Kenji was lying face down on the floor for a long while before he lifted his head, his eyes red and bloodshot. Beyond the alleyway where he sat, the faint outline of the street was quite bright. It looked like a bustling downtown district.
He stared at the busy street and tried to sort out his thoughts.
'Possession? Reincarnation? It's not regression, that's for sure.'
His mind was a mess. To think that he would experience one of the transmigration tropes he'd only ever read about in novels. He let out an annoyed sigh and leaned back against a wall patched with newspapers.
In truth, whether he was here because of possession or reincarnation didn't really matter. The important thing was that he was alive, and he had to keep on living. The one silver lining was that the setting of 'Blue Archive' was the near future, not the middle ages.
It was better to find a decent job in a familiar-looking place than to be dropped into the medieval era and have to fight with swords and magic. Although, because he had spent all his time rerolling, he knew nothing about the game's actual story. Still, he remembered the essential characters for rerolling and those who appeared in the tutorial, so that was something.
"...First, I guess I should head outside."
Kenji let out a deep sigh and unsteadily pushed himself to his feet.
-Grumble.
His stomach screamed, as if he hadn't eaten anything recently. He was sure he'd had a full dinner after work just yesterday, damn it. Kenji mumbled a curse under his breath and slowly began to make his way out of the alley.
The closer he got to the street, the louder the noise became. The roar of car exhausts, the sound of women laughing and chatting, music blasting from speakers. Each sound pierced his ears and rattled his brain. His famished body reacted sensitively to even these simple sounds.
"..."
Finally, he was completely out of the alley.
Kenji squinted against the burst of light and looked around.
Most of the citizens filling the streets were girls dressed in school uniforms. The peculiar thing about them was the angel-like ring floating above their heads. A halo of light. He wasn't particularly surprised, as he already knew about this.
'Do I have one too?'
He looked up just in case, but there was nothing to be seen.
Of course not.
Kenji let out a deep sigh and pressed a hand against his rumbling stomach. The smell of food wafting from all directions was making his stomach demand that he shove anything into it. But he couldn't bring himself to pickpocket or steal, so he scanned the streets with an unsteady gait.
The halos above the students' heads were all different shapes and sizes. Perhaps they served a similar function to fingerprints. If so, it would be hard to get away with a crime. It didn't seem like you could hide them the way you could hide fingerprints.
'Those wings on their backs... I haven't seen those before.'
Kenji tried to recall the 'Blue Archive' characters he had seen beyond his monitor. But he couldn't remember any characters with wings attached near their waists. Maybe there had been one, but he might have missed it while running his macro.
'Ah, I think there was that black-haired character. Her name was...'
"Was it Hasumi?"
Just as he muttered that.
-Thwump!
Someone burst out of an alley and collided with him.
"Aah!"
"Guh!"
While the girl who had rushed out landed on her bottom, Kenji's body was launched into the air, spun around several times, and then flopped back down to the ground. It was as if he'd been in a traffic accident. The fortunate thing was that nothing seemed to be broken. Though his nose was bleeding.
"Ow, that hurts..."
The girl grimaced, rubbing her bruised bottom. Still, she had no intention of blaming the person she'd run into. After all, she was the one who had come running out of the alley. The decent thing to do was to apologize.
"Uh, I'm so sorry. I should have been more careful... Hehe..."
"...."
There was no reply. The girl, finally sensing something was wrong, opened her eyes.
What she saw was a child, who looked to be about her age, collapsed on the ground. Seeing that he had no halo, she knew he must have fainted.
And blood!
The girl's eyes caught sight of the blood trickling from Kenji's nose down his chin.
"Oh, oh no!"
As soon as she saw the blood, she shot up from her spot and rushed over to Kenji. Then, she grabbed his shoulders and began to shake him violently.
"Hey, hey! Wake up! Blood! You're bleeding, we have to go to the hospital! Wake uuuup!"
A cracking sound came from Kenji's shoulders due to her ridiculously immense strength.
The pain jolted Kenji back to consciousness. He snapped his eyes open and saw the girl shaking him. She was a child with pink hair and amber eyes. One look was enough to tell that she would grow up to be a great beauty.
But there was no time to admire her looks. Kenji's face contorted in pain from his nose and shoulders, and he let out a groan.
"Ugh..."
