SMASH or PASS

"Fucking hell..."

I think it was thirty seven.

Yes.

It was thirty seven days that passed since I got to this world.

What is this shit called?

Kidnap?

Forced multiversal immigration?

This’s gotta be illegal, right?

I sighed as I raised slowly from my bed, looking upward.

There was multiple cracks on the ceiling, which was leaking drops of water that fell slowly drop by drop.

It’s been there since I moved in a month ago. It was probably leaking from the apartment above me.

The landlord won’t fix it because the landlord is a sixty something year’s old hag who charges me half rent "as a kindness" and tells me I should be grateful a man my age has a roof at all without selling my body.

"I hate this..."

Why it gotta be me that got incarnated here? I didn’t die or anything.

And it’s gotta be one fucked up god to incarnate "me" of all people.

I sighed as I slowly climbed out of my bed.

But suddenly, something leaped onto me.

"Woof!"

She has long dark purple hair that falls well past her waist, bright violet eyes, and a pair of dog ears with lighter fur on the inside sitting high on her head. Her skin was pale and her build was soft and slim.

"Woof! Woof!"

Pressing her face into my neck and her tail was wagging fast.

She tried to stop it. It wagged harder. She buried her face deeper to hide it, which only made it worse because now she was embarrassed about being embarrassed and her tail was practically vibrating.

"...Morning Fenra."

"Morning Noel!"

The tail went absolutely insane.

I patted her head. her silver-white ears twitched under my fingers. it was soft and warm. She made a sound halfway between a whine and a purr, which shouldn’t be possible for a wolf type but Fenra had always been bad at following the rules of her own species.

I needed to get up.

She didn’t want me to get up. She wrapped her arms tighter. Her tail kept going. One of her ears tickled my chin. I could feel her heartbeat through my shirt, quick and steady, the way it always was in the morning.

"Fenra. I’ve got to register at the guild today."

"No~ Just a little more~"

She said with an unhappy, high-pitched tone. As she pressed closer.

"I know." I patted on her head.

"Woof!"

I peeled her off me. It took a few seconds. She held on like she’d been specifically designed to cling to things, which, given what wolfkin companions were bred for in this world, she probably had been. I pried her arms loose gently and sat up. She remained horizontal, watching me with her purple eyes, her tail finally slowing to a sulky back-and-forth.

I sighed as I got dressed then checked my wallet.

I had three silver coins and some coppers rattling around in a leather pouch that used to belong to the ’Original’ Noel.

That was it. That was everything I had.

The Baron’s monthly stipend covered rent and exactly nothing else, which meant I had about five days of bread money at best.

The apartment I and Fenra lived in was small. It only had one room and one window with a bed, a table, and a chair.

The window looked out onto a brick wall three feet away. My wardrobe was a wooden box shoved against the wall with two shirts, one pair of spare pants, and Fenra’s shed fur everywhere because wolfkin shed constantly and I’d given up cleaning after her by the second week.

Fenra sat on the bed watching me get dressed. Her ears tracked my movements, rotating like little radar dishes toward every sound I made.

"Noel~ Let’s go on a walk~"

"No way."

"Eehh~"

She was still in the oversized shirt she slept in. My shirt, technically.

She’d claimed it the first week and I couldn’t really do anything about it. Losing a shirt to a wolfgirl with separation anxiety was a battle not worth picking.

Even now her eyes were tracking me. As if she was making sure I wasn’t going to vanish the moment she looked away.

A month of the same routine and she still watched me like I might disappear. That was the wolfkin bonding, probably. Or just Fenra being Fenra. Hard to tell since I don’t have much information about her race.

"I’ll be back tonight. Don’t eat all the jerky."

"...yeah." Her ears went down.

She nodded then her tail gave one last defiant wag before she curled up on the bed, pulling the blanket over herself.

I sighed then closed the door behind me.

"Tsk... This fucking hallway stink as always."

Or rather stink it was... suffocating.

The apartment building was five stories of cramped rooms and thin walls. Every other resident was female except me. I’d learned to time my exits to avoid the morning rush in the stairwell, because the morning rush involved thirty women heading to work and one man trying to get past them without being invited to breakfast six times... or sexually assaulted.

