"What…"
Subaru rubbed his forehead in confusion.
Looking down he saw that the floor he fell on was made of wood which was strange since just a minute ago it was the epoxy flooring of his neighborhood grocery store. After a bit of inspecting he realized that he was not in the grocery store at all. Some dirt or something had stuck to his hands as he pushed himself up off the ground, closer inspection showed that a bunch of sand had stuck to the palms of his hands. After he looked at the wall he had run into. It was made of a dark brown wooden paneling, which was nothing like the grocery store walls which were made out of... Actually Subaru had no idea what grocery store walls were made out of. After taking a moment to look around the room he realized something that really shouldn't have been as surprising as it was for him, that being that he was definitely not in the grocery store anymore.
The room had small dark wooden walls with wooden borders made of a slightly lighter colored wood. In the corner was some sort of a wooden shelf with some sort of animal skin resting on top of a pile of straw. It was suspended off the ground with two chains protruding from the wall to assist in holding it up. It resembled some sort of hammock, but Subaru thought that if he even tried to sit on it, it would probably break.
Aside from that there was a large black flag with the image of a golden wolf with three swords stabbed into it hanging on the wall. A door also stood behind him which was made of what looked like wooden twigs tied together with rope in a sort of hatch cross formation, really it was just a door in name as Subaru could clearly see into the hallway beyond it. After taking a moment of just blankly staring at the flag on the wall the panic began to set in. Just a minute ago he had been running through the grocery store next to his father who had set about a challenge to race to various sections of the store and gather ingredients for dinner that night. While moving between sections of the store Subaru had run headfirst into the wall to his left, which used to be empty air between the dog food and toilet paper aisle. Briefly Subaru thought about how strange it was that those two were placed so closely together.
He shook his head to rid his mind of the distraction and returned his thoughts to the situation at hand. He was obviously lost, and somehow ended up in some skyrim type dungeon.
"Dad always said that if I ever got lost I should just stay in one spot and wait for him to find me…"
And so Subaru walked over to the hammock-shelf and placed his school backpack on it to test how much weight it could carry. Seeing it be surprisingly sturdy Subaru placed both hands on the animal skin and jumped up onto the hammock. He got scared for a second after it shook slightly, but seeing as he didn't fall he took that as a good sign and crossed his legs. He opened up his backpack and looked inside. Inside his backpack were a few school books, a book he got from the library, and the tracksuit jacket that he stole from his dad because he liked the way it looked.
He pulled out his library book, something about some teenager who got super powers. He honestly wasn't paying attention when he grabbed it, he just thought the cover was cool so he picked it up to read if he ever got bored. He only checked it out the other day so he hadn't had a chance to read any of it.
"Oh well, no better time than now"
In the middle of a large arena a one armed man wearing a helmet and holding a curved sword stood across from a black furred wolf like creature with two sharp tails circling above its head. The crowd in the stands were loud, filling the area with the sounds of yelling and cheering.
The one armed man in the center of the arena sighed, wiping sweat off the back of his neck with his forearm, careful not to accidentally cut himself. He looked at the beast in front of him who stood at double his own height.
"Alright… let's see if I got it right this time around."
The monster crouched down as if getting ready to pounce the same time the one armed gladiator did. They both rushed forward.
As the man closed the distance the beast raised one of its spear-like tails and struck down at him from above. Having seen this attack countless times before he dodged left as if he had practiced the move a hundred times before. The second tail swiped at his legs which he lept over and continued charging the monster. The crowd around him cheered him on.
The monster swiped at him with its paw forcing him back, although he managed to strike back, cutting the appendage and causing the creature to cry out in pain. It's scream of pain was quickly washed away with the increased cheer from the crowd in the stands.
The gladiator knew better than to stand in place, the monster and its tails almost seemed to be three separate minds. He jumped back just as the spear tail struck the ground where he had just been standing. He brought his one arm up, using the sword to block the heavy sword tail and it made a swipe at his chest. Unfortunately for all the muscles the man had he was still knocked onto his back from the force of the hit. The monster before him makes to pounce on his prone form, he just barely manages to roll out of the way and throw himself back onto his feet, he isn't sure how he managed to hold onto his sword. The crowd exploded in cheers seeing that the one armed man was still alive.
He slowly backed up as the creature turned to face him, the tails still floating around it, ready to strike. The gladiator sighed, holding his sword somewhat limply to his side.
"Those tails are a pain in the ass."
He said to no one but himself, strengthening his grip on his sword he began running straight at the beast again.
