Jessica screamed. She did so for two very good reasons:

  One, her last conscious experience was being blown apart in a pressure explosion because her least favorite person in the world had accidentally added a flammable solvent to her solution. Two, a giant war horse in steel armor was rearing up in front of her.

  Jessica fell backward into the mud, fully expecting to be killed for the second time in a few scant seconds of consciousness. But the horse turned at the command of its rider and she was spared.

  “C-Cl-Clansend University Chemistry Department?” said Jessica.

  “Elsifeya,” said he.

  ‘He’ was the horse’s rider, a knight in steel plate bearing lance and shield.

  Jessica did not read or watch or in any way consume childish media material which involved plots of dying in a gruesome manner and being reborn in another world. It was by pure happenstance that she came upon this exact interpretation of what had happened to her post-explosion.

  “That’s not on Earth, is it? This is a— a fantasy world?” she asked.

  “What are you, a Lute-Priestess? Some kind of adventurer? If this is some attempt to bedevil one of King Capra’s loyal retainers, you will pay dearly,” the knight said.

  “What!? No! I—”

  Jessica stopped herself from saying more. Why shouldn’t she say she was an adventurer? She certainly wasn’t a Lute-Priestess, but why not something else? It would probably help her get into the good graces of this King Capra. Heck, she already had a title that was somewhat close.

  “I’m an Alchemist,” Jessica said as she swiped at the mud on her lab coat and sweatpants. “I don’t do magic, but I do brew potions. I could even brew you an ale!”

  “You don’t look like much of an adventurer. And especially not an alchemist. You look more like a morkal to me,” the rider said.

  “A what?”

  “A type of monstress. Wicked eyes with dark circles, sharp teeth, long black hair like a corpse, supernatural strength and agility. And then the claws…”

  “I don’t have claws or sharp teeth!” Jessica said. She looked down at her nails. “These aren’t claws, I’m just a PhD candidate. I don’t have a lot of time for self-grooming!”

  The rider sniffed. “Maybe. Or maybe you’re in disguise. If you’re an alchemist, whip up a potion. Right now.”

  “Right now!? I don’t have any chemicals or equipment! That’s not how chemistry works!”

  “You said you were an Alchemist job class, not a chemistryist.”

  “I— a job class? You mean like a social caste?” Jessica asked.

  “Don’t try to bamboozle me with Elvish words!” he said, lowering his lance.

  “I’m not— did you say ‘Elvish’?”

  “No, you spoke Elvish, morkal woman! You’re lucky I haven’t run you through on the spot,” the knight said.

  Jessica shuddered and held up her hands. “Listen, I think there’s some miscommunication happening. I’m not from here. I’m not from this world. I just got here, in fact. What happened was that I died and—”

  “You claim to be an adventurer, eh? How come you don’t have a job class? What’s your level? Haven’t you gone exploring yet?”

  “When I say I just got here I mean I just got here. I’ve done literally nothing so far. If there’s some game menu that’s supposed to pop up, it hasn’t. I don’t know how to pick any of these silly classes or gain experience or go on quests. But if you happen to know someone I could speak to about this, I…”

  Jessica trailed off as she saw a malicious grin creep onto the knight’s face. She swallowed and took a step back.

  “Aha… You’re not a Morkal, but you’re not an adventurer either. You’re a serf who picked up adventurers’ funny words to escape your lord’s land! Nice try, monster woman.”

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  “I’m not a serf and I did come from another world! Do you see these ridiculous clothes!?” Jessica said, waving a hand in front of her soiled lab coat and rubber boots.

  When his expression didn’t change, Jessica began planning her escape. The forest on both sides of the muddy road was full of tightly-packed bushes and long-limbed elms which might knock a rider from their saddle.

  “Are those your men?” she asked.

  “My men? Sir Hayek rides alone!” Sir Hayek said as he turned back to look.

  Jessica leapt through a bush and bolted downhill. Thorns drew angry red lines across her skin like a graded exam. The physical pain, however, was easy to push through when the alternative was serfdom.

  Running blindly, Jessica would have made herself lost if she’d known where she was to begin with. According to the knight she was in Elsifeya, but whether that was a kingdom, a region, the forest, or the entire world, she had no idea. The word meant nothing unless it oriented her toward food, water, shelter, and safety.

