The sword was not a sword like any other: sure, it had a blade, hilt and crossguard like all swords did, and it was a 'hand-and-a-half' weapon, or bastard sword, something between a shortsword and longsword that could be used with one hand or two, based on his preference and the situation. But that was where its common features ended.

The weapon was his first boon: he had explained the concept of a levelling artifact, and as it turned out in a world where magic existed such a thing was quite real, except it was called 'variable scaling enchantment' instead. The guardians had, with his permission, plucked an imagined design from his head: a single-edged, unique weapon that was a bit of a hybrid between a grossmesser and a khanda. The handle was twenty-five centimeters long with flat disc pommel, bound with leather for a good grip. The blade itself was seventy-five centimeters, long enough to counter the reach of two-handed weapons but not cumbersome to use single-handed. The metal was a material called darksteel, black as the night itself, and when it reflected light it did not glint but rippled, showing folds of darkest blue within the black. Had it actually been night time it would have been invisible against the darkness.

"It holds no edge," the woman had explained, dropping the biggest surprise about the weapon on him, "But you can channel mana into it, at which point a magical edge and tip will form on the metal's surface. As it grows stronger it will cut through harder and harder things." Jiru had given it a try, and the single edge of the blade had glowed a deep, strong purple. Even to him, untrained in magic, it exuded power.

And it was hungry.

"The enchantment will gain power by absorbing the life force of enemies you kill, and you will also be able to use that energy to perform spells."

So he wasn't imagining it. The sword wanted to be used.

It wanted blood.

"You cannot cast magic without the sword though," The female entity had cut off the question he was about to ask, "You do not have the proper mana channels to do that, and making a body with such will take time we do not have. You cannot survive in the Void for long."

"A black blade for a Black Cat," the other Guardian projected a smile, "Fitting, no?"

They had soul-bound it to him so it could not be taken away easily, and he had given it a name.

Darkfang had two strange gems embedded at the base of the blade on the hilt, one on either side: colorless and as clear as water, but with no shine or beauty, for neither was their purpose. Inside each of the stones a black cloud of what looked like smoke swirled around inside, clearly magical in nature.

The most unusual fact about the sword at the moment though, was that it was buried almost hilt-deep in the neck of an abnormally large boar.

Jiru sat on the ground next to the dead creature, his hands shaking, his breath coming out in short gasps of exhaustion. The thing had attacked out of nowhere, and had nearly succeeded in goring him to death in seconds. It was huge - bigger than a lion, eyes wild and frenzied in madness, its hide thick and strong, its tusks more than a foot-and-a-half in length, each one curving into a wicked sharp spike that the beast had attempted repeatedly to bury in Jiru's abdomen starting from the moment it had appeared from the woods and charged at him. Had he not gotten over his surprise real quick, his guts would have been spilled all over the road in in a macabre sight.

The shock had been doubly so because he had been walking through the forest path, whistling softly to himself, enjoying the peace and quiet of the green woods all around him. Jiru had thought for a moment he was hallucinating, seeing a grotesque and horrifying pig-face among the foliage, but he had just enough time to gain his presence of mind before the creature came at him, its hooves kicking dirt up like a bull.

He had run aside to dodge the charge, reached over his shoulder, and Darkfang had whispered a soft hiss as it slid out of its scabbard. He could sense the blade's appetite - like a caged beast unleashed, wanting to feast on its prey. Only problem was that Jiru wasn't used to fighting with a sword, let alone fighting Pumba's giant super-powered monster cousin. What followed was a half-an-hour-long fight in which he had been genuinely afraid for his life.

When up close, the animal could attack by swinging its head in any direction - and it aimed each swing to use those tusks. It could even raise its front legs off the ground to aim higher. He had taken several wounds in his legs, only barely keeping his balance each time, before he ever managed to land a single strike. Which was when he found out that A) Even though he could hypothetically channel magic into the sword, it was a lot harder since he had not had any mana-related training at all, so he could only sharpen the edges a few seconds at a time; B) those upwards-curved tusks naturally protected the head, deflecting sword strikes when it swung them at him; and C) it had an abnormally thick skull that could not be easily cracked or penetrated, so his attacks only managed to get it pissed off.

Several times he had locked his sword with its tusks as though wrestling with a person, and the damn thing could push with a kind of strength he couldn't believe it had. When he had lost his footing and rolled away to get some distance, he only managed to provide the beast with enough range to charge at him again.

