As he walked along, Kyle took mental notes of the shops that he passed: a bakery and butcher shop placed right next to each other, a pawn shop that he couldn’t see the back of from the street window, and a news stand with an “Out to lunch” sign on it. They all led the way to the hotel building on the corner, which had a number of people in suits crowded waiting out front. A meeting for high ranking people, maybe?

On the other side of the street was a corner store, and heading back the way he had come, he saw a used-books shop, a half-hardware, half-attire shop, and some kind of small cafe with several tables out front. Numerous cars were parked sporadically along the street, but while the foot traffic seemed to be fairly moderate, it didn’t seem like a whole bunch of people were going in or out of any of the businesses at this hour.

“This street has a bit of everything, huh? Must be pretty convenient.”

He reached the end of the street, and was greeted with an altered form of a familiar sight. In the middle of the road was a scrawny, towering pillar. It had two boxes sitting atop it: a green light shined from the bottom box, while the top one seemed to be a dull screen of dark red. Suddenly, the green light started blinking, and a moment later it shut off as a bright red light began shining from the upper box.

Peering closer, Kyle saw the boxes housed colored panels of glass, with the sources of light coming from inside. Next to him, numerous light fixtures in the ground illuminated themselves, blinking bright enough to be noticed even in the middle of the day. “Huh, interesting setup for an intersection. Wonder if it’s like this everywhere?” he mused.

He followed the person across the crosswalk, and arriving on the other side found himself in sight of what appeared to be a park. There were a number of massive trees lining the perimeter, and a few cobbled walkways leading deeper into the area. Kyle could hardly tell any tree type from one another, and he wasn’t about to guess if these were reminiscent of any from back home. He appreciated their natural beauty, and that was enough. Suddenly, a realization dawned on him.

He closed his eyes and began flexing his muscles, taking a deep breath, and trying to envision something, anything, flowing within him. “Come on, being summoned to another world like this almost always comes with some kind of latent or magical power, right? Don’t let me down, fate! Show me what I can do now!” He focused on his arms and legs at first, trying to see if he could generate any form of energy in his body. 

Nothing.

He slowly shifted his focus towards his core as he searched himself, hoping to find a shred of something he’d never felt before. To his surprise, he thought he could detect something moving within. He jumped at it, trying to hone in on what powers he must have either been gifted or unlocked–

He stifled a shout as his stomach made another noise, longer this time. Letting out a heavy sigh, he made his way into the park. Guess I need to work on that more. Preferably with a full stomach. Maybe there’s a food stall or something around here? I wonder if they’ve got those ice-cream sellers that go around on warmer days like this…

There were a number of people walking through the park. A middle aged couple, a trio of kids by themself, and another man in a suit and top hat carrying a black briefcase, who kept glancing at Kyle from across the park. Considering a butler with a backpack and plastic bag in the middle of a park must not have been a very common sight, he didn’t put it past the man, and continued on his way. After enough wandering, he eventually found what looked to be a couple of vending machines sitting under a lampost. One was red and had the image of an orange bottle titled “Orange Bubble Kick!” followed by “The coolest refreshment in town!”. The dark blue vending machine had the image of either a sandwich or burger of some kind, with the slogan “Hickory Patties hit the spot every time!” written around it. He fistpumped silently as he made his way over.

Wait a second…

As he reached for his wallet, he realized he’d forgotten something fundamental. He had a fair amount of cash on hand, since he hadn’t spent too much at the anime convention, but it was almost assuredly useless now that he was in another world. There was no way any sane person would find value in his currency from a nation that didn’t exist here. Looking at the machines, though, he held onto a spark of hope. 

“It looks like it takes coins, at least. I wonder…”

Both machines only served one type of item, as far as Kyle could tell, and their system reminded him of sticker machines he used to see at shopping malls. They had slots that housed various coin sizes, which the machine would collect after you pushed them in all at once. The price on the bottle machine read 150 cents, while the food machine demanded 250 cents. After examining the slots where coins would go, Kyle took out a miscellany of change and attempted the Hickory Patties first. He heard a jingle as the coins went in, but nothing happened. 