The attacks had been switched up, the sword tail came first this time, which the man ducked under. Immediately after he spun around the spear tail as it dug into the sand next to him. He targeted the left side of the monster, knowing that any attempt to attack him with said paw would have a lessened effect thanks to the fact that it was already injured. When the swipe did come the one armed man met it with his sword, cutting diagonally across the injury he gave it at the start of their fight. The creature howled and lept back with its good legs, the helmeted man had to block another strike from a swipe of its sword tail, sending both sparks and the gladiator flying.
He pushed himself back off the ground, picking up his sword from the ground. Seeing the monster standing on only three paws, cradling its injured paw to its chest. The sight caused the man to smile under his helmet. The crowd once again exploded with noise seeing a one armed gladiator manage to put the beast on the retreat for a while.
"Cut its fucking head off Al!"
Al turned his head towards what he called the Dugout, a smaller set of benches set apart from the normal stands holding a number of oddly dressed people. Most of which were shirtless men with shaved heads, Al briefly chucked to himself at the resemblance they all had to each other. Al raised his one arm with his sword and waved at the small group of his fellow gladiators, his face twisted in confusion as all ten of them heavily cringed. He brought his sword in front of him, instantly cringing just as hard as the other had. His sword had been broken in half from that last hit.
"Or do your best at least!"
Another shout from the dugout allowed him to at least smile in his despair. Sighing, he briefly considered ending it all right there but decided instead to see how long he could continue the fight for as long as he could this time around. The dugout group gave him an awkward shout of reassurance which was drowned out by the crowd's cheer as he dashed towards the beast.
Spin past the spear tail, move forward, block sword tail- uh oh.
The sword tail swung at him and went right over the one half of a sword he had left and severed the top half of his body from the bottom half. His sword arm fell to the ground, and both halves of his body were flung in the same direction, although landed in very different places. The pain of being cut in half shot through the top half of his body as it was the only half that stayed with him that remained connected to his brain. The last thing he saw was the limping creature appear above him with its mouth drooling over his body. The last thing he heard before he passed on was the sound of the crowd cheering at his death.
…
…
Al blinked and he was standing across from an uninjured wolf like beast, double his size with a spear like tail and a sword like tail. Al sighed, 'This is gonna be a long day' he thought as he raised his sword again.
Subaru had been hearing loud cheering for the last hour or so, at first he thought it was screaming which worried him but after a while he realized that it was not as dark as he had originally feared.
'Wait is this a prison cell?'
Subaru's reading was suddenly interrupted by that thought. He looked towards the cross hatched door and then back at his book. 'Meh, it's not even that good.'
He pushed his book back into his backpack and hopped off the shelf/bed and approached the door. The hallway looked only slightly different to the room he was in now. Sandstone walls bordered by wooden beams that curved out of sight a little further down the hall. The floor had a dark green rug that stretched on for equally long. Hanging from the beams and sandstone walls were several flags like the one inside of Subaru's room, but there were also several medieval wooden shields painted in various patterns. This caused Subaru to momentarily stop because medieval stuff was cool and allowed him to get lost momentarily in geeking out over it.
His brief mental vacation from his current worries was suddenly halted as he heard the sound of footsteps dragging over the green rug from down the hall. He nearly shut the door in fright but instead allowed himself an inch or two to peer through the crack. The man who came around the corner definitely surprised Subaru. He had been expecting some ski-mask wearing thug or something, he was not expecting some strange medieval larper dude. The man stood nearly a foot taller than Subaru did, wearing a dark gray metal medieval helmet on his head. In place of a shirt he had some sort of long yellow mantle tied around his neck and a dark green open vest which exposed a kind of muscular and scarred body that Subaru had only seen from action movie heroes on TV. He had a belt covered in pouches, and skin colored pants. Instead of shoes he wore a pair of socks and sandals. The most shocking thing about him was the fact that he only had one arm which the stub was covered in bandages.
Subaru quickly and quietly shut the door the rest of the way, moving away from it and pushing up against the wall as he heard the footsteps get louder. He panicked when he realized he left his backpack on the shelf bed. Without really thinking he rushed from his hiding spot and grabbed at his backpack just as the sound of the footsteps stopped… outside the door to his room. The one armed man opened the door to the room to see Subaru standing there and sweating like he just got out of the shower.
"Hm?"
The sound caused Subaru to jump, yanking his middle school backpack off the bed and putting it in front of him like some sort of shield. The two people just stared at each other for a couple seconds before the man spoke again, causing Subaru to jump slightly in his spot.
"Uh… can I help you kid?"
Subaru struggled to get any words out in a slow response.
