2 Amakusa Naofumi

Plato - the centurion of the first century, lauded as the strongest in the alliance army, eclipsed only by the heroes - was both confused and curious. He was certain that he had died. He was deep in the enemy formation, and the other soldiers could not guarantee their own safety, much less coming to his rescue.

However, Plato could not have felt more alive than right now. Even more than that, strange memories were constantly flowing through his mind. In it, metal boxes were moving, much faster than a carriage. In the sky, there were giant metal birds. There were barrels of metal that fired extremely fast projectiles, and then there were thin slabs that displayed moving images.

Plato was mightily confused by all these things. As a centurion, it was necessary for him to have basic education. However, that education only involved being literate and being able to do maths. It was hard for him to understand how a catapult worked, much less these new, strange contraptions.

Soon, Plato realized that the things that played within his head were a lifetime's worth of memories.

The memories belonged to a certain Amakusa Naofumi, a born and bred Tokyo person. He had a Japanese mother and an Australian father. Sadly, his mother had died due to complications in childbirth, and his father passed soon after from alcohol-induced bowel cancer.

From a young age, he was forced to fend for himself, after witnessing the cruelty of selfish humans from his relatives.

As a mixed race, he had inherited the good points from both sides, making him extremely handsome in both Eastern and Western society. This proved to be unfortunate to him, however, since all his cousins were jealous of him. That was what sparked his aunts' and uncles' hostility. The worst thing was, his parents had left him with a rather hefty inheritance. His parents were greedy and tried to get their grubby hands on it, but were stopped by Naofumi's efforts. This had blown their hostility and disdain into a full-blown conflict, making Naofumi homeless at a young age. Fortunately, with his inheritance, he was able to buy a small apartment for himself. He studied hard, and worked part-time to provide for himself. As a result, he had a lot of miscellaneous knowledge and proficiency.

When he started middle school, he made two best friends; Miyamoto Basara and Hattori Iwatani. Naofumi recognized their family names to be the same as Miyamoto Musashi and Hattori Hanzo - the founder of Niten Ichi-ryu and a legendary samurai, respectively. The two had confirmed that they were the latest successors of both families, but Naofumi had treated it as a joke. However, Plato was very clear on whether they were speaking he truth. As someone who was extremely proficient in the sword - and combat in general - he could tell from the way they moved that they were indeed trained in fighting.

These two best friends had stayed with him through thick and thin, standing up for him when he was bullied for being an orphan. Although it seemed like overkill to Plato for two well-trained sword users to beat up a few school bullies, he knew that this action had brought warmth to Naofumi's cold heart. From then on, Naofumi treated them as his true brothers, despite being unrelated by blood.

The trio soon reached high school, all three of them attending the best high school in Tokyo. Basara and Iwatani's notorious reputations as bully beaters had preceded them, resulting in the school being the safest from bullies for the three years they attended. When it came time for university, all three had gotten a full scholarship at the Australian National University in Canberra for Engineering. While Naofumi did not think it to be anything special, Plato found it suspicious that they all got the same offer. Alas, Plato could sense through the memories that they did not mean any harm, so it must have been under the orders of their families.

Naofumi could be considered as genius. He got straight 7s in every unit he enrolled in. Although Plato received Naofumi's memories, he was sure that he didn't receive his IQ. He was extremely worried about this, especially since Plato had an inkling that he would be taking over Naofumi's body soon.

Sure enough, the memories stopped right after the start of the fourth year of university, the honours year. After all the memories ended, Plato saw a few lines appear.

[Subject Plato is moving to a lower-ranked realm. Compensation is due.]

[Processing...]

[Processing...]

[Processing...]

[Compensation decided. 1 x Special Ability and Intelligence boost.]

[Have a safe trip. - Administrator]

Plato was baffled, but had no time to ponder since his vision that was once black had recovered.

*****

Summer had yet to end, but Autumn was already rolling its fat ass into place. The change in seasons induced lots of rain, intensifying the humidity and making everything wet. Yet at the same time, it was blisteringly hot. There was a saying among interstate or international ANU students, which was, "Canberra experiences the four seasons in one day". Today was such an example.

In a room in the newly built college dorm called Stusent Accommodation 5 - affectionately called Bruce Hall by the students living in it - lay a 22 year old man, opening his eyes groggily. The double bed in the room was rather short, and completely unable to fit the entirety of the man's body. Having been forced to sleep on a slant, his back hurt like hell. The alarm was blaring in his ears, and he stretched out a lazy arm to slap it into snooze mode.