There was no question about it, he had almost died just now. Only a perfectly-timed attack that got through between the tusks and sliced up the creature's snout had turned the tide, and even then it took more than a dozen hits to kill. By the end Jiru had blinded it in one eye, cut off almost the entire left side of its nose, put several stabs and cuts on its sides, and sliced up one leg, which finally slowed it down enough to let him stick his blade through the neck from the side, just under its left shoulder.

The boar roared, shaking its shoulders so violently his grip on the blade almost came loose, but he held on to the weapon and kept pushing, pushing, until its legs gave way and it fell sideways with him on top of it. He then put his weight on its body, jamming one knee on top of it, grabbing a tusk with his left arm to hold it down while with his right he kept pushing the sword, letting go of the handle and quickly placing his hand over the flat pommel for better leverage and pushing, pushing, keeping it in place even as the animal thrashed, squealed and soiled itself in its death throes. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, it grew quiet and still.

It took him several minutes to calm himself. When his breathing finally steadied, he stood up on unsteady feet and pulled off his backpack-harness, unbuckling its belt around his waist with the two daggers and setting down the pack on the ground. Within the pack was his second boon - dimensional storage. Easy transport of items was an advantage that could not be underestimated. Both Guardians had been amused but obliged him nevertheless: his backpack was light and small - just approximately the size of a laptop bag, the sword's scabbard could be attached to it for easy transport. It had a drawstring mouth instead of a zipper with a flap that covered it.

Inside was a small box that actually did look very much like a laptop, but bigger and thicker - similar to the bulky large things that had served as the first portable computers. Its lid opened up like a suitcase - there was even a false bottom that opened up as well, to fool anyone nosy enough to get curious about it - and anything that was small enough to fit through the mouth of the box could go inside, to be stored in a pocket dimension and summoned back at will, and it currently held a large assortment of things like a map, rope, food rations, and so on.

Jiru summoned a big gourd of water, and drank the entire thing in greedy gulps. His wounds weren't that serious, and healing potions had to be very carefully administered because apparently one could develop a resistance to them, so he decided against wasting the expensive concoction on his current injuries, which were not that serious. Instead he pulled out his second skin of water, used it to clean his wounds, dried them with a hand towel, and applied an herbal unguent from his first aid kit to stop the bleeding. His trousers were torn in several places, and now thanks to the medicine he smelled funny as well.

"Well," A voice said, "I'm actually impressed you survived that."

Jiru nearly jumped out of his own skin. He'd completely forgotten about the ghost.

"It's just me," the spectre said. "You completely forgot that I even existed, didn't you?"

"Is there a reason why you didn't help?" He demanded, ignoring the question.

"Help how? By coaching you on how to kill that thing? I would only have distracted you."

"Fair enough. None of the fighting techniques in my head helped with that, though."

"Why would they? It's a pig. Fighting techniques are for fighting men. When you face a monster, you'll have to find its weaknesses and attack accordingly. Each would be different. And I warned you, having that knowledge in your head means nothing if you do not train properly to use it."

In life, Zarhan Dorheas had been a great warrior, nearly unstoppable with a sword in his hand. He had messed up somehow - the details had not been shared with Jiru - and ended up serving the Guardians as a ghost. The Guardians had, for lack of a better term, 'downloaded' into Jiru's head a vast array of swordfighting techniques, to help him in his quest. Further, Zarhan himself had been bound to an amulet that now hung around Jiru's neck, to act as a guide and provide him with whatever information he needed about the world.

"This one owes us a great debt," The female Guardian has said. "He will serve you in good faith."

"And Zar," The male Guardian added, "This will go a long way towards clearing your service with us."

"I obey," Zar the ghost had declared in a deadpan.

In the clearing, Jiru put the empty skin back, pulled out his food rations and helped himself to a few dates and one tasteless cardboard-y hardcake. A few sips of brandy from the hip-flask settled his nerves.

"Did you fight monsters when you were alive?" He asked.

"I did. Many of them."

"Any advice - in case a mutant version of Timon comes around to avenge his friend here?"

"Huh?"

"Sorry. Old Earth reference."

"Ah. In any case, I just told you - every monster is unique. The way you fight one type will be ineffective against another. You have to figure things like that on your own."

Jiru grunted and took another sip from the flask. He washed his little meal down with half of the second skin of water before retrieving his sword from the boar's body, which turned out to be a much more difficult task than he had anticipated. People, in general, were capable of exerting a much greater force when pushing than they could in pulling, so the blade had been buried deep enough that only hitting a bone had stopped it from coming out the other side. He spent almost five minutes with his foot braced against the boar's body, tugging at the handle before the weapon finally loosened and came out with a sickening squelch and a big spurt of blood that sprayed across his chest, making him swear.

