“!?”
She sat in bed for a few minutes, staring at herself.
…What the fuck!? Where am I!? Wait, huh??
Looking down at herself, she took note of several things that were not how they should have been. Both on her body and in the room she now found herself in.
What the…
Seeing something attached to her chest that wasn’t there before, she moved her hand to confirm that what she was seeing was real.
“!”
The sensation surprised her. They were soft to the touch, but she could also feel herself being touched on the chest.
…Alright. First thing’s first, let’s get the facts straight. I’m pretty sure I didn’t have boobs a few minutes ago. Wait… if I have boobs, then…
Her other hand found its way between her legs, touching where a certain appendage should have been. When she touched her crotch, a strange sensation spread out from it as her fingers brushed against a certain part of her body that also shouldn’t have been there.
“...”
It's gone… seems like I’m not a dude anymore…
Suddenly finding herself in the body of another person, a girl no less, her mind began working in overdrive.
…Well, while I’d love to check myself out some more, my common sense is telling me that I shouldn’t be messing with... well, that, especially not in a… spontaneous body swap? Yeah, that kinda situation…
An unfamiliar body, an unfamiliar room, right after being on my way to space… Quite the bizarre situation, especially being on the receiving end. Maybe I’ve ended up being turned into… or maybe even reincarnated as another person… who just so happens to be a girl, by some strange twist of fate. Now, as for figuring out what the hell is going on…
Instead of a hospital room, like what would be expected from being fished out of the ocean after riding an unintentionally explosive rocket and somehow sticking the nding, she saw an ordinary looking room, which ruled out the “brain transpnt into a new body after being fished out of the ocean” theory.
A desk, a desktop computer, a monitor, some kind of VR headset looking thingy, some cables strewn messily about, a phone, and… the fg of the Kalmar Union? What’s that… doing… here… oh.
After seeing the fg, something clicked inside her mind. Inside Norah’s mind. As the memories flowed back into her head, the things around her began making more, and less, sense at the same time.
I’m Norah. Norah Berg. I’m a Scandinavian gymnasium student studying in my home city of Bergen. Yet, I am definitely also Frederik Mogensen, or at least I was. I know for sure the memories of Norah in my head are real. I mean, I am her. And yet…
She took her right hand off her chest, and looked at it. She closed and opened her hand, staring at it while doing so.
This whole thing is about as bizarre as it gets… I mean, how would this be scientifically possible, suddenly waking up as another person!? Isn’t that kinda stuff reserved for those isekai stories!? Wait, hold on…
A certain memory came up from Norah’s… No, her memories. Magic. A force that sentient beings can use to manipute the world around them with their soul’s magicule energy.
So souls do exist. Huh. Well, it would be kinda weird if they didn’t, given my current situation.
She removed her left hand from her crotch, and stood up from her bed. When the bedsheets fell away from her, she noticed another thing.
…I’m not wearing any clothes… I mean, I usually sleep nude, so it wouldn’t be that strange… Well, as usual, all my clothes are on the… chair…
Standing there in the mirror, was a young girl. Short bck hair. A completely neutral expression, yet slightly blushing. A modest, yet slightly curvy body. Though, notably, she was not wearing any clothes.
“...”
Ok. Nice. But no. Absolutely not. Mind gremlins, begone!
She shooed away the intrusive thoughts, and immediately began picking up the clothes on the clothing chair, shooing away her mind gremlins, and getting dressed before any funny business happens. In the process, she came across a certain clothing article.
Panties!? Why do I… right. I guess that means I have to wear these things now? Ya. Hm.
She held the clothing article up, inspecting it for a moment before bringing her legs into the holes and sliding it up to fit her bottom.
This fits surprisingly snugly. Actually feels pretty nice to wear… which should be expected with how surprisingly expensive these things are.
She then began slipping into the rest of her outfit. A sweater, a pair of wool socks, and cowboy pants. Or were they called “jeans” in English? Dunno.
After dressing up, she took another look in the mirror. This time, a rather ordinary, if not a little tomboyish, girl returned her poker-faced stare. Seeing herself as this other person, who just so happened to be a girl of all things, was, as she had thought multiple times by now, quite the bizarre experience. Though the permanent poker-face did bother her a bit.
Why is my expression like that..? What if I…
She attempted to smile. Attempted being the key word here. Her “smile” was just her mouth moving upwards ever so slightly, so slightly that her smile was barely recognizable. But when she tried to force a smile, what appeared on her face instead of a smile was a creepy smirk masquerading as a “smile”.
Ya, probably shouldn’t do that. Now that I think about it, Norah… I was never very expressive at all. Best to stick with the… what was the word again? Screw it, the “I have no strong feelings, one way or the other.” face. Heh.
