**Cold**
A strange sensation of cold envelops my body as I stare at the frozen world outside the window.
"How surreal."
The world outside looked like a scene from one of the Western fantasy novels, where piles of white snow cover the unpaved roads and the roofs of wooden houses.
It seemed like a rural village in the middle of winter, bearing no resemblance at all to the skyscrapers and asphalt roads I was used to.
"Am I in a dream? No, there's no dream this vivid."
Was I drugged, then kidnapped to a remote village at the far edge of the country?
No, that's illogical as well.
So then, did I move to another world?
It felt stupid and ridiculous for me to even think about it, and yet for some reason I found it to be the most logical explanation.
"Well, I suppose I should explore my surroundings before jumping to any stupid conclusions."
I stood up from the chair I had been sitting on and left the blanket that had been covering my body.
"It's really cold."
I feel like I'm going to freeze from the cold, and yet I grit my teeth and look around.
The place where I woke up was a wooden attic, with nothing inside it except for the wooden chair I had been sitting on, and the window positioned at the center of the room.
The room was completely empty, so I headed toward the stairs in order to go down to the lower floor,
which, unlike the empty attic, was completely full.
The lower floor looked like an antique shop or the storage room of a man obsessed with collecting strange objects.
Shelves filled with books, various kinds of traditional jewelry and ornaments, and even some strange clay statues decorated the wooden walls and made the room look very cramped,
with a wooden table and chair positioned at the center of the shop.
"Amazing."
I feel astonished by the scene before me, something I had only ever seen on my phone or on television,
and at the same time, I feel happy.
I can search through the books for information about the world I'm in, and whether I really did move to another world.
I approach the books and try to read their titles.
'#&¥£₹§'
"..."
"What is this?"
The book titles were written in a strange language that looked like arcane symbols, and even the contents of the books were written in the same bizarre symbols.
"Well, this at least increases the likelihood that I've moved to another world."
I return the book to its place and sit down on the chair while contemplating the strange situation I'm in.
I was just an ordinary university student on Earth, living my life without any problems or getting involved in anything supernatural; I didn't even believe in metaphysics, and I only concluded that I had moved to another world because of all the isekai stories I had followed.
And yet, suddenly, while preparing a university project, I find myself in a strange and unfamiliar environment, possibly another world.
"What a cliché start for an isekai anime."
And yet, this is my reality now, and strangely enough, I don't feel fear or panic, but rather a kind of excitement.
"Have I always been addicted to dopamine, finding pleasure in a strange and incomprehensible event like being transported to another world?"
"Or did all those fantasy stories affect my brain?"
In any case, all of this is meaningless. What matters now is exploring the village I'm in and finding a way to learn how to read.
"Wait, if I don't know how to read, is it possible that I can't understand the speech of the people of this world either?"
That would be a catastrophe in every sense of the word.
While I'm lost in my thoughts, I hear a knock on the door, followed by the voice of an old woman asking,
"Salem, boy, are you here?"
"Yes."
I feel a shiver run down my spine as I reply instinctively.
"Oh, how wonderful that you're awake this early. I wanted to ask about something."
The shop door opens as an old woman wearing a thick fur coat enters, speaking with a gentle smile.
"I wanted to ask whether you still have any petals of the Dawn Rose."
"Oh, of course. Let me look for it here."
I reply to the woman in a gentle voice, trying to hide the tremor in it, as I lower my head to search through the table drawers.
Luckily for me, what she was looking for—or what I assumed she was looking for—was in the very first drawer I opened.
Among the various bottles and containers crammed inside the drawer, there was a glass container holding the petals of a strange golden flower.
When I touched the container, I felt a faint warmth emanating from it, so I assumed it was what the old woman was looking for.
"Is this what you're looking for?"
When I present the glass container to the old woman, a happy smile spreads across her face.
"Oh, I truly don't know what I would have done without you, kind boy."
The old woman takes the glass container with trembling hands as she turns toward the exit door.
"When Shang Hu returns from his journey, I'll have him compensate you for all your help to us."
"No, no, that's not necessary."
I try to suppress my urge to push the old woman out quickly as I reply politely.
"What a truly kind boy you are."
Finally, the old woman leaves, and I close the door behind her before collapsing against it, unable to hide the shock overwhelming me.
"How… how, how does she know my real name?"
Not only that, but when I looked at my reflection on the glass bottles and containers, what I saw was nothing but the face I had lived with for twenty-two years of my life.
"What is happening here?"
At first, I thought I had been transferred into a new body in another world, or that I had traveled through time, but I never imagined that I would still be in the same body—and yet, that wasn't what shocked me the most.
Since I had already accepted the fact of my transfer, there was no problem if I had been transferred with my own body. It could be considered that I entered an interdimensional rift, or that a cosmic entity dragged my body into its world. Fantastical explanations, but at least they aligned with my already fantastical and illogical situation.
But I'm here with the same body and the same name, and the old woman seemed to know me for a long time, as if I had been living here for months or years, even though I only arrived in this world moments ago.
"This makes no sense."