Chapter Text
The first sensation wasn’t the smell of blood or the screech of tearing metal, though both were fresh in his mind. It was the stiffness of the sheets. They felt heavy, coarse, and distinctly lacking the synthetic softness of his own bed.
He bolted upright, a gasp catching violently in his throat. His chest heaved as his hands scrambled over his torso, expecting crushed ribs, shattered bone, or the ruinous aftermath of a runaway truck. There was nothing. No blood. No agonizing pain. Just the frantic, rhythmic thumping of a perfectly intact heart.
The psychological horror hit him in a suffocating wave. He remembered the rain. He remembered the slick asphalt, the blinding headlights, and the terrifying realization that he would never find out how to handle the deceptive schemers of the world because he hadn't bought the sequel. He had died. He was certain of it.
Yet, here he was, breathing.
His eyes darted around the room, struggling to process the environment. The walls were dark wood, illuminated by a pale morning light filtering through heavy curtains. This wasn’t a hospital. It wasn’t his apartment.
Needing anchors, needing to ground himself, he swung his legs out of the bed and stumbled toward a dark wooden vanity across the room. He gripped the edges of the polished surface, his knuckles turning white, and forced himself to look up into the glass.
The breath left him completely.
Staring back at him was an entirely unfamiliar, horror-stricken face.
The reflection revealed a man in his late 30s with remarkably pale skin, framed by a thick mop of wavy, ash-grey hair that curled unevenly around his forehead and ears. But it was the eyes that truly unnerved him—sharp, heavily hooded, and rimmed with deep, dark circles that spoke of intense, chronic exhaustion. They were wide with a shared panic, staring out from a sharp, angular face dominated by a long, prominent nose and a thin, grimly set mouth.
Stepping back in sheer disbelief, he took in the rest of his appearance.
The body he now inhabited was tall and remarkably slender, clad in a crisp, high-collared black button-down shirt that hugged his neck. Resting on a nearby chair was a heavy, double-breasted white coat with stark black buttons, tailored with a sharp, militaristic discipline.
He reached up, his trembling fingers brushing against the cold glass of the mirror, watching the silver-haired stranger do the exact same thing. This wasn't a mask. This wasn't a dream.
He had transmigrated into a body that looked entirely unsuited for peace, looking every bit the exhausted, high-strung bureaucrat. And as the foggy memories of a fictional world began to violently click into place alongside his own, the true terror settled in. He didn't just have a new face. He had a name, a terrible destiny, and a promotion to attend to.
A cold sweat broke out across his forehead as panic truly set in. The memories of his past life—the corporate deadlines, his cozy apartment, the smell of the city rain—were actively slipping away. It was a terrifying, visceral sensation, like watching a violent river relentlessly erode the land around it until nothing but smooth, empty stone remained. The names of his old friends faded into static; the face of his former boss blurred into nothingness. Desperate to anchor his identity before his own mind entirely hollowed itself out, he began to frantically scramble around the unfamiliar room.
He tore open the top drawer of the dark wooden vanity, his hands trembling violently as he tossed aside neatly stacked blotter sheets and official-looking wax seals. He needed a driver's license, a modern ID, a stray credit card—anything to prove he wasn't completely losing his sanity.
Instead, his fingers brushed against a heavy, polished object resting in a velvet-lined groove.
He pulled it out. It was a personalized fountain pen, elegantly crafted and catching the dim morning light. Etched cleanly into the silver plating along the cap was a single name.
His heart instantly dropped into his stomach, a physical weight of soul-crushing dread pinning him to the floor.
He knew that name. His flawlessly memorized pop-culture knowledge screamed at him, identifying the linguistic roots of a word that meant "hero" or "brave one" in an old Slavic tongue. It was a cruel, sickeningly ironic joke, considering the absolute cowardice and moral rot of the man who owned it.
He stared at the crisp lettering, the reality of his situation cementing itself into his mind with absolute certainty. He wasn't a hero. He wasn't going to have a peaceful, magical adventure.