"W-where a-am I?"
There was another long pause as the two stared at each other, the shirtless man pushed the door open the rest of the way and used his now free hand to rub the back of his neck. Subaru let the backpack shield droop slightly as he found the fear slowly leaving him and the situation becoming more awkward than anything scary.
"Stop staring at me like that!"
The man stopped rubbing the back of his neck, yet did not stop his staring after another moment he let out a grunt.
"Hey kid, where are you from?"
"No no no, I asked you a question first, so you go first."
After another moment the man nodded his head.
"Alright then. You're on Ginunhive Island in Vollachia."
Subaru's face tilted in confusion, now completely dropping the backpack to below his knees while holding it with only one hand.
"Where is that in Japan?"
The older man seemed to flinch at his question, his one hand shooting back up to his helmet. Subaru found it increasingly annoying that he couldn't see the man's expressions.
"It's not"
Subaru's eyes widened at that. The man had to be lying since there was no way that he suddenly traveled countries from his neighborhood grocery store to… Volochoina? Gunhive?
"What do you mean it's not in 'Japan', how could it not be in Japan? I was just in Japan!"
Every mention of Japan was accentuated differently, also causing the man to flinch harder each time it was said. Taking a moment he pushed off from the doorframe and entered the room. Subaru raised his backpack-shield in front of him again and backed up a bit, some fear returning to him as the rather intimidating man closed the distance between the two. He got down on one knee and looked very closely at Subaru, the inside of the helmet was so dark that Subaru still couldn't see the man's face.
After a moment he stood up again, through the short time he was sitting there Subaru had once again put the backpack-shield down, holding it with one hand and wondering why he even had it in the first place.
"You really are from earth then…"
That sent about a million alarms through Subaru's head.
"Oi, what do you mean 'You really are from earth' that makes it sound sort of like this isn't earth you know?"
There was another pause between the two with Subaru getting increasingly worried with each passing second. The man chose not to answer and instead began pacing back and forth, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck under his helmet while mumbling to himself which only increased Subaru's worries.
"The hell am I supposed to do here… Not just going to kick him out… Almost hard to believe that it's real…"
He said while moving his arm to grab at his bandaged stump.
"Wait, can he…"
He stopped pacing and once again turned to face Subaru, somehow the room seemed to drop a few degrees before returning to normal.
"Guess it wouldn't be good of me to try that out…"
"Oi, big guy, are you going to answer any of my questions or are you just going to keep doing this?" Young Subaru had slowly been getting increasingly annoyed at the older man's pacing and muttering and really creepy staring. He probably should be a little more cautious when talking to someone who looked like they just crawled out of a skyrim bandit encounter, but honestly the man not answering any of his questions and watching him just talk to himself had started to become annoying. He still hadn't even explained what he meant by 'You are from earth aren't you'
The man stopped and returned his attention to Subaru moving his hand from his stump to the chin of his helmet in thought for a moment before turning around and beginning to leave the room. Subaru, startled by this immediately began to follow.
"Oi, big guy, where are we going?"
Subaru questioned after about a minute of walking through the hallways outside of the room. The rest of the hallway was pretty much exactly the same, long green rug, wolf with three swords stuck into it on a flag, and the occasional painted shield.
"I don't really know how to explain all this to you kid so I am just gonna do my best as we're walking and then show you proof immediately after…"
Subaru gulped, he could tell he was about to hear some pretty heavy stuff come out from that black helmet.
"So basically… you aren't on Earth anymore kid, honestly I don't know what kind of planet this place is, but it definitely isn't Earth."
Subaru tripped a little on his own feet, having to catch himself and his backpack.
"What do you mean I am not on earth? How is that even possible?"
"I don't really know. The same thing happened to me a few years back only I didn't have anyone there to help me out in the beginning" Once again he rubbed the bandaged stump that sat in place of his left arm.
"But that's different here for you kid, I'll make sure that you don't make the same mistakes that I did."
The two kept walking in silence as the words finally hit Subaru, he started to shake slightly as they kept walking, his body just sort of moving on autopilot. After another minute of silence passed between them before they stopped… or rather the man stopped and Subaru walked into him and fell onto the carpet. Before them was a set of stone steps as the wooden hallway turned into a sort of dingy looking staircase. The rest of the world seemed to darken almost as Subaru looked up at the shining sun through the hole at the top of the staircase.
"Come on up kid, something I gotta show you."
