The day started off just like any other.

By the time the sun peeked its head from underneath the horizon, the city was already alive and active.

A large modern-day metropolis with over fifteen million people in residence. Whether that be during the dead of the night or at the dawn of a new morning, there was always someone somewhere doing something that kept this city awake and thriving.

This was a land that neither dipped nor lulled. The eternal city of the western continental coastline, Harlock.

****

It happened around the time when the sun was up highest in the sky.

Suddenly, something fast and immaterial dropped from the heavens. A throaty scream followed its wake like clapping thunder at the end of a rainstorm.

Half a second later, a dull bang echoed loudly from within a deserted alleyway.

Edsel couldn’t help but moan out in pain.

He did not move for a long time. His entire body ached. His muscles felt as if they had been lit on fire, while a splitting migraine assaulted his head. His face contorted. He wanted to scream but quickly found that he lacked the strength to do so.

An uncountable amount of time passed. Eventually, the pain subsided. Edsel gathered his strength and lifted his head.

Where the hell am I?

He could not see anything. There was only pitch-black darkness.

Am I dead? Is this what hell feels like? For a moment, his heart lurched in his throat. After a few seconds, he hurriedly shook his head. No, that shouldn’t be the case. It smells absolutely awful in here. The after-life shouldn’t smell this bad.

He comforted himself as he tentatively sniffed the air.

Edsel’s complexion immediately paled. He resisted the urge to gag. It really did smell quite awful in here, almost as if a skunk had just died and its corpse had festered for over a year within the same stuffy, enclosed container. Even if this place wasn’t hell, it certainly was just as bad.

He sat silently and waited. After a few minutes, the pain further subsided and sensation slowly returned to the rest of his body. With a grunt, Edsel lifted his arm up and cautiously groped the darkness.

Throughout the whole process, his expression underwent a variety of different transformations.

He felt something hard and oily, next he felt something soft and squishy. On another occasion, an unknown liquid dripped onto his hand. Edsel still could not see, but he was now five hundred percent certain that something had indeed died in here.

Just then, it clicked. He knew exactly where he was.

I’m in a fucking dumpster!

Against his own body’s better judgment, Edsel hurriedly tried to stand.

He let out an aggrieved shout. His hoarse voice reverberated throughout the metal container.

When Edsel initially fell from the sky, he had unwittingly landed inside a city dumpster. The impact from the fall caused the lid to close in on him.

The poor hero did not have time to think about all this. The moment he realized where he was, it was as if a switch in his brain had flipped. An assortment of stenches assaulted him. Edsel suddenly felt woozy. He resisted the urge to gag as he struggled against the literal mountain of garbage that threatened to consume him.

After a while, he eventually bumped his head on the metal lid. Still, he did not stop. He continued forward, pushing through until the first rays of light snuck their way in from the tiny crack in the dumpster. Like a newly-birthed baby bird, he slithered out of the gap and tumbled to the hard pavement below.

A deflated groan leaked out from his throat.

Edsel rolled onto his back and wearily looked up to the sky.

There was not a single cloud in sight. Flanked by two massive buildings, the brilliant blue of the afternoon skyline appeared almost blinding. Even in a dark and dreary place like this, the sun’s light still managed to worm its way in.

It was a bright and beautiful day today.

Where the hell did I land?

The teleportation magic that he had used was one that necessitated strict direction. Unfortunately, back when the sub-space started collapsing, Edsel had been pressed for time. In his haste, he did not have time to properly calibrate his coordinates. As a result, he could only base his jump on gut feeling and vague familiarity.

According to his estimations, the margin of error should be no greater than one hundred miles. This place, no matter how strange and unfamiliar it may be, it was still a place that he had previously visited before…

First of all, let’s slow down a little. Edsel took a deep breath. The most important thing to do right now is to identify what and where this place is.

After a brief moment’s pause, he once again timidly sniffed the air. Smell revealed quite a lot about a location. For example, the stench of rot lingered within the cold graveyards of experienced necromancers, while the smell of morning dew and honey wafted through the streets of elven villages.

