Foreword: Here we go.
Prologue
Just Another Day in This New World
Kanshou_Ibuki.
Part 1
I was late, again.
My feet pounded against the ground. My mouth greedily sucked in air for my burning lungs and spat it out just as quickly as I ran down the hallway in an all-out sprint.
Shit. My thoughts echoed out in tandem with every strike of my foot against the ground. My heart thudded against my chest like a fist–was I always this out of shape?–as I skidded to a stop near an intersection, bleeding out enough momentum to push off of the ground and keep going. I'm not gonna make it!
Despite that thought, I kept running anyways. Better late than never! Unfortunately, as I neared my destination, I found my way blocked by someone with a clipboard, short black hair, and glasses.
"Kanshou-san." I suppressed the urge to groan, even as I slowed to a halt, planting both hands on my knees and doubling over to catch my breath. "You're late, again." My supervisor snapped one arm up, checking the watch that was always at his wrist before raising an eyebrow at me. "2 minutes and 30 seconds, to be precise."
"I'm... sorry, Sato-san." I ducked my head into an apologetic bow, even as I tried to slow my breathing to something that was more acceptable. "I was... held up by something. It won't happen again." I'd learned that bowing was considered good etiquette in Japanese workplace culture, and so far using it had been to my advantage. Like now, for instance.
Raising his watch hand up, Sato sighed and pushed his glasses up anime-style, where they glinted harshly against the hospital's fluorescent lights. "I understand that you're new here, and that the work schedule may be difficult to get used to. Nonetheless, be sure to try and accommodate for any mishaps that might occur on lunch break. Repeat this one more time and I won't be so lenient." With that ominous warning, he turned on his heel and strode away, his shoes clacking sharply against the hospital floor before he rounded the corner and disappeared.
The tension within me eased, and I let out a slow exhale, my heartbeat fading back into its dull pulse in my body. At the very least, I'd managed to avoid a scolding.
Slowly sitting down at my desk, I typed in my employee credentials and logged back in. The screen flashed bright, illuminating my face as it flared a window with the words "Welcome Back, 寛正歩紀!" at my direction.
「寛正 歩紀」– "Kanshou Ibuki".
That was my new identity in this world. I'd pulled the two names out of a name generator and mashed them together, and it had sounded generic enough without being too anime-y to be cringy that I just rolled with it.
No more "Reynold Chen"; that was gone, shredded into pieces along with my driver's license and student ID the first moment I'd had enough time to myself and access to Heaven Canceler's office equipment. It wasn't a surefire way of getting rid of them, but far better than getting caught with things that at best, would be taken as incredibly real replicas of IDs–and at worst, would cause a lot of questions if they passed the right scans and tests.
The only thing that really, really belonged to me now was the set of clothes I'd been wearing when I first arrived in this world, which had been tossed into the incinerator and discarded, and my smartphone, which was currently in my other pocket, away from my flip phone, permanently powered off unless I absolutely needed it. Which was never, because I wasn't sure when or where it was safe to turn on and use.
When it came to devices and technology, smartphones actually did exist in this world. Academy City was supposedly 20 to 30 years in the future, according to what Kamachi had said, and the setting really lived up to its name for a series written and conceived of in the late 2000s. Flip phones and smartphones existed, with the same purposes and almost the same forms as the phones from my world. So did WiFi.
It wasn't really comparable, though. The 2020s were a pretty advanced era of technology–WiFi here was universally available and cheap, definitely not a luxury to be underestimated, but computers and interfaces definitely weren't as fast or as sleek the way they were in the "modern" day.
In comparison to even the higher-end smartphones I'd seen advertised, my iPhone was practically cutting-edge tech right now. I'd never done a direct comparison, but just from what ads were saying, the phones here were something closer to like… 2015? 2016? I had an older model, but that was more comparative than anything, since I was coming from 2024–the thing was still a good 2 or 3 years ahead of Academy City's current stuff.
Lightning chargers didn't actually exist–Apple wasn't really a thing, and neither was Samsung, apparently–but I'd searched through a few stores and found a charger that, after purchase, fit perfectly into the charging port without any problems. I just hadn't turned my phone on and accessed anything inside yet.
