Chapter 8: Protagonist Appears
Torug's POV
Once again, my brow furrowed deeply. I was quickly learning that navigating this massive, uncoordinated frame with any semblance of stealth was far more taxing than it ever had been back in my human days. To make matters worse, tracking sharp-eared creatures through a dense thicket was a nightmare. I could bet every coin I had that if these goblins were part of a more intelligent variant, my heavy footsteps would have blown my cover miles back.
'Anyway, as long as I keep their scent in my nose, it's only a matter of time before I find their stronghold,' I reasoned silently.
Ahead of me, the vanguard scouts were chattering in a series of animated, screeching fragments, gesturing wildly about the successful hunt and how the raw meat would be divided among their nests. Keeping my movements perfectly fluid, I nonchalantly pulled my dagger and carved another deep, subtle marking into the bark of a nearby oak tree to anchor our path back to the warband.
Through the shifting curtain of ancient trees, I watched their primitive formation with a calculating eye. This is a lucky break. Frankly, it's the best tactical opening I've stumbled across in the last twenty years.
Studying the rusted axes and crude leather straps swinging from their small hips, I noticed they hadn't actually progressed much yet. The detail perfectly synchronized with my memory of the novel's description of the Ironbark tribe during their introduction. In the text, they already possessed decent iron armor and fortified defenses by the time the human protagonist crossed their path. This meant they must have only just discovered this territory. Better to strike them now, while their roots are shallow and they have yet to truly settle in.
Suddenly, the dense treeline broke, and the goblins reached their destination.
The ravine ahead was a hive of chaotic activity. Hundreds of yellow-eyed creatures were scurrying from left to right, raising crude wooden huts directly in front of a massive, yawning cavern structure—which my meta-knowledge instantly identified as the primary vein for the mana stone deposit. In all honesty, the frantic, muddy atmosphere looked exactly like a commercial construction site from back on Earth.
I leaned against a rock, my gaze narrowing as I surveyed the layout. I vaguely remembered from the lore that basic goblins lacked the cognitive capacity to organize a mining operation of this scale on their own. Unless...
Unless Lovan Ironbark has already crossed the threshold into the First Circle of evolution, I realized, a cold spike of worry hitting my chest. But even then, how much natural intelligence could a First Circle goblin truly possess? I dare not imagine that the bastard has somehow reached the Second Circle already.
In the world of Luegad, Alchemists could only be formally awakened as a specialization by characters who had been explicitly acknowledged by Neah, the God of Alchemy. Because of the deity's strict, volatile requirements, true Alchemists were exceptionally few and far between. Furthermore, Neah was widely tagged by the orthodox faiths to be an Evil God affiliated with the Devil Faction, even though his actual universal alignment was strictly Neutral.
Followers of gods branded with the devil tag were universally hunted as unprincipled knaves—monsters who viewed traditional goodness as a fatal weakness, and cold, callous deeds as the ultimate expression of strength.
Yet, the hypocrisy of the divine order was comical. The very same human kingdoms that condemned Neah's followers used the exact same self-righteous excuses to fuel their expansion. They enslaved monstrous races and conquered territories while loudly proclaiming, 'We are prepared to fight on behalf of the defenseless and bring a healthy, disciplined world into reality!'
Reviewing my minor understanding of this world's complex religions, I could only let out a quiet, cynical sigh. Those who prayed to the supposedly positive side of the divine force seemed to enjoy the false allure of cruelty and violence just as much as the monsters they hunted.
I pushed myself away from the ledge, turning my back on the valley. If my years in the gangs had taught me one universal truth, it was this: nothing is ever truly as it seems.
With that final, anchoring thought, I melted back into the brush, picking up my pace as I headed back to our camp to organize the warband for a raid.
_____________
Davis's POV
Meanwhile, miles to the south, the midday sun that had been showering the pristine avenues of Thann's End with brilliant warmth began to fail. High above the white plazas, the sky rapidly turned an ominous, bruised violet as thick, unnatural storm clouds swept across the peaks.
BOOM!
BOOM!
CRRAAAAAAAAAAACKKAKAKAKA!
A sudden, violent explosion of thunder rattled the windows, followed instantly by a jagged sheet of lightning that tore the sky apart. A chaotic commotion broke out on the stone streets below as high-born citizens and wealthy merchants scrambled to find shelter from the unexpected deluge. None of them anticipated the freak tempest. But unknown to the mortal realm, the sky wasn't weeping for a mere change in the weather.
A human soul had just violently transmigrated into the kingdom.
Inside a lavishly furnished bedroom lined with deep blue silk curtains—each embroidered with the silver crescent emblem of a low-ranking noble house—a fifteen-year-old boy lay flat on his back within a spreading pool of cooling blood. This was Davis Fairchild, the young master and sole heir of the Fairchild household.
