Traveling through the Void between dimensions wasn’t as fun and exciting as it sounds. In fact, it was quite boring. But boring was fine. I had already experienced enough excitement for the rest of my life. Hopefully, from now on, boring would become my new norm.

With nothing to see, feel, or hear, and with my senses completely turned off, I existed as a mere singularity point. That was quite an unusual state of being, even for me, who had survived many extraordinary events. Even if this was supposed to be my second time undergoing interdimensional travel, the first time I had been just a normal teenager from Earth and hadn’t kept my consciousness in the process.

I can’t believe that I won, I thought to myself, for thinking was the only proof of my continuous existence. That woman was hella strong. They didn’t call her the Demon Queen for nothing. Whatever, the only thing that matters is that she’s dead, and my mission is complete. I won’t miss that shithole of a world, that’s for sure.

Chosen Hero. That was the title the people of Luminosa Solum—a very cliché fantasy world—gave me, completely one-sidedly. I had been summoned through an ancient ritual that called upon the powers of their Goddess. Too bad I had never seen that woman in person; otherwise, I would have had a word with her. I would’ve explained to her the universal concepts like consent and human rights—things that were so foreign to the barbarians native to that world, especially the Kingdom that had been responsible for my summoning and their peculiar “education” in particular.

Forget it, man, I told myself, shaking off some not-so-fun memories. You’re returning to your home world for good; there’s no point in lamenting about the past.

I lost track of time at some point and entered into the same meditative state that I’d been using to grow my magical powers. If there was anything good about my ten years of suffering in Luminosa, it was gaining magic. Then again, it had been necessity rather than luxury. Without it, I would’ve been a thousand times dead.

I had no idea how much time had elapsed since the start of my trip through the when it abruptly came to an end. One moment, my entire existence was shrunk to a single point, and the next, I found myself in the middle of a dark backstreet in New York. Completely naked. And I wasn’t alone.

It turned out that my arrival had been more shocking to the bystanders than it was to me. I couldn’t blame them, really—not every day do you see a naked man suddenly appearing out of nowhere.

“What the fuck, man?!” a tall, muscular Black dude with bleached hair exclaimed as he pointed his gun at me in fright.

Without giving him much regard, I looked around. There were five people here other than me—three armed men and a frightened couple. The former had the appearance of stereotypical gangsters, while the latter were completely out of place in that gloomy dead-end alley.

“Hello, gentlemen, what year is it?” I asked the most important question straight away instead of trying to play the hero. I was already fed up with that role anyway.

“What year is it?” one of the gangsters, a tattooed Latino with a funny mustache, repeated my question. “Bruh, do you think you’re a time traveler or something?!”

“Wait, wait, wait!” The third gangster, an Asian guy, bald and as skinny as he was pale, patted his Hispanic friend on the shoulder. “He’s like, ya know… How was he called again? Oh yeah, Swarzniggor! I bet he’s going to tell us to give him our clothes next!”

“Gwha-ha-ha-ha!” the trio laughed out loud, already forgetting about my completely abnormal entrance.

My first instinct was to slap them senseless. It had long since become one of my preferred ways to deal with small fries. Thankfully, I stopped before it was too late—I reminded myself that I’d just arrived on Earth and couldn’t be completely sure about my own situation.

On the one hand, if I kept my abilities as a Chosen Hero, there was a very real chance that my half-hearted slap could pop their heads like a needle would a balloon. I couldn’t even remember the last time I faced ordinary people. On the other hand, if by any chance I’d lost all of my powers and had become an ordinary person, those guys would be enough to make me suffer, especially since they were armed. Though, perhaps my battle experience would be enough to deal with them even in a normal body…

Ignoring the trio, who had already lost most of their wariness towards me and started fooling around, I closed my eyes and inspected my body. My Mana Sense was working as it should, and it took me but a moment to understand my current situation, which was… excellent. For one thing, my body had recovered from all the wounds I’d received in my final fight—my left arm was no longer a stump, my lungs didn’t have any holes in them, and the gashes that had covered most of my back were completely gone. In fact, even my old scars had disappeared as well. I was in the best shape I’d ever been in, my body a perfectly sculpted killing machine. And the best thing? I was brimming with Mana.

