"Is he alive?" A tall, muscular man with ginger hair looked down, arms crossed.
"His heart is beating, but he is not breathing... This is truly strange." A woman who had her ear on the boy's chest spoke up.
"Hmm, let's leave him by the fire for now. We will come check on him later in the night. That said, it is indeed strange. How long has he been stuck in that thick block of ice? He looks strangely full of vitality." The ginger man mused.
Then suddenly, he wrapped his arm softly around the woman with long silver hair, and kissed the side of her cheeks. The woman hugged her from the side as well, slowly snuggling her nose in the man's neck as he picked her up and took her outside the room.
Back in the room, laying by the fireplace, the boy laid motionless. He was a tall boy that looked no older than 18 or 19 years of age, with extremely messy and full brown-golden hair, sharp face and thin, puffed lips. His complexion was extremely pale.
Suddenly, his fingers twitched. His complexion improved a little as he tapped his fingers against each other. Slowly, his eyes fluttered open, revealing a pair of long, siren-shaped, pale-grey eyes.
Just as cognizance returned, his eyes widened and he sat up, heaving heavy breaths.
He was hyperventilating.
The effect stemmed from suddenly waking up from a vulnerable state and being in a surrounding that he did not recognize. However, the boy did not panic.
Instead, he dragged in a deep breath and held it for a few painful seconds before releasing it in a shudder. Then he raised a hand and forced two fingers down his throat, gagging himself until the panic subsided.
He almost retched but no contents left his mouth. The action of sudden self-harm had immediately took effect and curbed the panic-attack.
Once he had calmed down, he looked around himself.
The room was small and he found himself laying on some kind of woolen rug. To his left was a hearth where twigs crackled and bigger logs burnt continuously, black smoke coiling up through the brick chimney that led up to the roof.
There was a window that overlooked the green expanse outside that led to what looked like the edge of a cliff.
Other than that, the walls were thick and uneven, built from stone rather than steel or reinforced composite.
The boy's expressions did not look complicated, and instead of panicking, he quietly assessed everything.
'Where am I?'
He searched his memory carefully. He had been ordered to travel to Köln for the Annual Meeting. The drive from the airport had been smooth and uneventful, with him having no recollection of sudden stops.
'Nothing should have gone wrong. Even if an assassin from one of the other Six Syndicates had acted, I would have sensed it. I am really hypersensitive to the presence of Arcanum, after all. An attack on my life would not have escaped my notice.'
He glanced around the room again.
The place was strange—the warmth, the materials, the crude construction—it reminded him of back home, but only in the vaguest sense. There were no buildings like this, not even on the most remote islands.
While lost in his thoughts, he suddenly remembered something. He stood up, and took a deep breath, and then stepped forward.
In that instant, the entire room and the space beyond the door of that room shrunk to a single step. In that compressed space that looked like a distorted mess of bent space and broken mirrors, the boy crossed the threshold and arrived in the front lawn.
"What...What?! Who are you?!"
The voice came from a young boy who looked a little younger than he was. The young boy's voice was shrill, still in its maturing phase.
"What is your name?"
The wind whipped his coat and tie and the bundle of messy bronde hair whipped against his pale face.
The younger boy looked wary, but seeing him appear out of thin air made him unable to act or react in any form or way. "Rag...Ragnar..." A flicker of recognition crossed Ragnar's face. "Y-You're the Ice Man!"
"Ice Man? That is an interesting name." The boy replied in a humorous tone. "I am Arthur." He looked around the front lawn. It was a wide lawn with various kinds of flowers, some of which Arthur recognized and some of them he didn't.
"Are you parents home? I remember two adults talking over my body. Did they bring me here?"
"Y-Yes..." Ragnar replied.
'The language is recognizable. It's the same as my mother tongue, but with a really strange accent. Even Danish sounds more recognizable than this one.'
Arthur pasquinaded internally. 'That said, this boy called me Ice Man just now. What could be the reason behind that? It would be quite funny if it was because I was trapped in ice, heh-heh.'
Just as he was about to talk, he suddenly heard quick footsteps behind him. He looked back and saw two figures standing across the wide lawn.
The man had ginger hair and brown eyes and was 2.1metres tall. Meanwhile, the other one, the woman, had silver hair and olive colored eyes. She was quite tall as well, standing at 1.75metres.
"You woke up. Who are you?" The tall man's hands balled into fists as Arthur's pale grey eyes moved from him to the beautiful woman and then back to the man.
"I am Arthur. Seeing your reactions, I believe you have nothing to do with my...state."
"What? No! Of course not!." The man responded.
"What happened to you? Why were you in that place? Do you remember anything?" The woman was the one who talked this time. She had a cute, round face. Her nose was uncharacteristically sharp amidst her otherwise soft features.
Arthur looked around and felt the fresh air around himself. "My guess would be as good as yours." He loosened his tie a little as he spoke.
Only then did the couple and their child notice how oddly Arthur was dressed compared to them. He was wearing a white buttoned shirt with the top button undone, a black tie, black coat, black pants and black shoes.
"Are you from Ironhold?"
"Hm? Ironhold? There's a place like that?"
Arthur was befuddled. He had extensively read a lot of books and he was quite confident that he could name any every city's name in the world. So when faced with a question like that, he couldn't help but frown.
"Of course...?" The ginger man made a strange face. "One of the bigger cities in the Southern Continent. Have you never heard of it?"
A small thought took root in Arthur's head. It was baffling, and logical reasoning dictated that it should've been impossible, however, he still believed it.
'Have I transmigrated into another world?
It can't be impossible. After all, the Six Syndicates controlled the entire world since they could wield magic. Magic in itself would've been treated as a joke in our world, but yet, it was an ironclad truth.
But how did I even transmigrate? I did not die, nor do I remember something happening to me. I was not poisoned, I am immune to almost all naturally found poisons, thanks to the physique that came with wielding Arcanum.
A sudden attack? Unless one of the current Lords or Ladies directly attacked me, I am quite confident that no one else could've done so in such a discreet manner. Then how...
This is quite a confusing mystery.'
"I do not remember a lot of things." Arthur replied while putting a hand on his head, acting as if dizzy. "I can only remember my name."
"How unfortunate." The ginger man responded as he shook his head. "Regardless, let's sit inside. It will get quite cold in a few hours, so we better hurry inside. Let us resume our talks there."
Arthur looked back and tried to tap into his powers once again, however, it was dull, and the Distortion he had used a while ago did not prove to be as potent as before.
'It seems like the Nodes inside my body that circulated Arcanum like blood have weakened. Hmm... But have I really transmigrated? They are talking the same language as my mother tongue, but with a weird accent, and I have not shifted souls.
I still have my face and my body, I can tell that much. Even my clothes are just how they were.
Was I teleported into this world and not transmigrated? That is a sound assumption to make, for now, as long as I don't have further evidence to base my assumptions or thoughts on, I will refrain from confusing myself with make-believe theories.'
"I will take up on your offer then." Arthur's stomach churned as he looked up and gave them a polite smile. "I am a little hungry too."
'I can sense magic from them. Is everyone able to use it here?'
Arthur pondered with knitted brows as he followed the two inside, while Ragnar quickly snapped back to his senses, shivered and ran after his parents and the Ice Man.
Just as Ragnar followed Arthur toward the house, his eyes caught something impossible.
Arthur's shadow suddenly fractured into a static, momentarily revealing a man with two heads!
When he blinked, it was gone. Ragnar's stomach knotted, but he couldn't tear his eyes away as Arthur strode confidently ahead, disappearing into the house with his parents.