  Hearing no hooves behind her, Jessica stopped in a small clearing and bent over to choke down some air. Her escape was an experiment in the efficiency of aerobic metabolism amongst grad students who lived entirely off soju and instant rice. Not very efficient, as it turned out.

  “Please. Whatever god— was supposed— to give me— a game menu— I swear— I’ll do cardio!” she said between huffs and puffs.

  Willing this game menu into being did not work. She wondered for a moment if she had simply passed out from exhaustion at Little Aleppo and everything since had been a dissertation-induced nightmare. Not that she had any reason to dream of weird light novelesque fantasy worlds since she didn’t indulge in that sort of thing.

  Though dizzy and nauseous, Jessica had to keep going. The air around her boiled with the heat and humidity of high summer and if she didn’t find water she was going to hit a wall of heatstroke. Putting one shaking foot in front of another, she pulled aside two thorny bushes and stepped forward.

  And fell flat on her face.

  Water ripped her from the blissful darkness of unconsciousness back into sweltering heat. Above her was the last thing she wanted to see: The knight who called himself Sir Hayek kneeling over her with a waterskin and a smarmy grin.

  “Congratulations! You proved you’re not a Morkal with that pitiful display,” he said.

  Looking past him, Jessica could see the road was only a short way up the hill and that she’d been in full view the entire time. She groaned and dropped her head to the ground.

  “I’m not a serf either,” Jessica said. “I’m a chemist. And if you take me to your king, I can improve your crop yields and invent weapons of war and stuff. Just— just tell him I can make him the most powerful ruler in the world, okay?”

  Sir Hayek gave a laugh so genuine and instinctual it made Jessica nervous.

  “No one is more powerful than the Hero-Emperor Magnus Oftampa who slew the Demon King a century ago and has ruled over a world of peace and stability since,” the knight said, though there was something almost bitterly ironic in the way he said it.

  “Peace and stability? You have serfdom!” Jessica said.

  “And serfs have peaceful and harmonious relations with their liege-lords. Aside from wayward hags like yourself.”

  “A hag!? I’m 25!”

  “And unmarried? You might as well be dead.”

  She flushed. “I was finishing my degree first! Just take me to your stupid king, please.”

  Sir Hayek raised an eyebrow. “Stupid king? That constitutes lèse-majesté, you know. You could be thrown in the stocks for that.”

  That declaration sapped the last of Jessica’s energy and she went limp on the forest floor. Apparently she had to go through a character-building arc before she could change this medieval fantasy world for the better.

  Sir Hayek scooped her up and tossed her belly-down over the back of his saddle like a sack of flour. With some itchy, hempen rope he bound her hands and feet to prevent another escape. Not that she would’ve attempted one. That was a recipe for death by dehydration, something she was already a hair’s breadth from.

  “Water…” she croaked.

  Sir Hayek stopped with the reins in his hand. “Hmm? Water, eh? Guess we can’t have you dying just yet.”

  He uncorked the waterskin and pressed it to her lips. A stench like a portable toilet emanated from the pouch.

  “Have you boiled this?”

  “Boiled!? It’s water, fool, not tea!”

  Facing a choice between dehydration and dysentery, Jessica chose dehydration. Through her parched throat Jessica mumbled a curse at whatever god screwed up giving her a job. Her curse disappeared under the leaves crunching underhoof.

  Obnoxious as Hayek was, Jessica wanted to ask him questions about the world. But the steaming afternoon sun and her wretched physical state conspired to drag her into an unconscious abyss. Here there were no defense committees and no knights. No grant proposals and no serfdom. There wasn’t even an undergrad asking her what would be on the exam.

  Right as she was starting to enjoy this nothingness, her eyes popped open to the sight of three dirty-looking faces staring at her. A man, a woman, and a teenage boy.

  “She’s yours to take care of. Get her working again within a few days. If she’s nowhere to be found when I return, your heads will be on the block,” Sir Hayek said.

  “Ain’t she an adventurer, sir?” the boy asked, prodding her rubber rain boots. “Her clothes’re all otherworldly and whatnot!”

  “She probably stole them from a real adventurer. The business is none of mine,” Sir Hayek said as he bent under the tiny door of the hovel.

  Jessica tried to speak but only a hiss came out. The woman slapped her husband with a rag.

  “Go get the lass some water, Charles!”

  “Boil…” Jessica moaned.

  “Hmm? What’d’ya say, lass? Can’t hardly hear ya!”

  “Boil it!”