Chapter

One

Mark stood in the ruins of a burned-down house, looked into a cracked mirror, and knew he was insane. He had a whole headful of memories, and none of them seemed to match the reality in front of his eyes.

He saw a young boy, maybe ten, not older than fourteen, staring right back at him. That was not his age. That was not his face. His memories were all full of a programmer named Mark in his late twenties, with sandy blond hair that was already balding. The boy in the mirror had thick black hair, cut short, with sky blue eyes, eye-catching eyes like Mark had always been jealous of.

The biggest problem was the vicious oozing scab going all the way across the top of his scalp and down to the middle of his eyebrow. Spots of blood-like splatter marks were dotting his shoulders and face, but he didn’t feel hurt at all. More importantly, Mark had never gotten an injury like that in his life. Not even in the car crash.

The car crash. The last thing Mark remembered before waking up here was his car slipping on the ice and the crash. He’d been rushing home, eager to finish a couple hours of work from his home computer before finally being done for the day. His mind had been on work the entire drive, and even after the crash, when his body was screaming with pain and he felt the sting of the cold pavement drain away his life, he’d still been distracted with work, thinking about who was going to finish his project if he didn’t make it in tomorrow. His last thoughts… had been about work. What a stupid life. He was glad it wasn’t real.

Because it had to have been a dream, right? He hadn’t gotten any head injuries. The image in the mirror looked like an ax had chopped straight through the skull and into the boy’s brain. But that couldn’t be; the gash was already scabbed over, and he didn’t feel any kind of injury on his skull.

The car crash, this weird boy in the mirror, it was all a dream. If this was really real, and he was really real, then he would be freaking out right now. Instead, he took it all in with a strange sort of detachment. His head hurt, and he was dizzy, but… but that could happen in dreams, right? He’d wake up any minute now.

He didn’t. He stared into the mirror, and the boy stared back at him.

The boy was skinny, starving maybe, but full of lean, corded muscle. Mark had never had muscles like that, not even as an adult. It painted a certain kind of picture. This boy had been expected to work for his dinner, and work hard.

Would he object to the fact that Mark was living in his body now? Maybe not. The house contained the smoldering remains of two adult bodies. His parents? The bodies were so disfigured by fire that he couldn’t tell anything about them, not even age or gender.

The fire hadn’t burned away everything, though. There was the mirror of course, as well as a stone fireplace, with a big black pot and a fire poker nearby. A house fire wouldn’t be hot enough to melt iron. He could search for valuables? He looked at the corpses again and decided he didn’t want to.

His head swam. His stomach felt queasy. He needed to get out, to go outside. Although, outside was a relative term; the ceiling was completely gone, and he could see straight up to the misty gray clouds. It was going to rain soon.

He put a hand to a remaining section of blackened wall to steady himself, and it crumbled under his slight weight. He stumbled away from it, startled that it had moved.

Outside of the burned home, it was worse. There was a long dirt road, lined on each side with black and burned-out houses. Some of them still smoldered silently, but most lay cold and empty. Nothing moved, except for a murder of happy, hopping crows.

In the street, not six feet away from him, lay the corpse of a man. It had the same rough woolen clothes that he realized he was wearing, but much more ornate, with lines of colorful embroidery all up and down the legs and arms. The body wasn’t decaying yet; whatever happened in this weird town hadn’t been too long ago. Maybe a day. There were more corpses, here and there, down the street. He didn’t look at them.

He knew he should be… something. Emotional. Scared. Panicking. Crying, maybe? He didn’t feel anything. Even the scar on his head didn’t seem to hurt, a little itchy maybe, but that was it. He just felt numb.

He walked away, past house after house, until he got outside of the town. There were wide fields next, post-harvest. It was autumn, then? It didn’t look like it. The trees in the distance were still bright green.

He walked until he got to the trees and he couldn’t smell ash anymore and sat down beneath a tree. He didn’t know what kind. The leaves were five-pointed, in a perfect pentagram. Maybe that wasn’t that weird; he didn’t know much about trees.