“Well darn. Figured I was pushing my luck with that, but would have been a nice surprise.” He looked around for a compartment for coins to return, but couldn’t find anything. Looking down, he saw “No refunds, period!” written in fine print. He found it said the same thing on the other machine, too. “Dang it!”

Kyle kicked the side of the machine in frustration, half hoping it would spit out something for him to eat. Instead, the jingling of a bell sounded out of nowhere, and grew in intensity. Looking around frantically, he realized it must have been an alarm system built in for would-be crooks hoping to knab a free snack or drink, exactly as he had tried for.

Without missing a beat, he took off as fast as he could walk, hoping to not attract too much attention by not running. Even after the vending machines were out of view, he could still hear the bells; his heartbeat was not quite loud enough to drown out the ringing sound of guilt. His pace didn’t slow down until he was well out of earshot, and his breath was ragged. 

He found another metal bench to rest at, this one shaded by the generously sized trees. He set his bag on the ground and slumped back, exhausted from the hasty getaway mixed with the heat slowly getting to him. While taking his jacket off might have helped, he decided it was too much of a hassle to carry it around; the backpack was too full to put it in too, and he didn’t want any sweat to rub off on the box in his plastic bag.

Speaking of…

He opened the bag in his lap to check on his prized possession: a seventy-five dollar, dual-figurine of Shiroshi and Kuroshi, posed with their signature weapons drawn and ready to strike. The box depicted the white-themed twin standing tall and with a dagger, while the black-themed maid was kneeling and aiming her pistol. The dangerous duo were without a doubt Kyle’s favorite part of Made in Another World, what with their sibling antics and constant talking in synch with one another. To top it all off, their cat ears and tail made them the epitome of cuteness; Kyle gave a soft smile and blushed as he recalled how ecstatic he’d been when he found them at the convention, and how embarrassed Nick and Tony seemed to be watching as he fawned over the figurines.

I wonder what those two are up to now?

Thoughts of his friends wandering around trying to find him filled his head. While none of them were kids who needed to be watched over, Kyle disappearing suddenly like that was bound to make them more than a bit worried. While Nick seemed well put together and strategic, moments of crisis were one of his weaksuits, whereas Tony tended to let his rationale get the better of him, often forgetting to empathize with others and preferring to figure things out quickly and efficiently, even by himself if need be. Kyle did his best to avoid any such situations at all, and thinking back, he realized just how much he relied on others in moments like that. Too bad I’m all alone now…

“Gah, no! I can’t think like that right now!” Kyle shook his head as he shoved the images from his mind. “I can dwell on that stuff later! First I need to figure out what I’m gonna do. I can’t buy any food without money, so that means I’ll need to… get a job…?”

He let out a hefty sigh and rested his head on the figurine box. Kyle had managed to go all throughout highschool with just the birthday and holiday money he got from family, and the occasional handout from his parents as thanks for helping them take care of things around the house. Glancing at his outfit, a thought popped into his head. “I wonder if I couldn’t make it as a butler? It seems like that’s a thing in this world, at least. Surely it wouldn’t be that difficult.”

He closed his eyes as his mind wandered. If anyone wanted identification to hire him, he’d be totally out of luck; it’s not like a school ID would mean much in this world. He didn’t have a license yet, and the convention badge only had a number printed on it, his name written in sharpie above it. If he really wanted, he could start his life over in this world from scratch, name and all.

At least it seemed like people spoke the same language he was used to, which also seemed to use the same alphabet and characters he was used to reading. But he had no idea how societal norms or customs might differ from what he grew up with, or even the name of the nation he now found himself in. Not to mention being called a Lancerian or whatever by that guy earlier. I don’t want to get classified or labeled as something that’ll cause trouble down the line. I’ll need to figure out what he was going off about…

Kyle let out a yawn, his exhaustion and the heat finally catching up with him. “This is too much right now, even for just some thinking. A quick nap is in order, then. I’ll figure everything out when I wake up. Probably…” And with that, he was fast asleep.