The first thing Kail noticed was the silence.
No monitors beeping. No antiseptic sting in his nostrils. No hum of hospital machinery keeping his brain alive.
He blinked—and found himself lying in the dirt, staring up at an orange sky. Strange, fur-covered birds circled above. One let out a warbled cry, somewhere between a hawk and a seagull.
"What the hell?" he muttered, sitting up. His body felt… small. Weak. Light.
His hands were no longer calloused adult hands. They were childlike—thin wrists, small fingers.
Memories clashed in his mind.
A steel girder. A scream. The tunnel collapse.
He'd been an engineer working on metro infrastructure in central Jakarta. A routine inspection. A faulty support beam. He remembered pushing his assistant out of the way. Then everything went black.
And now he was here.
System Booting…
Welcome, Subject #002731 – KAIL MARVIN
Transdimensional Transport Complete
Soul Sync: 94%
Physical Host: 10-Year-Old Kail Varnen, native of Kingdom Thalnor
Initial Perk Unlocked: [Architect of Worlds]
Progress through Development Tasks to Earn Knowledge Points (KP)
KP Redeemable for Knowledge from Former World
Status: Exiled Noble – Barony of Veirdale (uninhabited wasteland)
Objective: Establish Viable Shelter – Reward: +5 KP
Kail stared at the screen. "This… is a literal Isekai system. You've gotta be kidding me."
He wasn't just in another world—he was someone else, and yet still him.
Then the memories came, like a sharp wind cutting through cloth. His parents. Their voices. Their faces.
His mother, Mira Varnen—a stoic woman with storm-gray eyes and a spine made of steel. She once commanded a merchant fleet before marrying down to a quiet life. His father, Thom Varnen—a failed inventor, dreamer, too outspoken for his own good.
They'd spoken truth about the king's corruption. Loudly.
So the royal court silenced them—not with death, but with humiliation.
"You've got the heart of a noble," they'd said, "so go prove it."
They were stripped of their titles and cast out. Given a 'barony'—an empty plot of rocky hills and dead fields near the Mistscar Plains. A joke of a land no one wanted. No people, no roads, no taxes.
No future.
And yet his parents never wept. His father grinned like it was an adventure. His mother whispered, "Better dirt than chains."
They spent three years trying to farm the land, raise goats, and build something.
And just when things began to grow… the bandits came. The fire. The screams.
He remembered smoke choking his lungs as he crawled under a broken cart. He'd died, hadn't he?
And now, somehow, he'd woken back up—in his own body again, 10 years old, the fire still fresh, but something different now glowing inside him.
Objective: Shelter Construction Required.
Blueprint Available: [Simple Earth-Drel Hut]
Resource Hint: 3 Mature Drel Trees Nearby. Axe Tool Recommended.
"Alright," he whispered. "I'm not starting from nothing. I've done worse with more red tape."
He stood, brushing ash from his pants. He looked at the scorched remains of his family's house. Something clenched in his chest.
"I'll do it, Dad. I'll do it better. I'll build something they can't laugh at."