Swish! A nail-studded wooden cudgel narrowly missed my head as I ran headlong through an unfamiliar forest. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as I felt the rush of air from the aftermath of the swing. I broke out in a cold sweat, forcing my already aching legs to move faster to get as far ahead as I could from the monster chasing me. For the umpteenth time, I cursed my own curiosity that landed me in this predicament as I ran, fuelled by pure adrenaline.

The monstrosity chasing me was a nightmarish amalgamation of a man and a toad-like creature, with greenish skin and warts all over its body. It wore rags and what resembled rusty armour, and was armed with the aforementioned cudgel. It wasn't particularly fast on its feet but had long arms and legs that allowed it to keep up with my all-out sprint. I was steadily getting out of breath and my concentration was dimming. Before I realised what was happening, I tripped over something and fell on my face. There was another swish, a loud thud followed by a grunt from behind me. My last thoughts were, I wonder what my parents are doing now...

I guess a bit of explaining is in order. My name is Rynn Tan and I'm a normal sixteen-year-old girl living in Singapore. Or rather, I used to live there until my parents decided to move to Malaysia. Well, I had just finished my O-Levels with passable results and not much in term of future plans. I had always wanted to study overseas, but having the whole family move was kind of drastic.

Apparently my wealthy grandfather (whom I had never met or even heard of) had passed on, leaving my parents with a sizeable fortune and a large mansion to their name. They immediately whisked me off to live their dream of retiring in the countryside. Naturally neither of them thought to ask my opinion, not that I had any say in our traditional Chinese family.

At that time, all I was concerned about was whether there was wifi or any Internet at all in such an 'ulu' place out in the middle of nowhere. The journey there took several hours by car and we spent the last hour wondering if the GPS was really bringing us to the right place. Did this place have any paved roads at all? My mom was giving my dad some dubious looks which he summarily ignored.

We all breathed sighs of relief when we arrived at the well-kept mansion. An actual butler came to greet us. Well, he wasn't dressed in a western suit or anything though. That would be ridiculous in this tropical heat. The middle-aged Malay man gave us a tour of the house and introduced the rest of the staff. So my dad's side of the family was actually rolling in cash. Who knew? I would never have guessed from the way he scrimped and saved on every single purchase we made. Or maybe that was a characteristic of rich misers?

As I mused on the follies of the rich, we passed by a small enclosed garden with a picturesque hut in the centre. "Hey, that's pretty cool," I remarked. "Could I go take a look inside that?"

"Inside what?" asked my mother while my father gave me a blank look.

"That h--"

"Let's have a look at your rooms next!" interrupted the butler quickly. "They're on the second floor and have a great view of the grounds. I think you'll like them, sir, madam."

"Rude," I muttered under my breath. Casting another glance at the hut, then at my parents, I told them that I had to visit the ladies and excused myself. The butler gave me a glance and sighed, then asked a maid to show me the way. I meekly followed the maid and told her not to wait for me, then once I finished my business and made sure no one was in sight, I dashed straight towards the garden and hut.

There were some exotic-looking plants growing in the garden. I mean, Malaysia already had pretty exotic native plants like pitcher plants and the famous rafflesia, not to mention the spiky-shelled durian fruit. Still, I had never seen plants like these in any encyclopaedia, and I considered myself pretty well read on all things nature.

There were blue and purple flowers that looked like hibiscus, but had transparent, almost glass-like petals. I had to touch them to make sure they weren't in fact glass. Beside that plant were orchids with flowers so tiny I assumed they were motes of yellow dust on a spider's web at first. In contrast was a huge plant with bowl-shaped leaves containing some sort of sweet-smelling liquid. Something like a pitcher plant to catch large mammals, perhaps? Would I count as prey too? I shuddered and walked towards the hut.

The garden looked tiny from the house, but was surprisingly large now that I was actually walking inside it. There was a glass roof above, so I reckoned it really was completely enclosed. The path towards the hut was paved with tiny black gravel. Mica or some sort of obsidian, maybe? It made a nice crunching sound under my feet and for a moment I wondered if someone would catch me for trespassing. The way the butler hurriedly tried to change the subject made it clear that he didn't want us to explore the place. That made me want to check it out even more! I rubbed my hands eagerly. Maybe there was some sort of hidden treasure there!

Unlike the garden, the hut was as small as it looked. Probably not even two square metres, the size of a king-sized bed or so. I examined it from all angles but it only had a single wooden door and no windows. Taking a breath, I put my hand on the doorknob and turned it. The interior was dim and contained a bench at one side where some gardening tools were laid. Oh, it was just a tool shed then. How disappointing.

I was about to close the door again when I saw another door on the opposite wall. Huh? I went around the outside of the hut to make sure I hadn't remembered wrongly, but the back wall of the hut was as smooth as the planks it was made of. Was the inner door just painted on or something? Curious, I stepped in and touched it. It certainly felt like a real door with a real doorknob. I took another deep breath and turned the knob.

Sunlight flooded the small hut and I blinked at the cool air accompanying it. This was Malaysia, right? Had I stumbled into some air-conditioned greenhouse or something? Still holding onto the doorknob, I peeked out at the surroundings. It was another garden, this one filled with more familiar plants like ginger flowers, dendrobium orchids and decorative palms. The temperature was not normal for Malaysia's tropical climate though. I turned around to look at the first door still left ajar. Warm air was coming from that direction. Maybe the gardener would get mad at me if I let the air-con escape. I closed that door and then went out the second door to explore the garden on this side.

The enclosed garden here was pretty as well, but not as well maintained as the other one and had more typical Malaysian flora so I was quickly bored. As I reached the exit, it led to a mansion that looked to be constructed in the roughly colonial English style like the one my parents inherited, but this one looked very run-down. There were no signs of people and cobwebs all over the place. Some of the doors had some markings that looked like letters, but not any I recognised from the modern languages of Earth.

I began to imagine myself as a protagonist in one of those popular Japanese Isekai novels as I explored the mansion. This place was probably just one of the mansions next to ours, but it was fun to pretend. Maybe those letters were ancient magic runes and would only allow someone of the owner's bloodline to enter. Maybe one of the rooms contained treasure that included legendary swords and magical items that would help me kill monsters and "level up". It would be nice if levelling up helped me to lose some weight and become prettier too. Haha, how convenient, right?

My mom would hit me with a dose of reality by telling me to study and not to read so much. Well, I did "level up" my proficiency in Japanese by reading the novels in the original language they were written in, but I digress.

As I continued both my exploring and daydreaming, I proceeded to the second floor of the house. Upon entering one of the rooms, I found the windows wide open and tattered curtains fluttering in the cool breeze. "Sheesh, the owner should really hire some people to maintain this place. Its such a waste that--" I stopped short, stunned by the scenery spreading out before my eyes. There were snow-covered mountains in the distance, and stretching out from almost the doorstep of this mansion was an extensive deciduous forest with an autumn foliage of reds and yellows. More than that, however, was a large lake smack in the middle of the forest with water of a bright blue colour.

"Somehow I don't think we're in Malaysia any more, Toto," I murmured, barely able to believe my eyes.

My dad would cackle at my reference while my mom would just look and me strangely and wonder what the scenery had to do with buying a lottery ticket. I rubbed my eyes and pinched myself, but the gorgeous scenery didn't vanish. Had I really stumbled into an Isekai? I had to explore the forest right away!