Suddenly the darkness lessens and I breathe air. Looking around I seem to be in some ruined castle or something since this world is medieval. Continuing to look around a popping sound brings my attention elsewhere, behind me. What I see freaks me out at first as I see a man with horns, a tail, and a blue glow coming from his eyes.
“You are the one from Tartarus?” The man asks in a very normal voice.
“Maybe?” I reply with my knees shacking. This man is exerting some sort of pressure making me feel terrified.
“So, you are the one, well beside the point, I’m your sponsor.” The man sighs very dramatically before continuing.
“Being your sponsor God means that you can wield magic or be talented in similar areas as my own. I revolve around the fire and desire domains. Unofficially I’m most talented with entertaining myself.” The man with the horns similar to a male goat except being far longer and thicker says before moving his hand towards where his heart should be and pulling out a vibrant red and blue orb that swirled together in a calm manor.
“Can I least have some money for equipment or something!” I say in a loud voice as the wind surrounding us begins to vibrate. The man tosses the orb into my own chest.
“You already have my gifts, use them to survive…if you can.” Disappearing right as he finishes. Finding myself swarmed with a clashing purple light surrounding me I scream in pain as it feels like my heart is constricting. My tailbone screams in agony and I begin to feel a migraine. Except for everything is two times worse than anything you could imagine…I wish I was bleeding out again is my last thought before I pass out.
Awaking with a fuzzy head I try to wipe my forehead since I feel a weight that shouldn’t be there. When my hand touches something. It’s hard and reminds me of when I held an ale horn, except for it being thicker and much harder. My other hand reaches for my forehead as well and I discover two potrusions from my forehead. Messing around with them for a while I believe they rise above my head by a foot. Looking around in case of any other changes I discover I also have a tail which I don’t have much control of. The tail has no scales or hair, it’s completely covered in skin ending at a point. Also realizing this is not my body. This body matches my old one in height and bone structure, big bones and barely reaching 5’10. But this body is in shape, as if it dropped eighty pounds showing the muscles I made back in high school.
Enjoying the feeling of finally seeing my six pack lines from all the sit ups and crunches I did from high school I find myself getting distracted with the changes. Soon realizing I’m still where the god left me I try to figure out what I’m supposed to do. No money, no weapons and with no idea what to expect I begin to walk away.
“Hey! Hey you!” Did I hear something? “Wait, hey come back!” I definitely heard something that time. Looking behind me, I find a man with dark blonde hair, a sword sheathed at his waist wearing what looks like video game starting gear. Brown leather boots, patched pants and a dirty tunic.
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“Finally caught up!” The man pants' with his hands on his knees.
“What do you want?” I ask in a curious tone. The blonde guy than looks up about to explain when he sees me.
“Woah! One of the more unique changes I’ve seen so far.” Not believing I heard him right.
“What do you, there’s others like me?” I ask in slight shock and full of curiosity.
“No one looking like you but many gods change their sponsored looks, it’s not purposeful or anything but when we receive our God’s power we tend to also adapt some of their properties. However, that doesn’t matter. The names Owen and my God told me to find you…” Owen begins to mumble to himself after mentioning his god but I don’t worry too much about it. His God wanted him to find me? Could this be my Sponsors cousin?
“Well why did your God send you to me?” I ask once more. Owen stops mumbling and smiles once more.
“Well he said we should party up, you know travel together and he also said your God’s lazy so he wanted me to help you understand this place.” Owen finishes and I can’t help but see only one bad side. Betrayal. I would like to say I have a good moral indicator since I was an addict and all but it’s not existent. So, with a semi heavy heart I decide I would travel with him as the knowledge gained could be useful.
“Fine, but first how the hell do I get money?” I ask in an exasperated tone.
“Your god truly is lazy, basically killing animals or monsters and taking what’s valuable off them. Animals sell dirt cheap and depending on the rank and materials of the monster depends what it will sell for, there is also banditry, mercenary work, guards and so on.” Owen finishes as we step into the forest surrounding my grey tower’s ruins.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to mention we call money coins, money is paper and well there is no paper coins!” Owen laughs at his own unfunny joke. We continue to walk against the sun through the forest as Owen explains the basics to me. Like how rankings are from Z to A for this continent. Meaning this is the weakest continent on this world and even an A ranked person is considered weak to any other continent. There is also only copper and silver in this continent as well since nothing worth a gold coin would willingly live here besides the failures who could not survive in the stronger continents.
Owen also brings to my attention that most God’s have numerous proxies. Proxies being the one sponsored. All due to the fact of many could be potential talents that turn out to be weak emotionally or physically and soon are casted out and since the gift can’t be taken back these same proxies are then basically abandoned. Our talks continued as Owen proved to me there was magic in this world by slashing a tree and leaving a slight cut within the trunk with a light similar to the guy who talked to me first after my death. The attack was not very powerful but it proved there was magic so I was happy to learn although he did mention we can only use what our God can use which put a dampener to my mood although only slightly as I have finally found what I wanted, a world where the strong live and the weak serve. Only problem is I’m the weakest of them all.
Once the sun goes completely down Owen and I stop for the night to sleep but as it turns out I had no sleeping bag or skin or whatever this new world’s term is for a sleeping bag and Owen wouldn’t lend me his. Obviously, I slept on the ground as I thought of ways to raise my rank and discover the stronger continents, what I will need to do and how to do it. However, thinking of these continents made me think of my old world and how my family was but yet I can’t seem to remember if I had a family. Hell, I can’t even remember my name even if my God was supposed to give me one. Thinking further as my eye lids droop I finally decide maybe it’s better if I forget my old life and live in my new one.