After three days of confinement, Darren was finally given permission to venture outside. He had been looking forward to this moment—a chance to explore this new world, to see what lay beyond the confines of his small room. What he found, however, was profoundly disappointing.
The village was tiny, perhaps thirty buildings at most, clustered together in a haphazard arrangement that spoke of organic growth rather than planning. Most of the structures were simple wooden affairs with thatched roofs, their walls darkened by age and weather. A few houses were built from clay bricks, but even these looked crude and unfinished compared to the construction standards of his previous world.
The smell hit him first—a mixture of unwashed bodies, animal waste, and something that might have been rotting vegetables. Garbage seemed to be disposed of by simply throwing it into the streets, where it mingled with mud and animal droppings to create a thoroughly unpleasant slurry. Open sewers ran along the sides of the dirt paths that served as roads, and Darren had to breathe through his mouth to avoid gagging.
"This is medieval all right," he muttered under his breath.
At least the animals were familiar. Chickens pecked at scraps in the muddy yards, their clucks and squawks exactly like those he remembered from Earth. A few goats wandered freely, their bells jingling as they moved. In the distance, he could see cattle grazing in fields beyond the village proper. Whatever strange twist of fate had brought him here, it hadn't altered the basic fauna.
Turning back toward the orphanage, Darren tried to see the building with fresh eyes. If you could even call it an orphanage. The structure was barely larger than some of the village houses—a single-story wooden building that looked like it had been cobbled together from salvaged materials. To the left, he could see a cooking area that was little more than a fire pit surrounded by rough stones, with a few blackened pots hanging from iron hooks.
Behind the main building, the sight that made his stomach turn: several deep pits dug into the ground, crude wooden seats placed over them. The orphanage's toilet facilities. The smell that wafted from that direction made him understand why the building's windows were always kept open, despite the cool air.
The only positive aspect of the orphanage grounds was the open space—a large area that had been cleared and was being used as a garden. Several of the orphan children were working there now, their small hands pulling weeds and tending to what looked like root vegetables. Their movements were practiced, efficient. This was clearly not their first time doing this work.
The entire village was surrounded by a wooden fence that stood perhaps eight feet high. It wasn't particularly impressive as fortifications went, but it would probably keep out wild animals and provide some warning against bandits. Darren could see a gate at what appeared to be the main entrance, where a dirt road led away into the forest beyond.
As he watched, village children moved about their daily tasks. Some were digging in small family gardens, their backs bent under the sun. Others herded goats and sheep, calling out to the animals in voices that carried across the small settlement. He saw women hanging laundry on rope lines, men repairing tools with hammered metal, and everywhere the constant bustle of people trying to squeeze survival from an unforgiving world.
It was, Darren realized with growing dismay, exactly what medieval peasant life was supposed to look like. Dirty, hard, and brutally simple.
He made his way back to where the orphan children were working in the garden. From Kael's memories, he knew this was their primary source of food. The orphanage had no steady income, no wealthy patrons, no government support. They survived by growing what they could eat and selling whatever surplus they managed to produce—vegetables, flowers, small crafts made during the long winter months.
"Kael!" One of the older children, a girl maybe ten or eleven, looked up from where she was planting seeds. "Sister Marta said you were feeling better. Are you going to help us today?"
Darren nodded, though his heart wasn't really in it. "Yes, I think so."
The work looked simple enough, but as he knelt down beside the other children and began pulling weeds, he quickly realized that Kael's body was even weaker than he'd imagined. Within minutes, his small hands were cramping, and his back ached from the unfamiliar posture.
The sun climbed higher, and still the children worked. Darren tried to keep pace, but sweat began to bead on his forehead despite the cool air. His breathing became labored, and black spots danced at the edges of his vision.
"I need to rest for a moment," he gasped, sitting back on his heels.
The other children barely looked up. They were used to Kael's limitations.
As evening approached, the work finally ended. The children filed back into the orphanage, their hands dirty and their clothes stained with earth. Darren followed, his legs unsteady beneath him.
The dinner room was a cramped space with a single long table and benches that had clearly been built for function rather than comfort. The only light came from a single oil lamp that cast flickering shadows on the walls. The room smelled of wood smoke and whatever was cooking in the pot that Sister Agnes—the sterner of the two sisters—was stirring over the fire.
Sister Agnes was perhaps forty years old, with graying hair pulled back in a severe bun. Her face was weathered and lined, and she moved with the efficiency of someone who had spent years managing too many children with too few resources. She ladled thin soup into wooden bowls, the same watery, unappetizing mixture that Darren remembered from his sickbed.
"Children, let us give thanks," Sister Marta said as everyone took their seats.
The orphans bowed their heads and closed their eyes. Darren followed suit, though he felt strange participating in religious observances for gods he didn't believe in.
"Blessed Gods above," Sister Marta began, her voice carrying the practiced cadence of daily prayer, "we thank you for the food before us, humble though it may be. We thank you for Kael's recovery and return to health. We thank you for the protection of our Lord, who watches over this village and keeps us safe from harm. Grant us strength for tomorrow's labors and peace in our rest. By your grace, we live."
"By your grace, we live," the children echoed.