I didn't intend to, either. Doing so was probably a quick way to draw all the wrong kinds of questions, including why I had something that advanced to begin with.
This wasn't even mentioning what was contained in the phone. If someone knew, I was fairly sure that I would've already been dead by now. And that was because packed into that device, on my Google Drive and available offline as pdfs (I got bored on public transit, sue me), was every volume I had read from the Index series, from Original Testament to Genesis Testament Volume 2.
I wasn't exactly a computer person, but I didn't need to be to know that giving that kind of thing even a chance to escape to the Internet of this world was a terrible, terrible idea.
That meant that if I wanted to use my phone, I'd have to do so offline. But that in and of itself was sure to draw attention of some kind, especially from how suspicious I'd be acting if I was, in actuality, being actively observed, so I refrained from doing so, no matter how tempting it was. Leaving it around could get it stolen, and if that was the case and the phone fell into the wrong hands, it was as good as over. Destroying it was probably the best solution there was, but that was out of the question. So as tempting as it was to just hurl the thing into the incinerator and be done with it, I kept it on me at all times, powered off, never in use.
For all intents and purposes, it was nothing more than a paperweight. It was a miracle the device had survived, honestly. Whatever the trip had done to me–well, the phone had turned out unscathed. But using it wasn't a great move, so instead, this was what it was doing for me now.
Sucking in a deep breath, I reached down with my left hand, wrapping my fingers around the phone in my pocket to give it a squeeze before slowly exhaling. I didn't pull it out, though, merely closing my eyes and focusing on the sensation of my hand and the phone together. ... Focus. Don't get distracted.
An anchor to remind me of who I really was, and where I was. It was a useful reminder that I was here, in the now.
There was a chiming noise, and I blinked out of my thoughts. I'd gotten a notification from someone else at the hospital, probably something work-related, which went into the inbox that had… more than a few notifications to be read and marked off, now. 24… 25. 26.
I winced as the number abruptly jumped to 29. That was building up quickly, which usually meant it was somewhat urgent. Any more and I'd probably get strangled (metaphorically) for not doing my job.
Focus, I chided myself. You were already late. You don't want Sato getting on your ass any more than that for something else as easy as this.
"Welcome Back, 寛正歩紀!" The message in front of me was still there, and I took a deep breath before closing the welcome window and getting to work.
Part 2
After firing off one last email to a patient about a medical records request, I logged out from my computer, standing up from my seat to stretch. In response, my back protested by letting out a series of cracking noises, accompanied by a faint but satisfying crunch-crunch as I felt something in my spine click back into place.
Oof. It was satisfying to feel, but clearly, I'd been sitting down in that chair for far too long. The good news was that it was 5 PM, which meant that I could clock off and go wander the city to look for dinner.
Over the course of the past month, I'd found myself settling into a nice kind of schedule, a bit of normality kicking in after I'd been employed and allowed out of the ICU. I'd wake up, get breakfast, clock in from 8 to 12, take an hour-long lunch break, and then work from 1 to 5 before clocking out for the day and taking the night to either relax or walk around the city.
I kept away from the alleys and unlit streets, but otherwise, District 7 seemed relatively safe. I'd already been to the underground shopping complex, and I'd spent an afternoon window-shopping around Seventh Mist, just taking things in.
I wasn't in the mood for walking around today, though. It was a Friday, so we'd been a lot busier before clocking out–which meant that any new discoveries of culinary delights would have to wait for tomorrow.
… I think I'll go to Jacob's again today. I nodded to myself as I considered the idea. The family restaurant was only a few blocks away–an easy walk, really–and I could enjoy watching the Academy City sunset after eating my fill.
Jacob's was damn good; I could definitely see why so many named characters liked to go there. Before arriving in this world, I'd haphazardly slapped it with the label of "Denny's, but Academy City", so it was a pleasant surprise to see that the comparison was actually true.
It was (relatively) cheap, tasty, and just a good experience overall. The place definitely had that Denny's "go there at 2 in the morning to get a milkshake" vibe to it (and did, in fact, offer milkshakes at 2).
I'd probably gone through and tried about half of the menu items at this point, and hadn't found myself significantly disappointed in anything so far, so as far as dinner places went, it was a good place to be.
