Jinguu Yō's hands froze over the keyboard.
Even though he'd known ever since transmigrating that this world was drastically different from the one he came from, it wasn't until this moment—this visceral confrontation—that he truly realized: the knowledge he'd accumulated over the past twenty-some years might now be utterly worthless.
That realization chilled him to the bone. The feverish adrenaline in his veins vanished in an instant.
A small part of him felt fortunate that he'd been living in isolation lately, barely interacting with anyone. That, at least, had kept others from noticing anything off about him.
Because what happens when your common sense doesn't match anyone else's? That's not just terrifying—it's alienating on a soul-deep level. Like the entire world is sane and you're the lone madman among them. That suffocating loneliness—the sense of being fundamentally other—gnawed at him.
Imagine this: you're in a conversation and confidently mention that the president of the U.S. is Obama, even though no one by that name exists. Maybe you don't even notice the mistake. Maybe you're still feeling pretty proud of your world knowledge. But in everyone else's eyes, you've just exposed yourself as terminally insane.
He got up from his chair, walked downstairs, opened the fridge, and grabbed a cold bottle of Coke. His hand still slightly stiff, he reached out to pat JOJO's head. Then, after taking a long swig of the soda, he finally began to settle down.
"First, I need to figure out what the biggest differences between this world and the original one are."
With newfound determination, Jinguu Yō bolted back upstairs to his bedroom and opened both Google and Yahoo, preparing to search for parallels and divergences.
This, he thought, was the beauty of the internet. As long as he stayed home, he could learn about this world from the safety of isolation.
"Google's here. Yahoo's here. The OS is still Windows 7. Microsoft exists too... So none of that's changed?"
He muttered under his breath, finally beginning to take things seriously.
To survive in this world—truly survive—he had to understand it. Humanity is a social species. Unless he planned to hermit himself away until death, or voluntarily check into a psychiatric ward, blending in was a matter of life and sanity.
He grabbed a book from the shelf. It was thick—dauntingly so—and uninviting. But to Jinguu Yō, this was the most straightforward, essential path to understanding a world: reading its history.
The title read: A Global History.
It was a book he had purchased shortly after arriving in this world. He remembered flipping through it and laughing at the strange, offbeat history it described. But now, a chilling thought struck him.
The entire book was in Japanese.
In his old world, the far-right in Japan were notorious for distorting history textbooks. Could this one have been edited too?
Armed with that suspicion, Jinguu Yō decided not to rely on Japanese websites for historical information. Instead, he returned to his homeland's sites—the Chinese internet.
"Baidu's still around... and I don't need a VPN to access it?!"
He took another swig of Coke, frowning. He'd expected to need a VPN to reach those sites, but they were accessible as-is.
A veteran Baidu user, Jinguu Yō smoothly entered search terms in Chinese, tracking down the information he needed.
He pulled up encyclopedic entries on history and began meticulously cross-referencing them with the Japanese version of A Global History. Hours slipped by. At last, after two straight hours, he collapsed back into his soft chair, wiped the sweat from his brow, and stared wide-eyed at the screen.
"The histories are the same in both countries. No doctoring. But this world's version of world history—are you fucking kidding me?"
He couldn't help but curse aloud. Even though he already knew this world had bizarre deviations in its timeline, reading it all again left him bewildered all over again.
Up until the 20th century, the history here matched his original world exactly. China was still forcibly opened to the West. The corrupt Qing dynasty still ceded power, land, and dignity to foreign imperialists. Japan still underwent the Meiji Restoration in 1868, ditching Asia to embrace Western modernization and capitalism.
Had things followed that trajectory, the same horrors of the future might have unfolded. But in this parallel timeline, the outcome of one war changed the course of everything:
The First Sino-Japanese War at the end of the 19th century.
In Jinguu Yō's original world, Qing China lost that war. The Beiyang Fleet was decimated. China's international status collapsed. And with the humiliating Treaty of Shimonoseki, Japan leveraged its victory to become a global power.
But here, the war ended in a draw. China, buoyed by a rare success on the international stage, gained confidence. The Beiyang Fleet survived. Japan, having failed to achieve its goals, saw its economic momentum begin to stall.
Even that would have been a modest change. But what came next was outright surreal.
In 1917, enraged by the Qing government's incompetence, a great proletarian revolutionary launched an armed uprising. The Qing dynasty fell. Thus ended over two thousand years of monarchy. From the ashes rose a glorious proletarian republic, which immediately began implementing sweeping reforms. National strength soared.
Meanwhile, the Russian October Revolution never happened. The Romanovs remained in power. In 1924, the Tsar appointed StaliX as prime minister, and Russia began to recover under his leadership.
At this point, Jinguu Yō could only utter a hollow "Holy shit..." as a thousand metaphorical alpacas trampled through his mind.
Then came the financial crisis of the 1930s. The capitalist world teetered on the brink of collapse. Germany's Führer seized power amid the chaos, and other capitalist nations sought an outlet for domestic tensions.
The most straightforward method? War.
Germany marched north, conquering Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Czechoslovakia. Russia moved west, seizing Belarus and Ukraine, meeting Germany in the middle of Poland.
Britain and France adopted a policy of appeasement, expecting the two monsters to tear each other apart.
But the unexpected happened.
The Führer and StaliX met. The two found in each other a kindred spirit. They hit it off like long-lost lovers—sharing beds, whispering secrets into the candlelight—and ultimately signed a non-aggression pact. Together, they split Poland in two.
Germany then swept south and annihilated France. Russia pushed east and invaded Manchuria. Europe and Asia were ablaze. World War II had officially begun.
By now, Japan had matured into a military power after thirty years of steady growth. But this time, China wasn't a pushover. Japanese leadership deemed a full-scale invasion too risky. Lacking the resources for a prolonged war, they chose instead to attack Korea and Southeast Asia, intending to fuel future campaigns with plundered supplies.
With Russia and China at each other's throats, Japan decided to bide its time and wait for the perfect opportunity to strike.
As a result, that horrific massacre never took place.
Japan's navy and army surged southward, conquering Southeast Asia just like in the original timeline. They eventually reached the British colony of Australia.
Australia—vast and rich in resources—seemed like the perfect colony. With it, Japan's greatest weakness would be eliminated.
But though Britain was overwhelmed, its ally America remained intact. And just like before, Japan, in a moment of sheer madness, bombed Pearl Harbor—crippling the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
History resumed its grim trajectory. America, with its overwhelming industrial might, began mass-producing aircraft carriers like steamed dumplings. A new Pacific Fleet surged across the ocean and pushed straight to Japan's doorstep.
By this point, Germany had fallen. Russia was being crushed by China. And finally, after Japan took two more atomic bombs to the face, the Second World War came to its apocalyptic end.
Japan, once again a defeated nation, was occupied by Uncle Sam. And just like in the original timeline, America propped Japan back up as a regional counterweight to the now-powerful China.
From that point on, America emerged as the world's sole superpower. China, though victorious, had suffered deeply in the war. Under the looming shadow of nuclear deterrence, everyone focused on economic development and minor power plays.
The result? A global balance strikingly similar to the original world's: one superpower, many strong nations.
"My history classes were definitely taught by the PE teacher..."
Jinguu Yō pressed a hand to his forehead and slapped the history book in his lap. Confronted with the sheer absurdity of this world, he was beyond words.
"But hey... congratulations, I guess. Führer, you finally got together with StaliX."