Screams filled the air, the voices filled with agony and fear.
Amidst the broken rubble of what used to be sturdy buildings and majestic skyscrapers, terrifying shapes stalked through them. They seemed neither organic nor natural, their bodies encased in what appeared to be gleaming metal. Despite their mechanical appearance, they were the shape of bugs. Arachnid limbs crunched concrete and punctured the broken husks of vehicles as ten-meter high monsters hunted through the remnants of the city.
That very moment, I woke up.
"…this is…?"
Raising both my hands up, I saw that they were a lot smaller than before. My head hurt, and I could feel blood trickling down my body. Inspecting myself, I found that I was a lot different from what I remembered. It wasn't just the various injuries that spread through my body, which included a patchwork of bruises, an array of cuts and abrasions.
I was much younger than I remembered.
A nearby flash caught my attention. Staggering to my feet, I turned and caught my reflection in the broken glass of a fallen window.
"…this is me?"
How was this possible? I looked like a damned twelve-year-old. I looked like myself over twenty years ago.
"Ugh!"
I winced, clutching my head. Memories were pouring into my mind right now. Memories of my past life. That was right. I was a graduate student in my mid-thirties, yet to graduate from my PhD program and stuck in thesis hell, unable to write my grant proposals and research proposals, never mind my damned dissertation.
Did I kill myself from the stress? I certainly hope not.
No…I didn't. Now I remembered. When I was returning home, I caught sight of a young boy playing near a construction site. Then the crane nearby malfunctioned, and a pile of steel girders slipped off its carriage, crashing down onto where the kid was.
I had no idea why the boy was there – obviously kids should have not been allowed such a dangerous area. But reasons aside, the first thing I did was dive and pushed the kid out of the way. He yelped in surprise as he was roughly thrown aside, but at least he reached safety. Getting up to his feet, he glared at me and was about to curse me when everything vanished.
The steel girders landed on me that instant, blocking my view of the kid. I felt red-hot agony, my vision turned black and I knew nothing.
And now, I was in this devastated city with giant bugs and monsters, with no clue what was going on. One of the monstrous creatures squirmed by, a worm-like monstrosity that was different from its spider-like brethren. Its maw yawned open, revealing a ring of razor-sharp teeth dripping with what seemed like a cross between lubricant and drool.
"What the fuck?" I muttered under my breath, completely unable to comprehend what I was seeing.
"Uwaaah!"
"AAAAH!"
I turned around when I heard the screams. A couple were hollering in fear as they cowered before the worm-like creature. If it hadn't spotted them before (though how it could see without eyes, I had no idea – the creature didn't seem to have any eyes at all, or any visual sensory organs), it certainly had now.
Idiots.
I wasn't sure what I could do. Just like the time with the young boy, I had the urge to be a hero and save them, but while I could save the boy's life by sacrificing my own and pushing him out of the way, I saw no method of which I could help the couple.
That monster, which was at least ten meters long, wasn't something any human could fight. At least not without the appropriate weapons. If I had a rocket launcher…or even one of those automatic carbines I used during my days in the two-year mandatory military service back in my home country, I might be able to, but in a twelve-year-old kid's body? No way.
"HELP!"
The couple's screams were growing louder now, the two of them trembling from fright as they embraced each other while the mechanical worm-thing reared up above them. Its jaws opened wider, its ring of razor-sharp teeth seeming to spin slowly like a grinder.
Then it descended upon them.
"Damn it!"
Cursing under my breath in a very un-twelve-year-old manner, I rushed forward without thinking. Grabbing a piece of rubble that my painfully young body could carry, I hurled it as forcefully as I could. It struck the seemingly metallic plating of the worm before clanging off harmlessly.
"Over here!" I shouted as loudly as I could. "Pick on someone your own size!"
Even though my rock had no effect, I seemed to have succeeded in drawing the gigantic worm's attention. Or perhaps it had heard me, but again I had no idea how it accomplished that without any ears or auditory sensory organs.
The worm turned toward me, crushing debris underneath is bulk, and crawling inexorably toward me. The couple stared at me, their eyes wide in fear, but they weren't able to do or say anything.
Adults needing a kid like me to save their asses. How pathetic. Then again, to be fair, I wasn't exactly a kid. I was a mid-thirty failure of an adult trapped inside a kid's body. Now that I thought about it, it was very likely that the kid had died during the xenos' assault, and my wandering soul that had just left my original dead body must have entered his and revived it.
The so-called transmigration or reincarnation trope, huh?
