Naoki's footsteps echoed softly on the sidewalk of the quiet residential street. After parting from Yuuki and Sato, the silence actually invited thoughts that he had been suppressing in the corner of his mind.
"I'll soon become a working adult too..."
"I know I have to find a job after graduation... But will I just work like a slave and then die like everyone else?"
The world was not kind to men. Those who didn't fully dedicate themselves to household work ended up working at the lowest levels in corporate hierarchies. Truly a bleak prospect for the boy.
"This can't be happening..." Naoki gripped his bag strap, frustrated with a life that felt more suffocating than his previous one. "Isn't there something better out there? A place where I can be important... not just an extra?"
"System? Where are you! Come out and show yourself!"
One second, five seconds. However, the shimmering holographic screen or emotionless mechanical voice that usually appeared in reincarnation novels never showed up, no matter how much he hoped for it.
"The work culture in Japan is too harsh for an Indonesian who's even too lazy to walk." Naoki grumbled, ruffling his white hair in frustration. "Maybe the option of finding a sugar mommy is better? Besides, I have a handsome face, it's a waste not to use it."
Without realizing it, fog began to form around him, slowly eroding the clarity of the roadside and neat houses.
"It's heavily foggy this afternoon. Usually, heavy fog like this doesn't form suddenly."
Suddenly his footsteps stopped. Naoki looked around, his eyes widening. Instantly, his expression changed drastically, his face pale with a terrible realization.
"Oh no! This phenomenon is the same as what Wakura Yuuki experienced in the anime when he went to Mato!"
Naoki was an otaku in his previous life. Of course, he knew that he had reincarnated into the anime world titled «Mato Seihei no Slave». That knowledge, which he once considered an advantage, now felt like a curse.
Precisely because he knew the plot, he was desperate. The paths to power, heroism, or even just survival—all were tightly closed to him for one simple and cruel reason: gender discrimination!
In this world, only women could obtain supernatural powers from Peaches.
Men? At best they were breeding tools!
*SWISH!*
A strong wind suddenly blew, sweeping away the fog in an instant. When his vision cleared again, fear almost paralyzed his legs.
He was no longer standing on the asphalt of a residential street. Under his shoes he felt cracked, barren earth. He was in a landscape that had nothing to do with any city in Japan. It felt like a remote and isolated place, where only large, oddly-shaped rock structures jutted out like giant horns from the earth's belly.
As if the entire world had turned into a desolate, silent desert, without signs of life, without trees, or chirping birds. Whether it was the dull copper-colored sky, the barren earth, or even the dry, dusty air touching his nose, everything was shrouded in suffocating strangeness.
The oppressive atmosphere made one feel as if they had been silently dragged to the underworld by soul-reaping ghosts. Anyone who stumbled into this place would likely be overwhelmed by waves of panic, becoming confused and helpless. And Naoki felt it fully.
"Damn, damn, damn! This really is Mato! Does god want the Kamikawa family bloodline to vanish?!"
"It wasn't enough that my parents were killed by Shuuki that came out of gates that appeared in the city, now I've won the lottery for a free trip to Mato!"
In that dimension full of threats, Naoki bit his lip until it nearly bled, trying to calm his nearly panicking self.
With trembling hands, he took out his phone, opening a folder containing emergency manuals that had been published by the government for situations like this—a file he had downloaded without ever really believing he would need it.
The calm and professional recorded voice, now sounding piercing in the deathly silence, began to provide explanation.
[The portals connected to Mato, scattered throughout Japan, are widely known as Gates.]
[Although usually bound to a location, some of them can temporarily appear in unexpected places, often preceded by abnormal fog formation. Cases where citizens get lost in Mato or Shuuki reach the real world are known as Mato Disasters.]
Ten years ago, his parents died in a Mato Disaster. His parents were killed when an unexpected Gate opened in a shopping center. In other words, Naoki had been an orphan since the age of eight.
Fortunately, his soul was an adult trapped in a child's body, so he was able to take care of himself, getting through the difficult times.
Relying on insurance and substantial savings left by his parents, especially from his mother's high salary as a member of the Anti-Demon Corps, Naoki lived without material lack of money. But that didn't fill the emptiness, or erase the fear of a world that had taken his family.
He forced himself to continue listening to the instructions on his phone, holding onto those words like a lifeline.
[If you get lost in Mato, avoid moving unnecessarily and wait for the Anti-Demon Corps to come and rescue you.]
Naoki guessed the Anti-Demon Corps must have a way to detect when someone had crossed from the real world to Mato. That was his only hope now.
But the question was: how long? One hour? One day?
And could he survive until then, alone, without any abilities, in a desert that might be inhabited by Shuuki?
"Giving up without a fight isn't my style. So what if I die? It's not my first experience."
The fear that had paralyzed him earlier began to erode, replaced by a layer of personality that Naoki kept tightly hidden behind the guise of an ordinary high school student.
With steady movements, he opened his school bag, then pulled out a military knife with a black steel blade that he bought through an online store. His fingers gripped the knife's handle with very precise positioning—a position only possessed by those who had been professionally trained to kill.
"Maybe, just maybe I'll reincarnate again into another anime world. Who knows? Only death can verify it."
In his previous life, Naoki wasn't just an ordinary otaku who only collected figures and manga. Before the soul from Indonesia inhabited Kamikawa Naoki's body, he was personnel of the State Intelligence Agency.
It was a non-ministerial government agency in Indonesia tasked with carrying out government duties in the field of intelligence, and was the frontline in the national security system.
As intelligence personnel, he was equipped with certain technical capabilities, including martial arts training, survival tactics, and—for certain operational purposes—basic knowledge of firearm use to explosives.
Of course, his fighting skills and physique couldn't rival special forces like Kopassus or Denjaka, but were clearly far beyond the average ordinary soldier, let alone police who were only accustomed to oppressing civilians.
*RUMBLE!*
The sound of vibration from behind made Naoki's nerves tense. He didn't turn carelessly, but performed a low rotating movement to maintain balance.
There, he saw a mound of earth moving quickly toward him, as if something was swimming inside the earth.
*CRAAASH!*
The earth exploded and scattered as a terrifying creature emerged from the ground. Its height reached two and a half meters, with a body anatomy resembling a human but appearing distorted. Its skin was dark and muscular, with extraordinarily large arms ending in sharp claws capable of tearing through steel. Its pale face, white like an expressionless porcelain mask, gave an ugly impression.
"Shuuki... Just arrived in Mato, I've already been found... Really unlucky."
Naoki stared at the creature. The creature stared at him with a predator's gaze.