Blood and grime had almost completely coated the blade. He would have to clean it properly later, but for the moment he wiped it off on the boar's hide (which was only fair, he thought) and then with a cloth. Darkfang seemed to sigh in contentment as he sheathed it inside the scabbard attached to the backpack, having taken its first life.

The sword's handle jutted out above his right shoulder from the backpack-harness: it had two straps for his shoulders and a waist-strap that went around his gut. The sword's scabbard was safely attached to the back of the harness, and it was open halfway up the length of the blade so he could draw the weapon from his back. This left the bottom half of the blade itself open to the elements but thanks to its powerful magical enchantment and the darksteel, it was immune to most kinds of damage, including rust.

On the harness's waist strap were two more weapons: identical daggers that were smaller versions of Darkfang, with long handles and long blades. You could call them very short shortswords and you wouldn't be wrong. Single-edged black blades made of darksteel, they did not have the enchantment but were still soul-bound to him, giving him a measure of magical influence over them.

Their handles stuck forward on either side of his belt, and though they were plainly made, the sight of them and the sword on his back hopefully made him look nasty enough to avoid unnecessary fights with idiots. Jiru himself wore plain, pale brown cotton pants and a long kurta-like shirt that came down to his thighs, with the weapon harness's belt going over the shirt. A leather chestpiece that looked and felt like a modern Kevlar vest was worn over the chest. He could have picked heavier steel armor, but the weight would have impeded him, and this had been the most familiar option. He also wore leather vambraces on his forearms, and double-layered pauldrons on his shoulders. The only (slightly) uncomfortable thing he was wearing was the boots - they fit him perfectly but it seemed leather in any world required breaking in, which would take a few days.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

He also had several normal pouches and such, which held mundane things like some coin, a small water skin, a hip-flask of brandy, and a few potions in a bandolier.

The outfit and supplies had been given to him and equipped on a floating island that had appeared in the middle of the Void where his body had manifested, naked as a time-travelling T-1000. It still looked as though he was in space, but now he could breathe, and the guardians' voices were audible through his ears. The female Guardian's voice had been a loud but smooth monotone as expected of a being of such power. The male sounded deep and booming, as though digitally altered.

Jiru's new body felt familiar to his old one - apparently souls remembered their bodies, and regrowing one similar to the old body (if you had the kind of immense power to do such a thing) was easier than putting him in a completely new form.

The clothes and supplies had appeared one by one, followed by his two boons as he asked for them. Zar's amulet had been the last addition before they had wished him good luck and let the portal's magic take hold of him once more.

Going through the magical doorway was like the worst roller-coaster ride you could ever imagine. He had stumbled out the other side and immediately fallen over, queasy and nauseous but forcing himself to stand up immediately, to face whatever was waiting here for him.

Nothing.

Jiru had ended up in the middle of a clearing in the woods, at the center of which a perfectly circular floor had been built on the ground from flat grey stones. Around the circle's edges were stone monoliths carved with various symbols similar to what he had seen in the warehouse right before dropping Irfan. He was in the right place.

But no one was around.

"Huh," Zar had commented. "That was an anticlimax."

"Any idea where we are?"

"No."

Jiru dusted himself off as he exited the stone-paved circle, studying the monoliths on his way out. "Is this a stonehenge?"

"What's a stonehenge?"

"Never mind."

"There were people here though. Look."

The ghost could see through the amulet as though it were a bodycam, and sure enough, there was a spot in the clearing where someone had recently made camp. Remains of a fire, and tracks.

"Any chance that being intercepted by the Guardians messed up the time I was supposed to arrive?"

"It's possible. Teleportation is an inexact magic."

"Is there such a thing as an exact magic?"

"Of course," The ghost seemed offended by the question. "Your sword, for example. How do you not know this?"

"A conversation for another time. Any idea which way?"

"No. Pick a direction."

"No, I mean, can you track them through the forest?"

"No. I was a fighter, not a tracker."

So he had picked a direction and started walking. He chose what he thought was the most likely way the portal-people went in, based on the location of their camp and the disturbances in the foliage near the edge of the clearing. He had come out on to a well-tread path in the woods soon enough, which he took as a sign that he had guessed correctly. About fifteen minutes later though, Teenage Mutant Monster Pig had showed up to ruin his day.

Jiru stood next to the dead beast, stretched his back and straightened himself. He needed to learn how to properly use a sword, though the basics had been embedded into his brain thanks to his two mystery friends. Building muscle-memory was not that easy though - and this encounter proved that having the moves in his brain had not instantly made him an expert.

"I think," Zar said slowly in a thinking voice, "thanks to our friend the monster here, I have an idea where we are."