Almost immediately, Edsel gagged. He was just barely able to suppress the rush of bile that threatened to burst from his throat. Awful smells clogged his nasal passages.

Edsel unwittingly glanced down at his left hand. Something brown and absolutely putrid covered his fingers.

Just then, he briefly recalled the fact that he had touched something soft and oozy back in the dumpster.

He finally couldn’t take it anymore. Edsel rolled off his back and vomited all over his clothes.

Where the hell did I jump to?! Despite his incessant trembling, Edsel somehow managed to sit up. He ripped off his cape and hurriedly wiped his hand clean. Shortly after, he breathed out a relieved sigh.

He still smelled like shit, but at the very least, the brown stains on his hand were gone.

“I… I need to quickly find out where this damn place is…” This was his first time speaking ever since he escaped from the collapsing sub-space. Edsel was mildly surprised to discover how foreign his voice currently sounded. Hoarse and weathered, an extra layer of weariness lingered with each and every word.

He looked up at the buildings.

The structures around him were crafted out of brick and mortar. Edsel did not really know what style of architecture it was called, but one thing was for certain; it looked wholly different from Regalia’s stone castles and wooden taverns.

Also… despite how unfamiliar it all looked, somewhere deep in his heart, he couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of nostalgia.

Just before he could think about it any further, he suddenly heard a noise coming from somewhere outside the alleyway. Edsel couldn’t help but look over.

There, he saw a crowd of people walk past the alley. They did not spare a single glance at his wretched appearance, but Edsel did not care. His eyes were glued to their figures.

A slight frown formed on his face.

There was something about these people that looked off to him, but Edsel could not quite place a finger on what.

What was it? What was it about them that seemed so… so… so familiar?

That wasn’t all either. The more he paid attention, the more things he noticed. For example, there was also the noise. To him, it sounded like the hungry rumblings of a giant beast. Sometimes, it was just one, other times it was like hearing a booming symphony.

Edsel did not feel annoyed by these noises. In fact, quite the opposite. Again, they felt familiar.

He struggled to his feet before he groggily hobbled towards the street ahead.

The closer he got, the louder and louder the noises seemed to get. The marching of footsteps, the indistinct chattering, the chorus of rumbling beasts, all sorts of sounds polluted the air around him.

Before he could reach the street, Edsel came to an abrupt stop. He couldn’t help but look down. His eyes narrowed. There, sprawled on the ground, was a single newspaper article.

Edsel did not care about its contents. He kept his focus locked onto the title of the newspaper.

The Harlock Times…

It was just the name of a newspaper company, but… that name struck a chord with him.

Harlock… Harlock…

It was a familiar name. Regardless of how many lifetimes were to pass, Edsel would never ever forget that name.

After all, it was the name of his old city.

His shoulders trembled.

For a moment, he forgot all about the weakness in his body and the permeating smells that wafted around him like a gloomy rain cloud. Harlock. It was Harlock.

Was he… was he really back?

Edsel abruptly looked up. An intense glint danced through his eyes. Like a deranged madman, he hobbled towards the street.

The moment he stepped onto the familiar rough pavement; a cacophony of noises burst forth.

“Hey!”

“Watch it!”

“What the fuck?!”

“That smell… what the hell is that smell?!”

Some of the bystanders gagged, others scolded him, while most hurriedly ran away. Their shocked and disgusted voices filled his eardrums. Without exception, they all stared at Edsel as if he were some exotic animal that had just escaped from the zoo.

For the most part, Edsel did not pay them any mind. Instead, his jaw practically fell to the floor as his eyes widened like saucers.

He openly stared at the street.

There were no ferocious beasts stampeding through the city. Instead, smog-spitting metal vehicles whizzed across the road like horseless carriages. Some were large and domineering, while others were small and comical. From commercial buses to compact eco-friendly smart cars, it was a sight that sent little shivers running down his spine.

