Prologue: Isekai
Dear reader, let me tell you a tale of the magical land of Latrand.
In the land of Latrand, something strange happened, something unforeseen by the gods. A man has appeared out of thin air in the middle of a mountain range. A local of Latrand might ask: 'But how is that strange? There are many spells that enable one to travel long distances '. This man has not travelled from anywhere in Latrand, however. As far as the gods of Latrand could tell, this man, up until that moment, had not even existed in this universe at all. 'Has he been created by magic?' A local might wonder, but no, no magic was involved at all! In fact, this strange man utterly lacks a mana signature of any kind. A local might then tell you that this is impossible, everyone has some mana, and even the rocks have mana.
But dear reader, if you saw this man who came from nowhere appear, this man would seem very familiar to you and your Earthling sensibilities. The man is clad in a T-shirt with a design from some anime or another, baggy jeans, and a backpack filled with portable game consoles that he never leaves home without. The ID in his wallet would tell you his name is Sam Watson from the state of Florida in the United States of America.
Those readers familiar with Japanese media might recognize this scenario. They would correctly identify this situation as the phenomenon known as 'Isekai', wherein some regular person from Earth gets transported to a fantastical world to live a life of adventure and wish fulfilment.
Sam Watson, a regular person from Earth, was struck by a truck on the way home from the convenience store and suddenly appeared in the magical land of Latrand.
This is not their story.