A well-dressed man droned on about the intricacies of calculus, doing his best to keep his voice as monotone as possible. Shawn closed his eyes. He was convinced that if the U.N ever investigated this class, they would be forced to convict the teacher of crimes against humanity. What specific crimes he wasn’t sure about, but he knew it couldn’t be legal to be this boring.

He sighed. I wish my life was more interesting. Anything would be better than having to sit through this. When he opened his eyes he was no longer in his university classroom.

“What the fuck,” Shawn mumbled to himself, unable to process what had just happened. He stepped forward to get a better sense of his surroundings, but slipped on a banana peel, sending him crashing to the ground. The banana peel made a lazy arc through the air before landing on his head with a wet slap. He groaned from within a pile of trash but didn’t get up.

I knew I shouldn’t have drank that milk, it was clearly rotten. I must be hallucinating. Shawn counted his fingers and did every mental exercise he could remember to determine if what he was seeing was real.

After much mental debate, Shawn concluded that he hadn’t gone insane. Now that he wasn’t on the edge of having a mental breakdown, he noticed something strange about the air.

Shawn sniffed the air from his nest of trash. He immediately regretted his decision as a torrent of putrid air assaulted his senses. Fighting back the urge to vomit, he found the offending item, a half-eaten hamburger covered in mold and black sludge. Tentatively, he grabbed a paper bag off the ground and used it to toss the burger away from him.

Satisfied that the air around him was no longer toxic enough to send him to a near-death state, he took a deep breath. Beyond the scent of rotting food, was something thick and heavy, unfamiliar to anything he had ever felt before. It wasn’t a scent or sensation, it was something more than that. It prickled the back of his neck, simultaneously numbing and burning it. Whatever it was, it completely eluded his understanding.

His nerd senses were screaming at him. This had to be something special. But then again, Shawn looked up at the dark haze-filled sky, Maybe it’s just smog? What kind of isekai world has smog, aren’t they supposed to be medieval?

Fortunately, he could force the sensation to the back of his mind and ignore it. So, that’s what he did. Two feet deep in a pile of trash wasn’t exactly the best place to ponder the secrets of the universe.

Shawn peeled a blue banana peel off his head and decided that he shouldn’t lay in a pile of trash like an idiot for any longer. He pulled himself to his feet and observed his surroundings for the first time in this new world.

Bright neon lights seeped in from the mouth of the alley, painting everything in shades of blue and pink. Piles of trash taller than Shawn littered the ground. Graffiti covered every square inch of the cracked stone walls surrounding him. All in all, it was the type of place his Mom would have told him to avoid.

Shawn heeded his mother's advice and followed the neon lights towards the edge of the alley. Though the journey was not as easy as it sounded, the piles of trash were too large for him to avoid, so he had to climb over them.

Despite having been teleported to a run-down alley filled with trash his heart fluttered in excitement. He had always dreamed about being transported to another world. Reading bad web novels had been a hobby of his. Of course, none of his friends knew that, they would probably laugh at him if they knew. Still, he had lost many nights of sleep to those books.

Shawn peeled a moldy slice of bread off his pant leg. It beats sitting through another boring math lecture. He continued traversing the obscenely long alleyway with a pep in his step.

While climbing one particularly large pile of trash a dark object blurred past him, causing Shawn to lose his footing. He let out a scream in fright and tumbled down the pile. When he opened his eyes at the bottom of the pile, a man in a dark cloak stood over him, staring at him with cold red eyes.

“Wow, don’t scare me like that man. I didn’t see you there,” Shawn laughed good-naturedly, grateful for finding someone who could tell him where he was.

Before he could react, the man slapped his hand over Shawn’s mouth. “Be quiet,” the man said as he reached into his pocket.

Fear gripped Shawn’s heart, as neon light reflected off the cold steel of the man's knife. His sheltered life had left him unprepared for this type of situation, he hadn’t even considered the possibility that the man would threaten his life.

The man let go of Shawn’s mouth. “Give me all your money and you don’t have to get hurt.”

Shawn’s jaw dropped. Not even ten minutes after coming to this world he was being robbed. All the books he had read made being summoned to another world sound fun.

This wasn’t fun.

“I don’t have any money,” Shawn stuttered. He told the truth. His pockets had been emptied during the teleportation process.

