Walker in Modern World

At home, Sanjay sat on his bed, trying to recall the sensation he had felt in the court. It was a unique experience, and he wanted to feel it again.

As soon as he came close to recreating the sensation, Sanjay suddenly disappeared and reappeared in the tunnel. It was the same familiar tunnel he traveled through every day, but this time, the path ahead was split into two.

One path glowed with a white light, just like the one leading to the medieval world, while the other emitted a soft blue light. Sanjay was fascinated by this phenomenon and wondered what the blue light might signify.

He decided to approach the blue light and was instantly transported to the middle of a road.

A car was speeding toward him, but it came to an abrupt halt with a screech.

"Creaaaaak!"

Sanjay stood frozen, shocked by the sudden appearance in the middle of traffic.

"Hey, you! Are you trying to die in front of my car?" the driver shouted, sticking his head out of the window.

"Sorry," Sanjay replied, scratching his head awkwardly.

Quickly realizing the danger, Sanjay moved to the pavement where people were walking, avoiding further accidents. The driver shook his head in frustration and drove away.

As the car moved, Sanjay noticed something strange—it didn't have wheels. The car was floating in the air.

"What the hell is that?" he muttered, looking around. To his amazement, every car on the road was floating. He didn't recognize any of the car brands either.

"What is this place?"

Sanjay glanced around and saw people walking by him. They were all dressed in clothing that resembled modern styles from the time he had died.

A sudden sound caught his attention, and he instinctively looked up.

"Holy shit!"

In the sky, he saw massive structures resembling rings orbiting the Earth. Although visibility was low, he could clearly see the rings rotating, and it was obvious they were mechanical and man-made.

Sanjay noticed spacecraft entering and exiting the rings. They seemed hollow inside, designed for docking or storage.

Closer to the ground, countless drones buzzed around, some carrying small parcel packets below them.

"Where am I?"

Sanjay was utterly baffled. This place was unlike anything he had seen before. It was clear that he was in a different world altogether.

Looking down at his hands, he checked the streaks on his wrist. To his surprise, all the streaks were still there. In his previous travels, one streak would vanish with each jump, but now, none had disappeared.

Shocked and intrigued, Sanjay started walking, observing his surroundings carefully. He realized this world was far more advanced than the twenty-first century. People carried phones that were fully transparent, like glass.

He searched for a newspaper but found none. The streets were immaculately clean, with no garbage in sight. He needed to gather information as quickly as possible.

He looked at the buildings around him. This was clearly an urban area, with screens displaying advertisements everywhere. Blending into the crowd, he wandered around, looking for any clues.

After a long search, he spotted a sign with the name of the city: Lakeside. It sounded simple enough, but beneath the city name were random numbers that didn't resemble a date.

Following the crowd for a few more minutes, he arrived at what seemed to be a junction.

At the center of the junction stood a massive digital clock displaying:

10:01:2205 10:15

Sanjay stared at the display in disbelief. Could it be true?

"Is it really 2205?"

"Holy shit, I've arrived at the beginning of the twenty-third century!"

Sanjay now looked around with newfound curiosity and eager eyes. Would his world eventually evolve into something like this by the twenty-third century? Everything around him looked incredibly advanced.

He could see flying cars and drones buzzing through the sky. Upon closer observation, he also noticed humanoid robots walking among the crowd. At first glance, it was almost impossible to distinguish them from humans, except for the bright blue line that glowed on the side of their necks, extending from their heads.

He also saw numerous people with bionic arms and legs, moving seamlessly as if they were born that way.

On the side of the road, a massive digital signboard caught his attention. Thankfully, there were no issues with language in the worlds he had traveled to so far.

A holographic map displayed itself on the signboard. Sanjay hesitantly touched the map, and it zoomed in to show more details. Fascinated, he tried to pinpoint his current location, marked as a glowing blue dot.

After examining the area, he realized this was primarily a commercial zone rather than a residential one. Wanting more information, he searched for a library on the map. A public library appeared, just 1.2 kilometers away.

Memorizing the directions, Sanjay began walking towards the library, blending into the crowd once again.

A few minutes later, he arrived at the library. For a public library, it was enormous, though surprisingly, not many people seemed to be entering.

