Another world

The sky is covered in dark clouds, looks like at any moment a storm will start.

Trees with gray stems and faded green leaves were blown by strong and cold winds, for some reason that caused a mix of bad feelings to those who felt, as if suddenly a mix of bad feelings took a shape and embraced you more and more.

The earth is gray and looking dead, it’s impossible to think of some kind of vegetation to grow in an inhospitable local like that.

At the end of the forest, in a mountain range whose sight could not see the end and the smallest mountain was only two meters below the clouds, its grandeur made any being feel inferior in the face of such greatness.

However, a place that lies deeper in this cluster of colossi of nature is a lake of crystal clear water fed by underground currents that came directly from the sea.

In the middle of the lake was located a stone platform, with countless runes in its edge, and in the center of circles of complex strokes which seemed to have been drawn by a professional artist, it was all very flawless in the drawing, especially for having been carved.

There, a sphere of sticky black liquid began to form and grow as drops of the same liquid were made by the magic circles.

Until suddenly a light erupted from inside the black sphere, it was as if it was going to explode, but, the light faded and the perfect spherical form returned to normal.

Then, on reaching the size of an adult male, the sphere of mystery shape that formed also dissolved in a puddle, leaving behind only an adolescent with no clothes on his body.

⊛⊛⊛

【In another world, Tokyo】

The time of the year, where girls give chocolate to boys, Valentine's Day.

Unfortunately, not everyone had the happiness of being presented with chocolate, for many boys it was just another day of the year, an unforgettable day, for others's a day of happiness to have a girl who likes you confessing her love to you.

But that wasn’t the case to Satoru Seigi, 16 years old, who never had a girlfriend.

For him, that day only exists to remind him of his incompetence and the mistakes he had made.

In the past, he had a girl he was close to, a childhood friend, Akame, but when they entered high school, Akame started dating a boy from the same class and stopped talking to Satoru.

After that, Satoru found himself without any motivation and stopped attending the kendo club.His days were only focused on waking up, studying, and returning home, however, it could be said that the only light for him were his heroes, who faced the dangers of the word for their companions.

Some who explored the seas, others sought people’s acknowledgment, but some simply liked to face strong enemies, and finally, some would never find an end to their stories.

However, today was an unusual day for him, normally he would never leave the house on such a sad day for him, but he couldn’t go against his mother's wishes, so he went to a convenience store to buy some things.

"Seriously, I'm forced to see all these couples, is this some kind of torture?"

Shrunk, Satoru went into the store and grabbed a shopping basket. As he was getting what he needed, he stopped at the count with several magazines. At that moment his eyes started to shine, even though he had already read this week’s shounen magazine but for him, this is a safe house for his mind. 

When he opened the magazine and started to read the one-shot, he found his favorite of this time, 【Imperial Golden Age】.

The story of a man who was betrayed by his country, and reincarnates in the future with his memories, and therefore decides to bring back his past glory.

Satisfied after reading it quickly, Satoru goes to the cashier, however, when he takes the bags, right in front of him is the person he least wanted to meet.

Akame is behind him waiting to be answered at the checkout, as soon as she notices Satoru was also surprised.

In her hand, a very expensive box of chocolates, seeing this, Satoru understands immediately, he wanted to say something, his mouth moved, but nothing came out, it was suffocating. Sad knowing he couldn’t do anything, he closed his eyes and left walking.

"Satoru, wait a minute…"

Surprised, he didn’t expect to be called, his body froze in the place.

"You know, we haven’t spoken in a while, but I wanted to…"

Not understanding why Akame hesitated, Satoru’s heart began to speed up, however, his legs were shaking and he was still paralyzed with his childhood friend talking with.

"Would you please go back… back to the kendo club?"

Suddenly, his mind calmed down, but no because he was satisfied, his mind simply stopped for a few seconds, until finally words left his mouth, before he ran out of the store.

"I… I will think!", Holding back his tears, Satoru ran down the street, he knew that Akame was not to blame for anything, it was only his fault and his alone. His mind was sabotaging itself by creating expectations, about something impossible.

