Seaside, the Archaeology Museum.
The entrance plaza is abuzz with voices, as countless vibrant students step off the bus, gathering together.
They are all high schoolers from Saint Aya Academy.
Today, they have come to participate in the school's "Museum Day" event.
At a class assembly point.
Bald-headed Charlie, with a lazy look, flips through the roster in his hand, casually calling out names he knows by heart:
"Roger."
A handsome young man with golden hair raises his hand, "Here!"
"Bennett."
Another responds, "Here!"
"Eudora."
"Here, sir."
...
"Owen Douglas."
When this name is called, no response comes from the crowd.
"Owen?" Charlie frowns, asking again.
Seeing no reply, Charlie lifts his head, scanning the crowd.
"Where has that guy gone? Did anyone see him?"
Someone answers, "Don't know. Just saw him on the school bus a while ago..."
The students look around, but no one can spot Owen.
However, everyone present finds this normal since Owen always had a low presence in the class.
He never disturbed anyone, nor did anyone care much about what he did.
Come to think of it, Owen seemed to have no friends at school.
"Sir, I say we just go ahead without him," Roger said with a laugh.
"That guy never fits in anyway. This kind of activity isn't his thing, and his absence won't make any difference. Let's just head into the museum."
As the most popular boy in the class and the captain of the school basketball team, Roger's words immediately garnered a lot of agreement from the other students.
"Yeah, he's not a little kid. If he gets lost, whose fault is that?"
"Look, other classes have already entered the museum. Let's hurry up and not fall too far behind them!"
"Yeah, yeah, Charlie, let's go!"
This put Charlie in a bit of a dilemma.
Scratching his head, although Owen was indeed a low-profile student, he was still responsible for him...
"Alright, you guys go ahead. Follow the class in front and the guide will lead you," Charlie said. "I'll go look for Owen."
As the students lined up and started entering the museum, Charlie spotted Owen, looking drowsy and walking slowly towards them.
He put away the roll call sheet and approached him. "Owen! Where have you been? Why are you just getting here?"
Owen struggled to lift his eyelids, recognized his teacher, and rubbed his eyes.
"Sorry, sir. I was really sleepy and fell asleep on the bus."
Charlie crossed his arms, looking exasperated.
Owen always liked to sleep during classes.
Many teachers didn't like him, and over time, no teacher really wanted to deal with him.
How could such a vibrant young man always be so sleepy?
In fact, Owen himself found it hard to explain.
He didn't understand why he was always so tired lately, no matter how much he slept.
And every time he fell asleep, he would dream – weird, peculiar dreams, as if revealing a whole new world to him, a magical land he had never seen before.
"Forget it, let's not talk about this now. Today is the school's 'Museum Day'. Hurry up and catch up with your classmates. Don't fall behind,"
Charlie said, knowing all too well that Owen's manner was the reason he had trouble making friends.
Owen nodded and hurried after his classmates.
Just as Owen stepped through the museum's entrance...
In the museum's underground storage room, inside a safe, an ancient fossil suddenly burst into dazzling light!
The next second.
A holy light descended from the sky, breaking through the clouds, and enveloping the museum in its brilliance!
Seeing this extraordinary phenomenon, the students and teachers on the plaza who hadn't yet entered the museum were stunned...
Charlie, too, stood frozen in place, mesmerized by the radiant holy light and the celestial music that seemed to fill his ears.
With a "whoosh" sound.
The entire museum, including the basement and foundation, vanished from sight in an instant!
Where the museum once stood, now there was only a massive crater...
...
"What happened? Did I fall asleep again?"
Owen slowly opened his eyes.
He found himself lying at the entrance of the museum and quickly sat up.
But soon, Owen realized something was amiss.
Before him, countless students who had entered the museum ahead of him were all collapsed on the ground.
The scene looked bizarrely eerie.
Owen, feeling a bit scared, turned around, intending to leave the eerie museum first.
But when he turned his head, he was completely stunned.
The museum's exterior was no longer a plaza...
Instead, what met his eyes was an endless grassland!
In the distance, there were towering snow-capped mountains, and strange flying creatures circled in the sky.
This place... was definitely not Seaside!
As Owen stared into the distance, dazed, his classmates behind him gradually began to wake up.
Just like Owen, they too were astonished.
Some braver students ran outside the museum, exclaiming in awe as they gazed into the distance.
"What's going on? Some kind of prank? Are we on a reality show?" one student said.
"I don't know. Weren't we just touring the museum? How did we end up here all of a sudden?"
"I recognize this place! Those mountains, this grassland... It must be New Zealand! My parents took me there on a trip last summer..."
"It looks more like Scandinavia to me."
"Whatever it is, it's definitely not Seaside!"
The students were buzzing with discussions.
Normally, such noise would have brought a teacher forward to maintain discipline and keep the students quiet.
But oddly enough...
All the adults from the museum – the teachers, tour guides, and security personnel – had vanished.
Only a group of sixteen and seventeen-year-old high school students remained.
Gradually, all the students left the museum and gathered on the grassland.
Owen quickly estimated the number of people around him.
Roughly two hundred.
It seemed that almost all of the high school students from the school were here.
The few who weren't must have been those who hadn't managed to enter the museum in time.
At that moment, a student wearing glasses, known for his love of fantasy literature, suddenly shouted, "I've got it! We've traveled to another world! We're in an isekai!"
A few students nearby gave the bespectacled boy strange looks.
"It's true! Look at those snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the holy light shining... Such wondrous natural phenomena are impossible in our world!"
The boy with glasses tried to convince the others, "And those flying creatures... they're definitely not any bird species known to mankind!"
Owen looked in the direction he was pointing.
Indeed, the flying creatures, which seemed to have four legs, didn't resemble birds at all.
"Wait, those things... they seem to be flying closer to us!"
"There are more behind the clouds!"
"Whatever they are, run! Back to the museum!"
The students were terrified to see that more and more of those strange, four-legged flying creatures were appearing in the sky.
Some, reacting quickly, had already started running back towards the museum.
As the flying creatures neared landing, some of the students who had run into the museum earlier, acting selfishly, didn't wait for their classmates.
They quickly pushed the museum doors shut and locked them from inside.
"Hey! What are you doing in there?! Let us in!" shouted the students outside.
"Open the door! Hurry!"
"Do you want to betray us? We're from the same school!"
Through the glass, the students inside shouted back, "Stop banging! We're not opening the door!"
"Yeah, who knows what those monsters outside are? What if they get in when we open the door?"
...
Owen stood outside the museum, noticing among the students barricading the door several familiar faces, including those who often bullied and ostracized him, led by Roger.
Owen gave up on the idea of seeking shelter in the museum.
He calmly watched the creatures flying towards them, feeling no fear in his heart.
Somehow, he felt a strange familiarity with this world... as if he had seen it in his dreams.