"Ryan is honest. He got punished by Master Holman again. Poor child..."
"Alas! Who would think that Ryan, being an orphan and also the lowest slave, would definitely be sent by Master Holman to the horse farm behind the mountain to replace his nephew who made a mistake, alas!"
"Yes, yes, the mountain is full of fierce beasts, not to mention the poor food. If an adult's horse becomes thin or lost, the one watching the horse is doomed. But if the adult were at home, Holman the steward wouldn’t dare to do this. After all, the adult is a knight!"
"Shush! Holman has hardly more conscience than a mole. If he hears you talking like this, he'll find an excuse to punish you. He likes being called 'Master'."
Two men in tattered clothes and frail bodies whispered in a corner, while not far in front of them was a huge yard. Calling it a yard was an understatement; it was more like an Earthly sports field, where two men and a fat old woman were standing. Among the men, the shorter, frail one in linen clothing was Holman the steward, mentioned by the two servants. The other man, in light armor, was the security chief and captain of the castle guards, Tori. The fat old woman, looking very proud, seemed to hold a higher status than both Holman and Tori.
"Lady Alya, Ryan was caught stealing bread in the bakery, and according to the rules, he should have one hand chopped off," Holman said with a smile, bending over to the fat old woman, though his words sent chills down the spine.
"Hmph!" Tori knew Ryan's character. Ryan, 13 years old, had grown up in the castle and was the most timid and weak. It was unlikely he would steal bread. This was clearly a scheme concocted by the old fox Holman. But such trivial matters were not worth Tori's concern, as a slave was not worth the bother for someone of his standing. He'd rather spend his time figuring out how to court the town bar's proprietress than deal with Holman's dealings.
"You come to me with such trivial matters, Holman? Don't you know the lady needs care? To call me back from Harri City dozens of miles away for such a small matter," the fat old woman Alya, dressed more lavishly than Holman, questioned loudly, her cheeks quivering like falling snow.
"Lady Alya, the master is on duty, and you are in charge at home. I dare not make decisions rashly," Holman quickly flattered, his face full of servility.
"Well, since Ryan has made a mistake, let's follow the rules. However, the master is a knight and often tells us to show mercy. Therefore, Ryan will be sent to the mountain to watch the horses, allowed to return to town once every three months. That's it. The lady still wants to eat the vegetable salad I make by hand," Alya said before walking towards the gate, where a carriage was parked with something resembling a great sword on it.
"Lady Alya, Lady Alya, a hunter in the town caught a green fox a few days ago. Shall I have someone send the fur over?" Holman followed, flattering Alya.
"Oh? A green fox? Then thank you," Alya paused, responding with a smile, though her fat, wrinkled face made the smile terrifying. Even Holman was startled, but remembering that Alya was the master's first confidant and the nominal guardian of the lady, he had to suppress his urge to vomit and continue flattering.
"Alright, lads, drag this guy back for some treatment. In a few days, when we send things to the mountain, take him there," Tori said loudly after everyone had left, heading towards the gate. Then, two guards in leather armor, each carrying a great sword, dragged Ryan back behind the castle, threw him into the room where he used to live, and left without a word about treatment.
"Ouch! Ouch!" Ryan slowly woke up, wincing from the pain in his buttocks.
"Oh heavens! Oh earth! Why am I so unlucky? Just for eating a piece of bread, and it was even the lowest grade of black bread, I got beaten up. Ouch! What era is this? It all looks like ancient Europe to me. I, Wang Jin, am a good person, though I haven't done anything great, but I haven't done anything bad either. How did I transmigrate? I want to go home. I want to watch AV, play games, read novels, surf forums. Ouch! I just want to be my otaku self again. Ouch, thankfully, it's just swelling. In ancient times, if you bled, the chance of infection and death was as high as ninety percent," Ryan lay on the bed, complaining loudly.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
It wasn't Ryan who daringly stole the bread, but Wang Jin, an otaku from Earth, who spent 300 days a year in front of the computer. He woke up to see a pile of bread. Although it was dark, the aroma of the bread was unmistakable, so he grabbed a big bite while still groggy. Wang Jin felt the bread was too coarse, and before he could spit it out, he was caught and beaten, then Wang Jin fainted from the pain. Knowing that Wang Jin was afraid of injections, preferring to spend 100 yuan on medicine rather than get a 10 yuan shot, he woke up during the meeting to decide his fate but dared not get up, pretending to be unconscious, enduring the pain until the guards left, then he started to cry out.
