When I followed the energy signature that felt similar to my own, I expected many things.
I expected to find some kind of monster with a holy attribute or maybe even some kind of native creature that would give me a clue as to what is going on with this world.
However, what I definitely did not expect was to find a rather small town that was full of peaceful people moving about their daily lives with nothing out of place.
In fact, these people were so unguarded that some of them did not even notice when I sneakily used my superior stats to nick some money from their pockets. Granted, I could have used [Time Stop] to achieve the same effect with none the wiser, but I did not want to use a Tier-10 spell for something as mundane as theft.
After stealing from a lot of people, just enough to not be noticeable but enough for a good stack in my inventory, I quickly began the next step in the plan.
Information.
Surprisingly, it was rather easy to locate a local library and easily get access to it. And just like the stories said, the information inside really was free for anyone to access. An unfathomable fact for someone from my time.
It was thanks to this unrestricted access to general information, combined with my overwhelmingly superior mind that I gained, based on my Avatar's stats. It did not take me long to figure out where exactly I was.
From what I found out, I am in a small town called Kuoh, located in the Kanagawa prefecture of Japan.
The very same country that was the most oppressed in my time by the Conglamorates and was still a rather hostile place for common people of this era, given the existence of the infamous black companies and terms like death by overwork.
Fortunately, it would seem that I have somehow ended up in a place where not much goes on, and it is a rather quiet town. This means that I can take some time to reorient myself and conduct a few experiments to see just how much of my abilities and equipment I still have with me and how much of my body and mind has changed with this sudden transition from a human to a game character.
The only problem now is a place to stay.
I could make a base of operations for myself with the resources found in the forests nearby, thanks to my crafting skills, but any base I make with such low-level resources will not be good enough to handle my experiments.
I could also use the Tier-10 [Create Fortress] spell to make a place for myself that can easily resist all of my testing, not to mention that the space it would provide inside would be more than sufficient for me.
However, the problem is that the fortress that the spell creates is so vast that it would stick out like a sore thumb in this small town and easily attract the wrong kind of attention.
This means I will have to go the mundane route and get a regular apartment or something for myself, which is rather hard to do without any kind of identification- Hold up!
Now that I think about it, aren't there supposed to be those criminal groups called Yakuza in this country who can do nearly anything for enough money? Maybe I should track some of those people down and use a Tier-4 [Charm Species] spell to make them get me an ID and some money?
Worst comes to worst, and they somehow resist that spell, I could still use a Tier-10 [Control Amnesia] spell to erase their memories of me completely.
Yeah, sounds like a solid plan for now.
Now, to find them.
Sitting on the fresh and unpolluted ground of the forest, I concentrated inward and called upon the spell that I would have once used through the Console in the game.
"Widen Magic: [God's Eye]"
In the game, this magic allowed me to see my surroundings in a bird's eye view. As a Tier-9 magic, it is a spell that can see through everything. Illusions, stealth, items, nothing could stop me from seeing everything and identifying them on the screen.
Yet, here, it felt completely different.
It was as if the very sky had become my eyes, allowing me to peer down at the Earth below me and to see anything that I wished to see.
From the sneakiest mole hiding underground to the criminals hiding within their dens, I could see everything within this small town and the surrounding area.
And unlike in the game, where labels were added to everything that was detected by my spell. Here, I did not need any kind of System interface to tell me what I was seeing.
I could instinctively tell what I was looking at.
A small cat called Taro is running away from its home. A shiba is dragging its owner with it as it chases after a squirrel. A man called Ryu was dealing with some shady stuff in a back alley near the mall. A biker gang bickering with the local yakuza. A man of faith called Masaomi Yaegaki is going on a date with his devil girlfriend, Cleria Belial-
...Ok. What was that last part?
I peered down with my [God's Eye] and refocused on what I just saw. And sure enough, what I just saw was not some hallucination.
The young man with long black hair and eyes, clearly of Japanese descent, was identified as Masaomi Yaegaki by my spell. It told me that he is a man from the Protestant Church and something called an Exorcist.
Truth be told, it is hard for me to contextualize what my spell is telling me. I know that Christianity was a major religion during this time, but I don't understand what Protestant means in this context.
By the time of my generation, religions of all kinds were banned from being practiced. A ban that the Conglamorates enforced rather thoroughly by destroying any and all artifacts, holy sites, and anything else that could be associated with any religion in the world.
They said that religion poisons the mind and divides people. But everyone knew that what they were doing was taking away the solace and hope that common people could have through religion. After all, if there is no hope, no solace, no cultural and religious identity to call your own, then what would you fight against the Conglamorates for? What would motivate you to go against such behemoths?
Anyway, back to the topic. The boy seems to be someone from the Church, and he seems to possess some kind of holy energy that is partially resonating with my own power. An interesting development, one that I will study at a later time.
But for now, it is his companion that has garnered my full attention.
Cleria Belial. A child from the Belial clan of devils. That is what my spell is currently telling me about her.
But the thing that is making me interested is how I felt a sudden surge of unease and rage the moment my spell told me that she is a Devil.
An interesting reaction considering that I never felt like this back in the game. I mean, I have met a lot of players with different types of races, ranging from Undead to Slimes, to Dragonoids, and many more, including Devils and Demons, yet I have never felt this way when meeting them.
This means that the source of these emotions must be this new situation I have found myself in.
Truly, how intriguing.
I continued watching the duo as they moved towards the local mall. However, when I tried to take a close look at the woman's face, her head suddenly snapped towards the sky, straight into my God's Eye with her eyes wide in terror.
Interesting. Looks like she has detected my observation. A shame.
With a thought, I cut off the flow of my mana to the spell, allowing it to fade and making my vision return to my physical body.
'A devil, huh? So my conclusion was not wrong after all. This really is an interesting world.'
I will need to investigate her and her boyfriend later on. But for now, I need to take care of the shelter issue. And given that I already found the local Yakuza, it is time I pay them a little visit.
A strange feeling of elation and anxiousness flooded my heart as I thought about what the future might hold from here on out.
Excitement. An emotion that I have only ever felt in YGGDRASIL.
Who would have thought that I would be lucky enough to feel such an emotion in real life?
"Hopefully, I will feel more of this emotion in the future. [Fly]"
With the flight spell activated, (a necessity since I chose to hide my wings) I shot into the sky while also activating a Tier-9 spell called [Perfect Unknowable] that rendered me invisible to the eye, removed my scent, muted my sound, and removed my presence, making me impossible to detect by anyone that does not know the God's Eye spell.
Time to get a temporary home for myself.
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Author Notes: Read 5 chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/Ruijard1