"Noah! Are you still sleeping? Hurry up! You need to go to university!"
Those words, spoken by a well-known woman in her forties, were more than enough to wake the sleeping youth known as Noah.
Well, to be honest, he was already awake. He had been staring at his phone, checking something he would probably forget in ten minutes anyway.
His mind worked sharply when numbers were involved, but the rest of him refused to follow its example.
It was just that his mother — in a hurry as always — couldn't even wait that little time. As if she were the one who had to go to university.
Still, he really wouldn't be late.
He had already calculated the exact number of minutes he needed to reach the bus stop, then added fifteen more to get ready and eat a simple breakfast.
In theory, he was completely covered. In practice… well, he liked to believe he was.
Unless the bus decided, for some reason, not to show up.
But let's not discuss something that had never happened.
At least, that's what Noah liked to tell himself before going to sleep at 2 a.m., leaving himself just four hours of sleep — more than enough to survive the day, he always said.
Yet most people would call him a nut job.
While true, who could blame him? Letting his thoughts wander was dangerous.
Whenever his mind slipped from the present, regrets crept in and chewed at him, dragging him back to a place he didn't want to revisit.
Closing his eyes meant risking a confrontation he wasn't ready for.
"Mum, I'm awake!"
He said it back with an air of defeat, and she nodded while reminding him of everything he needed to do and take with him.
Her voice had that usual sharpness, but her gestures were gentle, almost careful, as if she were afraid he would break if handled too roughly.
She was fiery, strict, and endlessly worried — one of the few people who still believed he deserved a good life, even when he didn't.
After all, clothes weren't going to dry themselves, nor would the house magically clean itself. Mums were warriors. He knew that better than most.
But that was beside the point.
He slipped into his coat, picked up his backpack, and glanced back at his home. A faint, strange heaviness lingered in his chest for a second — the kind that made him blink and dismiss it as nothing more than sleepiness.
"…I'm going!"
"See you later! Stay safe!"
If his mother had known she wasn't going to see her son for a very long time… would her answer have been different?
---
The sky still clung to the last scraps of night—a soft blue, streaked with grey—but the sun crept up anyway, slow and steady, laying gold across the city, piece by piece.
Noah wandered along, earbuds jammed in, music thumping just hard enough to keep him in his own little bubble.
He watched the light edge out the dark, pushing it back inch by inch.
Dawn's cold bit at his cheeks, and a breeze swept down the street, rattling branches and smacking him right in the face.
It was sharp enough to make his nose run.
…Cold.
Yeah, let's just skip that detail.
But honestly, there was something special about mornings like this.
Even surrounded by concrete and glass, nature had this sneaky way of showing up.
A bit of green here, a slant of sunlight there.
It felt oddly... comforting.
Noah let his thoughts drift, grateful for anything that kept his mind busy.
Silence just meant his head would start spinning off in all the wrong directions.
Eventually, good times had to end.
He had reached his destination.
What a pity...
Even if just for a moment — It felt like there was a world beyond the noise in his head.
With that lingering feeling, Noah sat down by the bus stop.
His mind buzzed, thoughts he didn't want trying to creep in, but the music kept him anchored.
It always did.
He checked his watch.
6:50 a.m.
At least five minutes.
He did the math in his head.
For the first time all morning, a real smile tugged at his lips.
Five minutes meant he could throw on his favourite song without babysitting the street.
No way the bus would show up before that
Perfect.
He hit play, leaned back, closed his eyes.
Cold seeped into his hands and face, but he didn't mind.
It kept him present.
The music wrapped around him, smoothing out all the rough spots in his brain.
A few minutes—no worries, no other noise—just happiness.
The real kind.
It felt rare. It felt right.
He could still sense the world humming around him, but he was slipping away, just a little.
Still...it couldn't go on forever.
Three minutes and forty-six seconds can feel like forever in the right moment.
But when you're happy, even ten years would flash by.
Such is how our sense of time is.
Cruel.
The song ended. The rush faded. The cold lost its edge.
Noah let out a breath.
He knew better than to hit repeat.
Chasing that feeling just made it slip further away.
So he let it go, and picked a new song.
But the instant he opened his eyes… sound hit him.
Not the muted hum filtered through earbuds—no, raw noise.
Dozens of voices overlapping, chairs scraping, footsteps tapping against wood.
A whole room alive around him.
He blinked hard, the dissonance slow to sink in.
