Earth, a floating planet in the milky way galaxy; which is a part of our solar system. Everyday for millions of years, creatures big and small have roamed this planet; just living their lives however they want.
Until the arrival of the human race, which took a good few millions of years to develop into the dominant species of the entire planet. In that time, there were lots of stories and events that took place; some that were minor, or some that were world changing, however... despite being prevalent in history and in our religions, up to this point there had never been any recorded signs of magic that inhibits our world... yet.
[Fast forward to the year 2025]
On the continent of North America and in the state of New Mexico, there lives an 18 year old boy in the Northeastern part of Albuquerque; He has medium length black hair, light brown colored skin, and right now he's getting ready to wake up, to start his first week at University; Never knowing that the simple life he was living was going to change drastically, for better or worse.
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Beep, Beep, Beep sounded his phone alarm as he slowly stirred, looking annoyed at the screen for awakening him from an ok dream; his only thoughts were 'why couldn't I have slept for a little longer?'
However, what truly woke him up was the sound of the TV playing. They were talking about the number of yearly disappearances and how 200k people go missing every year worldwide, and how only 50k are found, Depressing crap like that.
He groggily grabbed the Remote and turned the TV off. Last night he was watching a Pixar movie that was playing on the news channel, and he forgot to turn it off.
Then as he rubbed his eyes gently, as they stung a bit from trying to stay open, he got a text on his phone, one of his best friends since elementary, a goober by the name of Shaun Fauls. The text read {Hey Em! Wake up man, Comp 1 begins at 9:00 and your still not here}, and that snapped him out of his tired state immediately.
Em looked at his phone and saw it was 8:45, he really did oversleep on his first day...
Without any more time to lose, he got up, used the restroom, got dressed, and immediately headed out to his classroom, which was maybe a good 5-minute sprint to the right building. Along the way the sights and sounds of the University of New Mexico just hit his ears, it was yesterday when he got registered and he said goodbye to his parents; promising to text them once every day for the foreseeable future.
As he ran and ran, finally he made it to the lecture hall; and his eyes scanned the crowd for his familiar friend, and that's when at the far end of the lecture hall but near the middle of the room was his friend waving his arm at him. This made Em smile and he headed over to take his seat next to Shaun.
Once he finally sat down, Shaun gave a grin at him and said "Bro your such a heavy sleeper, I thought you said you'd set it for 8:00 and not 8:30" which made Em more sheepish as he replied a bit nervously "Y-you know how it is, I just got tired last night and put in the wrong time"
Immediately Shaun knew he slept through the alarm again "Tch man, we need to get you a physical alarm clock or something" he teased
Em blushed a little in embarrassment "Man, it's too early in the morning for this" which earned a stifled laugh from Shaun. Then the clock hit 9:05 and class began, his first college level composition class.
The teacher, an older woman named Ms. Vans passed around the attendance sheet for each of us in the class and when it got to him, he wrote down the name Emilio Bayes; then passed it to his friend Shaun, who wrote his name on it too then gave it to the next person.
As they waited for the attendance sheet to fully be signed, Emilio reflected on how he got to UNM in the first place. Emilio is the middle child of the Bayes family, in which he has an older brother by the name of Luis Bayes, and a younger sister named Nina Bayes.
His older brother is currently away out of state, he's studying abroad in France to become a chef, and his younger sister is currently a sophomore in high school, yet she aspires to become an Artist one day.
The Parents of these children are couple by the names of Isidor and Remina Bayes. They are working class parents who want nothing more than to see their children succeed in life. Both were overjoyed when finding out Luis got a scholarship to study at a cooking school in Paris, and now they're happy to see their other boy Emilio head off to UNM for his first year at college.
Emilio missed his family very much, but he was determined to make his mark on the world and make his parents and siblings proud in the process.
Suddenly his momentary flashbacks were interrupted by Shaun poking him, which made him jump; then he realized... he accidentally had been staring at his notebook for the past 15 minutes, when the teacher was maybe a quarter through the first lecture on what makes a good textual analysis.
He shook his head as Shaun gave him another smug grin and then turned back to writing down notes. Emilio could tell this will definitely be a long first day.
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Right after Composition, Emilio had College algebra to do too; and after that he was walking next to Shaun, who had a confident walk and a smile on his face.
"Dude, how can you still be smiling after a first day like this?" Emilio groaned out tiredly.
Shaun wasn't fazed at all and just shrugged "What can I say? English class was always easy for me, and math was just the basics, not too different from high school so far"
That earned a tired sigh from Emilio, then he poked at him again "What's with that expression? You can't be burnt out yet; you understood those problems as easy as I did"
Emilio knew he was right, he was always one to catch on to things easily if you teach it to him good enough, especially since they both had the highest test scores in high school, and on the PSAT test he scored 1250, with a 610 on Math and a 640 in English. He wasn't really bad at school; it was just a slow day today.
He perked up a bit now since they were just walking to get lunch "I know man, might just be... getting used to this place is all" he gave a smile
Shaun patted his back playfully "Theres the Emilio ive been looking for" he said with that familiar smile "Now let's go get some food, we both probably need it" and he sped ahead to the Food court
Emilio blinked for a couple seconds before running off right after him, a competitive smile on his face, however as he did... he didn't see another person walking around the corner of the building.
Then with a thud they both ran into each other's, Emilio fell to the ground on his side, but upon glancing to who he ran into. She's an Asian girl with long brown hair, and a flower earring on one ear. Plus, she was dressed in casual clothes. "O-oh no, I'm so sorry" he sputtered out and quickly got up to help her.
She rubbed her head and looked up at him nervously and scared. However, Emilio immediately extended his hand to help her up. She looked at his hand for a few moments, in contemplation; then she shakily took his hand, and he helped her up.
