In the morning of the eastern continent, where the mercantile city-state of Jinkai is located, a blue and gold vortex of a portal suddenly opens up inside a random abandoned warehouse within the outer district of the city as Kars stumps out of the portal like a drunk man into a new world in his work outfit of a jacket with a fur hood over his black tank top, cargo pants with a belt, and black boots.
Kars now looks a little different, as he has grown taller and a little more burly with bigger muscle mass thanks to one of his cheats, a Shao Kahn character template that grants him all of Shao Kahn's abilities, knowledge, physique, and powers, but not as powerful, as he doesn't have thousands of souls to strengthen himself like the original.
"Shit... what a fucking headache..." Kars groans as he holds his head that is now throbbing like mad from the complete integration of the character template after crossing the portal. He now feels like he has lived for thousands of years with the experience and knowledge of Shao Kahn that was stuffed inside his head.
With all of that, Kars are now fully ready for Kombat and Karnage. The random guy who tries to pick a fight with him will probably need more than luck and courage to survive his Fatality and X-ray.
With a deep breath, the headache gradually subsides as Kars finds himself in a clearly abandoned building that is on the verge of crumbling down, with the entire building structure seeming to be hanging on by a thread of miracle.
"I wonder where that bitch dropped me at..." Kars grumbles as he looks around the building but doesn't find anything that seems useful or noticeably important here, while the goddess's beautiful face is still persistently on his mind as he carves her face into his memory, the final hole—he means the goal for him to strive for.
"Whatever..." he said after not finding anything that could give him the information about this world in the building, and then Kars just gave up and walked out of the building through the big hole in the wall not far from where he stood.
When he got out, Kars saw a row of buildings around him that seemed to be warehouses with some people in various uniforms that looked like guards standing idly around those buildings. They look like mercenaries or adventurers with light armor and an unreliable aura.
Kars stopped and stared at the people dressed in various medieval-style clothes and armor that he had only seen in the movies and documentaries with a surreal feeling.
"Do they even speak English...?" He wonders to himself as he moves again while pulling the hood of his jacket over his head, not really having any destination in mind, while he hopes that he is walking on the road that is leading him to the main street or populated area.
As Kars was wandering around the unknown city he got dropped in by the goddess, he discovered a lot of people in diverse styles of attire moving past him on the streets, and some gave him a curious gaze at his slightly unusual outfit. Fortunately, this is a fantasy world, so Kars's modern clothes do not stand out that much from the norm around here, and he thinks that they probably saw something much weirder than him.
After half an hour of exploring the city and observing the people, Kars found himself sitting on the stone bench that was discreetly placed near the fountain in a space that looked like a mini park. It's a quite calm and relaxing space in this busy city.
"Ah, how I missed the 'we are aliens from other dimensions but let's all speak English' trope so bad..." Kars muttered with an ironic feeling since after walking around the strangely diverse city in architectural style and people. Kars found out that the language they spoke was totally alien to him.
He even saw different fantasy races of people, such as the classic elf, dwarf, and people with animal features. It really gives Kars the real sense of him being on another world.
"What the fuck should I do here?" Kars is now thinking about how to proceed from here as he pulls out a dull round bronze coin he randomly picked up on the road from the inside of his pants pocket.
From what he observed, it's the lowest-value currency of this world since everyone seemed to ignore the coin he picked up, which he understands since even in his old world, not many people are going to spare such effort for one dollar bill lying around on the road either.
"Well, lucky me..." Kars said with a smirk since right now, unlike the natives of this world, this lowly bronze coin in his hand is the infinite source of money for him.
And then with the casual ease of tearing a paper, Kars grabbed the coin with his fingers from both hands before he tore it in half, which resulted in the strange sight of the coin now being separate into two coins that were perfectly identical to each other in both of Kars' hands.
Now Kars' total fund has increased to two bronze coins.
"Fucking absurd..." Kars smirks, as this power to duplicate anything perfectly is the second cheat the goddess granted him, and it's kind of annoying to him that he actually feels a little grateful to the goddess for granting him this power. He could imagine what face she would make if she knew he was feeling grateful toward her, and that made his blood pressure rise.
Anyway, with this duplicate power, Kars wouldn't ever have trouble with resources and funds in his isekai life, which makes it possible for him to stay calm and relaxed like this even if he were stuck in another world.
"Well, next is a place to sleep..." Kars pockets his coins as he stands up from the bench.
"I saw the inn-like place earlier, but the language barrier..." Kars frowns while mumbling as he walks out of the park.
While he was thinking about how to rent an inn room for tonight as he was walking absentmindedly on the street, Kars suddenly stumbled on a slum district of the city.