Why would anyone want to be with him? He wasn’t handsome, he wasn’t the smartest person in his class, he didn’t even have the guts to declare himself, that’s why he lost his childhood friend, in the end, he just knew how to give it all up.

As soon as he arrived at the building where he lived, Satoru hurried into the elevator, as the doors closed, he couldn’t back the tears anymore, until suddenly, he felt something pulling his body, before he even realized he was surrounded by a black liquid, he tried to scream, but in vain.

Suddenly, the elevator arrived on the floor, but inside there was only a shopping bag and clothes thrown on the floor.

That’s how Satoru Seigi disappeared.

⊛⊛⊛

With longing reflected in your eyes, Yurien, before making lands lucky, with crops that stretched as far an eye could see, her family generated one of the highest incomes in the region, but now, those times never seemed to return.

Looking to the horizon, memories of the past overwhelmed his mind. The body that used to be healthy and robust, now became ill and feeble, due to the plague.

Every day was an endless struggle, against the ashes that fell for hours and only end after several days. Thanks to this, only a few crops survive, even so, the income decreased too much, those who could not adapt to this condition died or were left to find new lands to find some hope.

"Grandpa, he woke up!", said a little girl who was running excitedly.

The old man composed himself, his face mistreated by age, and the daily stress, made him look older than someone in his 50s.

But seeing his granddaughter, whom he loved so much, he forced a smile, no matter what, his grandaughter must never see him down, his hope was something to protect no matter what."Alright, alright! I’m going!", Yurien turned in the direction of his house following his granddaughter.

His house, one of the few things left to him, now worn out, bright colors before now are dirty and musty, with the bad weather every day, Yurien lost any motivation to try to clean the house.

Upon entering, the situation did not improve, the most that could be done was clean the essential places, such as the food store and the kitchen.

The furniture was no longer there either, everything that was not essential and was made of wood, turned into firewood to face the cold of days and nights.

When going up to the second floor, the wood creaked, some louder cracks also happened from time to time.

In the first room, as you went up the stairs, the door was open.

In this room, that's where the old man entered, there was only a straw mattress, on top of that, a huddled figure was hiding with an old cloth covering the body.

A young man with black hair looked at Yurien with a fearful face.

⊛⊛⊛A few hours earlier, naked, Satoru Seigi's body was found on top of a stone platform in the middle of a lake, by a red-skinned woman with scales on certain parts of her body, and giant bat wings on her back.

She threw a worn piece of cloth over his body, then she began to carry Satoru in her arms as she flew.

It didn't take long for a small village to be seen in the distance.

Few human beings still lived in these lands, either because they had nowhere to go, or simply out of stubbornness to leave their homes.

"Who would want to live in a dead land?"

For the woman, this stubborn thought was purely stupid.

When landing in front of the village, old Yurien, and a grown man with a bow and an arrow on his back, indicating that he was a hunter and one of those responsible for the few that remained.

"Madam Hilda, who is this?"

The red-skinned woman watched the boy in her hands, in her feline yellow eyes, she only made the gesture to hand the body over the hunter.

"Take care of him"

When Satoru was handed over to the hunter, Hilda only said what she thought necessary, after that, she spread her wings and flew away.

With that, Yurien with his back against the wall told everything he knew to the scared young man in front of him.

"Unfortunately, that's all I know, you don't need to be afraid, could you tell me your name?"

"Sa-Satoru Seigi."

"Oh, a strange name, you're in my house, I hope you'll forgive me, but the food is very scarce, so only tomorrow I can give something to you eat", said Yurien, stopping in front of the door and continued talking "The clothes are old too, I hope you don't mind, you can sleep here today, in the morning we'll talk more"

When he left the room, Yurien felt someone grabbing his leg, when he looked down, there was his granddaughter.

"Grandpa, are you going to help him?"

The little girl was sad, for her young age, she still didn't understand why, but seeing that shrunken figure clearly in fear, something in her chest began to stir.