He sat beneath the tree and waited for whatever this was to be over. And waited. Hours passed, and the whole experience started to feel real.

It wasn’t like he never watched anime; he knew what this had to be. He’d been isekai’d, right? Except which was more likely: that he’d actually been transported to another world, or that he was in a coma from his car crash and his imagination had painted a world exactly like he’d expect from the media he’d consumed?

But if it was a dream, why was nothing happening? The entire time he’d been sitting under the tree, nothing had happened. The one thing about dreams was that they never stayed still.

He was starting to get thirsty. Hungry, too, and most of all bored. He stood up and walked the entire way back to town.

He found a lot of bodies—more than he would like, but they didn’t affect him as much as he’d thought they would. Numb. Why was he so numb?

He felt the cool breeze against the muggy heat. He felt the dirt road through his thin shoes. But in his heart he felt… not much. Cold calculation.

That man lying in the street looked like he died from bludgeoning. That child in a house over there died from fire, probably asphyxiation first then burning. This woman in the doorway died from decapitation. This was probably all a dream anyway, best if it didn’t affect him too much.

One structure still stood: an old-fashioned well. It was the kind with a big bucket that you had to pull up with a wooden crank. He dropped it in and cranked until his arms burned, then took a deep drink right out of the bucket. The water was cool, refreshing, almost sweet, and much too real.

The bucket itself was pretty neat; it was all wood, except the various planks it was made of were held together by slotting into each other perfectly like a jigsaw puzzle.

The dirt road and the small houses without any concrete in the walls or foundation had made him think this town was medieval, but the bucket made him think otherwise. Something this perfect had to have been made with machine tools. That, or by someone with way too much time on their hands.

Curious, he steeled himself and started to search the houses.

Like the first house, many of them had big cast-iron cooking pots in stone fireplaces. That alone made him think it was a pre-industrial society. But there were oddities. The doors had very intricate brass doorknobs and locks, and he found the remains of a clock in one larger home.

He smacked his forehead. The mirror. He’d found a mirror in the house he’d woken up in. Household mirrors hadn’t become a thing until the 19th century.

He was in 1850 or so? The only problem with that was the bodies. Every corpse that wasn’t burned away showed signs of violence, but not a single bullet wound. Slashing and bludgeoning wounds, unnecessarily large and brutal. But no bullet wounds, not a single one.

He didn’t find a single gun in any of the houses either, or on any of the corpses even though several of them still carried their weapons. Spears and halberds mostly, but one man had a scythe and another some kind of ridiculously oversized ax.

That’s how he knew for a fact that this wasn’t real. The technology didn’t match the time period at all.

Despite knowing it wasn’t real, time continued to march on, and he didn’t wake up.

He found a nice big rock and sat down. The sun was starting to cross over the horizon. He’d been searching the houses all day. He felt the warm, muggy air. He heard the cawing of the crows, and felt his stomach churning unpleasantly. It felt real.

Maybe it was time to start acting like this was real life? Honestly though, he didn’t want this to be real.

Something appeared in front of his eyes. A blue box, with white letters.

#̸̜̜͂Ḡ̸̜H̵͍̮͂Z̸̨̛͘^̵͂̽͜J̸͖̻̄^̵̛͉̩̿&̵͓̍̐A̷̠̳̍!̴͕͆$̸̡̼̑͆

He had no idea what it meant. Another came.

E̴͔͊̀R̶͈̒!̵͖̫̎!̶̛͓̽$̸̜͓̈́͒#̴͖̟̐͒T̴̓̆

E̷͈̓r̵̨̀r̵̼̋ỏ̸̬r̶̼̆

̶̦̅E̴͚͋r̷͔͌r̶̗͑o̶̧̕ŕ̸͈

̷̝̊Ṣ̷͂y̶͈̽s̵͈̓ṭ̸͘ȩ̴̽m̴̭͊ ̸͎̑n̸̽͜ǫ̵̀n̶̫̊-̷͉͐e̷̲͐n̸̮̈t̶̺̀i̸̖̐t̶͕͘ÿ̷͙́ ̶̺̽f̷͉̍ó̸̡ů̷̞n̴̬͐d̴̠͐

He jumped back, so quickly that he hit his head on something. He couldn’t see anything but the messages, and they kept coming.

