Kaidren remained comfortably sprawled across the white couch like a lifeless ragdoll, his limbs lazily thrown over the plush cushions. The television blared in front of him, its vivid colors dancing across the walls of his dim apartment. The closed silver laptop lay on the small glass coffee table. But the blue phone—still quiet, still verifying—sat beside it like an unopened gift.
To pass the time, Kaidren had settled on watching a comedy series this world had to offer. The show was titled Just Your Cup, and from the very first scene, Kaidren found his stomach turning—not from laughter, but from cringe. Onscreen, two grown men dressed as anthropomorphic tea bags were arguing over spilled milk, their antics as immature as they were illogical.
Kaidren stared blankly.
"This is what passes for comedy here?" he muttered dryly, lips barely moving.
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smirk. Instead, he sighed and continued watching with a morbid curiosity, occasionally clicking his tongue or muttering a deadpan, "Pathetic," when the characters tried to land an emotional moment that clearly missed the mark.
But just as another painfully awkward punchline landed, a soft "ding" echoed through the room. It wasn’t part of the show—no, this one was real. Kaidren’s ears twitched slightly, honing in like radar.
His gaze shifted slowly toward the glass coffee table.
There, glowing faintly against the soft morning light pouring in from the apartment window, was the blue phone.
A new message shone boldly across its screen:
Identity Verification: COMPLETE
Kaidren exhaled through his nose and murmured under his breath, "Finally."
It was subtle, but there was a glint in his eye—a faint shimmer of satisfaction barely visible to the naked eye, especially on a face trained to wear neutrality like armor. He pushed himself up slowly, groaning softly as his spine cracked in protest. The comfort of the couch made it all the harder to move.
Just as his hand reached toward the phone, darkness suddenly closed in around the edges of his vision.
"Tch..." he cursed calmly, blinking hard.
The world tilted, and Kaidren instinctively pressed his palms over his eyes, forcing them shut. His body leaned backward, resting against the couch again as he allowed the spell of dizziness to pass. The vertigo wasn’t foreign—he’d had it back on Earth too, usually from forgetting to eat or standing too fast after hours of gaming—but this one felt heavier. Sharper.
A few quiet seconds passed.
He sniffed, wiped away the moisture that had gathered in his eyes, and muttered, "Great start to the day. Almost went blind opening a phone."
Once he felt steady again, Kaidren reached out and gently lifted the blue phone from the table, holding it in both hands as if it were a delicate instrument. His thumbs brushed across its sleek frame, the metal cool to the touch.
"Alright, System," he murmured with half-lidded eyes. "You better show me something worth all the money you stole."
A faint shimmer passed across the phone’s surface, the light gliding across it like oil on water. The screen, now alive, greeted him with a calm interface—sleek, minimalist, entirely in Japanese.
But unlike before, it no longer read Verifying Identity.
This time, the blue phone awaited a command.
Kaidren leaned back slightly, holding the phone above his face, the light reflecting in his tired black eyes. Somewhere in the background, the show continued to play—another character had just slipped on tea leaves and landed face-first in a cake.
But Kaidren didn’t notice.
His attention now belonged entirely to the device in his hands, and the secrets it held.
The time was probably nearing noon, judging by the sharpness of the light leaking through the window.
Kaidren sank even deeper into the white couch, his back pressing into its plush softness as he carefully adjusted the blue phone in his hands. The screen was now fully active—no more waiting, no more progress bars. Just glowing lines of light, icons flickering gently, and a satisfying smoothness to each swipe and motion.
The blue phone had opened automatically upon detecting his touch, no buttons needed. Its smooth, glass-like surface gleamed with a faint shimmer, almost like water frozen in a thin pane. Kaidren’s brows twitched ever so slightly as he scanned the screen—his first genuine display of curiosity since arriving in this world.
"...Huh," he murmured under his breath. "At least it functions like a real phone."
For a moment, he had half-expected the device to mirror the silver laptop—a tool with only a singular, system-assigned purpose. He had prepared himself for another mysterious, locked interface. But this? This was surprisingly normal.
Apps. Familiar ones. Or at least their equivalents.
Yousight—a video platform like YouTube.
TweetPi—an unmistakable twin of Twitter.
Pergle, Zbook, and a handful of other social media tools filled the home screen. Even the simple apps—clock, calendar, calculator, camera, settings—all sat in neatly arranged rows, just like the ones he knew back on Earth.
Kaidren blinked at them, his mind momentarily drifting. This much normalcy almost felt... disorienting. Was it comfort? Or just another trick to ease him into this alien world?
He leaned back, eyes narrowing. "I’ll check out the social media stuff later," he mumbled. "One wormhole at a time."
His thumb continued sliding across the smooth screen. The phone’s responsiveness was oddly satisfying—no lag, no stutter. Every swipe was met with perfect precision. It was luxurious, expensive, yet eerily intuitive, as though it had been crafted to fit him specifically.
Glancing toward the top of the screen, Kaidren caught the time.
He gave a short nod. That tracked—his earlier guess had been correct. A quiet, rare smile almost pulled at the edge of his lips.
Curious, he tapped the date, which redirected him into the calendar app. Another familiar layout greeted him. But unlike Earth’s calendar system, this one had a subtle difference.
Each month still held its name—January, February, March... all the way to December—but the layout revealed something else. Each month had 35 days, not 30 or 31. A total of five full weeks. Slightly longer. Slightly more demanding. A quiet hum escaped him.
"So... same structure, longer grind."
