Several people nearby exchanged glances. The woman in the purple robe stopped moving, narrowed her eyes, and asked in a curt tone.
"Then what is your name if you aren't Yosan..?"
Wahyu hesitated slightly before answering.
"M-my name is Wahyu."
The woman closed her eyes for a moment, as though she were thinking through something incredibly complicated. Then she opened them again and let out a small chuckle.
"In that case, it seems Solei's magic blast was dangerous enough to make you forget something like this."
Then the woman's eyes sharpened, as if she were annoyed. "Don't joke around with me, Yosan. Now get some rest."
The woman left Yosan behind, and he now lay there deep in thought, staring at the ceiling with his mind in chaos.
He was in an alien world with an orange sky, surrounded by strange people who kept calling him "Yosan."
Wahyu slowly raised his own hand. His hand was slightly different—only slightly. His skin was paler now, his fingers longer than they had once been, and even the hair hanging in front of his eyes was bluish-black instead of the deep black he was used to.
Wahyu pushed himself halfway upright, but the weakness in his body made his head spin.
'How could this happen…?' he wondered.
Blue crystal lights floated and glimmered softly in the corner of the room.
Wahyu lowered his head and held it in his hands.
'Am I dead?'
'If I'm dead, then who is Yosan?'
'And how did I end up inside his body?'
The more he thought about it, the less sense anything made. What frightened Wahyu most was the possibility that he might never be able to return.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
The sound of knocking made Wahyu jolt slightly.
The room's door slowly opened. A white-haired boy entered carrying a small tray with a bowl of warm soup. He seemed to be about the same age as Wahyu. He had golden eyes with thin, reptile-like pupils. How strange, Wahyu thought.
"Looks like you're awake.." he said casually.
Wahyu simply stared at him in silence.
The boy set the bowl on the table beside the bed.
"Sorry. Solei made that senior student angry again," he continued as he sat in the chair near the bed.
"Solei almost got punished because of that magic blast earlier."
Wahyu frowned.
"Solei?" he said to himself.
'Ah… so that's the person they mentioned back on the field earlier,' he continued inwardly.
"Huh?" The boy looked confused.
Wahyu hesitated for a moment before finally deciding to ask.
"What is this place?"
The white-haired boy stared at him for several seconds, then let out a small laugh.
"Are you serious?"
Wahyu nodded slowly.
The boy finally leaned back in his chair, trying to read Yosan's thoughts.
'Maybe Yosan is messing with me,' was what crossed Solei's mind, so he decided to play along with the joke.
"This is Akademi Lyra… the largest magic academy in the southern region of Kepler."
Wahyu's body instantly froze.
"Kepler?"
Solei nodded casually, unaware of Wahyu's shock.
"Yeah. The planet Kepler-442b. Why?"
Wahyu stared blankly ahead.
Kepler-442b.
The planet he had only ever been able to see through astronomy journals, computer simulations, and digital images created by scientists on Earth. The planet he had admired for so long—and now Wahyu was inside it. So life on Kepler-442b really did exist all this time? Kepler wasn't merely an empty alien planet without inhabitants, nor a barren expanse of rock orbiting a dim star. It was a living world with a reddish-orange sky and people who seemed to have stepped out of a fairy tale.
Wahyu remembered the faces of the people who had surrounded him earlier. Some had small horns. Some had fangs among their teeth, while others had glowing eyes.
Even their auras felt different from those of ordinary humans. They seemed less like modern humans from Earth and more like an ancient race from a fantasy story.
And magic… did they really use magic? Not the sleight-of-hand tricks he often saw among humans on Earth, but actual power?
Wahyu swallowed softly.
On Earth, humans had spent hundreds of years studying technology to reach the nearest planets. Yet here, people lived alongside something that surpassed the logic of science. Then another thought surfaced in his mind.
If this really was Kepler-442b, then how had he gotten here?