Otherworld Academy Vol. 1 Capitulo 1
Chapter 1
Levi kept his eyes closed for the trip to the infirmary. He tried to keep track of the steps they were taking, just to be in control of some part of the journey, but their route didn’t make sense. If his awareness of direction was right, they had made five left turns, two right turns, gone up four flights of stairs, then made two left turns, gone down three flights of stairs, then made five right turns… and then he felt like they were in a room that was spinning. None of it seemed real and he would have asked more questions, except the headache was getting worse. His skull felt like it was pounding, and by the time they entered a room that smelled like mint and chai tea, he had to hold in the urge to be sick.
“Silvia? Silvia! I have a sick arrival here. He’s complaining o—" his guide started to say, then she was cut off by a no-nonsense voice.
“That is enough, Twinberry, you can go. I have this under control,” the mysterious voice said. Levi was bewildered—what kind of name was Twinberry? Then again, she has blue hair, maybe my nurse is a hippy? he pondered. He was jerked out of his thoughts by a strong grip on his arm that pulled him to a padded surface.
Levi blindly reached back to whatever he’d bumped into and his hands came down on what felt like a thick mattress. The cushion wasn’t the familiar texture of a gurney, but he didn’t have time to process it; the same person who had pulled him over started pushing him down onto his back and clucking her tongue like his aunt when he had spilled his lunch as a toddler.
The doctor whispered a word he didn’t catch, and then all the lights in the room dimmed until he could crack his eyes open. A wet cloth was placed over his eyes before he could see anything, and a numbing sensation spread over his forehead. Levi couldn’t help the groan of relief that came from having the pain fade away. The person helping him patted his shoulder and said something.
“What?” he asked in confusion, sure he hadn’t heard her right.
“I said you’re doing well, adjusting to mana entering your system for the first time. You haven’t exploded, which is a nice change,” the woman replied in such a deadpan voice that it took Levi several moments to truly register what she had just uttered.
“Wait… what do you mean mana? Did you say explode?” He was sure it was a hallucination, had to be. He was just having some kind of breakdown after being hit by a truck. He was doing a good job of convincing himself of that—until she took the cloth off of his face and he got a look at her for the first time.
His vision was still blurry, but without the pain he could distinctly make out that the “woman” before him, had at least ten tentacles writhing around her. A vaguely female-shaped column of pink in a white lab coat stood in front of the bed he was lying on. Numerous limbs were stretching out to move things around the room, checking the temperature of someone a few beds over, collecting a basin of water, and one was holding a glinting silver object curled in its grasp. Levi’s mouth dropped open and he reacted as nature demanded.
He screamed his head off.
“Oh lovely,” the giant squid-woman said, then everything went black once more.
When Levi returned to consciousness he was sitting in a chair in an impeccable wood-walled office. The boards were smooth and polished to a golden shine, the shelves were delicate yet held thick leather-bound tomes, and the window looked like it was filled with stained glass depicting a dragon breathing fire over a giant tree. He realized he could see, and his hand came up to touch his face, finding a pair of round glasses perched on his nose. He traced the slim metal arms back behind his ear, and that was when he received another shock: his ear came to a point. Before he could panic, a presence behind him cleared her throat and Levi jumped like a scalded frog.
“Please try and relax, Mr. Walker. I understand your arrival wasn’t the most traditional, but you’ve already managed to get on the infirmary’s bad side. If you fall out of your chair and hurt yourself now, you’ll have to heal the slow way.” The matronly voice belied the strong hand that landed on his shoulder and held him steady.
Levi craned his neck and saw a woman standing behind him in a black business suit. The white shirt, black vest, and black tie gave her an almost malevolent air, but her face was cheerful. She had rosy cheeks and bright green eyes with silver hair coiled into a bun on the back of her head. Levi also realized she couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, though she was rather wide. She stepped around him as he watched, then moved to sit in a large chair with leather upholstery. It wasn’t quite a throne, but it went with the dark wooden desk, clearly a matched set. The woman rested her elbows on the desk and clasped her hands in front of her chin before she leaned toward Levi; the movement made her look like a kid behind the desk, but there was something soothing about her presence.
“My name is house mistress Regina Applebottom, I run Toad House here at the Academy. According to Silvia, you were suffering a case of mana backlash, an affliction that hits individuals who came from a world with a low inherent magical environment. Does that sound right?” she asked kindly.
Levi stared in utter confusion and clamped his lips shut. He struggled to avoid laughing. Everything she had just said sounded like nonsense to him. He raised his hand back to his ear to feel the top again. It sounded like rubbish, but the skin of his ear was definitely poking up into some kind of tip, and it felt very pointed. He opened his mouth to reply, but froze when she reached down and opened a drawer in her desk. Somehow, she took out a silver platter with a tall cloche on top. Setting the platter down, she took the cover off to reveal a steaming tea kettle, two saucers, cups, and a porcelain plate with frosted cookies that smelled like vanilla, lemon, and sugar. His mouth started to water before she even waved a hand to offer him some.
“Before we get into your questions, how about some tea?” she asked with a wide, motherly smile.