With my dinner destination locked in, all that was left to do was to get going. Whistling a cheery tune as I patted at my pockets to make sure I had everything, I stepped out of the hospital doors–and found myself immediately stopped by the ringing noise coming from my pocket.
What is it this time? I rolled my eyes as I pulled the phone out, flipping it open and flicking to the calendar reminders to read the notification. … Oh.
–It seemed that there was one more thing to do at the hospital before I left to get dinner. Turning on my heel, I walked back through the doors.
I had an appointment with Heaven Canceler to keep.
Part 3
One quick elevator ride later, and I found myself knocking on the door to an office on the 9th floor of the hospital. At the response of "Come in" from inside, I put my hand to the doorknob, twisted it, and pushed the door open.
Heaven Canceler's office was the same as always: a PC on his desk and a chair, some office supplies and machines, a file cabinet that I knew held a physical copy of my own file in there, and finally, a cot for the patient to lie on.
"Ah, you're finally here." The frog-faced doctor looked up from his computer as I stepped into the room. "It's good to see you."
"It's good to see you as well, sir." As usual, the man's mouth quirked up ever-so-slightly at my words. He'd insisted that I not use the "-sama" suffix around him, but it was awkward to call him "doc" despite his insistence and I didn't know his name aside from "Heaven Canceler"–which was more of a title than anything. So, 'sir' it was, full English and everything.
He'd rolled with it right from the get-go, so I guess he found it endearing? It was hard to get a grasp on his personality with what I knew. He was more of a constant in the setting than anything else, strictly adhering to his ideal of saving others no matter allegiance or origin–but that had saved my life when no one else could've. Or would've.
"Please, just give me a few seconds to finish this. In the meantime, just make yourself comfortable." I nodded at his words before sitting down on the cot, swinging my legs over and rotating to fully lie down and stare up at the ceiling.
The keyboard clacked on for a little while longer before it stopped, and I heard the doctor swivel around in his chair and walk over. , his face appearing in the corners of my vision.
"Alright. We've done this a few times, so I think you know the procedure now." Heaven Canceler clicked a pen before looking down at the clipboard he was holding up. "Have you been suffering from any headaches recently?"
I shook my head, and he continued. "Any difficulty concentrating? Dizziness? Blurry vision? Do you feel like you've been having any problems with your memory so far?" I responded to all of those questions with shakes of my head, and after exhausting the list (as usual), we moved onto the next part of the cognitive test.
"We've been doing this on a week-by-week basis, so I don't really expect any notable changes, but…" Heaven Canceler furrowed his brow. "Still nothing at all? You don't remember anything about your previous life?"
At that, my mouth flattened itself into a thin line. "... Sorry, sir." Heaven Canceler could only nod in response as I kept speaking, doing my best to look apologetic–because I really was, to some extent. "I don't really know if there's 'anything' worth mentioning. I get flashes of deja vu here and there when I'm walking around the city but… nothing concrete I can go off of. No one recognizes me, either. For all intents and purposes, I seem to be a complete outsider here."
There was a long silence before the doctor spoke again. "... I see." There was a sigh, and he looked somewhat disappointed. Whether that was because he believed me or because he had seen through me, I didn't know. "Well, in any case, you're free to go now. Thanks for coming up anyways, Kanshou-san."
"I should be the one saying that. Thanks again for everything, sir." I ducked into a bow, a real one, but he just held up his hand.
"Don't worry about it. Helping patients like you is what I'm supposed to do, after all." Heaven Canceler saw me out the office door, where I bid him goodnight before walking down the hallway, back towards the hospital's exit. As I did so, I let out the quietest of sighs.
–Retrograde amnesia. The complete destruction of memories of my life without the annihilation of any skills or knowledge I'd acquired.
That was the lie I'd used–and continued to maintain–up to now: that whatever had landed me in the hospital had been so thoroughly deadly and traumatic that I didn't remember any details about the life I'd lived before I got here, despite retaining near-complete knowledge of everyday things such as technology, language, and the like.