He started up the stairs and after a moment Subaru pushed himself off the ground and hurriedly chased after him. The duo walked up the stairs for a couple seconds before emerging into a large arena of sorts. The ground was made of some strange pattern of stones and the many benches were made of wood. What had to be hundreds of oddly dressed people filled the benches all staring in the center of the arena while cheering and hollering. Some of what the people were saying was kind of disturbing.
"Rip 'em apart!"
"Cut it in half!"
"Stab it in the throat!"
Were just a few words that rang out through the crowd, after hearing those he decided it was best to tune them out. The big man led Subaru to a metal barrier, leaning against it with his one good arm. He turned to Subaru and nodded his head slightly in the direction that everyone was staring at. Subaru cautiously walked up to the iron barrier and grabbed the bars with both hands while looking down into the sand pit below.
Below him was a large bald man with halberd, recalling its name from a game he had played in the past. Standing across from him was a gigantic evil looking dog, it had to be double or triple the man's size. He was spinning the halberd skillfully, although it seemed more like he was showing off for the crowd than he was doing anything vitally important to the fight. The ground below the man's feet the sand began to turn orange. Noticing this just in time the halberd spinning man leapt several meters back which blew Subaru's mind. It almost blew his mind as much as the small explosion of sand that appeared where the man had just been standing.
He seemed to have gotten tired of just standing there spinning his halberd since he crouched low to the ground and began to charge the big evil looking dog creature. Two times during his mad rush the ground below him lit up orange and blew up, nearly taking him with it. The giant dog pounced at him which he skillfully managed to dodge before giving it a cut across the side of its neck causing it to yelp in pain and the stands to explode in cheers. It got so loud that Subaru had to cover his ears.
Subaru honestly felt sorry for the beast since it so closely resembled one of the cutest animals from his world. Although the craziness of the situation helped him cope. He really was Isekai'd to another world, a world with magic monsters and crazy gladiator arenas. He was both excited and terrified, could he do magic, would he be able to jump twenty feet like that guy, would he ever see his parents again?
He decided, whether consciously or not, to shelf the scarier questions for later. Either way the big guy had succeeded in convincing him that he was indeed in another world.
"That's Ayaan, he likes to show off a lot when he's fighting, this is actually one of his quicker fights."
The big guy said as Ayaan jumped backwards out of the way of a bite from the creature, slashing it across the nose as he danced around it.
"Woah…"
Was all that Subaru could manage as he was entranced by the fight below him. He pinched himself to see if he was dreaming or not, as it turns out he was not. He didn't know whether to be relieved or not.
"Yeah, it's a pretty big shock to the system the first time you see all this stuff…"
Subaru somewhat struggled to hear him between the crowd and his own awe, but he managed to slowly bring his attention away from the spectacle in front of him to look back at the one armed man. The man pushed off the railing and crouched next to Subaru putting his arm on his shoulder so that they were facing each other.
"What's your name kid?"
Subaru hesitated for a moment before shaking his head, right now in a new world there was no time to forget the importance of first impressions. Pushing away from the one armed man Subaru struck a pose, one hand on his hip and the other one raised in the sky.
"My name is Natsuki Subaru!"
'I feel like I should add more to that… oh well"
The one armed man nodded his head, chuckling a bit at the sight yet internally cringing just as hard as he did when he realized his sword was broken.
"Good to meet you Subaru, my name is Aldeberan, but everyone just calls me Al."
"Oh!, like the star!"
"Yeah that's right."
The two stared at each other for a moment before Al pointed towards the sand pit.
"Subaru, do you want to learn to do things like that?"
Subaru turned his head to see Ayaan showing off his halberd spinning skills, which Subaru somehow thought was the coolest thing in the world.
"YES!"
A few people peeked over at the duo from the yell before returning to the fight below.
"Alright then bro, then I'll train you."
Subaru was shaking in excitement, any fear of being lost in another world had been erased momentarily at the idea that he could possibly learn magic or how to fight with a sword, or how to spin a halberd like Ayaan. Al moved a hand to Subaru's head and ruffled his hair.
"Good to hear, kid. I'll start training you tomorrow alright?"
Subaru did his best to portray himself as a calm and relaxed figure, giving Aldebaran a thumbs up. The two of them took places in the stands next to each other and both joined the crowd in cheering Ayaan on. Ayaan was either really good at dancing or fighting, Subaru wasn't sure. He was sure that seeing the big evil dog thing get beheaded was the grossest thing he had ever seen, he was lucky that Al was there to help him not throw up at the sight.
After the fight a new gladiator and something called a "Mabeast" were announced. Subaru was excited to see another fight happen and was even more excited when he thought about how one day his name would be included among those who were called out to fight in the gladiator pits.