As the corpse lay entirely still, my eyes snapped open with a violent, electrifying jolt. A mechanical, deafening rumble echoed inside my skull, causing my entire body to jerk off the floorboards in a horrific spasm before bouncing hard and collapsing back into the crimson pool.
BOOM!
My head collided heavily with a solid wooden table leg, the sharp impact forcing a ragged grimace of pain across my lips.
"Ah...!"
I slowly forced my eyelids open, but my field of vision was a dim, watery blur. Directly in front of me, a dark silhouette was swaying back and forth, its arms tracing weird, rhythmic gestures in the air as if it were performing some kind of occult, ritualistic dance. To the right of the figure sat a tall arched window; another flash of lightning tore through the dark sky outside, brightly illuminating the entire bedroom as if it were high noon.
"Oww…" I moaned, a weak gasp escaping my throat.
I tried to raise my right hand to rub the throbbing knot forming at the back of my skull, but my body refused to respond. A volatile mixture of white-hot pain, intense itching, and localized numbness had left my nervous system completely paralyzed. It felt as though my limbs no longer belonged to my consciousness, lying firmly against the wooden floorboards beside me like four dead sticks of timber.
'Am I dead?' My mind was a chaotic, fractured mess.
A sudden, violent flashback triggered behind my eyes. I remembered taking a regular stroll down an alleyway back in my city on Earth. I had accidentally bumped directly into a fleeing thief who was carrying a heavy duffel bag. Driven by a stupid, reckless sense of justice, I had reached out with my rain-wet hands to grab the metal strap of the bag—only for a blinding flash of light to arc from a downed power line, accompanied by a deafening roar of thunder.
The last thing my original senses had registered was the pungent, horrifying smell of my own burning flesh before everything went completely black. And now, I was here.
My head throbbed with a dull, heavy ache; it felt as though every memory I possessed had been thrown into a blender and turned to absolute mush. Desperate to orient myself, I opened my eyes as wide as the paralysis allowed, trying to decipher the low voices echoing over my head.
"Ohm yol valen zo rodel..." the silhouette muttered, the indistinct, rhythmic chanting humming with a faint, sickening trace of dark mana.
A soft click echoed through the room as a door opened.
"Has the Night Mother responded?" a mature, aristocratic woman's voice demanded from the threshold, her tone tight with anxiety.
"No. The Goddess remains silent," the chanting silhouette answered, dropping his hands as the dark humming in the air instantly vanished. A heavy, suffocating silence settled over the bedroom.
I stared blankly at the ceiling, my sight gradually adjusting to the environment. I was lying in a compact, medieval-style bedroom. In front of the window stood a massive wooden four-poster bed that looked like something pulled straight out of a high-budget historical film.
I could feel a heavy, invisible pressure weighting my chest down, but it was clear the two occultists were still completely unaware that the corpse on the floor had started breathing again.
Outside, the storm intensified, light rain showers rapidly transforming into a violent downpour that soaked through the clay roofs of the estates across the courtyard. I could feel an innate, deep-seated strength hidden within my muscles, but my current frame felt devastatingly weak, and a heavy layer of exhaustion threatened to pull my consciousness back under the surface.
Suddenly, the dam broke.
A massive, incredibly complex wave of foreign thoughts and memories rampaged into my mind, tearing through my brain cells with the force of a tidal wave. I let out an involuntary, choked groan, my fingers twitching against the floorboards as countless new details, faces, and historical facts swarmed my consciousness.
"What!? He... He's still alive?" the man by the window barked, his voice cracking with pure shock as he spun around to face me.
I didn't have the luxury to worry about his reaction. Still bearing the explosive weight of the memory fusion, I desperately began sorting through the life of the boy whose identity I had just inherited.
My new name was Davis Fairchild. I was fifteen years old, the son of a Baron whose lands were sworn directly to the grand Moongret Dukedom. I had a little sister named Jader. This world was a vast, dangerous landscape filled with ancient mysteries, bloodline evolutions, and magical phenomena. The memories of his old family, paired with the aristocratic luxury of the room, made it undeniable—this was absolutely not Earth.
Furthermore, Davis had been born with a rare, striking trait: dark purple hair and eyes the color of the absolute abyss. The unique colors were a hereditary bloodline trait passed down through his family; the hair from his father, and the abyssal eyes from his mother. I had never heard of a single human being on Earth born with those pigmentations.
Digging deeper into Davis's academic memories, the political landscape of this world took shape. The global superpowers weren't the United States or Russia. Instead, the continent was carved up between the massive Nisipurl Empire, the Eudaraime Empire, the Cilldean Empire, and the Cullbeg Kingdom.
