Seven months have passed since Maximilian was reborn into this world.

Curiously, it would appear that his name in this world is also Maximillian. He isn't too certain if it means something or it's just a massive coincidence.

The place he’d found himself born in is ‘less than ideal’ as Maximillian likes to describe, even then, the quote is laced with sarcasm. An arid, dry environment, at least from what he’d seen, although with rain from time to time. He’d been able to witness rain on at least two separate occasions.

The place he lives in, again as described by him, is a crumbling concrete building filled with grime and dust.

The surroundings, likewise, being filled with more crumbling concrete buildings, mud roads that hadn’t even been paved over, hard only because of the masses of people walking on them, foul smelling garbage in every direction. Sometimes rotting corpses…

Oftentimes rotting corpses.

Despite his bleak surroundings, Maximilian has made a herculean effort to better himself with the passing of the months, on this day his efforts are finally rewarded.

Today marks the day when Maximillian had finally managed to pass the milestone he’d set for himself upon his first day into this world.

“Good job Maxie! Momma is so proud of you!” His mother praises him, happily clapping her hands all the while.

On this day he managed to stand up on his own two legs for the first time.

*thud*

Maximilian falls on his butt, unable to maintain balance for more than a few seconds.

“Oppa, careful now Maxie, you don’t want to hurt yourself do you?”

His mother, Julia, as he’s come to learn, ‘scolds’ him before she pulls out a small carton from her pocket.

“We should celebrate the occasion, don't you think Maxie?” She says as she opens the carton, revealing a line of cigarettes.

“UgagAaaAA”

Maximilian happily smiles in response, trying to clap his hands, appearing to be imitating what his mother had done seconds before.

She smiles in response.

“Yes we should~” She pinches his cheek before walking out of the room.

With the closing of the door Max’s demeanor changes, the smile disappears, his pose shifts to a more serious one, and most of all his eyes gain a spark of intelligence that had been missing just moments before.

‘I honestly don't even know how I should feel about that woman anymore. Sometimes she’s a model mother, good and caring, the other times she’s a self indulgent, arrogant and disgusting mess. Same with father. But considering where they've grown up... .’

Little did Julia know that her own son could perfectly understand her. These seven months he had spent mostly in his mother’s embrace as she went about her business with her explaining the most random of things to him. It would have been weird if he didn’t pick up on the language, considering that he has an adult man’s intelligence.

‘...They're stellar parents compared to what I could have gotten in this dumpster fire. I'm clothed and well fed. I'll probably have to begin working to provide for the family at five or six years of age but that's for future me to worry about.’

Maximilian tries to push himself and stand once more but fails to do so, his legs too tired to lift him a second time.

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He snaps without warning.

‘Curse this useless and weak body!’ Raging, he begins thumping his fists on the blanket, he is quickly fatigued by the effort. With the weakness spreading through his body his rage flickers out as quickly as it came.

‘Damn… I swear - I wasn’t this impulsive before I died. Did I inherit it from my parents? I wouldn't be surprised considering the arguments I've seen them get into. Or maybe babies have really poor control of their mental faculties. Maybe both.’

‘Whatever, it’s not like I can do anything about it either way. I have more important concerns now anyways, ones with dire implications.’

Sitting down diverts his mind to a different topic, one that he has chosen to stubbornly ignore.

Although Maximilian has managed to decipher and understand a large part of what his mother is saying, his knowledge isn’t perfect. There are still words he doesn’t understand, ones foreign in both pronunciation and meaning.

The day before, while on her way back from work, his mother had encountered a big several feet deep crater. Maximilian had been with her, held in a baby strap, when she’d begun once again explaining to him, as was usual. On that day, his mother had added another word to his vocabulary, a word he had heard before but couldn’t understand.

Meteor.

That. That got his attention. It had been a word he had heard many times before, spoken along with another word he couldn’t discern the meaning of. Once his mind connected the pieces he just couldn’t deny how well they fit together.

