"Welcome to the space under my jurisdiction."
A strange, somewhat anxious voice drifted through the air, pulling Du Feng's hazy consciousness back to the waking world.
He surveyed his surroundings, finding himself adrift in a peculiar void. Countless fragments floated in the weightless expanse like shards of a broken mirror, each shimmering with flickering, alien images. The sheer volume of information was staggering; it pushed Du Feng's brain to its processing limit. It took several long seconds before he could even begin to digest the sight.
"Right... that voice just now..."
Du Feng looked up, focusing his gaze directly ahead. A massive sphere of light hovered before him. In a sudden flurry of motion, it dissolved into countless luminous particles before restructuring itself—taking the form of a young girl composed entirely of shimmering light.
"I am Alaya. I created and manage the worlds within my domain. You can think of me as a god. Yes, a deity in every sense of the word—hey! There's no need to bow!"
"After careful selection, I've decided on you. Do... wait, let me think. Du Feng, right?"
Hearing this self-proclaimed goddess, Du Feng's first reaction was utter confusion. But as the realization sank in, a surge of secret joy bubbled up in his chest.
Does this mean I'm becoming a god? Can such a stroke of luck actually exist in this world?
The feeling didn't last long. A lifetime of misfortune had taught Du Feng that "handouts from heaven" usually hit like falling bricks.
In his past life, Du Feng was the kind of person who could pull a back muscle just by reaching for the TV remote while lying in bed. Once, driven by thirst, he had gone to a water dispenser only to be electrocuted so severely he spent a month in the hospital. One could say his only true talent was surviving the relentless string of disasters that defined his existence.
Looking at Alaya now—the way she struggled to remember his name, and the faint, almost mischievous smirk dancing on her light-particle face—Du Feng realized he wasn't some "carefully chosen" successor. He was more like a scapegoat who had been dragged into this mess on a whim.
"Is there something else you haven't told me?" Du Feng asked, narrowing his eyes at her.
"Uh... let me think for a second..."
"Hey! Don't you dare disappear now, you brat!"
Du Feng shouted, but it was too late. Alaya vanished into thin air, leaving him with no answers and an empty void.
He began to suspect that Alaya hadn't actually run out of energy. It was more likely she just didn't know how to clean up this "Future Void" disaster and had fled the scene. Left with no choice and no way back, Du Feng sighed and closed his eyes to steady himself.
"Alaya mentioned something about a manual, right?"
Scratching his head, he walked over to a nearby control console. Sure enough, a handbook lay there. He picked it up and scanned through it; it was an instruction manual for the space, and luckily, it wasn't overly complicated. However, at the very bottom of the page, he noticed a few "handy tips" left by Alaya.
> [ Alaya's power can manipulate anything within her worlds; it is nearly omnipotent. However, very little of it remains. ]
> [ The Void is a terrifying existence, an enemy to every living creature in every world. ]
> [ There is one solution: if the people of a world collectively believe that they inhabit a different reality, the two worlds will begin to merge. Fantasy will become truth. ]
>
"Merging this world with another?" Du Feng muttered, rubbing his chin.
"If that's actually possible... if I can make everyone in this world believe they live in a world with a much higher power system, then the strength of this world will increase exponentially."
"But first, I need to see what kind of world Alaya left me. If the native inhabitants are already powerful, it'll save me a lot of trouble."
Following the manual, Du Feng began to operate the console. The screen flickered to life, displaying the residents of the primary world.
"Hikigaya Hachiman, Takanashi Rikka, Jabami Yumeko, Sora and Shiro..."
As the names scrolled past, Du Feng felt a sudden, violent urge to find Alaya and give her a piece of his mind. No superpowers. No high-tech sci-fi. Alaya hadn't handed him a kingdom; she had handed him a mundane, defenseless mess.
"No, I can't let it end like this!"
If he could get the entire world to watch a specific video—if it were realistic enough—it might just trigger the collective delusion needed for the merger.
"Now, I just need to find a suitable world to fuse with."
He pressed a sequence of buttons, his eyes scanning the monitors as the fragments in the air shifted in response. He needed a bridge.
"Every story needs the right protagonist."
"Who should it be this time?"
His gaze locked onto a specific name as it flashed across the screen. A small smirk played on his lips.
"Ayanokōji Kiyotaka... let's go with him."
Advanced Nurturing High School
Chabashira Sae stood at the front of the room, her black suit sharp and professional. Her slender legs were encased in sheer black hosiery, and she tapped a teaching pointer rhythmically against her palm. Her eyes swept across the classroom like a surveillance camera, recording every student's behavior.
As the homeroom teacher of Class 1-D, it was her job to evaluate their performance. Her gaze eventually settled on a boy sitting in the back row by the window.
He had a handsome, refined face, but his amber eyes were clouded with a perpetual, lazy indifference. This was Ayanokōji Kiyotaka.
"Next..."
Just as Chabashira was about to continue the lesson, the screen that usually displayed teaching slides suddenly flickered. It was replaced by a cinematic view of a sprawling, starry sky.
It wasn't just the classroom. Across the entire world—on televisions, smartphones, and computers—this strange image began to play simultaneously.
Sitting next to Ayanokōji, the beautiful Horikita Suzune stared at the screen in confusion. She turned her head slightly, her gem-like eyes searching Ayanokōji's face for a reaction.
"I'm not sure," Ayanokōji replied calmly.
He knew she was looking for an answer, but he had no intention of sharing his internal theories yet. Is this part of the curriculum? He glanced down at his school-issued terminal. The same starry image was playing there, mirrored perfectly.
Then, the camera zoomed in. A character close-up suddenly filled the screen.
It was Ayanokōji Kiyotaka's face—blank, listless, and devoid of enthusiasm.
Ayanokōji's expression didn't change, but his mind began to race at a lightning pace. Is it a surveillance camera? Did someone disguise themselves as me to film this? No, a disguise would have flaws. He was 100% certain that the person on the screen was the real him. The only explanation was that this footage had been captured at some point using a method he hadn't detected.
When? And how?
His eyes narrowed by a fraction of a millimeter—a change so subtle no one else would notice. He remained outwardly impassive.
Everyone's attention is on me now. If I show zero reaction, it might actually make them more suspicious. It's better to act confused.
"Sorry, I really don't know what's going on," he said, pitching his voice just loud enough for those nearby to hear.
At that moment, lines of text began to crawl across the large screen.
> [ Is the world you live in truly what you think it is? ]
> [ Perhaps the truth of this world lies far beyond your imagination—beyond the cognitive limits of most humans. ]
> [ This is a revelation from the Gods. ]
> [ This is a story of the future. ]
> [ Observe closely. ]
>
The text faded, and the scene shifted abruptly.
[ On a strange street, Ayanokōji Kiyotaka stood holding a plastic shopping bag. His eyes scanned his surroundings like radar. Within a second, he concluded that the classical architecture did not belong to any country or era he knew. The beastmen brushing past him were not biological entities within his realm of knowledge. The language they spoke was alien to Earth, yet, in this moment, Ayanokōji could understand it perfectly. ]
[ He pressed his thumbnail hard into his index finger. The sharp, lingering sting confirmed it: he wasn't dreaming. ]
[ "Have I come to another world for some reason? Is this what literature and film call 'isekai'?" Even after confirming his displacement into an alternate reality, the boy named Ayanokōji Kiyotaka showed no emotion. He remained cold, calm, and analytical to the extreme. ]