The Return Of the YouTube Hero!
Archive 1: The Hero has Return
Kael woke up to the sound of a heart monitor.
Not the shrill kind you hear in movies. Just a slow, patient beeping. Like it had all the time in the world.
His eyes opened, but his body didn't answer. The ceiling above him was white. Too white. No banners. No magic circles carved into stone. No smell of blood or smoke. Just antiseptic and something faintly plastic.
Hospital.
The word landed slowly. He tried to move his fingers. Nothing.
Panic rose in his chest, sharp and immediate, but his breath stayed calm. Too calm. Years of battle had trained that into him. Fear didn't get to own his body anymore. He turned his eyes to the side. A calendar hung crooked on the wall.
2036.
Kael stared at it. "No," he whispered. His voice came out weak. Rusted. Like it hadn't been used in years.
He was sixteen when he vanished. Now the calendar said he was twenty-six. Ten years. Ten years while he was gone saving another world. Ten years while his body stayed here, empty.
They told him later what happened. Hit by a truck on a rainy night. Brain activity still there, barely. Body alive, but gone. A coma so deep the doctors stopped making promises after the second year. Family visits faded. Friends moved on.
Only his sister kept coming. At first.
Now she stood at the foot of his bed with her arms crossed, eyes tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep. "You're awake," she said flatly. Not happy. Not relieved. Just exhausted.
Behind her, a boy hovered near the door. Maybe eight or nine. Dark hair like his. Wide eyes that watched Kael like he was a ghost that might disappear again.
"That's my son," his sister said. "Your nephew. Don't get his hopes up."
The words hit harder than any demon's blade. Kael swallowed. "I… I'm sorry."
She scoffed. "For what? Leaving? You didn't choose it. But you also didn't stay." Her eyes flicked to his legs, motionless under the blanket. "And now I'm supposed to what? Take care of you again?"
Silence filled the room. Then she turned away. "I'll be back later," she said to her son. "Don't touch anything."
The door closed. The room felt smaller without her anger in it. The boy stepped closer.
"Uncle?" he asked softly.
Kael looked at him. Really looked. There was no hatred there. Just curiosity. And something fragile.
"Yeah," Kael said. "That's me."
"You were asleep longer than I've been alive," the boy said.
Kael smiled faintly. "Guess I overslept."
The boy hesitated, then leaned closer. "Does it hurt?"
Kael followed his gaze to his legs. "…Yeah," he admitted. "A little."
That wasn't entirely a lie. He waited. Listened. No footsteps. No voices outside. Then he closed his eyes, searching for the mana he had spent a decade mastering.
It was there. It flooded him like an old friend who'd been waiting patiently at the door.
"Ignis Sphaera," Kael whispered, the High Elven tongue of the other world rolling off his tongue.
Nothing. Not even a spark.
He frowned. "Ventus Blade." Again, nothing. The mana stirred inside him, but it felt trapped behind a glass wall, unable to manifest through the ancient incantations he knew. A cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Was he powerless here?
Then, he thought of home. Not the world of swords and sorcery, but the world of the rainy night and the sister who was now a stranger.
"Apoy," he murmured in Filipino.
A tiny, brilliant orb of flame flickered into existence just above his palm. It was hotter and purer than any magic he'd cast before.
His nephew's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Whoa…"
Kael grinned, his heart racing. "Hangin." A gentle breeze swirled through the sterile room, dancing around the IV stand. The mana wasn't just responding; it was celebrating. It was as if this world's magic was tied to the language of his soul, not the language of his training.
"Watch this," Kael whispered to the boy.
He placed his hand over his own chest. He didn't use the Latinate healing spells of the holy knights. Instead, he spoke the command of his blood.
"Himalay. Pagaling."
Golden light seeped through the blanket. It was intense, blindingly beautiful. Kael pushed the magic down—through nerves that hadn't moved in ten years, through muscles that had wasted away, through bones that remembered what it meant to stand.
Pain flared. White-hot. Honest. Kael gritted his teeth and kept going. The magic rebuilt him, cell by cell. Not just healing, but restoring. Returning his body to the peak it had reached in another world. The body of a hero who had fought the Demon King and lived.
The light faded.
Kael swung his legs over the side of the bed. They moved. They felt heavy, but solid. Powerful.
The boy's mouth fell open. Kael stood. He was steady. Strong. Whole.
He knelt in front of his nephew and placed a finger to his lips. "Hey," he said gently. "This stays between us, okay? Sikreto lang natin."