She took another moment to look over herself in the mirror, shifting her body around to get a good look at herself.
So, this is who I am now, huh…
She raised a hand up to the mirror.
Well, going off my current situation, I’d guess I ended up in one of those reincarnation stories myself. Though going with that expnation leaves one little aspect that seems a little off…
She turned her head to look at the fg hanging on the wall. The Kalmar Federation. Going off her memories of this pce, it is a country comprising the entirety of the Nordics, the Baltics, Icend, Greennd, Svalbard, and parts of what Frederik knew as western Russia and northern Germany. She currently finds herself living in this country, in the city of Bergen in Norway.
She turns her head to look out of the window sitting right above her bed, walking up to it to get a better look.
Well, this is quite notably not some fantasy world as one would otherwise expect from a typical isekai situation. Massive skyscrapers and a colorful cityscape brightened by colorful holograms of many sorts, encapsuted by mountains on either side. A rge road running down at the bottom of the hill my house sits on, with lots of cars stuck in morning traffic. Funny looking aircraft flying about in the sky. And people. Lots of people. Most with colorful hairstyles as well.
“…”
…Going off Norah’s… my memories and the stuff going on outside the window, it seems like I’ve been pretty lucky with the pce I got reincarnated, some kinda sci-fi pce instead of some stinky medieval world, huh?.. Wait, what if my speech is all weird because of the memories of my past life?
She had, after all, been a 30-something Danish guy in her past life, which might give her a Danish accent, which would be very weird for a Scandinavian born and raised in Norway. Deciding to test whether or not her past life had any effect on her accent, she uttered a sentence that every single Danish person has said at least once in their lives.
“...R?t gr?t me fl?te.”
What came out of her mouth was not Danish or Norwegian, but Scandinavian. The standard nguage spoken in the Kalmar Federation.
Ok. Feels kinda weird that my accent suddenly sounds like that, but cool. At least it didn’t get screwed up by this whole reincarnation thing. Though, with all these physical changes…
She pulled up her sweater, and felt her hand across her stomach. Instead of the sensation of touching the honed muscles of a well trained astronaut, what met her instead was a soft and squishy sensation.
“Fuck.”
…Well, that’s not fucking fair at all. All my hard work training my body has gone poof, through no fault of my own no less. Just fucking grea-
A growl emanating from her stomach interrupted her internal rant.
Oh, right. Guess I am a little hungry, huh?.. Wait… What day is it!?
As a mild panic entered her mind, she quickly scooted over to her nightstand, and scooped up her phone, checking the date.
[08:33; l?r. 6. desember]
Ah, it’s the weekend. Phew. Right, better go get myself some breakfast.
△▽△▽△
The house was empty, save for Norah and her brother, Lukas. Her mom was at work, and Lukas was still sleeping. This left Norah alone in her room, eating her kn?kbr?d while admiring her not-so-new computer. She had powered it on, and was now staring at the date.
2070!? What the hell… I mean…
As a person who was still in the year 2030 before this morning, the date only confirmed a realization that had occurred to her when she woke up this morning.
This is not the same earth that I knew when I was Frederik. Even just going off the date, something’s off, not to mention the differences in the world itself, especially with the existence of magic. Now, as for the countries in this pce…
Opening a browser and navigating to a world map confirmed her mental assertion. The country that she lives in now, the Kalmar Federation, is surrounded by the Soviet Union and the European Union, with the United Kingdom sharing a maritime border with the KF as well. The entirety of North America was under a single country, the United States of North America. Even just looking over the rest of the world, there were significantly different borders, and a lot fewer countries than she remembered from her past life.
A lot of pces have water where it shouldn’t be as well. Which reminds me of something rather crazy from Nor- my memories of history css…
The Kalmar Federation is renowned across the world for their state of the art magitech. So as a very significant and historic part of the country, Denmark, began to sink below the waves due to climate change, the country decided to act.
How?
By magically raising the entire country... State? Yeah, state. Feels kinda weird calling Denmark a state, but yeah.
Using one of the world’s first functional fusion reactors, a massive machine converting the electricity to magicules, and an electronic casting device the size of a house, they shoved an ungodly amount of magicules into the earth below Denmark, forcing the entire ndmass up above the ocean by magically generating massive amounts of rock deep below the surface.
Ya, we are a country of mad scientists… Or would it be magicians instead? No, I think the word used here is magisters…
Infrastructure built with the use of magic is not too uncommon in the KF. Most, if not all construction projects use magic of some kind, and most people use magitech daily.
Like my magicule powered motorcycle I got for my 18th birthday…
However, magitech is not the only thing that the KF does with magic. All countries on the pnet employ magisters to some degree, with some having much more skilled and powerful magisters than others, and though the country has an inherent disadvantage due to their “small” popution, the KF still has some of the most powerful magisters in the world, along with their world css magitech.