He was Eroch.
“E—Er... Er-och,” he croaked, the syllables sticking to his tongue like dry wool.
He tried to say ‘What the hell is happening?’ but what actually stumbled out of his mouth was a disjointed, clumsy string of phonetics: “W-Wh... th... h-h—v-va...”
He sounded like a toddler learning to piece together basic vowel movements. Panic flared in his chest, hot and sharp, until a strange, instinctive reflex took over. His throat tightened, his jaw shifted, and his vocal cords smoothly adjusted to the weight of a language that felt entirely foreign yet perfectly natural to his physical body. He took a shallow breath, testing the waters again.
“Test... testing. One, two,” he whispered. The words flowed out crisp, clear, and perfectly accented, carried by a low, slightly raspy baritone that belonged to the silver-haired stranger in the glass.
For a fleeting, desperate second, a wave of profound relief washed over him. He mentally thanked Apollo, the muses, and every literary deity he could think of that his physical anatomy had retained the muscle memory required to speak the common tongue of—
Oh no.
The thought halted his internal praise mid-sentence, turning the relief into a freezing block of ice.
The common language.
If he was Eroch, and there was only one infamous, universally despised Eroch in the entire collective conscious of pop culture...
Eroch slumped down onto the rigid wooden chair in front of his vanity like a puppet whose strings had been violently snipped. The silver-plated fountain pen clattered out of his limp fingers, rolling across the desk before coming to a dead stop. He buried his face in his hands, pressing his palms hard against his eyes until static sparks danced across his vision.
He was in Teyvat. Actual, literal Teyvat.
In his past life, the setting of Genshin Impact had been a beautiful, fantastical escape—an open-world role-playing premise filled with soaring stone peaks, shimmering bioluminescent caverns, and sweeping, idyllic fields of dandelions. Players spent hours casually exploring its vistas. But to actually live in it? To be an ordinary, flesh-and-blood human trapped inside its lore?
From an in-game standpoint, Teyvat was a purely nightmarish, cosmic horror show disguised as a fairy tale.
It was a world where giant, ancient dragons regularly woke up to terrorize nations. A world where a shadowy, militant organization of vision-wielding zealots and cybernetic harbingers actively experimented on children and pulled the political strings of global superpowers. It was a place where a god could decide to drop a massive celestial pillar on your city if you asked too many questions, and where an underground, mutated remnant of a fallen civilization was constantly plotting the literal end of humanity.
And he didn't even have a Vision. He didn't have elemental powers, superhuman durability, or a magical emergency food to guide him. He was just a fragile, ordinary mortal with a desk job, an impending date with a giant dragon, and a looming execution deadline.
“I’m dead,” he muttered into his open palms, his voice muffled, hollow, and utterly devoid of hope. “I am entirely, completely dead.”
Another thought popped up that made him wish he was dead.
“My book,” he whimpered into his hands, the realization hitting him with a fresh wave of despair. “I’m never going to see my book again.”
Of all the things to mourn—his modern plumbing, his internet connection, his actual life—his first, visceral thought was the agonizing loss of his beloved copy of Surrounded by Idiots. That book had been his hyperfixation, his ultimate comfort object in a world full of administrative agony. In his past life, his brain had been a frustratingly selective sponge; it could only store information in vivid, high-definition detail if it was intensely interesting or so utterly bizarre that it stuck like superglue. Ask him about the current geopolitical landscape of his old world, or basic math formulas, and his mind would go completely blank.
But Thomas Erikson’s masterpiece? He had metaphorically devoured the thing. He had pored over those pages so many times that the entire text had burned itself into his brain like a foundational core memory.
He could recite it cover to cover. He could tell you exactly why an aggressive, results-driven Red would want to strangle a slow, conflict-averse Green. He could map out precisely how to stop a hyper-enthusiastic, chaotic Yellow from derailing a meeting, or how to feed the meticulous, data-obsessed demands of a quiet Blue. He knew the exact conversational minefields to avoid, which colors clashed violently under pressure, and which combinations could actually get a corporate project finished on time.