In other words, I'd aped Kamijou Touma's amnesia from the very end of OT Volume 1 and used it for myself. I wasn't sure if Heaven Canceler believed me or not, given that the scans done hadn't revealed any lingering brain damage after the incident, but he hadn't said anything about it, either.
I wasn't really sure of the details, but if I had to guess, the amount of damage I had sustained on entry was actually bad enough to be considered an amnesia-causing event. And it wasn't hard to tell why.
From what Heaven Canceler had told me, I'd been found in a bloody heap that looked as if my entire body had been forcibly ripped apart and glued back together. I didn't remember anything about my first few days in this world, having spent them on the operating table, but from the reports I'd read while recovering, the prognosis was that I was probably going to die.
On the operating table, I had died. My heart had stopped for 9 minutes during the surgery trying to put me back together, but Heaven Canceler had somehow managed to get things going again. And in the end, against all odds, I'd lived.
To say that I owed him my life wasn't an understatement. Even now, he was continuing to cover for me. If it weren't for him, I probably couldn't even walk around the city without triggering some sort of security alert and bringing Anti-Skill down on my head.
I was a convalescent that didn't–couldn't–legally exist in this world, and he'd not only saved me from being dead on arrival, but also given me a job and an ID in Academy City, as well as a place to stay for the time being. Being one of the city's founders and the one maintaining Aleister's life support probably gave him more than a little administrative leeway in that regard, but it was still something to marvel at. Things had moved so fast that by the point I was able to get out of bed, all I needed to do was pick a new name and sign a bunch of papers confirming I was who I was to seal the deal.
He'd even accepted my request to directly download how to speak, read, and write Japanese into my brain using a Testament under his personal supervision, which was how I was even able to do my job and live in the city in the first place. Things like cultural norms and understandings were a lot more difficult to pick up, but at that point it was more of a "monkey see, monkey do" situation–I'd make my own observations and pick things up from there. It'd worked out fine so far.
But yeah, lying to Heaven Canceler. Not exactly great, but it wasn't like I had a choice.
There were a lot of things I trusted the man with, but who I was and what I knew was not one of them. He was the most trustworthy of the lot, that was hard to deny, but when the information being entrusted was "I'm from a different world and I have knowledge of the future", that list shrank to zero pretty quickly. Especially since for all I knew, Aleister or anyone else could be listening in.
Even if it didn't stop me from feeling bad every time I lied to the man's face, keeping my mouth shut would keep me alive.
In the end, it was just a part of the new reality I'd have to live with.
Alright. Enough of that. With a conscious effort, I willed those thoughts away. Thinking about it and feeling bad wouldn't really do anything. I could stand here and think about it as much as I liked, but the facts wouldn't change. Time for dinner.
Turning away from Heaven Canceler's office, I walked down the hallway and towards my next destination.
Part 4
I finished off the last bite of Hamburg Steak before letting my fork fall to the plate with a clatter. Whew. That was good. Needed that.
In other news, Jacob's hadn't disappointed. I'd opted to order something more familiar today, but that didn't stop it from being delicious. Everything in this place was just too damn good.
Taking a sip from the milkshake that was still half-full on the table, I let out a contented sigh as I swallowed. I really am living my best life here, huh?
But almost immediately, another little voice piped up in the corner of my head. Well, when you start your new life in this world by almost dying and then spending a few months in the ICU, of course you'd be 'living your best life' right now.
When it was put like that… at the thought, the milkshake's lingering sweetness seemed to sour just a little in my mouth. Grimacing, I took another pull from my straw, washing the sourness away with another mouthful of creamy goodness.
I hated thoughts like that. All of that trouble, all of those restrictions now… and I still didn't know how I had gotten here.
Silently, I sighed as I leaned my chin against my hand, using my free hand to idly flick at the straw inside of the milkshake, watching it bounce off of the glass rim and sway around in the thick liquid.
The how was important, but I didn't exactly have any means of knowing. Something like dimensional travel hadn't been discussed very thoroughly in the series, from what I remembered from the light novels. Phases were the deal here, but that didn't explain how I, a real person from the real world, had been incarnated into a fictional reality–or fictional set of realities, if I wanted to be specific.