The boy nodded furiously, eyes shining like he'd just seen a miracle.
The door opened.
Kael was back in bed in an instant, breath shallow, legs still.
His sister froze. "…What are you smiling about?" she asked her son.
The boy shook his head. "Nothing."
Kael met her eyes, tired but calm.
"Welcome back," she said stiffly. "Don't make this harder than it already is."
She didn't see the power resting quietly inside him. And for now, that was fine. Because this world had no idea what kind of man had just come back.
And Kael had ten years to catch up.
The air in the basement felt heavy with the scent of dust and damp concrete, but to Kael, it felt like a staging ground. He looked at the cracked screen of Jun's phone—a piece of technology that felt more alien to him than a dragon's egg—and then back at his own calloused palm.
"Ready, Uncle?" Jun whispered, his voice trembling with a mix of terror and adrenaline. He was bracing the phone against a stack of old textbooks to keep it steady.
In the other world, magic was a weapon of war, shouted in the harsh, guttural syllables of the High Elves to tear through armor. But here, in the quiet of a Filipino home, it felt like a conversation.
After a while.
They had just finished watching the vlogger talk about his earnings. The numbers—forty thousand—swirled in Kael's head.
"Wait," Kael said, pointing at the screen. "You're saying people give him pera just for watching him talk?"
"Not just for talking, Uncle," Jun explained, his eyes wide. "For the attention. Ads, sponsors, donations. If you're famous, the money just... flows. Like mana."
Kael looked at his hands. He thought of the red-stamped bills on his sister's table. He thought of the way she rubbed her temples, trying to calculate how to stretch a paycheck that was already gone.
"If they can fake magic and make money," Kael whispered, the gears finally turning, "what if we don't fake it?"
Jun froze. The silence stretched between them, thick and electric. "Uncle... if we do this, and people find out it's real, scientists or the government might come. It's like those movies."
Kael's gaze sharpened. "Then we don't tell them it's real. We let them think it's the best special effects in the world. We become 'content creators.'"
Jun let out a shaky breath, a grin slowly spreading across his face. "The greatest 'editor' in the world... who doesn't actually use an editor."
"Liwanag," Kael murmured, testing the Filipino command.
A soft, golden glow began to radiate from his fingertips. It wasn't the harsh glare of a lightbulb; it was organic, like sunlight filtering through Narra trees. The camera lens flared.
"Move the phone closer, Jun," Kael commanded softly.
As the boy crept forward, Kael opened his palm. The light condensed, spinning into a miniature, swirling galaxy of white and gold. He didn't just show the light; he manipulated it. He made the glowing particles dance in time with Jun's shaky breathing, forming the shape of a small, translucent bird that fluttered its wings before dissolving into mist.
"Is that... is that a filter?" Jun hissed, staring at the screen, then at the empty air, his brain struggling to bridge the gap.
"No," Kael said, his voice regaining the authority of a commander. "That is life."
Kael leaned back, a plan forming. "The comments always look for the 'fake,' right? Let them. Let them argue. We won't claim it's a miracle. We'll just call it... 'VFX Test #1.'"
"What's the channel name?" Jun asked, his thumb hovering over the 'Create' button.
Kael thought of his sister upstairs, exhausted by the weight of a mundane world that had no room for miracles. He thought of the ten years he had spent as a myth.
"The Returned," Kael said.
The Weight of the Secret
Before they finished, Kael looked at the pile of bills Jun had swiped from the kitchen table to show him.
"Jun," Kael said, his expression softening. "Your mom... she's been fighting a war alone for ten years. While I was fighting demons, she was fighting debt. That's a different kind of bravery."
Jun looked down at the bills. "She thinks you're a burden, Uncle. Not because she hates you, but because she's scared she'll lose you again if she can't pay for the medicine. She told me once that the hospital bills were like a ghost that never stops screaming."
Kael stood up. No wheelchair. No wobbling. He stood with the posture of a man who had stood before thrones.
"She won't lose anything," Kael promised. "We're going to turn these 'views' into gold. If the Demon King couldn't take me down, a few utility companies don't stand a chance. But we don't tell her yet. Not until we can hand her the money and tell her the war is over."
He reached out and ruffled Jun's hair, a small spark of static electricity—Kuryente—playfully jumping between his fingers.
"Go to bed, Producer. Tomorrow, we upload the first miracle."
As Jun crept upstairs, Kael stayed in the dark, watching the tiny blue light of the router blink. He wasn't just a survivor anymore. He was a provider. And the internet was about to find its new Sensation.
To be continued