Next, he gawked at the buildings.

The street that he currently stood on was lined with square-shaped brick and concrete buildings. They looked a bit old fashioned, but that was only when compared to the rest of the city. Off in the horizon, Edsel caught sight of glittering sky-scrapers; heaven-defying structures made out of glass and metal.

The modern-day, sleek look of Harlock city was a stark contrast to the medieval aesthetic of Regalia that he had grown so used to seeing.

He wordlessly stared for what felt like forever.

After a while, Edsel fell to his knees.

A shaky laugh leaked out from his parched throat.

“I’m finally back…”

His near-silent voice was drowned out by the noise of the city.

****

After his brief moment of reverie, Edsel quickly fled the scene.

It couldn’t be helped. His presence had caused quite a bit of commotion. It was to the point where a crowd of curious onlookers began to gather around him. A bunch of men in blue uniforms also made their appearance. The sound of blaring sirens was especially grating to the ears.

Right now, Edsel looked like a deranged homeless man. Getting involved with this world’s law enforcement was the last thing he wanted to do.

He pushed his way past the crowd and ran back into the alleyway. He quickly emerged on the other side of the building, but he did not stop there. Edsel continued to run.

Truth be told, despite living in Harlock for over seventeen years, this part of the city was completely foreign to him. This was nothing strange though. In fact, most of the citizens of this city were like that.

Harlock was one of the largest cities in the country. Setting aside its population, the city was comprised of four major boroughs. Each borough was comparable to the size of a regular city. Such a scale was far outside the reach of a (former) regular high-school student.

Even if he did previously know it, his memories were currently ten years behind, and that was without counting all the years he spent stuck in sub-space. Edsel aimlessly ran through the streets. He dodged past angry passersby and belligerent citizens.

Eventually, he arrived at a park.

Edsel vaguely remembered this place. It was a popular landmark that attracted not only this city’s residents but also tourists and various visitors from out of town.

The park was rather crowded today. Most of the people here comprised of families and young couples. Edsel ignored them. Instead, he walked into the park with a purpose in his stride.

If I remember correctly…

After searching for a while, he eventually found what he was looking for.

A water fountain. It was located at an intersection where the park’s main pathways linked together. At the center of the fountain was a statue of an elderly man dressed in an old military-style uniform. Water gushed out from the pedestal underneath his feet.

Edsel snaked his way through the crowd of pedestrians and quickly made a beeline for the fountain. Without hesitation, he jumped headfirst into the water. He removed his leather armor and stripped all the way down to his underwear.

In front of so many curious eyes, Edsel shamelessly washed his body.

Naturally, his blatant actions attracted attention. A small crowd, consisting of horrified bystanders and amused children had gathered around the water fountain. The nosier ones had even taken out their smartphones and were currently busy snapping pictures of him.

Underneath the flashing lights, Edsel’s expression cramped. For the first time, he felt self-conscious.

Although he had learned how to thicken his skin in Regalia, this place was a completely different beast altogether. Harlock was a modern city within a modern world. In here, things like cameras and the internet existed.

He may have been gone for a long time, but there was one thing that he still vividly remembered: once something gets on the internet, it stays there forever.

Edsel let out an awkward cough before he gathered the rest of his stuff and quickly fled the scene of the crime. In his wake, he left behind a trail of puddles. Fortunately, nobody chased after him.

He once again aimlessly walked around the city. His soaked underwear clung tightly to his skin, while the leather armor in his hands began to smell like wet dog. Despite being practically half-naked, Edsel was not the least bit cold. The sun’s glaring light did not allow him to be cold.

Was it already summer? Edsel did not really think so. If he recalled correctly, Harlock summers got real hot real fast. By this city’s standards, this was more along the lines of spring or maybe even autumn.

Still, he did not fancy himself an exhibitionist. Edsel would have liked to have something like a cape or a cloak to cover his body. Unfortunately, he left behind his cape back in the alley. Even if he still had it with him, he would have just as quickly abandoned it. After all, that thing had been smeared in fecal matter.

