Was he in a game? Or was he in another dimension? He doubted the former because an achievement or some form of a notification would most probably appear saying, “Congratulations on chasing off three murderous bandits we put you to pit against before you understand the context of where you are, who you are and how to speak our language.”

Lost in thoughts, he had not noticed the crow perched on a bucket next to the sink. It was not a crow, of course, for it had blood-red eyes and sharp talons that clenched the handle it rested on. He jumped and it flew, cawing alarmingly straight through the door. He peered at gap the thugs had left open, the field of exotic plants stretched beyond his vision. There were a few huts and houses in the distance but he could not spot anyone in sight.

The image of the menacing goblin was still in his head. If he needed answers, it needed to be answered here. He rolled up the ladder with ease and found the giant wooden latch on the door and slammed it into a hole wide enough for it to fit in, all with one hand. It was strange being strong, for he felt empty, empty of fat, aches and fatigue. He gave the wooden door a shove to ensure it was locked, the wooden latch groaned and splintered instead.

“Mental note: I need to keep this strength under control before I make this entire house collapse.” he muttered as he tried his best to restore the latch into its original position. Great, time for some digging.

It was very fortunate that the owner of this house had a room dedicated to books. It was extremely messy and several were still left opened, pages facing the carpeted floor. A window gave away a view to more huts, crops and this time, a wide tarred road cut a field of wild grass and the neighbouring crops.

A clear reflection of his new face glanced back at him. His eyes were...boring. They looked bored and extremely relaxed, jet black hair went as far as his eyebrows, in contrast to his blonde, spiky hair. It was odd to compliment one’s own body but he was too perfect. But then again, this was not his body. There was not a trace of acne or the old scar on his cheek (where Adam had elbowed him in the face). Yet, the more he stared, the more vague his original facial features got. As he struggled desperately to remember the mole that was under his lip, something else clicked in his brain.

Jericho Warwick.

It was a whisper that went as fast as it came, like a gust of wind that blew open the doors for an arriving storm. It rattled him to his very bones but he knew the name as if he had it from the very beginning. Something screamed at him, telling him that it was not, because it was certain that Warwick had never been his last name but it stuck to him and Jericho did not consider the idea of another name for a very long time.

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Jericho began exploring in the room filled with books, it was dimly lit with only a gaslamp as a light source, which was set on the wooden stool leaning against the wall. There were three shelves lined up vertically parallel to one another. There was a distinct smell of a basement in the room, it was oddly soothing to inhale for Jericho, who had spent the week skimming through the first two shelves.

There seemed to be no sign of a bed, an old, musty mattress seemed to be what the owner of the house preferred. He showered with a wooden bucket and slept in the living room with no blanket whatsoever. So far, visitors had not come to bother him and he lived off a large basket filled with what looked like hardened bread and a dozen jugs of water he had collected from the nearby well. As water resources ran out quickly, he paid another visit to the well to find a family of three filling a three buckets of water. Jericho had half expected to be robbed again but they walked off without a word.

It seemed to Jericho that he had not been transported to a medieval world as many strange sights and objects denied this. On the third day of his stay, Jericho heard the revving of an engine on the road near the hut. He snapped his book shut and sprinted for the window only to see a trail of dust left behind. The gaslamp was another giveaway because he was certain these things was not invited until the 1800s. Yet the lack of proper basic tools and technology in the hut puzzled him. From many pictures illustrated in some of the odd books he found, it seemed to Jericho that he was in a world where the level of development was in the World War Two era. An illustration of a military sergeant confirmed his suspicions for he was dressed in full military attire with something that resembled a bayonet in his hands. A bulky tank was parked behind the stone-faced man.

From the lack of proper facilities that parallel the illustrations he saw of soldiers and strange contraptions, Jericho roughly knew where this hut was located. The metallic bucket that was supposed to be a sink and the absence of an actual restroom in this house and the surrounding field of crops could only mean that Jericho had “spawned” in a rural area of the world.

By the fifth day, Jericho had finally came across what he was looking for: a dictionary. It was extremely thick, its cover wrapped in a leather casing that looked like it was close to imploding. The alphabet was not long at all, consisting of merely fifty strange symbols he learnt in a single night. The strange thing was, that Jericho could pronounce these letters by themselves by simply staring at them. A voice would read the letters and he jolted down each of the pronunciations carefully. By the sixth day, he was able to read sentences with moderate difficulty.

The dictionary also contained extremely useful information such as The Jorkai or The Highlander, the ruler of Gaesus Empire (which was where the dictionary was printed), a major kingdom of the realm Gaiana. The book was classified under categories such as technology, agriculture, monarchy and law. From the many illustrations Jericho saw, he could positively confirm that Gaesus had long emerged from the industrial revolution. From steam trains, ships, automobiles and tanks, Jericho wondered if arriving in this era was a good thing.

Soon, Jericho could read sentences with fluidity and speed without looking at the alphabet chart. He had spent a week reading non-stop and was rewarded handsomely for it. And then, as a thunderstorm shook the hut on the eighth night of his reading, something knocked three times on the door, signalling the beginning of Jericho Warwick’s journey through Gaiana.