Prologue and Chapter 1

Prologue: Sorrow

In the capital city Avaritia, of the Virtus Kingdom, a young man sits alone in a tavern, drowning his sorrows in the most potent alcohol he can afford. He appears to be in his early twenties, with a fit build, short black hair, steel grey eyes and a tired visage. The stools to either side of him are empty; anyone who could read the mood would know that he wishes to be left alone to wallow in his misery.

The man sighs as he finishes his current drink, and signals the bartender to refill his class. Without a word the man’s glass is filled with a generous amount of whiskey, enough to drown even the greatest of sorrows. The man continues to drink and sigh, one can only wonder at what kind of scenario would lead a person to have given up on life so completely.

It could be the loss of a lover, bankruptcy, a terminal illness, or maybe being summoned to another world with absolutely no powers and dying painfully over a dozen times.

“This sucks…”

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Chapter 1: An outsiders perspective

2 months earlier-

As I was walking home after I finished teaching my third class of the day, I couldn’t help but feel elated, my day off is tomorrow and I plan to properly waste it doing trivial things. Teaching english in a foreign land is surprisingly stressful, I can sense my students judging my every move and I need to make sure I perfectly speak both english and japanese if I want to appear competent enough to teach them.

It doesn’t matter what nation you are in, teenagers are assholes, and if you show any sign of weakness they will not hesitate to ridicule you. Luckily, I have three members of the student council in my classroom, all of whom consider me to be an excellent teacher despite my foreigner status. becaue of this, most delinquents are too afraid of being reprimanded and subsequently shunned by them and the other students to cause me grief.

While I am grateful to those three students for helping to keep the peace, I can’t help but think that they are extremely odd. They are certainly the most well-known students in the school, and they are excellent at both academics and athletics. The problem is, I can’t help but think of slice of life anime’s when I see them. It’s really unsettling.

The student council president, Hiro Ikehara; with his short brown hair, brown eyes and handsome face, looks like a pretty boy ripped straight from the pages of a manga. He even has a harem, the Vice President, Akane Fukushima, the student council secretary, Izumi Higuchi and his half-sister Kamiko. Akane has red eyes, red hair and, unsurprisingly since these four hit all the stereotypes, a short temper. Izumi has flowing silver hair, bright green eyes and a quiet disposition; I think I have only heard her speak twice in five weeks of class time. His half-sister, Kamiko, has blue hair, brown eyes and a cheery disposition similar to her brothers.

All three girls share two common traits: they are painfully beautiful and madly in love with Hiro. The sickening sight of the three teenage girls fighting for his affection has caused me to steadfastly avoid any contact with them outside of teaching the older three in class. Even then I still have to witness the occasional puke inducing episode, usually instigated by Akane screaming at another girl or frantically denying that she is interested in Hiro while her face does its best impression of a tomato.

Sometimes I wish it was a crappy anime, at least then I could skip to the last episode when one of the girls win and not have to deal with loud and obnoxious love-struck teenagers fighting over a guy for an entire school term. Also the obvious romantic interest Hiro’s half-sister shows when I see them while walking between lessons is spine-tingling.

Thankfully she is too young to take my class and annoy the shit out of me like the other two, so I am grateful to whatever god is watching my back for giving that minor blessing. I know I sound a little harsh, but the popularity and bizarre antics of this group is surreal.

As I am walking and joyfully contemplating what I shall do during my day off, I see the Hiro harem arguing on the sidewalk directly in my path. I quickly lower my head and attempt to sneak by, but since I am the only person of European descent walking in the area, I unfortunately stick out like a sore thumb.

“Hey guys look! It’s Sensei!”

Shit, they spotted me.

Hiro lightly bows as he addresses me, “Hey Sensei, sorry about Akane’s actions today, I don’t know why she freaked out like that.” I have to stifle a laugh; I’m pretty sure the only one present who doesn’t know why she acted like that is Hiro himself. Despite my harsh thoughts earlier, I can see why people like this group. They are polite, kind, and treat their elders with respect. They also do not have a hint of prejudice in their voice while speaking to a foreigner like me, so I can be civil with them despite of their strangeness. That does not change the fact that I wish to be as far away from this terrifying quartet as soon as possible, so I will keep this short. One snarky comment, and then I will excuse myself.

I smirk as I respond to Hiro, “I can’t possibly think of a reason,” I quickly glance at the girls next to Hiro, they give me a ‘what can you do’ shrug of acceptance, apparently they are perfectly fine with how dense Hiro is. Hiro noticed my glance, and looks around confused. The girls give a small chuckle, as he furrows his brow, trying to figure out why I and his companions look so amused.

As I am about to excuse myself, a sudden screeching noise behind me caused my students and I to quickly whip around to see the source of the noise. A cargo truck, swerving madly, suddenly careened towards us.

I would like to say I heroically tried to shield my students, but in actuality I tried to get the fuck out of the way as fast as possible. Unfortunately, I was too slow. As the truck plowed into me, I heard screams and the world went white.

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