Orsaga stretched his limbs slightly, adjusting to the current strength of his body—testing things like his jumping ability and reflexes.
Once he had a general feel for his physical limits, he began measuring, by eye, the height of the building he was on, the distance to the adjacent building, and the various protrusions on each floor.
When everything was ready, he stepped to the edge of the rooftop and leapt.
Every muscle in his body moved in perfect sync, generating optimal propulsion.
Wind resistance and air drag were neutralized or reduced through the natural motion and angle of his leap.
With just an ordinary human physique, he silently crossed nearly four meters through the air and landed on the windowsill of the opposite building.
What followed resembled the movements of a feline predator in peak condition.
Gaps between bricks, jutting metal frames, smooth window ledges—anything that could be used as leverage became a foothold as Orsaga descended rapidly.
From the top floor of a building over ten stories high, he dropped down to the second floor in less than ten seconds.
Down in a shadowy alley, a middle-aged junkie, hiding and getting high, noticed nothing.
He was completely lost in the blissful rush brought on by the drugs, slumped over with a dazed smile on his face, muttering to himself:
"That guy's stuff... it's the real deal…"
Before he could finish murmuring about supporting such a fine and honest dealer in the future, a sudden numbness surged through his neck.
His body twitched involuntarily—and he passed out with a dumb grin still plastered on his face.
Expressionless, Orsaga casually lifted the man by the neck with one hand and rifled through his pockets, retrieving his wallet and phone.
Then he tossed him into a nearby trash bin.
He left the guy alive.
A rare decision not to kill.
The reason was simple—the man's clothes looked decent, suggesting he might hold a certain social status.
If he killed him, it would likely prompt a formal investigation.
That would only bring unnecessary trouble.
But a mugging during a drug high? Lost valuables? That wasn't something worth reporting.
After all, what rich junkie would dare admit to getting knocked out and robbed while high?
Still, as an undocumented foreigner, Orsaga carefully handled all necessary traces.
He made sure nothing would lead back to him.
Opening the wallet, he glanced at the bills inside and casually pocketed them.
[Orsaga — Account Balance: +£1,527!]
As for the bank cards and ID, after skimming through them, he tossed them into the trash as well.
A bit of taking, a bit of returning.
Then, he turned on the phone.
"… "
A fingerprint was required to unlock it.
Annoyed, he fished the junkie back out of the trash and pressed his finger to the sensor—unlocking the device.
The first thing that popped up on the screen was a barrage of English text.
As a Demon of the Abyss, he possessed a natural ability—Universal Language—which allowed him to understand any language without magical resistance and communicate fluently.
It sounded convenient.
But there was a catch.
When others spoke to him, they used English.
But when he replied, he spoke Demonic.
Even though the ability allowed mutual understanding regardless of the language mismatch, anyone with half a brain would sense something was off.
So Orsaga realized he needed to relearn English—something he hadn't used in two hundred years.
Starting from pronunciation to writing—everything had to be relearned.
He opened the app store and began downloading dictionaries and language-learning apps.
'a, b, c, d, e, f, g…'
With just one read-through of each source, he instantly memorized the contents.
Two minutes later…
After scanning through a large enough pool of vocabulary and grasping the grammatical structure, Orsaga had a general mastery of English.
Barring rare idioms or obscure words, he could now carry a fluent conversation in English.
Though… it might still carry a slight "translator" tone.
Ten minutes later…
He went ahead and picked up French, Russian, Arabic, and Spanish as well.
Then he downloaded an app similar to Wikipedia.
Fifteen minutes later…
He had finished browsing through the general history of each major nation, as well as information on major industries and global developments.
Along the way, he discovered quite a few discrepancies from his previous life.
Companies he remembered, major events, famous leaders… many were completely different.
'A parallel world, huh…'
He thought about it for a moment, then shrugged it off.
After all, it didn't concern him.
He was just a Demon of the Abyss.
After absorbing all this knowledge, he noticed his phone's battery had dropped to a mere 2% from the high-load usage.
Originally, he had planned to self-study this world's VB, C, C++, .NET, and Java—then hack into the government's database to create a legitimate identity for himself.
But now he frowned, clearly annoyed.
Tossing the phone back into the trash can, he "returned" it to its rightful owner.
'How troublesome…'
He rubbed his aching eyes, a flicker of impatience flashing across his heart.
With the suppression field of this world active, his abilities were locked down to human-level standards—and it was starting to wear on him.
Both his body and soul felt weakened.
This fragile, mundane human shell made him tire easily and feel constantly drained.
Worse, it also limited his already weakened soul powers.
If he could just use a few soul-based techniques, he could've simply read someone's memory or devoured their soul.
Then he'd instantly understand everything about this world.
There would've been no need to resort to such primitive means to learn low-level knowledge.
What's more, this body's brain wasn't even fully developed.
Its operational efficiency was ridiculously low.
After absorbing so much knowledge all at once, Orsaga was starting to feel a dull ache in his head.
If he pushed any further, there was a real risk of burning it out.
It was like trying to run high-end software on outdated hardware—everything lagged and stuttered.
He sighed.
No longer interested in overthinking things, he rested for a short while, then walked out of the alley.
"2047… A near-future Earth. Let's hope it offers something interesting."
__
T/N:
Hello everyone! My Patreon is just $3 — a perfect opportunity to access 85+ advanced chapters and support.
🔗 patreon.com/user?u=79514336
Or simply search Translator-Sama on Patreon