"Oh?"

"The Wilderness of the Living Lairs."

Jiru groaned. The Wilderness of the Living Lairs, also known as The Living Wild, The Living Wilderness, The Wild Lairs (and a few other such names) was a big jumble of forests, plains, jungles and grasslands stretching for nearly half a million square kilometers. It was also plagued with uncontrolled magic running rampant, which gave rise to the eponymous 'Living Lairs' that spawned monsters and sounded suspiciously like Dungeons to Jiru.

There had been a brief debate between the Guardians about - should he survive the other side of the portal - where exactly in the world to send him, maybe try and hide him in a place that was in crisis. As it turned out, this world was as messed up as the one he had just left - there were apparently multiple horrible events happening around the globe. A war was being fought in the continent of Veskar which was undergoing a food shortage, with several factions involved in the power struggle; a small island had seceded from the Union of Meskaeya, triggering either a revolt or a revolution - "Depends on who you believe," The male Guardian had said.

Across to the east, the powerful nation of Kylea (which was at war with the smaller kingdom of Beowen Dra) had just lost its king under suspicious circumstances, with a younger son attempting to take the throne. According to rumor he had either killed his father the old king and then driven away into exile his elder brother to take throne for himself, or the old king had been a conquest-mad psychopath now dead of natural causes and the young son would restore the country to peace through benevolence. "Also depends on who you believe," the Elder added, projecting a shrug. "But such things are mortal affairs, and we do not interfere in them."

Jiru had been unsurprised. After all, there had never been such a thing as world peace in Earth's history. The supposed 'Pax Romana' of two centuries had been rife with conquest, oppression and slavery, all of which the Romans had written proudly about in their own documentation of history - and all of which the British had proudly replicated later on. The period between 1815 and 1914 was called 'Pax Britannica', which had been achieved through the systemic looting of the Indian subcontinent, with some of the worst atrocities of the empire inflicted on Jiru's ancestors. Thirty years later the Americans would declare the 'Pax Americana', and follow it up with countless coups and wars in South America, Africa, the Middle East, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Afghanistan.

With this world being the same way and having no shortage of strife, the idea was to get him lost in one of these disasters, forcing the enemy to tip their hand in search of him. The portal marker would give them the general area of his presence but not the precise location, so they'd have to find him the old-fashioned sleuth-y way. The harder Jiru and the Guardians made that, the more they would force their opponents to expose themselves.

"So you're saying," He kicked the corpse of the boar, "that Hagar the Horrible Hog here is - "

"One of the monsters spawned by the Lairs, yes."

"So I could be in the middle of nowhere with no civilization anywhere nearby."

"You could, but I do not believe so. Were that the case, there would not be a path running through this forest. My guess is that we are near one of the settlements or outposts either in or around the Wilderness."

That was somewhat good news. The Living Wild was surrounded by towns and outposts under the control of several kingdoms and nations many of which were hostile to each other, and the whole region was a political hot mess. There were large numbers of mercenary companies, warbands, raiding parties and military legions that worked to keep the monsters at bay and constantly at conflict with each other as people fought over the resources yielded by the Lairs. Based on the discussion about the unfolding crises in the world, one military campaign and two sieges were currently in progress somewhere around here. So there were people nearby, but that did not guarantee safety.

"Try finding a tree that goes above the canopy of the forest," Zar went on. "Perhaps we can narrow it down further."

There were two such trees close by. Jiru picked the one that looked easier to climb; but it was slow going up. The last time he had climbed a tree had been as a child, stealing mangoes off of the neighbor's yard. He had trained in rappelling and rock climbing though, so it wasn't as difficult as he had expected, just took a while.

He stopped above the canopy of the forest, having gone high enough that the branches were beginning to grow thin. Zar asked him to move around a bit, making him give the amulet as close to a three-sixty view as possible.

"Ah, good news." The ghost said at last. "See those jagged hills?"

"I do."

"At their base is the city of Everwatch."

"Safe to go into?"

"Should be. No too far, either. There is a road leading into town, as I recall. I am guessing this forest path leads to that road if we keep going. Fortunate."

Jiru climbed back down to the ground - that took a while, as well - and took another break to drink some water. Pumba was starting to stink already, and flies were beginning to swarm. He ignored it and was tightening his backpack-harness's belt across his stomach, getting ready to leave, when he was struck with a sudden dilemma.

In the stories and games, you didn't just leave a monster corpse in the middle of the woods. You made use of it.

"You think someone at Everwatch would buy this thing?"

"What, the monster? Oh, good thinking. But how will you get it that far?"