The man ground his teeth and brought his knife closer to Shawn. Shawn flinched, images of his dead body buried under a heap of trash assaulted his mind. Based on the man's body language his wild imagination wasn’t far off from reality for once. There was no doubt in his mind that the red-eyed man would be willing to kill him.

In Shawn’s opinion, it was always better to try a diplomatic approach before resorting to violence, especially when you have scrawny arms. He flexed his underdeveloped bicep under his sweatshirt.

So he engaged in the type of diplomacy he knew best: deception. More specifically, lying in a bid to buy time. He wasn’t sure what he was buying time for. He was still working on that part. But, he was certain an opportunity would present itself to him if he kept talking for long enough.

“I wasn’t lying. I gave all my money away,” Shawn said quickly. He sunk his hands into the pile of trash and desperately searched for something that he could use to escape. His fight or flight response activated surging adrenaline through his system, boosting his physicality, but clouding his mind.

Before the man could get a word in, Shawn continued. “I am on a divine mission from the government to give money to the poor. You see, the Prime Minister of Defense gave me this mission himself. If I go missing government agents will surely investigate my death and you will be caught.” Shawn’s hand found purchase on something hard in the trash pile.

“But, if you let me go, you could make a lot of money. The government is sending a large amount of money for me to distribute to the poor next week. If you can hold on till then you would be rewarded handsomely.” He gripped the object hidden in his hand so hard his knuckles turned white.

The man lowered his knife as he face-palmed at the stupidity of what Shawn was saying. “You think I would believe a word you are saying. I’m not an idiot,” the man said with a sigh.

This was his chance. Shawn grinned. “Yes, you are.” Without a second thought, Shawn took advantage of the man's lapse in attention and slammed the object in his hand into the man’s temple.

The man blinked, unaffected by Shawn’s attack. ”You tried to stab me in the head with a fork?” Shawn looked at his hand in horror. Grasped within his pale fingers was a rusty fork. Why couldn’t I have pulled out something useful from the pile?

The man swatted Shawn’s arm out of the way, bruising the skin, and once more raised his knife menacingly. "Oh well, I always wanted to try mugging someone. A little extra money would have been nice, but it was never my goal."

Shawn gulped. When violence and diplomacy have failed there’s only one option left, run away as fast as possible.

“Sorry, please don’t kill me!” Shawn screamed as he sprinted away. He knew he couldn’t win this fight. He had felt it when he hit the man’s head, the difference in their power. It had felt like he had struck a wall of solid steel. He could hit the man all day long and it wouldn’t matter, he wouldn’t be able to put a scratch on the red-eyed man.

Shawn tore through the alley, sending swathes of trash flying through the air whenever he had to climb a particularly large pile. If he wasn’t in such a dangerous situation he would be worried about all the littering he was doing.

Before long he was gasping for air. His lazy lifestyle had come back to bite him, his mom had always told him he should exercise more. He spared a glance behind him and saw the man had not moved to follow him. Relief coursed through his veins.

Of course, at that moment disaster struck. Due to his moment of inattention, Shawn tripped on something within a trash pile, sending him crashing to the ground. He unleashed a long stream of expletives as he hit the ground.

Shawn groaned. That fall is gonna leave a mark. He glanced backwards once again and just about had a heart attack. The robed man had closed the distance and was standing directly over him. Shawn pushed himself backwards and got to his feet.

“How long can you run away?” The man said with a smile on his face. The man’s arm blurred as he threw a knife at Shawn, barely missing him. “It’s fun not being the person being pushed around for once.” Shawn didn’t wait for him to stop talking before he started running away.

Occasionally, the man would throw a knife at Shawn and demand he run faster. But Shawn wasn't listening, he was too busying running for his life. For once Shawn was lucky in this new world, each knife would come close, but never hit him. However, his luck quickly ran dry when he ran into a dead end.

Well, a dead end of sorts, a 30 foot tall concrete wall blocked his path. On top of the wall, he could see that the alleyway continued, albeit with slightly less garbage on the ground. Unfortunately, there was no ladder to help climb the wall, so for all intents and purposes, for him, it was a dead end.

Shawn pressed his back against the wall as the red-eyed man slowly approached him. His heart dropped, there was nowhere left to run and all his plans had failed. The concrete wall cracked as a knife buried itself into it mere inches away from Shawn’s head.

“Is that all?” the man asked, his hand still outstretched from throwing the knife.

