"Breathe," Rey told himself, pressing his back against the alley wall. "Just breathe. Panic won't solve anything."
His hands were still shaking as he patted down his rough and worn clothes, which smelled of sweat. In one pocket, his fingers closed around something familiar: a rectangular shape that made his heart leap.
"Please be what I think you are," he whispered, pulling out the object.
It was… his phone, though the screen was cracked now, probably from the jumping around he did, trying to escape that atrocity. He pressed the power button desperately.
Nothing. Dead battery.
"Of course," Rey laughed bitterly. "Even if it worked, what would I say? 'Hi, I'm an engineer who found himself in a strange land and killed a monster with a barrel?'"
He pocketed the useless device and forced himself to stand. His legs felt like water, but they held.
Time to figure out where he was and how to get back.
The alley opened onto a narrow street lit by the strangest thing Rey had ever seen: glass lanterns containing what looked like glowing insects. They buzzed against their prisons, casting flickering yellow light on the cobblestones below.
"Bioluminescent fireflies?" Rey muttered, then corrected himself. "No, these are bigger. More like... wasps?"
A horse-drawn carriage clattered past, and its driver was wrapped in a hooded cloak. But this wasn't any historical recreation; the carriage's wheels left faint trails of light on the stone, and the horses' eyes glowed with an inner fire.
"What the…," Rey breathed, looking around. "Very strange. If I don't know better, I'd say it's magic."
He laughed to himself.
But the more he looked, the more he considered the possibility.
More figures moved quietly in the shadows. People in robes carried staffs that buzzed with energy. A woman gestured with hands that glowed brightly, and a man walked while floating six inches above the ground.
They all ignored Rey completely, like he didn't exist.
The smell of rot, human waste, and something else hit him next. Despair, maybe, if despair had a scent. The buildings around him sagged like they'd given up on standing straight. Windows were boarded up or broken. This wasn't just poor; this was abandoned by hope itself.
Rey wandered deeper into the slums, his mind trying to process everything. The purple display occasionally flickered in his vision, offering unhelpful commentary:
>> ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS: MAGICALLY ENHANCED SOCIETY DETECTED. HOST SOCIAL STATUS: MINIMAL.
"Thanks for the obvious," Rey muttered. "So this is real magic."
He kept walking, and something strange happened.
Memories that weren't his own began surfacing. A young, concerned person was calling his name. A ramshackle building that felt like... home?
Rey followed the half-formed recollections through twisting streets until he stood before a structure that could generously be called a shack.
"This is it," he said, though he wasn't sure how he knew. "This is where I live. Where he lived. Where... we live?"
The door wasn't locked; there was nothing inside worth stealing. Rey stepped into a single room containing a straw mattress, cracked walls, and one wooden chest that looked older than civilisation.
He collapsed onto the bed, which was about as comfortable as sleeping on rocks.
"This has to be a simulation," Rey whispered to the mouldy ceiling. "Advanced VR. Neural interface gone wrong. That's the only explanation."
But the ache in his bones felt real. The smell of decay felt real. The memory of crystal claws barely missing his throat felt very, very real.
Rey closed his eyes and tried to make sense of it all. Quantum explosion. Reality shift. New body. Magic world. Purple computer system in his head. It was like someone had thrown physics, fantasy, and technology into a blender.
"Tomorrow," he told himself. "Tomorrow I'll figure this out. Tonight, I just need to survive."
—
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Rey suddenly woke up, his heart racing. Sunlight poured in through the cracks in the walls, and he could hear someone trying to break down the door.
"Ray! RAY! Open up, you lazy bastard!"
The voice triggered more borrowed memories: laughter, shared meals, someone who actually cared. Rey stumbled to the door and opened it to find a young man about his age, grinning despite his patched robes and cracked wooden staff.
"There you are!" the stranger said, pushing past Rey into the shack. "I've been looking everywhere for you. Where have you been hiding?"
"I..." Rey searched the fragmentary memories. "Dalen?"
"Of course it's Dalen! Did that fever cook your brain?" Dalen looked him up and down with concern. "You look terrible. When's the last time you ate?"
"I honestly don't remember," Rey said, which was completely true.
"Well, forget about that now. I've got news!" Dalen's grin widened. "Remember how you always said you'd do anything for real work? Not just hauling garbage for merchants?"
"Sure," Rey said carefully. "Real work sounds good."
"I found you a spot in an adventuring crew!" Dalen announced proudly. "It's a resource gathering expedition for mid and low-level mages. Safe work, they said. Good coins, too… enough to buy actual food instead of whatever that mouldy bread you've been eating."