There was also World Rejector, with its ability to move you to time-shifted "empty" sections of the world, but that definitely wasn't it, and I had discarded that one out-of-hand almost immediately. This wasn't an issue of time-space distortions. This was an issue of realities, plain and simple.
Even assuming that I was from a different Phase, that didn't account for the knowledge I had of this world–universe–multiverse–gah, you know what I meant. Not even Magic Gods were omniscient, but I was pretty sure that on a macro scale, I was the closest thing to 'omniscient' you could get. Maybe Anna Sprengel and Aiwass had me beaten, but she wasn't even back in position yet, so it was technically still just me.
I knew things people didn't know. Not just people, even. I knew things literal gods and would-be gods didn't know. But I didn't know how I knew, and it wasn't exactly like I could ask. After all, the list of people who could've possibly known anything went something like
1. Aleister Crowley.
2. Aiwass.
3. True GREMLIN, which consisted of Magic Gods.
4. Anna Sprengel, and any other Secret Chiefs like her.
5. Maybe Coronzon. Hard maybe on that one.
It was a very short list. It was also completely inaccessible for someone like me. That wasn't even considering the fact that they probably weren't interested in giving me the answers I was looking for, or the fact that their existences were buried so deeply that I would probably get killed just for the fact that I knew.
So yeah. Not happening.
Better to keep my head down, unless I wanted to lose it poking it somewhere it didn't belong. The more I stayed out of the way, the better.
There was probably some point later on in the story where I could start asking my questions, but that would have to be after the situation had passed the limits of my knowledge–that is to say, after GT 2. Accelerator would've become Academy City's chairman, Anna Sprengel would've revealed herself, and Aleister would've underwent enough character development to actually be a good guy.
… Huh. Now that I was thinking about it, a lot of the influential people in the series had names that started with "A". Accelerator, Aleister, Anna, Aiwass, Aihana Etsu… the list went on and on. Maybe Kamachi was just really into his "A" alliterations.
… Back on topic.
What balanced out my lack of knowledge in regards to the "how" was the knowledge I did have concerning the "when".
Knowing that Kamijou Touma ran into Index somewhere mid-July (or the other way around–semantics!), and the fact that it was currently August by this point, I was fairly certain I had actually, somehow, ended up before the story had started.
There were some pretty good context clues that helped with my judgement. Heh. Judgement. Good one.
Anyways, I had a few rather good context clues. Put together, they looked something like this:
1. Tree Diagram was still up.
2. Tree Diagram was still up.
3. Did I mention that Tree Diagram was still up, and not currently a metal suitcase being dragged around by a Level 4 teleporter that would soon get her face bashed in by Accelerator?
4. Misaka Mikoto wasn't the 3rd-ranked Level 5 esper known as the Railgun. I wasn't exactly sure of the timeline where she Leveled Up (literally), but there were only 6 Level 5s in Academy City right now.
So, yeah. Pre-canon.
I was sure that if I went digging around, I'd find some more specific instances that could more precisely pinpoint when I was exactly–news related to the Deadlock incident, for instance, would've been very telling–but that was somewhat pointless. After all, I didn't intend on messing with anything or anyone. I'd keep working my job at Heaven Canceler's hospital, well out of the way of… any… problematic incidents…
My brain stuttered to a halt as slowly, I realized just exactly where I was working.
I was working at the hospital that Heaven Canceler ran. Heaven Canceler, the guy who provided most of the medical help in the series to the main character. In other words, I was working at Kamijou Touma's hospital.
Kamijou Touma. That Kamijou Touma. Kamijou Touma, disaster magnet and protagonist of this world, who would be checking into this place just about every other 24-hour-period because he was getting blown up, shot at, set on fire, or experiencing the many, many other ways of bodily harm this world had to offer.
Forget Touma and his relationship with bodily harm, even. This was the hospital that every named character in the series frequented, and there were just as many fights taking place here in and around, to boot. Even if talking and chatting with them didn't set off any butterflies, I did not want to get caught in the crossfire from any one of the numerous incidents that would happen.
If I wasn't careful, I might end up as one of the casualties, squishy mortal that I was. Hell, even if I was, that might happen to me anyways. Even if I didn't die, I really didn't want to spend more time in the ICU when I didn't have to.
