The first thing that startled his awareness was the sense of heat. More precisely, it was not the dramatic kind of heat, or blazing flames or anything like that. Rather, it was a heavy and uncomfortable heat pressing down on him like he had been left out too long for days under the sun. It made his skin itch.
"Ouch."
...And his back hurt. This cannot also be an effect of heat, can it?
He tried to move his body. He was still unconscious about what was happening to him, because his mind was still hazy.
But then, his body felt wrong as he tried to move. He felt so... weak. As though he hadn't eaten properly in days, or even weeks.
Then incoherent noises barged through his ears all at once. It was nothing like the usual kind of serene noise he used to know all his life. All around him, he could hear the cacophony of the voices of people shouting, wheels grinding over stone, someone arguing loudly about prices of some goods, the rhythmic clanking of metal and the footsteps of people passing around him.
He opened his eyes slowly, squinting against the brightness of the day.
The sky. It was pale... and wide. It just felt different from the one he used to know...
For a moment, he just lay there staring up at it, trying to make sense of why he was outside. For goodness sake, he was supposed to be in the lecture hall! He especially don't stay out on hot days like this, so wha–
He tried to remember what he had been doing before this apart from preparing for lectures that day. But unfortunately for him, nothing else came. He could not remember what made him decide to come look at the sky on a hot day, when he was supposed to be on his way to the lecture hall. A sudden realization hit him.
'OMG, my grades!... I was aiming for the top this semester—'
But wait again, was it supposed to be hot today? It's winter season!
'... S-something is not right.'
He pushed himself up onto his elbows and immediately, a sudden dizziness struck his being. The world in his view seemed to tilt as his stomach twisted sharply and painfully. Hunger also suddenly hit him in a very real and almost palpable way — not the mild "I could eat something" kind, but the nauseating kind that makes your limbs feel totally hopeless.
He then looked down at himself.
The clothes on him... were barely even clothes. Torn and dirty fabric with frayed sleeves were hanging off him. The dirt blended so deeply into the cloth that it looked permanent. His hands were also thin. Too thin even. His nails also were very dark and dirty.
'Is this a joke?'
He then lifted his arm and brought it closer to his nostrils, but he immediately retracted back his hand that he regretted doing it.
'Smelly!'
That smell was not something a lofty kid like him was used to.
'When did I get this dirty?No, what's going on?'
He was still trying to decipher what he was not getting right. He was surely missing something and his brain was refusing to remind him. But then, a shadow fell over him briefly.
"Still breathing?" the caster of the shadow muttered.
'Of course, shouldn't I be?'
The next moment, the person dropped a coin near his hand. It bounced once and rolled slightly before stopping against his fingers. The person though, didn't wait for a reply and simply went off.
'Huh? Am I a begger now? I have to wake up from this nightmare. I feel so uncomfortably lucid.'
He stared at the coin. It looked so worn... and real. Heavy enough, precisely. He picked it up slowly, turning it over. He couldn't even recognize the markings on the coin.
'I'm forgetting something... what is it I'm forgetting?'
It was then he became aware that people were stepping around him. He saw that he was right at the middle of the main road of the market square he found himself. People had to pass the other ways available on the road. And they also behaved like he had been there all these days too. He was starting to feel uncomfortable and frustrated.
'What kind of nightmare is this?'
He forced himself to sit upright properly. He placed the coin in his hand in a space on the ragged cloth that could still hold something safely like a pocket. He still could not really point out what was wrong. But he knew something was. And he needed to find out. Because the whole thing was gradually feeling less like a dream.
The street he found himself sitting was crowded. Tall brick buildings were on both sides, darkened by soot from the atmosphere. The soot came from the clouds of dark smoke billowing in the sky from a distance behind the tall buildings of the market. It didn't smell like wood smoke, though. It was sharper than that. It was like the smoke from burning metals.
'Carts?'
He saw a few carts roll past by him, pulled by tired-looking horses. Some of the carts were filled with loads, while some were filled with men and women. The men were putting on long coats—even though the atmosphere was heavy. They were also putting on hats, boots and gloves. The women were putting on layered dresses. Vendors of the market shouted from stalls arranged in rows along one side of the street as some of these carts passed in slow motion.
This whole scene didn't look like anywhere he remembered.
'Ah, this is a weird nightmare.' He clutched his head in discomfort.
Just then, a carriage wheel scraped dangerously close to his leg.
"Move, will you? You're in the way." a driver snapped at him.
He jerked backward quickly, scrambling awkwardly to his feet. Unfortunately, his knees shook vigorously the moment he applied his body weight on them. He immediately grabbed the side of a wooden crate stacked near a stall just to remain upright.
"Ouch, what... what's wrong? Why can't I walk?"
Why was he so weak? This indeed is a weird nightmare!
He looked around him and saw that nobody was looking at him strangely. Nobody seemed confused. They all seemed to know him for his appearance.
