The apartment was neither rich nor worn—just… a bland and minimal room.
And in this room a lone boy lay still on the bed, his body soaked in sweat, the sheets beneath him darkened as though he had fought a long, intense and invisible hurdle in his sleep.
Then the boy woke up suddenly choking on air that was unfamiliar.
It wasn't humid or stale— just heavy, like the density of it was pressing down on his lungs.
"Haha...hooh...haaah..hooh..."
His heart hammered as his breath was uneven, forcing his body to remember how to breathe manually.
Wet sheets made cold creeping against his skin, as if he'd just survived something unforgettable, something forceful.
White light blinded his vision, and when it faded, he found himself staring at a cracked ceiling, from which the old paint was peeling in thin curls.
A single light bulb hung above, flickering weakly— unapologetically mundane. That alone told the boy something was wrong.
Then suddenly something clicked, as he realised this wasn't his room.
The boy sat up too fast. The bed creaked sharply under his weight, the sound too real, too physical. And that was when he noticed the smell— faintly metallic, and artificial, like the air of an industrial district.
Not a place people wanted to live, but endured.
"…Where the hell am I?" his shout echoed inside his room.
His voice came out deeper than it should have.
And even as panic flared, his mind was already racing ahead, trying to make sense of his situation— lucid dream, prank, coma, reincarnation, or hyper-real VR simulation.
All things as absurd, and impossible. But still those were more possible than his current situation.
'How am I in this room!!?... Just a moment before I was in the sky, gliding.' He thought spiralling to the last memory he had.
Well, impossible happened, and he collided with a hawk, before both died by crashing into a tree.
Sunlight slipped through the half-shuttered window, while illuminating drifting dust particles in its path like tiny, suspended stars.
But the moment this crept light touched his skin, he became flabbergasted.
They were of darker shade. Not by much—but it was unmistakably darker. And his familiar tan skin was gone, replaced by this slightly deeper tone.
His heart skipped, the moment he saw this, as something clicked in his mind.
The boy moved quickly, almost tripping over his own steps, and pushed open the bathroom door on the opposite wall. A mirror hung above the basin, hanging casually while reflecting the light coming from the skylit above.
He approached it slowly, his feet pressing calculatively. Each of his steps is heavier than the last.
Then he saw himself, or did he?
The boy in the mirror wasn't him— it was a reflection of someone stranger to him. It was a teenage face, handsome and still untouched by maturity. Its Hair was not black, but dark brown, while threaded faintly with copper touch. The hair was long enough to brush his eyes while shaved shorter at the sides.
Lean. Athletic. That was the first thought as he checked his new body. And deceptively so.
And when he clenched his fists, he could feel it— the strength hidden beneath the surface, far beyond what the outer frame suggested. Then his height, that was also most alarming. It was well past six feet, and looking that when the body still was in its growth phase.
"…So I got isekai'd," he muttered. "All those novels weren't lying, huh?"
He raised his hands, turning them slowly, palm to back hand.
"And this body...it really is a freak of nature."
He said, "This much strength.... far more than what I gained previously from my planned workout."
Then his gaze shifted, "But this is not even the most unnatural thing about this body." He met with the reflection of his eyes.
The right shimmered gold— lucid, almost unreal. While the left was a deep, layered blue, sometimes flickered with shifting shades that changed with respect to the ambient light.
He murmured. "Beautiful… yes but to eye-catching."
Then there was a pause, as something suddenly crossed in his mind.
"…But why does this face feel familiar?"
That thought lingered only briefly before the boy shrugged it off. "Well if it mattered, I would have remembered... Probably."
He said, before stepping back into the room and stood still.
He looked like he was waiting— expecting for something to arrive.
'Hmm...why didn't it happen? Wasn't it supposed to come the moment I awake.'
Pain.
A flood of memories.
Or a splitting headache like the ones always described in novels, where the protagonist would get the memory of this world— or as the transmigration novel described it.
He expected for that but nothing came. He waited for some time— but still nothing.
"…Shouldn't some brain-bursting memory transfer happen right about now?" he asked to himself in the empty room.
A sigh escaped from him after couple of second. "Guess I got the short end of transmigration."
'At least no headache'. Then another thought struck— another classic from those novels.
His heart thumped in expectation.
He straightened his posture, cleared his throat, and with conviction, called loudly "System."
Nothing.
"…Interface?"
Still nothing.
But he didn't stop, he tried again. Different tones.... different words.