The foreign word his mother mentioned in that whole conversation with herself while near the crater.

How that word is almost always accompanied by another one he also cannot understand.

And most absurd of all, how this place, the people, the environment, everything, suddenly really remind him of something. Something that should by all accounts be impossible. A show that he'd watched years prior when he'd still been in his teenage years.

‘But. I did die… and then was reborn. I could also call that impossible as well. Yet here I am.'

‘This would also explain ‘that’ thing’

Maximilian recalls a surreal experience that had happened a week prior. While at work his mother had come face to face with a non-human furred creature two heads taller than her. A Creature that, much to Maximillians surprise and alarm, had been able to speak.

What had surprised him the most had been that his mother had not reacted like the situation had been weird in any way, she had treated him just like another customer.

He’d had suspicions before but this had sealed the deal for him.

‘Assuming that the word my mother said back then really was Meteor, then I’ve actually gotten Isekai’d. Me, a random weeb. Inside the world of Hunter x Hunter.’

‘And I get reborn in possibly the worst place I could have been reborn into - Meteor City, the literal international dumpster.’

'Fuck...'

----------------------------------------

Max finds himself in a small enclosed room along with his mother. He simply watches as she calls in the next person in line.

A man enters, carrying a heavy bag full of what appears to be scrap metal. The whole thing's weight is measured on a scale nearby, the metal is then unloaded onto a cart, she gives him money proportional to the amount of metal he has brought and then the cart is transported by her to the storage area.

During the whole transaction not even a single word is spoken between them, both of them had done it thousands of times, no doubt. That also leaves Max there alone by himself while she moves the cart, though she does lock the door while she’s absent.

Outside of the room it can be observed that it isn’t the only one. There are dozens of rooms like this one inside of the building, all staffed by appraisers like his mother and guarded by experienced security like his father.

The building effectively serves as a large-scale pawnshop where garbage-divers can exchange their findings for money.

Maximillian has seen many things being exchanged here. Basic resources like wood, metals, cloth and plastic. More intricate curiosities like technological devices, working or broken, weapons and jewelry can also be traded for here. Even whole pieces of intact furniture can be traded for. As long as it has value it will be taken in exchange for money.

It’s one of the few buildings in Meteor City that is well maintained, having electricity and running water. All of the different resources and objects acquired here are either sold domestically or to the outside world. Despite the city's remoteness and infamy it has an unending stream of opportunistic runners and smugglers looking to make a quick buck.

These types of establishments are Meteor City’s largest ‘honest’ form of income.

Of course, the exchange rates are heavily skewed in the direction of the building’s owners.

‘Every day is the same. My parents get ready and leave for work, mother appraises and father guards, from morning till sunset only broken up by a half hour or so in between. The same route, the same customers. I'm so bored, man.'

‘Half the time I at least have Julia chatting it up with the lady in the other room through a hole in the wall. It’s like radio, staves off the boredom and it’s got for language practice. She's not here today for some sort of reason. Shame.’

‘I think I have recovered my stamina by now, better get back to practicing standing up…’

Just as he’s about to go for another attempt the door opens, his mother coming in pushing a cargo cart.

“Did you miss me Maxi–”

Her words are cut off by several sharp, deafeningly powerful sounds.

‘Gunshots?’ Maximilian thinks to himself before his mother grabs him, locking both the doors to the storage and to the outside lobby area before hiding in the corner with him.

The few seconds after the booming sound finishes reverberating through the building there is complete and deathly silence. The phrase ‘So silent you could hear a pin drop’ exists exactly for situations like this.

The silent spell is shattered by the voice of a man. Even through the locked door both mother and child could perfectly make out the words spoken.

“Well!? Get a move on, idiots! Do you think I brought you all here so that you can enjoy the scenery?! I want every single person in this building brought in front of me right this moment. Go! Go! Go!”

Maximilian’s sole thought upon hearing the man could be described with one simple sentence.

'I hate this place.'