Holding his plastic bag, Arata walked slowly through the unfamiliar streets.
His eyes could barely process the immense diversity of beings passing by him: men with lizard-like features, ordinary humans, people with cat ears and tails, and many other races.
"I can't read a single thing in this place..." he thought, frustrated.
He stopped in front of an imposing building with a sign displaying incomprehensible symbols on its facade.
Not knowing what it meant, Arata simply pushed the door open and entered.
The place was filled with a strong lavender scent.
As he walked farther down the hallway, he realized that it was a bathroom with walls painted in shades of pink.
Before he could process what was happening, the door to one of the stalls opened, and a girl with feline features stepped out.
This was definitely not an ordinary public bathroom.
It was the women's bathroom.
The moment she saw Arata, the girl's reaction was immediate.
She slapped him hard across the face, leaving his skin instantly red.
Right afterward, a human woman stepped out of another stall and shouted furiously:
"Get out of here, you filthy pervert!"
Kicked out under the judgmental gazes of the others, Arata returned to walking along the medieval city's sidewalks, massaging his cheek, which was burning intensely.
He felt like the biggest idiot in the world.
He had nothing and no one there. His only possessions were a cellphone with almost no battery, useless earbuds, and an instant ramen he had no way of heating.
"I can't even read the language... What am I going to do?" he wondered, swallowing hard.
Trying to find somewhere to get his bearings, he entered an establishment that looked like a bar.
However, the moment he crossed the threshold, dozens of demi-humans sitting at the tables fixed their eyes on him.
Their gazes were cold, sharp, and threatening.
Beginning to tremble nervously, Arata tried to maintain his composure.
"Please... could you..."
His words were abruptly cut off when a man with lizard-like features stood up and marched toward him.
The man grabbed him firmly by his clothes and lifted him off the ground.
"Hey, kid in the weird clothes. This bar is exclusively for demi-humans. Humans aren't allowed here," the man growled before ruthlessly throwing Arata outside.
Arata slammed into the middle of the stone-paved street.
As he tried to recover from the impact, he noticed a carriage speeding directly toward him.
A little farther ahead, a young boy had started crossing the road and froze in terror, breaking into a cold sweat as he saw the vehicle approaching.
Thinking that this was the clichéd moment every isekai protagonist experienced, Arata quickly struck a dramatic pose and shouted:
"Activate System!"
He waited for a blue floating screen to appear in the air, but nothing happened.
"What?! Then... Activate Power!" he exclaimed, extending his hand toward the child, expecting to unleash some kind of lifesaving magic.
Absolutely nothing happened.
Instead, a man wearing a knight's armor leaped into the middle of the traffic, grabbed the child at the last second, and rolled safely onto the sidewalk.
The crowd around them began applauding and whistling, praising the heroic act.
"Thank you very much, sir!" the little boy said, his eyes wide.
"It was nothing, kid. Just be more careful from now on," the knight replied with a smile, waving as the child walked away.
Meanwhile, Arata remained kneeling in the middle of the street, his face burning with embarrassment. His cheeks were completely red from the pathetic performance he had just put on.
"What kind of isekai is this? I don't have any system or overpowered ability... It must be for now... right?..." he thought miserably.
The sound of another carriage braking abruptly brought him back to reality. The driver stuck his head out and shouted:
"Hey, you weird kid! Get out of the road! Do you think you're some kind of prince or holy knight, blocking the way?!"
"Sorry, sir!" Arata lowered his head, quickly getting up and running toward the sidewalk.
Completely lost, directionless, and unable to communicate properly, he sought refuge in the same alley as before.
He sat down on the stone step, leaving the bag of ramen beside him, and stared at the sunny sky.
"The weather and the time seem to be the same... This world must be geographically similar to Earth, but with the obvious difference that it has magic, dragons, and demi-humans..." he muttered to himself.
Suddenly, three masked men entered the alley, blocking the exit and stopping right in front of him.
"Hi... who are you?" Arata asked, feeling his stomach twist.
"Hey, kid. Hand over everything you've got. Now!" demanded the one who seemed to be the leader.
"But... I barely have anything..."
"Hand over everything now!!!" the other bandit shouted, pulling out two sharp knives and pointing them directly at Arata's chest.
Trembling and too powerless to fight back, Arata handed over his cellphone, earbuds, and the plastic bag containing the ramen.
"What?! What the hell is this?!" the robber frowned, turning the strange objects over in his hands. "What kind of useless junk are you carrying?"
Another one of the robbers stared at Arata for a few seconds, noticing his unusual blue eyes and the white streak among his brown hair.
"You're pretty damn strange too."
The bandit looked over the boy's appearance, as if trying to figure out where he had come from.
"That weird hair... I've never seen anything like it."
The bandit looked over the boy's appearance again.
"You're definitely not from around here, are you?"
Unable to meet their eyes, Arata looked down at the ground.
"I... I come from a very distant homeland... Possibly thousands of dimensions away from here."
"Please, don't hurt me..."
Instead of mercy, the criminals responded brutally.
