New Story: Ever After

So, it's with great pleasure that I announce what will be my first submission to Royal Road: Ever After.
An Isekai protagonist has finished his hero's journey. He's mastered magic, braved dire threats, and plumbed the secrets of the universe. After a decade of research, experiment, and exploration of the myriad worlds, he's finally stumbled his way onto his home world, Earth.
He made it home... but now that he's back... what next?

Preview:

"Vieph gaove os webtas, Archmagus," says a woman's voice, cutting through my focus.

I look up from my crouch at the last maid in the tower, blinking a little. Now that I'm paying attention, I can smell the little roasted webtas bird, savory and juicy, that she's brought in, alongside the simple earthenware cup of chilled tea. "Oh, Nahge," I respond in my own, somewhat stilted Naska'at; I've always felt more comfortable with Heiuniuft, but few enough people speak it outside academia. Naska'at is always so incredibly... awkward, to speak. "Yes, please set it on my work desk over there, just left of the papers. Thank you."

"Of course, Archmagus."

"And just call me John," I add, setting down the pot of iron and mulberry dust, leaving the nascent conjury circle unfinished and quiescent.

"You know I cannot do that, Archmagus," she replies. I smile my most deliberately enigmatic smile as she aims one last distasteful look at the cup of cold brewed tea before leaving my workshop, to go home for the night to her family. It's a local peculiarity, of sorts, that E'adrudi folk rarely drinks cold liquids, and never tea. The first time I asked for iced tea I'm fairly certain the cook was ready to physically attack me. The tea leaves they use here are slightly odd looking, but they have caffeine, or something close enough to manage the job, and I habitually drink more than is strictly healthy for me.

With her well out of sight, I drop the pretentious air with a heavy sigh. From an Archmage, there are certain expectations of attitude if one intends to be taken seriously, and to be inscrutable is one of the most important ones. Magic isn't a safe business, especially for the untrained, and common folk have a tendency to think of something familiar as something that isn't dangerous. It's foolish to underestimate a horse's ability to hurt one with a sudden, panicked flailing, and orders of magnitude moreso to treat magic as something trivial.

Much as I enjoy a well roasted webtas, I don't have the time to savor it. Timing is everything, and if I miss my window tonight I won't be able to use these parameters for another month and a half. I eat quickly, and pick up my pot of iron and mulberry. It's tedious, if not particularly strenuous, work.

With the last curl of Heiuniuft script, I reach for my accumulated mana, and mentally, twist. The array of sigils, etched in glowing witchstone, comes to light around me. It's a familiar ritual, one I've done multiple times over the years. One that, as ever, entails a certain type of risk. The initial jump is always blind; one can never be entirely certain what kind of a world will be the destination without having been there before, even when working from the notes and parameters of a prior archmage's work. Each individual's mana attunement is subtly different from every other's, and there is an inherent indeterminacy in a fresh launch point.

It's an alien sensation, being dragged across the boundary between worlds. It's not a thing that a mortal can control, not even a mage. Even the most skilled and learned Conjurers can't do it easily, nor direct it once it's been initiated. It's like falling off a cliff with wrists and ankles tied together. There's nothing a person can do until they land.

I land.