I walked the last stretch toward the guild humming raparaparapa like I owned the place.
Then the trees parted and my soul straight-up left my body.
Central Avenue hit me like a divine punishment.
The road was polished obsidian reflecting a second sky. Above it, fifty-meter holograms of cat-eared idols screamed "Mana-Cola ZERO: now with extra depression cure!" while baby dragons flew through the ads breathing rainbow fire. Smells assaulted me in waves: kraken takoyaki, phoenix cinnamon rolls, ozone from street mages charging crystal phones, and the faint perfume of a passing succubus who winked and almost ended my bloodline on the spot.
Sound? Imagine every festival, stock exchange, and war declaration happening at once. Bards with glowing guitars dropped bass no human spine could survive. Floating whales with loudspeakers announced moon shuttle departures. A six-armed juggler on a flaming unicycle slapped a flyer on my forehead: "Welcome to Aetherhub – population 4.2 million and one very broke country bumpkin."
Left: The Dragon's Harem inn, thirty stories tall, actual dragons sipping cocktails on golden balconies. One waved. I waved back like an idiot.
Right: goblin bankers in Armani robes, interest rates ticking on screens bigger than my old house. Current offer: 8 % or one kidney, no credit check.
There was a Starbucks, except the mermaid held a trident and the menu bragged about real unicorn tears. A kid on a broomstick did a barrel roll over my head while a lich teacher screamed "DETENTION!" in skeleton voice.
I stood frozen in my straw-hut rags, pockets still inside-out from the fox-sister incident, looking exactly like the level-zero tutorial NPC who wandered into the endgame capital by mistake.
Internally I was already on the ground begging for a manual, a map, a single copper coin, mommy, anything.
A passing dwarf looked me up and down, snorted, and said, "First day outside the starter village, huh?"
I couldn't even answer. My dignity was still crying in the peaceful grass three kilometers back.
Somewhere in this insane ocean of people, money, and capitalism was the guild.
I took the deepest breath of my second life, clenched my empty fists, and let the current of bodies swallow me whole.
Guild, I'm coming.
If the city doesn't eat me alive first.
I was completely lost, just another piece of driftwood in the human ocean. No kind old men here; everyone zoomed past like I was a walking waste of time. I gave up, slumped against a wall, and prepared to live the rest of my life as a decorative country bumpkin.
Then the crowd parted like the Red Sea on fast-forward.
Nine snow-white tails. Golden eyes. Beauty so unfair it should be taxed. The fox big-sister from earlier, now looking like she owned half the continent and was thinking about buying the other half.
My brain short-circuited.
"Are you finally here to give me protagonist cheats?" I blurted.
She blinked. "What now, mortal?"
I snapped out of it, dropped every last shred of dignity, and went full shameless mode. "Please adopt me! I'll be your loyal royal companion—carry bags, fan you, whatever! Just save me from dying of lost-ness!"
She stared at me the way an empress stares at a particularly bold puppy. One perfect eyebrow arched.
"Occupation?"
"Mage! Fireball specialist!" I declared, puffing my chest like Fireball was legendary tier instead of starter trash.
She looked me up and down, tails swishing thoughtfully. "Not bad. Not good either, but not bad." A tiny smirk. "Fine. You may follow."
I squealed (actually squealed) and lunged, wrapping her in the most grateful hug of my life.
She froze. A faint pink blush exploded across her cheeks. One of her tails flicked hard enough to fan a nearby merchant's hat clean off.
"A-alright, alright, personal space!" She patted my shoulders like she was calming a hyper puppy, then grabbed my hand (firm, warm, and 100 % big-sister energy). "Let's go, Fireball. Try to keep up."
And just like that, I was being led through the madness by a nine-tailed goddess holding my hand like I was five years old.
(Don't look at her skirt, Ace. Do NOT look. Walk proudly. You have a sugar mama now.)
By the way," I said, still half-dazed from the hand-holding privilege, "my name's Ace."
She glanced back, golden eyes softening for a split second (something ancient and unbearably gentle flickering behind them).
"I know," she murmured, almost too quiet to hear over the city roar. Then, louder, with that same empress smirk: "I'm Seraphine. Seraphine Lunareth. You may call me Sera if you behave."
She squeezed my hand once (warm, possessive, like a promise carved into my bones).
Author's Note to Readers
Forget "isekai protagonist luck." That's not what's happening here.
Seraphine Lunareth remembers everything.
She remembers ruling as the Nine-Tailed Celestial Empress.
She remembers the Supreme King who held her hand exactly like this, the man who could unmake galaxies with a thought, her husband, her equal, her only weakness.
Ace does not.
When the Supreme King fell in their final war, his soul didn't just die.
It was torn from the cycle, sealed, and forcibly reincarnated into a mundane modern Earth (our Earth), stripped of power, stripped of memory, forced to live a perfectly ordinary life… until the day a truck ended it.
That truck wasn't random.
That transmigration wasn't coincidence.
It was the opening move in a cosmic-level scheme centuries in the making, designed to bring the King back in a fragile, ignorant vessel, just weak enough that the seals holding his memories stay intact.
Because the instant Ace regains even a fragment of who he truly was, the chains break.
Every continent on this planet will shatter.
Every star within a thousand light-years will scream.
The war they paused with their deaths will resume at full apocalyptic volume.
Seraphine knows this.
That's why she plays the tsundere goddess dragging a broke Fireball peasant around by the hand.
That's why her little sister "happened" to sell cookies.
That's why the cat slapped his face.
Every humiliation, every laugh, every second of this comedy is her desperately keeping him clueless and alive until the board is perfectly set.
She will never leave him.
She will never let him remember too early.
When the seals finally crack and the Supreme King opens his eyes inside Ace's body…
…well, let's just say you'll want to be very far away from whatever continent they're standing on.
Enjoy the jokes while they last.
The comedy is just the calm before the cosmos remembers who these two really are.
Keep reading.
You've been warned.