Imagine you jumped over the rusty fence of the student dormitory like every day after university. You hear absent-mindedly how the caretaker snapped at you from his open window and how little bricks of stone crumbled from the foundation of the now completely crooked fence.
Then, suddenly it would be right in front of you in the meadow! Ping almost tripped over the electric car charger in shock. There was the most beautiful USB stick he has ever seen.
Apparently, it was worth it to live in a block with 250 completely retarded students who do monkey business at any time of day and night. It was worth it to live through all those days when it suddenly occurred to your neighbour, in the middle of the night, that he needed something from under his bed drawer. Oops! It fell down, who could have known that the walls between the apartments are not soundproof at all? It was worth it to stay in there when the landlord had the genius idea to build another floor on top of the building while everyone was already living there.
Even the completely incompetent caretaker, who could not manage to change the freaking batteries of the electronic door locks for three weeks... well, that really was some nasty piece of work.
While Ping bickered in his mind, a student who had to live in a dormitory with 4-bed rooms suddenly coughed blood.
But he didn't notice, the bliss could clearly be seen in Ping, when he turned the stick back and forth in admiration - about three centimetres in front of his face. With matt-white and glossy-black paintwork, its futuristic shape, the completely superfluous rubber nubs for better grip and the light strip that stretched across an illuminated touch sensor, it looked more bad-ass than any gaming mouse he had ever seen.
And even better, the housing snaps open when you touch the sensor, which is followed by the USB port slowly extending while the lighting changes colour. Unbelievable that someone invested money in such a pointless product - among his fellow students it would definitely become a trend like the one he saw in his childhood with digital pets, centrifugal clutch equipped Yo-Yo or recently with cursed egg fried rice - uh... wait, that has not yet caught on - let's say with catching certain monsters in an augmented reality app on your phone.
In one smooth movement the USB stick slips first into the sleeve of his hoody and then into the pocket of his trousers. Ping had a visibly moved face. Tears in his eyes, the corners of his mouth drawn down.
"Yoosh - I knew it wasn't a coincidence that I dreamed it!".
As he recalled the memory, a cold shiver ran down his spine. It was not far from here under the bridge of the city railway station, right in front of the east station. Something was strange, his baseball cap was there, the heavy watch on his wrist too. He couldn't recognize the time, the face of his clock was black.
Then he walked across the street and the painting on the east station stares at him with a mocking face while he feels this terrible itch in his buttocks. And then... while he's doing the act: *bam* Truck-san!
He has never jumped up this fast in the middle of the night. Never changed his underwear so quickly. That was definitely a sign.
Ping was sure that he was the chosen one for an Isekei. Now, he would just need to work on not scratching his fundament while making his tour to the next world.
"We shall remember Atari Ping in best memory - he didn't leave any skid marks." he murmured as he leaped up the stairs.
The private student dormitory was called 'The Brick' due to its shape and texture, and in Ping's opinion occasionally also because of the intelligence of its landlord. The apartments on the upper floors were a bit more expensive, which was probably due to the fact that it is great fun to carry up shopping bags. Unfortunately there were no free apartments on the ground floor and now he has to live with an elevator which is only available at the front entrance.
Unfortunately, not the way to the city railway station if you prefer to jump over the fence of the parking area.
As he reached his apartment there is a note stuck to the door: 'I put the pot in a locker, key in the envelope.'
That made him pause for a moment. Definitely from his sister Amiga Ping: "Hope it's a clean pot."
A quick glance into the eternally stretching corridor confirmed that the way to the lockers, which are in the lobby at the main entrance, couldn't keep up with the attraction of his stolen property... um... with the attraction of this foundling that he wanted to raise with love.
Honestly, would you have given it up? Maybe give it to the caretaker who can't even manage to take delivery of goods ordered from tenants? This man has a single job... But let's not stray to far from the topic.
Ping slipped off his shoes and picked up the envelope which contained a thing shaped like a key. He left his baseball cap with the seven other caps on the clothes tree next to the mirror. A casual look in the mirror revealed that Ping was not the stereotypical nerd you'd expect in a computer science program of a university.
He was tall, had dark eyes, black hair and a short haircut. He wore a shirt under his hoody, his chunky watch had a wide leather strap that reminded a bit of the bracer's of a leather armour, while the other wrist was adorned with a thin leather strap, closed by a metal clip.
Together with the baseball cap, his wardrobe was more reminiscent of a K-pop star than a natural scientist. But let's be honest, who still believes in these clichés today? As if there really are people who game all day long, read web novels and then miss their lectures to drool over electronic girls. If someone like that exists, there are definitely wizards walking among us - not that anybody wants to suggest a connection there.
"All right, let's try this virus infected USB stick on our own computer. What could possibly go wrong?"
While the PC booted up, he weighed the USB stick with a doubtful look. With an elegance that resembled the APM of a pro player, he selected the operating system to be started. Normally, he only reached such an APM by repeatedly pressing the Delete key to enter the BIOS.
Now, his right hand taped impatiently on the table to speed up the system start. A gesture which left his computer completely unimpressed. Then he aligned his keyboard at a 90° angle and gots his desk chair from the other end of the room.
In a twenty square meter apartment not too far away. You can comfortably reach the heating and window from your bed and, by cleverly arranging the furniture, you could probably also reach the refrigerator.
Admittedly, the apartment looked pretty good - newly constructed building, fancy furniture all in white and in the same discounter style, the kitchen worktop with bar stool went around a corner and a cabinet with a bookcase hung above the rustic desk. A long cupboard section was fitted into the entrance area, the pull-out bed was a fashionable sofa and the bathroom did not include an ugly old shower curtain but a gracefully glittering glass wall.
Fully furnished apartments have their advantages. And fully furnished apartments have an incredible Internet bandwidth that is included in the rent, which was a major reason when choosing the apartment.
Ping entered his password: 'TangotI!', Which could be obtained by typing the first letter of every word in the sentence 'There are no girls on the Internet!'. Then he plugged in the USB stick, opened the file explorer: nothing.
"Could it be that you are a Wi-Fi stick or a television receiver?".
He looked at the USB stick as if it could answer, and it indeed blinked two times. And by the way, Ping had this habit of talking to himself with his PC ever since his internship.
Before he was able to continue talking to the stick, it beeped and changed colour while his mobile phone vibrates. Could there be a connection?
>> Allow Bluetooth connection? System_from_the_future would like to transfer a file. <<
Now he couldn't suppress a smile. Admittedly, Isekei are pretty cool even if you are not part of this web novel-reading scum. But who could not distinguish between reality and fiction?
"Masterstroke - you get the Oscar for this one."
He accepted the download and shortly afterwards the genious-system-that-will-change-your-life.apk was installed. Ping rubbed his face and was fascinated by how quickly he forgot about the dangers of malware on cell phones. While he pulled out the USB stick, the app started on his mobile phone.
>> Hello user Atari Ping. Male, 22 years old. Computer science student at the University of Technology in F-Town. <<
A sentence that would prove to the world that being speechless is not just a phrase, but also a state of consciousness of completely irritated students.