Far outside the fortified walls made of stone and copper plates of the capital, crossing the wooden bridges joining the various floating islands for which this country was distinguished from the others, lied a grassy-green plain. This plain was a natural structure of rock and dirt of about 1 mile wide, set afloat by the old magic that made the other islands stay in the air.

The plain had beautiful patches of yellow and white Vyrlian flowers scattered around the area, which were endemic to the country and given their name because of the primary religion of its people. It had great visibility as no trees or buildings were present there, with the exception of a small house with a chimney seemingly always on.

One could walk to the edge of the island, sit with their feet dangling thousands of meters above the ground and see the vast ocean clearly, feel the clouds passing just beneath their feet and watch as boats from other countries arrived at the port city, which was directly below the capital, always covered from the sun.

It is, by all significance of the word, a peaceful place. A place where an old adventurer could retire to once they had saved up enough money. They could live in the small house enjoying the sound of the wind, the fresh smell of the grass and the view of multiple birds flying around.

Once upon a time, this was the reality of this piece of land. Now, however, if you looked closely, something had changed.

The grass was still green, birds still flew around, the clouds still moved beneath and the wind still blew but, besides yellow and white flowers growing on the land, crimson colored flowers had started to bloom. The color of fight, blood and violence.

This was all thanks to an individual known as "The Adamantine Swordsman". One day, he arrived to the country and bought the island, named it Greenland and, outfitted with a full set of adamantine armor -a green metal with superb qualities-, gave a challenge to any resident of the country.

He who shall defeat me will receive treasure and riches befitted to the best of fighters... he said, making every adventurer in the country ready to beat some sense into the man and make themselves rich. Wizards, sorcerers and fighters approached him, entering the makeshift colosseum consisting of crude stone arranged in a circle in front of the small house with a chimney.

"Many a person has tried, hundreds even, and to this day none have succeeded in taking the throne to themselves as the King of Greenland, is what Nevermore is hearing. Yes, Wizard?" said a crow with shining feathers, flapping its wings beside the man with the white robe. Both were floating above the colosseum watching as a man with blue hair tied into a ponytail tried to slash with one of his slim swords the armor of the Adamantine Swordsman.

Just as the sword of the blue haired man was about to touch the armor, a distortion in the air appeared similar to a heat mirage between the sword and the breastplate, making the sword fly out the hands of the man, landing some meters away from the ring of stone.

"That just now... so that is why no normal swordsman can defeat him, and since his armor has high conductivity, magic is not as effective" said the robed man, pondering to himself while stroking his chin.

"The fight is over now, is it not?" said the crow.

After losing one of his swords, the blue haired man unsheathed the other one with a similarly slim edge, but shorter in length and with a blue hilt instead of red. However, as he was about to attack, the Adamantine Swordsman kicked him in the chest with enough force to push him to the edge of the colosseum, leaving the man breathless.

The Swordsman then approached his opponent and put his foot on the man's chest, making him unable to gasp for air, and pointed the tip of his sword towards his neck.

"Now, it is done" said the Wizard, moments before disappearing into thin air.

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The man called Neill repeated the question the woman with pointy ears had said, but unlike the kind and empathetic look the woman had, Neill saw me like one sees a fly landing on their food. He looked vacant, bored and to be quite honest, a kind of dangerousness lingered in his yellow irises unlike I have ever seen in people from my world.

What was his problem? If he does have something against me I better go for the safe option and answer vaguely, maybe they will believe it.

"I... come from the South"

After giving a half-assed answer, Neill and the woman looked at each other with expressions I could not figure out.

"I understand young man, but would it be possible for you to be more specific? I don't mean to pry but, the closest town is at three days of travel and you don't seem to have a horse or supplies with you for the trip" said the blonde haired woman.

"Yeah, now that you say that, it does seem weird" said the man with a spark in his eyes "What are you, huh? If you come from the South, it would be no problem if you told us the name of the town, right?"

Being obviously unable to answer and feeling more and more nervous as if I was in a trial for murder, I just blurted a silent "uh..." and again, the woman and Neill looked at each other, as if communicating telepathically.

An uncomfortable silence settled in, but then, the young girl spoke. Her voice sounded small and a little dry, though I could tell there was a hint of confidence that betrayed my first impression of her; that of a shy and quiet girl, maybe even a magician judging by the staff she carried.

"You know Neill, maybe something happened to him" she said, while still standing under the doorframe.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, maybe you haven't heard because you never care about what happens to your surroundings but, there's been word that members of Serpent's Hand have settled on the road between this city and the swamp-city".

What a strange name, "Serpent's Hand". Could it be a group of sorts?, I thought. Whatever it was, this girl might have just saved me some explaining to do, or even my life.

I will try to play along, for now at least.

"Serpent's Hand, huh?" interjected the woman "It has been almost ten years since I have heard that name, they really have been resurfacing lately"

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"And what does that have to do with why this kid can't seem to be able to tell us the name of his town, huh? Something weird is going on"

"What I am trying to say, Neill is that maybe a magic user from Serpent's Hand might have messed up with his memories or something" said the girl confidently.

"Can magic do that? Really?" asked Neill with what seemed to be a smile on his face, but after seeing that I was watching him he quickly returned to his original state.

"But that wouldn't explain why he was alone, with those weird clothes and basically unharmed. Would a group like Serpent's Hand really do something like leaving a victim?" asked the woman.