Unfortunately, now wasn't the time to think about such frivolous things. I had just potentially squandered my second chance at life by yelling at the worm to save two pathetic adults from near-certain death. Even if readers mocked me for being stupid for risking my lives for strangers I didn't know, at least my character was consistent.
I turned and ran as quickly as I could with my unbearably short legs. Damn it, I forgot how it was like to run like a child. If I was back in my thirty-something body, I would have lasted a lot longer and covered a greater distance within a shorter time, but my current body felt clumsy, almost weak. Perhaps it was due to the injuries I had sustained. I didn't know.
I probably wouldn't find out.
With an uncharacteristic, almost mechanical roar, the worm lunged at me. Seeing its shadow fall upon me rapidly, I couldn't help but risk a glance back and saw that it was closing on me much faster than I could escape.
The bloody monster would swallow me whole in the next five seconds. And even if I tried to dive away, I would still be struck by something with the mass of several buses and killed from the physical impact.
Fuck! Was this how my life in another world was going to end? In less than five minutes of transmigrating into a new body?!
Whoosh!
"?!"
I threw myself to the side instinctively as something hot and bright flashed past me, scorching my back. Rolling across the broken debris, I got up and watched in awe as the monstrous worm was enveloped in an inferno, screeching helplessly as it was incinerated into ash.
"That was a very brave thing you did, kid."
A man in his late twenties or early thirties landed in front of me. I gaped at him, more surprised by his lame fashion sense than his appearance. He had a Meiji-era cap perched atop his head, and his almost military-styled uniform was clad underneath a cloak. Someone ought to tell him that those military uniforms went out of fashion once the Meiji period ended. At most, the Japanese stopped wearing them after World War II.
The man glanced derisively at the couple, who were still holding each other up and shivering fearfully.
"Are you proud of yourselves? Being saved by a kid?" he asked callously. The young man and young woman merely stared at him, too shocked to answer.
A growl reverberated from elsewhere, and the young man turned to watch the spider-like mechanical arachnids tromping toward him. His lips curled into a playful sneer. Glancing up, he waved at a brilliant figure hovering in the air.
"Angelica, I'll leave those bugs to you as well."
"Yes, Master."
To my utter shock, the figure floating in the air was an angel. Her long, crimson hair ran down her back, contrasting with golden, feathery wings that spread out on either side of her, keeping her aloft as they flapped gently. Golden, flaming feathers drifted down from the graceful action, bursting into flames the moment they touched the bugs, which recoiled in horror.
Without her wings, the angel seemed more like a beautiful young lady, dressed in a simple white dress that outlined her curves. Her bare feet floated several dozen meters above the ground, her gorgeous body suspended in midair. Raising a hand, she swung it down.
Nine gigantic fireballs materialized in the air, blazing ferociously. Even on the ground, so far beneath the fireballs, I could feel the intense heat scorching my face and scalding my lungs. The young man with the cape and cap didn't seem affected, though, merely beaming happily as he sat back to watch the carnage.
The bugs tried to withdraw, but the young man snorted.
"You want to escape? Too late for that now."
The angel seemed to respond to his intent, swinging down her delicate-looking hand. The nine fireballs rained down on the fleeing arachnids, engulfing them in a fiery death and incinerating them into nothingness. The resulting explosions were so vicious they actually carved craters into the ground.
"Great job, Angelica." The young man clapped in delight. The angel merely inclined her head in acknowledgement, but continued to hover where she was. Her master then turned toward me with that bright smile of his. "All right, kid. You did well, but it's time to bring you to safety."
"Where's that?" I blurted out without thinking.
"The shelter, of course." The caped man arched an eyebrow, as if wondering why I was asking such a stupid question.
"I mean, where is the shelter?" Realizing how foolish I sounded, I amended my words and straightened myself. Rubbing my head for emphasis. "Sorry, I seem to have lost my memory, so I'm not sure what's going on or where is where."
"Oh…" the young man studied me for a moment before grinning. "You don't have to worry about that. This great me is going to escort you all there."
He was glancing at the couple, who were still in shock, but were slowly recovering enough to move a little.
Sweeping his cape behind him, he then turned toward another direction. "Follow me."
I obeyed, and shortly after that, the couple did as well. The young man chuckled as he sent a gaze in my direction, even as Angelica descended to hover next to him.
"What an interesting young kid," he whispered to her. And then he focused his eyes forward and suppressed a groan. "Not again."
A new pack of monsters – this time, they resembled wolves rather than bugs – had emerged from a broken building, and were bounding toward our direction.
I stared at them in dismay. Looked like I had transmigrated into one hell of a world.