On April 1st 2025, I fell through the floor on my way back from university into another world. I was 18 years old at the time. Fantasia; the world was called. I learned that a later. A world of sword and magic. A true fantasy. Many might think that a new adventure awaits them. A brand new world to explore. And more importantly,,,MAGIC! Who wouldn’t be excited to use magic? The dream that every child had at one point or another.

…

Too bothersome 

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And besides, when you don’t get summoned by the goddess of the world as a hero you get no cheats. Meaning that you don’t get to magically know the language. You don’t get any advantages in terms of skills or spells. Your body is the same and is not altered to adapt to the world. Everyone in this world is physically stronger than those on Earth. They live in a environment filled with magic in the air. They soak in it. And magic particles, mana, as it’s called, runs through their veins since their bodies have adapted to the environment through the ages. So, in a nutshell, they are organisms that evolved to fit into the world.

I lived on the streets for 5 years at first. I didn’t know the language and didn’t know much about the world. I picked my fights well when it came to scavenging food. I stuck to people who stayed alone in the slums with no greater connections with any groups there. I tried to stay away form stealing from mothers and children. I had to kill for the first time on the third month of my arrival to the slums, I learned that it was considered quite lucky of me to not have killed, or been killed within the first three months as they are usually the most chaotic period when people live in there. I tried surviving as much as possible, my body lost the fat it had with the first year and I turned from an overweight guy to an underweight one.  Through these five years I stole money from those I killed to survive, but I fucked up on the third year and one of the guys I killed was related to the slum lord. So I was sold to a brothel. The only reason I was not killed was that they were lacking men in brothels in those parts, and my looks were ‘exotic’ for those parts of the world. I had an Arab heritage even though I was in the UK at the time I fell through worlds, I had a brown afro with brown eyes at the time, and my skin was slightly tanned. That was a rarity to those who went to brothels at those parts. The majority of my visitors were women, but some men came occasionally. I don’t swing that way, so I struggled when the first guy came to visit and since he was my first visitor coincidentally, I had my left arm cut off by the slumlord as a warning. He didn’t take kindly to me kicking the visitor’s crotch; bursting his balls. Didn’t detract from my value though, but added to my overall atmosphere according to the visitors.

At the end of my stay at the slums I was diseased and broken mentally and physically. I had learned the language in my stay there. Understood it well, but couldn’t speak it well at all. I tried begging on the main streets after that as the slums became too much for me to endure. My body was originally weaker than the Fantasians and now even more so. The sight of a 180cm tall, 23 years old, one armed sack of skin and bones ended up with me thrown outside the city. I had dropped in the slums by sheer luck in the first and couldn’t do anything beyond that since even signing up at the adventurers guild would require an identification. Identification was checked on exit and departure of the city as well and if you were found to have no ID in the first place you would be jailed or killed on the spot for suspicion of being a spy. Retarded I know, but apparently the political situation in the human territories at the time was strained and there was a demon lord starting out an invasion.

When I was thrown out the city, they had wanted to kill me at first, but a newly summoned hero, one brought to prepare for the upcoming invasion was passing at the time. She was a Japanese high schooler called Mirai Kurosaki. First name Mirai that is. She asked guards about the situation as she had the common language translation cheat, so she could converse properly. She came like a ray of hope into my life.

‘Hey! You! Are you from Earth?’ I cried out in English. She was struck dumb at first, she knew a bit of English so we had a sorry excuse of a conversation. I learned that I was in a world called Fantasia, a world of sword and magic. In a human country with a  name I couldn’t understand since I was still terrible at the language. I managed to get my point across though and she said she would do her best to help me out. Her best ended up with me having my insignificant life spared and being thrown out the city that turned put to be the capital of the country I was in. It wasn’t much, I was not cured. I was not given food to eat nor water to drink. But I had my life still.

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I had to live. I had to live to return back home. To my parents who were across the ocean. To my 10 year old sister who I treasured dearly. I had to live to return. The hero was newly summoned and could return after her quest was fulfilled. She did not know about cases like mine and the guards could not be bothered to care about my case since they had more important things to care about. They wanted to get on the hero’s good side so they handled the situation swiftly, per the instructions of the guard captain.

