Life is an endless routine.
Get up, eat something to fuel yourself, and go to work.
That is the task for such people, for poor people, for workers who are nothing more than a mechanism to make rich people even richer.
And this wealth is everything in this world, in this disgusting and polluted world of 2138.
There is no light from which you can draw strength. The sky is always hidden behind black smog, and the sun appears only occasionally.
There is no clean air like there used to be, from which your lungs could be saturated with oxygen, charging you with energy. You couldn't just breathe the air, it was too polluted. A thick, toxic fog often covered the cities, so almost no one went outside without wearing a gas mask.
The world of 2138 is terrible.
Since the plants that could convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and absorb nitrogen oxide had all dried up due to the death of the sun, atmospheric pollution only intensified. As the number of plants declined, the populations of birds and insects that fed on their leaves and fruits also declined.
Problems also came to the water. Pollution was rampant, making the water murky and turning rivers disgusting colors. The pollution was so severe that water purification systems stopped working, so even tap water had to be filtered before it could be drunk.
With nature almost completely destroyed, people had no choice but to rely on artificial lungs, created solely for their safety, to help them breathe in the current poor environmental conditions.
The world of 2138 was a disgusting place.
And Japan, once a place of innovation, was the worst place of all.
In the 2138, Japan was effectively ruled not by the government, but by corporations. Huge conglomerates even changed the laws in favor of companies, and the reality was that they controlled the people.
The company's actions were only to line their own pockets, and their own greed brought the world to this state. Yes, the whole world, not just Japan. After all, it was the huge conglomerates that originally damaged the environment. If they had protected the environment, there would have been no food shortages or riots.
The rich were not bothered by ordinary people, and they found a new way to build a wall between them. Those who belonged to the conglomerates took refuge in "full-environment cities" called Arcologies. Employees and affiliates rejoiced at how different they were from the outside world.
Those who lived in the arcologies were not bothered by the rest of the world. They were not bothered by crime, because there was almost none, they were not bothered by food restrictions, because they had greenhouses where they grew vegetables and fruits, they were not bothered by acid-like and foul-smelling rains caused by the rarely shining sun and the large number of deaths on the streets.
But one person was concerned about this. Could he do anything about it?
Absolutely nothing.
His heart was breaking from all this. Just a short while ago, on his way home from work, he saw a dead child on the road, and it was SO commonplace that no one even paid attention, no one even stopped to look, they just kept walking. And it hurt him, he felt sorry for them, because if it weren't for his deceased mother who had managed to enroll him in school before her death, he would have been in their place.
He entered the stairwell of his apartment building and hurried to take off his gas mask. The corridors of the apartment building were equipped with air purifiers, so he didn't want to keep the mask on for a second longer.
With weary steps, under the dim light of the bulbs, he climbed to his floor.
Everything around him was terrible, and his only salvation, his only distraction, was video games. But it would be more accurate to call them virtual games. A special set that included a gaming chair and a special helmet for immersion in virtual reality. It was artificial reality that could give ordinary people the beauty of nature that once filled this beautiful land. But it was only visual pleasure, nothing more.
And it was this beauty that he was rushing to connect to, with his new friends whom he found in the game called YGGDRASIL.
"Finally home..." he muttered to himself as he climbed to his floor. He walked to the door of his apartment, holding his office bag in his left hand and reaching out with his right to turn the doorknob and open it.
"Huh...?"
Something was shining under the door, brightly, very brightly, enveloping everything in white light.
It shouldn't be like that. He knew for sure that he had turned off the lights before leaving for work. It was a necessary measure; he was saving energy and didn't want to pay more for utilities.
But he only noticed it after he opened the door.
Something bright hit his eyes, so strong that he had to squint. It was too stupid, wrong to go where you think it's dangerous.
He already regretted opening the door, and a thought flashed through his mind like the speed of light that this was even the end for him. Or maybe it was some thugs who had broken into his apartment and, hearing the door open, threw a flashbang grenade. And now he was going to die. A twenty-year-old clerk who had achieved nothing, and will not even achieve if he continues to live on
It was a cruel thought, but nothing else came to mind.
Hmm.
His eyes were still closed, but there was no pain. He twitched his face, his facial expressions were intact. Daring to open his eyes, tightening his grip on his briefcase, ready to use it in case of attack, he looked up.
"Ugh..." The letters didn't want to form words, and the words didn't want to form sentences, so only a sound of bewilderment escaped his throat, and his sharp features took on a look of shock.
He barely crossed the threshold—and it was as if he had entered another dimension. This wasn't HIS modest apartment. Although it was definitely his apartment building... What?
The air... it was completely different. No dust, no heavy odors—just wood, which he had only seen a few times in his life. He took a breath and froze for a moment: his lungs seemed to open wider than ever before, as if they had finally found the reason for breathing. Nothing tickled his nose, nothing stung — the air was so clean that it seemed almost sweet. The light fell softly on the walls, not cold and white, but warm, like the rare reflection of the sun. It did not hurt his eyes or tire him — on the contrary, it warmed and enveloped him. He looked at the dancing shadows on the wooden walls and thought that if peace had a color, it would look exactly like this.