The date displayed at the top of the screen:
Valentine’s Day, maybe. Not that it mattered to him.
Kaidren muttered, "Another planet, another calendar... Still stuck with Mondays."
He sighed, and for a moment, stared silently at the glowing digits on screen. The blue phone reflected faintly in his eyes.
His thoughts shifted toward something more practical. Work.
According to the information displayed on the silver laptop earlier, he was employed as a store employee at Dimerian Store, scheduled to work from 5:00 PM to 1:00 AM every weekday. That meant tomorrow—Monday—would be his first shift. Just thinking about it made Kaidren reflexively rub the bridge of his nose.
He tapped back out of the calendar and returned to the home screen. No new notifications. No messages. Just him, the screen, and the laughter of some sitcom idiot yelling about spilled coffee behind him.
He eyed the phone again, analyzing it. Every icon was suspiciously polished. Everything so tailored, so modern. It was too perfect.
"Feels like I’m holding a relic from the future," he muttered, letting the phone rest momentarily on his chest. "But at least it’s not locked behind another ten-hour verification process."
His stomach grumbled faintly—not from hunger, but from the dull, restless fatigue that came with being overwhelmed by new information. He was still adapting. Still trying to accept everything. Even if he didnt show it.
And, eventually... new powers.
But for now, he let himself breathe. He needed this calm. This peace.
A glance back at the phone reminded him: he hadn’t even touched the Esper Abilities interface yet. Surely, it had to be in there somewhere. But Kaidren wasn’t quite ready—not yet. Not until he cleared his head and understood the basics of his new life.
For now, he sank back into the couch again and looked up at the ceiling. The light of the TV flickered softly across his skin. The building was quiet.
He exhaled slowly, and whispered to himself.
No—this reality. The System had made that clear from the moment it tore him from his dying self and dumped him into this one. All of this—the TV, the phone, the couch under him, the faint scent of detergent in the air—it was real.
Yet ironically, everything around him still resembled the game world he remembered.
The TV in the corner was playing. The phone was functional. Everything had weight, consequence, sound, scent—presence. Unlike in Espers of the World, where technology was mostly used in scripted cutscenes or locked behind lore entries, here the phone in his hand buzzed, tapped, and vibrated like any ordinary device.
And somehow... that unsettled him even more than monsters ever could.
A part of Kaidren—perhaps the part of him still clinging to the identity of Ryujin—felt something hidden beneath all this ordinary noise. A strange, unspoken hope.
Maybe this world will finally see me.
The thought slipped through his mind like a whisper.
But he shook his head gently, almost scolding himself. "Tch. Thinking useless things again," he muttered under his breath, regaining his composure.
With a neutral expression, Kaidren flicked his thumb across the screen. His goal: test out one of the social media apps. There were several: Yousight, TweetPi, Pergle, Zbook. All oddly familiar, yet different enough to remind him this was not Earth.
His eyes scanned across them, and eventually stopped at Zbook. The logo had a large white "Z" wrapped in blue, it was unmistakably trying to mimic Facebook. He tapped it.
A simple menu appeared: Sign In or Create New Account.
Huh. Just like Earth, Kaidren thought.
He selected Create New Account, expecting to be asked for an email next—and he was right. The prompt read: "Please input your Permail address." The equivalent of Gmail here, no doubt.
Below the field was a hyperlink: "Don’t have a Permail account? Create one here."
With a short sigh, Kaidren pressed it, and the app automatically navigated him to the Permail registration form. He leaned his head back against the couch cushion, thinking.
"Should I use my real birthdate in this world?" he murmured.
After a few seconds, he decided against it. This was just a basic account, after all. It didn’t need to reflect his true self. And besides, keeping a layer of separation between Kaidren and Ryujin might help him later on.
Birthdate: 04-24-2100
Permail: [email protected]
Password: (Oevdj5292inkwv+-_oabdbIwhah)
The overly complicated password made him grimace for a moment. "Ugh. I won’t remember this later." But thankfully, the system prompted him with the option to save it securely.
"Yes, save it," he muttered as he clicked.
With that, he pressed Create Account.
The familiar spinning gray circle appeared, just like on Earth. The animation rotated slowly, quietly. And for a moment, it brought Kaidren some comfort. Something about the loading circle made everything feel... almost normal.
But then another thought struck him.
Wait. Do I even have internet?
His gaze snapped up to the top of the phone screen, searching for a Wi-Fi icon. Nothing.
A slight furrow creased his brow.
Swiping down from the top, he accessed the phone’s quick settings. Brightness, flashlight, auto-rotate, silent mode, battery saver—it was all there. Yet still, no Wi-Fi option.
"What... no Wi-Fi?" he murmured aloud, confusion flashing across his usually stoic face.
The phone didn’t show any cellular bars either. But somehow, it was still loading.
Before Kaidren could puzzle over the implications further, a soft ding brought his attention back.
His Permail account had been successfully created.
He let out a long exhale and relaxed into the couch. "I guess... this world really is as different."
Everything functioned, even without logical support. No Wi-Fi. No data plan. And yet—he had an email account now. Kaidren’s mind began threading together assumptions. Could it be that the system itself supports and powers the devices it gave me? A self-contained network, maybe? Or something else entirely?
He wouldn’t get answers now.
What mattered was that he was in.
One by one, the pieces of his new identity were coming together.
Soon, he would explore what social media looked like here. Who are some figures, beyond the main cast. What the public talked about. How society in this world treated espers like him.