Ever since I got a Ph.D in theoretical physics, I thought that I would be able to find a nice job and live comfortably for the rest of my life.

Except I was wrong.

I lacked the communication skills and connections to secure a decent job.

My peers in academia ridiculed me for all my unsuccessful research.

All my students and assistants quit working under me because of my horrible reputation.

Worst of all, funding for my lab was about to get cut due to the lack of results, and I was about to get fired from my university researcher position.

But not for long!

Tonight, after years of hard work, I have finally succeeded in opening a wormhole to another world!

To confirm that my research was successful, I stepped through the wormhole.

It was a big risk, since there was no telling whether this other world was habitable or not. I took a few deep breaths and jumped up and down for a while, but found nothing wrong with my body.

Looks like this place is habitable.

Once I show this result to the rest of the world, I'll be sure to get the Nobel Physics prize!

I was currently standing on the edge of the woods in near a small city that was surrounded by stone walls and ramparts. There were a few horse-drawn carriages running on the gravel roads in the distance. Looking at the clothing and architecture in front of me, I concluded that this world was currently in what was the equivalent of the medieval era.

Well, time to head back and report my findings to the world.

…

Crap.

The wormhole is gone.

I didn't pay the utility bills for the past month, so it was only a matter of time until they cut the power of my lab building, but why did it have to be now?

Damn it all! My life has been nothing but a mess even until now!

There was the possibility that someone would come and restart the wormhole machine, but there were a few problems with that:

I'm a loner with so few connections and friends that nobody would ever go looking for me. I didn't save my configurations for this trial run onto the computer yet. Nobody else was helping me with my research, so they wouldn't know how to operate the machine in the first place.

And so I became quickly convinced that I was now stuck in this world.

* * * * *

This world didn't use paper currency, so it was hard for me to get around, especially when I didn't speak the language.

Luckily, I was taken in by some sage a week ago after making a lot of attempts at drawing and giving him my pen and convincing him that this was an infinite usage quill that produced its own ink.

He has been trying to teach me the language of this land, but the writing system is such a mess. The grammatical structure and vocabulary was very easy to comprehend at least, so I could understand and speak extremely basic sentences like "Hello, my name is Badoth," and "Goodbye."

I've also learned that this place was in some ways similar to fantasy worlds in modern fiction, where monsters roamed the land, and a lot of people were able to use magic through the use of "mana". The laws of physics and chemistry slightly differed from Earth, hence why magic and alchemy were actually possible in this world. As a physicist, I would have been devastated if force did not equal mass times acceleration here, but thankfully that fundamental law seems to be the same here based on my makeshift experiments with some tinker toys I found.

In any case, I'll probably never master the writing system, but I think I'll manage to understand and use this language after about a year. If I ever get the chance, I'll definitely introduce a much simpler writing system. Maybe I'll even be rewarded well if I introduce some modern discoveries and reforms here, too.

I probably need to do that at some point, anyways. I want to go back to my world and get a Nobel prize for my wormhole discovery. To do that, I'll have to advance science this world just enough to produce early models of computers and capable assistants that could help recreate my research.

I think I have to study some magic and alchemy along the way in order to find ways to extend my lifespan, too, otherwise I'll die long before this world's knowledge advances enough.