PROLOGUE

THE WASTE HEAT OF THE BEGINNING

—This is really, really not good.

Feeling the hard texture of the ground against his face, he realized that he had fallen facedown on the ground. He couldn’t move, even when he tried, and he already couldn’t feel his fingers. What he did feel was a certain heat, and it overwhelmed his entire body.

—It’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot, it’s hot.

He coughed and vomited the blood he felt rising in his throat—the source of his waning life. So much came out that it frothed at the edges of his mouth. With his hazy vision, he could see the ground in front of him stained red.

—You’ve…got to be kidding me… All of this is mine?

Feeling as though all of the blood in his body had spilled out of him, he reached a shaking hand to try to find the source of the heat that was burning through his body. As his fingertips reached the large cut in his stomach, he understood.

No wonder it felt so hot. His brain must have been mistaking pain for heat. The clean gash that ran through his torso was so deep it had almost sliced him in half. Only bits of skin were still holding him together.

In other words, he had run right into a checkmate in the chess game of his life. As soon as he realized that, his consciousness immediately began to fall away from him.

Before his eyes, he saw a black boot descend, making ripples in the red pool of his fresh blood.

Someone was there, and that someone…was probably the one who killed him.

But he didn’t even think to look that person in the face. It didn’t matter anymore.

—The one thing he did wish was that she, at least, would be safe.

“—baru?”

He felt as if he heard a voice that rang like bells. That he heard that voice, that he could hear that voice, felt like salvation to him more than anything else, so—

“!”

With a short scream, someone else crumpled upon the carpet of blood.

She landed right beside him. He lay there, weakly attempting to reach her.

Her white hand fell, powerless. He lightly grasped it in his own bloodstained grip.

He felt the fingers of her hand move slightly to accept his own.

“Just you wait…”

He seized his fading consciousness, pulling it desperately back to buy a bit more time.

“I’m going to…”

—find a way to save you.

In the next instant, he—Subaru Natsuki—lost his life.

THE END OF THE BEGINNING

1

—This is really going to be a problem.

With no money and no idea what to do, he repeated the thought over and over again in his mind.

Well, it wasn’t completely accurate to say he had no money. The wallet in his pocket was filled with all the cash he owned, enough to go on a little bit of a shopping spree if he had to—under normal circumstances. But in this case, “no money” is really the only way to describe his situation.

“Yeah, but the currency system here is completely different, isn’t it…”

The young man flicked his rare notched ten-yen coin in the air and breathed a deep sigh.

He didn’t really have any features about him that stood out. He had short black hair and was of average height, being neither short nor tall. He was a bit muscular, though, as if he had been working out, and the cheap gray tracksuit that he was wearing really suited him quite well. He had small irises, so the whites of his eyes stood out, but right now, the way his eyes were downcast, he didn’t have a very aggressive or championing look to him.

He looked average enough to be quickly lost in a crowd…but right now, most of those passing by looked at him out of the corners of their eyes as if they were looking at something strange they had never seen before.

But that was to be expected. After all, among all those onlookers, not one of them had black hair, nor were any of them wearing tracksuits. They had blond hair, red hair, and brown hair…some even had blue or green hair, among others, and they were wearing armor, or black robes, or the kind of costume a dancer might wear…that sort of thing.

As he stood before the waves of open stares, the young man crossed his arms and had no other option but to accept the truth.

“This has got to be one of those…” he said, snapping his fingers and pointing out toward the crowd of onlookers. “One of those so-called ‘I’ve been summoned to another world’ deals, right?” he said as an oxcart-like vehicle pulled by a giant lizard-like thing crossed in front of him.

2

Subaru Natsuki was an extremely ordinary boy, born on Earth, the third planet in the solar system, to a middle-class family in the nation of Japan. If you were to sum up his nearly seventeen years of life, the previous sentence would be enough to describe him, and if you felt the need to add anything else, the extra sentence, “He was a third-year public high school student with a tendency to not show up to class,” would be sufficient.

Placed at a fork in the road of life, such as “whether to pursue a college degree or jump straight into the workforce,” people are generally forced to make a decision one way or the other. That sort of decision-making is something everyone has to deal with and part of what we call life, but in Subaru’s case (you might call it his specialty) he was a bit better than your average Joe at running away from things he did not like. In avoiding such a decision, the number of his unexcused absences had piled up, and before he knew it he was a bona fide truant, the kind parents weep over.

“And to top it all off, now I’ve been summoned to a whole different world. I guess that seals the deal. I’m a high school dropout now. But seriously, what the hell is going on?”

He felt as if he was having a not-so-well-thought-out dream, but even after pinching his cheeks and smacking his head against a wall, he wouldn’t wake up.

Subaru sighed. He had drifted away from where he was, getting all sorts of curious looks, and was now sitting against a wall in an alley just off the main road.

“Assuming I really have been summoned to a fantasy world…the state of civilization appears to be the usual, medieval-like setting. So far, I haven’t seen anything mechanical, but the roads are pretty well paved…and of course I can’t use any of my cash.”

As for whether he could communicate with the people here, and regarding the value of goods, those were things that Subaru checked immediately upon realizing he had been summoned to a different world.

Fortunately, he had no problem communicating, and he was able to confirm that commerce was handled in a currency of gold, silver, and copper coins. His first contact, a merchant at a fruit stand, wasn’t all that welcoming to him, though.

As for why Subaru was so quick to accept and understand his current situation, the fact that he was a modern Japanese youth poisoned by anime and games had something to do with it, and for that he was very thankful. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that as an adolescent boy, this sort of otherworldly summoning was the kind of thing you’d dream would happen to you, but on that note…

“Without a little bit more of a welfare safety-net thing going on, a laid-back guy like myself isn’t going to be able to deal, you know?” Subaru complained.

Given his current situation, and pitiful starting equipment, he couldn’t help it.

His belongings consisted of a cell phone (which looked like it would run out of batteries soon), a wallet (filled with membership cards from various video rental stores), a cup of instant ramen he’d bought from a convenience store (pork bone and soy sauce flavor), a bag of crispy snacks bought from the same store (corn soup flavor), his favorite gray tracksuit (unwashed), and well-worn sneakers (two years old). That was it.

“I don’t even get a single Excalibur? I’m done. What am I supposed to do in this getup?”

Well, there’s only so much you can hope for when you’re summoned to a different world on your way back from the convenience store. It had happened in the blink of an eye.

Subaru had already gotten hungry and eaten half of the one thing he had that might have been of any use—his pack of crispy snacks—before realizing that he had just gone through his only source of food. But worrying about it wasn’t going to help him now.

Even if he’d wanted to put his hopes on the possibility that this was being staged as part of an elaborate reality TV show, the large lizard carts and look of all the people passing by nipped that in the bud.

“The fact that no one seems to be paying attention to them means that they’re probably normal…both those giant lizards and the half-humans.”

Subaru grumbled and looked on as people with strange outfits and colorful hair passed by, but out of all of them, the ones who really drove home the fact that he had been summoned to another world were the half-humans.

Without having to look too long Subaru could see people with dog ears and cat ears, and there were even some who looked like they were lizardmen. But of course there were also ordinary humans, the same as Subaru.

“So this is a world with half-humans…and probably wars and adventures, too. As for whether there are any animals I’m used to around… I’m not too sure, but given that lizard cart thing…it looks like they use animals in the same way we do.”

After putting all of that together, Subaru let out a long breath, but not a sigh. If things unfolded the way he had fantasized about before about otherworldly summoning, he ought to be able to use his knowledge of modern civilization to hold sway over everyone else…but there were a lot of things that still didn’t make any sense.