He could do nothing but endure the probing stares as he made his way even deeper into the city.

A bit of time passed.

Edsel kept a vigilant eye out for the police. Fortunately, he did not encounter any. The relative peace gave him an opportunity to catch his breath. He took this time to admire the sights and sounds.

A soft sigh leaked out from his lips.

He had to admit, everything here just seemed so foreign. A tinge of nostalgia clouded his eyes, but the majority of the emotions he felt stemmed from this rare sense of unfamiliarity.

Edsel glanced over at an adjacent sidewalk. There, he saw people from all walks of life. A sporty lady wearing a visor and yoga pants, an older gentleman dressed in a business suit, a teenager with a smartphone in his hands… these were all things that could not be seen in Regalia, yet here they were.

For the first time, he did not quite know how to feel.

As he turned a random corner, his mind continued to wander.

Edsel had spent approximately ten years away from home. If you counted all the years he spent stuck in timeless space, then that time could only be measured in the thousands.

It was somewhat ironic. That damn Demon King tried his hardest to give him trouble, but in the end, his efforts were actually a blessing in disguise.

All this time, Edsel had been searching for a way to return to his old world. Unfortunately, Regalia itself prevented him from doing that. A sort of impermeable barrier existed around the world. He later learned that this invisible barrier was something like a rift in space-time that separated different worlds and realities from one another.

Unless you possessed divine power, crossing a trans-dimensional rift was impossible.

Edsel did not know how, but the Demon King actually managed to move his sub-space over into the void plains, an area in existence outside the boundaries of any one reality. And just like that, Edsel was able to bypass his greatest obstacle.

His desperate teleportation attempt had transported him over towards the closest world that Edsel had previously visited. As it turns out, that world just so happened to be his old world: a planet named Plume.

Edsel could only marvel at his own luck. The goal that he had so desperately tried to achieve was accomplished due to a series of coincidental occurrences.

“With my experience of crossing over, there might even be a possibility of replicating it in the future,” Edsel muttered to himself. “As long as I have the prerequisite strength to break through the dimensional barrier, then it’s not impossible to return to Regalia. After all, I already have the coordinates memorized inside my head.”

A somewhat relieved smile formed on his face. Even though Edsel had desperately wanted to return to Plume, he did not completely hate Regalia. Like it or not, he had spent ten years in that world. In those ten years, he had made a fair number of friends.

Permanent goodbyes were never really his thing.

“Of course, that’s only with the right amount of strength…” Edsel looked down at his own hand. He breathed out a heavy sigh.

As expected, Edsel had paid quite a heavy price for his return. Right now, his body was comparable to that of a normal person. His superhuman levels of strength and his near-bestial reflexes were gone. Most important of all, his body lacked mana.

Even when he tried to sense mana, Edsel felt nothing.

Of course, this was not to say that mana did not exist in this world. In fact, he did not actually know if it existed or not. Since his body was one without mana, he naturally did not have the means to check.

It was unfortunate, but breaking through the sub-space and forcibly transferring back over to Plume had consumed everything he had.

“Well, it was bound to happen.”

Edsel did not dwell for too long on this topic.

Honestly, it was already a miracle that his body did not outright explode. If such a thing had happened, then he would be left with no other choice but to wander the world as an ethereal spirit.

“Enough about all that. Let’s focus on the present.” Edsel shook his head. “First of all, where the hell am I?”

He glanced up at his surroundings. The scenery looked familiar, but not familiar enough where he could recognize it. After a while, Edsel could only shake his head. “It’d be great if I had access to a GPS or something…”

Unfortunately, Edsel found it somewhat difficult to go up to a random bystander and ask to borrow their phone. He had tried. Nearly all of them ran away, while the ones that didn’t, threatened to call the police on him.

Their reactions were understandable. After all, no one in their right mind would willingly give up their phone to someone as shady-looking as the current him. Even though he understood the reason behind it, he still couldn’t help but feel a tad bit despondent.

