The slums of Evelyn is a cruel place to live.
The living condition itself is inhumane - you can find people dying at every corner. Even those not involved in any violent crimes would still find themselves contracting an illness or disease after a few years.
That is, if they live long enough to suffer from it of course.
The reason for this was simple - overpopulation in the bottom tier of the hierarchy.
Due to its renowned reputation as the Iron Fortress, many immigrants come to Evelyn - whether legally or illegally.
After all, the Iron Fortress represents wealth, opportunities and future success. Only for the inner city of course.
That's why the slums exist in the first place. Not just to keep the poor in, but also to contain the lawless people from easily entering the inner city.
However, that also meant few people would care about the public safety in this area. It was barely considered to be a part of Evelyn after all.
Murder happened practically every single day. Not just a few, but hundreds. The corpses would then find themself gone. It was either the animals or the starved and deranged people.
'I hope not to resort to that one day' thought Irwiz, the young boy who used to be on the border of suicide.
Alongside his thoughts, his hands moved fast. In his left hand was a dead rat, in his right, a stone with a considerably sharp end.
He brought down his right hand like punishment from god as he smashed the tail of the rat.
He was just too damn starved.
Before coming, he was in a civilized world at least. He could somehow find food and shelter by working himself. Yet here, he just found things to be more and more uncivilized.
Although it hadn't reached the level those cannibals in the slums have.
Still, he hadn't eaten anything the past two days.
All food was scarce in the slums, even the damn rats were hard to catch. Let's not mention the rabid dogs either, if he encountered one, he had to run away. He didn't want to catch any illness doing so after all.
Then, the only option left was to scourge for leftover food from the trash.
Unfortunately, even the leftover food could be considered luxury. All edible food would find itself an owner before it came to the slums.
With no other choice, he could only resort to eating these rodents.
Disgusting, yes, but he had to do what he could do to survive.
This might seem bizarre coming from this nihilist but his curiousity had been peeked the past two days. Although he hadn't witnessed so himself, he had heard the fearful mutterings of the people towards the unknown and the mystics.
Also, there was this.
[Servant LCEF-707]
A floating blue screen above his head that no one could notice.
'Not even this kid'
Irwiz's eyes went to the boy besides him.
"Hey, don't damage the body! Also, give me my half already!" a brown haired boy with a small body and dirt all over his face muttered.
"Alright alright" Irwiz replied and split the tail into two.
"Here, catch" he threw the tail.
Somehow, he didn't have a problem talking with them at all.
"Thanks Irwiz" the boy snatched the tail from the air and spit on it. He gave it a few good rubs and then one from his cloth before starting to munch on it.
"No problem" Irwiz said before doing the same thing too.
With food so scarce, the rat's tail with its spicy flavor was a nice thing to chew on and release hunger.
At this moment, the boy seemed to notice something before shouting to Irwiz.
"Hurry, let's go back to the shelter already. The day's ending"
Indeed, the sun was already setting. If they didn't come back to give their daily hunt before nighttime, they wouldn't be able to enjoy the boss's shelter anymore.
So Irwiz didn't say anything and took the fruit of their labor before following the boy.
...
The boss they talked about was an immigrant who had been in the Iron Fortress for many years. He and a few other people sometimes take in able bodied stray kids from the slums.
In return for their shelter, the children had to complete a hunt for them every day while also following whatever else they to give them shelter.
Such a deal was very beneficial for the children as they didn't have to worry about the danger during nighttime anymore.
If you were a lone kid sleeping in the slums of Evelyn, you best believe you would wake up to be a slave or on someone's dinner table some day.
Thus, Irwiz had lucked out a lot when he came to this world. At that time, he didn't even know if he was dreaming or if he was in the same world anymore. None of the things that happened made sense after all.
Yet, from his extensive knowledge about geography of his home world, he could find none matching to have a prominent city called Evelyn or even nicknamed the Iron Fortress.
Such a name sounded straight out of the medieval times, he was confident he would've had an impression of such a place.
Not to mention, he didn't even know the religions here, and he didn't recognize the writings either. There also didn't seem to be any 'Internet', or 'Smartphones', or even cars.
Well, they could all be chalked up to the place he's in being the slums, but the people didn't know any of the stuff he talked about.
Not to mention... Irwiz's eyes wandered once again to the sky.
He looked to his right, a sun setting down. He looked to his left, another sun setting down.
One sun. Two suns.
Yes, there were two suns in the sky.
Irwiz never knew he would witness this before, not even in his wildest dreams. Yet, all the people in this world didn't seem to care about this nature's bizarrity - the two suns that set in the opposite directions.
In the end, Irwiz could only come to one conclusion - he had truly been isekaid in the truest sense.
A cold shudder went up his entire body - Irwiz could feel the excitement bursting through his veins. What abyss? What nihilism? What existential crisis?
He first had to view this world in its truest sense before he degraded back to his pessimistic views.