The first few weeks at the Ash-Tree Orphanage were a blur of mental fog and physical exhaustion. Every morning, Ethan would wake up and stare at his small, dirt-smudged hands, waiting for the nightmare to end. He would lie perfectly still in the straw, waiting to hear the familiar hum of the Quick-Stop freezer or the electronic chime of the store's door. He waited for his boss to yell at him about a late shipment or for a customer to complain about the price of milk.
But those sounds never came. The only thing that greeted him was the rustle of straw, the smell of damp earth, and the distant, rhythmic clack-clack-clack of wooden practice swords hitting each other in the courtyard.
Grant, the convenience store clerk, was dead.
He was now just 'Ethan,' a nameless commoner in a world that felt like a history book come to life—but with the physics turned off.
As his "awakening" approached, Whatever that was, Ethan spent his time watching and listening. He realized quickly that he wasn't just in a different country; he was on a different planet. During the long afternoons of chores, he sat with Elara and the older boys, soaking up every bit of information like a sponge.
He realized he wasn't just in a new country; he was on the continent of Oros, the massive heart of the human empire.
Oros was a land of jagged stone and endless fields, ruled with an iron fist by the Aurelian Royal House. The current ruler, Emperor Valerius III, was spoken of in whispers. To the orphans, he wasn't a man; he was a force of nature. Below the Emperor were the "Great Vessels"—the noble families who held all the land, all the wealth, and most importantly, all the magic.
"Is it true the Emperor can level a mountain with a wave of his hand?" Ethan asked one afternoon. He was sitting on a low wooden stool, his small arms aching from hauling water buckets that felt like they were filled with lead.
Kael, the oldest of the orphans at seventeen, paused his sword drills. He was a tall, lean boy with calloused hands and eyes that looked too tired for his age. "Maybe not a mountain, kid, but he could certainly level this orphanage without breaking a sweat. Nobles are born with the right to the 'Higher Arts.' They get the ancient scrolls, the libraries, and the mana-conduits. They go to the Aethelgard High Institute."
"And us?" Ethan asked, wiping his brow.
Kael snorted and leaned on his wooden blade. "We get 'Reinforcement.' We learn to push our magic into our muscles so we can work sixteen hours in the mines or become a hedge knight under the nobles . We're the tools, Ethan. The Nobles are the hands that use us."
Ethan processed this with a heavy heart. In his old life, the divide was about how much money was in your bank account. Here, it was biological. Commoners were limited to physical buffs and basic telekinesis—the "scraps" of magic. For a commoner to even stand near the gates of the Aethelgard Academy was considered a crime against the social order.
"So how do people like us move up?" Ethan pressed, his adult mind looking for a loophole, a way out of the cycle.
"The Guilds," Kael said, looking toward the distant horizon where the sun was setting. "Next month, when I and the other four seniors turn seventeen, we leave. We're heading to the capital to join the Iron Rose Guild."
"Is that a famous one?"
"It's an average one," a boy named Leo chimed in. He was also seventeen and was busy sharpening a skinning knife. "The Top 5 Guilds—the legendary ones like 'Golden Dawn' or 'Slayer's Reach'—they only take the elite. Even Nobles fight to get into those. For orphans like us? We join the mid-tier groups. We take the messy jobs, hunt the low-level monsters, and hope we earn enough copper to buy a decent meal. If you're lucky and survive a decade of fighting, a minor Noble house might let you pledge loyalty as a hedge knight".
Ethan looked at the five seventeen-year-olds. They were the "big brothers" of the house, the only ones who knew how the world worked. In thirty days, they would be gone, venturing out into a world where elves and dwarves lived on continents they described as mythical places.
"Are the Elves really that bad?" Ethan asked."Worse," Kael muttered. "They live on Sylvaris, the emerald continent to the west. They hate humans. They think we're a plague on the earth. If you meet an Elf in the woods, you don't talk—you run. The Dwarves on Kraz-Modan are better; they're neutral. They'll sell you a sword that never blunts, but only if you have enough gold to pay for it."
Ethan nodded, a cold pit forming in his stomach. He was a "dropout" in his old life, a man who gave up when things got too hard. Now, he was in a world where your very worth was decided by a "spark" in your blood that determined how well you could reinforce your body.
Havi, the one-eyed caretaker, was the only one who didn't talk about guilds or nobles. He simply watched. Whenever Ethan looked up from his chores, he would find Havi's single, piercing blue eye fixed on him. The old man didn't teach him magic, and he didn't give him advice. He just observed, as if he were waiting for a timer to go off.
"Don't worry so much, Ethan," Elara said, noticing his worried face. She was fourteen and had become the group's unofficial mother. "You've got years before you have to worry about Guilds. Next month is your seventh birthday. That's your Awakening."
"What happens then?"
"The mana in your blood finally settles," she explained softly. "It's different for everyone. For some, it's just a warm tingle. For others, it's like a kick in the chest. Once you Awaken, Havi will start teaching you basic Reinforcement so you can handle the heavier chores without getting sick."
Ethan nodded, but he felt a strange pressure building in his chest. He had forgotten the "foresight" incident from the day he woke up, but his instincts—the gut feeling of a twenty-two-year-old man—were screaming. Something was coming.
As the weeks crawled by and his birthday approached, Ethan sat on the porch of the stone dormitory, watching the sun set over the Oros plains. He was an outsider, a commoner, and a child. But as he watched Kael and the others pack their meager belongings, he made a silent vow.
He had failed at being an "Average Joe" in one world. He wouldn't do it again here.