Sanjay cautiously walked through the entrance, half-expecting to be stopped or asked for an ID. To his relief, no one stopped him, and there was no sign of any security checks.

Inside, he found rows upon rows of bookshelves, filled with more books than he could have ever imagined. It was almost overwhelming.

On one side of the library, he noticed several rows of screens that resembled computers. Only a few people were sitting at them, watching or researching something.

Curious, Sanjay approached one of the vacant screens. His first priority was to check the history of this world. There was far too much to process at once, so he decided to start by verifying whether this world was even connected to the twenty-first-century Earth he knew.

He pulled up a geographical map of the world, but it didn't match Earth at all. The landmasses were completely different, with significantly more land than Earth had.

The place he was in was called Lakeside City, a metropolitan hub of the Orion Nation. The nation had a single-party government ruled by a president elected from the general population.

Next, he looked up information about the currency. To his surprise, the economy here was entirely digital. The currency, called "quarks," had completely replaced paper money.

Sanjay grew more astonished as he read about the top laws of Orion Nation. As expected, crimes like murder, robbery, and theft were prohibited. However, additional strict laws prohibited genetic tampering, unauthorized cyborg augmentations, unlicensed space travel, and building artificial intelligence without approval. The punishments for breaking these laws were incredibly severe.

He quickly memorized the key rules and searched for details about citizen identification. What he feared turned out to be true—every citizen was required to have a Citizen ID to access even basic government services.

The Citizen ID was issued to each person based on their unique DNA profile at birth, making duplication nearly impossible, even with clones. The website explicitly stated that forging a Citizen ID was illegal, and anyone caught would face extremely harsh punishment.

Sanjay realized he would need a Citizen ID to function in this world. Legally obtaining one was out of the question since he wasn't born in this nation, so he would have to explore illegal means.

But before tackling that, he needed money. Sanjay checked whether gold held any value in this world. To his relief, gold was still valuable, though he had no way to determine its exact worth without something to compare it to.

While searching through the database, he accidentally typed "Lucania," the name of the medieval kingdom he was in previously.

To his utter shock, it returned a result.

"What?" Sanjay muttered, utterly surprised.

Lucania belongs to this world, he quickly checked the information. Lucania was a kingdom in the 13th century in the same geographical location as Orion.

"Was he dropped in the same place, the first time he arrived, in that village, but in a different time?"

He checked for more information, and it was true. He energetically typed his name, but there was no result. Most likely, he was just a small character in the vast world, and most of the knowledge had been lost over time.

He checked the names of other characters like Rajiv and Duke. There was nothing—no information on them. But after some excavation, a few gold coins were found, and seeing the coins, Sanjay was sure it was the same world.

He checked the history of the Lucania kingdom. It was noted that Lucania existed between 1327 and 1420. After the king's death, there was a civil war among the four princes, and ultimately, the second prince emerged as the victor.

However, within one year of taking the throne, the neighboring kingdoms attacked. Due to the civil war, the kingdom was already weakened, unable to protect itself, and ultimately met its end.

Reading this information, Sanjay frowned. No more information was written about who supported whom, and what happened afterward. Since it was a civil war, that meant he only had a few years before it would start.

He needed to carefully check the time he was in, although the medieval era didn't keep accurate records of the years. Still, it could be calculated based on the fall of the previous kingdom, which occurred in 1327. People should have information about the previous kingdom and its fall.

The next thing was to find a middleman who could help him get his ID. Given the technology in this world, it was likely someone was monitoring all the searches, so searching for something illegal wasn't a good idea.

After thinking for a long time, he searched for the nearest jewelry store. Multiple stores showed up on the map. He searched for the smallest ones, taking the risk. Otherwise, he would have to continue doing business in the medieval world.

He got up and left the building, walking in the direction he remembered where there was a small jewelry store with the lowest rating of one star. After a few minutes of walking, he reached the desolate location.

He was shocked to see such a place could be a jewelry store. It looked even worse than a 21st-century store. There were no jewelry displays, just a small door to enter. The door also looked dirty. People buying jewelry would surely not want to buy from a place like this.

If they were able to pay rent in such an area without doing any legitimate business, then they were likely involved in something illegal.