The walk out of the cave was pleasant enough, considering Lucas almost lost his life for what, the second time? Third time? Depending on perspective, the tremors might even tally up a couple more times, so maybe five deaths? Five times? Really? Jeez. Oh, but we’re talking about the cave here. Yeah, it was a nice walk in there. Nice blue tunnels, nice bluer crystals, no tremors, no vampires, no wolves. Just a simple walk that would have cost him a pretty penny back on Earth to experience, and even then he doubted that this place had an Earth-like equivalent.

Put simply, it was neat. Would have been better if he wasn’t comparing the nice walk to his other terrible experiences, though.

Lucas couldn’t say that the walk to the village was as nice as the walk in the cave- after all, it started snowing again. It wasn’t a blizzard like it was previously, it was more of a peaceful snowfall. The sky was still mostly clear, and he could easily see far out into the distance. But the snowflakes were large and plentiful, enough to start piling onto the already snow-covered ground, building the snowy blanket to ever greater heights. Some snow shoes would have been really useful since he could have just walked on top of the snow if he had them, but alas, he was forced to plant his legs into the snow every time he wanted to take a step forward. At least he had some cold resistance, because if he didn’t, oh boy his legs would probably have numbed before he ever made it to the village, then he would have died alone out in the middle of nowhere, in a place where the only person who even knew who he was was a sadistic, blood-sucking old man who magically tortured him half to death.

After his snowy trek, he arrived at the village. There weren’t many people out and about – he only saw about five adults, and a few brats running around screaming and playing with in the snow – but that wasn’t surprising considering the weather. What was surprising, however, was that as soon as he saw the state of the village, he he had the staunch realization he wasn’t on Earth anymore. Well, he already knew that, obviously, but this quaint little community definitely had a few things that he never would have found back home. One, there were some automatic snow blowing machines rolling around, clearing the village’s roads of most the snow. Not that there were many roads to begin with, since there were probably only a couple of dozen of buildings here, but what roads were there, were maintained. That’s amazing. Earth couldn’t even properly handle road maintenance so seeing it done so easily here, in a quaint little village like this, was an eye-opener to say the least.

As he got walked around, one of the snow blowers came close to him, and he was able to see it in better detail. In its most base form, it was essentially a tall box on two wood wheels. Sure, there were some details here and there to make it look a bit nicer, but all it really amounted to was a stone box. At the bottom, there was a scoop that scooped up snow as it rolled along the roads, and at the top, it released some steam, which wasn’t even hot. It was odd – he stuck his hand over the machine as it rolled by, just to test the temperature, but rather than being scalding like steam should be, it was cool to the touch.

“Oi, don’t touch them, they’re fragile,” a voice called out form behind Lucas, startling him. When he turned around, he saw what could only be described as a stereotypical sorceress. She wore dark red wizard robes which accented her driftwood skin, and she also wore a matching hat. It was pointy, had a large brim, and was no doubt enchanted with some spell or other. Probably a heat spell or something, considering all the snow that fell on it immediately melted. Another thing about her was her long, curly, dark brown hair that fell down past her shoulders. It was the curliest hair he had ever seen.

“Er. Right. Sorry,” Lucas said, unsure of how to respond. The strange device (was it a golem? weren’t golems more anthropomorphic than this?) rolled on by and continued doing its job.

“Who even are you, anyway? I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” the sorceress asked with a growing concern in her voice. Right, he supposed a backwater village like this probably wouldn’t get too many visitors. It didn’t exactly look like there was a lot out here besides trees and snow.

“Xandrious, I lived in a cabin nearby, then Frank came by and told me to piss off to the village,” Lucas told no lies other than his name. No siree, he was a mostly honest guy. That encounter with the vampire was more than enough to make sure he never told another lie again… except about his name, apparently. He couldn’t exactly tell these people that he was apparently possessing a noble’s body, after all, but if they could catch him on this lie, then what could he even do? Nothing, probably, except hope he could run faster than they could.

“Oh, you’re that noble,” she said with a sigh of disappointment, which he could visibly see since it was so cold out. That little sight quickly disappeared into the snow, though. It was obvious that this person already had some preconceived opinions about him, so once again Lucas was caught off guard as to what to expect from this conversation. Would she annoy him to no end like Frank, or would she torture him because he looked funny like that bloodsucker? It was the world’s worst coinflip, and yet he was forced to toss that coin anyway.

“Yes, I am,” Lucas agreed. “Where is Frank, anyway?”

“Who is Frank?”

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“I don’t know,” Lucas said as he raised his shoulders and arms into a shrug. “He didn’t give me his name when he showed up at my cabin, even after I told him a magical experiment left me with some amnesia. So I named him Frank.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Well I couldn’t just call him nothing,” Lucas rolled his eyes.