What a crazy pce I’ve ended up in… Wait, if magicians… magisters exist, wouldn’t that mean..? Oh, right.
Norah was never very proficient at casting magic. The most she could do was make a simple spark with her negligible magicule supply.
But I can still cast magic, right!? I really wanna try… Ya, most of the time when someone gets reincarnated, they get some crazy power boost, right!?
She scoured through her memories, and brought up the necessary knowledge to cast magic. Imagine the intended outcome, and the process to achieve the outcome. Channel the magicules into the desired location, and execute the process instructions…
[██████████████████████████████████████]
A small spark shot out of her fingers, but with the spark, for a single moment, came a sudden feeling of extreme emptiness. Like a massive void threatening to swallow the world whole.
“!!”
Fuck!! What the hell was that!?
Norah fell to the floor from her chair with a… shocked? Neutral, but slightly shocked expression on her face.
Wow. Ok. That was spooky as hell. What the fuck…
“Hey Norah, you okay..?”
A smaller boy stood at the door, looking concerned.
Norah immediately re-composed herself once she heard her brother talk. “..Yeah, I’m fine. I think.”
As she said that, she lifted herself off the floor and back into her chair.
“Well, if you say so…”
Her brother turned around, and closed the door behind himself.
That is definitely something I need to get checked by a doctor. Not to mention the whole reincarnation deal… Should I even tell anyone about that?
Usually, with people in her situation, they would keep quiet about their identity as a reincarnate. But there are two important differences between her situation and that of other reincarnation examples she knows of:
1: She was reincarnated in a modern country. A country with secur institutions, and no funny business with demon lords, goddesses and religious zealots, along with her having human rights as a citizen of a modern country.
2: All her points of reference are fictional. While they could be a recounting of an experience in another world now that she knows that reincarnation actually does happen, counting on the details of a most likely fictional story would still be nothing but a blind guess on her end.
…I’ll keep it a secret for now. No need to make a giant mess out of everything right away, after all. Speaking of giant messes…
After clicking around a bit, she logged in to the school website on her computer, and had a look at the assignments. One assignment due for this monday, and two assignments for after the new year.
Yikes. I haven’t even begun doing these yet, have I..? Yep.
Checking her school folder, she saw the empty documents that were supposed to become assignments.
Right, seems like Norah had the same bad habit that I… The me in my past life did. while I’d love to go have a look at these magitech thingies, I better get this done first. Procrastination is a bitch, after all.
And so she began her work.
△▽△▽△
…And why the hell was I reincarnated as a girl? I was a toned, handsome astronaut dude, for fucks sake… Now I’m a little soft & squishy thing! Is this some sick joke!?
She thought so as she was struggling to carry the oddly shaped magicule battery from her motorcycle without being forcefully tipped over by the sheer weight of the thing.
Now, why was she carrying this big battery around in the garage?
Well, it is quite simple: her curiosity as an engineer gave her the desire to have a peek at how simir magicule and electricity were in their respective technologies. While magicules could be maniputed by conscious beings, the particles could also be handled like electronics by physical devices, which is what makes most magitech possible at all.
While not being able to properly carry this thing kinda sucks, I do want to know how it works. And while taking apart something like a lithium-ion battery would be rather dangerous, magicule batteries are a lot safer than electric ones, and non-explosive as long as you don’t overload them. Even if you break the energy storing crystal structure, the magicules just leak straight out into the atmosphere.
She sets down the battery on the workbench in the garage, making an audible thunk as it met the surface.
Hm?
Norah notices something when she takes a second look at the battery. Peering over at the warning bel printed onto the battery, she finds…
[Weight: 100 kg.]
“Oh.”
She slowly brought her hand below her sweater, feeling her stomach again and slightly squishing it.
Still squishy. No abs to speak of. And yet…
She had carried a 100 kg object 5 meters without breaking a sweat, only struggling because the object weighed significantly more than her, and was attempting to violently become one with the floor.
…Well, that was something. If my memory serves me right, I… Norah was never that athletic, and definitely wasn’t this strong. A reincarnation perk, maybe?
Now that she actually paid attention to her body, she began noticing several things about her that had changed. Not in comparison to her body from her previous life, but her body from before she regained her past life’s memories.
She could see much clearer and at much longer distances, she could lift much more than she was supposed to, and she was thinking a lot clearer and faster than before, even though Norah already was very intelligent and mentally capable before regaining the memories from her past life.
Ya, most likely a reincarnation perk of some kind. Or maybe something else. I’ve got no clue before I visit a doctor either way. Better get that figured out soon. Now, where was I?..
Tasriel
