The classroom was a cacophony of shouted gossip and scraping chairs, but Lynx had built a fortress of quiet on his desk, his head buried in his arms. The din was a lullaby. Or it had been, until a sharp CRACK of a hand slamming onto the laminate surface jolted the foundations.
Lynx raised his head slowly, not with a startle, but with the deliberate calm of a predator disturbed. A girl with a shock of violet hair stood over him, her gaze a challenge.
"Lynx," her voice cut through the noise, loud and intent. "I challenge you to a chess duel."
A ripple of murmurs spread through the room. "Her? Challenging Lynx?" "He wiped the floor with the entire chess club!" "The president resigned in tears!"
Lynx tilted his head back, looking at her from under heavy lids. "Not interested. I'm busy resting. And what could you possibly offer me that's worth the effort?"
"I'll give you one thousand dollars if you win."
Lynx's posture snapped upright. A thousand dollars. The number translated instantly in his mind: Crusader Kings III, Europa Universalis IV, and a mountain of energy drinks. "Well, now you have my attention. What are your terms if I lose?"
"Stripping you of that 'undefeated' title is prize enough for me. It will be quite the feather in my cap."
A slow, mischievous smile spread across Lynx's face. "Free money. I was expecting actual stakes. You're Leila Reece, right? Of the Reece family. That explains the casually idiotic spending."
"Are you going to trade insults," Leila asked, her voice icy, "or are you going to play?"
"My apologies," Lynx said, the smile not fading. "Let's begin."
---
[The Match]
The break bell had long since rung, but no one had left. Desks were shoved against the walls, forming a tight ring of spectators around the single table where the chessboard sat. The air was thick with hushed anticipation.
A collective gasp rippled through the crowd as Leila executed a breathtaking sequence. Her bishop sliced across the board like a blade, forcing Lynx's queen into a panicked retreat. It was a classic Wisteria combination, a move of pure dominance that left her position looking unassailable.
Lynx seemed not to notice the danger. He tapped his chin, his infuriating smile only widening. "You know," he mused, his voice a lazy drawl that cut through the tension, "for a second there, I thought you'd take the bait. I left my knight hanging on purpose. A little ragebait for the champion."
Leila's eyes remained locked on the board. She didn't grace his bluff with a response, reinforcing her defense with a cool, logical shift of a pawn. She was a fortress, beautiful and impenetrable.
Lynx chuckled softly. He didn't retreat. Instead, he advanced a rook—not to a strong square, but to a seemingly useless one, placing it directly in the path of one of Leila's pawns.
Confused murmurs spread. Was he surrendering?
Leila analyzed the move for a full, silent minute. It was a blatant sacrifice, a provocation. It had to be a trick. But her calculations, sharp and relentless, found no trap. It was, by all logic, a free piece. And in chess, you take free pieces. Her hand darted out, capturing the rook. The crowd buzzed with excitement.
Lynx's response was instantaneous. He slid his remaining knight to a quiet, central square. The move was so subtle, so unassuming, it was an anticlimax.
And then Leila saw it.
Her blood ran cold. The knight was not an attacker. It was the final, silent thread in a web Lynx had been weaving since the first move. Her perfectly arranged defense, her mighty army, had become a cage. That "useless" rook sacrifice had been the key, luring a critical pawn away and creating a tiny, fatal weakness she never knew existed.
The knight's move was the turn of a key in a lock she hadn't seen.
Checkmate.
Not a flash of steel, but a slow, inexorable suffocation. Her king had nowhere to run. Her pieces were spectators to their own defeat.
The teasing smile was gone from Lynx's face, replaced by a look of pure, quiet focus. He leaned forward, his voice a whisper meant only for her.
"Silent checkmate."
Leila's hand, which had been hovering over her queen, froze. She looked from the board to Lynx's calm eyes and understood. He hadn't been playing the board for the last ten moves; he'd been playing her. Her logic, her caution, her very strength—he had used it all to build the walls of her prison.
She leaned back, a slow, reluctant nod her only concession to defeat. She pulled a thick envelope from her bag and dropped it on the table. "Good game, Lynx. I will not forget this." As she turned to leave, his voice stopped her.
"Leila." She glanced back. He offered a smile that was impossible to read—somewhere between respect and pity. "You weren't bad at all."
The classroom remained in a stunned silence. They didn't understand the complexity, but they understood the result. Lynx had won again, not by breaking the great player, but by letting her build her own cage.
---
[After Detention]
Lynx slouched in the hard detention chair, his notebook open. He'd long since finished the worksheet; now he was doodling a chessboard, already three moves ahead in a game playing out in his mind. The teacher droned on about respect.
"Some positions," Lynx muttered, just loud enough for the room to hear, "are just checkmate-level boring."
The class snickered. The teacher did not.
---
When the creaky detention door finally swung shut behind him, Lynx took one step into the hallway—and froze.
The familiar scuffed linoleum and locker-lined hall were gone. Instead, a packed-dirt road stretched before him, flanked by timber-frame buildings with thatched roofs. The air smelled of hay, horses, and something faintly metallic. People bustled about in tunics and rough-spun trousers. It looked like a scene from the Edo period, but the architecture was wrong, more European.
"What the... hell?" Lynx breathed, his mind stuttering. He looked left. A merchant at a wooden stand was hawking apples to a customer—a customer with faint, scale-like patterns dusting their cheekbones. He looked right. A massive, lizard-like creature, the size of a small truck, was being loaded with crates, its handler soothing it with low clicks.
Lynx rubbed his eyes fiercely, then looked again. Nothing changed. The scene was still there, solid and real.
I need to look around, he thought, the strategist in him kicking in. This looks like an Edo-period pastiche, but it's definitely not Japan.
He approached a man carrying a bundle of hay. "Hey, could you tell me the name of this land?"
The man raised a brow, his eyes lingering on Lynx's modern school uniform. "You don't know? Where are you from, lad? You don't look from around here."
"I'm a traveler," Lynx said, the lie coming easily. "I've been on the road so long, I must have forgotten."
"Traveler, eh? In those clothes?" The man shrugged. "You're in Briarwood. Western quarter of the kingdom. You look lost as a ghost."
"Western. I see." Lynx's mind raced. Briarwood. Not a name from any map I know.
"But say," the man pressed, his curiosity piqued. "Where exactly are you from? You're a bit young to be wandering so far—"
"Sorry, I'm in a hurry!" Lynx cut him off, already moving away. "Talk later!"
"Hey, wait—!"
Lynx broke into a jog, his mind a whirlwind until he spotted a simple, wrought-iron bench nestled between two buildings. He stopped dead.
A bench. In this era? This is definitely not my world.
He sank onto the cold iron, the reality of his situation settling over him with a terrifying, thrilling weight.
"Okay," he whispered to himself, a slow grin spreading across his face despite the chaos. "So, I've been isekai'd."