Prologue

The moment I opened my eyes, the world had changed.

The last thing I remembered was falling asleep in my bed, my head filled with memories of the past... and when I woke up, I was no longer in my room. I was somewhere else, in a completely unfamiliar environment, clutching the amulet I had taken with me when I fell asleep.

But that wasn't the only thing that had changed during my sleep.

Leaning over a lake, I didn't recognize the reflection appearing on the water's surface. That face... that pale skin, that strange hair, and above all, those physical attributes no human possessed... Everything was different from my usual appearance.

From the outside, I looked like someone else. Or rather, something else. But inside, I was still me. I felt the same. My thoughts, my memories... nothing had changed. Everything seemed intact.

The change seemed purely physical. As if I had... changed bodies.

The world I had landed in was nothing like the one I knew.

A vast, verdant landscape stretched as far as the eye could see. A forest with a mystical air, its colors vibrant. A large clearing bathed in light, sheltering a sparkling lake in its center. This was where it all began.

"Wow... It's magnificent..." I breathed, amazed.

I couldn't help but marvel at the incredible panorama that opened up before me as I left the forest.

If I had to compare this world to my own, I would say they were both close and very different. Strange fauna, different flora... there were similarities, but also enormous differences. I didn't know if I was dreaming... or if this was all real.

A world straight out of a fantasy novel.

"An isekai, seriously..." I blurted out, skeptical.

It reminded me exactly of those stories where a hero finds himself transported to another world. And here, I too... had been transferred, without explanation, to a fantasy universe.

So... had I been transferred to this world? Or... had I died and been reincarnated? I thought.

Now that I thought about it, most isekai stories revolved around reincarnation. Another life, in another world. The hero died, then was reborn in a new form: human, demon, goblin, slime... sometimes even a sword or a vending machine.

Yeah. It was weird, but somehow... made sense.

Maybe that explained what happened to me.

 —It's like I've been reincarnated as...

Diving into an isekai was a dream come true for many people. A world filled with magic, adventure, wonders... It was supposed to be a privilege, a chance some dreamed of having.

But I didn't aspire to die, nor to go to another world.

And yet, it didn't take me long to realize that this dream was an illusion.

Everything changed... the moment the dream turned into a nightmare.

Horrible creatures suddenly appeared. They leaped out from everywhere, attacking without warning.

Their forms were distorted, grotesque. Monsters straight out of a horror movie. Each of them possessed unique characteristics: some were as small as insects, others as immense as a mountain.

Their bodies seemed to have been formed in total chaos, like a disorderly mixture of several creatures merged into one. And their number kept increasing...

I was plunged into a nightmare. A hostile territory surrounded me.

When danger was omnipresent and lurking at my every step, when my life was at stake every second, when death hovered relentlessly over my head like a sword of Damocles, the only survival option open to me... was flight. Run. Faster and faster.

Hide. Stay out of sight. With that, I hoped to live another day. It was all I had left. The only possible way out.

The attacks were becoming more and more violent, more and more frequent. The more I ran, the more they intensified.

It was all I could do to hope to stay alive.

How did we get here?

How did I end up here?

Why me? Why now? How was I going to get out of this hell?

This world wasn't some fantastical dream world. It was a nightmare. Hell, disguised as a lost paradise.