1 Wrong World
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Lately, the life of Zhang Anwei was a pure flurry of activity. After a lot of decision-weighing, her mom had accepted the transfer to Germany. All the paperwork was signed and necessities arranged. They had gone through airport security and spent an hour unwinding from general airport stress until boarding time.
She downed the anti-nausea syrup and grimaced at the over-sweetened taste. A spoonful of sugar does not make the medicine go down.
"The flight company was rated the best last year, especially in terms of food," her dad attempted to comfort her for the umpteenth time.
Anwei nodded as she handed over the boarding pass. "Don't wake me up unless it's really that good."
"Of course," he said. " And you, honey?"
"I need to work on the flight," Zhang Naming complained as she followed behind her daughter. "I won't have time with Natalia pinching our cheeks one moment and Friedrich dragging us somewhere the next. Don't you need to work on the many location designs?"
Dieter grinned as he stuck out his tongue slightly. "Nature documentaries are very good reference material."
"Your stupid cheat-!"
Anwei walked faster to escape their pointless bickering. The stewardess pointed out her seat and she quickly sat down and clasped her seatbelt. The medicine was already making her drowsy. She gazed out of the window and watching the oh-so-exciting airport scenery of Beijing. For the last six years of her life, she had lived and gone to school in China. And just when high school was about to start and she had dragged herself to the study table, did her parents ask her what her thoughts on aunt Natalia's family are.
Anwei: I'm getting hungry just thinking about them. Why?
Dad: Perfect! You'll be fattened up while suffering for an IB diploma. No hard feelings?
Anwei: !+*#@?/%
Her parents had settled next to her, their bickering had turned into serious discussions on methods to incorporate the 2D skins onto virtual matter. She herself was now using conscious effort to keep her eyelids open. Quickly covering herself with a provided blanket, she leaned back into oblivion.
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A lone figure skipped across the starry nebula, not particularly inclined by anything or towards a direction. They idly watched the void ripple under its toes. As they approached the end of a galaxy, the soundless steps halted. Their head tilted as if trying to discern something from far away, before nodding slowly, their tail swishing mischievously from side to side.
A giggle resounded in the void, audible to none but them.
---
A very curious coincidence, indeed.
---
Somebody was drilling holes in her skull and had filled her throat with dust.
F*ck! Was the medicine expired?
She tried to open her eyes, but they stubbornly stuck together. Anwei manually peeled them open, hissing from pain as she did so. A very bright pink assaulted her retinas. Blinking the painful sensation away, a very kitschy and girly plushie of a blue-eyed cat came into focus.
This irritatingly dyed toy turned out to be the only dab of color in the otherwise destitute and empty room. The aged white paint from the walls was cracking and coming off in patches, the windows had dust sticking to it and blurred the outside world with a dirty yellowish tint. The furniture was plain and used, and the blanket covering her was lumpy and starting to tear.
Was she kidnapped? From the plane next to her parents? How the hell would that even work?!
Right at that moment, the door opened, and her mom came inside, smiling encouragingly.
Wait, that's not her mom! Her mom was young and confident, raised from a well-to-do family and pampered by her older brother and parents. Zhang Naming never forgot to remind her dad that it's a miracle she didn't turn out worse. Her tongue was sharp and cutting, but a smile could ease all hurt.
Her mom would never smile so brightly with red-rimmed eyes, and she would never hold herself up like a glass doll. But… Why did she recognize that weary lookalike as her mom? Why did her chest feel so stuffy?
"Oh, Anwei…" The worn out woman gently ran her fingers through her hair. "This is not the end. An F-grade Beast with C-grade potential is already enough to qualify for university."
Despite her confusion, she could feel tears welling up. What the hell was going on?
"Weiwei!" Someone shouted as he burst into the room. It was a clean-looking highschool student. "I heard about the news. Why are you worrying? Isn't your big brother amazing lately?"
Her mom lookalike nodded, supporting his words. "That's right. With his spontaneous outburst of talent, he can definitely support you to E and maybe D-grade!"
What the heck? She was an only child! And even if she had a sibling-like relationship with her cousins, she was the oldest! And what was this entire talk about grades?
"Ha! As if!" Her brother(?) puffed up his chest, shattering his trustworthy image. "They clearly don't have eyes. Evaluating Weiwei's beast as F-grade with only C-grade potential, I want to laugh my ass off!"
"Language!" Came the instant scolding from her mom lookalike, even as her eyes had softened. "You shouldn't joke about matters like that!"
"Ha! You're looking at someone who completely trashed the Union's records on the E-grade and potential beast: Moon-eyed Pogeyan!" He continued to boast, hands on his hips. "And I have perfectly merged it with a minor Metal attribute!"
