I felt as if I were flying through a distant fog, completely disconnected from everything. It was as if I were nothing more than a vague mory, sothing remote and irrelevant. Then, like a storm breaking the silence of a calm night, ca the pain.
"My head hurts... so much..." That was the first thought to echo in my confused mind as I woke up. The pain seed to be the center of the universe at that mont. It was as if a deep cut were splitting my skull, and with each pulse, it felt like I was about to break in half.
Gradually, the fog in my mind began to lift. Light started to filter through my half-closed eyes, revealing a vast blue sky, cloudless, stretching like an infinite ocean above . The strange sensation under my back made realize I wasn’t on the ground, but on a wooden floor, gently vibrating. When I focused, I heard the deep, constant rhythm of engines working. An airship... I was on an airship. But how?
My body trembled with each new wave of vibration rising from the engine, intensifying the searing pain in my head. "I need to breathe..." I thought, trying to maintain control. I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the fresh air that carried the scent of oil and old wood. It helped, though just a little.
I blinked several tis, adjusting my vision to the light. Around , I saw dozens of young people scattered across the deck. Each one seed to have stepped out of a different world. There were those in impeccable aristocratic attire, with top hats and decorated vests.
Others wore simple clothes, but with accessories that hinted at indigenous cultures, including elaborate tattoos. They spoke in small groups or gazed downward, watching the landscape below the airship, as if they were accustod to being there. None of them seed to notice my presence, let alone my debilitated condition.
The cold touch of the wood against my back brought back to reality. I couldn’t remain lying there, exposed to the cold and the pain. Gathering my strength, I tried to sit up. At first, I managed to lift my shoulders and bend my arms, but the mont my head shifted position, a sharp stab of pain struck my skull like a knife.
I let out a low grunt, but the pain brought sothing else. Suddenly, a whirlwind of images, sounds, and sensations flooded my mind. mories... or were they dreams? Faces I didn’t recognize, places I had never visited, voices speaking in urgent tones. The mories ca like an uncontrollable avalanche, erasing any sense of ti or space.
My eyes rolled back, and the blue world above blurred until it disappeared completely. With no strength to resist, I was sucked back into the void, losing consciousness.
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A few hours later.
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.
.
"Tyler... Tyler! Wake up!"
A voice resonated through my sleep, like a distant echo that finally reached . My eyes slowly opened, blinking against the soft light that enveloped the deck.
"Did I reincarnate?"
That was the first question that crossed my mind. I could still feel the suffocating heat and the blinding flas of the explosion that consud everything around —a nuclear energy coil at its peak, sothing impossible to survive, even with maximum protection. But this... this was not the sa place. This airship, built from wooden planks and adorned with patches of tal, was a relic from a distant past of the world I once knew. No, this didn’t make sense.
As fragnts of mories collided in my mind, I began to organize the new mories that didn’t belong to —or perhaps, now they did. I realized I had inherited soone else’s life: Tyler Rustel.
This world was not mine. It was a place resembling dieval Europe, with castles, fiefs, and aristocratic hierarchies, but with sothing more... sothing that didn’t exist in my previous reality: magic. I could feel sothing different pulsing around , like a constant whisper in the winds passing through the airship.
The original Tyler Rustel was the son of a minor noble, Baron Elion Rustel. His father, despite having little prestige, had moved mountains to fund his training as a mage. Successfully tested for magical talents, Tyler was now on his way to a magical academy, traveling aboard this airship with other young people gifted with magic.
A deep voice interrupted my thoughts.
"Finally awake, huh? Keep this up, and you’ll miss dinner."
I lifted my gaze, and my eyes settled on the peculiar figure before .
It was a goblin.
The creature’s bright yellow eyes stared at with an almost defiant intensity, surrounded by thick eyebrows that emphasized its wild expression. Its long, slightly curved nose gave it a comical air, but the fierce gleam of its youth dominated any ridiculous appearance. The black, shiny hair fell to its shoulders, ssy but strangely well-kept.
Despite its short stature, the goblin’s body was robust and muscular, like that of a warrior trained for constant battle. There was sothing impressively virile about its presence—a stark contrast to the weak, servile goblins I had read about in stories in the past.
"Styg," I murmured, feeling the familiarity of the newly inherited mory.
Styg was the legitimate son of a War Goblin, and one of the few of his race to be gifted with magical talent. The leader of his tribe had invested precious resources to send him to the magical academy, betting on the promise of a bright future.
The goblin grinned widely, showing sharp tusks, and gave a friendly pat on the shoulder.
"Co on, Tyler! It’s not every day we get fresh at for dinner. I’m not going to let you miss out just because you decided to sleep like a stone!"
I took a deep breath, absorbing the weight of my new reality. As the goblin laughed and walked away, I stood up, feeling the airship’s vibrations beneath my feet. I looked at the other young people on the deck, which was now nearly empty.
I closed my eyes for a mont, feeling the new surroundings.
"Well," I thought. "If I really reincarnated into a parallel version of myself... then this will be my new life. Let’s see what this world has to offer."
The silver light of the moon now bathed the airship’s deck, reflecting gently off the aged wooden planks. The sky above, which had been blue before I passed out, was now vast and deep, a black mantle dotted with countless bright stars, as if the very universe had scattered shards of light in celebration.
The moon, large and majestic, seed close enough to touch, casting a cold glow that illuminated the distant horizon. The stars pulsed, so in familiar patterns, others forming constellations I had never seen before. It was a sky that seed to belong to another world, mysterious and magnificent.
I took a few steps on the deck, the creaking of the wood echoing softly beneath my feet. But my head still throbbed. The pain was a persistent reminder of my transition between two worlds. Also, the air up here was thin and rarefied, making it difficult to breathe. Each breath felt like a struggle, but at the sa ti, I noticed sothing unusual: this was the purest air I had ever felt.
"Incredible..." I thought, closing my eyes for a mont and inhaling deeply. This air was a luxury in my past world, where living in a chaotic tropolis ant breathing smoke, pollution, and dust. I rembered my previous life, a harsh and suffocating existence in a cramped slum, where dreams were a rarity.
I smiled faintly, the mory of Label rising like a ghost in my mind. "Label... you must have died in that explosion too," I thought, without sadness, but with a sense of closure. Both of our deaths had been inevitable, but before that, I had managed to achieve what I wanted. I had no regrets.
Suddenly, a line of thought interrupted . I frowned, my eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
"My father in this world was a baron?"
The mories of Tyler Rustel’s life began to flow more clearly. My father, Baron Elion Rustel, ruled over lands that, in the eyes of the previous Tyler, were as vast as an entire city. He commanded thousands of soldiers, and even though he was a baron—a position considered inferior in the nobility hierarchy—his wealth and influence were imnse.
In this world, the status of a noble was not only asured by wealth but by personal and magical strength. Powerful nobles had lands as vast as several cities from my old world, and their annual incos could be counted in thousands of gold coins.
And even with so much power and resources, Tyler’s father had faced countless difficulties to get on this airship. It wasn’t easy for a noble to finance the training of a mage, and this spoke volus about Elion Rustel’s effort and priorities.
"He fought for ..." I murmured, feeling sothing strange within . Gratitude? No, it was too early to say. I barely knew this world’s father, but the mories suggested a man who had sacrificed a great deal for .
As I delved into these thoughts, a new wave of pain shot through my head, so intense that I had to hold onto the deck’s railing to avoid falling.
And with the pain, ca another scene, as clear as a dream, invading my mind.
...
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