Chapter 1 Waking up

I felt a piercing pain in my chest which woke me up. The pain was just a there for the flash of a second so it wasn’t that bad, the confusion was much, much more disturbing.

I woke up in a completely different place then where I went to sleep.

This clearly wasn’t the hospital! The walls and ceiling were made of painted wood with a window on my left, and the room was almost empty except for a desk, a chair and my bed.

From the window I could see the sun rising so the initial panic was fading and I started remembering what happened. I clearly felt that my heart finally stopped last night so I should have probably been dead. I was suffering from CAD, or otherwise known coronary artery disease. A nasty affliction from which I had no chance of surviving. So last night, when my heart started failing I knew death was coming, or at least was supposed to.

Getting out of the bed to find out more about where I was and the situation in general, I realized something drastic about myself. I was thin. There was no way I could get this thin in a single night. It must be known that I was over 90kg with my height at 180 cm. This wasn’t that bad, knowing my age of 47 years old. I would say it was a normal physique. But now, I could practically see my bones.

Fear flashed over me. Was I in a coma? If so how much time passed? I could still move so there mustn’t have been more than a week or two. But that didn’t explain the severe weight loss.

Overly confused I went to the door and opened it. What greeted me was the face of a beautiful young woman. She had strawberry blond hair with blue eyes and from her complexion I could guess she was around 20 years old.

At first she seemed surprised to see me but she composed herself and said.

???: “Oh! So you are already awake. Come now, your teacher is already in courtyard waiting for you.”

Her voice was calm, but contained a hint of authority. What baffled me was the content of her words. What teacher?

After a second of pondering I opted to follow her. I didn’t have any information about this place but I was afraid of asking her. The fear or suffering from amnesia suddenly creep-ed into my soul.

That was actually one of my worst fears. Forgetting everything you know. My whole life I have pursued knowledge, so losing even a part of it would be even more painful then losing an arm.

On the way to the courtyard I started feeling some odd things here and there with my body and this house. Firstly my body felt good. Unusually good. I was healthy! I haven’t felt this good since high school.

The house was even odder. It was a wooden house, like a cabin in the woods with 3 or 4 rooms. The odd thing here was the lack of modern appliances. Not talking about TVs or phones. The kitchen didn’t even have a refrigerator. It looked like some prop from the movies about the middle ages.

In the courtyard, instead of answers I got even more questions. As I entered I saw a dark haired old man fighting with a wooden sword against a young male with blond hair. Both of them had blue eyes, and while their expression was serious, they seemed to be in a good mood.

Before I even had the time to collect myself the dark haired male spoke.

Old man: “So, Nathan, you are finally up, eh? Are you excited for today?”

Nathan: “What?”

Something seemed to be terribly wrong here. The old man called me Nathan. My name was Ben. I was sure I haven’t forgotten my own name. And what was wrong with the blond guy? Why is he glaring at me?

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Old man: “As you know, today I will choose who gets to inherit my sword style. Since today is your 18th birthday you will be able to access mana.”

The man seemed to have went in full lecture mode, but the content of the lecture was utterly stupid. Was I in a play or something?

Even if I felt that the lecture was a stupid fantasy, I still listened with rapt attention. As a summary he talked about the fact that I was now of age to use the mana that was everywhere in the world. To use this mana you had to be either a mage or a knight. As it sounded, a mage would be able to use the power of the elements he understood. A knight could use the mana to imbue himself and his sword with it.

While this sounded interesting for a story, it was utter nonsense. Even more so since he called me an 18 year old. I had this feeling in my gut that something was way out of place, so I opted to listen to him. Maybe I could get some info on where I was.

Old man: “And since I took you two from the streets 11 years ago we trained here every day. I know that I haven’t told you why we stayed away from civilization for so long but I hope you can forgive me.”

As the old man continued his speech the young man behind him started to glare more intently at me.

Old man: “I only did this to choose a worthy successor.”

After a brief pause he continued.

Old man: “Nathan, Daniel! You have both trained your bodies for 11 years, and I can say with pride that both of you will make excellent knights. Even so, I didn’t show you even onc-“

*ROARR*

A deafening roar emerged from the woods in front of me. I haven’t realized this while the old man was talking, mainly because my confusion, but we were in the middle of a forest.

As if on que the trees started splitting and behind them was a gigantic silver wolf.

With incredible speed it pounced on the old man and the blond creepy guy. It all happened in an instant. From my point of view all I could see was a silver blur and then the head of the old man was sent flying, while the blond guy was by now only a puddle of blood beneath its left front paw.

The scene was so surprising that I stumbled backwards and fell on my ass. All I could see was the gigantic wolf. This was an impossibility. How could a wolf be this big.

Instantly my mind moved to the ridiculous speech of the old man. Was this some other world or something?

Breaking me out of my thought was the scream coming from the young woman that was behind me.

Woman: “NOOOO, DANIEL! Nooo…”

As if she lost all will to live she fell to her knees. Then she took a kitchen knife from a tray near her.

Seeing her actions I thought she was insane. Was she going to fight that wolf by herself? While seeing her resolve to live I admired her, there was no way she was going to win against such a monster. Not without a tank!

My admiration quickly faded and instead I got filled with confusion. She was facing me. Yes, me! Not the wolf.

Woman: “It’s your fault!! If you would have died from the poison, Daniel would have inherited my father and I could have been his wife!!!”

Woman: “Before I die I’ll at least kill you with my own hands!”