Ben Carter slammed his laptop shut, exasperated. He'd been up all night debugging a stubborn simulation for his final physics project—one that was supposed to model particle collisions, not crash every time he tried to save. His eyes stung, and the glow of the screen felt like laser beams behind his eyelids.
Just one more test… he thought, but his stomach growled. He needed food—and fast. He grabbed his coat and keys, mumbling, "Pizza or nothing."
Outside, the campus was quiet. The science buildings glowed with emergency lights, and a few stragglers hurried home. Ben's mind was still tangled in code. He reviewed collision formulas under his breath as he crossed the deserted quad.
He rounded the corner onto the access road, earbuds in, listening to a podcast on quantum field theory. Distracted by the narrator's intricate explanation of gauge bosons, Ben failed to notice the semi‑truck barreling toward him, headlights slicing the night.
"What the—?" His heart leapt as the truck's horn blared. He froze, mind racing through equations but body too slow to react.
A flash of metal. Pain exploded in his legs. He hit the pavement hard, vision splitting into shards of light and sound. The world tilted, then went dark.
Ben opened his eyes.
He stood barefoot on a cracked stone platform that floated amidst a swirling void of stars and glowing mist. Ruins stretched in every direction—massive stone columns leaning at odd angles, shattered archways rising from nothing. The air shimmered with an unnatural hue, cold and reverent, like the breath of a sleeping god.
Before him stood it—a stone idol, weathered and ancient, shaped like a spacecraft or a bird with wings unfurled mid-flight. The Flügel.
Ben felt his breath catch. He didn't know how he knew the name, but it pulsed in his mind: Flügel.
The idol towered over him, crafted from aged, gray stone, yet it felt alive. Crimson veins ran along its surface like dormant lightning. At its center sat a circular depression—a core. His gaze locked onto it, drawn as if by instinct.
Why does this feel familiar?
He took a step closer, his fingers trembling. He didn't know where he was. He didn't remember dying. One moment, he was in the university lab fiddling with superconductors, and now—this?
Ben reached out. The moment his fingertips grazed the Flügel's heart, it pulsed.
A dull hum.
Then a blinding red light erupted from the core, engulfing the platform in radiant fire. Symbols awakened along the stone floor beneath him—Deunamist glyphs he couldn't understand but somehow felt. His body lifted from the ground, pulled by a cosmic force beyond comprehension.
There was no time to scream.
No time to run.
Only the light.
Then, everything vanished.
When sensation returned, Ben was… small.
Tiny, even.
The air was warm and earthy. Leaves rustled above. He lay on soft moss in the middle of a sunlit forest clearing. Towering trees cast long shadows, the filtered sunlight painting his vision in gold.
He blinked slowly, mind foggy.
His arms refused to lift the way he expected. They were… pudgy. Weak. He looked down.
Chubby fingers. Baby fat. A tiny body.
I've been isekai'd… as a baby?
His heart raced, but his body couldn't follow. His lips parted in a helpless gurgle.
Physics didn't prepare me for this, he thought wildly. Multiverse theory, sure. Baby reincarnation in a fantasy jungle? Not so much.
He tried to cry, to call out, but only a squeak escaped his lips. He was alone—utterly and truly alone—for what felt like hours. Birds chirped. A squirrel skittered past. His tiny body trembled as the vast, unknowable forest towered around him.
And then…
Footsteps.
Crunching leaves. The scent of smoke and pine.
From between the trees emerged an old man with a crooked back, wiry beard, and a straw hat too big for his head. His eyes—sharp yet kind—narrowed as they settled on the abandoned child in the grass.
"Well now," the old man muttered. "What sort of treasure did the forest spit out today?"
He approached slowly, kneeling beside the infant. Ben gurgled in alarm, but the man simply chuckled.
"You're not from around here, are you, little one?" he said gently, lifting the baby into his arms.
Then his eyes caught something: a necklace, strange and foreign, nestled against the child's chest. It wasn't metal or jade—but stone. Polished, smooth, and shaped like a teardrop—the mini Evoltruster. It pulsed faintly with a light that matched the red from the ruins.
"Tch. Never seen a stone like this," he muttered. "You a spirit master's child?"
Then he noticed the wooden plaque tied to the necklace. The name carved into it, plain as daylight:
Ben Dover
The old man blinked. Then squinted again.
"Ben… Dover?" he muttered.
The baby in his arms twitched. His expression contorted in mute horror.
Ben Carter, the infant screamed silently. My name is Ben Carter! BEN CARTER!!
But no one could hear his protests.
"Well, Ben Dover it is," Grandpa Jack said with a wheezy chuckle. "Forest baby or not, looks like you've got yourself a name."
And just like that, Ben Carter—physicist, university student, reasonably sane human—was reborn into a world he didn't understand, under a name that made his soul cringe.
A new life had begun. And at the center of it all pulsed a single, silent truth:
He's fucked