He was a walking, talking encyclopedia of corporate behavioral psychology.
But ask him about the current political climate of Mondstadt? Ask him about the tension between the Aristocracy and the common folk, the logistical trade routes with Liyue, or the inner workings of the Knights of Favonius hierarchy?
Nothing. Absolutely blank.
He knew Eroch was a traitor who worked with Dottore and got himself killed, but he didn't know the day-to-day politics of the office he was currently sitting in. He was a man equipped with a masterclass guide on how to survive a toxic HR department, currently facing down a magical fantasy apocalypse.
His hands, still trembling, blindly groped around the very bottom of the deep wooden drawer. His fingers caught on a slight, unnatural ridge in the wood. A false bottom.
With a desperate tug, the hidden panel clicked and popped open. He expected to find treasonous letters, Fatui contracts, or bags of illicit Mora.
Instead, a stark splash of white caught his eye.
Eroch froze. His breath hitched in his throat as he reached into the cavity and pulled the object into the morning light.
It was a book. Not a leather-bound, parchment-filled tome of Teyvat lore, but a modern, softcover book with a familiar, beautifully pristine layout. His eyes watered as he stared at the title stretching across the front: Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson. He flipped it over, his thumbs tracing the familiar, comforting text on the back cover, feeling the smooth, slightly glossy paper that absolutely did not belong in this medieval fantasy world.
It was his actual, honest-to-god copy.
In an instant, it felt as if a missing fragment of his very soul had been violently slammed back into his chest. The suffocating dread in his stomach eased, replaced by a sudden, electric surge of absolute warmth. The gods—or whatever cosmic entity had thrown him into this bureaucratic nightmare—had apparently looked down, taken a look at his utterly pathetic state, and given him a single, divine mercy.
He clutched the book tightly to his chest, letting out a laugh that sounded half-manic and half-sob. He was still weaponless, still visionless, and still occupying the body of Mondstadt's most doomed traitor. But as he looked down at the behavioral guide in his hands, the terrifying, unpredictable world of Teyvat suddenly shrank down into something he could actually comprehend.
It wasn't a lawless land of gods and monsters anymore. It was just a highly disorganized corporate office full of unmanaged personality types. And he finally had his manual.
A sharp, rapid knock rattled the heavy oak door of his quarters, shattering his fragile moment of peace.
"Inspector Eroch, sir!" a muffled, young voice called out from the corridor, sounding painfully energetic for this hour of the morning. "The Grand Master expects your presence in the headquarters in one hour for the official promotion briefing!"
Eroch froze, his heart leaping back into his throat. He looked down at the softcover book in his hands, frantically shoved Surrounded by Idiots deep into the false bottom of the drawer, and slid the hidden panel shut.
"I—I will be out shortly!" he called back. His voice was a bit too reedy, so he cleared his throat and forced the smooth, raspy baritone to return. "Leave the itinerary on the sideboard!"
"Understood, sir!" The sound of retreating, armored footsteps echoed down the hall.
Eroch took a long, shaky breath. One hour. He had exactly sixty minutes to transform a panicked transmigrator into a high-ranking military official. Standing up, he reluctantly pulled the heavy, double-breasted white coat over his black button-down shirt. Fastening the stark black buttons with trembling fingers, he walked out of the bedroom to assess his new living situation.
The layout of the house only amplified his growing sense of dread. The former Eroch was, without a shadow of a doubt, a massive, textbook narcissist.
The estate was a sprawling, suffocating maze of dark mahogany paneling, velvet drapes, and an utterly absurd, borderline pathological number of mirrors. As he navigated the long, narrow corridor leading from his bedroom to the main living area, he passed no fewer than four full-length, silver-gilded mirrors. Every single turn, every alcove, and every hallway was meticulously designed so that the previous owner could admire himself from every conceivable angle.
It wasn't just bad for Feng Shui—a concept a former coworker of his used to aggressively preach about during office lunch breaks—it was just plain creepy.