When the pain lessened, Wang Jin began to wonder which era he was in. However, he was troubled to find that Ryan's memory only knew the town was called Terri Town, and Terri was the master of the castle, a great knight. Then there were Holman, the security chief Tori, and the fat woman Alya. The rest were just cats and dogs of the town, with the last memory being a flamboyantly dressed woman, probably the tavern's proprietress, whom Ryan had only seen once. Without money, he couldn't enter the tavern, which required gold coins. Ryan's memory had nothing more.
Struggling to recall again, Wang Jin painfully realized that fitting these conditions in ancient Europe was easy because only two words mattered: knight and gold coins. If there was Baidu, there would be hundreds of thousands of entries, but for Wang Jin, it meant nothing. Moreover, he sadly found that even if he wanted to run away, he couldn't, because Ryan was a slave, not a servant. Servants at least had some wages, but slaves had none. Wang Jin thought, if he had gold coins, he could determine the era, because as an otaku, he had a lot of knowledge, from the basic structure of an aircraft carrier to the construction and principles of firearms, down to how a nail clipper was made. He knew a bit about everything, the so-called half-bottle of water, capable of confusing anyone online but only laughing with those who knew.
However, Wang Jin was relieved he could understand the language here, though he was a language idiot. If someone spoke French and English alternately, Wang Jin could hardly tell them apart. His English score was 68 in the first semester, and then half of that. Faced with multiple-choice questions, he would choose whatever looked right, so scoring half of 68 was lucky.
"Curse this slave society! Even eating a piece of bread gets you a hand chopped off. Oh, human rights, where are you?" Wang Jin helplessly looked at his clothes, complaining while shaking his head helplessly. The clothes were like a sheet with a hole in the middle, folded in such a way that moving slightly would expose his bare buttocks and lower parts. Wang Jin didn't want to lie on the bed, which was just a large wooden plank. He tried to analyze his location from the bed's material, but if the tree was alive, Wang Jin had a fifty percent chance of recognizing it. If it was dark, it would require scientific methods, but that wasn't key. The key was Wang Jin felt itchy and smelly, as if he hadn't bathed in years. Wang Jin knew that in ancient Europe, bathing meant waiting for the church's judgment, hence the invention of perfume in the West.
"Oh my god! Is this, this supposed to be a castle?" Wang Jin stood, no, Ryan, because Wang Jin decided to change his name. Although Wang Jin sounded nice, he dared not use it for fear of exposing himself. So, Wang Jin tried hard to tell himself he was Ryan, but what made Wang Jin hate was that Ryan's name was like Dog Egg or Second Son in China, not the Ryan from Saving Private Ryan. Ryan looked at the two-story wooden building, large but half like a sports field, the other half a huge log building with two floors and surrounded by a large log fence. His bedroom, with just a wooden board, a wooden bowl, and a broken wooden table, was also a place to sleep. As for blankets, they were probably mythical. His bedroom was next to the fence, a low wooden hut, next to a pile of firewood. Ryan clearly knew this huge wooden house was the legendary castle, with only two servants and himself as a slave. Holman and Tori lived in their own homes. The two servants were responsible for maintaining and cleaning the castle, while Ryan collected firewood, baked bread for Holman and Tori, and the two servants and he drank something black and paste-like. But Ryan couldn't care less because he found himself getting itchier. Ryan slowly moved towards the remembered water source, actually a spring behind the large wooden house, also the castle's water source.
"Stop it, Sisi. I'm going to bathe. Oh! My god!" Ryan impatiently scolded. Sisi was like a dog on Earth, used for guarding. Sisi was its name, and Ryan was used to scolding it, but seeing Sisi's appearance, Ryan, with a changed soul, fell to the ground, not feeling the burning pain on his buttocks, because Sisi not only looked different from a dog but was like a pangolin. The difference was Sisi's head had a horn, covered in black scales, with large limbs, resembling a large lizard. No matter how you looked, it was fierce. This creature only meant one thing: this was not Europe but another world, a completely new and unknown world.