“Aqua—!!!”
A furious scream exploded through the hallway of a luxurious mansion in Axel.
Satou Kazuma had just finished taking a hot shower and was looking forward to enjoying some rare peace and quiet.
He was shirtless, with nothing but a bath towel loosely wrapped around his waist.
Droplets of water trickled down the contours of his not-particularly-impressive muscles.
Everything should have been so pleasant.
Until he happened to glance at himself in the mirror.
There, written in crooked black ink across his stomach, was a line of enormous characters:
“Excalibur.”
And as if that weren’t bad enough, at the end of the inscription was an extremely precise arrow drawn in the same ink.
The arrow pointed directly toward the critical area hidden beneath his bath towel.
There was no need to guess who had done it.
It had to be one of his three useless party members—Aqua, Megumin, or Darkness.
They must have done it while he was unconscious after accidentally falling from a tree and dying while out hunting monsters!
Those idiots!
Those useless morons!
Aside from causing trouble and piling up debt, did they know how to do anything else?
Veins bulged on Kazuma’s forehead as he felt the last threads of his sanity snapping one by one.
He was going to confront them.
He was going to make them understand that even if they were his party members, they couldn’t just write things on someone else’s stomach whenever they felt like it—especially something so blatantly insulting and misleading!
He yanked open the door and stormed out, grumbling furiously:
“What the hell is this ‘Excalibur’ crap?! Today, I’m going to teach you three the true meaning of gender equality—with my fist! ～”
However, the familiar sensation of wooden flooring beneath his feet never came.
Instead, he stepped onto cold, hard asphalt.
“Huh?”
The fury on Kazuma’s face froze.
He blinked.
He wasn’t standing in the hallway of his mansion.
Nor was he in that otherworldly town he both loved and hated.
Instead, he found himself surrounded by countless gigantic buildings of steel and glass, soaring into the sky.
Massive electronic screens were mounted on the walls, displaying advertisements in English.
Their dazzling colors and shifting images made his eyes ache.
The shrill honking of cars, the chaotic chatter of people speaking countless different languages, music coming from who knew where…
An endless torrent of unfamiliar sounds assaulted his ears.
The air was filled with a mixture of exhaust fumes and the smell of hot dogs.
People of every appearance and complexion—blond-haired and blue-eyed, black-haired and brown-eyed, and everything in between—streamed past him.
Everyone was in a hurry, their faces carrying the characteristic exhaustion and indifference of people living in a massive city.
Kazuma slowly and stiffly raised his head.
On a gigantic electronic billboard, a blonde woman was smiling brightly while holding up a bottle of red soda.
“This… this is…”
He was completely dumbfounded.
After spending so long in an otherworldly place without television or the internet, he’d almost forgotten that he’d once been a modern Japanese teenager himself.
But there was no mistaking this scene.
This was Times Square in New York City, America!
One familiar term after another surfaced from the depths of his long-buried memories.
Then, just as his brain was struggling to process the overwhelming amount of information, a gentle breeze swept past him.
Kazuma suddenly felt a chill around his waist.
The bath towel—which had already been hanging precariously loose as his last shred of modesty—quietly slipped free.
It fluttered lightly to the ground. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
“Eh…?…”
Time seemed to enter slow motion.
The noise surrounding him appeared to vanish in an instant.
The people who had been hurrying through the square stopped one after another, as though frozen in place.
Countless eyes converged on the naked Asian man standing in the middle of Times Square.
One second.
Two seconds.
“Pfft—”
Someone finally broke into laughter.
That was followed by a chorus of startled exclamations, suppressed giggles, and completely unrestrained commentary.
“Oh my God! Look at that guy!”
“What a pervert! In broad daylight!”
“Look! What is he cosplaying? The Emperor’s New Clothes?”
“Look at that pervert!”
“What does he have written on his stomach? Excalibur?”
“My God, how does he dare do that in Times Square?”
“Call the police! There’s an exhibitionist over here!”
More people immediately pulled out their phones, pointing them at this once-in-a-lifetime spectacle.
Camera flashes began going off one after another.
A stylishly dressed young woman whispered to her companion.
Although they lowered their voices, Kazuma’s hearing—sharpened through years as an adventurer—allowed him to hear every single word.
“Hey, look… isn’t it kind of… small?”
“Shh! Don’t say it so loudly. But… yeah, I think it really is. Hehe. It’s kind of cute being that small.”
“But doesn’t that mean it won’t be any good~? ”
BOOM—!
Kazuma’s world instantly changed from color to black and white.
His entire body turned to stone, like some pathetic statue exposed before the eyes of the entire world.
