He reached the other side and stopped beneath a streetlamp. The breeze was cooler here, the scent of asphalt and damp leaves sharper somehow. He adjusted his bag and reached into his pocket.
His fingers fumbled.
"…Huh?"
He checked the other pocket. Nothing. Just his phone.
Ren blinked and patted himself down. Then he glanced over his shoulder.
There, right in the middle of the road, lay his earbud case. One of the earbuds had rolled a little off to the side like it was trying to escape traffic entirely.
He sighed.
"Seriously?" he muttered.
The street still looked empty. No cars in sight. Just a long stretch of pavement and the hum of distant city noise.
Ren turned and jogged a few steps onto the road, crouching down in the middle of the lane.
He picked up the case first, then reached for the rogue earbud.
Just as his fingers closed around it—
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK.
Dazzling white. A thud.
It happened so fast, he barely registered it.
Actually… what even happened?
...
..
.
Warmth.
The first thing Ren felt was warmth. His lips tingled.
Wait. His lips?
Something was brushing against them—no, someone. Soft. Warm. Lingering.
Ren's eyes fluttered open.
A face hovered over his. Blonde hair tumbled forward like rays of gold, catching the sunlight in delicate strands. Big blue eyes—concerned, relieved, impossibly close—stared into his.
"Good morning," the girl whispered, her smile hesitant but affectionate. "You looked like you were having a bad dream again."
Ren blinked.
Dream?
The ceiling above was not the one he knew. It was wooden. Polished beams arched overhead in a gentle curve, supporting a warm-toned roof that smelled faintly of cedar. Outside the window, birds chirped. Real birds. Not the screeching city kind. Peaceful ones. Happy ones.
He sat up slowly.
Memories hit him like a flood. But they weren't his—or were they?
He was Nathan. No—Ren. No. Both.
They came crashing into him, layered over each other like pages in a book someone had glued together and tried to read all at once. Sword training. Battles. Campfires with a traveling party. Cold steel, warm laughter. A title: Mage Swordsman. He had joined the Hero's Party when he was fifteen. They'd traveled for years. Fought demons. Toppled tyrants. Saved kingdoms.
He remembered all of it.
And none of it.
"...What the hell?" he muttered, almost afraid to hear his own voice.
It came out deeper than expected. Older. Calmer. Nathan's voice.
"Are you okay?" the girl—Laura, part of him knew—sat down on the edge of the bed. "You looked really spaced out just now."
He stared at her, panic momentarily dancing in his chest.
Say something. Don't blow your cover.
But he didn't have to think.
The words came on their own, like instinct. Like remembering lines from a play you once knew by heart.
"Yeah," he said, offering a soft, practiced smile. "Just bad dreams again."
Laura gave a sympathetic look, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. "Well, I have to go to work. Take it easy, alright?"
He nodded slowly, still trying to catch up to his own reality.
She kissed him on the forehead this time. Stood up. Walked out the door.
And just like that, he was alone.
The silence was crushing.
Ren—Nathan?—swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stared at the wooden floor. His feet touched thick, fur-lined rugs. A fireplace crackled gently on the opposite wall, even though the sun was shining. The window showed rolling hills, the outline of a forest. A distant village road.
No skyscrapers. No traffic. No honking trucks.
And his body… it didn't feel foreign. It didn't feel like he'd swapped into someone else. It was his, somehow. Stronger. Older. Familiar in a way his high-school body never was.
He walked to the window. Placed a hand on the frame.
"This is real."
He said it aloud, to see if it would break the illusion. It didn't.
Ren inhaled sharply and leaned his forehead against the windowpane. The cold glass steadied him.
He stood like that for a long while. Just breathing. Just trying to process.
And then, like the punchline to a terrible cosmic joke, the realization finally hit him.
"Oh my god," he whispered.
"I've been isekai'd."
It felt ridiculous to say. But no more ridiculous than kissing a girl he didn't know but somehow knew, or remembering the names of swords and spells and cities that didn't exist back home.
He stepped away from the window and started pacing, muttering under his breath.
"Okay, okay, hold on—let's think. I was at school. There was a test. I didn't study. Of course I didn't. Then I left, dropped my earbuds, and then—"
HOOOOOOOONK.
He flinched at the memory. His ears were still ringing.
"Goddamn Truck-kun!"
He sat down heavily in a nearby chair, head in his hands. "This is exactly what happens in anime. But..."
He sighed and looked down at his hands. Callused. Steady. Older.
...
..
.
There was no time for an identity crisis—not when you grew up watching enough anime to put Crunchyroll to shame.
"Alright. Step one," he muttered, getting up. "Get a feel for the world."
He moved on autopilot, pulling on the loose tunic and boots laid out by the bed. The clothes fit perfectly. Of course they did. Nathan's body. Nathan's room. Nathan's clothes.
He splashed water from a wooden basin beside the door, letting the cold shock his skin. No faucet. No mirror. Just a polished surface of still water in a barrel-basin. His reflection shimmered—messy dark hair, sharper jawline, a faint scar over his right eyebrow.
"This is real."
It tasted different every time he said it. He toweled off with a cloth and pushed the door open.
Outside, the air was crisp and clean in a way that stabbed his lungs. Sunlight poured over cobblestone roads and slanted rooftops, and birds actually chirped like a sound designer was getting paid by the tweet.
He stepped out without locking the door. No need. Not because people were trustworthy, but because no one in their right mind would steal from Nathan Crest.
Ren didn't need to be told why—Nathan's memories had filled in the blanks. He was part of the Hero's Party.
He made his way into the city proper, Alms- the capital of the Kingdom of Letow. Smoke curled from chimneys. Horses clopped lazily down the streets. A baker's bell rang once, and Ren could smell cinnamon and firewood in the breeze.
People nodded as he passed. Some waved. Ren gave a small wave back, which the kid promptly treated like a blessing from the gods.
He approached a vendor stall lined with apples, tarts, and suspiciously golden bread rolls. The woman behind it looked up and smiled.
"Morning, Sir Crest! Thought you'd still be sleeping in with the rest of your lot retired."
Ren smiled reflexively. The name came easy now. "Morning, Rosa. Just needed some air."
"You sure? Thought you hero types only wake up when demons start knocking."
"Hahahaha."
She laughed, plucking a roll from the rack. "On the house. Still warm."
He accepted it, surprised by the sheer weight of it. Dense, fluffy, smells like heaven. He chewed in silence for a moment, letting the warmth ground him. It was surreal. The vividness. The taste. The casual conversations with people who knew him. At least, knew Nathan.
He started down the street again, turning past the fountain at the square when a voice called out.
"Hey, Nathan Crest!"