I took the stairs because the lift had been broken since before I moved in. The old hag said the parts were "on order" three weeks ago and hadn’t mentioned it since.

"Tsk... I really hate this world."

I walked out of the building as I sighed.

The city in the morning hit different from the city at night.

There was market stalls lined every block, wooden frames and canvas canopies stretching from building to building across the narrow streets. Vendors shouted prices for bread, smoked fish, alchemical reagents in colored bottles I couldn’t identify, and something fried that the catkin vendors sold from wheeled carts that smelled incredible, knowing the sneaky fuckers they must have added couple of drugs in them.

The city itself was old. The lower buildings were stone, but the upper floors were wood and plaster added later, leaning over the streets at angles that looked unsafe and probably were.

Chimneys were everywhere and smoke rose from every rooftop, mixing with the morning mist until the sky above the city was a permanent gray haze that the sun had to fight through.

And women were... everywhere. That was the thing about this world that I still couldn’t fully get used to, even after a month. The streets had only women. The stalls had only women. The factory workers trudging toward the industrial district in their gray coats were women. The Thornguard patrol up on the wall, visible over the rooftops in their black armor, marching in formation along the rampart. Women.

For every hundred people I passed, maybe one was a man. Maybe. And when a man DID appear, the reaction was almost the same every time. About every women nearby will giggle and twirl their hair as they looked with at them with hunger.

’Please look anywhere else...’

As soon as I walked within the street, many had their heads turned. And their conversations paused. Existing while male in a city of a hundred thousand women made me the most interesting thing on any given street.

"Kyaah!"

A rabbitkin vendor bumped into me at a street corner.

"Oh? mmm... Are you alright?" I asked her with hesitation.

She was short and had fluffy ears, with wide pink eyes, carrying a tray of pastries that wobbled dangerously when she collided with my arm.

"Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry!" She steadied the tray, looked up, saw my face, and froze. Her ears went straight up. "Oh. Um. Sorry. For bumping. Into you. Sorry."

"It’s fine." Woah I got her frozen like a robot, I really feel bad for her. Men really are that rare here?

She was still staring at me and her pastries were tilting.

"Your tray?"

"Right! Yes! Tray!" She caught it then bowed three times in rapid succession, nearly lost the tray again, caught it a second time, and scurried away with her ears bright red.

"Goodbye?"

I watched her go. She glanced back once, twice, then disappeared around a corner.

I sighed once again.

This happened every day. Every single day. Sometimes multiple times per day. You’d think I’d feel like a celebrity or something. I didn’t. I felt like a steak in a room full of people who hadn’t eaten in a fucking week. Being wanted by everyone sounds great until you realize the wanting is impersonal. They didn’t want ME. They wanted A man. Any man. I was just the one who happened to be walking past.

I kept walking towards the guild anyway.

From today onwards, things are going to change a little!

Two women across the street had noticed the rabbitkin interaction and were looking at me now. One nudged the other.

They both giggled.

"Is he taken?"

"I don’t see a companion mark."

"Maybe I should..."

I ignored them. I got used to this by now.

The neighborhood shifted as I moved toward the guild. My apartment was in the Outer Sanctuary, the cheapest ring of the city. Worker housing, factory dormitories, market stalls selling things at prices that... suggested the vendors weren’t making much money either.

Past the Outer Sanctuary, the streets widened a little. This was the middle ring. The guild and ’average’ citizens territory. The Bronze Ledger guild had its main hall here, along with a few competing guild offices that handled specialized work.

There was also trade shops, equipment vendors, an alchemist shop, a blacksmith’s forge... and such things.

The middle ring was also where the Patchwork started bleeding in. The Patchwork was the informal name for the district where Covenant Race monster girls lived. Not as slaves but (sort of) citizens.

The Covenant of Purity had allowed certain monster girl species to live inside the walls generations ago in exchange for integration, labor, and compliance with human law.

Catkin, rabbitkin, cowkin, the less threatening monster girl types in general.

