Thanks for the match., even though I got checkmated right off the bat.

To put it in terms of a certain HA☆NA☆SE card game, it felt like going second against a rock-solid turn-one negation deck without drawing a single hand trap.

Huh? Not opening with a hand trap is a misplay?

Don’t ask me to have that kind of destiny power every single time. Get real.

God definitely never said a single word about giving me a cheat ability. He did grant me an ability related to language, and I knew that did not mean my main ability would also be made strong, but this was so awful that even I had no idea what to do with it.

I checked my ability one more time.

“Toybox.”

The skill let me materialize toys I had played with back in elementary school by consuming magical power.

Yeah.

I was done.

Completely done for.

This was basically the equivalent of my opponent opening with four negates while I bricked so hard I could only sit there and watch my soul leave my body.

According to the common sense God had implanted in me, this ability was apparently classified as a materialization-type ability.

It was probably fine to understand it the same way as Nen abilities from a certain manga famous for going on hiatus.

Magical power was the energy source required to activate abilities. In other words, it was basically Nen.

Depending on how it was used, this magical power could be wrapped around one’s own body to boost physical functions several times over, and there was even a technique that converted that magical power into a special energy called “qigong” to increase strength even further.

However, those things demanded combat sense, and I had no talent for them as someone who had peacefully spent his life in Japan as a high school student in the go-home club.

I had tried all sorts of things back in elementary school, but outside of games and small tricks, I was average at pretty much everything.

I was quick on the uptake and could reach the bare minimum required level in no time, but I could never break through the wall after that.

In other words, I was the textbook definition of a jack-of-all-trades and master of none.

“How the hell am I supposed to conquer the Five Great Dungeons with this ability...?”

God had given me the conquest of the “Five Great Dungeons” as my assignment.

God had said things like, “You only need to live freely,” but I wanted him to remember the reason I had been thrown into another world in the first place.

“Congratulations! You have been chosen for our divine game!”

The “game” mentioned there was probably them watching over the way I lived, and God was likely expecting me to live in a way entertaining enough for the gods.

One of the goals given to me for that was conquering the “Five Great Dungeons.”

The method had not been specified, so I assumed gathering companions and such would not be a problem, but completely giving up on the conquest itself was honestly terrifying.

My opponent was God. As proven by the fact that he had reincarnated me, if he felt like it, he could easily bring divine punishment down on me for living a boring life. And that punishment would surely be something far more terrifying and painful than death.

“Well, I’ll figure it out once I try.”

For humans, knowing when to give up was important. At times like this, it was easier on the mind to just open up and accept it with a “if I die, I die” attitude.

Wasn’t that exactly the kind of way of life suited to me, whose motto was “all of life is a way to kill time”? For the sake of killing time, I would go conquer the world’s highest-class dungeons.

The monkey still materialized on my palm clapped its cymbals as if cheering me on.

You know, when I looked closely, its face was pretty scary.

***

After testing my ability to a certain extent, I decided to go outside and take a look at the cityscape and atmosphere of this world.

There was several days’ worth of food and such inside the refrigerator—or something that looked like one—but once that ran out, I would have no choice but to go buy more.

While getting a feel for the city and its atmosphere, I also had to learn the facilities necessary for daily life and the unspoken rules of this place.

“Ohhh, I didn’t expect to feel a sense of the near future in a place like this...!”

After leaving my room, I felt slightly moved when I saw the door automatically close in response to my magical power.

In this futuristic world, magical power had been researched quite thoroughly, and even tools called “magic tools” had been developed by making use of its properties.

One of the properties of magical power was that “each person’s magical power has an individual wavelength.”

It was exactly as the explanation sounded.

The magical power dwelling within a person had its own different wavelength, and they said that no one in the entire world had the same one. It was fine to think of it as something similar to a human fingerprint.

On this parallel world’s Earth, magic tools had even been created that used that wavelength as an individual key and would not respond to anything other than that wavelength.

This door was a perfect example.

Once magical power was registered, the door could open and close in response to that magical power. The authority for that was entrusted to the person living in the room, so it was also possible to register friends or lovers so they could open the door.

In my previous life, there had been doors that unlocked using fingerprint or retinal authentication, but they were not this smooth, and above all, this was far harder to fake.

Apparently, the wavelength of magical power was extremely detailed and absurdly difficult to reproduce.

I only had implanted knowledge, so I did not understand the details, but it seemed the wavelength involved various factors, such as length and wave size, and the number of possible combinations was effectively infinite.

Extracting a single correct answer from infinity was more than just difficult. The wavelength of magical power emitted by humans was especially complex, and reproducing it with modern technology was supposedly impossible.

Well, magical power wavelengths were managed by each country, so if someone stole them from there, they could commit all kinds of crimes. That part was probably no different from my previous world.

“Oh, are you the rookie who moved in yesterday?”

Just as I was leaving my place, a white-haired old man who had also come out of his home looked at me and spoke.

So this was the person living to my left.

He was a sturdy old guy with a beard. His white hair was slicked back, and his skin was slightly tanned. His face looked intimidating, though not to the point that children would cry at the sight of him. With several small scars here and there on that face, the term “seasoned veteran” suited him perfectly.

By the way, as far as everyone was concerned, I had moved into this apartment yesterday. Being able to tamper with people’s memories too? God power was seriously ridiculous.

Since he had spoken to me, I gave him a simple self-introduction.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Ri────G-Gray. I just moved in yesterday, and I’m a rookie hunter.”

That was close. Way too close. I almost introduced myself using my name from my previous life.

In this world, where there were no pure Japanese people, a Japanese name would stand out far too much.