Worse, trying to compose himself into something resembling a decent, approachable human being was a mechanical impossibility in this house. Every time he caught his reflection, he flinched. With his sharply angular face, long prominent nose, heavily hooded eyes, and those dark, chronic circles, he didn't look like a guy who handled public relations and paperwork. He looked like the mastermind of a tragic conspiracy. If he walked into a room with a grim expression, people wouldn't think he was stressed; they'd think he was plotting a assassination.
"No. Absolutely not," Eroch muttered, his left eye twitching as he stared at a fifth mirror in the dining hall. "I am not living in a funhouse of psychological horrors."
Spurred by a mix of frantic energy and genuine discomfort, he went to work. He marched up to the nearest full-length mirror, gripped the heavy ornate frame, and violently lifted it off its iron wall-hooks. With a quiet grunt, he turned the glass toward the mahogany wall and leaned it face-down against the baseboards.
He moved from the dining hall back through the corridors, methodically unhooking every reflective surface he could find. Small vanities, gilded wall mirrors, decorative silver plates—he took them all down, flipping them backward or stacking them face-down in a storage closet near the foyer.
By the time he reached the front door, his breathing was heavy, his silver-grey hair was slightly disheveled, but the house felt infinitely less oppressive. There was only one mirror left, and it was the one he couldn't easily move without a toolkit.
Smoothing down the lapels of his white coat and adjusting his collar, Eroch looked at the front door. He had successfully cleared his environment of immediate stressors. Now, he had to step out into Mondstadt and face the actual living, breathing corporate nightmare waiting for him.
Before he could even touch the handle of the front door, his eyes locked onto the mahogany sideboard nearby. Resting on its polished surface was the crisp parchment itinerary left by the young messenger.
Eroch reached out, picked up the document, and began to scan the neat, cursive handwriting detailing his morning schedule.
His eyes stopped midway down the page. The color drained from his face, leaving his already pale skin looking practically translucent. He blanched, his hands gripping the edges of the paper so tightly the parchment threatened to rip.
10:00 AM – Inspector’s Inaugural Speech at the Headquarters Plaza.
“What the hell do you mean, a speech!?” he hissed to the empty foyer, his raspy baritone cracking slightly under the sudden weight of his panic.
The original Eroch—the textbook narcissist who had filled this entire house with mirrors—would have been absolutely delighted by this prompt. The man probably would have practically sprinted to the plaza, eager to sweet-talk the crowd, bask in the applause of the audience, and soak up every bit of attention to feed his massive ego.
But him? The guy who had just transmigrated into this mess? He was an exhausted modern corporate worker whose worst nightmare was an unscheduled Microsoft Teams presentation. Public speaking was an entirely different beast. Standing on a raised platform, looking out at a sea of knights and Mondstadt citizens while trying to deliver a grand, inspiring monologue in a body that looked inherently untrustworthy, was a recipe for disaster.
Just looking at the itinerary was already draining him. This single event was going to completely incinerate his social battery for the rest of the day, if not the entire week.
"Sweet Jesus," Eroch groaned, leaning his forehead against the cool wood of the front door. "I haven't even stepped outside yet and I'm already facing a major administrative crisis."
He closed his eyes, his mind racing. He couldn't wing an inspiring speech. If he tried to speak from the heart, it would just come out as a series of blunt, exhausted complaints. He needed a strategy, and he needed it before he reached the plaza.
Taking a deep, stabilizing breath, Eroch straightened his shoulders, folded the terrifying itinerary, and shoved it into the pocket of his heavy white coat. He didn't have a pre-written script, but he did have a flawlessly memorized behavioral guide in his head. He just had to figure out how to structure a presentation that would keep the enthusiastic Yellows entertained, the results-driven Reds satisfied, and the conflict-averse Greens entirely unbothered.
With a grim set to his mouth, he finally turned the handle and stepped out into the bright, overwhelming world of Mondstadt.