Darren opened his eyes and looked down at his bowl. The soup was even worse than he remembered—thin, colorless, with a few sad pieces of vegetable floating in what might generously be called broth. The smell alone made his stomach churn.
He forced himself to take a spoonful. The taste was exactly as awful as he'd expected—watery, bland, with an underlying flavor that suggested the vegetables hadn't been entirely fresh when they went into the pot. In his previous life, even the cheapest instant meals had more nutritional value and better flavor than this.
Around him, the other children ate without complaint. This was normal for them. This was what they had always known.
Darren managed a few more spoonfuls before his stomach rebelled. He set the spoon down carefully, hoping no one would notice. The last thing he wanted was to seem ungrateful for food that represented the sisters' best efforts to keep them all fed.
After dinner, the children were led to the sleeping quarters—a single large room lined with straw mattresses and thin blankets. There was no privacy, no personal space, just rows of beds where twenty children of various ages would spend the night together. The only exception was the eldest sister, who presumably had her own small room somewhere else in the building.
Darren lay on his assigned mattress, staring up at the wooden beams of the ceiling. The room was filled with the sounds of children settling down for sleep—whispered conversations, the rustle of straw, occasional coughs from those who weren't entirely well.
This life, he realized, was truly miserable. Everything was harder, dirtier, more uncomfortable than anything he'd experienced in his previous existence. The food was awful, the living conditions were squalid, and there seemed to be no prospect of improvement. Just endless days of scraping by, hoping to survive another winter, another illness, another year.
But as he lay there, Darren found himself thinking about his old life. Had it really been so much better? Yes, he'd had better food, cleaner living conditions, more comfort—but what had he actually accomplished? He'd spent ten years working the same dead-end job, saving every penny for an AI assistant that he'd barely had time to use before dying. He'd never taken risks, never pursued dreams, never really lived.
How many times had he given up on things that seemed too difficult? How many opportunities had he passed by because they weren't safe, weren't guaranteed? He'd always chosen the path of least resistance, the option that required the least courage. It had kept him safe, but it had also kept him small.
His only significant achievement had been saving enough money for the AI installation. Even that had taken him ten years of grinding, careful planning, and sacrifice. Ten years of not living, just existing.
Now he had been given something impossible—a second chance at life. Yes, the circumstances were harsh, the body was weak, and the world was primitive. But it was still a chance. A chance to be someone different, to make choices he'd been too afraid to make before.
"I won't waste this," he whispered to himself. "I won't spend this life just surviving."
"That's an admirable sentiment, User," the AI said quietly in his mind. "But you should be realistic about the constraints you face."
"I know the constraints," Darren replied silently. "But I also know what I'm capable of now. I have your knowledge base, I have adult experience in a child's body, and I have nothing left to lose. That has to count for something."
Sleep came eventually, fitful and uncomfortable on the straw mattress. But for the first time since arriving in this world, Darren felt something approaching hope.
The next morning, he joined the other children in the garden again. He was determined to contribute, to prove that he could be useful despite Kael's physical limitations. The work was still difficult, but he pushed through the discomfort, gritting his teeth against the pain in his back and the cramping in his hands.
"Kael, maybe you should rest," one of the older boys suggested. "You look pale."
"I'm fine," Darren insisted, though sweat was beading on his forehead again.
He kept working, pulling weeds with stubborn determination. The sun climbed higher, and his vision began to blur at the edges. His hands were shaking now, and his breathing had become labored.
"Kael?" someone called, but the voice seemed to come from very far away.
The world tilted sideways, and darkness claimed him.
When Darren opened his eyes, he was back in the small recovery room where he'd first awakened in this world. Sister Marta was sitting beside his bed, her face creased with worry.
"You passed out in the garden," she said gently. "Sister Agnes had to carry you back here."
Darren tried to sit up, but she placed a firm hand on his shoulder.
"No, lie still. You pushed yourself too hard." Her voice was kind but firm. "Kael, your body isn't strong enough for manual labor. It never has been."
"But I want to help," Darren protested. "I don't want to be useless."
Sister Marta smiled sadly. "You're not useless, child. But there are other ways to help that don't require you to work yourself into exhaustion."
"What other ways?"
"Well," she said thoughtfully, "you could help Sister Agnes with organizing our supplies. You could assist with the younger children—reading to them, helping them with their prayers. You could help me with the planning—figuring out what we need to plant, what we might be able to trade in the village."
Darren nodded slowly. She was right, of course. He'd been thinking like someone from his old world, where physical labor was just one option among many. Here, intellectual work might be even more valuable—and it was work that Kael's frail body could actually handle.
"I understand," he said. "I'll find other ways to contribute."
Sister Marta patted his hand gently. "Rest now. Tomorrow we'll find you something more suitable to do."
As she left the room, Darren stared up at the ceiling again. His first attempt at changing his approach to life had ended in failure, but it had also taught him something important. He couldn't just apply brute force to his problems anymore. He needed to be smarter, more strategic.
He needed to think like someone with a twenty-five-year-old mind and access to all of human knowledge, not like a desperate child trying to prove himself through backbreaking labor.
It was time to start planning properly.