I lay on the ground for a long time, admiring the light blue morning clouds above me, and the wooden houses that lined the cold cobblestone road I had fallen onto. It was safe to say that I was having a bit of an existential crisis. While part of me was trying to cope with the impossible, another part of my mind desperately wanted to ground myself to known variables and refocus my growing anxiousness onto small and irrelevant problems. Like the fact that I had not had a chance to get a new copy of ‘Summer Flowers’. Or that my houseplant would die for good now.

Then of course there were the much more serious and pressing issues that I was hoping to solve by just laying on the ground and pretending to have been hit by a carriage (probably looked the part as well). Like, what would I do in this world? It looked medieval enough, and I knew how these stories usually went. Hero with OP powers, harem of catgirls, yada yada… Not only did I not fit the profile (and wasn’t that much into cat girls), but I also had no passport, no money, no weapons (not that I knew how to use anything other than a kitchen knife), no … nothing. If this world worked anything like my old one, I knew that I’d end up in a jail cell for being homeless and loitering pretty soon.

The morning grew older, and I heard voices coming down the street. With a pained noise, I got off the ground, and, while clenching my ribs, limped to a nearby alleyway.

The least I could do is offset the time of my arrest.

I looked around once more, hoping to see some identifying sign of where I was. But, much like the first ten or so times I’d done it, this place looked like ‘normal’ rural Europe. Houses made of wood and white brick lined the streets, each a storey or two high. The place where I’d landed had been purely residential, but I could see some market stalls further up ahead. The thing that made me think this was an isekai fantasy world (other than me vaguely remembering getting hit by a truck), was the lack of streetlights, TV antennas, air conditioning units, those metal grates to collect rainwater, any form of pylons or cables, and the lack of doorbells on the houses.

I found myself a nice wooden crate to sit on and contemplated my options.

I was still wearing my office outfit; long black skirt, dark blue top, and a matching black blazer. All of those items were worse for wear, although only my blazer had gotten torn. I imagined my face looked as bad as my clothes, judging from how it felt. But they again, with how scraped up and dirty my hands were, I could not really tell.

A few people strolled by the alleyway, paying me no mind. So perhaps I didn’t look too bad after all. I painstakingly pulled off my blazer and wiped my face with its inner lining. The grey fabric became slightly more grey, with a few smears of dark red.

“You look like you got hit by a carriage.” A voice came from the end of the alleyway I’d taken refuge in.

I turned towards the newcomer; a young man in his mid-twenties whose hooded cape did nothing to hide his handsomeness. I gave him a polite smile and a nod, in response to his well-placed observation. There was something about him that gave off ‘second male lead’ vibes. Perhaps it was his chatain hair, darker, almost olive, skin tone, or his square and perfectly forgettable face.

“Well, then do you require help getting to a healer?” He asked. “You don’t look … too well off.”

“No,” I replied, “I don’t have money for a healer.”

I didn’t add that even if I did, I wouldn’t risk it without further knowledge about the world, and any potential the healer might have of exposing me.

“Well, in that case, id you’d allow me, I could accompany you to one, covering your expenses of course.” He extended a hand.

It took me a moment to get off the crate and join him. I wasn’t going to refuse an offer like that. Although, it did strike me as odd that he acted so kind and helpful.

“I’m surprised,” I spoke, as we started walking, with me leaning onto him more than he originally might have expected.

“That a charming man such as myself would help a charming lady such as yourself out?” He asked with a soft smile.

“Honestly, yes. Where I come from, people are never just nice.”

“Well, that sounds like an awful place if you ask me. Ah, here we are!” He gestured towards a building before us.

Calling it a church would have been a bit of an overstatement. It looked like something built out of children’s bricks, with disproportionately large and angular pieces that somehow still managed to stick together without overhang. Two long drapey flags hung on either side of the entrance, depicting a tilted ‘peace and love’ symbol, with each of its thirds replaced with the moon, sun, and a star.

“The Tri-unity Panthenon…” I muttered under my breath, as I recognised the symbol. But that couldn’t be…

I turned towards my newly found companion for confirmation, and got another soft smile in response; the kind of smile you’d give your child for finally managing to memorise your home address.

“Ah, I see a priest. Excuse me!” my companion called out, guiding me to the entrance.

“Yes?”

“This young lady was hit by a carriage, could you-”

I stopped listening, as I glanced past the priest into the room. The few specks of doubt that had remained in my mind fully vanished when I saw the healing room behind him. It looked just like it had been described in ‘Summer Flowers’.

Two concentric rows of pods, large enough to hold me, the man who’d brought me here, and the priest were placed around a large central structure that reached out towards the ceiling. Pistons moved with quiet rhythmic thumps, pumping mana-imbued orange-coloured oil through tubing that ran from the structure to each of the pods. ‘Summer Flowers’ was one of those books that called mana ‘RSF’ or ‘ritual summoning fuel’, but from what it had explained, it was essentially just a new form of energy gathered from crushing crystals that was extremely volatile unless properly reduced in oil.

Before I had had the time to ask the question that’d started burning in my mind, my companion turned towards me and spoke:

“Then I will leave you in their care. It was a pleasure meeting you, miss.”

He kissed my hand, as a farewell.

“Wait,” I called out as he left the temple, “I didn’t get … your name,” I added quietly, seeing that he’d already run off.

“Then right this way, miss?” The priest asked, guiding me to one of the pods.

He helped me inside and offered me a fresh set of clothes, which I also happily accepted. He was about to shut the metal door, so the healing process could begin, for the next few hours, but I needed a key piece of information first.

“Wait.” I put my hand in the door, halting him, “Can you remind me which dukedom I’m in? I think I’ve hit my head, um, during the accident, and I’d like to think of how I’m going to get home while I’m in here.”

“But in the magnificent land of Duchess Voldgrad of course.” The priest replied, before pushing my hand away and pushing the door shut.