“The truth is, I have no idea what to do next, and I still have no idea how or why I was summoned. I don’t remember stepping into a mirror or falling in a pond, and if I’m to believe this is the otherworldly summoning format I’m used to, where is the beautiful girl who summoned me?”

The lack of a main heroine in this otherworldly summoning setup was a big hole in the plot. If this were taking place in a 2D world, someone in the creative department was seriously slacking off. If Subaru was really summoned for no reason and then abandoned just like that, it put him on the same level as single-use disposable goods.

Now that Subaru had finished establishing the state of his surroundings, he really couldn’t think of anything better to do than return to his default state of escaping from reality.

“I guess if I keep this up, it’s no different from locking myself up in my room back home.”

The thought of his parents crossed his mind, but right now he wasn’t in a position where he could just sit around feeling homesick. Thinking he had to do something about his current situation, he stood back up and turned back toward the main road, but… Just as Subaru was about to walk out onto the main road, he almost bumped into someone who moved out in front of him.

“Oh. Sorry ’bout that.” Subaru gave a short apology and tried to continue past, but…

“Hold up!”

…he was grabbed firmly by the shoulder and pulled back into the alley. Nearly falling over himself as he turned around, Subaru looked up to see that the person who had thrown him back was a man with a large build.

Behind that man were two of his buddies, and the three men stood in such a way as to block Subaru from exiting the alley onto the main road.

The way they moved, it didn’t appear this was the first time these men had done this, and Subaru had a bad feeling about what was going to come next.

“Umm… May I ask what you three fine fellows plan on doing with me?”

“Oh, it looks like this one here’s a smart one! Well, nothing to worry about. Just give us everything you’ve got on you, and there’s no need for anyone to get hurt.”

“So that’s the deal, huh? Yeah, I guess it would be. Ha-ha… This really sucks.”

The men’s gazes were filled with scorn and ridicule. They looked like they were in their twenties, with the meanness of their personalities reflected in their faces and dirty appearances. They didn’t look like they were half-humans, but they certainly weren’t saints, either.

You couldn’t call it an unusual plot development. Encountering thugs was a way to show the dangers of everyday life. In other words…

“Damn, I’ve triggered a compulsory event.”

3

As he looked at the men smirking, Subaru tried to hold the status quo with a fake smile and considered his options. He was in quite a pinch, but since the beginning of time, in stories where humans are summoned to other worlds, those humans tended to be able to wield some kind of superpower. If Subaru had been summoned to this world under the same conditions as the stories he was familiar with, it was very likely that he had been given some sort of power. With that thought, Subaru felt that his body was a little lighter than usual.

“I’m starting to get the feeling that this world’s gravity is, like, only a tenth of my world’s. I can do this. I can do this! I’m going to mow you all down and make this the first chapter of my glorious future! You’re only here so I can pull experience points off of you, you scum!”

“What the hell is he going on about?” said one of the men.

“I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure he’s making fun of us. Let’s kill ’im,” replied another.

“Took the words right out of my mouth… You’re going to regret this!” returned Subaru, before flying forward with a straight jab from his right hand, aiming for the big man in front. Subaru’s fist collided with the man’s nose, but he also cut his fist on one of the man’s front teeth and started bleeding.

—I hit someone for the first time in my life! Wow! It hurts way more than I expected.

Subaru was confident in his fighting form, but he had never been in a real fight before. The man who was punched fell to the ground. Without taking a moment to pause, Subaru leapt at another of the men, caught off guard, as his next target. With a clean arc he landed a kick on the side of the next man’s head, slamming him into the wall of the alley.

This was going even better than he’d expected, and he started to be sure of the notion that he was invincible in this new world.

“I guess in this world my stats are pretty good! What a rush! Now to finish this!”

Turning back around, Subaru bent forward to beat down the last man standing, when his eyes centered on what that man was holding in his hand: a glinting knife.

Immediately Subaru dropped to his knees, bent over forward, and with a spectacular single motion prostrated himself, pressing his forehead against the ground.

