Nikola Milovanović was sixteen years old, but his soul felt ancient.
He lived in a worn-out apartment block on the outskirts of Niš, Serbia, surrounded by cracked concrete and rusting railings. His room was his sanctuary—bookshelves stacked with fantasy novels, a laptop screen permanently flickering between pirated manhwa and Crusader Emperors III mods.
School was tolerable. Life? Less so.
His mother, Vesna, was a kind woman with tired eyes. Always working, always worrying. His father, Ljubo… well, he existed. That was about it. A former addict, former thief, former gambler—he had collected more titles than accomplishments. But the worst thing Nikola's father ever did was nothing. He wasn't cruel. Just absent. A ghost haunting the family rather than damaging it.
Nikola used to cry at night when he was younger. He didn't even remember why most of the time. It was just… pain. A hollow ache he couldn't explain. Depression, maybe. But nobody around him really knew what to do with that word.
As he got older, he stopped crying. Not because he felt better—just colder.
"Is there really such a thing as love?"
"If there is, I probably never felt it."
Those were the kinds of thoughts he had while staring at the ceiling at 2 a.m. with a manga open on his phone and a half-finished essay on medieval taxation still glowing on his laptop.
Still, things had started getting… better, recently. Slowly. He wasn't as antisocial anymore. He even had five real friends. That was five more than he ever thought he'd have. He laughed sometimes now. Not often, but enough.
People said he was a genius, and maybe he was. His IQ was tested once: 170. But he never felt smart. Just fast. He understood people faster than most. Learned faster. Saw the consequences before they happened. But it didn't feel like a gift. Just a heavy awareness.
He wasn't ugly either. Medium-length brown hair. Brown eyes. A calm face that made people trust him. He stood at 170 centimeters—not tall, not short. Just… in between. Like his whole life.
He was in the second year of economic high school. Serbia's system started high school at 15, so he was just getting used to the rhythm of it. Exams, practicals, and—most importantly—lunch break. His house was close, so on most days, he'd walk home to grab a quick snack and decompress.
That day started like any other.
The sun was bright but not warm. Clouds moved lazily across the Niš skyline. Cars honked in the distance, and the usual chatter of classmates buzzed in the air.
He walked the cracked sidewalk to his apartment, keys in hand, earbuds in. Something felt… odd. The air was cleaner. The noise had vanished. He paused.
He looked up.
And everything was gone.
No apartment block.
No cars.
No cracked pavement.
The city had vanished. In its place: forest. Thick, ancient, untouched forest. The kind you see in documentaries, not in city centers.
He turned in a circle, heart racing.
"...What the hell?"
It wasn't a dream. He felt it. The moss beneath his shoes. The cold, fresh wind. The chirping of birds he'd never heard before.
He stumbled forward, aimless. After maybe twenty minutes of confused walking, he saw… smoke. Not from cars or chimneys, but campfires. Thatched roofs. Wooden huts.
A village—right where the city center used to be.As he walked deeper into what should've been the city center, Nikola stopped dead in his tracks.
A small village sat where shopping malls and glass buildings once stood—wooden huts, smoke trailing from chimneys, people dressed in furs and simple linen. The sound of tools clinking, goats bleating, and a distant river filled the air.
He stepped cautiously onto the dirt path leading into the village. People turned to look. Some stared. Most kept their distance.
A group of children pointed and whispered.
No one said a word to him.
Just when Nikola began wondering whether anyone even spoke his language, an old man with a long beard and a carved walking staff stepped out of one of the huts. His eyes locked with Nikola's.
The man stared for a long while, then made a gesture to someone inside.
Without a word, he beckoned Nikola to follow.
Nikola hesitated, but something about the man's calm—almost knowing—expression drew him in.
"Crusader Emperors… this feels like I loaded the wrong save file."