The sun was already dipping below the horizon. Without the blazing rays beating down, the outdoors didn't feel quite as scorching, but the humidity still clung stubbornly to the air.
Kuroba Akira was soaked in sweat again today. His entire body felt sticky and gross — he desperately wanted a shower.
Unfortunately, the place he was currently staying at was far from school. On foot, it took more than an hour to get back. He had no bike, and no money for the train, so walking was his only option.
Of course he wanted to complain, but honestly, Akira was fully aware of his situation. Just having a roof over his head was already a huge stroke of luck.
When he'd first transmigrated into this world, he didn't speak the language, didn't know his new name or identity — he didn't even have a place to live.
Calling it a hell start wouldn't be an exaggeration.
Thinking back to the day he arrived in this world, Kuroba Akira couldn't help but feel a wave of emotion.
In his previous life, he'd been a scenario writer for a major game company.
The night before a game launch, he was still working late into the night, pounding away at his keyboard in the office. His body was at its limit, his mind hazy — but deep down, he felt a glimmer of anticipation.
He thought, Once this game launches, the endless 10 p.m. overtime days will finally be over. Maybe I'll even get my weekends back.
The buildup of fatigue had triggered sharp, flickering pain in his skull, like his brain was trembling. Eventually, his eyelids gave out. He told himself he'd just close them for a moment.
He never expected that closing his eyes would become a final farewell to his world.
He never imagined that the liberation he'd longed for would come in the form of never waking up — the pathetic, textbook end of a corporate slave.
He'd heard of dying from overwork — karōshi — but it had always felt like a distant possibility, something that happened to other people. Until it happened to him.
Then, divine compensation came… in the strangest possible form. He'd always thought transmigrating to another world was just a fantasy trope — until it happened to him.
When he opened his eyes again, he found himself in a classroom, sitting at a desk by the window, second from the back — the protagonist seat.
At first, he thought he was dreaming about high school. But then he noticed that the uniform he was wearing wasn't the nostalgic blue-and-white tracksuit from his youth, but a sharp Western-style blazer.
Cherry blossoms drifted past the window…
Wait… where even is this?
He tried everything he could think of to wake up. Slapping himself, pinching his thigh, splashing cold water on his face.
Still there.
A trip to the restroom, a glance in the mirror — it confirmed what he feared: this wasn't a dream.
And strangely, he hadn't become "someone else."
It was a weird middle ground between body-swap and soul-transfer. His body was still his, and his mind wasn't filled with any "borrowed memories."
Though to be fair, the body had undergone some changes — he'd gotten younger.
His appearance was the same, but the dark circles under his eyes and the acne scars from puberty were gone. His frame had become lighter and thinner, almost like someone had stripped off years of stress and sedentary weight.
After starting his corporate job, the endless desk work and 996 hours had led to chronic weight gain. His double chin had been forming fast. But now, all that fat had vanished.
The most surprising part? The scar at the corner of his eye was still there.
He'd gotten it as a kid, cut by broken glass. It had missed his eyeball by sheer luck but left behind a signature scar that grew with him — a sort of trademark.
The fact that a non-genetic scar had carried over… did that mean the same injury had happened in this world too?
What was this?
Transmigration? Rebirth? Possession?
Who the hell knew.
Eventually, he gave up trying to solve the mystery. No answers were coming, and without some god appearing to offer an explanation — or even a single system prompt — he figured he was stuck like this.
Might as well roll with it.
At least he'd been freed from his black-hearted company, right?
And hey, he didn't have to wear someone else's face, and he was younger again...
Might as well enjoy high school a second time!
And then came Despair Minute™ — the deathly silent, atmosphere-killing introduction that completely annihilated his debut at school.
Still, it was thanks to that moment that he learned his new name:
Kuroba Akira.
He'd been equal parts amused and exasperated by it.
Because in his last life, his surname had been Shiro, and his full name was Shiroba Akira.
Now, he was Kuroba Akira — just a single character had changed, but the pronunciation was completely different.
That one-character difference led to all kinds of confusion. For a while, he kept writing "白" instead of "黒," and he couldn't remember where to put the name spacing either. It took him a while to adjust.
Then, on his very first day of school, Akira realized he had a much bigger problem.
He didn't know where he lived.
With no better option, he summoned the courage to approach the homeroom teacher. Through mangled Japanese and some creative miming, he somehow managed to communicate that he didn't know his home address.
Kobayakawa-sensei, looking flustered, helped him dig through the student records — only to come up empty-handed. No home address. No contact info.
Thinking it must have been a clerical error, she called the academic affairs director — and got this reply:
"Kuroba Akira? He's a transfer student from out of town. Said he's still apartment hunting. Once he settles in, he'll submit his address and phone number."
Which meant that Akira wasn't technically homeless — he just hadn't found a place to live yet.
He only half-understood Kobayakawa-sensei's explanation, but his countless hours watching anime had at least taught him to recognize the "Sonna…" (No way…) and the troubled look on her face.
He searched his bag and sure enough — there was a bank card inside. Presumably, it was meant for his housing expenses.
But—
He didn't know the damn PIN!
No language installed? Fine. But you couldn't at least leave that in my memory?!
BAKAAAA!!!
Poor Akira could only scream "baka" like a broken record in his mind. That was about the full extent of his curse vocabulary at the time.
Meanwhile, Kobayakawa-sensei hesitated. She wanted to help this apparently mute student, but didn't know how.
She couldn't exactly bring him home, could she?
Bringing a high school boy to her house? A forbidden student-teacher romance!?
The never-been-in-love Kobayakawa-sensei briefly imagined such a scandalous scenario…
No no no, get a grip. There's no way I can do something like that.
As a rookie teacher, bringing a male student home would get her fired on the spot if anyone found out.
In the end, she had no choice but to offer a polite but helpless apology.
And thus, on the very first day of his new life—
Kuroba Akira began his career as a homeless wanderer in Tokyo.