Chapter 1:

-When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a bright place.

Blinking a few times to let his eyes adjust to the brightness, he found himself in a city. Buildings made of dark wood contrasting with stone foundations below them surrounded the street he stood on, they had steeply slanted roofs surrounding the cobblestone street he was on. Small snowflakes fluttered around him. A large number of people were walking down the street he stood on. They were dressed in woolen coats. The sun shone down, reflecting off of snow piled up off to the side of the street.

The answer to what had happened was pretty obvious.

Natsuki Subaru stood motionless for a moment, before saying "This…"

Is something that he had thought long and hard about.

"I've been summoned to another world!"

But then, embracing himself, he mumbles, "It's cold."

Walking down a different street, Subaru mumbles to himself, "It seems like this is your standard medieval-style world. They use stone and wood to build and don't have machinery. I talked to a guy earlier, and we had no trouble communicating. He said that this town is called,『Inorandum.』 The only issue is that I can't read the language here."

Subaru glanced up at one of the two-story buildings nearby, specifically, he was looking at a sign with a bunch of characters that he couldn't recognize. "He didn't seem to recognize my yen, so it's safe to assume that I'm as good as penniless here."

Subaru sighed, and stuck his hands into his tracksuit pockets. "It'd be nice if I could get some warmer clothes."

He looked at the woolen clothing of those walking nearby him. Something that he had already noticed, but it was strange to see nonetheless, caught his eye - demihumans.

"So far I've only seen fur-covered non-humans, but that might just be because of the climate."

Mumbling, he said, "Hm, I wonder if there are adventures in this world?"

Subaru let out a long breath that wasn't quite a sigh, before stepping out of the flow of people in the street and into a quiet alley. Leaning against a wall, he questioned what to do next.

In stories, there's always some kind of beautiful heroine who would summon people like this. "So where's my heroine…?"

He sorted through his belongings: First, his cell phone (with a dying battery), his wallet (containing many video rental membership cards), the ramen he bought at the convenience store (Shoyu Tonkotsu), some snacks (corn potage flavored), his beloved gray jersey (unwashed), worn out sneakers (of two years) and more.

He had completed a large part of his plan on what he'd do in a situation like this - assess the situation, and the results weren't looking too good.

Subaru sighed. It was fun to imagine situations like this, but fantasy was best left in the realm of fantasy. He earnestly wanted to go back home and into his small dark room.

"For now, what's important is survival, but… Will my level 1 communication ability be enough?"

He had barely talked to anyone other than his parents or store clerks in this past year.

"Well, I guess I should look around some more."

Leaving the plastic bag in the alleyway, Subaru began wandering around the unfamiliar city.

After a couple of minutes, he ended up in a marketplace-like place. Many people and demihumans were walking around and talking, it was a bit of a sensory overload for the Hikineet Subaru.

He made his way through the crowd, glancing at what was for sale at stands set up around the small plaza. He saw merchants selling small fish, warm-looking clothing, and a few selling crops. Subaru guessed that food was pretty scarce around here.

He made his way out of the plaza and into a quieter more housing-based part of this city. He could see the warm light from fires through the windows. Subaru once again embraced himself, murmuring about the cold.

He glanced at a couple of kids running around and playing farther down the road he was on. They both stopped all-of-a-sudden, probably because he had caught their eye. Subaru awkwardly stopped walking and raised a hand as a greeting. The kids glanced at each other and hurriedly walked towards a house and entered it. Subaru sighed.

Eventually, he ended up at a scenic spot on a hill in a clearing of houses. He could see a decent portion of the town. One thing that caught his eye was the wall surrounding the city. It was pretty far away, but it seemed to be slightly taller than the two story-houses he had seen around. It was made of stone.

Subaru guessed that this world probably wasn't too peaceful, despite what he had seen around the city. Subaru grinned. "If this world needs walls around towns like this, then battle and adventure might be commonplace, too." Then that means there's still a chance that he could have some kind of adventure in this world. He chuckled, "Like a NEET like me could ever do something like that."