You could tell when you’d crossed into Patchwork territory because the ears changed from human ones to cat ears, rabbit ears, cow horns, fox tails. Women with features that wouldn’t have been human on Earth, walking to work, buying groceries, arguing with each other in the same tired morning voices that everyone used regardless of species. A catkin woman was yelling at a cowkin woman about a fence between their properties. The cowkin was twice her size and clearly didn’t care. The catkin didn’t care that she didn’t care. Normal neighborhood stuff, almost as if they were humans.

’Oh... this place.’

I passed the slave market on Third Street. It had more open air and broad daylight. Yes, totally legal by the way.

Wooden platforms arranged in a row along the curb, each one holding a woman. Most were Covenant Race types. A cowkin on the nearest platform had a number branded on her hip. 463. She was tall, thick, the bovine features obvious in the small horns curving from her temples but the real focus was the sheer massive size of her chest, straining against the thin fabric of her torn tunic.

A buyer, a human woman in a merchant’s coat, was checking her teeth the way you’d check a horse. her fingers were prying her mouth open. The cowkin stood still with blank eyes.

Prices were listed on signs next to each platform. The cowkin was 40 silver. A catkin two platforms down was 25. Her ears were flattened, her tail tucked between her legs. She was young. Probably my age. And a lamia at the far end was coiled on her platform, her serpentine lower body wound around the display post, watching the crowd with slit-pupil eyes. No price listed for her. [INQUIRE WITHIN] the sign said, which meant... expensive? I guess.

I kept walking. I didn’t really care since I got used to this in the first couple of weeks in this world. Among many other things.

Three blocks from the guild, I passed a Bronze Ledger recruitment poster nailed to a support beam. Big letters: [ADVENTURERS WANTED. ALL QUESTS AVAILABLE. MALES WELCOME. PREMIUM RATES.]

The "MALES WELCOME" was twice the size of everything else, printed in red ink. I think they really wanted men to know the door was open.

I was almost there when someone grabbed my arm.

"There you are."

’Fuck’

Helena Vellmont. She was... the Baron’s daughter.

She was twenty-two years old and she had a very long straight dark hair. She had a curvy and full figure and she was wearing a dress that cost more than my apartment building.

She had two attendants behind her carrying fancy shopping bags.

She’d been waiting for me from the look of it but... how?

She did not wait at the guild. but on the street. Three blocks away from where I’d need to be, which meant she’d either guessed my route or asked around. Both options were annoying.

Her grip on my arm was firm. Not painful. Just... present. The sort of grip that said ’you are not running.’

"Father wants you home for dinner tonight. I had the kitchen prepare something special." She smiled. She had perfect teeth and noble posture. The sapphire pendant at her throat caught the morning light.

"I was heading to the guild."

"That can wait."

"The registration deadline—"

"That can wait." She wasn’t asking.

"You need to eat properly. You look thin."

I wasn’t thin. I was exactly the same weight I’d been since I arrived. She said I looked thin every time she wanted me to come to the estate. It was a script. She followed it because it worked on the original Noel, who had apparently been the kind of person who folded when someone expressed concern about his health.

I wasn’t the original Noel. But she didn’t need to know that.

"I really need to register today, Helena. The academy deadline is coming up."

She touched the sapphire pendant at her neck. A habit that she did every time she was about to say something she considered final. I’d noticed the pattern in the first week.

"Father has connections on the admissions committee. He can help with all of that. You should come to dinner tonight so we can discuss it properly." Smiling again. She squeezed my arm. "Please? For me?"

"..."

Tsk.

"Fine... Just for dinner. I’ll come after the guild."

Helena smiled. She kissed my cheek. Her attendants exchanged a look that I was probably supposed to miss. Her hand lingered on my arm for another second before she let go.

"Don’t be late."

She walked away. The sapphire pendant caught the light as she turned. I watched her go, rubbing the spot on my arm where her grip had been.

"...Every day with this."

I turned back toward the guild.

The recruitment poster was still there. [MALES WELCOME. PREMIUM RATES.] I started walking towards and then...

Then ’something’ happened.

[SMASH OR PASS SYSTEM ACTIVATED]

[Welcome, Host.]

[Initializing tutorial...]

...Huh?