The scorching sun hung overhead like a malevolent eye, its rays stabbing down upon the mortal realm with the indifference of heaven itself. In a small compound nestled within the chaotic sprawl of suburban India, a young man named Akai Ren stood before a rusted iron gate–unaware that this moment would mark the divergence point of his fate.
"Akai! You forgot the milk yesterday too! What am I supposed to put in the tea?" His mother's voice pierced through the walls, sharp with the accumulated frustration of a thousand small disappointments.
Akai pulled on his black tracksuit jacket–adorned with kanji he couldn't read and had never bothered to verify. Ignorance was bliss. Knowledge was burden. Why trade one for the other when his life held neither consequence nor meaning?
"The lives of mortals are streams flowing toward the same ocean. Some flow swift and clear, others stagnant and murky. Mine has always been the Latter—a puddle pretending to be a river."
Such thoughts occasionally surfaced in Akai's mind, pessimistic wisdom born from idleness and observation. He was self-aware enough to recognize his own mediocrity, yet too apathetic to change it. The combination created a peculiar mindset–cynical acceptance wrapped in sardonic humor.
His plan was simple : purchase snacks from the market, perhaps exchange meaningless pleasantries with the girl at the phone repair shop (an exercise in futility he nevertheless enjoyed), then return home to consume media depicting lives more interesting than his own.
Standard procedure for Akai Ren. The daily grind of an insignificant existence.
He approached the gate–wrought iron, paint peeling like dead skin, hinges squeaking their protests against time and neglect. A barrier between the known and unknown, the safe and the chaotic, the mundane and the extraordinary.
How fitting that it would become his portal of transformation.
The moment his fingers touched the cold metal latch, something invaded his consciousness.
Not a vision.Not even a dream.A memory that had not yet occurred.
Blood. Viscous and dark. The metallic taste flooding his mouth, choking him. His stomach carved open, intestines spilling like grotesque flowers blooming from soil. Pain beyond description – the kind that made the mind fracture just to escape its intensity.
And above him, a figure shrouded in shadow, holding a blade that drank his life drop by precious drop.
He was dying. No–he had died. No–he would die.
Past, present, future—all collapsed into a singular point of agonizing truth.
Akai Ren stood frozen, hand still gripping the gate latch, while his mortal mind struggled to contain what it had just experienced. The vision felt more real than reality itself, as if his mundane existence had been the dream and this death the awakening.
"What just happened?" No answer came.The universe it self rarely explained itself to mortals.
In stories, protagonists received grand revelations, mystical guidance, convenient expositions. Akai received only confusion and the phantom sensation of his own viscera exposed to air.
"A warning? A glimpse of fate? Or merely my mind finally snapping from the pressure of disappointing everyone, including myself?"He chose the most comforting interpretation: stress-induced hallucination. The human mind excelled at self-deception when truth proved too uncomfortable.
He opened the gate.
And stepped through.
Nothingness.
This was the absence of experience itself. The negation of existence. The space between heartbeats when consciousness flickered and the universe held its breath.
In this non-place, Akai Ren ceased to be.
And then, violated by reality's violent reassertion, he was again.
He woke flat on his back, staring up at a sky the color of diluted watercolor–pale, washed out, unfinished. The transition from nonexistence to existence brought no gradual awakening, only the brutal shock of being thrust back into a body that suddenly felt foreign.
"Where...?"
His clothes were shredded, hanging from his frame like the remnants of a violent struggle. Barefoot. Head pounding. Body aching with the deep bone-pain of someone who had been unmade and remade imperfectly.
The field around him stretched endlessly–grass too perfect, too uniform, like a painting by someone who had never seen real grass. The silence was absolute, oppressive, the kind that made ears ring and minds whisper just to fill the emptiness.
And in the distance, a city.
But what a city–spires that twisted against natural law, buildings suspended without support, lights pulsing in colors that had no names in any human language. Architecture that mocked physics and declared itself superior to mortal understanding.
Akai Ren stared at it, and something crystallized in his mind.
I have been transported to another world.
The realization should have brought terror. Instead, it brought laughter–sharp, slightly unhinged, the sound of a man whose expectations had been so thoroughly subverted that his mind had to reboot its entire worldview.
"I got isekai'd!"