I took my battered body and walked away from the gates of the capital in the rags I still had from my days at the slums. The thing about this city was that it was surrounded by a forest on all sides with a roads going in the four cardinal directions through the forest. The fact that the road was maintained to a certain extent meant that the forest was not that dangerous, so I headed North. The forest was not that dangerous…but to me it was the most dangerous place I’ve been in in my entire 23 years of life. Had to take the risk though. Need water and food. Had to live. Must live to return.

Returning was always my goal. It was always at the back of my head. But survival took precedent, so it was my final goal than my current one. My current goal was not to die.

I walked for three days and nights. Tried to hunt but couldn’t. Not enough experience nor strength to hunt. Tried looking for a water source but couldn’t find any. As for sleep…I didn’t dare to since I was too afraid thinking I would not wake up. So I walked and walked. Till I arrived at an overturned carriage, there were cages scattered everywhere. I saw a pack of wild beasts eating who seemed to be the owner of the carriages and the guards. I hid an observed till they left. The two longest hours of my life passed. I couldn’t pass out due to the situation and my hear was pounding in my chest. The crunches I heard sent shivers down my spine. I had eaten rotten food. I had eaten dirt and rocks at time. I picked whatever I could from the garbage at times  and stole whatever I could from .

Two hours of waiting passed by and the beasts left. I moved cautiously to the leftovers and knelt over the remains and was stuck in deep thought.

‘Should I do it?’

‘Must I do it?’

‘Must I lose it?  My humanity?’

‘Is it worth it?’

I narrowed my eyes and whatever little humanity I had left was gone as my survival instincts took over. The light in my eyes died.

I must survive!

I have to survive to return!

I… must live… I… Must eat!

I ate whatever leftover flesh I got my hands on. Tiny fragment of flesh. I felt like throwing up the moment the flesh made contact with my tongue. The metallic flavour of blood. The soft sloppy texture of whatever part of what used to be a living breathing human a few hours ago that was. I felt my eyes blur and my stomach churn but I swallowed the flesh whole. No need to chew. Just swallow. But…there was no flesh left to eat. Whatever little that was scattered I ate, and all that was left were broken, snapped skeletons with pools of blood on the ground. I stuck my tongue to ground trying to drink whatever I could. I had no care for illnesses for I was already ill. I had no care for my humanity for it was gone with my survival instincts flaring. I drank what I could but was not satisfied. Thoughts raced through my head. I squeezed my shrunk-up brain thinking of what I could salvage from the remains. Anything. I must eat anything. Rather than what can I eat, I thought, ‘how can I eat?’ I grabbed small pieces of bone and swallowed them whole. It was painful. Extremely painful with how dried up my throat was. But the little blood that covered the inside of my mouth and throat helped me swallow. Not enough. Must eat. And then a bulb turned in my head. How could I not think of that earlier. It must be because my brain had shrunken up from years of malnutrition and brutal abuse at the brothel. Bone Marrow! I grabbed a broken femur and looked inside. Not hollow! I sucked with all I could and felt a disgusting texture in my mouth. I swallowed immediately and before I could throw up I grabbed another bone and repeated the process. I sucked and swallowed like I was forced to do in the brothel. I was forced then and I am forced now I thought. For survival I thought. What seemed like an eternity passed, but it was only a few minutes in reality. I was still on my knees. Staring at what remained of a brain I had removed from a cracked skull laying on the side. What remained of a brain I just took a wholesome bite off in my haze.

I cracked a wretched smile then…everything was a haze. I remember hearing wretched sobs that sounded like laughter at times. Sobs that came from the soul. Sobs that seemed to have come from a distance. Later, I learned that I was the one who was crying. That was the second time I cried in this world. The second of three cries I had in this world. The first was on my first day of the brothel. After my arm was cut and I was forced to ‘entertain’ dozens of customers a day with no rest.

This was the second.

The third, they were cries I had at the end of my time at Fantasia. Right before I returned.