It was as if he had stepped into a scene from an old American movie.
He stepped inside, cautious, afraid to break the silence. His eyes traveled slowly across the room. The floorboards were smooth and warm, each one worn and marked by time. The walls were made of logs—they gleamed softly and smelled of fresh wood and pine resin.
Then he noticed the armchair. It was large, its back facing him, sitting like a throne in the middle of the room. Nearby, a fireplace glowed with low flames, painting the wooden walls with soft, shifting light.
He tilted his head up and stopped. The ceiling soared—five meters high, maybe more. The space felt open, easy to breathe in. A chandelier hung from above, its shape curving gently, without any showy glamour. Unlike his boss's cold, glittering office light, this one felt warm, made for quiet evenings.
"Come in, don't be shy," came a voice from ahead.
It was a low, confident, resonant voice speaking in Japanese.
Yes, the speaker was ahead of him, but he spoke so clearly that every word seemed to pierce the air and reach his ears without fail.
The guy didn't immediately understand how he hadn't noticed it before — because of the chair, the largest object in the room, someone's hand was resting calmly on the armrest. It was simple: the comfort had distracted him. But the voice brought him back to reality with a start.
He instinctively cringed — a natural reaction to the unknown, and paranormal Moment like this one.
"Um... who..." The words stuck in his throat, caught somewhere between fear and the inability to believe what was happening.
Footsteps echoed softly behind the chair. One. Then another—heavy and slow. With each step, the wooden floor let out a faint creak.
A figure moved out from behind the high back. First, a shoulder, broad as a stone column. Then, the line of a jaw, covered in a neatly trimmed gray beard so precise it looked carved from stone.
The guy froze. Even from here, he felt it—something was wrong. The air grew thick, heavy. Is it him? Did he forget to breath or the hallucinations become worse? He blinked hard, twice. But the figure kept coming.
Now he could see the hair—short, graying, perfectly combed. Then the face. A smile, wide and calm, with teeth too white to be real. It was a kind smile, but… perfect in a way that wasn't right.
He wore a dark blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up, the thick fabric stretched over strong arms. White pants, dark socks—simple clothes, yet somehow flawless.
Poor guy just realized: with every step, the man seemed to grow. At first he thought it was a trick of the light, the angle. But no—the closer he came, the larger he loomed. The ceiling was high, terribly high, and yet the old man's head was nearing it. From his perspective.
The guy swallowed hard.
A man stood before him. Real. Warm. Alive.
And at least three meters tall.
"It's not a prank your friends did on you, it's not joke, not hallucinations and you not lost. And you didn't enter wrong door, my boy. " said old man making little step back, and lower his hand
The old man lowered his huge hand. His palm was bigger than the young man's entire head. His bicep alone seemed thicker than his entire torso. The old man radiated sincerity, and the young man understood that he could relax a little, but his body refused to obey. With one movement of that hand toward him, his heart began to beat faster and louder.
But all the old man did was slowly poke him in the shoulder with his finger.
Huh?
This unexpected gesture caused Suzuki's fingers to unclench, and the briefcase almost fell to the floor. His face froze in confusion.
"Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Don't be afraid!" the old man laughed, seeing his reaction. "I just showed you that I'm real. I apologize if you feel uncomfortable. My name is Rockwell Dragunov. I'm glad to welcome you here, my boy."
With a light chuckle, he stepped aside, giving the young man a moment to catch his breath, and stood sideways, opening a passage into the house.
"D-Dragunov, you say, Oji-san? Are you... Slavic?" Suzuki looked up and almost instinctively chose a respectful form of address, not wanting to offend such open kindness. "And without an accent... you speak Japanese very good, Dragunov-san."
"Bwa-ha-ha-ha! Thank you for the compliment!", the old man smiled broadly. " But it's only you who hears me that way."
"Wh-what do you mean, Dragunov-san?"
The old man slowly walked back to his chair, turned his back to it, and then turned around, placing his hand on the backrest. He looked back at the guy, who was still frozen at the door.
"Let me introduce myself properly," he said, a solemn note appearing in his voice. "My name is Rockwell 'Colossus' Dragunov. I have been in charge of this place for some time now. I call it CrossStart... or Crossover—I haven't decided yet, bwahaha! It is the point where the branches of infinity converge with other branches, the place where all important events and streams of fate intersect. It leads those who need help to me and guides me to them. I control everything here, and therefore I understand everyone. "
He put his hand on his chest, raised his head, and gazed somewhere above, beyond the high ceiling. His smile became almost heroic.
"For the beat and broken, for the lost and forsaken— I will rise to the call!
His pose was like that of a superhero on a poster. But the old man couldn't hold it together and was the first to crack.
"Pff-bwa-ha-ha-ha! Sorry, kid. My good friend thought it would be cool to introduce myself to new guests this way. Too poetic, in my opinion. What do you think?"
Suzuki could have said something. But all he could manage was:
"Um..."
"What's your name?" Dragunov asked gently.
"S-Suzuki Satoru, D-Dragunov-san..."
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[A/N: I'm sorry if dialogue is rushed or it's done make sense at all. It's been a while since I written anything. Will improve myself. Also there is pic in comments of how MC looks like]