Chapter 2: Rejected. Again.
"...I'm sorry."
The girl bowed her head slightly, avoiding my eyes.
"But I'm not interested in dating anyone right now."
There was a brief, uncomfortable pause before she looked up and offered me an apologetic smile.
"I'm really sorry."
Then she turned and walked away, leaving me alone behind the school building with nothing but an unopened confession letter and what little remained of my dignity.
The wind rustled through the trees.
Birds chirped somewhere overhead.
Life continued without the slightest concern for my romantic failure.
"..."
I watched her disappear around the corner, then released a long sigh.
"Another one."
Honestly, I wasn't even disappointed anymore.
There came a point when repeated failure stopped being painful and became educational.
This was my thirteenth rejection.
Or possibly my fourteenth.
I had lost count somewhere along the way.
Either that, or I had simply stopped caring enough to keep an accurate record.
Both explanations were equally plausible.
I pulled out my phone and opened the note dedicated to my ongoing research.
After considering the latest results, I added another entry.
Rom-Com Protagonist Theory
Current Success Rate: 0%
Status: Looking Grim
I stared at the screen for a moment, then saved the note.
For science.
Obviously.
What?
Did you think I was doing this because I was desperate?
Please.
Have some faith in me.
This was serious research.
Groundbreaking research.
Research intended to determine, once and for all, whether protagonist privileges existed in this world.
So far, the evidence was not encouraging.
Thirteen—or possibly fourteen—rejections.
Zero girlfriends.
One increasingly damaged ego.
Statistically speaking, things were indeed looking grim.
Still, scientific progress required sacrifice.
And if that sacrifice happened to be my dignity, then so be it.
Ding—dong.
The warning bell echoed across the campus, announcing that break time was almost over.
I finished my soda, tossed the empty can into a nearby trash bin, and started making my way back toward the main building.
The halls were already filling with students returning to their classrooms. By the time I stepped through the door, several people had turned to look at me.
Some whispered to one another.
Others immediately looked away when I caught them staring.
They were probably discussing the confession.
Again.
I didn't particularly care.
People were going to talk regardless of what I did. I might as well give them decent material.
Without acknowledging any of them, I returned to my desk.
The protagonist's seat.
Back corner.
Beside the window.
A sacred location.
I dropped into the chair, leaned back, and waited for class to begin.
One minute passed.
Then two.
Then five.
Our teacher still hadn't arrived.
That was unusual.
Normally, she entered the classroom before the warning bell had even finished ringing, like some kind of educational speedrunner determined to begin class ahead of schedule.
A few students had already noticed her absence. Conversations gradually grew louder, and someone near the front began spinning a pen between his fingers while watching the door.
I frowned.
Then shrugged.
Not my problem.
Honestly, almost nothing interesting had happened during the past six months.
No mysterious transfer students had appeared.
No secret organizations had attempted to recruit or assassinate me.
There had been no demonic invasions, magical academies, ancient bloodlines, or suspiciously attractive girls falling from the sky.
Nothing.
Just school.
Homework.
And an increasingly impressive rejection record.
I had been isekai'd.
There was supposed to be a plot.
That was practically the entire point.
Instead, I had received six months of slice-of-life.
And not even the entertaining kind.
The boring kind.
The kind where nobody developed supernatural powers and every episode ended with unfinished homework.
I sighed and turned toward the window.
Then froze.
"...Huh?"
There was a tower in the middle of the city.
A massive tower.
My eyes narrowed as I slowly sat upright.
That definitely hadn't been there yesterday.
Actually—
Forget yesterday.
I was reasonably certain it hadn't been there when I arrived at school this morning.
The structure pierced the skyline like an enormous steel spear, rising so high that its upper levels nearly disappeared into the clouds.
It wasn't merely tall.
It was absurd.
The kind of building that should have taken years to construct and required countless public arguments about funding, zoning laws, and whether humanity genuinely needed another oversized monument to bad architectural decisions.
Yet there it stood.
Complete.
Impossible to overlook.
And somehow, nobody else in the classroom appeared to notice it.
"...What the hell is that?"
I leaned closer to the window.
Something about the tower felt familiar.
Not in the ordinary sense. I had never visited it, never seen it in the city, and certainly hadn't watched it being built.
But its shape tugged at the back of my memory.
I had seen something like it before.
Somewhere.
The realization left me uneasy.
I searched through years of half-forgotten anime, manga, and light-novel knowledge, trying to remember where that image belonged.
Then the classroom went silent.
Not gradually.
