'Was that mana?' The boy asked himself, he had heard the term from those priests in the hospital quite frequently.
His mind reeled. 'No, this doesn't make sense. This isn't right. None of this should exist. So how can I see it?' The world around him mocked everything he thought he knew.
Dirt roads stretched under his feet, cobblestones carved with faint glowing runes guiding streams of energy through the city like unseen rivers.
The air smelled lighter...and fresher, as if even the oxygen was more clean here. Instead of cars or buzzing neon signs, there were horse-drawn carriages with wheels covered in glowing sigils, their frames reinforced by crystals pulsing faintly with power. A few even flew above the ground, levitating slowly as robed men guided them with ropes.
Ivan's stomach tightened as he scanned the people around him. Everyone carried themselves with casual familiarity in this bizarre world.
Children chased each other holding wooden wands and swords that sparked tiny bursts of fire or frost, while armoured guards marched past with blades that shone faintly with energy.
The marketplace buzzed not with chatter about politics or sports, but with casual conversations about dungeon raids, monster cores, and the latest batch of enchanted gear.
'It was overwhelming and suffocating. Yet it was also…real.' Ivan thought.
'If this is an illusion, why does it feel so solid? Why does the wind sting my face? Why do my legs ache from walking, why can I smell wood smoke from the vendors roasting meat?'
His thoughts tangled into one another, each question clawing deeper. Is this really some afterlife? Or did I survive… but get thrown into another world entirely?
"Ivan," His mother's voice called again, gentle but steady, her hand tugging him forward. She looked at him like none of this was strange. As if glowing trees, enchanted carriages, and magic-soaked air were nothing out of the ordinary.
Her smile was warm, grounding. "Don't drift off too much. You'll get left behind."
He forced a nod, though his chest felt heavy. Left behind, that was the last thing he wanted in this foreign looking world. He had no idea what this world was, but he knew one thing for certain, if he didn't figure it out soon, it would swallow him whole.
Everywhere Ivan turned, there was something that made his chest tighten.
Children played with floating balls of light, laughing as they willed them into shapes. A blacksmith hammered glowing metal that hissed with sparks of blue whenever his hammer fell.
Even the guards patrolling the streets carried weapons that pulsed faintly, etched with runes Ivan didn't understand.
To him, it was madness.
He caught fragments of their conversations as he walked past with his mother.
"Dungeon raids are harder lately…they say the beasts are evolving again."
"Don't be foolish. As long as the guilds buy our enchantments, we'll be safe."
"Safe? Hah, only until the next Ascension Trial comes. Then we'll see who's left standing."
The words struck Ivan like stones. Dungeon raids. Ascension Trials. Guilds. It all sounded like something out of a storybook, yet here, people spoke of it with the casualness of discussing the weather.
His thoughts almost quaked.
Science had no place here.
Machines, electricity, logic, all of it had been replaced by something more primal, something older. Magic wasn't a rare miracle but the very foundation on which this society stood.
And the strangest part was how easily everyone accepted it.
Ivan looked at his mother as she guided him through the crowd. She didn't flinch at any of it.
Her eyes didn't widen at the enchanted tools, the glowing weapons, the talk of dungeons.
To her, this was home.
This was the life she had always known.
But Ivan…Ivan remembered another world. A world of people that worked on science, of houses that crumbled under poverty, of streets without enchantments and glowing runes. The more he saw, the more convinced he became, this wasn't Earth.
Not the Earth he had grown up in at least.
By the time they returned to their house, his thoughts had spiralled so far he couldn't understand them himself.
His mother seemed happier than he'd ever seen her, smiling, her hands busy arranging their new shelves. The sight should have comforted him, but it only deepened the knot in his chest.
He didn't recognize this house.
He didn't recognize this city.
And most of all, he didn't recognize this world.
Standing in the doorway, Ivan realized something that sent a shiver down his spine.
If his calculations were right, and if he thought back to different theories he had read on the online forums of his previous world…
Then he could only guess that he had been killed and isekai-d into this parallel world—
***