The bulk of the ride to the station passed with the officer tossing questions at Julian, clearly hoping something would jog his memory. Every time, Julian just stared back at him with a vacant look and gave a small shake of his head. It quickly became obvious the interrogation was going nowhere.
Once they arrived, the officer led Julian by the hand into the building. A few other officers glanced their way with curious expressions as they passed through the halls. Eventually they stopped at the reception desk, where the officer explained the situation to the woman on duty. After that, Julian was told to sit on a nearby bench and wait while they figured out what to do with him.
...
Roughly five minutes later, a woman in a blue uniform came over and beckoned Julian to follow her. She guided him to the small medical room inside the station so she could clean him up and check his injuries.
Julian felt his ears burn with embarrassment when she told him he would need to undress for the examination, but he understood why. If his whole body might be injured, they had to see everything. The moment he pulled off his shirt, which she immediately tossed into a trash bin, the woman sucked in a horrified breath.
Across his chest bloomed ugly purple and blue bruises, along with swollen welts that stood out starkly against his pale skin. His arms were not much better, mottled with bruises that made it painfully clear just how badly this body had been beaten.
"You poor thing," the woman murmured, her voice soft with pity as she turned to the sink, filling it with hot water. She soaked a rag and came back to gently wipe his chest and face.
She was as careful as she could be, but Julian still had to grit his teeth to stop himself from crying out. His shirt had absorbed most of the disgusting filth, but some of the rancid fluids had seeped through and coated his skin underneath.
Once his torso was reasonably clean, she moved on to his neck and head. There had been nothing to shield those, so they were caked in a foul-smelling mess of garbage slime, mud, and dried blood.
Unfortunately, that meant she had to scrub harder to get it off, and the rougher motions stung. She kept apologizing every time she saw his eyes water, but she did not stop. Getting him clean took priority over his discomfort.
The real nightmare was his hair. So much filth had clumped and hardened in it that it was basically a lost cause. After a moment of visible frustration, she sighed and grabbed a pair of scissors.
Snip by snip, his hair fell away.
It was only then that Julian realized his new body's hair was a strange, striking shade, a pale grayish blond that verged on silver.
That discovery seemed to annoy the woman even more, her anger now partly directed at whoever had done this to him. A hair color like that was uncommon and eye-catching, although not completely unheard of. She muttered under her breath about how it was usually associated with old noble bloodlines and the inbreeding that had gone on in those families.
Once his hair was shorn close, she thoroughly washed his scalp, revealing the damage beneath. Bruises marred his head as well, along with a particularly nasty open gash on his forehead.
Julian was allowed to clean his lower half by himself, since it turned out he was not injured there, just filthy. He moved carefully, relieved to confirm that at least some parts of him were only dirty, not broken.
...
When he finally finished, the woman handed him a blanket to wrap around himself while she gathered up his reeking clothes and carried them off to be thrown away.
Left alone, barefoot and nearly naked on the exam bed, Julian nearly jumped out of his skin when something appeared right in front of his eyes.
A translucent panel hovered in the air.
[SYSTEM INITIATION COMPLETE]
[WELCOME HOST TO THE RINGMAKERS SYSTEM]
[NAME: Julian Iron
RACE: Human (wizard)
AGE: 10
TITLE: none
Ring Points: 0
Missions: none
Inventory: LOCKED
Weapon: none
Armor: none
Accessories: none]
[STARTER PACK AVAILABLE. ACCEPT NOW? Y/N]
Julian blinked rapidly, dozens of times in quick succession, expecting the hallucination to vanish. When it stubbornly remained floating in front of him, his confusion gave way to a surge of excitement.
How could it not? Before he died, he had heard of so many similar situations in popular media, from anime to web novels, where people got a system like this after some bizarre twist of fate.
Even so, he did not immediately accept the starter pack. The inventory function was currently locked, and he did not know how the system handled items. The last thing he wanted was for a pile of mysterious goods to suddenly materialize out of nowhere in the middle of a police station.
No, officer, I have absolutely no idea how these expensive, suspicious items just appeared in front of me. Feel free to confiscate them for safety, he imagined saying dryly.
Yeah, right. I need every advantage I can get, Julian thought, a quiet chuckle slipping out. The small laugh sent a sharp spike of pain through his ribs and head, forcing him to clamp his lips shut again as his injuries flared angrily in response.