampering with a corpse is a universal crime, whether it's in my world or any other."
He quickly left the alley, leaving Subaru's body behind.
"Now, how am I going to get that image out of my head? So gross..." Asher muttered as he blended in with the crowd in the Commercial District.
[Time Skip]
As the sun began to set, Asher had explored the districts of the immense Capital. He had been transported to the Commercial District, where, in short, money moved. If you wanted something, it was probably there, possibly at an inflated price if you didn't know its value. Then there was the Plebeian District, by far the largest, where he could see people going into their houses and children playing outside. It was much calmer than the Commercial District. There was also a Noble District, but when he saw some unfriendly-looking guards at the entrance, he turned around.
"I don't want to draw attention to myself, let alone get into trouble," Asher thought as he headed towards what seemed to be the slums. At first glance, it was the poorest, most abandoned part of the Capital: wooden houses with huge holes, dirt roads, and people in deplorable conditions. This was clearly the lower class.
He continued walking through the slums without a fixed purpose. Honestly, he didn't know what he was looking for; he was walking right into the lion's den. So he stopped, thinking of turning back.
Asher yawned, feeling drowsy. He hadn't slept for almost a full day, and his eyelids felt heavy. He decided to close them for a moment.
Mistake.
As soon as he closed his eyes, a small rat with blonde hair and crimson eyes darted behind him, snatching the phone from his pockets. Unfortunately, she stole his iPhone 4 instead of the dead boy's old phone.
"?!"
The petite, youthful-looking girl wore a black sleeveless top, a red scarf with a gold patch, incomplete black leggings on her left side, and a red ribbon on her left ankle. She also had on a vest, gloves, brown shoes, and a belt with a holster for her knife.
She turned to look at the distraught young man with a mischievous smile before taking off, holding his phone up in her hand as a sign of triumph.
"HEY, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING?!" Asher shouted as he started running after her.
Is this karma?[1]
[1] Yea