He shouted at the empty sky, his voice cracking with a mixture of hysteria and excitement.
No response. Not even an echo of Worthy. The world absorbed his declaration and gave nothing back.
But after the initial shock faded, after his heartbeat settled and breathing normalized, Akai Ren felt something he hadn't experienced in years:
Opportunity.
In Earth, he was nothing–a disappointment, a failure, a cautionary tale waiting to be forgotten. But here? In this new world with its impossible architecture and unknown rules?
Here, he could be anything.
Or nothing. Most likely nothing. Probably dead within a week.
His self-awareness had always been his greatest asset and cruelest curse. He could see opportunities while simultaneously recognizing his inability to capitalize on them.
Yet what choice did he have but to try?
Akai struck what he hoped was a dramatic pose, pointing toward the distant city.
"I am Akai Ren!"
He declared to the indifferent field. "Former disappointment, A current dimensional refugee, and future..."
He paused, considering. "...future something that matters!"
Then, quieter, more honest: "And if there are catgirls in this world who will step on me, I will consider this entire experience a net positive."
The silence judged him. The grass remained unimpressed. A solitary bird circled overhead–or perhaps something that superficially resembled a bird–before flying away, as if even wildlife found him unworthy of attention.
Even in another world, I remain myself. Perhaps that's the real curse.
But embarrassment was a luxury for people with reputations to maintain. Akai had none. He was free terrifyingly, completely free.
He began walking toward the impossible city, bare feet surprisingly comfortable on the too-perfect grass. The distance was deceptive; he walked for what felt like hours, yet the city never grew closer. Either it was much farther than it appeared, or this world operated on rules he didn't yet comprehend.
In my old world, I walked in circles home to market, market to home, the same paths worn smooth by repetition. Here, I walk toward the unknown. Different paths, same uncertainty about the destination.
As he walked, Akai attempted to summon the standard protagonist advantages: magical abilities, status windows, system interfaces, cheat skills granted by careless deities.
"Magic missile!" He commanded the universe.
The universe declined to comply.
"Fireball! Status! Menu! Inventory!"
Nothing. Not even a flicker of mystical energy.
Of course. Even in my wildest fantasies, I'm below average.
But lack of supernatural advantages didn't mean lack of advantages entirely. Akai Ren possessed something more valuable than magic:
Experience consuming hundreds of stories about situations exactly like this.
He knew the patterns. The tropes. The common mistakes protagonists made and the strategies that led to success. Knowledge was power, and he had accumulated vast amounts of useless knowledge during his wasted years.
Perhaps that knowledge would prove less useless here.
"I have no magic," he muttered to himself, continuing his march toward the distant city. "No special abilities. No divine blessings. No convenient system to guide me."
He paused."But I have meta-knowledge about how these situations typically unfold."
Which means I know that protagonists like me–weak, unpowered, unremarkable–usually survive through cunning, exploitation of loopholes, and shameless willingness to do whatever necessary.
The thought should have disturbed him. Instead, it brought cold comfort.
In his old world, morality had been a cage constructed by society to control the powerless. He had followed its rules and received only poverty, disappointment, and the suffocating weight of others' expectations.
Here, those rules might not apply.
Here, he could be... different.
Selfish. Cunning. Willing to sacrifice others for personal gain. All the traits society condemned but secretly rewarded.
The city shimmered in the distance like a promise or a threat.
Akai Ren smiled–not the polite smile of social interaction, but the private smile of someone contemplating possibilities previously forbidden.
"This world owes me nothing," he said softly. "And I owe it nothing in return. Whatever I take, I take for myself. Whatever I become, I become through my own scheming."
He thought of the death vision–his stomach carved open, life draining away. A warning of fate's design for him.
But fate is simply another set of rules imposed by a universe that doesn't care about individual will. And rules can be broken by those clever enough to find the cracks.
He walked onward, bare feet against perfect grass, heading toward an impossible city in an alien world, carrying nothing but his life, his knowledge, and his newly liberated willingness to do whatever necessary to survive.
Behind him, the gate that had served as his portal hung in empty air for just a moment–visible, shimmering, then gone. The path back sealed forever.
Only the path forward remained.
And Akai Ren, unremarkable in one world, would carve his own path in this one–no matter who or what stood in his way.
Let this world try to kill me. I'll find a way to kill it first.