A small pile of gold coins was suddenly placed on the counter. The dazzling golden shine reflected in the light.
Just one of these coins was worth nearly a million yen.
This has to be a joke... All this for just a bag of sugar...!?
Wataru's eyes widened at the sight of such an unexpected fortune. One of the coins from the pile slid off and made a clear ringing sound as it hit the counter.
"Please, accept it," said the merchant, William, with a smile, his voice deep and resonant like that of a baritone singer.
What could he do with all this money? He could buy almost anything he wanted and even live lavishly.
It's petty to be greedy for money. There's a saying, "A samurai, even when he has no food, holds his head high."
But having money is never a bad thing. When a large sum of money is suddenly placed before you, most people would be blinded by it—especially when it's something as dazzling as gold coins.
This time, the capital came from white sugar he bought in Japan. Seeing it turn into gold coins, his greed naturally grew.
I can make even more.
There were so many things he wanted to buy. He wanted to enjoy the pleasures money could bring. More than anything, he wanted to live without worrying about expenses.
Sakai Wataru, a young man who, by chance, gained the ability to travel between worlds. This was the first step toward him amassing a vast fortune in both worlds and making significant contributions to the world.
As the sun set, a man trudged along the streets of Osaka. His name was Sakai Wataru, twenty years old.
With a slumped posture and a tired expression, he had no particularly notable features. He held a grocery bag in one hand and carried a backpack. The temperature in June was already quite high for early summer, and he started to sweat as he walked.
"Living alone is tough. If only I had the power to earn more…"
The words slipped out of his mouth, reflecting his anxiety. He didn't earn enough to consider marriage, and he didn't even have a steady job.
What's going to happen to me…?
He had no prospects for a relationship or a steady income. He felt envious of the couples he passed on the street.
As a freelance writer, it sounded good, but in reality, he was just a self-employed person with no consistent income. He wasn't famous, and there were plenty of writers more talented than him. Without seizing some extraordinary opportunity, success seemed out of reach.
He was supposed to be living life doing what he wanted, but somehow he ended up doing things he didn't want to do.
To top it off, the news was filled with gloom about taxes and wars. With no bright future in sight, Wataru felt down. He finally reached home, tired after work, with ingredients for dinner.
It was then that he noticed a Jizo statue. Who knew how many years had passed since it had been placed there? The old Jizo was covered in moss and dirt. There were candy wrappers and empty cans littered around it, and Wataru frowned in displeasure.
"So there was a Jizo statue here… It's really worn down."
Wataru, who had been doted on by his grandparents, had a fondness for Jizo statues. Not only had he received sweets from them on Children's Day, but he also often saw his grandparents lighting incense, cleaning, and praying to the statues.
Apparently, Wataru had been weak as a child, and they had prayed for his health. Though his grandparents were still living healthily in the same prefecture, their gentle teachings had left a deep impression on Wataru. So, seeing the nearby Jizo statue deteriorating and decaying was not good for his mental health. It made him feel uneasy.
"Leaving trash here is so disrespectful… Grandma always said to take care of the Jizo statues."
He transferred the groceries from his shopping bag into his backpack, then used the empty bag to pick up the litter. This way, he didn't have to touch the trash directly. With determination, he began to clean up the garbage.
"Ew, this feels gross."
Even as he grimaced at the sensation of the trash through the bag, he felt anger toward the person who had littered.
Suddenly, a bright light filled his vision.
"Whoa! What the…!?"
The intense light was so strong that his vision went completely white for a moment, but then it quickly faded. However, the scene before him was completely different.
"Where… Where the heck am I!?"
He didn't even have the energy to make the classic joke, "This isn't the ceiling I know…" Wataru stood there, dumbfounded. The scene before him was clearly different from before, with a distinctly foreign atmosphere. Mud walls and a town of single-story buildings. Instead of asphalt, the roads were made of dirt, stretching far into the distance.
He didn't even recognize the trees that were growing there.
The climate was different too. A slightly moist, cool breeze wrapped around him, making him shiver. The sky wasn't at sunset anymore but still had plenty of daylight left.
"Am I dreaming?"
Have I lost my mind…?
He doubted his own sanity, but his senses told him this was real. The overwhelming reality he felt throughout his body was something that couldn't happen in a dream or a delusion.
"This doesn't look like a cosplay event…"
The buildings in his view were of Western architecture—brick and mud walls. Most of the low buildings had Western-style roofs, and there wasn't a single modern building made of concrete or steel. The people walking down the street were dressed in clothes that wouldn't be seen outside of movies or games, giving the whole scene an old-fashioned feel. Not to mention, their deep-set features were clearly different from those of Japanese people, and there were even some with animal ears…
"Is this really like one of those stories from manga or light novels?"
Wataru muttered, recognizing a possible connection but with no confirmation.
Had he been transported to another world while cleaning a Jizo statue? Could something like that really happen?
"Wait, can I even get back...? Living in another world would be way too tough…"
People passing by paid no attention to Wataru. They didn't even glance his way, despite him muttering suspiciously to himself, and no one's eyes met his.
Something strange was definitely happening. Wataru, though panicked, calmed himself enough to take a better look around and realized he was standing in what seemed to be a shrine.
Moreover, there was a tear in the space nearby, through which he could see a familiar cityscape. When he gathered his courage and stepped into the tear, he was back in the streets of Osaka. The hot, muggy air of a summer evening enveloped his skin.
"Oh, I can get back. And if I try again… Yep, I can go back!"
When he jumped into the tear that opened up in front of the Jizo statue again, he was back in the foreign town. The cool, damp air. Somehow, Wataru realized he could freely travel between Earth and this other world.
"If I can go back and forth freely, this is a huge deal! Maybe I'll do some sightseeing!"
Seeing that there didn't seem to be any immediate danger, he couldn't let this strange opportunity go to waste. It was a rare chance to do some sightseeing. Though he knew it would be safer to take more precautions, Wataru's instincts told him this wasn't a dangerous situation, so he decided to enjoy the foreign world.