It was late evening in the outskirts of the city, the streets were mostly deserted.
Breathing in a rhythm to his footsteps, Orion jogged through the pavement while listening to the music coming from his headphones.
As he reached the perimeter of a parking lot of a convenience store, the song on his playlist ended and he slowed down his pace.
Eventually, his footsteps came to a halt and he let out a breath as he simultaneously wiped the sweat from his forehead using his hand.
The last song on his playlist just ended, which means he had been running for about half an hour.
'Finished. Time to go back, huh.'
Orion let out one more large breath to calm down his raised heart rate, then thoughtlessly took out his phone and restarted the music.
Over the years it became a habit for him to go out jogging by himself at least every second day.
Meanwhile at other times he would stress his body with weight lifting, martial arts training, kendo and HEMA fencing.
Fortunately, at one point in the past he managed to use his knowledge of the future and convinced his parents to invest in certain major companies that he knew would succeed, hence money was not a problem for him in this life.
Even though he was still seventeen, he also didn't treat the school seriously at all and only visited when he felt like it - which was almost never.
He spent all of his time each day on martial arts practice and study of topics that interested him.
And all of this was because Orion was not an ordinary person, but a reincarnated soul.
Being a mature man in his previous life, at one point he had reincarnated into an infant's body and restarted his life from zero.
However, he did not transmigrate to a fantasy world as he initially hoped, but instead reincarnated on Earth, in a different family and a different country - Japan.
It was a disappointment to him eventually, but he still decided to make the best use of this chance.
He enjoyed his new life and his new rather handsome body, doing things that he had not done in his previous life, and at the same time he focused his time on improving his combat skills, his body's conditions and on acquiring various survivalist skills.
Perhaps he did all this just because he wished for something to happen, perhaps he trained himself because he considered it as an interesting and meaningful way to pass his time, but most importantly, because it had already happened to him once, Orion could not rule out the possibility that he might transmigrate once again.
Thus, he lived his life while preparing for anything.
Because if he did transmigrate once again to a world with different rules and physics, something similar to the fantasy worlds that he had read about, then he might be able to strive toward the impossible dream of attaining Immortality and God-like powers.
Even though he felt that the thought of him transmigrating at one point to a world of magic was a bit ridiculous, and even if he ended up being a fool, he simply enjoyed the process of becoming stronger in his new fully functional body, even in this limited reality.
And in the first place, he had already reincarnated once, so who knows?
<... I don't know where I'm going…>
The slow lyrics of the song floated into his ears.
<...but I sure know where I've been…>
'I ain't wasting no more time,' Orion sang along inwardly as he cracked his neck.
David Coverdale continued singing while Orion began walking back home.
'Let's see, I should cross this intersection and it would be a shortcut.'
'I never seem to find what I'm looking for…' Orion finished as he thoughtlessly approached the street.
Then he was surprised as he suddenly bumped into someone.
A guy that was walking in front of him stopped for some reason all of a sudden.
"Um, sumimasen," Orion mumbled automatically, in fact, only one of his headphones being in his ear.
"Nah, I suddenly spaced out, sorry, my bad," the other person replied in Japanese as he looked back with a tired look.
It was a Japanese teenage kid in a tracksuit, with a plastic bag in his hand and dark circles under his eyes, staring back at Orion apathetically while seeming to appraise him.
"Hn," Orion replied noncommittally and placed his hand on the boy's shoulder to walk past him, since he continued standing and staring at him.
But at that time something happened.
Orion's vision blurred.
He blinked his eyes and then rubbed them with his hands, feeling that perhaps he might have gotten a little light-headed from the running.
At the same time, the other person seemed to be doing the same while muttering under his nose, "I guess anyone's eyes would be tired after staying up, gaming all day…"
Following that, Orion was suddenly blinded by the bright light of the sun shooting straight into his eyes.
Strangely, there was no discomfort from going from dark to bright, and instead his eyes only widened in shock as he saw he found himself standing in the middle of a crowded street of a medieval city, with all kinds of demihuman-looking people e mixed into the crowd - with cat ears, dog ears or with literal complete lizard heads, dog heads, cat heads and others.
They were not only walking, but also talking and their 'masks' looked incredibly realistic as they did so, making all kinds of intricate movements and expressions; they all wore clothes especially tailored for demihumans.
There were also lizards. They were also bipedal, but not humanoid. They looked like two-legged dinosaurs; whether it was their length or height it was comparable to a car. These were completely tame and were used to pull carriages across the street.
As for the humans - none of them wore modern clothing, but they instead wore garments characteristic of medieval times or a fantasy world.
Orion stood there in a daze for a moment, then slowly turned to look at the young man who was still with him, standing right beside him and looking at a similar scene.
The two stared at each other for a while.