P̶̅͜ŕ̷͉o̸͎̕ċ̶̟e̵̻̽s̸͈̔ş̴̊i̵̠̽n̴̪͂g̴̓ͅ

̶͍̈́ E̷̯̎r̸̯̀r̴̙̕ő̶̥r̴̖̿.̷͎̊

̵͐ͅE̷̬̎Ȓ̴̺R̸̗͐O̵̢͐R̶͔̊

̴̻̌ A̶̢͂Ĺ̶̟Ë̶̗Ŗ̸̈́T̴͉̾

They were becoming clearer. Error messages?

“What are you?” he asked, shocked at his small, high-pitched voice. Was that really the first time he’d spoken in his new body? Wow, he really was thinking of this as his new body, wasn’t he?

C̷o̸n̷t̴a̶c̸t̶ ̶e̷s̵t̷a̷b̴l̶i̵s̷h̵e̶d̵.̵

P̸r̵o̷c̵e̶s̵sing…

Processing…

Hello! Welcome to #HG%!Error

Alert!

You have been granted System access.

You are a child. Your System has been limited.

You have been granted the class: Child of Travin’s Bog

You can now see your status screen.

You have gained a title: Traveler

You have gained a title: Otherworlder.

Notice: Titles are locked pending full System access.

You have been granted the skill: Frenarian Language Fluency

You have been granted the skill: Frenarian Language Literacy

Notice: System skills are locked pending full System access.

Alert!

System Override: Frenarian Language Fluency unlocked

System Override: Frenarian Language Literacy unlocked

Mark smiled. Of course. The blue screens. He really was dreaming. Any minute now he’d get his special cheat power, and then he’d go on an epic quest to defeat the demon king.

Alert!

You have been granted the skill: Know What’s Real

System Override: Know What’s Real unlocked

“Nothing to do but check my status screen. I guess I should just get it over with. Status,” said Mark.

Information

Name: Mark !Error!

Age: 12

Race: Human

Class: Child of Travin’s Bog

Level: 1

Attributes

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 12

Vitality: 8

Magic: 9

Control: 10

Will: 8

Titles

Traveler: Locked

Otherworlder: Locked

Those seemed… fine. The numbers weren’t high enough to make him think he had cheat-like god powers or anything, but they didn’t seem terribly low. Not that he had anything to compare it to. The average human strength could be 1 for all he knew. Or 100. It wasn’t over yet, though.

Skills

Frenarian Language Fluency

You can speak and understand the language of your native country, Frenaria.

Frenarian Language Literacy

You can read and write the language of your native country, Frenaria.

His “native country,” huh? He could still remember how to speak English, but now he was shocked to find he had a whole new language in his mind, and he could compare the two. He talked out loud to himself, trying to get a feel for the new language on his tongue.

“Let’s give this a try,” he said, which came out to “To looni, indisu to isu o in’allini tellidu dulunni entlaven.”

It was sort of a caveman language, to be honest. There weren’t different verb forms for past and present and future: you had to say the time and place. “I go tomorrow” and “I go yesterday” instead of “I will go” or “I went.” And “Let’s give this a try” didn’t translate exactly, so he’d ended up saying something like “We will now do an attempt,” which had somehow taken twenty-five entire syllables to say, instead of a reasonable five or six.

He couldn’t get too bogged down in the language, though, cool as it was to have it magically appear in his head. This sweet dream had one Skill left for him, and he hoped it was a good one.

Know What’s Real

The goddess Solia has noticed your unique circumstances and granted this skill as a boon. You have the ability to understand when something you experience or remember is real, and when it is an illusion or dream. Mark, this is real. I’m sorry, but it’s really happening and you’re in danger!