"Ack! Does it hurt? Are you hurting? Is that it?"
"Don't shake me, you crazy bitch..."
"Wha-what? Crazy...?"
Crrrack.
The girl's grip tightened. Kenji let out a silent scream at the pain, then lost consciousness once again.
That crazy gorilla.
That was his last thought before he blacked out.
*
The place where he opened his eyes again was at least somewhat familiar. It was similar to the ceiling of the orphanage he had seen when he did volunteer work there during his university days. A ceiling adorned with colorful, vibrant toys.
Kenji stared blankly at the ceiling, blinking. Just then, someone's head popped into his view. It was the same pink-haired girl from before he fainted.
"Gorilla?"
"Who are you calling a gorilla! My name is Mika!"
The gorilla who called herself Mika threw a light punch. But Kenji screamed from the immense pain that shot through his arm.
"Aargh! That fucking hurts, you crazy bitch!"
"What do you mean, it hurts! And are you going to keep using bad words?!"
Mika spat out, clenching her small fists.
To think that such monstrous strength came from those cotton-puff fists. Kenji let out a hollow laugh at the absurdity of it all, then sighed and fell back onto the floor. Even if his body was young, his mind was nearly thirty. He felt a sense of shame arguing with a child like her.
"Say one more bad word! I'm going to tell my mom everything!"
"I don't have a mom. Are you bragging?"
"Liar! Everyone has a mom!"
"You're really nuts. You're so dead later."
"Hmph!"
Mika puffed out her cheeks and whipped her head away. For Kenji, this was a welcome development. He had no intention of continuing the conversation. He lay flat on his back, staring blankly at the ceiling. After lying on the hard ground with only a newspaper for comfort, seeing a proper ceiling was a novel feeling.
A familiar, comfortable feeling. Yes, people should sleep in houses, not on the streets. Unless you were someone like Kamen Rider, you wouldn't be able to stand it.
"So, where is this place?"
"Trinity Kindergarten! It's where I go!"
"Trinity Kindergarten... I thought there were only middle and high schools here?"
"What are you talking about? This is just a kindergarten! It has nothing to do with the academies! If you were born in Trinity, shouldn't you know that?"
"My apologies. I wasn't born in Trinity, I was born in Tokyo."
"Tokyo...? Where's that?"
"If you don't know, don't worry about it."
Kenji replied indifferently and stretched out. Mika, her cheeks still puffed, climbed on top of him. It was a dangerous situation. Not sexually dangerous, but life-threatening. To be caught in a mounted position by a gorilla. There could be no greater blunder.
"Get off. You're heavy."
"I'm not heavy! My mom said I'm as light as a feather!"
"Must be nice having two moms."
"What are you even talking about!"
Mika whined and squirmed before pressing her body against Kenji's torso. Then, she met his dark eyes and parted her lips.
"By the way, where's your halo? Why don't you have one?"
"How should I know? If I don't have one, I don't have one."
"Really?"
Mika tilted her head. Her pink hair swayed with the movement. Kenji unconsciously reached out and touched her hair. It felt as smooth as silk.
"Why my hair?"
"No reason. It's just an unusual color. Anyway, can you get off?"
"Ah, okay."
Mika slid off to the side. Then, she grabbed the hem of his clothes with her fingertips.
"Are you hungry, by any chance?"
"What?"
"Well, I heard your stomach grumbling. So..."
Mika trailed off.
Kenji didn't bother trying to save his pride. In the first place, he was so hungry that the word 'pride' didn't even come to mind.
"Yeah, I'm hungry."
"Really? Should I go get the matron, then?"
"The matron?"
"Yeah. The woman who runs the kindergarten! The only reason I could bring you here is because she helped. What do you say, should I call her?"
Kenji nodded without hesitation. At that, Mika beamed a bright smile and trotted cheerfully into a room.
A few minutes later, Mika came out of the room. Two others were with her. One was a child with light gray hair, and the other one was...
'What is that.'
Past the brightly smiling Mika and the stern-looking girl, Kenji saw something waddling towards him.
It wasn't a creature he had never seen before. It was one of the most common animals you could see walking down the street. Yes, a sparrow. That was a sparrow.
But it was a sparrow the size of a person.
"Nice to meet you~"
And what's more, a sparrow that could talk.
Kenji felt his head spin.