Surprised, Yurien didn't expect his granddaughter to care much.

"Hahaha, don't worry Envy, everything will be fine, grandpa will take care of the boy."

His gentle hand stroking his head, made his heart flutter, slowly calm down.

But on the other side of the door, Satoru was still huddle-covered and trembling, the fear persisted in his mind, he was so lost don't even know if he was in the same world, from the moment he ran away crying until he was caught by that goo.

Unknown people, clothes that didn't even warm the body, hunger, fear, anxiety, and the longing his mother.

That night, his emotions continued to overflow, but no matter how much he cried: god, angel or devil, no one came to help him.

⊛⊛⊛

Cloudy skies were frequent in this region, almost the whole week. After crying for hours, Satoru finally fell asleep.

But while the comfort of dreaming is a good thing, Satoru was awakened by a knock on the door.

"I see you've woken up, eat and after this, come meet me downstairs."

Yurien placed a plate of bread on the floor and left the room shortly thereafter.

At first, his mind denied the idea of taking food from a stranger, but his hands moved instinctively, hunger making even a hard piece of bread become at least edibleSince birth, Satoru has had a good life, always eating until he can't eat anymore, sleeping in a comfortable bed, and having friends to talk to.

With each bite, he felt his teeth forcing the hard dough, as he swallowed he could feel his throat at times seem to be ripped apart.

Thinking about what he had lost, his eyes reddened again, the feelings conflicted within him, when did he get like this, without any control over himself.

Removing the top cloth, Satoru got up and began to look through the crack in the door, fearing that he would be thrown out of the house, for him it was inconceivable to sleep outside without any kind of protection.

Hesitant whether he would leave or not, suddenly his vision was blurred by a girl passing in the hallway and saw the door half-open.

Satoru moved to close the door immediately, however, he was stopped by something unexpected.

The little girl turned to face him and smiled, then walked back towards the stairs. For a brief moment, his entire body stopped, he didn't know why such a simple gesture made him like that, but something inside him seemed to calm down.

Holding the door with his right hand, he hesitated as he thought, however, he lowered his head not knowing what to do, and just pushed the door which creaked open slowly.

Facing the stairs right in front of him, Satoru stepped slowly on each step, until he reached the floor below, more precisely the kitchen, when he saw that room with a stone floor, wooden walls.

More and more, the fact he was no longer in his world convinced him that he would never see anyone he knew again.

Passing through the kitchen he came to an empty room, on the wall there was an open window.

When he looked out, a feeling of desolation came to him. Fallen houses, no one passed on the street, the gray sky dictated the color predominant of the environment, without understanding the sadness took him upon seeing the bleak landscape.

Swallowing saliva, he walked to the front door, where he saw the old man he had met."Hm, so you came, Satoru, right? Let's walk a bit, I need you to meet someone."Satoru nodded, when he left the house, the cold wind made his body shiver all over.Walking down the dirt street, Satoru saw what once appeared to be market stalls that were now abandoned and forgotten there, his bare feet completely dirty from the immense amount of ash that had accumulated.As they move away from the area with more houses, separated from the entire city, a wooden hut with smoke coming out of a chimney.A tall man with blond hair and a scruffy beard wore a fur coat of some unknown animal to Satoru.

He seemed to be waiting for them at the door of the hut beside him was a sword and bow with arrows in a quiver.

The old man greeted the man standing in front of the hut then introducing to Satoru."This is Beren, the only hunter in the village right now, he'll teach you how to hunt."Beren glared at Satoru, who suddenly took a startled step back.

"H-hunting? I-I don't know anything, I have never done anything like this in my entire life."Even though he was surprised, Satoru tried to explain himself, but before knew it, Beren had unsheathed his sword and placed it around Satoru's neck.

"Beren, what are you doing? He was brought by Miss..."

"QUIET YURIEN! I know what I'm doing, anyone who doesn't help has no place here!"

Satoru's body began to tremble all over, with the blade of the sword touching his skin, and, suddenly his mind shuddered and his vision darkened.