Isekai had been a term I had known in my past life. Hell, it had been a fun genera of anime I had loved. I often wished the idea of a world of magic and living gods could be real. More than that, I wished to see it. Faeries, elves, halflings, dwarfs, ogres, orcs, even monsters and magical beasts all brought me great joy to envision in my head. So of course when I died, I thought for sure I had gone to heaven of sorts. At least until the pain set in.
I had been a twenty something guy, living in California in 2025. My name was Jake, and I was a nerd who played D&D and other games with some friends I had made online. We were all dorks and enjoyed our time together online. We were very nerdy and built worlds of grandeur inside of magical realms where a sword and a wand were equal in battle. We would work together and apart to craft narratives of pure imagination, that reality could never recreate. I even ran one of the games that lasted years.
But then I was just… Dead.
It was a motorcycle accident. Of course it was, right? I fell off a cliff 5 years before on my first motorcycle. I knew getting back on one would cause me problems someday. And I told myself that I would die happy if I did die on a bike. I can say, I was happy right up until the moment… Falling off a cliff gave me a bit more time to process “Ah, I’m about to die. Maybe I’m okay with this.” Followed by the most excruciating pain of my life.
This time was quite the opposite. It was so quick, all I had time to think was “Fucking really?! again?!” As my chain snapped, and my rear wheel locked up in the middle of a turn, which flicked the bike out of the turn and sent me head first, racing towards the ground faster than I could blink. I always wore a helmet. It didn’t help when it slid under the tire of a car though. I really should have taken more care of the bike though. It was my own fault.
But as I realized I was analyzing my own death, another thought came to me… ‘Why was I thinking about anything at all? I’m an atheist, I don’t believe in heaven or hell. I don’t believe in reincarnation, especially not with the same thoughts I had just been thinking before my death.’ It was like I picked back up where I left off as my eyes fluttered open. My body felt normal. Hell, it felt a little too normal. Almost like I hadn’t skidded to a stop under a car also skidding to a stop.
Then I saw her. An angel with pointed ears. ‘So… Maybe I was in heaven?’ My thoughts raced and my brain struggled to put together what had just happened. ‘But… Would I really feel regret of losing my life if I was in heaven? I certainly did feel regret. I was sorry for putting my parents through whatever they had to go through. I was sorry for leaving my house a mess, because I hadn’t cleaned up the bathroom for like a week. I worried how my cat would handle life without me in it. He would probably be okay eventually, but my parents really didn’t want another cat in their house. What happened to him?I thought people were supposed to be happy and content just to exist in their gods presence or something?’ It sure felt like my body. I moved my hand out in front of my eyes and checked it over, before repeating with my other hand. They looked the same. There was a new scar on the bottom of my left hand. It looked as though I had gotten some severe road rash before I died. ‘Why would my body in heaven still have damage from my body on earth?’.
“He’s waking up!” The angel shouted to someone nearby.
A deep, gruff voice replied to her from out of my range of vision. “You seriously healed him?! Come on, En, that’s Impossible! He was dead! We both saw that wrecked body!”
“Rogs, I told you he wasn’t dead when I started. I could feel his life force. There was still magic in him. It was faint, but steady.” She reached out and took my hand, which had been questioningly reaching for her. I wasn’t totally sure it wasn’t a dream until I felt her palm on mine, and her fingers around my wrist. She whispered something I didn’t recognize to me, and then followed it up with “You’re safe now, Mr icicle.” She whispered to me.
The man named Rogs stepped into view. He was a tall, lumbering hulk of a man. His muscles had muscles and he was quite handsome despite the large, thin scar that stretched across his chin. He directed another line of speech at me in a language that I didn’t know. He was clearly questioning me, though my gaze was affixed on the giant scabbard across his back. He was carrying a sword that looked bigger than I was. If I wasn’t still in a daze, I would have been quite nervous of a weapon that size on a man who looked like he could break me in half with two fingers.
