Suzuki Tadashi

“It’s… tough…”

“The hell… man…” I thought as my boots moved up and down, walking on the road of sand beneath. My boots too had turned light brown a little at the soles. My left cheek, along with the latter half of my face up until my left eye to my chin and nose, was covered with a white cloth. “This guy takes his anger out on me. Always,” I thought. “I… should have defended it with my arm, or got up and tried to run away, or maybe…” I had a bag of white cloth in my right hand, filled up with vegetables and fruits, with some green leaves of mint even visible at the top. “I was unable to do a thing, eh?”

The footsteps of my boots sliding through the sand suddenly stopped as both the boots, standing beside each other, came to a standstill. “My life is turning to hell.”

“Tell me, Sasaki-senpai. What the hell am I here for?”

***

Isekai’d

Written by Dhruv Pabreja

***

Takemura Itsuki

“Takemura-kun,” I heard Kurayami’s voice and turned leftward towards the door. I was in a room made of wooden walls on all sides. The room was filled with metal head armors on the front wall on a display, swords kept at the left back corner of the room, and some swords and shields lying all around my feet. I had a thick sword in my hands in front of me, ready for a fight, with my head turned left. I breathed in and out through my mouth, panting, as my forehead and face were filled with sweat. “What now?” I asked, a little rudely and irritated.

The door pushed open, exposing Kurayami’s smiling face, standing body, and right arm on the door knob. He looked at me holding a thick sword, and then turned his left, looking at the equipment, turned right, looking at some more, and then turned at me again. “Were you trying out some heavy swords, kid?”

“Yeah,” I replied with my expressionless eyes.

“Okay, if you’re done, we gotta go somewhere.”

“Whe—”

“Right now.”

I narrowed my eyes a little, moving my sword down and beside my right leg. I turned at him. “Where? And, why?”

“I gotta show you something,” He said with his usual smile. “And you gotta see this, kiddo. It’s something you need to know, and something ya can’t really learn by just sitting at home all day switching between the practice area and your room.”

“The heck you wanna show me this time, Yamazaki-san?” I asked. “I gotta train and learn more shit to take it on against others.”

“Just come with me, kiddo. That’s an order.” He turned his smiling face back to his right and started walking in the brown and black corridor.

“Huff…” I sighed. I threw the sword on the ground, which fell with a bang beside my right foot, and started to walk towards the corridor. “Why the hell is this guy the leader?”

“I heard that!” Kurayami replied from the corridor.

“So what?!”

“Just letting you know, kiddo.”

BANP. BANP. BANP. BANP. I reached the door, turned left, looked at the back of Kurayami walking through the corridor, and then turning left at the stairs downwards. “So we gotta go out…” I thought and continued walking behind him, thumping my feet on the wooden ground.

Kurayami exited the staircase, turned left, and continued walking through the wooden ground. THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. His boots thumped on the ground. I then turned left from the staircase, following him. “So, lemme get this straight, okay?” Kurayami said as he opened the door in front of him. From the other side of the door, the sunshine came in as I looked at the backside dumping area of the bar. It was filled with clothes and waste on the right side. “Today, you’re gonna get a political science lesson, kid.” Kurayami’s back turned to the left and he continued to walk. I turned to the left too, my head fixed at the other building in the front, and then turned my head to the left. I ran two steps to the front and continued to walk on the left of Kurayami. Kurayami turned his eyes a little at his left at me for a second, turned to the right, and continued to walk at the front. “So, you see, this empire… has a problem.”

“What problem?”

He then turned his head to his left at me and questioned me, “Do you know why most of the soldiers of the empire are kids?”

I stayed silent for a second as I looked at him. On the white bricked street at the left of us, a carriage with a horse’s hooves tapping the ground went by. “… W-Why?”

“That’s what I was telling you, kid,” He turned his head to the front. “This world is richer than how you see it is. You can’t learn about this world by just sitting at The Bar, switching between the practice area and your room all day and all night.”

I heard a faint voice of a woman walking at the left side of the street, across the road. “Oh, really?” The woman was wearing a pink gown.

The other woman—possibly her friend—who wore a purple gown replied with an overdramatic, “Yeeeah! And then…”

“Those women are nobles.”

I turned my head to my right, looking at Kurayami who just said that. “Nobles?”

“Yeah, the nobles are the highest section of the Dansamian society.”

“T-Then… how many other sections are there?”

He turned his eyes at the left, smiling. “That’s what I’m gonna tell you today, kiddo.”