“Ya made our day, bruh,” the black gangster said to me after his group calmed down from their jokes, “so as a special thanks, you can scram away before we big bros get angry.”

“You still didn’t answer my question, though,” I pointed out calmly as my eyes met his. I had zero reasons to be wary of those mobs. They had no chance of resisting a Chosen Hero, guns or not.

“Are ya still keeping the play?” asked the Latino before he shouted at the couple that was about to sneak away. “Who said you people can leave?! Ya still didn’t pay the passing fee!”

The respectable-looking pair had already recovered their bearings and had almost reached the corner of the street when the gangster’s shout stopped them in their tracks. Perhaps they would have made a run for it if three guns weren’t pointed in their direction simultaneously. I sighed.

After all was said and done, I didn’t consider myself a good guy. Far from it. I’d done some things that would be considered evil by modern society’s standards. Most of the jobs I’d performed as a Chosen Hero could be described in just two words — vigilante justice. Or something close to it. In fact, my position had given me the lawful right to punish criminals, so my actions weren’t illegal, at least not within the confines of the Kingdom. But my role was that of a detective, judge, and executioner all at once. My moral views had long since shifted from those of most modern people on Earth, so it took me some effort to hold myself back from getting rid of the three criminals brazen enough to threaten civilians right in front of me. This trio was nothing but a bane on civilized society; the world would benefit if they suddenly disappeared, but was that reason enough?

Calm down, man, the life of violence is behind you, I reminded myself. There’s no point in attracting unnecessary attention to your enigmatic persona, right?

That was when I realized that my peculiar appearance out of thin air had already been suspicious enough and that even the couple could report me to the police, complicating things further. That was a problem I needed to solve, and I had already decided how exactly…

“Here we go again,” I whispered to myself with a sigh.

“Did ya just say something, Mr. Term-in-motor?” The Asian pointed his deadly toy at me. A big mistake.

There was no point in replying to him, considering what I had already decided to do next. Instead, I started doing the magic. Following my instincts and experience, I controlled a small amount of Mana from my Core and shaped it into three distinct parts: one of Air Mana, another of Electricity Mana, and the last of Gravity Mana. The first covered me like an invisible armor, decreasing air resistance to a bare minimum, ready to reflect any projectiles sent at me — I had tested it with things far more deadly than mere bullets. The second stimulated my nervous system, accelerating my already superhuman reflexes and agility. As for the Gravity Mana, I didn’t bother with anything complicated and just used it for Mana Boost — a general full-body empowerment that even a Mana Initiate could perform back at Luminosa.

One second I was lazily standing a dozen yards away from the pale gangster, and the next I was towering over my opponent from behind, my hand placed on the top of his bald head. It wasn’t exactly teleportation — not even close, in fact — but I moved far too quickly for ordinary people to follow my actions. Plus, I had the element of surprise. My second favorite element! The first was gravity, of course.

Unable to comprehend what had just happened, the Asian slowly turned to me, his eyes filled with shock. Then, a minuscule, by my standards, amount of Electricity Mana entered a certain part of his brain, causing him to convulse for a second before collapsing on the ground like a broken doll.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Taking advantage of the brief moment of silence, I sent a bit of Air Mana to create a soundproof barrier that would prevent anyone outside the alley from hearing what was happening here. It would also stop anyone — including the couple of lovebirds who had been unfortunate enough to encounter the would-be robbers and then me — from escaping before I was done. What? I didn’t intend to leave any witnesses to my power to their own devices.

“Who’s next?” I asked, my voice calm and relaxed. The same couldn’t be said for those who had witnessed my actions.

“W-what have you done to Kusogaki?!” the Latino shouted at me, his trembling hand pointing his weapon in my direction. Yet another big mistake.

Another second, another burst of speed, and one more body was lying on the cold asphalt of that gloomy alley. I cracked my neck and gave the one remaining gangster a radiant smile.

“They pointed their guns at me, and look what happened to them.” I shrugged with a helpless expression. “But I’m a generous man, you know? How about this? I’ll allow you to shoot me. Just one shot. Do you want to try?”

The gangster vigorously shook his head in denial and took a few steps back. He probably would have tried to run away already if he thought that such an action would make any difference.