Just like Earth, the map was dotted with smaller sovereign countries and kingdoms of varying sizes and feudal governments.
Before the break, Davis had been attending the most prestigious military high school in the territory: the Salman Nobles Academy, surviving his first year with the explicit goal of attaining knighthood. But during his journey back home for the winter school break, Davis and his private guards had intercepted a rogue group of slave traders on the border roads. He had successfully freed the captives, but in retaliation, a pair of radical Devil Worshippers had infiltrated his estate under the cover of the storm, attacking him in his sleep. The original Davis had actually died on this floor minutes ago from blood loss, just as my own soul had been extinguished in the rain on Earth.
As my fingers fully regained mobility, my hand shot up to grip my burning forehead. In my haste, my elbow accidentally struck a hidden magical formation carved into the base of the wooden table—an emergency alarm system established by the Baron to protect his son.
A brilliant red light pulsed from the runes, and a deafening arcane siren began to echo through the estate walls.
The female cultist by the door snapped out of her trance, her eyes widening in sheer panic as she heard the frantic shouts of the castle guards echoing from the courtyard below.
"Let's go! Forget the ritual... the brat just alerted the house guards!" she yelled, already throwing her boots onto the stone ledge of the open window.
"But... I cannot give up! Not when the sacrifice is already this close to completion!" the man rejected fiercely, stepping toward me with a raised dagger.
His protest was violently cut short by the heavy, rhythmic clanking of iron boots storming up the spiral staircase outside the door.
Without a single word of warning, the woman turned around and drove her own dagger deep into her partner's thigh, crippling him instantly. She blew me a cold, mocking kiss from the ledge, her voice lingering in the damp air as she vanished into the rain outside.
"Stall the legionaries for me, darling!"
"You!! You treacherous BITCH!!!" the cultist screamed, clutching his spurting thigh as he collapsed to one knee. Realizing his fate was sealed, his eyes turned completely wild, and he locked his gaze directly onto my throat.
My mind was still frantically processing the memories of Davis's knightly training, but a terrifying reality slammed into my chest: I don't have access to the original Davis's combat skills yet.
Unfortunately, the clock had just run out. The cultist lunged forward, his blood-stained dagger raised high.
BOOM!
The heavy oak door was violently sent flying inward, splintering into pieces as a vanguard of brown-armored house guards rushed into the room with swords drawn. The black-robed cultist turned pale; he clearly hadn't expected the Baron's forces to breach the perimeter so blindingly fast.
Panicking, he spun on his good heel and scrambled desperately toward the open window.
In that frantic split second, the lightning outside flashed again, finally revealing the robed man's face to me. He had messy, pitch-black hair and hollow, dead-looking eyes that sank so deep into his sockets it gave the chilling impression that he had been suffering from a wasting sickness for years.
"Divine Judgement!"
A booming voice thundered from the other side of the window pane. An blinding beam of white lightning ripped through the storm clouds, striking the fleeing cultist square in the chest the exact moment he threw his body over the ledge.
"AAAARGH!"
His skin blackened instantly, and his screaming form plummeted out of sight into the courtyard below.
I stared, completely shocked. My mind hadn't been able to fully absorb or process most of the historical information from Davis's memories until this very second.
Hovering completely unassisted in the stormy air just outside the high window was a towering man. He possessed the same distinct, dark purple hair as my new frame, paired with a sharp, piercing gaze that seemed to command the lightning itself. My father. The Baron.
"To dare touch my son?! Hmph! Seize him!"
"""Yes!"""
Without a single moment of hesitation, a few of the brown-armored guards leaped out of the high window after the fallen cultist, while the remaining men turned on their heels and ran back through the ruined doorway to secure the lower grounds.
"Brother, are you okay?" a young, frantic teenage girl's voice echoed through the chaos.
A girl sporting that same hereditary purple hair burst through the doorway, her dark eyes wide with terror as she scanned the blood-soaked room.
"Nope," I groaned thoughtlessly, the flat, modern response slipping past my lips before I could stop it.
Using every ounce of remaining strength in my numb limbs, I dragged my weak body across the floorboards until I could rest my bleeding back against the cold stone of the wall.
"Aah!!" Jader screamed, her face draining of color as she ran across the room to my side.
Right behind her stepped a mature, beautiful woman with a deep frown etching her features, a woman who looked like an older, more regal version of Jader. My new mother. Outside the shaking window, the open expanse between the two estate buildings remained brightly lit by flickering arcanum, and the purple-haired Baron could still be seen floating regally up there, a silhouette of absolute power against the storm.
So... a world of magic, huh?!
That was the last chaotic thought that crossed my mind before the exhaustion finally won, and my consciousness faded into total darkness.