I gasped, trying to speak, but my voice would not come. I looked at them both with worry and motioned for a pen. I had too many questions to be limited by my inability to speak. Rogs pulled something from the goddess’s backpack. He handed me a weird looking pen, and a piece of parchment that was NOT like any paper I had ever used before. It felt more like dried skin and it looked more yellowed than a paper had any right to be. I shuddered and began writing the first thing that came to mind. I figured I should start small. “Am I dead?”
They both looked at the page and then at each other, and then Rogs began to chuckle. I thought I knew what he was laughing at until the girl turned back to me and said something in that weird language, but luckily she followed it up again with a translation. “Why are you writing in magic script? Nobody knows how to read that but wizards.”
Rogs slowed his laughing enough to say “Oh shit, I didn’t realize it was anything but scribbles!” to the girl he called En. He continued his laughing as I shook my head slowly from side to side, more confused than ever. Taking in the room around me, It seemed like I was in a metal coffin which was hooked up to some weird looking tubes. The metal lid had been moved to the side and the tubes ran to a larger, metal machine that took up a whole wall. It was dusty and rusty, had scratches down the length of it, and dents and chips all over. It had become so dusty and decrepit that it felt impossible to me that it would still work. Though at the same time as being older than any tech I had ever seen in my short life, it was so futuristic that it looked like nothing I had ever seen before.
Figuring the tech was something out of whatever world I had found myself in, I began searching for more clues. My gaze traveled around the room while the two began to chat to themselves about my situation. “Listen, he’s clearly not understanding common, but I see recognition in his eyes when we speak Elven.”
“That’s a long shot and you know it. Why would a random human know Elven and NOT know common?” the large man returned. “And who’s to say he’s even understanding us at all? He hasn’t said a word, and he’s only managed to write in a language that maybe 1% of the population can read… Not to mention, NO Elves can read it! What kind of funky crossover would that be?” He seemed frustrated, but also clearly recognized the woman as the leader of the pair.
It was dirty in this room. Not in the, stains and a little pile of dust in the corner way. There was lots of dirt. It was uneven enough to see the baseboards poking up in some lower areas of the dirt against the wall, but mostly it was covered by a good inch. It was everywhere. I would have thought the cleaned up room might have looked like a morgue from the TV shows I had seen like law and order, but this was clearly not the same outside of my coffin. The decomposed wooden door lay on the floor, looking like it had been burst from its spot in the frame only recently, as the freshest parts of the wood were split and shards strewn about the floor. These people likely just broke it down. I appreciated Rogs more now, knowing he likely was a primary factor in my rescue.
I had a few more questions about my situation though, and I couldn’t ask them yet. My throat would not cooperate. Who were these people? Where was I? What was happening? The panic of the situation began to set in, and I was certain this wasn’t heaven as the pain settled on my body and limbs. I knew clearly that this was most certainly not Earth that I had left behind so short a time ago. It was too vastly different. It seemed I had died and been reincarnated in a world with… Wait, did she say Elven? That explains the ears, but oh fuck… Todo, I have a feeling like I’m about to pass the fuck out.
I woke up in a small room with wooden walls and the smell of a log fire and hot soup. I was clearly moved, though I’m not totally sure where to. Who knows, honestly. Nothing really felt all that real anyways. Like a bad dream that I didn’t know how to snap out of. The girl, En, was still here, though Rogs was not. I breathed and tried my voice again, feeling my throat not being quite as cold as it had been before.
“A-” I was rusty as if my voice hasn’t been used in a few years. “Am… I.. Dead?” My speaking voice made me wonder how long I had been in that tomb.
“Oh you’re awake again!” The girl bounced over with a wide grin. “No, you’re not dead. But I am interested in why you think you might be. And why you speak Elven.” She eyed me with beautiful hazel eyes that held just a hint of grey in their depths. “You are more alive than anyone we’ve run into in the crypts before. Lots of them are undead, now. They usually wear the same rags and torn clothes we found you in though. It’s almost like you escaped death somehow. Probably ancient magic!” I looked down at the mention of my clothes and found I had been changed into something new. I felt my face heat up for a moment, but then my mind went back to racing through all my other thoughts and the embarrassment was quickly forgotten.