And then Kars suddenly has an idea about his communication difficulty.
"I can just mug random people of their souls and learn the language instantly, right? Is that quite a simple solution?" Kars' grin is wide on his face as he turns sharply and heads toward the slum with malicious intent, as with Shao Kahn's soul manipulation magic, he could soul drain ordinary starving people in the slum quite easily.
It was totally evil and unethical, but Kars doesn't really care about that since after the character template was integrated with him, Kars's original morally gray alignment was now one step further into the dark side without him even noticing it himself.
Right now Kars 2.0 is willing to do evil deeds as long as they are beneficial to him and don't bring him any trouble later on.
÷×÷×÷×÷×÷
"Aaaaaaah—!" In the random dark alley inside the slum district, a confused and panicked scream that rapidly got weak and raspy could be heard as the eerie green light shone out of the alleyway entrance, signifying some unfortunate guy was getting his soul mugged in there.
As the green light fades in the alley, a dried-up, mummified man that is unrecognizable from his original appearance in Kars' grip crumbles down on the ground, his soul and life force now consumed and assimilated into Kars' being, making him slightly stronger and more powerful than before.
Kars rolls his shoulders, cracking his neck as unfamiliar words, slang, dialects, and grammar structures flood his mind, settling into place like they'd always been there along with knowledge and memory of the man who he just drained dry.
Around Kars there are three more people in rags who are sprawling around unconscious with broken limbs and bones after a brutal beating from a super-strength that Kars 2.0 now possesses.
Earlier, after he was wandering inside the slum to find someone to mug, Kars actually got mugged instead, but unfortunately for the muggers, Kars was not someone they could mess with without deadly consequences.
And the alley where Kars lured the muggers here now smells like piss and despair, which is quite appropriate, given what Kars had just done and was about to do more to them.
"Thanks for your contribution." Kars said as he flicked the dust that fell off from the first mummified guy's skin on his fingers with cold detachment, and then he crouched beside one of the unconscious men, a wiry guy with a scarred face that was now messed up badly from Kars' punches.
Kars casually grabbed the unconscious man by the throat, lifting him up effortlessly like he weighed nothing. The man's eyelids fluttered weakly, half-conscious and delirious from pain as green energy crackled around Kars' hand and fingers before he used the soul-drain magic on the man in his grip.
"Ahhh-?!" Instantly the man's body convulsed, his mouth opening in a confused and painful scream as his essence was siphoned out in twisting tendrils of emerald light. Kars inhaled sharply as the foreign memories slammed into him with fleeting images of back-alley deals, stolen bread, and a sister coughing blood in a damp shack.
"Useless..." He discarded them like trash, focusing only on anything that might be useful, such as information about the world, knowledge, or skill. He absorbs it all with notable more skill and speed as his last cheat comes into effect.
It is the cheat of 100 times multiplied training effect, which is the cheat that makes him gain experience in using any skill or ability 100 times faster. So after he drained the soul of the first guy, Kars now has the experience of using soul drain a hundred times instantly.
Then Kars dropped the husk of the second man, watching the body crumple to the dirt with the same dull thud as a sack of flour.
The remaining two were stirring awake now from the scream with panic flaring in their bloodshot eyes as they tried to scramble backward on broken elbows and knees, gibbering pleas in the local language that Kars now understood with perfect clarity.
But will Kars let them go?
Well, obviously no.
"Ahhhhhhh-?!?" The scream echoed again, this time in two different voices, as Kars grabbed both men by their throats with one hand each. Their voices overlapped in a cacophony of terror, limbs flailing as green energy from their bodies sucked in Kars' palms.
Kars watched as their skin withered, their scream dissolving into raspy sounds. By the time their bodies hit the ground, Kars is now more knowledgeable about the world, the slum, and the criminal world of this Jinkai city.
"Mmmh, this shit is seriously addictive." Kars hummed, flexing his fingers as the last wisps of drained souls were absorbed around his knuckles like smoke.
The alley was silent now, save for the distant wail of a stray dog and the faint rustle of four piles of clothes on the empty husks of what used to be human before their one last bad life choice.
"Well then..." Kars stretched his body as he felt significantly stronger after consuming four souls before he walked out of the alley, leaving the four mummified corpses behind.
His destination has been made, and it is not the inn to secure a bed for the night but one of the hideouts of the criminal gangs in the slum that he was going to get rid of so he could take over the slum as his territory since it is free real estate here in the slum and the law is not present, so he can do a lot of questionable things with his questionable skills.
On that day, all of the gangs in the slum mysteriously disappear because of one man whose name is Kars, Kars Aloha...