Ten minutes later, the boy now collapsed onto the bed, his shoulder loose in defeat.
"Yeah… figures. I really got the short stick."
Then the boy stood again, and began to scan the room. "There should be something. Documents. An ID or bills, anything."
And that's when he saw it.
A deep brunette coloured wooden desk. And at its center laid... a letter.
"How did I miss that…?" he muttered to himself, while stepping closer.
The parchment felt real and regal beneath his fingers. It was sealed with red wax, and stamped with a spiraling sun with a golden Tiara.
His steps halted, as he registered the symbol in his mind. He knew that sigil.
Hundreds of hours played—Boss Raids, Gacha Spins, Resource farming, Lore tabs, how could he forget all that.
It was a symbol of Auralith Academy.
His trembling hand reached the parchment as he broke the seal.
[To Ryke Hōrsasvat— You are hereby honored with admission into Auralith Academy, Class of 7-33. You are expected to report to the southern gate exactly one month from the date this letter is received.]
He read the name again..
Then again.. but slower.
"…The Auralith Academy."
And finally reality snapped into place, and Ryke got the answer he was searching for.
The information about his situation, the information about the world, and he got that.
This wasn't just another world. It was the world of The Aeonic Quest or TAQ[1]. It was his favorite MMORPG.
He remembered everything: the Havens, the guilds, the bosses, the plot, and the overpowered protagonists.
And finally..... the extra— Ryke Hōrsasvat.
A name that appeared for a total of two grand dialogue boxes in a forgotten side quest.... Or sometimes as a minor antagonist. The kind of NPC that many players skipped without reading or batting an eye.
Well except now— as now that NPC was him.
He sank into the chair nearby, before beginning to laugh softly. Not from joy— but something rather closer to disbelief.
"…Perfect. Just my luck."
He stared at the letter, as it could give him any better answers, but after sometime he concluded, this wasn't a dream— it was now his world, the world of The Aeonic Quest, and where he was just an extra nothing more, nothing less.
As noon painted the room amber— not yellow, the world revealed itself properly. Trade District rugs. The distant chime of the Chrono Bell. Sounds he had heard hundreds of times through cheap speakers— were now real.
He stared out the window. His gold and blue eyes reflected a world that was now his.
"Well, Ryke," he murmured under his breath. "Looks like we're stuck together."
And then followed a short, unhinged kind of laugh echoed, one that only comes after your consciousness had decided your sanity was cancelled. But still, curiosity gnawed on him, as a resolute thought formed inside him.
'If this was Aeonic Quest, the replica of the game, then everything will have rules— stats, threads, Weave tiers, the whole metaphysical buffet of opportunity. Maybe being an extra wasn't the end of the world. Maybe I can get the one thing I lacked in my previous life..... Yeah...yes...'
His eyes filled with a crazed hunger... And the corner of his lip streching to form a wide grin.
Ryke was already lost in the excitement, just from his future expectations, so much so that Ryke still didn't realize the abnormality of his.
The sane persona of his, even after he knew he wasn't in his world anymore, the comfort gnawing in him as he evaluated the dangers, and the persona he would find in the near future.
Though no memories came. Nor any flashbacks, or tragic montage, nor even an ominous robotic voice declaring a quest to end his life. He felt like peace but Ryke— he knew better. In this world he could potentially get anything but peace.
As Ryke went ahead to familiarize with his current environment, time did not wait for him and passed swiftly, and by the time dusk welcomed him, he had stopped already trying to find logic in this cosmic game, that was his transmigration.
At that time a voice reverberated in the room
Groooowllll.....
It was not of any monster but his stomach, grumbling without any consideration to his situation.
Ryke, feeling the hunger, rose from the chair and began his quest to defeat the monster that was in his stomach.
He crossed the narrow hall into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It was as empty as his expression— save for a half-eaten pizza. Ryke took it out and devoured it in two bites, cold and without hesitation.
He crawled back into bed. The frame creaked beneath him again, complaining like a tired argument of couples.
Maybe soon he'd figure it out, how to survive this world, whether it was still under the game's rules, and if death here was truly permanent.
Slowly his thoughts blurred, as his eyelids grew heavy.
The last thing he noticed was the moon beyond the window—too close, impossibly close— humming softly, as if it was alive and watching him through the window.
And then....the sleep claimed him.
And with it came the dream and one thing he was looking....
Memories....
And Pain....
[1] (pronounced as Tak or Talk)