“No, not that,” the sorceress pinched the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “I meant the magic. I’d heard you had some magic veins in your body, but not nearly enough to actually cast anything. Why did you force it when everyone was telling you not to?”

“Magic veins?” Lucas asked.

“Yes, you know- well, maybe you don’t. Right, amnesia,” she groaned. He was glad that his memory loss was accepted at plain value. If Lucas were in her position, he’d immediately expect foul play as soon as someone like him claimed amnesia.

“There you are!” Another voice screamed at them. One that sounded a bit familiar, like he had heard it a day or so ago, and it had really annoyed him, and he would have preferred not hearing the voice ever again nor see the person attached to it. Once again, Lucas turned around to reluctantly confirm that Frank had arrived. He looked pretty angry, what since his brows were furrowed, his face was red, and his mouth was warped into a petty frown, but despite his obvious foul mood, Lucas couldn’t help but let out a little giggle. It seemed someone else was having a bad day besides him, and that person just happened to be someone Lucas couldn’t stand. It was impossible to not feel good out of spite.

“Frank! I missed your obnoxious voice, how have you been?” Lucas asked with a smile.

“You’re Frank?” the sorceress asked him, and the man shook his head violently.

“You I’m not, Daria.”

“I know a Fra--”

“Shut up, Xandrious. Where did you run off to?” Frank interrupted him and jabbed his finger in his face. A primal instinct told him that he should either bite the finger, or spit in the man’s face, but he did neither. He’d met this guy hundreds of times over. Not literally, obviously, but every rude customer back at ***dy’s always pointed fingers, shouted loudly, and became extremely aggressive over petty inconveniences. This guy was the same. Even though he was in a different world full of magic and strange creatures and the like, he would still have to deal with petty jerks like this.

Great.

“I took a stroll,” Lucas said. Again, he didn’t lie. He did take a stroll in the cave. The cave just so happened to have a vampire in it, that may or may not come by later. He knew he should probably warn them about that, but, ehhh. Maybe not Frank, since he hadn’t believed him about the wolf that attacked him, so there was a 0% chance he’d believe him about the vampire. Maybe Daria would listen to his warning. Maybe not, but he probably had to at least tell someone about it. Having a vampire near a village just sounded like a recipe for disaster, after all, so he should at least try to prevent that disaster as much as he could.

“In the middle of a storm,” Frank said with more than a hint of malice in his voice. Maybe malice wasn’t the right word here. Discontent? No, he was more than discontent, judging by how his fists where clenched and he seemed to be one metaphorical step away from snarling in his face. Hm. Seethed? Yes, he was seething. That was the word.

“Yes,” Lucas said in his most cheeky, positive customer-service voice possible. Let the man snap. Let him do something. Yes. If he loses his cool before Lucas did, that would only reflect poorly on him.

“Hey, he’s here now, so you can call off the search,” Daria interrupted their conversation. Whether it was because she was trying to cool down the obviously heated atmosphere, or if she was oblivious and just wanted to help out whatever poor sods were stuck in the storm searching for him, he didn’t know.

“Yeah. I’ll do just that,” Frank said through gritted teeth. “While I call off the search for you,” he said the word with as much malice as he could no doubt muster, “go to the manor, and wait for me there. Got it?”

“Will do, Frank,” Lucas said with a salute. “I wasn’t aware you were a noble yourself. Man, I would have definitely treated you better and immediately listened to you earlier if you had just told me that you were in charge around here,” Lucas said with more than a little bit of sass. Yes, he realized acting like a sassy little kid here wouldn’t exactly do him any favors, but he’d had a rough few days, and Frank hadn’t even believed him when he told him about the wolf. Even though that wolf corpse was literally in his basement. Frank narrowed his eyes and shot him a glare that could kill, then stomped off somewhere, no doubt to go do something very important that only a noble like him could do.

“So that guy’s name isn’t Frank, it’s Leon,” Daria said.

“I’m still gonna call him Frank,” Lucas said without a care in the world. Actually, maybe he did care a little. Somehow a guy like him got a normal name, and yet he was stuck with Xandrious. This world just ain’t right.

“Anyway, what were you saying about mana veins?” Lucas asked. Getting to know how magic worked in this world wouldn’t be a bad idea.

“Oh, right, that,” the sorceress said. “I’ll tell you later. I need to watch over my golems now and make sure no one breaks them.”

“I see. Well, I guess I’ll be at Frank’s manor, then,” Lucas said. Maybe he shouldn’t have shown any interest in learning. After all, if he hadn’t shown interest, maybe his 0 luck would have forced him to listen to a dry explanation. But, since he had shown interest, it was telling him he’d have to wait. Maybe. If stats worked like that.

Guess he could only wait and find out as he continued living here. In this world full of things that wanted him dead. Yay.