On a small blue marble, third from the sun, in a museum somewhere in Boston, Massachusetts. Sits a historian going over his notes trying to get everything coalesced into a theory. Henry, the historian, had been researching old stories, and myths of emperors, and kings of the ancient world for years. After sifting through hundreds and hundreds of historical records, from all around the world, even delving into the black market of historical antiques. Rather than be happy about the plethora of items in the black market he felt dismayed so much could be lost so easily. During his research, Henry began to find an unexpected pattern, that seemed impossible.

Each and every story seemed to start the same, or at least similar, it would start with a boy or a girl living a normal life, then one day the individual would go away, either dieing or simply vanishing into thin air, only to reappear some time later. This was a massive simplification of the collection of stories, Henry had unearthed from, hundreds of different historical accounts, records, myths, and legends of prominent figures throughout history.

Henry wasn’t searching for a new research topic, when he stumbled onto this mystery, he was actually looking forward to a nice long vacation after doing a semester teaching History 101. He had drawn the short straw, having to run a full year of the introductory class, that none of the professors in his university wanted to do. Though by doing it he was exempt from having to teach the class for the next five years, or until they hired someone specifically for that class, but no one in the history department believed it would happen.

So when Henry stumbled on a strange account, when he was preparing for his vacation, he didn’t think much of it, just writing it off as odd. But the story kept worming its way around his brain, and so he decided to look into it a little for some closer. That was when he found another different yet oddly similar account, again he didn’t think too much of it, with the level of technology being so different back then, even though communication was underdeveloped, it was not hard to believe people would simply disappear one day. In fact, Henry came across more records of people just vanishing one day, admittedly in odd circumstances, than people coming back. It was when he noticed that those that would return tended to be larger historical figures.

Even that could be explained away as people misremembering or documents being exaggerated, but it was the similarities spread throughout eras that stuck out to the historian. Once he began to search, he began to see this phenomenon everywhere, in stories, myths, legends, and even the rise of well-documented nobility.

Henry became obsessed as he searched for years to come up with a hypothesis about these shared stories. He pulled together as much evidence as possible eventually presenting his findings to the scientific community. Titling his paper 'The Shared Dream of Greatness'. The man had hypothesized that the sudden changes in these people were not signs of other entities, or gods interfering in people's lives, but of the people finally dreaming greater than their own position believing they have seen another world. Spurring them to change their own.

The paper was thoroughly reviewed and questions were asked. Henry had provided plenty of evidence, all the way up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. And when asked why there was nothing recent, by a popular scientific magazine he responded,

"I believe it is due to the world becoming interconnected, and this smaller. The people are familiar with most ideas and because of that, sudden...revelations..or ideas, come in completely different formats.”

“So because we have seen everything, we can no longer dream and become inspired?” The interviewer followed up.

“No, no. What I'm saying is…think of it like this. You are a peasant. Your world is nothing but working in a field. You don't think of doing anything new because you never thought of it. Then suddenly you have a dream where you are important, strong and a Hero. When you wake up suddenly working in a field feels wrong, and the feeling builds until they decide to do something. Now we look at modern times. If you had such a dream you wake up and think that was a good dream. You've seen this all on television you don’t think much of it.”

“So you're saying we are still having this dream?”

“I believe most people have a dream like this, it's just a small percentage of people to act on it.”

This was Henry’s most famous interview, and many more questions were asked, as the scientific community began to tare his research apart, citing it as speculation and crackpot up there with other alien conspiracies. But, TV networks and news stations saw an opportunity for something fresh and ran with it. Making Henry’s theory spread, and become quite popular. The man became a minor celebrity as people slowly declared it the Isekai theory, much to Henry’s chagrin, as he believed it was just dreamed not actual travel to somewhere else. Some even began to believe it was proof of other world travel was real, but only the most die-hard theorists truly believed it, and Henry did his best to stay as far away as possible from them.

——

After his success with, his previous research Henry began his search for his next project. He was sitting at a table in his office, going over hundred-year-old parchments carefully when a strange man’s voice asks a question. “Why didn't you mention the man in the paper?”

“What man?” Henry asked instinctively, as only years of academia could instill in a person. Before he paused to see who had entered his office. He didn’t recognize the man, but with his casual jeans and t-shirt, he thought it might be one of the students, "And who are you?"

“The man. They all mentioned before the dream.” The man smiled, playfully as if he had just played a massive joke.

“That?” In each, and every interview no one had ever asked about the man, having been there at the beginning. The entity was not always mentioned, and even when Henry had found any record of him being mentioned it was always an afterthought. Like the person recounting it wasn’t sure the man had actually been there. It was to the point the historian believed this was just a random person they knew, that they interposed into the story or someone they happened to see. Henry didn't even mention him in the paper itself. At this point, the historian was both impressed and weary of this man suddenly barging into his office but as he was always up for academic discussion, “There wasn't enough evidence of the man. Besides, it was a dream that could have been anyone they happen to see in passing, and they just didn’t remember it.”

The strange man stroked his chin, taking in the answer, “That makes sense to me. It would have been weird to mention an unexplainable man through the centuries.”

It was then that Henry realized the man never answered who he was and demanded, “Who are you and how did you get in here?”

Ignoring his demand the man commented, “You got it wrong though.”

That made the historian blink, “Are you here to just make fun of my research, one of the new grad students looking to stir up trouble, I assure you my hypothesis has enough evidence to back it up.” Henry vehemently defended his work, as he was forced to in the last few years.

“Yes, but it is derived from a faulty premise.”

“And that is?” Henry didn’t believe he made a mistake, but he was curious to hear this man’s conclusion. Maybe I did miss something. First of all, Henry was a man of science and if he was given empirical evidence he would not hesitate to print a retraction to his work.

The strange man in front of him turns serious, “Your faulty premise is, that magic isn't real.”

Any respect for this man suddenly went out the window, “Your saying they were all whisked away to a magical realm by a random man then brought back changed.”

The man touched his nose.

“Get out. I don't know how you got in my office but.”

Suddenly Henry was alone in his office, the man gone. He had been staring directly at him when he had vanished into nothing. He got up and examine the area before concluding “I have got to stop reading those fan fantasy books. They got me seeing things.”

——

Del and Ge stand unseen in an office, as a historian occasionally searches his office for evidence of the man he had been talking to, unsure if he was ever really there. Eventually deciding that if he was there he left without him noticing, and if not he needed some rest. Have been looking over the documents for weeks now, and had been looking for anything new. Maybe it was his subconscious telling him something.

“I don't understand why you did that,” Ge said confused, as she wondered why he would so brazenly tell someone about magic like that.

“It's fun to give hints,” Del answered playfully.

“He probably thinks you're a hallucination.”

“Yup! But could you imagine if he decides it was real? Takes a minute to look at the camera to see I was actually there?” Del replied with a glint in his eye.

She realized that was what he wanted. “I don't think anyone would believe him.” She began speaking her thoughts. “They would chalk it up to a camera malfunction or something.”

“But he would know.” He pointed out. “He would, and might even take his research down a different path, maybe even uncovering other impossible stories about magic.”

“Do you think he will?” She asked wonderingly.

Del deflated, he had done this hundreds of times and the results had always been the same, “Probably not, he'll most likely forget by morning.”

“Then why?” She wondered

“Why not?”

“You do this a lot don’t you.”

“Every so often.” He admitted.

“Has anyone ever figured it out?”

“No. But a lot of writers have taken it and ran.”

Ge's eyes widened realizing, “Is that why there are so many isekai, and world jumping stories out there?”

Del shrugged.

“Would explain why so many are from Japan, those deadlines are insane.”