Unable to stay asleep anymore, the man slowly opened his eyes and took his room in with his eyes. On the white table next to his bed was his newly destroyed alarm clock with "7:00 AM" permanently displayed, along with a laptop and TV. A couple of notebooks lay splattered across the desk, each with a name on it - Amakusa Naofumi.

Indeed, the body belonged to Naofumi, but the one in control was already Plato. From the fact that he recognized all the objects and even understood how to use them, it would seem that Naofumi's memories had fully integrated into him. In addition to that, there was the Intelligence boost. However, Plato was still unaware at the moment of how ridiculous it truly was.

To the left of the white table was a small sink and a couple of cupboards. It was obviously insufficient for cooking, since SA5 was a fully catered college. Opposite the sink was a wardrobe, with a mirror on the inside of the right door. Again, the mirror was much smaller than Naofumi's body, which meant that he had to be quote far away to get a full picture of his body.

While it wasn't exactly emancipated, there was only a minimal amount of muscle and fat underneath the skin. It was to the point where the ribs were visible despite being completely relaxed.

For Plato, as a former soldier, this sort of body was absolutely unacceptable. The first thing on his mind was to train his body to the peak, before he started training his vital energy. This vital energy was a common thing to practice and utilize in his previous world, but from Naofumi's memories, most people in this world were unaware of its existence. The best thing was that it relied on energies that originated purely from the body, so there was no fuss on the level of energy in the air.

After being disappointed at his body for a while, he got dressed in a random shirt and shorts. The temperature was extremely hot, so he had actually slept naked the night before. Of course, it wasn't actually "him" who decided in that - it was the original Naofumi. After getting dressed, Plato put on his slippers and made his way down to the mess area. He made sure to pocket his room card, since getting into the room was impossible without one. Getting the pod senior on duty to open it would cost $20, and it was an expense Naofumi was unwilling to pay.

Bruce Hall had a total of 7 floors and one basement, with the top floor being a buttery, which sold all sorts of dry food and drinks. The 1st to 4th floors were filled with rooms, and the mess hall was on the floor underneath the 1st but above the ground floor. The living floors were split into four different "pods", which were basically a grouping of half the rooms in the wing. Each pod had a senior as the leader, who was in charge of familiarizing the newcomers. The ground level was where the reception was, along with the offices of the staff.

From above, Bruce Hall looked like a giant V, with two wings separating from the centre where the lifts were. Naofumi's room was located on the right wing, close to the back stairs which doubled as a fire escape. The hallway had a carpet floor, and was painted green. There were some leftover decorations from the "welcoming party" that took place the night before, which involved drinking, drinking, and more drinking.

Carefully picking his path through the clutter, Naofumi - now Plato - walked down the stairs to get his breakfast.

The mess hall was large enough to accommodate a full floor's worth of people, but that was it. During the orientation week, there were set times for eating for each floor. There were also signups for late meals if one was unable to attend meal times. Luckily, barely anyone went to breakfast since most people were suffering from eternal hangovers.

Depsite that, the cooking staff still diligently put the food out, even if it was going to waste. Naofumi had already paid for the catering, so he was going to make sure he got the most of it. Walking out from the stairwell, he was faced with a salad bar right in front of him, a "dirty dishes" station to his right, and the hot food bar to his left. The clean plates were directly in the middle, right behind a pillar.

Behind this catered area were cooktops and fridges for the self-catered students, as well as seating space for eating. Ideally, Plato would have liked to cook his own meals, but he had no ingredients at the moment.

The breakfast for today consisted of fried, sunny-side-up eggs, bacon, baked beans, canned spaghetti, and hashbrowns. There were also some pancakes for sweet yet hot food. The salads consisted of beetroot, lettuce, cucumber, ham, and some spicy salami sticks.

Naofumi grabbed a dish, filling it to the brim with eggs and bacon. His tastebuds from his previous world conformed to Earth's definition of "Western" tastes, while his body was used to "Eastern" tastes. Nonetheless, since Australia was considered to be a western country despite being in the east, the original Naofumi was forced to adjust his tastes.

As for why Plato grabbed eggs and bacon, they were the most protein-rich food available. Absolutely tearing through his food and wolfing it down in a record time of a minute, he went ahead and got a second plate of the same thing. For his third plate, he filled it with pancakes. These carbs were to give him enough energy for his training. Also, he had the imperative job of fattening up his body, even if it wasn't with muscle.

After finishing three plates, he finished his meal with two apples and a couple salami sticks. He was planning on skipping lunch to train, so he made some sandwiches filled with eight pieces of ham.

The cooking staff stared at him incredulously, wondering how such a skinny person could eat so much. Nevertheless, they kept their curiosity to themselves and scurried around to finish their job.