Edsel could only continue walking. After a while, his arms grew tired from carrying around his leather armor. Normally, this amount of weight would have been nothing. Unfortunately, he was not the normal him.

Edsel decided to just dump his stuff in a nearby alleyway. There was a risk of someone stealing it, but he did not really care. The leather armor was already badly damaged from his fight. The magical energy that once enhanced it was no more. Other than sentiment, it was of no value to the current him.

There was also the option of putting it back on, but after some thought, he decided against it. Wearing something like that in this hot of a weather was basically asking for a heat stroke.

He dumped his clothes for a similar reason.

Without the weight holding him down, Edsel’s walking speed increased. Eventually, the crowd began to thin. He looked up. The buildings here looked a bit more delipidated than before.

The sidewalk was covered in cracks while large and small potholes alike dotted the street. Even the people had changed. Gone were the smartly-dressed businessmen and colorful couples. Instead, there were men with rougher appearances and women in scantily-clad outfits.

Edsel abruptly stopped. He suddenly remembered. This place, he had never actually been here before but he had heard of it.

Hovel. A neighborhood located within the north-eastern section of Harlock’s Bedlam borough.

It was a rather infamous part of the city with a less than stellar reputation.

To make things short, it was a shady neighborhood where it was common for the poor and the criminally-minded to share the same apartment building. In here, gunshots were a common occurrence, and hard drugs were as plentiful as lollipops.

Due to the high mortality rates, the neighborhood went largely ignored by the police. It couldn’t be helped. Dispatch calls from Hovel would only result in officer deaths. The city had experienced far too much of those. Ironically enough, they found it far more effective to just ignore the neighborhood rather than confront it directly.

As a result of the police’s attitude, Hovel became something like a sanctuary for the city’s lawbreakers.

When he was a child, his parents often told him to stay away from this place.

Anywhere else in Harlock is fine, just make sure you stay away from Hovel. Even to this day, Edsel still remembered his mother’s words.

A soft smile formed on his face. Even if he did lose his strength, as a former hero, he had no reason to fear a measly neighborhood.

In fact, Edsel believed that this neighborhood was a blessing in disguise.

After searching for so long, he finally found a way to fix his current appearance.

“Since I’m already here, I might as well just steal some clothes.” He spoke to himself with an utterly serious expression on his face.

Other than a few unfortunate souls trapped by circumstance, most of the people who lived here were criminals. Stealing from bad guys did not make him feel guilty at all.

Speaking of which…

Edsel’s eyes landed on a shady-looking white van a few dozen meters away from him. The vehicle looked run down, its surface heavily stained with mud and grease. The van slowly cruised along the street.

That was not all. Located a few meters in front of the van, there was also a lady on the sidewalk. Judging by the way she was dressed, she was probably poor. Hovel had very cheap real estate. As a result, the neighborhood became a population center for the poor and unfortunate.

The lady walked alone. Normally, that sort of thing shouldn’t matter. After all, it was still light outside. Not even Hovel could be so brazen as to kidnap someone in broad daylight, right?

Edsel did not really think it would happen, but… the possibility was always there.

As time passed, the van drew increasingly closer and closer to the lady. She also noticed the van’s oddity. Her steps hastened, but the van quickly matched her pace.

After a few painfully tense minutes, the van suddenly sped up. It came to an abrupt stop right next to the lady. Without hesitation, the woman sprinted away, but she was half a second too slow. The car door slid open and two muscular men stepped out.

They lunged towards her.

Despite the rapidly escalating severity of the situation, Edsel did not panic.

He jogged over towards the van. Luckily, the lady was a bit of a fighter. Even against two guys with superior strength, she furiously bit and scratched at them like a spastic cat. She bought him quite a bit of time.

A slight smile formed on Edsel’s face.

As a hero, faced with this sort of situation, he naturally knew what he needed to do.

I haven’t done this in a while, but… shall I go rescue a damsel in distress?