The soft clink of porcelain echoed faintly in the kitchen as Ryujin placed his empty bowl into the sink. Steam still clung to the edge of the ceramic as he washed it under warm water, a casual rhythm in his hands. With the sa smooth movents, he cleaned his reusable chopsticks, running a sponge along the length, rinsing both until they glead, then placing them neatly in the drying rack beside the sink.
He reached for a white towel hanging on the wall nearby. His fingers wiped at his damp hands, patting them dry with chanical precision. As he leaned back slightly against the cool marble of the kitchen counter, the weight of the world he had woken up to slowly returned to his mind.
The system’s ssage floated again in his mory—like a ghostly text burned into the back of his eyes.
"To get more information about your identity in this world, check the laptop in the nightstand."
"To get more information about your powers, find the phone inside one of the kitchen cabinets."
Ryujin’s brows twitched slightly.
"...Still strange they put the phone in a kitchen cabinet," he murmured aloud, the tone more of curiosity than complaint. "Not exactly... secure."
But rather than ponder on the logic—or lack of thereof—he simply let the thought drift away, like smoke from an extinguished candle. He had more imdiate tasks.
Finding the phone ca first.
He stood upright again and gave his shoulders a satisfying roll, his arms lazily rising above his head as he stretched.
A soft pop escaped his spine.
Then he started his search.
He opened the top cabinets first, moving from left to right like a quiet machine. The sll of dried food wafted out of each wooden door—rows of instant noodles, canned at, soup packs, and strange, overly colorful branding that scread "fictional food" even if they looked oddly familiar.
One cabinet. Two. Three.
Still nothing.
"No phone," he muttered with a sigh. "But enough preservatives to survive a war."
He crouched next, opening the lower cabinets, sweeping aside the shadows. His hand shifted through neatly lined containers, stacked ran cups, an unopened box of cereal with a cartoon esper mascot.
Then, finally, in the last cabinet on the far end, resting silently atop a pile of neatly folded paper towels—a shining blue phone.
Unlike anything he’d ever seen.
It glead under the dull kitchen light like a polished gem, its tallic surface smooth and seamless. The entire body of the phone shimred with faint holographic patterns shifting subtly with every tilt.
No logos. No buttons. No ports. No visible seams.
It looked like it had been forged from one single piece of glowing crystal.
Ryujin picked it up gently, handling it with uncharacteristic care. Though his face remained neutral, even bored, the way his fingers carefully cradled the device said enough. He examined every side with calculated curiosity.
"No sim tray. No charging port. No brand logo..." he mumbled. "Looks expensive. Definitely not Android."
Still, it remained inactive. Just a cold, glowing shell. A mystery.
He stared at it for a mont longer, then shrugged.
"I’ll solve you later."
With that, he walked out of the kitchen, holding the futuristic phone in one hand. He passed the couch, the TV, and the glass coffee table, placing the phone carefully down beside the remote control. Its sleek surface glimred like moonlight on a still lake.
His next destination was the nightstand, sitting beside the white bed like a loyal sentry.
He crouched beside it and pulled open the drawer.
Inside was a smooth silver laptop, simple and elegant. Just like the phone—no logos, no stickers, not even a keyboard mark on the screen.
It was pristine. Almost sterile.
He took it out gently, feeling the strange texture of the surface—lightweight but dense, cold but not tallic.
Returning to the living room, Ryujin placed the laptop beside the phone and remote on the coffee table. Then, he sank into the white couch.
The cushion sighed.
It was soft. Softer than anything he had in his old apartnt. The couch welcod him, pulling him inward like a lover long separated.
Ryujin let himself sink into it for a brief mont.
"...If this is what life’s like here, I won’t complain."
His voice was quiet, almost emotionless.
But his body relaxed.
Still, as his eyes flicked down toward the glowing blue phone, his thoughts drifted—not to luxury, not to food—but to sothing deeper.
A truth he couldn’t ignore.
This world wasn’t safe.
Villains. Criminal syndicates. Shadowy organizations. Monsters in the form of humans and humans that beca monsters. All of them prowled this world like animals in heat. Worse still—the heroes weren’t much better.
Ryujin knew the story of Espers of the World all too well. He didn’t rember every detail—he hadn’t played it regorously, but what he did rember was this:
Almost every "hero" had their own twisted ambition.
So wanted fa. Others power. So wanted to reshape the world. Others just wanted chaos in a nicer suit.
And every single one of them—the so-called "main cast" viewed ordinary people as pawns. Tools. Collateral.
Even the protagonist, if he rembered right, wasn’t so shining beacon of justice. He was just the strongest player with the sharpest instinct to survive.
Ryujin leaned forward and placed both elbows on his knees, clasping his hands together.
"That ans I can’t trust them. Not a single one."
