Taking advantage of his leftover adrenaline, Mican ran in the darkness. Stumbling over roots and branches in his path, nearly blinded by the darkness.

The young man lacked a source of light, the canopy of the trees blocking out the moon and the shining patterns of the dragon head, so the only thing he could do was run in the direction the light was brightest.

Fortunately for Mican he had prepared for a situation like this long ago, having exercised his body daily, to a large extent. His broad muscles had no trouble with the branches in his path, or the long test of endurance in the sprint.

He had no particular plan, but he knew that he had to get away from the source of the noise he had created as soon as possible, in case any more ferocious beasts like that three-eyed bear came around investigating in the night.

After a few minutes of running, the trees began to thin out, and the bright light of a fire could be seen shining in the distance. Ecstatic, yet cautious, the young man slowed his running, taking a moment to catch his breath.

Looking out from the cover of the trees, Mican noticed that the moon had all but disappeared. The immature light of the sun was shining through the clouds, the young man didn’t notice it earlier due to the cover of the trees.

Under the dim light of the rising sun, a large clearing could be seen. There was a wall of trees that led to the left and right of him, extending out of sight, as if a barrier for the forest, separating the woods and the scenery beyond. Outside of the wall was the end of the forest, and grassy plains extended outwards as far as the eye could see.

Directly in front of the forest, only a few meters away from Mican, a road made of cobblestone could be seen, leading left and right.

Shoddily crafted lampposts lined the road in order, each about fifteen meters from the next. The lanterns were blank, evidently having burned out.

The road sloped downwards on Mican’s left, and a modest structure of wood and stone had been built below.

The structure was a tower with a body of stone and a roof of hardwood. Stone walls surrounded the top and the back had been opened, ladder was placed there leading to the top. Mican recognized it as an outpost tower of sorts.

There was a shabbily built wooden wall surrounding the outpost, stakes piercing through, for what Mican could only assume to be for the purpose of warding off wild beasts.

“Hahh…” A slightly relieved sigh sounded out from the man as he noticed signs of civilization. It had only been a day or two before he had entered portal, but it felt to him as if it had been an entire week.

Slumping down to the ground, the young man decided to rest for a bit and wait for the sun to rise before heading towards the outpost to look for any people he could communicate with, needing food, water, and fresh clothing.

Even considering the locals language gave Mican a headache, if the locals were even human. He knew nothing yet, and he also knew he may attract negative attention due to his bloody clothes, but he deemed it worth the risk as he had no other choice.

More importantly to Mican, he felt a great curiosity and excitement about the place. He knew that more fresh, overwhelmingly interesting experiences awaited him as he gazed at the tower.

Taking a deep, relaxed breath, the young man finally let his guard down and began to think on his experiences as he waited, deeming himself too close to civilization for any creatures to follow him for the smell of blood.

The most prominent question on Mican’s mind was his new discoveries about his body. Facing a fully grown bear, a normal man would have had his head blown off his shoulders from a slight swing, not to mention one with the full weight of the creature behind it and yet the young man only felt a slight throbbing pain in his side afterwards, coming off as slightly dazed with a mere few bruises.

Lightly swinging his fist in the air, nothing of note happened, but swinging hard, the young man felt a strong breeze blow out in its wake.

Slightly shocked, the young man stood up and tested the other functions of his body.

After a short few minutes, he confirmed that outside of a few drastic changes in his body, nothing else had seemed to change.

The most prominent change was to his strength. As a person who rigorously exercised daily back on his own world, he was already physically stronger than most people, but this strength exceeded that by manifold.

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Though he could not get an accurate judgement, he estimated his physical strength to be over three times his previous by how he was able to beat a creature three times his mass to death, with nothing but his bare fists.

The second change was to his resilience. He had grown durable to an extreme extent, and this was proven in the fact that he took the blow of a fully grown bear-like creature and came out fairly unscathed. The full extent of his growth though, he similarly did not know.

The third and final change was one he had noticed only after a bit of observation. It was his immense vitality. This was made most obvious in him being able to shake off the blow of the bear very quickly, but also in the fact that he had been travelling for hours, yet he still had plenty of energy to spare.

There were only two reasons that the young man could think of for the absurd changes in his body, only two things really happening after he had crossed through the portal.