But he didn't know these people!
Which meant that either he was wrong… or he was the only one who didn't belong here! He needed to wake up now!
That thought though gave him chills. Everything was feeling more like reality and less like a dream.
Bringing out the coin again, he tried to find a clue, but yet, he still didn't know where he was.
He didn't know why he was in this... body. And yes, it felt like that, like this body was not entirely his, even if he couldn't prove it. Why would he have a different body in a dream?
But his instincts told him something very clearly. Even though it was a dream, if he stayed on this street confused and smelling like that, he would not last long.
He swallowed his throat dry, and took a slow step forward. His legs almost buckled, but he steadied himself this time.
'Think later. Survive first.'
And so he began walking, unsure of where he was going, only certain that standing still was not an option.
He had walked three more unsteady steps before a sudeen wrongness hit him properly.
That realization came suddenly. His balance was off. His hands were too thin. Even the way his was breathing felt so shallow and strained, and it didn't match what he remembered about himself. And yet here he was, feeling everything around him like in real life. Wait...
'... could it be...' he opened his eyes wide.
Just then, a man bumped into his shoulder and cursed under his breath as he hurried away, but he barely payed him any attention. Then...
FWOOSH!
"Argh!"
...His memory! He saw something!
... But then the memory went as soon as it came! He searched for it again, more deliberately this time. If he didn't, it could be lost forever!
'There had been… a room!
A normal room... four walls... a ceiling fan that made a faint clicking sound when it rotated too fast. A desk and a screen glowing in the dark... he remembered himself sitting! He remembered—
"Argh! Why can't I remember further?"
Nothing else came after that.
His heart began to race properly now... before racing abnormally again, because, what the hell? If the last thing he did was being in a room and then—
"Argh!"
Seeing that each attempt to remember those particular last moments only brought him sharp pain in his head, he shelved the thought. He then looked down at his hands again, turning them over. He pressed his thumb against the center of his palm like he was testing if this was some kind of elaborate dream.
It actually felt so real!
He swallowed hard and whispered before he could stop himself,
"W-what the...I've transmigrated? This cannot be real."
The words felt ridiculous and seemed to echo throughout the world as they left his mouth.
A woman walking close enough to hear him shot him a strange look and hurried away.
He stood there breathing unevenly, trying to steady his thoughts.
Transmigration. He transmigrated! But how? He was preparing for lectures... there was no helping it. He has tried remembering how or what he did to transmigrate, but pressing more to know them seemed to cause him sharp pain.
The concept of transmigration wasn't a foreign knowledge to him. He had read about it in fiction Web stories. Characters would wake up in different bodies, and in different worlds. And it was usually with some system prompt or memory recollections explaining everything neatly.
But here, there was no memory recollections of even his past life. Just the foggy atmosphere, hunger and confusion. His mind tried to reject the conclusion. It searched for possible alternatives.
'Could I have been suffering from amnesia? No.'
'Oh, how I hope this is a prank.' He thought dejectedly. He looked around again, paying closer attention this time.
The architecture of this world wasn't modern in style, at least not in any way he recognized. Everything here were out of vogue and... vintage styled, including the clothes.
'I'm in a past era.'
Which meant that not a single person here had a phone! Not one!
'Oh, I had that as my only hope just now! I just hope they have telephones. I'm getting back.' he though with a hint of determination.
Calming his mind down, the realization sank in slowly and heavily, that this wasn't just a different body.
This was a different era.
Or worse... a different world entirely.
Just then, his stomach growled loudly enough that someone nearby glanced at him again.
'Right. Panic later. This body seems not to have eaten for the past few weeks.'
As he hurried to find food somewhere, he thought. If this really was transmigration, and every piece of evidence was starting to stack in that direction, then there was something else he needed to accept immediately.
He had not arrived as a noble with influence or power as he used to read in those Web fictions.
He had arrived as a beggar. Thinking that, he let out a short, humorless breath.
"Of all possible starts…"
He didn't finish the sentence though.
Because complaining wouldn't change the fact that his body felt like it might collapse again if he didn't find food soon! He opened his hand and looked at the single coin once more.
This was his only valuable possession for now.
One coin.
He didn't even know its value, and he didn't know what it could even buy. What currency what this, to start with?
But he understood one thing very clearly now. If this was transmigration, then survival wasn't optional. It had to be the first objective. He knew that already. If reading Web stories had taught him anything, it was that early decisions always mattered.
Standing in the middle of the road muttering about transmigration was not a good first move. He needed cleaner clothes. He needed to stop looking like someone who could be hit by anyone, without them feeling guilty.
Lastly, he needed information. About this world. He took a slow breath.
"Alright," he muttered under it.
Then, still shaky but with more vigor than before, he began walking toward the edge of the market street.
Gradually, he took one step at a time.
Transmigrated or not, starving men didn't survive on shock alone.