After that train of thought, Subaru left the hill. He headed back into the main part of the city. Whilst wandering around, he found an interesting place. A small forested park with many small blue glowing crystals growing all around. "Woah..." Subaru walked into the park. He walked over to one of the crystals and cautiously placed his hand on it. It was cold but still gave off a little bit of heat.

Subaru wandered around the beautiful park.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Subaru jumped at the elderly-sounding voice that had interrupted the serenity of the forest and turned to face whoever had spoken. A wrinkly old man with green hair that had gray stripes running down it. He was sitting on a bench nearby. He wore a heavy coat.

"Yeah… It is amazing."

"I come here often. I like the serenity here. Plus the crystals are said to have a calming effect."

Subaru realized that he had forgotten about the many troublesome thoughts that had clouded his mind since he arrived in this world. He said, "Huh… That's interesting."

The old man closed his eyes and began humming a slow tune. Subaru listened for a moment, before leaving the old man and venturing deeper into the forest.

Subaru enjoyed the serenity of this place.

Tall trees stretched overhead, their canopies blocking out a lot of light. The crystals primarily grew around the bases of the trees. The crystals were slightly transparent and had a blue tint. It wasn't like anything Subaru had ever seen before.

Although, not too long after talking with the old man, he found an open trapdoor, with steep, nearly vertical, stone stairs leading deep into the ground. It would have had plenty of room if Subaru were to go down it, with about two heads worth of space. Not like he ever would "Weird… Wonder what this is-" The next thing he knew was that he was falling forward. He flipped forward and hit his back on a step.

His eyes caught a glimpse of someone's hair - green hair - before he began pretty much somersaulting down the staircase and into the darkness.

Subaru rolled down and down, hitting his head and his flailing arms and legs as he rolled. A little blood began to pool in the bottom of his mouth after he accidentally bit his tongue. He curled into a ball, with his hand covering his neck. Pain flared up in one of his elbows. He yelped in pain.

Dozens of frenzied thoughts ran through his mind. Why? How? What happened?

He landed on one of the steps and felt more pain flare up all over.

Then, He hit something other than the stairs. It was hard ground. Subaru's eyes were closed tight, so he couldn't tell exactly what it was. He rolled a few more times, before stopping.

Subaru was lying on his back. He slowly opened his eyes. It was pitch black. Subaru groaned. "Wha… What happened…?" He tried to sit up, but pain all across his body stopped him.

He slowly moved his bruised and battered arm down towards his pocket. He slowly moved his fingers into it, stopping for a moment after feeling a shock of pain from his probably broken fingers. He slowly and carefully took his phone out of his pocket and flipped it open.

He turned it around and used the screen to illuminate the room. The room itself was pretty barren and small. There was a desk with a lamp-looking thing on it. A door was near that desk. Subaru slowly moved his body to look around more. He saw the stairwell that he had fallen down.

"Someone… pushed me down here… Right?"

Subaru slowly crawled across the room and used the desk to slowly stand his sore and pained body up. He leaned on the desk for support and noticed papers strewn across it. Of course, he couldn't read any of them.

Subaru took a deep breath, before stepping away from the desk. He slowly moved over towards the nearby door. He slowly pushed it, calling out, "H...Hello?" He heard a quiet click, before a quiet snap. He dropped his phone as something hit him. His phone hit the ground and broke in two.

The next thing he knew was that he was on the ground and that something warm was pooling around him. Feeling a huge rush of incredible pain, he opened his mouth to scream, but instead spat out a load of blood, before forcing out a scream.

He instinctively moved his hand towards the pain, which was primarily in his chest. He grabbed at his tracksuit, which was already wet with blood while writhing in pain. He spat out more blood.

Why? Why? Why?

This isn't good. Not good. Not good at all!

He felt his senses fading.

He heard a quiet voice saying. "My, my, look at you."

Subaru looked towards the voice and saw a pair of glowing blue eyes looking at him from across the room.

"Fufu, perhaps you should knock next time before trying to enter someone's house?"

He heard a sound like a sword being unsheathed before the eyes vanished, and everything stopped.

Hi. This is the first fanfic I've ever posted. Currently, I've written up to Arc 2. I should be posting new chapters daily up until I hit the end of my backlog. I hope you enjoy reading.