Rey felt his stomach drop. In a world where monsters crawled out of dimensional rifts, he doubted anything involving "adventuring" was truly safe.
"What kind of resources are we gathering?" Rey asked, deciding to play it safe and pretend like he knew what Dalen was talking about.
"Mana crystals, mostly. Some rare herbs. The kind of stuff mages need but are too tedious to collect themselves." Dalen's voice carried just a hint of bitterness. "We're doing the dangerous work so they can keep their hands clean."
"And by 'we,' you mean...?"
"Low-level mages like me, and Nox like you." Dalen's expression softened. "Look, I know it's not ideal. But Rey, you're barely scraping by here. This is your chance to actually survive instead of just... existing."
Rey looked around his pathetic shack, at his borrowed memories of endless hunger and humiliation. Maybe blending in meant keeping his head down and following the rules. Or maybe this was his first real chance to understand how this world worked.
"Alright," Rey said. "I'm in."
"Excellent!" Dalen clapped him on the shoulder. "Come on, let's get you fed and then head to the meeting point. They want to leave within the hour."
As they left the shack, Rey asked, "Dalen, can I ask you something? Yesterday feels... fuzzy."
"Sure."
"Uhmm… how does magic work?"
Dalen shot him a strange look. "Are you sure the blight isn't eating at your brain or something? You've only asked me this question a hundred times."
"Humour me," Rey said. "I'm still trying to understand something."
"Fine." Dalen sighed as they walked. "Magic flows through everything, right? But only some people can actually channel it. High-level mages can reshape reality. Mid-level mages can cast useful spells. Low-level mages like me can do basic tricks and enhance simple tools."
"And Nox like me?"
"Nox can't touch magic at all. That's why everything costs so much for you people. You want light? Buy a mana crystal. You want heat? Buy an enchanted stone. You want tools that actually work? Buy runed equipment that breaks after a month."
Rey filed that information away. Magic wasn't just power; it was economic control. The people who could use it freely were the ones who charged everyone else for basic necessities.
"It's just expensive convenience," Rey muttered.
"What?"
"Nothing. Just thinking."
They walked through the city, and Rey saw the divide Dalen described in clear detail. The slums stank of filth and desperation, but as they moved toward the city centre, paved roads gleamed and mana-fuelled fountains sprouted clean water.
Merchants hawked enchanted baubles at stands: self-heating mugs, levitating trinkets, and glowing jewellery, all at prices that made Rey's borrowed memories wince.
"See that warming stone?" Dalen pointed at a merchant's stall. "I heard they now cost two silver pieces. Most Nox families make three silver a month if they're lucky."
"So they stay cold," Rey said.
"So they stay cold. And hungry. And desperate." Dalen's voice turned bitter. "Are you sure you are alright? You're acting like you lost your memories or something."
"I just… never mind." Rey made a mental note to keep his questions to a minimum.
They reached the adventurers' meeting ground, and Rey saw the caste system laid bare in living detail.
There were no high-level mages in sight; the mid-levels were clustered in groups, practising spells and showing off their abilities. Low-level mages like Dalen hovered nervously at the edges, clearly hoping to be noticed but afraid to draw attention.
And the Nox? The few present carried crates, polished boots, swept the ground, and were ignored by everyone until someone needed heavy lifting.
Rey felt humiliation burn in his chest as some passing mages sneered at him. Just another useless Nox. Another burden to be tolerated.
A voice boomed across the meeting ground: "Expedition members, gather around!"
The speaker was a mid-tier mage with perfectly styled hair and robes that probably cost more than Rey's shack. He looked at the assembled group with the expression of someone forced to work with inferior tools.
"Listen carefully," the mage announced. "We've got an active spell by a high-level mage to ward off any serious monster threats. Mid-level mages will provide defence and magical support. Low-level mages will locate resource veins and assist with extraction."
His gaze swept over Rey and the other Nox with obvious disdain.
"Nox will carry supplies and equipment. Try not to die… we don't want to explain missing pack animals to the Guild."
The words hit Rey like acid. Pack animals. They didn't even refer to them as people; just beasts of burden that happened to walk upright.
Several of the higher-level adventurers chuckled at the joke. Rey clenched his fists and bit back his response… for now.
As the caravan prepared to move out, the purple display flickered in Rey's vision:
>> ALERT: RESOURCE-DENSE ENVIRONMENT DETECTED.
>> OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFIED.
>> ANALYSIS: CURRENT SOCIAL HIERARCHY INEFFICIENT.
>> RECOMMENDATION: GATHER DATA, IDENTIFY WEAKNESSES.
Rey smiled grimly as he shouldered his pack. Maybe it was time to show this world what happens when you underestimate an engineer.