"I don't know for sure, but it would not be too far fetched. Maybe he was just not a threat to them so they let him go after a little brain-washing thinking that he would not survive alone in the wilderness either way"

The young girl seemed really smart. I have no idea who Serpent's Hand, and while they seem like trouble they have also become my alibi.

"If that were the case, I don't think we should be meddling with him, what if he is trouble, too?" said the woman who seemingly didn't mind saying I would bring trouble to them with me in the room.

"So, what are you saying Leader? Should we just leave him here?" asked Neill.

"I don't think that would be a good idea" started saying the girl "I'm no expert in Enchantment magic but I believe it could possibly affect a person's long-term memory, especially to someone as weak as him"

The girl stopped speaking for a moment and after a short "Ah" of realization, she turned to me.

"Sorry, no offense" she said, sheepishly.

"I vote for us to keep him"

"Neill, don't talk about him as if he were a pet, we need to discuss this first" and while turning to me "Sorry dear, but could you excuse us a moment?"

As she finished saying that, the three of them abandoned the room, allowing me to finally collapse on the bed, tired of the situation.

✦✦✦

Not a long time passed before they came back. However, their absence gave me enough time to check if my belongings were still there.

"Okay, I have my cellphone, which fortunately is at 83% though it has no signal, so I better turn it off"

Since I took a shower just before arriving here, I had nothing in my pockets besides my phone and, weirdly enough...

"What is this coin doing here?"

It was the coin I had found while walking through the rain. It was very shiny and silver in color. The design was unlike any other coins I had ever seen. It had what looked like a dragon with an open mouth on one side and a pentagon on the other.

Having taken inventory on all my stuff, I decided to look around the small room.

Outside the window I could only see a mud covered street and a wall and beyond the wall was a vast grass plain with tall mountains in the distance. It was a pretty view but not one I could use to gather information. I approached the only other decoration besides the vase of flowers. It was a painting of a snowy mountain with two flying figures, circling the mountaintop.

The painting had a signature, it said Léon M. Dustin, a fancy name.

As I was inspecting the painting, the three came back to the room. Neill and the girl had a satisfied smile, the woman however, had a defeated look.

"All right, young man, after a lot of consideration we have decided to take you with us, but only until we get to where we are going, after that, we leave you in the next town" said the woman, and after extending her hand into a handshake "My name is Valna, that girl over there is Irina and the muscle brain is called Neill. What's your name?"

I shook her hand covered by a fingerless leather glove "My name is Occam"

"What a strange name, man" said Neill.

"It's a pleasure to meet you" said Irina in a low voice.

Watching this group and seeing as they had accepted me in it, albeit temporarily, something deep inside me made me feel happy. I was still worried about how trustworthy these people really were but it was this or being alone in another world. Besides, Irina seems to know a lot and isn't as suspicious of me as the others so maybe I could ask her about my situation, in private of course.

"Anyways, Occam, since your mind seems to be foggy on the details about where you are, let me freshen it up for you" said Valna while searching inside her bag and took out a piece of rolled up paper.

She then approached the table in the room and carefully extended the paper, which seemed to be a map of the region, while calling out for me to approach.

"Look Occam, we are here" she said while pointing at a point in the North side of the map at a town in the middle of three ranges of mountains, the name of the city was written in very medieval looking cursive, and although hard to understand, it said Hipotens.

There seemed to be other places too. There was one named Goldilan to the West, Lantanna to the South and Highlass to the North, though they were marked with fewer detail, maybe indicating they were, in fact, towns and not cities.

"We are going from this city to the town of Lantanna since it is near this mountain range, see?" she said, while following the route with her slender fingers "It is the closest town to the dungeon we are trying to go to, that's where we'll leave you"

"Wait, did you just say dungeon?" I said, a little bit surprised to hear such a fantasy-like word come out of her mouth.

"Yes, we are supposed to go to the Teleios mountain range since there are rumors a Stone Giant settled in the mines there a long time ago, that's why they call them now Giant Mines" said Valna.

"We are going there to steal his treasure" a smile formed on Neill's lips.

"We need the money" completed saying Irina.

"Are you really that strong that you can defeat a Stone Giant by yourselves? They sound dangerous" I said, concerned by their confidence.

"Oh, no absolutely not" said Neill while laughing "That would be a deadly encounter even with another party of three, since we would be in his lair. The Giant must have abandoned those mines years ago, there's only small fry there"

"We expect there only to be some Giant Bats, Spiders, Cave Bears, Chokers, Slimes and maybe, if we are unlucky, some Ramfols" explained Irina, as if reading a book.

While they seemed like a solid party that believed in teamwork, and even though I would not go with them to that dungeon, I couldn't help but feel worried about them.

"It's good that you know your intel and have a plan but, do you have a party name?" I said to them.

"A party name? What do you mean?" asked Valna.

"I mean, don't you need a party name to differentiate your group from the other adventurers?"

"Only famous parties do that, mostly the ones in the capital from what I've heard"

"Well, one cannot be famous without a name. I mean, you want to be famous, right? It means more money anyways" I insisted.

"He's right, Valna. Famous adventurers do get better rates and maybe even sponsors" said Irina while putting her chin between her thumb and index fingers.

"Well, if you think it's beneficial..." Valna said "You can call us The Company of the Wolf for now" while giving me a smile.