If he wanted to survive—truly survive, he had to make sure no one could step over him.
He had to beco strong enough to never need saving.
He had to be soone so powerful, even the main cast wouldn’t dare look at him the wrong way.
Soone beyond this world. Beyond the plot.
Soone so high, even fate wouldn’t try to roll the dice on him.
He muttered softly, almost as if confessing a sin to himself.
"If I want peace... I have to be the strongest in this world."
That didn’t an he wanted to fight. Or dominate. Or conquer. Ryujin didn’t care about glory or recognition. All he wanted was.
Freedom.
The freedom to do nothing.
To eat. Sleep. Play video gas.
To live quietly.
Even in this strange, new world.
He glanced again at the blue phone, then the laptop.
But to do that, he had to start here.
"...Alright. Let’s see what we’re working with."
He stretched his body again, a ritual by now. Hands high, then arms behind his head, a soft grunt of effort as he twisted his torso left and right. Every movent loosened a little more tension from his fra.
But suddenly a random thought flickered into his mind.
"...Wait. Do they even have gas in this world?"
The question wasn’t urgent. But it did make him pause.
Because if they didn’t...
He might actually have a reason to beco a villain.
And that was a problem.
"I’m just... overthinking things again," Ryujin murmured to himself, his tone devoid of urgency or emotion, as calm as a breeze grazing an untouched lake. His dark eyes blinked slowly, a sleepy resistance against the growing pressure of his thoughts. He exhaled quietly, then shook his head side to side with gentle, precise movents—just enough to stir the fog, not enough to invite dizziness.
"No use diving into stress before it even knocks."
With a soft click of his tongue, Ryujin reached lazily for the remote, deciding to let the silence die a noisy death. A flick of his thumb and the screen ca to life, bathing the dim room in its soft glow. The channel remained where he had left it the night before—the cartoonish hero show still playing, now featuring a new episode filled with vibrant colors, exaggerated explosions, and animated espers with spiky hair and outrageous poses.
Ryujin blinked once. Then again. He nodded faintly.
"At least that stayed the sa," he muttered, turning the volu up just enough to cover the stillness in the room. The buzz of characters shouting out special moves or launching energy blasts offered him a strange, childlike comfort. It reminded him of watching old ani on weekend mornings... back before the car crash. Before everything fell into quiet pieces.
He placed the remote back on the table and stared at the laptop and phone.
"The system said... laptop for identity, phone for powers," he recalled aloud, his voice flat but clear. "Alright then."
Without rushing, Ryujin reached for the silver laptop and carefully placed it across his lap. He stared at the object for a mont. The tal casing was smooth, expensive-feeling, not a single logo etched into its surface. Like it was designed to be sleek and mysterious—both a gift and a puzzle.
He cracked the screen open with deliberate caution, like opening a treasure chest in a ga. The familiar Japanese keyboard stared back at him, and Ryujin blinked in mild realization.
"Japanese?" Ryujin just now realized it. His tone carried no excitent—just a quiet note of satisfaction. "Makes sense. The ga was made by a Japanese dev after all."
Still, the comfort was real. If he’d been dropped into so world where people barked out spells in Latin or scrawled magic circles in dead languages, he would’ve been completely lost. Instead, this world, for all its strangeness, at least spoke his language—literally.
He nodded once, silently, as if confirming to himself that this little detail counted as a win.
His eyes returned to the screen, still black. There was no visible power button. Nothing on the keyboard either—no highlighted circle, no fingerprint reader, no obvious symbol.
"Tch..." Ryujin tilted his head and sighed quietly. "Would’ve been nice if they added a manual."
He considered just pressing so random key combinations, but quickly dismissed the idea. One wrong tap and he might trigger so self-destruct sequence or lock himself out forever. This thing felt expensive—too expensive to treat like a toy.
"Definitely not like the budget laptops at comp shops," he muttered.
He exhaled slowly, letting his mind drift for a mont. His eyes wandered to the glowing TV in front of him. The colorful espers on the screen were now fighting what looked like a giant chicken monster. It was so absurd, it nearly made him smile.
"Relax," he reminded himself, his fingers brushing the trackpad gently. "No need to rush. One thing at a ti."
He looked back down at the laptop and gently tapped the trackpad. To his surprise, the screen flickered—not to life, but into a faint bluish glow with a simple line of text in Japanese:
"Welco, Ryujin. Identity verification in progress..."
Ryujin stared. Then blinked.
"...That’s creepy... I think..."
The laptop was reading him. No fingerprints. No passwords. No log-ins.
The machine simply... knew.
And for soone like Ryujin—soone who had lived through a twisted brush with death, who carried a constant dullness in his heart—that wasn’t scary. It was just another puzzle piece sliding into place.
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