The moment I stepped into the village, the forest behind me seemed to exhale.
Wooden fences lined the dirt road, warped by time and weather.
The houses were small and uneven, their walls patched with clay and straw, roofs weighed down by stones to keep them from flying off during storms.
Smoke drifted lazily from a few chimneys, carrying the scent of burning wood and boiled grains.
This place was old.
Not abandoned—just… tired.
People passed me by.
Men with rough hands and worn boots. Women carrying baskets woven from reed and twine.
Children ran barefoot through the streets, their laughter sharp and fleeting like birdsong.
They all noticed me.
I could feel it in the way their gazes brushed against my face.
But none of them stopped.
None of them asked who I was.
None of them looked surprised.
That alone unsettled me more than the giant wolf in the forest.
A well-dressed couple walked past—silk-lined cloaks, polished boots, an emblem stitched into their collars.
Their clothes marked them as outsiders, or perhaps minor nobles.
The villagers bowed their heads slightly, eyes lingering on them with a mix of respect and caution.
Then there was me.
A dirty, thin five-year-old boy in torn clothes, barefoot, hair tangled, skin marked with old bruises and grime.
The villagers' eyes slid over me as if I were part of the road itself.
Invisible.
My chest tightened.
I didn't know why it hurt so much. I told myself I shouldn't care. I was alive. I had escaped death once already—twice, if I counted the forest.
Yet my feet slowed as I walked.
Fragments of memory stirred, like mud rising from disturbed water.
A smaller body curling up beside cold walls. Hunger gnawing so fiercely it became pain. The shame of standing near shops, pretending not to stare at food I could never afford.
The memories weren't clear.
They weren't whole.
But they were heavy.
I passed a fruit stall near the center of the village.
Apples sat stacked in uneven piles, their skins red and yellow, some bruised, some nearly perfect.
Beside them were unfamiliar fruits—purple-skinned bulbs, long green pods, small orange berries that glowed faintly in the sunlight.
The smell alone made my stomach twist painfully.
I stopped without realizing it.
The shopkeeper noticed me immediately.
He was a broad man with a thick beard streaked with gray, sleeves rolled up to reveal scarred forearms. His eyes softened when they landed on me—not with pity exactly, but with something resigned. Familiar.
"Still alive, huh," he muttered, more to himself than to me.
I blinked.
That sentence felt wrong. Too casual. Too certain.
Before I could say anything, he reached down and picked up an apple.
Then another. He hesitated, glanced around, and added a small cluster of the orange berries.
He placed them into my hands.
"Eat somewhere else," he said gruffly. "Don't loiter."
I stared at the food, my fingers trembling.
"T-thank you," I said, the words awkward on my tongue.
He waved me off. "Go on."
As I walked away, biting into the apple, juice ran down my chin. It was sweet. Sharper than any apple I remembered from Earth. My eyes burned, and I didn't know if it was because of hunger or something else.
Further down the street, another shopkeeper—a woman selling bread wrapped in cloth—caught my eye.
She sighed, clicked her tongue, and handed me a small loaf without a word.
"Don't show your face here tomorrow," she said quietly. "I won't have extras."
I nodded quickly. "I understand."
She watched me leave, her expression unreadable.
No one asked my name.
No one needed to.
That scared me more than kindness ever could.
I wandered deeper into the village, eating slowly, afraid that if I finished too fast, the warmth in my stomach would vanish.
My head throbbed faintly, like something inside was trying to wake up.
Half-memories pressed at the edges of my mind.
This village.
These streets.
This body.
I knew them.
But I also didn't.
At the edge of the settlement, where proper houses gave way to broken shacks and leaning fences, the ground grew uneven. Trash gathered here—splintered crates, torn cloth, cracked pottery, bones stripped clean by animals.
The slum.
The place no one cared to clean.
Something tugged at me then. Not instinct—curiosity.
Near a pile of discarded items, half-buried beneath dust and rotting fabric, I saw the corner of a book.
Books did not belong here.
I crouched and pulled it free.
The cover was cracked, leather peeling away at the edges. Several pages were bent, some stained dark with age or moisture. But the title was still readable, written in firm, deliberate letters:
A Brief History of the Sphinx World
My breath caught.
Sphinx.
That word sent a strange shiver through me, like a key brushing against a locked door.
I looked around.
No one was watching.
Carefully, I tucked the book under my arm and slipped away from the village, heading back toward the forest—but not deep this time.
Just far enough that the sounds of people faded into the rustling of leaves and distant birds.
I found a large tree with roots breaking through the earth like the bones of something ancient.
I sat beside it, my back against the bark, knees drawn up, and opened the book.
The pages smelled of dust and time.
I began to read.
The book spoke of a world vastly older than any single race.
Before humans, before elves, before even demons, there were monsters—beings born of mana so dense it warped flesh and instinct alike.
Among them stood the Sphinx, creatures of intelligence and prophecy, watchers of history rather than rulers of it.
The world itself was divided not by borders alone, but by mana density.
In the northern ranges lived Dragonkind, ancient beings bound to mountains and storms. Few had seen them in centuries, but their influence shaped the climate and the flow of mana itself.
To the east lay the Human Kingdoms, fractured into dozens of nations.
Some thrived on magic, others on trade, others on conquest.
Mana flowed through all humans, but how it was used varied wildly.
The western forests belonged to the Elves, whose lives were intertwined with nature so deeply that their cities were grown rather than built.
Their magic favored harmony, illusion, and life.
Beneath the great mountains lived the Dwarves, masters of metal and stone.
While they possessed mana like all races, many dwarven clans rejected spellcasting in favor of strengthening their bodies.
Near their territories, humans adopted similar paths—training with swords, spears, shields, and even bare fists reinforced by mana.
To the south sprawled lands corrupted by ancient wars: the territories of the Demon Race. Once united, now scattered into factions driven by ambition, resentment, and survival.
The book described countless monsters—beasts mutated by wild mana, creatures born from magical disasters, and ancient predators that treated entire villages as feeding grounds.
I swallowed.
The wolf in the forest suddenly felt less like an anomaly and more like a warning.
As I turned the page, the tone shifted.
The wars.
Thousands of years ago, demons had pushed northward, threatening to wipe out younger races. Alliances were formed. Broken. Reforged. Entire continents burned.
And then—
A name appeared repeatedly.
Not emphasized with flourish.
Not celebrated with poetry.
Simply stated, again and again, as fact.
The Archmage.
The strongest mage in recorded history.
A human.
He wielded magic unlike any before or after him. Not bound to a single element or system, but adaptable, analytical—refined through understanding rather than instinct alone.
He destroyed the demon vanguard.
He sealed rifts.
He forced peace where none could be negotiated.
And when the wars ended, he did something unexpected.
He stayed.
He helped rebuild.
The first structured human cities were attributed to him—stone foundations, planned roads, defensive layouts optimized against both monsters and mana surges.
The houses.
My fingers tightened on the page.
The houses in the village.
Simple. Old. Functional.
Too familiar.
According to the book, the Archmage vanished decades after peace was established. Some claimed ascension. Others claimed betrayal. The Sphinx records merely stated that history diverged from that point onward.
I closed the book slowly.
My heart was pounding now, loud in my ears.
A human mage.
Knowledge-based magic.
Engineering principles shaping cities.
A ridiculous thought formed in my mind.
One I didn't want to accept.
One that refused to go away.
I looked down at my small hands, dirt-stained and shaking.
And for the first time since waking up in this world, I wondered—
What if the man who built this world… came from mine?