Reading the skill must have triggered it, because as soon as he read the words, the reality of his situation hit with the weight of the entire world.

He had died and been reincarnated, or isekai’d or portaled, but whatever the case, the truth was that his old life was over. His nice apartment downtown, his hefty vacation fund, his six-figure job, it was all gone. He’d never see his parents again, or his friends. He’d never make things right with his ex.

He wanted to pretend that it was possible that he was crazy, or that he was dreaming. But the new Skill, [Know What’s Real], left no room for doubt. He knew what was real. It was all real, and it was happening.

The beautiful, protective numbness he’d felt since coming to this world was gone, and in its place was pain. Pain, fear, and loss so profound he thought he might choke on it.

“No. No no no no nonono. Please.” He sank to his knees. What was the name of that goddess? He read the notification again. “Solia, no, please. Take it back. I don’t want that. Just let me die oblivious and happy. I’d be fine with that. Please.”

He’d gone to church almost every Sunday for most of his life, so it was embarrassing how quickly he forgot the whole “no other gods before me” thing, but this was important. “Please. Take it away.”

Tears sprang to his eyes, but he forced them back down. A life with contact lenses had turned that into instinct. He wouldn’t need contacts anymore. His vision was perfect now. At least he had that going for him.

He laughed at himself, and it came out as a desperate sob.

He heard a sound behind him and whirled around while trying to stand, nearly falling over himself in fright. You’re in danger. But it was just a stupid bird.

He was in danger, though. The second part of the [Know What’s Real] had a different tone, like someone had hijacked part of the notification to send him a warning. Maybe Solia, maybe someone or something else. Whoever it was, he couldn’t disregard it. The danger was real.

And as much as he told himself he didn’t want to live with this huge, gnawing, empty sense of loss that was building in his stomach, he was also afraid to die. Somehow he knew he would die if he didn’t do something quick.

But what? What was the danger?

Almost unbidden, that wrinkly brain he was so proud of kicked into full gear. The danger was probably the same thing that had killed everyone in this town. He’d walked up and down this town, and looked in the basements and cellars, and he hadn’t found a single living soul.

Nature hadn’t done this. When Mother Nature rebuked her children, she almost always left some alive to spread the word. Beasts ate until they were full; they didn’t leave corpses in the street. Fires would never burn every house, while leaving the forest around the town alone. Only people could do something like this.

People or… monsters? He was in some kind of fantasy world. The blue screen proved it. Monsters were a possibility. But since he had no idea what kind of monsters were possible, he couldn’t really adjust his plans for it.

He had two options. Hide in one of the intact cellars, or run into the forest. Fighting wasn’t an option. His system was locked since he was a child, and he didn’t know when it would be unlocked. Could be ten minutes, could be ten years. It wasn’t worth depending on.

Two options, hide or flee. If it really was an army, then fleeing into the forest was the better option. The army, if that’s what it was, had gone house to house and killed every single living soul. They must’ve dragged out anyone hiding in the cellars, because he hadn’t found any corpses there. On the other hand, if the danger was wolves or monsters drawn to the carrion spread all over the town, then the better option was to hide in the cellars. Which was more likely? He had no way of knowing.

“Think!” he told himself. “What else do I know? This was recent. From the way that some of the homes are still smoking, they were probably lit on fire yesterday. Or maybe the night before? Solia’s skill said I’m in danger, but nothing happened when I was wandering around uselessly all day. That probably means the danger came at night.”

The crow was still there, looking at him like he was crazy, so he asked, “Is that what happened? Did something come last night?”

Of course the crow didn’t answer. It hopped a couple times, then lazily flew away.

Mark checked the horizon. Thick foggy clouds covered the sky, but it was rapidly growing darker. He had minutes before nightfall. Not even enough time to get to the forest, unless he sprinted.

He hid. He found a cellar, the perfect one. It was somewhat hidden behind tall grass, but he could still see through a tiny gap in the door to the cross street with the well. From there he watched, waiting to see what happened. Waiting to see if he’d survive his first night in his new life.