“Don’t worry, I won’t kill you,” I promised sincerely. “Well, as long as you don’t try anything stupid and do what I say. Just shoot at my six-pack. I want to check if it’s strong enough to withstand a bullet. I trained it a lot, after all!”

As he hesitantly raised his gun at me, I added, “If you aim for my head or heart, you’re dead, though.”

By the way, I also canceled my Air Armor, just to be fair to him. And of course, I flexed my abs.

“Y-ya damn crazy motherfucker!” The man swallowed hard and tightly gripped his weapon with both of his sweaty hands.

Thankfully for him, the unlucky lad did exactly what he had been told. He aimed for my abdomen and pulled the trigger. Even with my accelerated reaction speed, I could barely follow the bullet with my eyes. If I wanted to avoid being hit after it had already been shot—dodging by predicting its trajectory beforehand would have been child’s play—I would have needed some mental preparation and an expenditure of Mana. But there was no point, considering how utterly low the danger of that sort of attack was against me. I had numerous ways to block it altogether or simply endure the impact. Why would I need to dodge something so harmless?

The bullet hit me an inch above my navel and then bounced off my chiseled abs, which were hardened even further by the Gravity Mana. This was, by the way, extremely effective even when used in the most primitive of ways. Anyway, long story short: I barely felt the attack. It tickled me a bit but didn’t leave any trace on my skin. Would the story have been different if I hadn’t used any Mana at all? I was too cautious and not curious enough to find out. Fools who risk their lives out of simple curiosity usually died young, and I wanted to die as an old man surrounded by my grandkids. Then again, with the changes to my body, wouldn’t I live for hundreds of years unless killed? That would have been the case if I’d stayed at Luminosa, but now that I was back on Earth, I couldn’t be so sure.

“F-f-f-fucking monster!” the black man screamed as he fell on his ass and tried to crawl away from me. Too bad that his brave retreat was blocked by the wall soon enough. It was a dead-end alley, after all.

How stupid those gangsters must be to rob people with the wall at their backs and without even blocking the road of retreat for their targets? I mused to myself.

Realizing that he had nowhere to go anymore, the man aimed his toy at me in desperation mixed with shock. His already limited mental faculties weren’t enough for him to realize how futile and stupid any sort of resistance was, or how idiotic it was to try to annoy me.

A few more bangs sounded, but this time I didn’t meet the attacks with my bare body. Instead, I decided to do something fancy by creating a gravity field around me that sucked most of the mass from anything below a certain level. I couldn’t be sure about the science behind that kind of stuff, but at one point in my adventures, I’d had that genius idea, and it had worked after some experimentation. The field removed one hundred grams from any object. In simple terms, if something weighed 101 grams normally, it would weigh 1 gram when within the field—and it affected the mass, not just the weight. Anything lighter than one hundred grams lost almost all of its mass—most of it, because reducing the mass to zero was theoretically impossible. The point was that the decrease was so significant that most projectiles became completely ineffective. That was a relatively expensive way to use my Mana, but I didn’t plan to get into any serious danger anytime soon. And I doubted that many things on Earth could threaten me, anyway.

With the laws of physics altered, the bullets didn’t just bounce off me—instead, they were pulverized into dust because they became extremely fragile after losing their mass. Thus, even the desperate attack of the man ended up being completely futile.

“Now it’s my turn,” I said when the black gangster ran out of bullets. “I have a gun of my own, by the way.”

I made a finger-gun gesture and pointed with my forefinger at my opponent, who had already soiled his pants, judging by the stench.

Ouch, one less person to choose clothes from…

Thinking silly thoughts, I sent a bullet made of pure Electricity Mana, hitting him right in the forehead. And thus, our “fight” was over. But there were two more people to deal with.

The two remaining witnesses were hugging each other on the other side of the alley and watching me with terrified eyes. I hadn’t missed their attempts to run away while I’d been dealing with the thugs, but my Air Barrier wasn’t something a normal person could overcome.

With the most friendly smile I could muster, I approached the couple as I stepped over my three victims. Both seemed to be in their early twenties and from well-off families. They looked like models, with the girl being a bombshell blonde with an hourglass figure and the guy a typical frat-boy type, handsome and athletic. What they were doing here was a mystery to me. The sky above was as dark as it could be in the middle of a Megapolis, signifying that it was deep into the night. And yet, those two weren’t even drunk.