They charged at Arata and began beating him.
A violent kick knocked him to the ground, followed by an unrelenting barrage of punches and kicks all over his body.
Arata simply curled up, feeling the excruciating pain of every blow, unable to fight back.
In the middle of the beating, a woman with purple hair and black eyes, wearing a very elegant dark outfit with fur details on the shoulders, entered the alley.
She was holding a rather expensive-looking necklace and walked straight past the group with complete indifference, as if they were nothing more than stones in her path.
With an agile movement, she launched herself into the air with an impressive jump, reached the rooftop, and disappeared from sight.
The bandits were distracted for a brief second, but soon resumed their assault on Arata.
Shortly afterward, a young woman with an elongated figure and pronounced curves appeared at the entrance of the alley.
Her blonde hair contrasted with her purple eyes, which seemed to glow with a light of their own.
She wore a sophisticated dress that hugged her bust and fell all the way to the ground in translucent, flowing fabric, adorned with delicate embroidery made of silver threads. Another necklace hung around her neck, containing a crystal.
"Hey, you guys," the blonde girl called out.
"Did you see a woman with purple hair and black eyes pass by here? She was wearing a dark dress and stole something very important from me. Did you see her?"
One of the criminals stopped kicking Arata and answered:
"No, we didn't see any girl matching that description. We only saw a woman pass by here as fast as a blur. So, are you going to try to save this kid?"
The young woman sighed, assessing the situation.
"I see... I don't think so. I'm in too much of a hurry right now to waste time saving a boy I don't even know."
"Damn, what a bitch," the bandit muttered with a laugh.
She turned her back and began walking away, but stopped abruptly after a few steps.
Turning back toward the alley, her purple eyes flashed.
"Even if I'm in a hurry... I simply can't pretend I didn't see this."
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Raising her hand, she manifested her own power.
Several ice stakes with rounded tips formed in the air in the blink of an eye and were fired toward the three robbers.
The impact was strong enough to send them flying out of the alley.
Coughing and bruised, the men quickly got back to their feet.
"You bitch! You're gonna pay for this!" the leader threatened before fleeing along with the others.
Lying on the ground and covered in bruises, Arata raised his head slightly, watching the silhouette of the young woman who had saved him.
"What a beautiful girl..."
That was his last thought before darkness took over and he passed out.
At that moment, a small blue dragon emerged from the crystal on the girl's secondary necklace.
"Hey, Ma, are we going to heal the boy?" the little creature asked.
"I don't know, Buck... I really need to recover what was stolen," she replied hesitantly.
"I know you. I know you won't just leave him lying here to die."
The blonde gave in, letting out a soft sigh.
"All right... I'll heal him."
She approached Arata's unconscious body.
Buck concentrated his energy, expanding his size until he took on a robust, humanoid draconic form.
He knelt down and gently rested the injured young man's head on his own knees for support.
The girl extended her hands over Arata's chest, and a warm, bluish glow enveloped his body, gradually closing his wounds and easing his pain.
Some time later, Arata began to regain consciousness.
Still with his eyes closed, he felt his head resting on something soft, like someone's lap.
In his mind, he immediately imagined that it was the beautiful blonde girl who had protected him, the perfect "waifu" who would take care of him in this new world.
Excited, he opened his eyes with a smile, but what he saw left him in shock.
He was lying on the lap of the blue dragon in his humanoid form.
"What?!" Arata jumped backward. "I thought I was lying on the lap of a beautiful girl!"
"Sorry for not living up to your expectations," Buck replied calmly.
"What... what are you?"
"Me? Wow, you really don't know anything around here, do you?"
"Are you a dragon?"
"I'm an ice spirit dragon. Basically, a hybrid between a dragon and an elemental spirit."
"That's amazing..." Arata murmured, impressed.
The blonde young woman, who had been watching the scene with her arms crossed, cleared her throat to get his attention.
"Hey, don't you have something to say to me?"
Arata quickly composed himself and bowed his head.
"Ah, that's right! Thank you very much for helping me! I'm extremely grateful!"
"It was nothing," she replied bluntly. "Now we're even. Come on, Buck. I need to get my necklace back no matter what."
"Let's go!" Buck nodded, shrinking back down to his original form as a small blue dragon.
He flew onto the girl's shoulder, landed there, and looked back.
"See you later, kid!"
The two turned their backs and left the alley, blending back into the crowd on the main avenue.
Arata slowly stood up, feeling his body completely healed from the beating.
His fists clenched tightly as he made an internal decision.
"No... I can't keep being that passive and cowardly guy I was in Japan. Enough."
"I have to change, even if I have to create a new version of myself to do it."
Determined to change, Arata ran out of the alley, ignoring the oppressive heat, and began scanning the crowd.
He spotted the blonde girl's hair and the small blue dragon moving quickly through the pedestrians.
Picking up the pace until he managed to catch up with them, Arata called out, sweat running down his face but his eyes filled with determination:
"Can I come with you?!"
End of Chapter 2.
To be continued in Chapter 3...