His hand was empty. No phone. No earbuds. No familiar warmth resting in his palm—gone, both of them.
His jacket wasn't hugging his shoulders either; instead, rough, unfamiliar fabric brushed against his skin, a texture too coarse and natural compared to anything he owned.
His breath stalled.
He wasn't on the cold metal bench of a bus stop anymore.
He was sitting at a wooden desk. An actual wooden desk.
And surrounding him were people he had never seen in his life—some not even fully human, their silhouettes touched by hints of animalistic features or faint glimmers of something… other.
He wanted to speak, maybe curse, maybe laugh—anything.
But his throat locked. At best, a mental "What the fuck" fired through his head, but no sound followed.
He shut his eyes once, reopened them.
Still the same.
He pinched his arm. Sharp pain.
Still the same.
The clothes on his body were nothing like modern fabric.
No doubt about it. This was specifically custom made to fit him perfectly.
This would cost at least thousands of euros...
Noah knew nothing about clothes, but he felt that his estimate was pretty much on point.
But that wasn't all.
The air smelled different too—cleaner, colder, like early morning wind sweeping through open windows.
In a city where pollution is a common business, and nature is all but scarce, there's no way the air is this good.
Normally, you do not notice the air quality changing, but when it's such an abrupt change, even an idiot would.
And that's when the insane thought pushed its way to the surface.
Have I been transmigrated?
Most people would panic.
No, people should panic.
Thrown into a new world, surrounded by strangers, plunged into the unknown—fear would be natural.
But Noah wasn't "most people."
When life beats you down enough times, the unknown stops being frightening. The only thing he'd ever truly feared was...
"Remember, Noah. You must live a good life. Mom and Dad want you to be happy…"
Those words.
That sad smile.
Those...damn tears streaking across her face.
The memory struck him cleanly, like a slap across the heart. His jaw tightened.
Damn it… Do you think that's easy? he muttered inwardly, swallowing the frustration burning up his chest.
The classroom around him buzzed with life—bright morning light streaming through wide windows, voices overlapping, the faint scent of chalk dusting the air...
But before he could think further, a powerful female voice stole his attention.
"Welcome, students, to the WindShield Magic Academy. I am Professor Hilda, here to teach you the course [Magic Comprehension: Base]. Today, we will start with an introduction. One by one, introduce yourselves."
She commanded coldly, with the kind of authority that made even the most arrogant nobles straighten up.
A few students looked annoyed.
After all, who didn't already know everyone else in this room? Was there really a need to go through with this nonsense?
They were all famous!!!
Even the ones with mediocre talent could brag that their family names alone secured them a place here.
But this professor clearly wanted to humble them—and tradition was on her side, even if most other professors ignored it for noble classes.
Still, no one dared to utter anything insolent.
From the front row, introductions began from the top, as if the entire setup had been planned just to screw over one peculiar student sitting quietly at the back, who had no idea what was happening.
Good. What am I even supposed to say?
That was when he remembered something.
His pockets. They felt… oddly full?
Surely there had to be something inside that could at least tell him what name he had in this world.
A disturbing fact immediately caught his attention.
How many gold coins did this dude shove into his pockets? This is peak extravagance…
It was like a damn ocean!
Yet, despite that, he felt no weight on him. His pockets didn't feel heavy at all.
It was absurdly convenient, but also very much not the point.
As he pushed through the coins, something caught his eye.
A strange golden card streaked with black.
As if gold was the only thing this world bothered to excavate.
All to end up in one man's pockets, no less.
A feeling of envy crept up in Noah's mind.
While he had never been poor, even he couldn't help it when there was a lunatic who walked around with this level of wealth.
Did the card really have to be made of gold too?
Who knew.
What mattered was that the moment he looked at the card, those black streaks shifted—forming words he could actually understand.
At this point, it barely felt surprising anymore.
Compared to everything else he'd seen so far, this was practically normal.
Still, the information on the card left him frozen.
[National ID Card]
[Name: Noah Vincent]
[Age: 18]
[Origin: Human Kingdom]
[Student: WindShield Magic Academy (1st Year)]
My name…?
That single detail raised an entirely new set of questions, none of which he had the time nor the means to answer right now.
His head throbbed. His pulse quickened. But he forced himself to stay calm.
Survival came first.
He needed information. To get that, he had to blend in. At the very least, now he met the minimum requirement to keep going.
He had his name.
But nothing else made any damn sense, and no one here was going to answer anything for him now.