Chapter 1 

“Aye Rome what cha doing over there?”. “I’m taking a piss, wanna come hold it for me, since you’re so interested”. I replied to the man looking over my shoulder with a smirk on my face. “I think I’ll pass on that”. The big man replied while looking me in the eye then looking away. I finished up and walked back to our small group of 5 huddled up around the fire. 

It was the middle of winter here on the continent of Peak, named that because it hosts the largest mountain in the world, Mt. Klay. We are in the mountain regions on mission with our mercenary band Raven. And it was cold as fuck here. “Yo Rome, when are we supposed to move out?”. The big man named Gerald calls out. “We are waiting for the signal from the rest of the guys”. I reply while staring at the fire warming up my hands and boots. 

“Why are we waiting this far away from the road?”. Gerald voices his displeasure with being this far out from the rest of the group. “Because we know the target has high level trackers and mages that will be able to spot trails that close to the road”. I too am pretty displeased with being this far out in this bitter cold god forsaken forest. The only reason we are here is because a large group of mercs turned bandits are hiding out here. Some noble commissioned us to take them out and bring back a jewel that was stolen from him.

“Because, us and the other groups are going to ambush them from the flanks, while to majority of our group will perform a frontal assault”. I told the man while still looking at the fire. And to be honest I really came back his far out so we can make a fire, not like they’d be able to see the smoke with Blake’s wind magic anyway. But being this long in the game, you start to become a lot more cautious. 

“I get that, but why are we this far out?”. Gerald argued, I was just about to argue when I got the signal, a bracelet that lights up and gives off a warm feeling. “Grab your shit, we’re on boys!!”. I kicked the fire out and grab my shield and spear, my sword and dagger are always on me. We start to move through the woods in a standard wedge formation, picked up the pace from a slight jog to a decent run. My men can easily keep up with me as we move swiftly though the forest, after about 5 minutes of running we start to here the sounds of battle. We pick up the pace and eventually stop at the edge of the forest. 

While we wait at the forest line, we watch as our merc band is engaging the bandits and pretty easily pushing them back while taking no casualties on our side. The lieutenant gives the signal for us to enter the fray. After the signal, eight groups of five men each come out of the wood line crashing into the flanks of the bandit crew. As I run to the bandits I get to eyes on my target, the bandit leader, he is situated in the middle of his men trying to regain control over them as we crash into his men. 

The first bandit I come across wielding a simple longsword in leather armor. He swipes with his sword toward my right, I use my spear to swat the sword wide, and bash his face in with the edge of my shield, he instantly goes down clutching his face. I make short work of him stabbing him in the chest. The next bandit, seeing what I did to his comrade, hesitated for a half second and that’s all I needed skewer him through the throat with my spear. Another bandit fancies his chances, this one equipped in full plate armor and a sword and shield. Odd seeing a shield, not very many people use them because of the decrease in agility they usually give someone. Although I’m the exception. I ready myself, spear resting on the crescent of my shield, this gives me protection for my torso, while also being able to thrust with my spear. I quickly run forward, this visibly surprises the man. I jump and  bring my spear to level with my head. I thrust downward to his unprotected neck, he tries to raise his shield in time but is to late as I run right through his neck while still in air and quickly pull it out. 

He dropped both shield and sword and starts to gargle on his blood while falling to his knees clutching his throat, attempting to stop the bleeding to no avail. I walk away while looking for my next opponent. I find it in the bandit leader I was tasked to kill. 

“I won’t fall as easy as my men did”. The bandit leader declares, I scan over the man he wields a longsword much like the first bandit I felled, but he wears half plate. Giving him both protection and the needed mobility. I myself wear mithril half plate, it is a deep blue covering my upper torso. I also wear mithril shin guards while the rest of my body is covered in leather armor. I do not wear a helm as it narrows my field of vision, and to be honest they are ridiculously uncomfortable. I wield a mithril tipped spear and a mithril shield, my mithril short sword is attached to the inside of my shield and my dagger is horizontal on my belt on my back. 

“Let’s hope you don’t, I would like a decent challenge for once, but I doubt I will get that from you”. I reply with a smirk on my face after looking him over. The leader takes offense to that as he charges me swinging his sword spear side. I bat the sword down with my shield and trap his sword on the ground with my foot and I leg sweep him with my other leg, while simultaneously hitting him in the chest with my shield to put him on his ass. While on the ground he looks around for a weapon, and he notices that everyone around him is standing still and as encircled the two. He looks around and realizes that all his men are either dead or captured. 

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Our Captain tosses the bandit his sword and says “If you best dear Rome here in a duel, we will let you go free and tell Baron Reese that you were never here, Deal?”. The Bandit leader looks at the sword and then to me and smirks kind of. He picks up the sword and says to the Captain “Deal”. The bandit rushes me and with the sword he flicks dirt up to my face. It’s a dirty move, and also one of my favorites so it is easy for my to side step the dirt and incoming strike. We stand there and circle each other, him looking for an opening and me just toying with him, he is nowhere near as skilled as me in the art of battle, then again not many are. 