That was a bit of a headscratcher, but he was determined to solve it. He had no doubt that he could find someone who would pay good coin for an animal that size. For one, it had enough meat on it to feed an entire castle (assuming it was edible), and for another, with an animal that size a taxidermist would definitely be interested in stuffing and selling the thing. If he was really lucky, he could find an innkeeper who would serve the meat and mount the head behind the bar.

On the other hand it weighed at least five hundred kilograms, and he wasn't interested in even attempting to carry it that far.

In the end he took a bedroll from his storage, stretched it out, rolled the boar into it with only its nose and tusks sticking out, and tied it securely while leaving a length of rope out to drag it with. Even then he had to lean forward with the effort, both hands on the rope as he pulled it over his shoulder. Progress was slow, and the bundle made an uncanny racket as it scraped the unpaved dirt path, trailing behind him.

He didn't have to go far. About two hundred meters later the forest path exited out into a real, actual road paved with stone. It was wide enough to be a modern-day highway. There was traffic on it too - not a lot, but a few carts going back and forth. Most were boxy and clearly carried luggage and goods, but there were a couple of wagons that had doors, the kind that people back home had traveled in before cars were invented. Riders on horses went back and forth, as well. Most of the people were human, but Jiru spotted firasi, kobolds, and even a hobgoblin - almost as tall as a human, with dark yellowish-brown skin and very prominent pointy ears sticking out of holes in the hood that was pulled up over the head.

Jiru turned in the direction of the town and continued to trudge forward dragging the boar corpse, drawing the eye of pretty much everyone. He ignored the attention and kept going. A rider, however, eyed him curiously, turned sharply and galloped off towards the camp, and Jiru's suspicions were confirmed when, a few minutes later, he returned with several people on horseback all of whom were dressed, armed and armored in the same color scheme. Town Guards.

"Morning." The one in charge said as he stepped his horse forward to block the way.

"Morning to you." Jiru responded in the same language, Nilangot. The Guardians' brain-download had included twenty languages from this world, which he felt was a bit overkill but helpful all the same.

"You have papers?"

"I do."

Jiru reached into one of the normal pouches and pulled out a long iPhone-sized leather purse from which he withdrew identity papers, handing them over for inspection.

"What's that behind you?"

"Take a look." He opened the bedroll.

"Heaven's mercy!" The guard exclaimed as he recognized the body, almost dropping the papers in shock. He touched his chest once and then his forehead twice, in a Sarikotian gesture that Jiru would later find out was known as 'invoking a blessing', which was supposed to ward off evil.

"It attacked me on the road," Jiru explained. "Had to put it down."

"Is - is that what I think it is?"

"It's right there. You can see it. I'm hoping an innkeep in town will buy it off me for the meat."

"You mean serve that thing to people?" The guard looked outraged.

"That's what I meant. Why?"

"No one's going to eat that! I mean, I'm glad he's finally dead, but still, it's not appropriate."

There was a long silence while Jiru tried turning the wheels in his head to work that out, after which he said, very carefully, "What exactly do you think that is?"

"You mean you don't know?" The guard had forgotten all about checking his identity - he hadn't even looked at the papers he was holding. Jiru looked down at the boar, then back at the guard, wondering what was happening.

"It's a boar." He said finally. "I mean, it's a lot bigger than normal, but - "

"That's a man-eater!" The guard exclaimed.

There was another silence at the end of which he responded, "Come again?"

"That's a man-eater."

"A man-eating boar? I've never heard of that." He knew that boars, like pigs, ate pretty much anything, including corpses - which was where the expression 'fed to the pigs' came from - but a boar actively hunting humans?

"That's him," One of the other guards, a firasi woman, had come up while they were talking. "See those stripes?"

"A man-eating boar," Jiru repeated. "Seriously?"

"Yup. He ate the miller's son last month. We've been trying to kill the damn thing for a while now."

"Huh."

"All kinds of weird happens when you're this close to the Edge," She said by way of explanation. "Not the first monster we’ve seen, won't be the last either. You been here before?"

"No, first time. This was really a man-eater?"

"That's right. Started about ten months ago."

The salient point, which had finally sunk in for Jiru, was that his plan to sell the beast for meat was, ironically enough, off the table. He could see how the possibility of a human aftertaste would turn off people's appetites.

He had another thought, however.

"Is there a reward for killing this thing then?"

"There is." The male guard had finally gotten over himself and was inspecting the ID papers, "You can claim the bounty from the Captain. Someone'll escort you there. Hey, Gunnar! Show him the way to the Captain's office!" The last part was yelled at one of the other riders.

Well, at least it wasn’t a total loss.