The first change was the figure in the void, as his body had a terrifying reaction upon meeting its eyes. The second change, and most plausible to Mican, was the bloody finger he had eaten. It was the most plausible due to the fact that he had his body completely healed after consuming it, as if it was some super-drug.

The golden blood worried Mican, as he could no longer write the event of him devouring the finger off as delirium after seeing the bear lust for it so greatly. While he was worried, he could do nothing with his lack of information.

Taking the small dagger out of its sheath, he inspected it once again, more wary this time. The bear hadn’t seemed aggressive at all until he had pulled the blade out, instead almost friendly. The blood on the sheath was all but gone, having been licked clean by the bear.

He gave a small shudder as he remembered back to the bear licking the dagger clean. What sort of… blood could invoke such a violent reaction in an animal? To the point it gave no attention to shredding its own tongue?

While Mican didn’t know, he was heavily fascinated by the matter.

There was nothing else the young man could think of, but he was not concerned. Despite having massive changes to his body, despite being in a foreign land knowing none if its laws, despite having been separated from everything he once knew, not a single bit of concern showed in his eyes.

Instead of worry, there seemed to be only excitement.

. . . . .

The clouds in the sky began to clear as the sun rose, light shining across the earth and chasing away the darkness.

As Mican was inspecting himself, a rustle of movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. At a distance below the slope he was on, several armored figures could be seen moving about the small outpost.

Mican identified them to be human men, three of them, shuffling to-and-fro in business. The men were lightly armored with gear that reminded Mican exactly of the depictions of medieval armor that he had seen on shows back on his own world.

A helmet that left one’s face open, steel pauldrons on both shoulders surrounding a glimmering gorget, two sabatons under a pair of thin greaves that covered their shins, and several leather sheathes strapped to their sides.

The men were busy cleaning the area of garbage and rubbing down various weapons that gleamed menacingly under the light of the sun.

The sound of words echoed out as one of the men in the group called out to another one, waving his hands about and saying something Mican could not hear. The other man approached, sheathing his weapon, and stood opposite, clearly at attention.

After finishing the chat, the man opposite to the speaker nodded his head, and went inside the outpost, emerging a minute later with a letter in hand.

Solid steps sounded out in the air as the man jogged up the cobblestone path, saluting the other two men as he went.

Backing off much further into the forest, Mican crouched in the greenery and examined the approaching figure closely. As he grew closer, his features became fully visible to the watching young man.

Two cheeks slightly filled with flab bounced up and down, and the clinking of armor sounded out as a boy struggled to jog up the hill. Sweat dripped off his face and the heavy panting of breathing between clenched teeth sounded out as he struggled, his face dyed a light red.

Surprised, Mican watched the scene with raised eyebrows. This ‘man’ wearing armor, despite being fairly tall, was clearly just a kid. He didn’t even look to be in his late teens, having a bit of chub and fairly bright skin.

Why are they recruiting kids as soldiers or guards? Do they lack manpower? Nepotism? Perhaps some sort of volunteer or community hours?

Mican sifted through the questions in his mind as he watched the young man continue jogging into the distance, the clinking of mail and thudding footsteps fading.

After a just a little bit of thought, an ominous premonition came to his mind as he looked back at the men clearing the area around the fort, polishing their armor and weapons.

If this was such a lax post as to have community hours, why would these men be up just as the sun rose, preparing their weapons? What would cause them to have such diligence, and why would a mere child be enlisted in this guard duty?

There were plenty of possibilities and this didn’t exactly mean the situation in the world he was in was negative, but to Mican, there were no situations in which this was a positive.

Erring on the side of caution, the young man quickly decided to not go near the outpost, instead planning to simply follow the road until he could find civilization or resources that could be of use to him.

Gazing down at the mostly dried red blood covering his clothes and body, he knew that no sane man would take his story of a bear so easily, and he did not want to be mistaken as an enemy.

“Ugh.”

A soft groan left Mican’s mouth as he stretched his limbs, preparing to follow along the road by way of the forest under the refreshing morning sun, but a larger scene of activity once again attracted his attention.

Through a bend down the cobblestone road in the distance, a strange group of people were slowly approaching the stone outpost, surrounding a carriage that he could not properly make out the features of in the distance.

Turning his head to look at the carriage, a deeply sinister and foreboding feeling filled the young man, and a feeling of disgust overwhelmed him.