On top of that, my hunter name had already been chosen by God as “Gray,” based on the kanji used in my name.

Having God decide my name felt like it should be insanely auspicious, but since I had no such thing as faith, my only thought was, “Oh, so this is the name I’ll be living with.”

Getting used to this name was probably going to be rough.

After hearing my polite greeting, the old man looked at me with a somewhat impressed expression and held out his right hand with a pleasant smile.

“A lot of young people these days have no manners, but you seem different. I’m Rubelt Gaddem. Call me Rubelt, rookie.”

“Rubelt-san, huh. I’m bad at remembering people’s names, so I’ll probably mess it up from time to time. I’d appreciate it if you could overlook that.”

When I shook the right hand he offered, old man Rubelt laughed with a refreshing smile that did not match his tough face.

I thought he might be a hard-boiled old guy, but from the look of that smile, he seemed more like a good-natured old man.

“Fuhahahaha! You’re a pretty interesting guy. What’s your hunter rank?”

“E.”

“So you just became a hunter. You really are a brand-new rookie, huh?”

In this world, hunters who entered dungeons each had something called a “rank.”

From the bottom, the ranks were E, D, C, B, A, and S. A hunter who reached the topmost S-rank would be considered one of the world’s highest-level hunters.

This rank increased based on accumulated achievements, and apparently, as long as someone entered dungeons while properly maintaining a safety margin, reaching C-rank was possible.

After C-rank, however, simply entering dungeons was not enough to raise one’s rank.

Hunters from B-rank onward needed to pass various examinations. The amount of achievement required also rose to a level that could not be compared to before, so their numbers dropped sharply.

Furthermore, strength also became necessary, so in this world, C-rank was generally recognized as mid-level, while B-rank and above were considered veterans.

“What about you, Rubelt-san?”

“I’m B-rank. Ah, and don’t use polite speech with me. Just call me Rubelt. I’ll teach you this right away, rookie. If a hunter lets himself get looked down on, it’s over. No matter how damn intimidating the other guy’s face is, and even if he’s holding a blood-soaked chainsaw like Jason Vorbees from Friday the 13th, never act humble. Paying respect to your seniors is important, but once they look down on you, you’re finished. They’ll suck you dry down to the marrow, shove a goblin’s club up your ass, and throw you away.”

What kind of mafia world was this supposed to be?

I knew as implanted knowledge that hunters, whose work was originally combat, tended to have rough temperaments, but I had not thought they were that rough.

If you got looked down on, it was over. No matter the world, you could not survive by letting people walk all over you, but it seemed that tendency showed itself especially strongly in this world. Even more so if you worked as a hunter.

For me, with my Japanese temperament, this might be a pretty harsh world. It was not easy to change a way of thinking I had built up over sixteen years.

Also, this world had a movie called Friday the 13th too? I thought that movie had been released in the 1980s, but maybe it was different in this world. After all, the First Dungeon War happened in 1972 here.

Well, I should stop thinking too deeply about it. Once you started thinking about parallel world timelines like this, your head went crazy, and you never found an answer anyway.

“Got it. I’ll be careful.”

I honestly thanked Rubelt, who had warned me with a mix of Western and fantasy-world expressions. So from now on, I should avoid doing anything that would make people look down on me. If there were situations where picking a fight and ending up in a fistfight was smarter than bowing my head and letting things pass, then my Japanese temperament really was going to hold me back.

I did think I might not be suited for hunter work, but if I did not do it, divine punishment from God awaited me. Even if the worst-case scenario ended with a goblin’s club shoved up my ass, I still had to do it.

“Still, you’re not a face I’ve seen around here. Are your parents from CN?”

“Sorry, but I don’t know that myself. I’m an orphan.”

I lied on the spot. It was more convenient in many ways to claim I did not know my parents, and both of my real parents were pure Japanese.

I had never seen what CN-type faces looked like in this world, so I could not say for sure, but if they looked like the CN faces I imagined, then the quality of those features would be completely different.

If someone pointed that out, things would become annoying, so the “I don’t know my parents” setting was easier. Good thing I had prepared a bit of a backstory in case someone spoke to me outside.

For now, all I had to do was get through the situation, but I should think up more detailed settings later. Most of the time, I could probably manage by playing a character with an unknown past, using answers like “I don’t know” or “I can’t say.”

After hearing my reply, old man Rubelt made a bitter face and honestly lowered his head a little.

“Sorry. That was a nasty question.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t even remember the faces of the people who gave birth to me.”

I actually did remember, but let’s just say I did not. Sorry, Mom and Dad.

Now that I thought about it, would Mom and Dad in my old world grieve over my death? I had no idea. My family had been a little different from what you would call a typical warm household.

Both of them were people who lived for their hobbies. Their hobbies were not even the same, so why did they get married?

“If you say that, it makes me feel a little better... Right. This isn’t much of an apology, Gray, but you’re not used to this city yet, are you?”

“Someone who gets used to a place on their first day here would be pretty rare.”

“Then I’ll show you around. There are cheap weapon shops and armor stores that rookies love, and there are good places to eat too. You got money?”

“A little.”

“Then let’s go. If there’s time left, I’ll teach you the basics of dungeons too. You haven’t entered one yet, right? A dungeon, I mean.”

That was helpful.

I had general knowledge, but knowing something and actually seeing it were completely different matters.

In particular, whether I, who had almost never killed a living creature, could kill monsters was one of the things making me anxious.

Being able to do that under the supervision of a veteran hunter was about asありがたい as it could get for my current self.

I smiled and said this to old man Rubelt.

“Yeah, I’ll count on you, veteran hunter.”

Chapter 2: Veteran Hunter