In light of that revelation, one singular course of action suddenly presented itself as the obvious solution to my problems.
I need to get the hell outta here.
Afterword: When in doubt, do as a certain cultivator/farmer does, and apply the secret technique of Joseph Joestar.
Anyways, welcome! New project.
Maaaaan, where do I even start? This project actually started in the September of 2021, when I picked up the Raildex light novel and immediately went on an LN-reading, manga-reading, anime-watching, fanfiction-consuming blender of a trip. Immediately afterwards, I was like "I want to write something related to this series."
Readers who also follow Otherworldly, you may have noticed that said window of time coincides with the time I stopped updating Otherworldly. Well… now you know why, hahaha...
Anyways, sifting through SpaceBattles recently, I read several pretty cool Raildex SIs that have cropped up, and I was inspired to revisit this project and hopefully get it polished up after I hit my stride in Otherworldly. Shoutout especially to A Certain Mental Isekai by Eotyrannus, which I kept procrastinating on until I finally decided to read it when it was at 490k words. Go check it out, it's great!
So with Otherworldly at a pretty good point at this time, I figured that I'd try to get a second story out, see how it does, hopefully work in a completely different direction from what I'm doing in Otherworldly and broaden my horizons some more.
With the reasonings for me releasing this story out of the way, let me ramble a bit about my creative processes!
–Honestly, I'm not at all sure how this is going to go. It could go great. It could go terribly.
As you can tell, this is a self-insert. Because this was thought of before A Certain Mental Isekai, it doesn't follow that trend of placing people inside the minds of named characters with abilities (or variations thereof, given the butterflies that would ensue); instead, it is simply "me", directly transported to the world of Raildex as "I" am–which is to say, an American college student with below-average physical capabilities and a smartphone. And obviously, no superpowers, either scientific or magical. And all relevant metaknowledge.
Go me!
This first volume will probably be pretty slow, given the fact that our protagonist's just getting his start in this world and the fact that–as he alludes to–he actively wants to avoid messing with canon in any way, shape, or form, given his paranoia (is it paranoia if it's justified?) about drawing attention or disrupting the status quo. This means that Stations of Canon will abound quite drastically, at least in the story's early stages.
This means that it's going to take a lot of work to even be able to build him up into someone/something that has the capability to disrupt the plot, since I'd be suffering from a lot of pushback from… well, "me". The story's focus is on gradual changes that snowball eventually, but the going's gonna be slow, at least at the start.
Since this was planned way back in 2021, I'm actually sticking with what I wrote back then, so a pretty detailed roadmap's already been laid out for me to follow. You might wonder–well, Oreo, if you planned this in 2021, why are you using your 2025 self instead of 2021's? And the answer to that is because I've folded too many new things into my dialogue and thinking processes over the past few years that I honestly can't tell what I would or wouldn't have said 4 years ago.
So I'm just going to go as I am, while maintaining the same level of knowledge that "I" had at the time this project began–that is to say, from OT 1 to GT 2.
I've got a pretty detailed roadmap of the general direction things will go and how changes will happen, but when it comes to writing the actual chapters themselves, I'm not even going to lie–I'm flying by the seat of my pants.
Originally, I was going to introduce everything in media res from a purely 3rd-person, outside perspective that gives very little about Ibuki or his motivations, but then when I started writing, I was just like "Eh, it's easier to build Ibuki up as a person and character first, especially if I use 1st-person", and yeah, things just kinda took off from there.
Updates are probably going to be sporadic, unless I somehow become a productive writing god and can reliably crank out 7-8k words per week. I have no idea how people do that. What's their secret? They have to have some kinda secret sauce or something.
As it is with what I've planned, I already feel like parts of it contradict canon, or will end up clashing with the established ideas of Raildex's universe. I've tried my best to adhere to due diligence and make sure that I don't accidentally snap the setting in half because of some worldbuilding mistakes or because I didn't consider the implications of certain actions, etc, but I'll have definitely missed out on some things, or made some controversial decisions here and there, so if you want to, please let me know.
Well, I've dragged on this Afterword for long enough.
So on that final note, in the end, all I can say is: I hope you enjoy! See you next time!
Sincerely,
Oreo the Cookie