'I'm dead, but I can't remember how.'
Nikolas had forgotten parts of his life, and now, after spending what felt like an eternity in total darkness, he found himself in the form of an insect in a gargantuan forest.
Madness.
It wasn't easy to accept, but as he had already acknowledged, he had to find a way to cope.
And yet, the thought of being doomed to live his entire life as an insect was not a pleasant prospect.
Easier said than done.
'There has to be a way to change my fate…'
Nikolas looked around, but his eyes found only vegetation.
'I don't even know where I am. Is this still my original world?'
Knowing he had been reincarnated as a butterfly didn't mean he was still in his own world.
Reincarnation was already a miraculous event. What ruled out other absurd phenomena?
Many religions believed in reincarnation, but if there were insects, animals, or monsters with human memories, news of it surely would have spread.
In his world, there were no talking insects, let alone butterflies.
'Unless I'm the exception...'
However, now, that idea seemed the least likely. After all, humans had already experienced interdimensional travel firsthand. It wouldn't be impossible for him to go through the same.
Nikolas's father and several of the servants at his estate were world travelers themselves, but not by choice…
They had been forced to flee from a cataclysm.
They originally came from a planet once known as Nobel World.
So, what ruled out the possibility that Nikolas had also been taken to a foreign world?
'Where the hell have I ended up...?'
No matter how hard he searched for an answer, he had no means of finding one. The thick forest provided no clues, and the more he thought about it, the more he realized his current location would remain a mystery for a long time.
'Reincarnated as a butterfly in an unknown world... that's definitely a fitting end to my life.'
Looking up at the sky, or at least where the sky should have been, hidden by the canopy of trees, Nikolas sighed, overwhelmed by melancholy.
'Why did I endure all those injustices just to end up here?'
There was probably no answer. Only the result of improbable misfortune and random chance that brought him here.
'So frustrating...' Nikolas sat for a few minutes contemplating nothing, scanning the environment without any real purpose. He noticed, with disinterest, that there were also other insects moving autonomously among the plants.
'They're all huge too, just like everything else.'
As he was once again slipping into despair, finally something caught his attention. Behind some trees, he could glimpse a faint source of light flickering intermittently.
'Light.'
Drawn by an inexplicable sense of discovery, Nikolas took to the air once again. Without realizing it, he was already fluttering effortlessly through the void on his wings.
'Wow…! I can fly like I've always known how. There has to be a reason—maybe an animal instinct or something like that? The same force that saved me earlier when I fell from the leaf?'
Nikolas didn't want to waste time with useless questions and flew toward his new luminous objective. He glided steadily through the vegetation on his butterfly wings.
Along the way, he saw many different types of insects, but butterflies like him were the most common. Just like Nikolas, they were all flying curiously toward the source of light.
As he got closer, he began to feel a strange, comforting warmth, like a soft blanket spreading over every inch of his body to warm him.
A sudden wave of confidence surged through him, filling him with energy and vitality. Every second exposed to that energy made him feel more alive.
'This sensation is incredible. Almost like a drug... but way more powerful.'
Before he knew it, Nikolas had reached the origin of the phenomenon. A large glowing sphere pulsed, illuminating the forest darkness like a sun radiating pure energy.
Nikolas's fragile body kept craving more, but he wasn't the only one under the spell. The other insects were completely entranced by the warmth. Some of them weren't even aware of their surroundings, bumping into each other in clumsy flight paths.
'Still, that's not important right now...'
Nikolas refocused on the glowing source. Obsessed with understanding its origin, he didn't notice that he had gotten too close to the radiant oracle.
He didn't try to stop.
The result: he found himself face to face with a giant wall of light, just millimetres away.
'Aah! What...!?'
The impact was painful.
Nikolas was thrown backward, brought back to reality by the searing pain of the crash.
He fought with himself and with the instinct that clouded his mind, but managed to fly away from the light and perch on a branch at a safe distance from the hypnotic glow.
'That was strange...'
Nikolas fearfully observed the source of the stupefying effects that had seized his mind. Now that he could see it clearly, he could easily recognize its shape.
An unusual emotion stirred within him, accompanied by a wave of emotion and realization.
'Ahah... I see.'
'That's a streetlamp, and I... I've been reincarnated as a moth.'