Levi had suffered so many shocks by this point he felt numb. He reached out with a hand, then accepted the cup of tea with a small cookie balanced on the saucer. He drew his hand toward his stomach and noticed for the first time that he was wearing a gray, shapeless shirt of some kind with loose, matching pants. The fabric looked like it’d been cut from sheets, and he nearly dropped his tea when he saw the backs of his forearms and hands had small scales. His eyes whipped up to look at the woman in front of him and she let out a knowing sigh.
“I see. You were reincarnated, right? This isn’t your original body?” she asked. Levi mutely shook his head, still stunned. “Right, that explains some of the shock, and I’m guessing you came from a world with very little magic?” she continued, raising an eyebrow.
Levi finally found his voice. “Earth doesn’t have magic,” he managed to say, then he sipped the tea to clear that lunacy from his mouth. He was not prepared for the tea to taste like dill pickles, and he spat it out without thinking, coughing violently as he gasped. He dropped the cup, and in his spasm the saucer flew into the air. However, neither the dish nor the cup hit the ground; instead, they floated in front of him, held within a bubble of dim silver light. He stared as the tea managed to flow back into the cup, and then both landed on the desk before him. The cookie spun in the air like a UFO before it landed on his knee. “Sorry,” he whispered weakly.
“Not at all, dear. I’m assuming you’ve never had dillberry tea before—it happens to the best of us,” she said.
Levi was starting to find her compassionate responses unnerving. He was not used to people being patient and understanding, and honestly it was weirding him out. He straightened up and took a moment to bite the cookie. That, at least, tasted like a great sugar cookie with lemon. The sugar gave him a much-needed boost of energy and he could almost feel his stamina rallying. Got to figure out what is going on and stop letting everything freak me out, he said to himself.
“Sorry, Miss App—Applebottom,” he began, stumbling over the name as a song popped into his head. He pushed that to the side and continued, “Earth doesn’t have magic, and no, I am not supposed to have scales, or pointed ears. I am pretty sure I’m in a coma and this is just a crazy dream. The last thing I remember was a truck—”
“Sorry deary, traumatic deaths often result in increased confusion. If you’re here, the Reincarnation Network sensed a great deal of magical potential in you. No mistake there, and it’s definitely not dreaming. Get that silly idea out of your head. If your old world’s magic is so weak you believe it doesn’t exist, that explains your shock… but we can’t go letting you think the Academy is some kind of dream. That’s a surefire way of getting yourself killed again, and people rarely get to have a second reincarnation,” she finished sternly. He blinked at her in surprise, and she offered him a more sympathetic look.
“How about I do some explaining?” she suggested, and he nodded—if nothing else he didn’t want to argue with his own hallucination.
Levi sat and nibbled another cookie as she began her lecture. The Otherworld Academy sat on a dimensional crossroad, like a central cog in a clock. The dimension bore the name Taryl, and Professor Applebottom explained that the energy of Taryl had a tendency of drawing souls with magical natures to it. The Director had established the Academy thousands of years ago, and then several different dimensions had worked together to build what they called the Reincarnation Network. Stone circles known as cromlechs were built on various worlds, and they were carefully tuned to direct the departed to the dimension best suited for their rebirth. Thanks to something she called a mana gas harvesting array, they had a machine that allowed souls to manifest in a body at the adult stage, with memories intact. It didn’t always work, and in Levi’s case, glitches happened.
Personally, Levi was inclined to think that giving someone an entirely new body was more than a glitch, but what did he know.
Apparently, she decided that he’d had enough history at that point, because she rose to her feet and waved a hand at him, offering another motherly smile. “Come along dearie, let’s get you sorted out and placed. Once that is done, you can begin learning about the world around you. I suspect you’ll have a lot to learn.”
Levi suppressed a snort as his emotions started to rally and work through the shock. Since I didn’t know magic existed, and I am still convinced I’ve gone insane, sure, let’s go with “a lot to learn,” he thought to himself sarcastically.
“Sorted and placed?” he asked, unsure what she meant.
“Oh yes, hon, I’m the house mistress for Toad House, not your house mistress. I might be, depending on how you get sorted, but I was just available to give you a brief introduction and help you adjust. We have a whole process to get you placed where you’re meant to be. Some people even think it’s fun!” she said cheerfully.
“As long as it isn’t a rhyming hat…” Levi muttered to himself.
“What was that?” Regina asked him as she led him out into a hallway made of carved stone blocks.
“Nothing, just something I saw once. This sounds great.” Levi managed to inject a little enthusiasm into his voice, though he was pretty sure this entire process was going to be awful. His head turned to follow a young woman who was walking past with three large leather tomes in her arms. She had white hair that flowed past the small of her back and a simple uniform. A pleated skirt, vest, shirt, and tie along with thigh-high socks, all in whites, grays, and silver. A pair of glasses sat on her button nose, and the look she gave him was astonishingly frigid.
Levi grinned at her, just to watch her glare and then he turned to Regina. “Maybe this won’t be so bad after all,” he started to say, feeling a growing sense of cheer.
The short, stout woman just let out a hearty laugh as she led him down the hallway.
