Chapter 2
'What happened? Am I dead? It's dark here. Hmm so this must be what the afterlife is like. It's pretty comfortable.'
¨...wake up¨
I thought I heard someone. Did I hear someone? Ugh am I hallucinating?
¨Wake up already¨
I heard it once again. This time it was pretty clear. Someone is telling me to wake up? Is it Lumi? Is my memory of the past surfacing? Just let me sleep.
¨Wake up, you piece of shit.¨
I jolted awake. That line wasn't something I was expecting out of Lumi's mouth. But contrary to my expectation, the girl who was so graciously asking me to wake up wasn't Lumi. She looked around 13-14, typical middle-high schooler with dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, around 5'0 to 5'1. Currently, she was glaring at me with a nasty expression on her face. I took a look around the room where I was being kept. The room was quite fancy but not fancy enough that someone would call the owner of this room 'stinking rich'. I was feeling pretty confused as to why I was brought to this room. Last thing I remember is opening my door set off an explosion. Did I get injured and was brought to a hospital.
'Wait but I don't have any bur....??!!!'
I looked at my arms and once again my eyes betrayed my expectations. The arm was scrawny and smooth, also my body felt foreign. The hell? My eyes met with a mirror that was standing at a corner of the room. I tried to reach for it but fell down halfway because walking felt unnatural for some reason. Finally, I reached the mirror and found a person there who looked nothing like me or had any resemblance to anyone I know.
¨I don't know what kind of nightmare you had but mom wants you to go to the grocery shop. ¨
I turned around realizing she was still here. I started losing my composure and tried to form a response.
¨Aa-h..ah sure thing. ¨
¨Did you eat something wrong? ¨
¨N-No not as far as I recall. ¨
¨What's with the formal speech? ¨
¨J-Just trying to act more..s-sophisticated. ¨
¨...¨
I tried my best to flash her a smile and a thumbs up to reinforce my claim. In response to that, she simply stared at me as if I was crazy. After a couple of seconds, she sighed deep and left the room, leaving me alone in the room.
I looked back at the mirror and checked the person out. He had raven hair, brown eyes, around 5'6 - 5'8 and a decent face. I hated to admit this, but this guy was slightly better looking than I was. Very Slightly.
'Damn it, this isn't the time to act narcissistic. '
'Shit shit shit, what is this situation? Is this one of those reincarnation things where you wake up as a hero or something after dying then save the universe? '
The thought made me cringe. I tried to think seriously but since the situation was utterly ridiculous, I soon abandoned any logical conclusion.
'Since I already know that I'm a member of whoever owns this house's family, I can probably get some information out of them. '
After contemplating for a little more, I decided to exit my room. Before exiting my room, I came across a piece of treasure. My Wallet. I immediately took a look inside and a smile crept on face. There were 3 notes of $100 bills, a credit card and an ID with my picture on it. I took a look at the name. Kez Kaimen, born June 7th, 2028, in Yezold city, Kaston. I couldn't discern my age as I didn't know the current year. I felt a little dejected. The cause of this wasn't my inability to discern my age but the fact that Kez didn't seem like a name that took much effort to come up with. Why was I stuck with a name that sounds like something someone came up at the moment? Was I an unplanned child? As I was submerged in the train of useless thoughts, a voice from downstairs spoke,
¨Kez, are you awake yet? ¨
I exited my room and a fairly large hallway appeared in front of me, followed by stairs and I could hear some noise of cooking down the stairs. I decided to man up and go down.
¨Good morning, Kez. You are awfully late today. ¨
The woman greeted me. She looked around 30-40 with black hair, brown eyes with a pretty face. I could see the resemblance between Kez and her, so I naturally assumed she was this 'Kez' character's mother.
¨We're out of some milk, why don't you run to the store to get some¨
¨A-Ah okay.¨
¨Take my car, the key should be on the table next to the door.¨
¨Where is my phone?¨ I tried to inquire.
¨Should be next to the keys, you left it there last night, don't you remember?¨
¨Hahaha must've slipped off my mind.¨
I looked around for the table she was talking about and found it fairly quickly. I walked outside with my phone and the atmosphere felt strange. I couldn't discern what exactly it was. The houses around me seemed..rich. I opened my phone (thank God it had facial recognition). June 24th, 2058. This definitely wasn't Earth. After messing around a bit, I got the hang of bunch of stuff. I opened a browser and looked at the news.
[Liam Diehard successfully defends Jolona from a demon attack]
[Mana molecular research speeds up after receiving funding from Bright Line]
[Association reveals their new
[Inflation up by 18.5% since last year, will there be a market crash]
[This year's TROP admission list]
[2058's rising rankers]
[Domver Killjoy back at no. 1]
'Huh?'
I couldn't help but raise the question. Over half of the articles were about rankers. No way. Is this a world with mana, rankers and demons? My mind had difficulties comprehending the information. Wait Domver Killjoy? I knew that name. A theory formulated in my brain but it seemed so ridiculous that I didn't want to connect the dots.
I decided I should complete the task at hand first. I found a map app on my phone and checked my surroundings. I found and marked a gas station and got in my car. The functionalities were pretty similar to the ones I was used to seeing. Driving it wasn't hard. I exited my neighborhood and headed toward my destination. I arrived after 7-8 mins and I was a little shocked. The gas station resembled a supermarket. I walked in and was surprised by the number of products that I didn't recognize. Most of them were mana powered devices. As I was wondering if I had come to the right place for milk, someone called out to me.
¨Yo Kez, Sup'¨
I turned toward the source of the voice. It was a guy with blond hair that was neatly done. He was well dressed too. He seemed around my age and looked extremely handsome. I started breaking cold sweat. Shit what if this guy is Kez's best friend or some shit. I decided to respond as 'I' would to my best friend.