“I… Magic? Undead? Elven? I died in a motorcycle crash. What is this place?” I muttered, confused and honestly still horrified as the reality of my situation began sinking in.
“This is my home, but I’m sure that’s not what you mean. We’re in the city of Claxx, on the coast of the continent of Muraic. We’re about 20 miles from the birthplace of magic, called the world wound. You really haven’t heard of it?”
“And what is the planet called?” I asked, interested by the names, but not familiar with any of them.
“Arthen. But there’s no other planets with life that we know of so either you were from here at some point, or the gods are involved. You have the most interesting questions, but I have one for you; what’s your name?”
I smiled at the normalcy of the question. It put me at ease to know that some things hadn’t changed. Though certainly most things had. “Jake.” I looked back at her. “What’s your name?”
“I’m Enpi.” She returned my smile and looked in my eyes for something she didn’t seem to find. “Jake is a very odd name. But somehow it fits you. You’re an odd being, Jake the human.”
“Are you not human? You say it like it’s a pejorative.” I winced.
“I’m an elf.” She said, pulling her hair back to show me her pointed ears more clearly. Her face relaxed slightly at my inability to hide my shock and she sighed. “I mean no offense at calling you a human. I simply didn’t understand how you spoke Elven so clearly. And in all my hundreds of years on Arthen, I’ve never met a Jake. Not a human, elf, or any other race. It’s unique for sure.”
“This language is… Just English, isn’t it?” I asked confused.
“We’re speaking Elven. An ancient dialect from before even my time.” She looked both happy to be having the conversation, but also enthralled by my lack of knowledge. “You’re not from this planet are you?” She decided with a soft sigh. “the gods are having a good laugh at us, I’m sure.” she cast a look to the roof, and shook her head.
I shook my head. “I am from a place called Earth. A state called California. And a city called Los Angeles. It means ‘The Angels’ in another language on our planet, and when I woke, I thought that was what you were.” The last bit squeaking out of my lips while I was busy processing being on a new planet.
I realized what I said and my face turned a deep red at the same time a slight blush painted her still bright smile. “You’re very kind, Jake.” Enpi whispered. She then said louder, as if trying to redirect the conversation back to my past. “So you came from another world and ended up in the crypts. You were frozen like a block of ice until I healed you with my magic. Then you became delirious and passed out. Rogs carried you here, changed you into fresh clothing, and I continued to heal you as you seemed to deteriorate for the first few hours out of the crypts. It was like your body was not accustomed to even the air around you.” She paused to check my face, where the blush had been replaced by an amazed and horrified face as she described my past in checkpoints. “I worry you were destined to be an undead. You seem to have escaped that fate now though. Your body has begun to acclimate to the air, and I think you’ll be okay from now on, but I’ll keep a close eye on you for the next few weeks just to be safe. Which means you’ll stay here with me until I’m satisfied with your progress.” She winked at me, and the blush came rushing back. She was no angel, that was certain. “Rogs doesn’t like you in here with me, but I just won’t tell him your awake for a few more days. After that, you’ll need to make a case for yourself. We’re going to need to know who you are, what gods you follow, what magic you have mastery of. Where you plan to go. I don’t expect you know much of anything about these things though, do you?”
The girls long-winded speech gave me a knot in my stomach at the idea I had almost died right after being reborn. This girl has saved me. This… Elf had saved me without a thought of what she might gain from it. And it seemed she had helped almost entirely out of curiosity. Then the rest of the information she loaded on top of all that, had made me realize what a precarious situation I was in. Beyond her healing, without her guidance I would certainly be lost in the reality I now found myself ingrained. “You’re right.” I muttered softly. “I don’t even know what gods you’re talking about. Nor do I know what types of magic exist in this world. I didn’t have magic at all where I came from. I didn’t have elves or any other races either. It was all humans and animals.”
“Did the humans all speak Elven? And what language did the animals speak?” She prodded, curiosity at my world still driving her.
This was going to take a lot of getting used to. And even more explaining.
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