Tears sprouted up in the corner of his eyes. His instincts screamed at him to pull the knife out of the wall and to go down fighting. But he knew there was no point. He wasn’t like the characters in the novels he loved, he wasn’t strong, he wasn’t smart, nor was he particularly gifted at anything. He was just an average guy. If he tried to fight he wouldn’t even last a second.

I want to go home.

The man stood before him, eyes cold with disdain. “You got spirit, I’ll give you that kid, but that’s not enough. You gotta be tough to survive here. Honestly, I’m doing you a favor, you wouldn’t last in this city. You’re lucky someone as nice as me found you, the Den would do much worse things to you than I ever would. Don’t even get me started on the Spirit Leaf Gang.” The man raised a knife into the air, prepared to throw it.

“Why,” Shawn mumbled bitterly. “I did nothing to you. Why are you doing this?”

The man rolled his eyes. “This city has taken everything from me: my friends, my family, my pride. Every day, I would get up and try to make the most of my life, to help other people, to be a good person. And you know what happened? Every day, I would get kicked to the ground, my efforts to help would fail, and I would be forced to watch as those who were stronger than me, took everything I cared about,” the man said, gaining momentum as he continued.

“So, I decided it’s about time I start fighting back. And you know what? It feels good to be on the other end of the equation.” The veins in the man’s eyeballs began twitching. “By the time I’m done with them, they’ll understand how I felt. To constantly live in fear of being trampled on by the powerful.” The man sighed.

“It’s nothing personal. I just have to show them what fear feels like, and the first step to achieving that goal is to have people die on their turf.”

Shawn grimaced. The man clearly had a screw loose, but he seemed intent on talking for now.

“Is that concern for me I see on your face? Don’t worry before they’re able to catch me, I’ll be long gone, living the highlife tucked safely behind golden walls.”

Shawn didn’t bother correcting the man. Suddenly, the man’s head snapped to the side as a shocked expression crossed his face. He quickly schooled his features.

“They’re still following me… they won’t stop till they get it,” he muttered under his breath.

The man in the robe laughed. “Forget what I said earlier. I have to admit I like your style, no one has ever tried to stab me with a fork before. Here, take this coin as a token of my apology,” the man tossed a coin to him. “If you tell anyone what happened here I’ll know,” he said. The man jumped over the 30-foot concrete wall, then disappeared in a blur of movement.

Shawn looked back and forth confused by the criminal's sudden switch in demeanor. What just happened? One second he wanted to kill me and the next he was acting like we were best friends. The whole situation seemed odd to him, but he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. For all, he knew the man was insane.

Shawn wiped the tears from his eyes. The fog covering his mind cleared and he found that he was able to think clearly once again. Like the day after an argument, ideas came streaming into his previously blank brain. Why did I say I worked for the Prime Minister of Defense? Is that even a job on this planet?

Dozens of better lies assaulted his mind as he fought the urge to facepalm. A blue box appeared in front of Shawn derailing his train of thought.

Due to your recent actions, you have gained the skill [Deception]. Skill slots 2/3. (Advance your cultivation to unlock more skill slots.)

Shawn clicked [Deception] with his finger and a new box appeared.

Deception Lvl 1: The ability to tell a convincing lie. At this level, you would be lucky to fool a child. (Check your [Status Menu] and your [Skill List] for more information.)

He winced as his adrenaline levels faded and his exhaustion made itself known. He felt like he had ran a marathon, and while that may not be the truth, he had ran more today than he had in the past several years combined.

Shawn regained some of his enthusiasm, a strained smile crossing his face. Gaining a superpower like this was a literal dream come true for him. He was happy, but not as happy as he thought he would be. Almost dying had muddled his enthusiasm for the matter.

With a small amount of mental concentration, Shawn made the blue boxes disappear. Things are looking up for me now. I may have had a bad start, but at least that means things can’t get any worse.

As soon as the thought crossed his mind three men wearing green cloaks jumped over him in a blur of movement. They weren’t as fast as the man in the black cloak, but they were still moving faster than anybody he had seen before today.

Shawn hoped that the men in green robes were this world's version of the police, chasing down the man with red eyes for his undoubtedly heinous crimes. But he wasn’t willing to take any chances. They could also be psychopathic criminals.

With shaking hands Shawn pocketed the coin and rusty fork then sprinted out of the alley as fast as he could.