¨Hello, fella. How do you do on this fine day? ¨
¨...¨
"..."
¨Yo-You..hit your head or something? ¨
¨Ho-ho-ho what u talk about, friend? I'm doing better than Jeremy Colbin. ¨
¨...who is Jeremy Colbin? ¨
'Ah shit I accidentally threw a reference from my original world. Damn it, I was killing it.'
¨Ahahaha just kidding so what are you here for? ¨
¨...i came by to buy some supplies...Are you sure you are okay? ¨
¨Ya I'm fine, dont worry about it. I was just running an errand for my mom.¨
¨Ah I see. Anyway, how are your preparation for Trop going?¨
¨..what the fuck is a Trop?¨
¨Hm? Did you say something?¨
¨N-No, the preparations are going fine.¨
¨Ah good, if you have time after your erra-¨
¨Young master, Stricoss.¨
Before he could finish his sentence, a voice called out to him. The man was wearing a black suit with black sunglasses. He walked towards us. I notice a nametag on his suit, 'Shawn Corbin--Kolzes Guild¨. Kolzes Guild!!?? Stricoss? No way.
¨Young master, you have an appointment at 1"
¨Ah almost forgot. Well then Kez, I will see you at Trop.¨
¨Ye-Yes see you at Tro-op¨
I stood still as I watched Stricoss Kolzes leave. That's right, Stricoss Kolzes. His family owned the Kolzes guild which was ranked 6th in the human domain which was really impressive by the way. And how did I know that? Because I read about this world in a web novel. I wasn't super into web novels, but I was particularly invested in one called "Weaving Destiny". I had my personal reasons for being invested in this novel. The novel, however, was as generic as it could get and was unnecessarily long. I have been reading it for the last 9-10 years but I still couldn't finish it. I had no clue how many chapters it had total but I could swear I already read over 50 thousands chapters!!! But basically, the story goes like this: A overpowered guy mc who is from another world and acts cold but is actually nice inside. He and his party eventually become humanity's greatest hope against demon kind and blah blah blah.
This was ridiculous. I scoffed loudly after I came to this realization, but the corners of my mouth curved upwards.
'Status' I mumbled
A window popped up. It displayed...well my status obviously. I took a quick glance at it.
===
Name: Kez Jolkev
Age: 1----!!!!!!!
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ERROR]
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The window turned red and disappeared before I could start reading. After a few moments, it popped back up again, displaying a message that didn't make much sense to me.
===
[ System Clozen cannot function properly due to interference from System Zorev ]
[ Error. NodeType object 0x000001EDFAEE0BE0 not valid ]
[ Error in runtime polymorphism. Invalid Node references ]
[ Running backup ]
[Implementing System Practen ]
[Time remaining: 5 days 2 hours 48 minutes 10 seconds]
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"What the actual fuck is it talking about?" I said aloud, attracting several people's attention.
'Whatever, I'll think about it later. Right now, I need a plan'
I searched for a little while and found the milk. I checked my card balance, and the amount was quite shocking.
[ Card Balance: 72,318 AP]
AP was the currency that was used in this world. I estimated that it was less valuable than US dollars after comparing prices of groceries in my other world and this world. I concluded that 1 USD was equivalent to 1.80 AP which means I had around 40,000 USD. Which teenager wouldn't love to have this kind of money?
As I was about to exit the store, my eyes drifted towards a group of people. People all around were gathering at the entrance for some reason. I, too, decided to follow the crowd and check out what's going on.
What I found was two guys fighting? One of them was the guy with blond hair I just talked to. He was holding the other guy's collar with a frightening expression on his face. However, the other guy didn't seem frightened at all. He rather had a cold, nonchalant expression. I carefully examined the other guy's face. He had Jet black hair with golden eyes along with sharp facial structure. His looks could easily rival even Stricoss's. I immediately recognized who this guy was supposed to be. The actual MC. If I remember correctly, his name was Jack Hankings.
"You!! How dare you bump into me?" Stricoss called out
"Shut up, you are the one who purposefully bumped into me. What? You gonna call me a liar? There's a camera right over there. I'm sure this store will happily provide us with the footage when it comes to resolving fights like this." Jack stated calmly.
"Tsk"
Stricoss showed signs of backing off after Jack attacked him with logic. Yup Stricoss was simply a mid-tier villain in the novel. All he had going on for him was his family's backing. In the novel, he occasionally bothered Jack with his goons. Then I realized. Kez was one of his goons.
'Fuck, I should probably get out of here real quick.'
I tried to backstep and slip out of the crowd but accidentally bumped into someone. In sequence, that someone dropped a bell or whatever they were carrying and upon impact, the bell made a loud noise. Instantly, everyone, including Stricoss and Jack looked towards us. I cursed silently and glared annoyingly at that somebody. But I quickly realized my mistake. It was a kid. He started bawling after seeing my annoyed expression. I tried to put on an amicable smile and soothe the kid but it was too late. I fucked up enough. Both Jack and Stricoss were looking toward me. I quickly snatched the kid's wool hat (intensifying the kid's bawling), put it on my face so it won't be recognizable, and ran. I ran till reached my car and started driving towards my house.
'Ehew that was close. Getting involved in that situation was not beneficial to me in any way.'
I could quickly resolve that issue by pointing out that the camera Jack mentioned wasn't real. Since Stricoss wasn't smart, he bought into Jack's bluff. But if I did that then it would make Jack wary of me. Something that wouldn't benefit me in any way.
'Damn, he probably already saw me.'
***