1. It was a normal day.

I was woken up by the sound of my default phone alarm at 6:30 am. I walked across the tiny room to reach the toilet.

I got ready for work by brushing my teeth and taking a shower. I decided to wear my favorite jacket today. Grabbed my earphones to listen to the final chapter of the novel I was reading last night. I walked out the same door as I did 3 years ago.

It is a 15-minute walk to my workplace, just enough for the pages left. While walking, the detective's voice slowly unravels the mystery of the story. As I arrived at the bookstore, I removed my earphones and said to myself, "I was right."

The old man was already there, and he heard me. I quickly dismissed it and went to the staff room to store my bag. "Nothing to do today, just man the counter," he said even before I opened the locker.

"Give me an espresso today." I told him while walking toward the table. As soon as I reached for the chair, "Any plans today?" he asked. I sat down and shook my head. "It was your 20th birthday last week, young lady." He passed me the coffee while sighing. I packaged some books in order to send them back to my orphanage in a serene silence.

As the clock hit 10:00 am, the owner flipped the "Closed" sign, his way of telling me it was time to work. Today was nothing special, just the usual customers with a couple of new faces. As the time reached 5:00 pm, the store owner gave me the key and told me to clean up the store. I went to get all my belongings back from the locker and checked the whole store for one last time.

I saw a lady wearing a face mask staring at the floor. "The store is closing, ma'am", I said as I stood at the counter. She walked toward the counter, and I looked at the book she wanted to buy. What a coincidence, it was the novel that I just finished this morning. "Maybe this is a sign-" as the thought runs through my mind.

A sharp pain shocks my whole body as I see that there was somebody behind me, with a knife that is colored red. I shoved him away, but my consciousness went away. I barely noticed that my body was being carried away into a van.

I chuckled in my mind and hoped that the old man wouldn't be too stressed about what happened at his store. "These people should have let me at least finish closing up." I felt my vision fading. "Ah... I hope they at least do something interesting with my body," I thought.

"Y- be doing- to me!" I heard somebody exclaimed. I opened my eyes, and an immense headache immediately attacked me. I tried my best to walk toward the source of the voices. While I was still in a complete disarray, a shining bright light blinded me, and while I clearly remember there were originally five people standing there, it has been reduced to one person lying on the ground.

I walked slowly to the person, carefully observing them in case of any sudden movements. As I was walking, my brain immediately thought to itself, "Oh, I know this, a lot of novels explained how this should feel. I am looking at a dead body." Looking at the body, I quickly checked myself. The stab wound is gone, but my clothes have the stab hole. "What is happening?" I couldn't help but utter the words to myself.

I am looking at the body from afar, noticing details like the outfit he is wearing, the fact that he is carrying a lot of self-written archives. I checked my surroundings one more time, and it seems like I am inside an abandoned castle, with nothing else to do. I have decided to mess with the crime scene. The other four most likely have something to do with what happened to him.

It was a clean kill, just a small hole to the head. Instantly killing him, it has to be something as efficient as a gun, but considering I heard no loud bang during the bright light. "This might be... magic," I said while remembering the novel that the owner showed me a couple of months ago. Multiple thoughts running in my head, but only one that makes sense: I am not on Earth anymore. At least, not my earth.

I asked for forgiveness from the body as I removed all of his clothes and items. If this is a different world, then I would be playing with a different set of rules. I need to understand as much as I can before I walk outside of this castle. Thankfully, the other four people seem to have left their food. At the very least, it seems there is still normal agriculture in this world.

After organizing everything, I learned that the dead man is called, or at the very least, he wanted to be called "Veritas". I know this because all of his archives have his name written on them. It looks like I hit the jackpot. This person likes to record everything about what he learns. This is a world where magic is the common way of thinking. The way I can explain it is like science to me.

This person wrote a lot, like a lot. I even gave him the nickname "Archiver". He has written enough for me to cross-reference the words that I don't understand, but something is very, very peculiar with one of his diaries. The diary I'm talking about is a diary that is written in complete English. This person might have been just like me. Somebody not from this world.