I always believed life had a bad sense of humor, but today it had graduated into a sadistic comedian. That morning, the rain fell with complete indifference to the fate of the human standing beneath it. I, of course, was that human.
My name Narukami Yuuto, am a former salesman from a branch company under the Nakamura Group in East Asia. And I have already reached a critical point in my life.
"I'm sorry, Yuuto, but this apartment has already been reserved if you don't pay for it now. So please vacate the room today," said the apartment owner, bowing politely while glancing at his watch. His tone was gentle, as if I weren't being evicted, but simply reminded to water the plants.
I returned the bow with a stiff smile. The kind of smile worn by someone who has just been struck by reality with a sledgehammer labeled reality. Thin cardboard boxes containing the remnants of my life were neatly lined up in the hallway, looking like an art installation titled failure.
A week ago, I still had a job. A decent salary, a passive-aggressive boss, and coworkers who loved to praise while slipping in knives the full package of the modern corporate world. Then a mysterious email appeared, followed by a brief meeting, and closed with the sacred, career-killing sentence:
"I'm sorry." From someone called a colleague.
I was framed neatly. A mistake that wasn't mine suddenly became my responsibility. The evidence evaporated like ice cubes in Tokyo's summer. The colleague who laughed with me yesterday suddenly found their own shoes fascinating. The system worked perfectly—perfectly to ensure I fell without.
Layoff meant no salary. No salary meant no rent. No rent meant I was standing under the rain, hugging cardboard boxes, contemplating how efficiently the world erased people like me.
The trains still passed on time. Digital screens displayed job vacancy ads with cynical smiles, promising opportunity in bold letters and requirements in small print. The city kept moving, like a river current with no time to save a small stone dragged to the bottom.
I laughed softly. Not because it was funny more because the alternative was writing a complaint letter to the universe, and I was sure there was no return address.
At this lowest point, one conclusion appeared clearly: the world has a manual, and I clearly never received a copy. Maybe it got lost in the HR office. Or sold separately at a premium price.
"Haah~ how funny," I muttered. "So funny it even brings tears out."
Because the injustice felt too heavy to swallow alone, my feet carried me to a mountain god shrine famous for its emptiness the kind of place even crows might think twice before stopping by. The rain still fell faithfully, soaking the slippery old stone steps, as if joining in the laughter at my choice of seeking justice in a location that even Google Maps colored with doubtful gray.
I stood before the silent wooden building, staring at the altar with heavy breaths and a head full of complaints piled up like unread emails.
"I know I'm not a devout person," I finally said, my voice cracked by emotions I had held back too long. "But this is too much. Come on, Kami-sama. Why do the trials in my life have to go this far?"
There was no answer. Only the rustling rain and the cold mountain wind. A silence that was too honest.
In that stillness, a dark thought passed through light, quick, and impolite. Not a desire, more like a desperate temptation that appears when someone is too tired to hope.
But as usual, I locked it away again. Not because I was strong, but because I was a coward. Afraid of pain, afraid of the end, afraid of anything I couldn't rewind.
This had become an old habit. A joke that was never funny. Since middle school, I was often taken advantage of by the people around me. I was aware of it. I knew it exactly. But to avoid being alone, I endured. To be considered as existing, I allowed myself to be used. Because otherwise, I felt no more meaningful than a cockroach crushed without a second thought.
A wrong decision.
If I returned to that life, I knew the result. A circle of lies that kept forcing, pressing, and slowly shaping a fragile mentality like this.
"Haah~"
I let out a long breath. Even after praying seriously, I didn't really expect anyone to listen.
That was when my jacket pocket vibrated.
My phone.
I took it out with half-lazy curiosity, then frowned when I saw a message from an unknown number.
[Do you want to change your life?]
"What is this…?"
A short message. No identity. No small talk.
My hand moved faster than my thoughts.
'Of course.'
The reply came almost instantly.
[Then, what do you want to change in your life?]
I fell silent for a moment.
'What do I want?'
I laughed quietly, bitterly.
'Because I'm fed up with the 21st century system, I want to move to another world.'
I pressed send without thinking too long.
The next reply made the back of my neck shiver.
[Do you want to die?]
"What the hell is this!? Of course not!"
I replied quickly.
A few seconds later, another message appeared.
[Then, do you want to move to another world while still remaining connected to your current world?]
I frowned. The sentence was strange, ambiguous, and illogical—yet somehow felt too serious to ignore.
"…Yes?"
I replied hesitantly.
[Then, you will get it.]
Like a digital genie granting wishes without reading the terms and conditions, the phone in my hand suddenly vibrated wildly. Before I could react, a flash of blue light shot from the screen, striking my forehead with an electric sting that spread through my entire body.
My muscles convulsed. My vision turned white. For a moment, I became a perfect conductor for a digital fury I didn't understand.
The world spun wildly like a broken carousel. Black dots danced at the edge of my sight. Cold sweat flowed from my forehead, soaking the collar of a shirt already damp from rain. My fingers lost their strength, letting the phone cheap electronic junk that had ironically become my last possession fall into the mud with a pitiful pluk sound.
My body staggered, trying to lean against an old wooden pillar that smelled of mold and wet soil.
"Urgh… what was that?" I groaned, my hoarse voice barely audible.
As my head still throbbed, something impossible appeared before me—a semi-transparent electric-blue window floating in empty air, complete with a digital frame and blinking text, like a cheap RPG interface that should only exist on a monitor screen.
[Trait – World Walker]
"Yeah…?"
I muttered reflexively, half confused, half suspicious, while pressing my still-pulsing temple as if my brain had just been dragged into a sudden meeting with no agenda.