He could even clearly see those damned words on his stomach—and the arrow pointing straight at his most vulnerable spot.
It was over.
Social death.
No.
Global death.
Tomorrow—or perhaps only a few minutes from now—a video with a title like:
“SHOCKING! Naked Pervert Appears in Times Square—His ‘Excalibur’ Is Astonishing! (Ironically)”
or:
“Is This the Distortion of Humanity, or the Collapse of Morality? The Shocking Secret Behind the Naked Pervert in Times Square!”
would spread to every corner of the world.
“AAAH—!!! Stop it, please!!!!!!”
A heart-wrenching scream erupted from Kazuma’s throat.
He finally snapped out of his petrified state.
He frantically grabbed the bath towel from the ground and wrapped it around his waist, clutching it tightly with one hand while uselessly waving the other in an attempt to block the countless phone cameras surrounding him.
“Stop taking pictures! Stop! This is a misunderstanding!”
His Japanese cries sounded utterly powerless here.
Worse, they only made him look even more like some kind of perverted street performer, attracting even more spectators and cameras.
“Hey! You, the pervert over there! Stop!”
Two New York police officers in blue uniforms, firearms strapped to their belts, had noticed the commotion.
One spoke into his radio to call for backup while the other pushed through the crowd as they hurried toward the center of the disturbance.
Police!
The moment Kazuma saw the uniforms, his scalp went numb.
Get arrested. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Taken to the police station.
Have his name entered into the records as an exhibitionist.
No!
Absolutely not!
At that moment, an unprecedented survival instinct exploded inside Kazuma.
His Stealth skill and his instinct for running away seemed to max out simultaneously.
“This is all that stupid goddess’s fault! Why the hell did you resurrect me?! You should’ve just let me stay dead!”
Kazuma let out one final despairing howl.
Then he spun around, took off running, and bolted toward the less crowded side of the square.
“Stop! NYPD! Stop right there!”
The police officers’ shouts rang out behind him.
And so, in broad daylight, at one of the busiest intersections in the world, a naked-man chase began.
Kazuma ran while desperately holding his bath towel in place, muttering to himself the entire time.
“Why is this happening…? Isn’t my Luck supposed to be EX-rank? Does that not count after crossing into another world?”
“Officer! Please stop chasing me! I’m really not a pervert! I’m the victim here! The evidence is written right on my stomach!”
He wanted to turn around and point at the writing on his stomach to explain everything.
But he was terrified that the towel would fall off again.
So all he could do was run with tears in his eyes.
The agility he’d developed during his adventurer career was now on full display.
He darted left and right through the crowded sidewalks like a slippery eel.
Pedestrians scattered in panic as the sudden chase erupted around them.
Screams and whistles blended together into one chaotic cacophony.
Kazuma felt as though his lungs were about to catch fire.
He had never been this miserable in his entire life.
Even being hunted by dragons or having a death sentence pronounced upon him by the Dullahan hadn’t filled him with the same soul-deep despair he felt today.
He swore that if he ever made it back, he would make those three understand what true divine punishment meant!
He had no idea how long he’d been running before he turned into a dark, narrow alley.
The police sirens and shouts behind him seemed to be muffled by the surrounding skyscrapers, becoming distant.
Kazuma leaned against a cold brick wall, gasping for breath.
His entire body trembled, whether from exhaustion or rage, he couldn’t tell.
He collapsed onto the ground, surrounded by several foul-smelling garbage cans.
Finally…
He was safe.
At least for the moment.
Kazuma looked down at himself.
The bath towel was still there.
The writing on his stomach was still there, too.
The humiliating memories immediately came flooding back.
“Damn it… damn it all…”
Just as he sank into self-loathing and despair over his future, a soft blue light suddenly appeared before his eyes.
Kazuma’s head snapped up.
He stared warily at the glowing light.
The light rapidly condensed before him, eventually forming a translucent, futuristic virtual panel.
A line of Japanese text appeared across it—text he could understand.
[Congratulations, Guardian Faction Player—Satou Kazuma. You have successfully arrived in the Marvel Universe.]
[Player behavior detected: Performing “performance art” in Times Square, causing a large-scale disturbance. Reputation gained: ???]
[Player behavior detected: Due to the issue of “special dimensions,” you endured extensive mental attacks and unwanted observation from the surrounding crowd. Your personal reputation has reached an unprecedented level. Reputation gained: ???]
[Current Total Reputation: ???]
“……Huh?”
“Damn it… I wouldn’t want this kind of goddamn Reputation even if you paid me! You idiot!!!”