Prologue
Fanfic time.
That was the exact thought in my head when everything ended and began at the same time.
I was a deep fan of DanMachi. Bell Cranel. Orario. Dungeon. Girls. Glory. Pain with style. I didn't just want to watch his life—I wanted to be in his shoes. Walk where he walked. Meet who he met. Scream internally every five minutes and somehow survive.
I was on a plane from America to Japan. Educational trip, officially.
Unofficially?
Maid cafés.
Don't judge me.
I heard some cafés had hosts styled exactly like the Hostess of Fertility. Mama Mia vibes. Warm tavern energy. Cosplay maids. Peak culture. My dream.
Then fate played me good.
Truck-kun.
*In the air.*
I don't know how. Physics gave up. The plane shook—violent, sideways, like the sky itself was rejecting us. Alarms screamed. People cried, hands gripping armrests white-knuckled. The cabin tilted. Oxygen masks dropped like party streamers at the world's worst celebration. Somehow—*somehow*—everyone survived.
Except me.
*Ding.*
That's the end.
That's what I thought.
Then I opened my eyes.
Stone.
Cold. Rough. Not airport floor. Not hospital. Stone that felt *old.* Heavy. Like it had watched people bleed on it and didn't care. The texture bit into my palms when I pushed myself up—gritty, real, impossible.
I sat up.
"…No way."
Same body. Same hands—calluses on the right index finger from bad pencil grip, scar on the left knuckle from that stupid kitchen accident. Same brain already overheating.
I wasn't reborn.
I wasn't a baby.
I wasn't inside someone else.
I was just… me.
And in front of me—
*Orario.*
The city walls curved impossibly wide, white stone catching afternoon light like they were made of compressed sunlight. Babel tower rose straight up, piercing the sky like it was angry at the clouds—so tall my neck hurt looking at it, soreal my chest hurt *feeling* it. People moved. Laughed. Shouted. Adventurers passed in actual armor, weapons catching light, leather creaking. The air smelled like bread and sweat and something metallic I couldn't name.
This was normal to them.
"…Wait," I whispered. "This isn't fate playing me."
I stood. Legs shaky. Heart hammering.
"This is fate *actually helping!*"
An orphan who barely survived on scholarship just became—potentially—a top-class adventurer in Orario!
I took one heroic step forward.
Then froze.
"Wait. No. Too fast. Brain stop."