“I’m sorry, that was absolutely terrible of me, I ask that you forgive me and please find it in your generous hearts to spare my life!”

Prostration—it was the most exteme form of showing absolute submission to another and the lowest form of Japanese humility. Just where did all of that fired-up feeling go? Subaru felt as if he could hear the blood drain from his body. Desperately clinging to any hope of mercy, he tried to make himself seem small and continued to apologize.

With a knife involved, fighting was out of the question. No matter how you might train yourself, if you were stabbed, it was all over. All things in life are transient.

Before he knew it, the two that Subaru thought he had defeated were back on their feet. One was holding his bleeding nose and the other was shaking his head back and forth, but other than that both looked as though they were in surprisingly good condition.

“What?! You mean to tell me that my one-hit knockout punch only did that much damage?! What about my superpowers?!”

“I dunno what you’re going on about, but shut your trap! You’ve really done it now!”

It looked as though Subaru had been completely wrong about being summoned into another world coming with the promise of some kind of powers. He wasn’t really any stronger than he had been before.

One of the men stepped on the back of Subaru’s head, scraping his forehead against the ground and causing him to bleed. Another then kicked him in the face, and Subaru curled into a ball as tightly as he could as he was subjected to further acts of violence.

After all, the one who hit first was Subaru. The men didn’t hold back at all.

—Crap, this really, really hurts. Like, I could die. No, seriously.

Unlike in his own world, there was no guarantee that these thugs wouldn’t take his life. At this rate, it would be better to try one last-ditch effort to retaliate before he was beaten to death…

“Stop moving, you whelp!”

“Ow! No, don’t… Ow! Ow! Ow!!”

The man with the knife stomped on Subaru’s hand as he tried to get up, then readjusted his grip on the knife so that the tip was held back toward his arm, ready to strike.

“After we make sure you can’t move we’re going to take everything you’ve got. That’s what you get for acting tough, you punk…”

“I-if you’re looking for money or valuables, I’m sorry but you’re out of luck. After all, I don’t have a cent on me…!”

“Then those strange-looking clothes and shoes’ll do just fine. You can just stay down and be food for the alley rats!”

Oh, so there are rats in this world, too, Subaru thought. I hope they aren’t big, like monster rats or anything. Subaru looked at the knife about to come down as if it didn’t concern him at all, distancing himself from reality as best he could.

Subaru didn’t see his life flash before his eyes, and he didn’t feel like time was slowing down, either. The end would probably come like the cutting of a thread, he thought.

—But just then…

“Hey! Out of the way! Out of the way! I’m talking to you! Move!” yelled someone in a flustered-sounding voice as they dashed into the alley.

Like the men, who suddenly looked up, Subaru managed to glance up in the direction of the voice, though he couldn’t move his body.

What he saw was a small girl with longish blond hair dashing by. From her red eyes, you could sense a strong will, and her one canine tooth sticking out made her look like quite a prankster. She seemed more cheeky than anything else, but Subaru felt that if she smiled she would look pretty cute.

As if it had been staged for a comeback, the fading light of hope Subaru had been holding lit anew.

He was waiting for this kind of development.

The girl, in her well-worn clothes and unclean appearance, had stumbled upon this attempted murder and robbery in the act! What would surely happen next, was that with an overflowing sense of justice this girl would save Subaru’s life, right from the clutches of death…

“Whoa! You look like you’re in quite a pinch there, but sorry! I’ve got my hands full right now! Good luck! Live life to the fullest!”

“Wait, what?! Are you serious?!”

Unfortunately, that hope was shattered in an instant.

The girl raised her hand in an apologetic sort of gesture and didn’t slow down as she continued racing down the alley. She went right past the men and kept going toward what should have been a dead end, kicked off against a wooden plank set up against the end wall, grabbed the top of the wall, and lightly flung herself up onto the roof of one of the surrounding buildings, where she disappeared.

After the girl was gone, a silence fell upon the alley. It was as if a hurricane had just passed. Both Subaru and the men were dumbstruck.

However, this didn’t mean that Subaru’s situation had improved at all.