I say at loud to no one in particular “I bet I can finish this is one move”. I smirk as I say this. Some one familiar from the crowd says, “Two at the least, I bet 2 gold”. I look to the man who is Gerald and I tell him “Deal”. I turn my attention back to the bandit leader. Still circling each other about 8 meters apart, I shift my spear from an over hand grip to an under hand grip and in a split second I launch my spear straight into the bandit leaders chest before he knew what happened, the spear half sticking out of his chest. He falls to his knees as I walk up to him and pull my spear from his chest and kick him to the ground. 

I turn to Gerald and say “You owe me two gold”. He just looks at me and says “You cheated, if I knew you were gonna do that I would’ve have bet”. I walk up to and lay my hand on his shoulder and tell him with a large grin “That’s why it’s called gambling dear Gerald”. I lift my hand off his shoulder and walk back to where I planted my spear in the ground to retrieve it and prepare for the ride back to the city. 

The Captain yells out “Saddle up boys it’s time to head back and receive our payment”. I saunter to the back where our horses are being kept, I start to load up my gear on the chestnut colored horse when I hear screams coming from the front. I snap my head to the direction of the scream and see three of our mercenaries with arrows stick out of their chests and many more arrows sailing in the air from the wood line, I grab my shield and spear of the horse, immediately I have to use my shield to block an incoming arrow that is imbued with an enchantment for greater speed and penetration. It breaks on my shield and I and take off running for the cover of the wood line. 

When I reach the wood line, I use a large oak tree for cover, I slowly peek around the tree and see that three quarters of the merc band is either dead or currently to wounded to do anything at the moment. It was a viscous hailstorm of magically imbued arrows meant to punch a hole through most armor, with enchantments like that what left of us are up against some serious soldiers or mercs. No longer are arrows flying though the sky, but I see at least a hundred or so men come out of the forest in a tight formation wielding long Spears in front, while the other have swords out and ready. 

See that I conclude that it’s time for me to get the fuck out of here, we have already lost most of our men, I wasn’t particularly attached to these guys, and we are sorely outmatched and outnumbered. They start to make quick work of who is remaining and the ones who try to flee are shot in the back by an arrow, which means they still have more in the wood line. I pull my head back and get ready to take off into the forest and find my way back to the city, when a detachment of 10 or so soldiers spot me from my rear inside the forest meaning that they have my exit covered. 

Small change of plans I kill these fucks the get the fuck out of here. I decide to take the fight to them as we are in the forest and their numbers would only become a detriment to them as they will have to face me one on one or one on two because of the trees providing little room to maneuver around. I decide to throw my spear on the run to the guy in front. The spear goes right into him and stick into the ground as well. I draw my short sword to have a better advantage then the medium sized spear in the trees. The next soldier meets me two steps after his fallen comrade and swings in sword neck level to my shield side. Instead of blocking I dip to the strike and it misses me by meres inches. I take my sword and slash his throat while I keep moving trying to make sure they cannot use their numbers to their advantage. The next man stops and waits for another soldier to try and encircle me. I don’t let them as I jump at the nearest man bashing him with the edge of my shield knocking him to the ground. I quickly strike the soldier coming from my rear he blocks my sword, uses the momentum of his deflection of my sword I use my shield to bash his windpipe in he drops grasping for air. 

I then finish of the soldier still on the ground with my sword. After I finish him I continue on to the next soldier where I faint with my shield and slash low with my sword, getting to soft spot of the armor behind the knee, his leg buckles and I use this to slash his neck with my sword on the way up. The next one I charge to is started to show signs of being scared shitless, and I can’t blame him, I’d be scared of me too. 

I come to an opening in the trees where the last four wait for me. I attack without stopping and ram right into the nearest soldier, we both fall to the ground my sword falls a meter away, I pull out my dagger and pound in right into his forehead. I pull it out and see two of the men rushing towards me and I throw the dagger at the second soldier rushing at me I pick up sword and roll towards the first soldier and slash his achilles he falls to his knees and tries to stab me but I cover my whole body from above with my shield and stab my sword though the bottom of his jaw and exits out the top of his skull. I get up and I now stare down the last remaining man. We both stare at each other before he stars to run the other way, I pick the dagger out of the soldier I killed and throw it at the fleeing soldier hitting him square in the back. He falls in to the ground and draws his last breath before I collect my dagger. 

I look around to all the men I killed, and smiled in satisfaction and say to myself, “ya I still got it”. I run back to retrieve my spear and take off in the opposite direction of the death and carnage that befell the merc band Raven. Nothing will come of me staying and trying to fight. I’m good, hell I’m one of the best, but one against hundreds will not be a pretty outcome for me I think to myself. 

I begin my journey back to the city Bellrun, I get about 10 klicks away before I start to walk again. As soon as I start to walk I get this immense pain in my head, “what the fuck!!!”. I scream out in pure agony I eventually lose consciousness. 

I wake up when the sun starts to set, and for some reason I seeing floating words, I think that pain made me go insane.

[Congratulations Romulus you been randomly chosen to be transported to the world of Norza, Good luck and have fun.]

I stare at the message wondering if I’m fucking retarded or not, when it disappears and another message appears.  

[Countdown, 4...3...2...1...]

I get that splitting pain in my head again, and lose consciousness once again.