The couple didn’t look very grateful to their savior, if the expressions on their faces were anything to go by. I was truly appalled at how rude some people could be. Though wait, the girl seemed kind of off…

“Hey there, you two!” I waved my hand at them. “What a nice night for a little talk, don’t you think?”

“Y-yes, v-very nice evening, i-indeed,” the man mumbled, too scared to look me in the eyes. I had never considered myself that intimidating—some people were just scaredy-cats for absolutely no reason. It wasn’t like I planned to fry them alive with my lightning or anything. I just wanted to talk. No, really. Just a normal naked superhuman; nothing suspicious.

“I have many questions for you two,” I said, “but, just to be fair, you can ask me anything first. I won’t be angry, I swear.”

“D-did you kill—” the guy was about to ask something important when the girl interrupted him.

“Do you have a girlfriend?!” she asked enthusiastically as she pushed away her companion and grabbed my hand.

“What?!” both the guy and I exclaimed.

Now I understood what was strange about the girl. She hadn’t been trembling from fear but from excitement. She hadn’t been avoiding my eyes out of intimidation, but from being shy. No, in fact, she wasn’t just completely looking away from me—she was giving short glances to my crotch from time to time…

What the actual Puck? I thought. Pucks were a kind of demon that had caused me some trouble, and their name was used as swearing back at Luminosa. Did she hit her head when they tried to escape my barrier?

“Yes, I have a girlfriend,” I replied with all due seriousness. “In fact, I have two...”

…and their names are Left Hand and Right Hand, I added in my mind jokingly. Sure, I had my share of romantic adventures—as the one and only Chosen Hero, I was the dream of all ladies back in the other world—but I wasn’t a fan of long-distance relationships, especially when the distance was the Void itself. So I’d broken up with both of my girlfriends before going to the final battle—not such a big loss, honestly, for our three-sided relationship was far from perfect. As it turned out, having even a small harem could be annoying as Puck.

The experience at Luminosa had taught me how terrifying women could be, so my interest in dating was barely there and my standards were way up in the sky. A girl would need to be truly outstanding to catch my attention. As for that one, who was ready to abandon and cuck… ahem, disgrace her current partner for the sake of a suspicious naked guy she just met… I’d rather face the Demon Queen again than accept someone like her as my partner.

“There’s no harm in having one more, then!” she declared with a smile, not even noticing that I’d already pushed her away from me with Air Mana. “By the way, I’m Sarah, and I’m single!”

I decided to just ignore that pest of a woman for now. I would deal with her soon enough, anyway.

“Did you kill them?” the guy muttered his previously interrupted question with a crestfallen expression. He didn’t look like he even wanted to hear the answer anymore. At least he wasn’t that scared anymore.

I feel you, bro, I expressed my condolences in my mind. Women can be so ruthless at times…

“Kill them?!” I faked an offended expression. “Puck, no! Why would I kill such nice gentlemen?”

Sarah giggled as if that were the funniest joke she had ever heard. That girl was beginning to scare me, for real. I even felt an urge to erase her memories without waiting another second.

Endure, man, endure, I told myself. They still need to answer your questions; don’t do anything rash…

“Seriously, though,” I said, “they’ll wake up in a few hours, so no worries. I’m not some ruthless killer, after all!”

I mean, I am a killer and can be ruthless, but I’m not a psychopath! At least I wasn’t diagnosed… yet. Let’s just leave this part unsaid!

The punks would lose their recent memories, but those two didn’t need to know that. The same fate awaited them, after all. I didn’t want anyone to threaten my everyday life by knowing too much.

Yeah, the time for killing is over, I mused. No more murders. No more meaningless violence. My life on Earth will be peaceful and full of joy and happiness. Let’s leave all the bad stuff in that shithole of a fantasy world.

Just when the guy gave me a stiff smile, I added as I patted him on the shoulder, “Don’t worry, my new friend! If I wanted to hurt you two, you would have no way to resist. Now that’s clear, it’s my turn to ask the questions…”

And on that happy note—after receiving a nervous laugh from one person and a flirty smile from another—I started my cross-examination of the two modern humans. And I wasn’t exactly glad to hear some of the answers…