Every child on Earth knows the story ever since they are of an age to learn.
A propaganda that children only realize when they grow up and learn the cruelty of reality.
It is said that by the beginning of the twenty-second century, the advanced environmental destruction caused by the neglect of the governments across the world led to massive food shortages that shortly led to riots and coups across the world.
What the people in charge fail to teach with propaganda is that they, the various companies, industries, and firms, were the primary cause behind the environmental destruction, with the governments only being guilty of turning a blind eye to the suffering of the common people until everything came to a head.
A propaganda that everyone is forced to believe. Because the promise of universal knowledge and equal rights had long since faded from my world. The moment the private industries got a hold of political power and started to rule the world, it was a guarantee that the common people would no longer have any rights.
In my generation, children were born into a desolate world where the skies are perpetually clouded with smog, acid rains down from the skies, the land is barren, and the water is polluted.
Even our very lungs are injected with nanomachines from the very moment of our birth to modify them artificially, creating a set of artificial lungs that would allow us to breathe in the polluted atmosphere.
Such is the fate of the common people of my world.
As for the rich? They are the ones who truly live in luxury. With real fruit and vegetables growing within their personal domes called Arcologies, where the atmosphere is carefully controlled by AI systems to maintain a perfect atmosphere free of pollution. With clean and pure drinking water, authentic food, the last few specimens of flora and fauna, and other such luxuries and decadence.
It was because of this darkness that we faced every day that people always sought an escape, even if it was in a virtual world. Of course, the companies would not allow that, so they passed the Social Order Maintenance Act and other such things to keep the ordinary people under their thumb, but that is a different matter altogether.
Now, why am I bringing up all of this?
Because what I am seeing in front of me is something that I had only ever seen in old recordings from the early twenty-first century.
Beautiful, clear blue skies with the warmth of the sun shining on my skin. Clean and refreshing air that felt invigorating. The small creek showed crystal clear running water. The large real forest stretched as far as I could see.
And the distinct feeling of life that I could sense with my new senses made hope bloom in my heart.
Life. That is what I was seeing all around me. Something that was lost to my Earth for a long time. Something that we never even dared to hope to see in our lives.
With an unnatural ease, I flexed my wings, making them disappear into my back along with my halo, which also disappeared at my command. With another thought, my armor disappeared into motes of light, and a simple level 20 clothing set, which was made up of a simple white button-up shirt, black pants, and black boots, materialized on my body.
Bending down to the stream, I carefully dipped my fingers into it, afraid that my move would somehow contaminate this beautiful stream.
Logically, I knew it was not possible. Unlike the people of Japan, who were suppressed so heavily that they were not even allowed basic education by the Conglomerate controlling the Japanese Arcology, we in the USA at least were allowed to complete High School, even if the quality of education was nowhere near what it was in the early twenty-first century. Hence, I knew that merely touching the water would not pollute it.
And yet, I could not help but treat it as a fragile existence that would fade if I looked at it the wrong way. A fear born out of yearning for this beauty that I always saw in my dreams and in videos of old.
By this point, I am fairly sure that I have somehow travelled to a different world altogether. And it should still be some version of my Earth, given that the first thing I did after arriving here from wherever I was before was to shoot into low orbit and survey the planet below me, which clearly showed the familiar continents and the space junk that we call satellites.
Now, one might question why I concluded that I am on an alternate Earth instead of simple time travel. The answer is quite simple.
I can feel unnatural energies from across a few hundred miles of land all around me. Energies that simply cannot belong to humans because my newly gained instincts are telling me so.
Tracking one of these energies to this forest exposed a strange creature that looked like a chimeric existence. A merger between a man and a goat, similar to the Demon race in YGGDRASIL, only uglier.
After it showed blatant hostility, I used a simple Tier-5 spell, Holy Smite, which was enough to vaporize the creature, leaving nothing behind.
Yeah. This kind of creature most definitely could not have existed on my Earth. Because the conglomerates would never stop bragging about having these kinds of strange creatures under their control to the rest of the world.
Looking into the stream, I saw my appearance for the first time since waking up, and I could not help but feel stunned at what I saw.
Long blond hair and beautiful blue eyes. A masculine face and purely human features when I am actively hiding my race. It was exactly like what I had designed my player Avatar as during character creation.
Yet, now, there was an unearthly beauty to my appearance that I simply could not place. A charm that would probably be irresistible for most people should someone like me appear in any place.
Although I guess this could work to my advantage at the moment.
First things first, I need information. To do that, I need some sort of place where I can access said information. My best guess is an institute called a 'Library'. A place where anyone could simply walk in and gain information freely. A foreign concept in my time, but one that was supposedly quite common in this era.
Next, I need money. I need the currency of this era to fit in with the regular people for a while, until I can make sense of what is going on and where to go from here. To that end, I can only rely on my current powers to steal little bits of cash from a lot of people until I have enough for temporary arrangements.
...How the mighty have fallen. To think that the famed Dawn Bringer has been reduced to a petty thief.
Anyways. After the money issue is sorted, I need to start investigating what the hell that strange creature was and what kind of danger level I am playing with in this world.
In YGGDRASIL, it was common practice to carefully scout out any uncharted area since there was a high chance that any mob could kill even a top player if they were not careful. So the same rules should apply here as well. I will have to slowly and carefully scout out this Earth and see what kind of foes I will have to deal with.
For now, this is the only plan I have. I can make up more as I go, but these are the essentials.
With that in mind, I used the [Fly] spell to take off and keep close to the earth, keeping my race a secret for now since I do not want to give away everything about me just yet.
When I first arrived here, I felt a large concentration of energy that felt strangely similar to my own power towards the East, so I think that should be a good spot to start my plan.
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Aetherion: (Click for image)
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Author Notes: Read 5 chapters ahead on Patreon: patreon.com/Ruijard1