However, once she was finally back to her feet, she quickly bowed her head and said "G-gomenasai"
Because of anime he knew that meant "Im sorry" in Japanese; which confirmed she's most likely from Japan, but before he can respond she ran away past him, her face flushed in embarrassment.
Emilio tried to reach out and say something, but she already ran off. He felt bad about running into her and not being able to apologize properly, but as he was about to walk off; he noticed a laniard with a small plastic card attached to it
Upon picking it up and looking over it, he couldn't make out anything on it; due to it being in... Kanji maybe? However, it was definitely an ID since it had her picture.
This worried him as he knew she'd probably need this, so he decided to wait a few minutes to see if she'd come back, but at around 15 minutes he gave up. So, without knowing what else to do, he just walked off to head to the food court once again; looking at the student ID card and slipping it into his bag, as this weird situation lingered in his mind.
It only took maybe 6 minutes to get to the food court and immediately he got a meatball sub from the sandwich shop that was there, and afterwards he texted Shaun, asking where he was; and after receiving a text back, he headed downstairs to the lower floor; where he was waiting with half eaten Chinese food.
Emilio quickly headed over and sat down across from him, and as he unpacked; Shaun asked "Where'd you run off too Em? You were right behind me one moment then poof, gone" he said while still eating his food
"...You won't believe what happened" Emilio said and took a bite of his sub sandwich
"Try me" replied Shaun with a playful/challenging tone. So, Emilio told him all of what had happened, how he ran into this Japanese girl, she got scared, and then she ran off (However he left out the part about the ID). Shaun also seemed a bit confused yet amused at what happened "Boi, are you becoming a Rom-com protagonist now?~" he said with a smirk
Immediately Emilio blushed in embarrassment but couldn't hide the smile "Sh-Shut up Shaun, Im not" however he just continued "Em, I bet she's your soulmate now~" that made me go even more red, she did look kind of cute Afterall "Shut up" Emilio whined a bit.
Shaun just chuckled at this and said, "Bro I'm just kidding, besides if what I overheard is true, her class might be just visiting our university" that made him look at Shaun confused "Wait, visiting?" Emilio asked
He just nodded and said "Yeah, some guys earlier in Math were talking about how the university of Kyoto has an Abroad trip for the students of the history department, and UNM was among the 7 universities chosen to send the students to, to do their research projects"
Emilio just had an interested look on his face "That's cool, maybe in a few years we'll be able to travel just like them" he laughed softly. Shaun gave a small laugh too and said, "Definitely bro, we'll be studying in a different country soon enough".
Then Emilio had an idea "actually, I was wondering, did they say where the transfer student's classroom is?" He asked. Shaun thought for a moment then said "I don't know for sure, but they said they might be in the history building" to which Emilio nodded, but then Shaun had another grin and said "Why? Want to see her again so soon?"
Emilio blushed at the thought but shook it off, and in his mind 'No, don't fall for her, she probably hates you' then he said "J-just a random question". Now his friend could've rubbed it in a lot, but he let him off the hook for now.
Once they both finished their food, they were back to the dorms, but Emilio had a choice; He could hand the ID to campus security and they put it at the lost and found, or he could try to return it to her.. Possibly getting a slap in the face from her childhood friend? Who knows..
So, he split off from Shaun, saying he'd meet him later at his room; and so, Emilio walked over to the history building, having already decided to give it back to her personally.
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It took maybe 30 minutes to find the right classroom, but he did due to asking around and getting directions, and as he approached the classroom; it sounded lively and talkative with the students probably discussing their first impressions of the University. As he steeled himself knowing that the students will most likely see him as they leave the classroom in 10 minutes, and to not get embarrassed too bad.
Suddenly, underneath the doorway was a golden flash of light, much brighter than any light in the hallway or that he'd seen in his life. Inside though the classroom sounded like panic, but he couldn't understand (too much of) what they were saying since they were speaking in Japanese.
'What the Hell?' He thought internally as the golden light was shining out of all cracks in the doorway, showing no signs of stopping as their panicked yells faded.
Then finally, the light died down; however, he couldn't hear anything coming from the inside of the room, no chatter, no sounds, nothing. Immediately he looked around to see if there was anyone nearby to have witnessed such a strange event; but he found nobody except himself.
He thought about calling UNM security or something, since that light didn't seem normal, but upon looking at his phone it had no cell phone service, which he cursed under his breath for having such an old Samsung phone.
Left feeling there is no other option right now, he gently reached for the doorknob, and turned it; softly cracking open the door while steeling himself for what he might find 'Easy Emilio, you've braved much scarier video games than something like this' he thought
Emilio finally opened the door; the classroom lights were on, and everyone's bags were at their desks; the only thing missing were the students whose stuff this belonged too, and their teacher as well.
But... As Emilio looked at the floor, there was a strange pattern on it; almost like a circle but with more intricate designs drawn into it, and a weird black material was emanating off it, almost like smoke.
However, this immediately felt like something he'd actually seen out of so many animes, and because of the absurdity of the idea, he asked himself out loud "No way.. this isn't Isekai is it?"
But it seemingly ticked off the boxes of what he'd seen with the Isekai genre; the whole class getting sent to another world. Then another thought crossed his mind: to do that; either a king or goddess summoned them for some sort of "divine purpose" to fulfil or to help Save their world from an evil demon king.
'No, no that's crazy, you can't just get summoned to another world...' Emilio thought while shaking his head, trying to rationalize this whole situation, but then...
Suddenly the patterns fired up again, glowing the golden color from before, and he didn't have any time to say or think. Before he was also gone from this world as the golden light vanished once more, his backpack being left at the scene as well...