"Does this mean…" the other boy muttered as he then turned away to look around at the street. After a momentary pause, he shouted out at the top of his longs: "WE ISEKAID TO A PARALLEL WORLD?!"
Orion was equally shocked as the other guy, but did not feel like shouting out something like this for the entire world to know his thoughts, as the various people looked at them weirdly.
However, it remained as a fact - today he had been forcefully pulled to another world again!
Having recognized this fact, not feeling any less shocked or elated, Orion looked again at the Japanese teenager that he still had his hand on, the person that he happened to be transported with.
Meanwhile the other boy did the same and the two exchanged long meaningful looks.
Orion saw, the other boy had a rather childish face, plus he was Japanese, so it was difficult to judge his age.
At first glance he was maybe fifteen.
He had a rather slim and well-maintained body, and wore a tracksuit. His facial appearance was neither great-looking nor bad-looking, just average for a Japanese young man, with narrow eyes that made him look a little sinister.
As Orion was appraising his companion in the new world, so did the other party.
In the next moment, the teenager extended out his hand to Orion while pointing at his chest with the thumb of his other hand and excitedly saying, "My name is Natsuki Subaru! Nice to meet you!"
And upon hearing this, Orion's body froze in place.
'What? Natsuki Subaru? Really?' Orion stared in shock at the self-proclaimed 'Natsuki Subaru'.
Then he glanced at their environment again, the demi-humans and earth dragon-drawn carriages.
Lizard-drawn carriages could potentially appear in all kinds of worlds, even in those without magic, but this settled it.
'Does it mean I was summoned to the Re:Zero world?!'
…
As Orion had his revelation, Subaru was becoming increasingly awkward as he was left hanging with his hand outstretched.
Upon noticing this, Orion thoughtlessly received and shook Subaru's hands while muttering, "Uh, nice to meet you. I'm Orion."
The chorus of Whitesnake's song began rolling about in Orion's headphones at that time with
"Orion? As if in 'Orionza'?" Subaru showed a surprised expression at this, then cheekily smiled. "So your parents hated you too, huh? Giving you a name after the stars?"
Orion faintly smiled. It was not bad, to be honest. Even though it was still the very early 21st century when he was growing up and unique names were slightly frowned upon, people quite liked his name.
In Japanese his original name was in fact spelled and pronounced as 'Orionza', which was the name of the constellation of Orion. His full name was Orionza Matsumoto, but he preferred to be simply called 'Orion', and it's also how he had just introduced himself to Subaru.
Meanwhile Subaru continued while staring at him, "And you wear a tracksuit as well! A must have for a man who never leaves his room. This must be fate, brotha'!"
Saying so, Subaru patted Orion's shoulder with a very excited and enthusiastic expression.
'I did leave my room though…' Orion secretly thought with a small smile.
Slightly looking up as he patted him, Subaru then said, "How old are you?"
"I'm seventeen," Orion replied in a daze.
"What?! Me too! I'm also seventeen!" Subaru called out. After a brief pause, he continued while squinting at him, "Anyway, are you a westerner? You don't look Japanese and you even have a faint accent."
Orion was rather tall for a seventeen year old. He had a well-built V-tapered physique and a fairly handsome face, with blonde medium-length hair and with bright blue eyes, not looking like a typical Japanese guy at all.
In fact, putting aside the fact that he wore a tracksuit and earbuds, that guy even somewhat looked like a character from a fantasy world already!
Orion hummed in response, then replied while still in a daze, "Well, my father is Japanese, but my mother is a westerner. I took after my mother…."
Luckily. Since his mother was quite a beauty and he didn't like the way Japanese looked. He did rather win the genetic lottery in this life, getting his mother's looks and his father's brain, though a large portion of it came from him simply taking care of himself and his body.
"I see…" Subaru muttered, then he suddenly clasped his hands as he looked around. "Well, at any rate, I don't really get it myself, but it seems we're in a parallel world."
Orion: "..."
"Well, let's go!" Subaru excitedly called out.
Orion looked at him again. Go, where?
"Let's go! We have to find the cute girl that summoned us!" Subaru said matter-of-factly again as he began enthusiastically walking along the street with exaggerated motions.
After a moment's lag, Orion caught up and started to walk together with Subaru.
Sure, whatever, let's find that cute girl.
However, he was the one who trained his entire life while anticipating a transmigration to a fantasy world, so why was the other guy who adapted instantly and not him?!
However, being thrown into a world like this that he knew only from an anime in his previous life was just too shocking and sudden.
As Orion and Subaru were looking around with curiosity, something suddenly appeared in Orion's vision, as if in acknowledgement that he was mentally ready.
[SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT!]
[Detected Player's presence in a Mana-filled world. The System's scheduled operation was launched.]
[Player, welcome to the Heroic Spirit Integration System!]
'What? A system?' Orion was slightly startled at this sight as he paused his footsteps.