One moment, I could hear students talking behind me, chairs shifting against the floor, and the steady mechanical hum of the air conditioner.
The next, every sound disappeared.
I blinked.
The whispers were gone.
So was the scraping of chairs.
Even the noise from the street below had vanished.
"..."
I remained facing the window for several seconds, listening.
Nothing.
No voices.
No footsteps.
No movement.
The silence was so complete that I could hear my own breathing.
Too quiet.
Far too quiet.
I had watched enough horror movies to know that sudden silence was never a good sign.
Silence meant something was about to happen.
Usually something terrible.
Sometimes something fatal.
Occasionally both.
Slowly, I turned around.
And froze.
The classroom was gone.
Every desk.
Every chair.
Every student.
Gone.
"..."
For several seconds, I could only stare.
My mind seemed to reject the scene in front of me, as though reality might return to normal if I waited long enough.
It didn't.
Instead of rows of student desks, I saw workstations and rolling office chairs.
Computer monitors sat dark on long tables. Cubicle dividers split the room into narrow sections, while abandoned documents lay scattered across the floor.
I turned back toward the window.
Then toward the room again.
The tower was gone too.
So was the school.
I was standing inside an office building.
"...Did I just get isekai'd again?"
Honestly?
At this point, it wouldn't even crack the top five strangest things that had happened to me.
Still, joking about it didn't stop the chill creeping down my spine.
I rose from my chair—an office chair now, apparently—and carefully approached the nearest window.
The city outside looked wrong.
There was no other way to describe it.
Skyscrapers filled the horizon in every direction, packed together so densely that I could barely see the streets between them.
Yet there were no pedestrians.
No traffic.
No aircraft passing overhead.
Nothing moved.
Nothing made a sound.
The entire city appeared abandoned.
A cold weight settled in the pit of my stomach.
Suddenly, the situation no longer felt amusing.
Empty cities in fiction were never empty because everyone had decided to take a vacation at the same time.
They were empty because everyone had died.
Or because something had happened that made dying seem preferable.
I wasn't sure which possibility was supposed to comfort me.
Then a sound echoed through the hallway outside.
KRRRRKKKKK.
My entire body stiffened.
Metal scraping across the floor.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Heavy.
I remained motionless as the sound grew louder.
Closer.
Each scrape seemed to drag on longer than the last, accompanied by footsteps that carried enough weight to be heard through the closed door.
Whatever was out there wasn't in a hurry.
It didn't need to be.
The noise stopped directly outside the office.
"..."
My heartbeat quickened.
For several seconds, there was nothing.
Then—
KRRRRKKKKK.
Curiosity won.
Unfortunately.
Curiosity always won.
Moving as quietly as I could, I lowered myself to the floor and approached the narrow gap beneath the door.
A pair of heavy boots passed through my limited field of vision.
Slow.
Unhurried.
The scraping sound followed immediately behind them.
Then I saw its source.
A massive sledgehammer dragged across the hallway floor.
Dark red liquid coated its head, dripping steadily onto the tiles and leaving a thick trail behind it.
Blood.
A lot of blood.
"...Well."
My curiosity vanished immediately.
I stayed pressed against the floor as the figure continued down the hallway. The footsteps gradually faded, followed by the slow scrape of metal against tile.
Only when both sounds had disappeared completely did I release the breath trapped in my lungs.
Carefully.
Quietly.
I sat against the nearest desk and stared at the trail of blood visible beneath the door.
Then something shifted inside my memory.
The tower.
The silent city.
Skyscrapers stretching endlessly in every direction.
Rope bridges suspended between rooftops.
Masked killers hunting terrified survivors.
And suddenly—
Everything clicked.
"..."
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Then, after several seconds—
"...Oh."
I knew this world.
I had seen it before.
It came from a manga I had read years ago.
Not all of it.
Unfortunately, I hadn't been interested enough to finish the series or memorize every useful detail.
But I remembered enough.
Enough to know the city was a death trap.
Enough to know the people wearing masks were compelled to hunt and kill.
Enough to know that escape would not be as simple as reaching the ground floor and walking away.
Most importantly, I remembered that people died here.
A lot of people.
And I had just watched someone drag a blood-soaked sledgehammer past the room where I was hiding.
I leaned back against the desk.
Then laughed.
It was a single, dry sound with no real humor behind it.
"Haha..."
Six months.
Six entire months.
After all the investigating...
After countless conspiracy theories...
After every ridiculous guess and failed experiment...
I had finally discovered what world I was in.
And honestly?
I would have preferred not knowing.
End of Chapter 2