"Why is it so damn cold here?" Haruto, who had just opened his eyes, couldn't help but curse. He had purchased a heavy blanket a few days ago, as the cold was growing more intense with each passing day, but he didn't think that the damn blanket would stop working so quickly.
As he looked around, he realized something was wrong almost immediately.
"Where am I? This isn't my room," he mumbled, getting down from the bed. The house looked like it was made of low-quality wood and screamed one word: 'Medieval.' Though he wouldn't have thought that normally, being an avid reader of manga, one thing he could definitely identify the moment he saw it was the setting of the house, which felt like it belonged in that kind of world.
Looking around the almost empty room, with just a single bed in the middle, reminded him of that setting. At that moment, it felt like he was staying in some sort of inn.
But all of this was just his otaku hypothesis, which couldn't be easily believed. He needed to check things out.
With all those thoughts constantly fighting for dominance in his mind, Haruto turned his attention toward the small window and decided to head over to perceive the outside scenery, which would immediately tell him whether he was dreaming some otaku dream or if it was all real.
As he walked forward on the creaking wooden floor, Haruto placed his hand on the wooden window and looked outside. The first thing he did was take a deep breath; the earthy scent and pure oxygen flooded his nostrils. 'This is really the other world,' he thought, closing his eyes and shouting in his mind.
Looking outside the window, he could clearly tell that this was an isekai world, as beast-humans were walking right down the street—a species that didn't exist on Earth, sadly.
'But why are there so few of them?' Haruto couldn't help but complain. Among all the people walking around on the street, he had only seen two beast-humans, and both were men. It seemed like his luck was just as bad here, as most main protagonists upon their arrival in another world get to see beautiful beast-women and their impressive melons... umm, I think I trailed off the topic.
"So, I have transmigrated to an isekai world; that's the main thing here." With a smile on his face, Haruto closed the window, still feeling cold, as the clothes he wore were too thin and medieval.
Returning to the bed, Haruto tried to recall the memories of his predecessor; however, the more he tried, the more he felt he wouldn't be able to recall anything at all. In the end, he gave up on that and instead decided to look for more important things like money, more clothes, or weapons.
Thankfully, after searching the whole room and his pockets, he found a few bronze coins and a small sword lying under the bed, which he picked up, believing his predecessor was its obvious owner. He then decided to walk out of the room to gather more information about this world.
"Good morning," Haruto greeted the innkeeper walking down, as his guess about this being an inn turned out to be quite true.
"Oh, you're awake," the old innkeeper said, ignoring Haruto's greeting. "I was just about to come up and knock on your door. You know your time has been up for an hour ago."
It seemed like the guy was quite a rule follower, but either way, since he needed information, Haruto just smiled and said, "Haha, sorry about that. I'm quite a heavy sleeper. Anyway, can I have breakfast?"
Hearing the word "breakfast," the innkeeper's face brightened a little. "That would be 5 bronze coins. Take a seat there, and I'll bring it to you," he said, pointing toward the empty chairs.
Looking around the inn, Haruto could immediately tell that inn wasn't doing well, as there were only two or three people currently inside. But since that wasn't a topic of concern for him, he turned his attention back to the innkeeper and asked, "Before that, is there anything around here that could help me earn more money? You know, I'm sort of low on cash," while flashing the small sword.
The innkeeper stared at Haruto for a moment in confusion, and then, as if he were in a hurry, he said, "Dungeons—aren't those places where people like you earn money most of the time? Or are you just trying to joke with me? If that's the case, I don't have time." With that, he turned around and left for the room in the back, without even giving Haruto a second glance.
'That was a stupid question, I guess,' Haruto thought, smiling at the absurdity of it. At the same time, he felt a little relieved that there were dungeons in this world; without them, what kind of isekai world would this be?
Anyway, leaving all those thoughts aside, Haruto didn't want to hear anything else from that straight-faced old man, so he quietly sat down on one of the empty chairs and began to wait for his food to arrive.
"Bruno, when are we going to get out of this village? There's nothing but slimes to kill in that dungeon?" Just as Haruto took a seat, one of the two men suddenly spoke up, complaining.
"What can we do? We're hardly surviving in this village. Do you think we'll be able to keep up in the city?" the other man said, almost slamming his hand on the table. "You know we're just F-rank adventurers. Even if we go to the city, we'll be treated as nothing but trash."
'That's quite a harsh thing to say about oneself,' Haruto thought as he listened to the conversation. But at the same time, this was sort of the reality; in the mangas, F-rank adventurers were often treated as nothing but trash, sometimes even used as meat shields in certain scenarios.
'But why am I getting a reality check the moment I arrive in this world?' Haruto couldn't help but complain.