"You did!" A true smile broke out on the woman's face like the sun through the clouds. "Anxi, this is wonderful news." Her smile turned slightly wobbly. "Your dad would be so proud."
"I know," he said softly, before turning to her again. "Weiwei, don't worry. Even without dad here, I will protect you."
"Dad is not…" Those three words slipped out before a flood of information and memories seemed to have unlocked itself, gentle but sudden like remembering that you forgot your keys at home. What is up with this lag time?
Now she had to face reality, no matter how absurd it was.
She had somehow transmigrated into an alternative version of herself in a completely different world. But neither of them were dead or dying! They were just falling asleep!
Maybe… They had traded places?
If so, she wanted to refund this switch! Her home was far safer and stable even with the current climate crisis than this sh*t!
Yo, what kind of webnovel-grade bullsh*t world is this?
It was the typical 'humanity has entered the interstellar era when they discovered a mysterious type of energy that was present everywhere and obeyed its own set of laws' kind of setting. Shortly after they had suffered severe attacks from another world filled with monsters. They quickly noticed that these beasts wielded the very same energy and quickly threw themselves into research when they weren't busy trying to survive. After struggling for a century, they managed to reclaim the top spot back.
And then a cold, harsh voice echoed into their minds: "Fools. Trying to keep cultivation secret will be humanity's doom."
Turns out, a faction of the elites had selfishly kept that tidbit under wraps in order to control the populace. A passing cultivator from a different galaxy was overseeing the introduction of the Dimension for different civilizations, and… Decided to expose them out of the goodness of his heart?
Hm.
Riots erupted and chaos reigned for another fifty years before the world stabilized again. Withholding, classifying, and censoring information became a much more serious issue. The Union had emerged as the leading faction by promising transparency, decency, and efficiency. With this philosophy, it had governed humanity to this present day.
Hm. And how long is the length of time between the Union emerging and present day?
Two-thousand-nineteen years. The year is 2019 AH, After Hope.
Hm.
Different souls were now broadly classified by types, with beast ones being the most common. Everything was also sorted into grades, with F being the lowest and most common, all the way up to A. The S-grade was also rumored to exist and many deemed it as fact, especially since the Union had never denied its existence and was turning a blind eye to the theorists.
Hm.
"Weiwei?" Her brother's concerned voice returned her back to the present.
She actually had a brother now.
"-" She opened her mouth, only to close it. What was she supposed to say?
Hello, your sister and I had probably switched places? Who is this brother you're talking about? Sorry, lemme just take a nap and hope it goes away? Wow, this world really sucks?
Bam! Instant mental asylum membership.
"Dad is..." He halted, before continuing. "We have to keep on living, whether he is alive or not. It's what he would want."
Instead of designing games and creating breathtaking illustrations, her dad had joined the military, leaving mom to struggle with the small studio they had opened. She was practically running a one-woman show because after her husband's presumed death, the team members had resigned and left for greener pastures with her blessings.
Naming Beltz could have left and accepted the offer from an established software development company, but she couldn't bear to. He had supported her leaving a renowned game development company while the rest had scorned her, he had invested money despite the headshaking of his friends. And just when Qualia became successful and the debt was paid off, did he have to leave on an assignment and encountered a beast raid.
He was missing from the survivor's list. Ten months passed, with Naming's mental state worsening and her brother distancing himself and acting out. Only her aunt Natalia and uncle Friedrich were keeping the family together, looking after her and inviting themselves over to cook and clean up the apartment. In this world, her mother was an orphan and had taken her dad's last name Beltz, instead of him taking the name Zhang. Her aunt and uncle also decided not to have children until they had the financial stability and confidence to properly raise them.
Yeah, this world's Anwei will definitely be very happy to have switched places with her. Her dad was f*cking dead!
"Weiwei," Anxi kissed her forehead. "Believe in your brother, okay? I will definitely be successful!"
Her lips twitched. What was she, chopped liver?
But he had grounds to say so. Her new brother had changed greatly over the last three months, from a distant and unreliable figure that made trouble to a respected talent of hard work. Her brother had recently broken through D-rank. It wasn't ever day that someone could go beyond the rank assessment the Union gave them, but it wasn't unheard of either.
While she… Had been assigned F-rank. While her potential was a very good C-rank, that was the problem: potential. Most people only cross one rank, if not two in their entire lives. Potential is like the max-level you can reach, while the main rank is your current strength. There are ways to increase your max-level or even change your very soul, but those methods were crazy expensive, rare to come by, or took a lot of work.
And apparently, this world's Anwei had believed her brother when he claimed talent and an outburst of potential, which even now wasn't measurable or predictable by mechanical methods. She had also accepted the sudden heel-face turn in his character just like that, as well as the weird habits and exercises he made her do that improved her physical condition a lot.
Hm. Maybe she should have taken the risk and asked since when she had a brother like him.
