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The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]
The Country of the Lizardmen: Chapter One

The Country of the Lizardmen: Chapter One

I don’t know where things went wrong.

That is to say, if you could even say that things went wrong. Perhaps this had all been orchestrated by some higher being, as far as I knew. Maybe it was all part of a grander plan.

But boy did I not see things that way when it all started out.

I think I can be forgiven for my initial confusion though.

After all, it had been a normal day. Nothing had been out of the ordinary to even remotely suggest that something like this would happen.

It was my dog's; Cheddar's, birthday that afternoon. And so, I left my dormitory and drove back towards my parent’s house. I wasn't allowed to take Cheddar with me when I went to college, even though I would’ve loved to- badly.

No pets allowed in the dorms, unfortunately. And this was an iron-clad rule that I could not get around no matter how many e-mails I sent or phone calls I made.

On my way back home though, I decided to stop by the local library.

I don’t know what brought that desire in me to stop by the old library out.

If you considered how much time I had spent there in total, it would probably add up to a few months. It had been one of my favorite haunts and distractions from the rest of the world growing up.

Why had I decided to stop by there again? I still can't seem to remember what prompted me to do it, after all, there was a library at my university- though I guess the selection of books was not so much for entertainment there as they were for information. Maybe it was just nostalgia and the fact that I had been away from home for about four months now, and I just wanted to revisit the place. It had been over a year since I’d last been there.

Regardless of whatever reason that had gripped me, I had decided that it was a good idea to drop by there for a quick skim of what might be available for light reading before I went back home.

And this decision, however small it seemed, would have an enormous impact on my life.

I didn't find anything that quite caught my eye as I scanned the spines of the books, but at that moment, I heard something.

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It was quite remarkable, now that I reflect on that moment, in that it seemed like I was the only one in the entire library who had heard it.

After all, this was a library, and it was as quiet as you'd expect one to be. Such a sound must’ve attracted attention from everyone, but it was as if no one could hear it other than myself.

I heard what sounded like the roaring of a machine, almost like that of a motorcycle being kick started, only amplified. Curious, I turned my head to see where the noise was coming from - to see that there was a door in the same direction as that of the sound.

Nothing about the door was out of the ordinary, though, once I had time to think about it, I realized it was strange that it existed there at all. I had been to the library countless times in the past, and yet, I couldn't remember that door existing at any point in my memories. Was this some new addition to the library?

The noise grew louder the closer I got, and after I opened the door- I felt as if multiple invisible hands had grasped onto me and were dragging me forward.

The door didn't seem to lead anywhere - all I saw as I opened it was a rectangle of bright white light which I was pulled through. I heard the door being slammed shut behind me and the light began to dissipate.

All of that happened in an instant, so that I had no idea what had happened and stood there, dumbfounded, for quite a while.

When it finally occurred to me that something was off and that I wasn't daydreaming, I turned around to see - that the door was gone! There was no trace of it, or the library I had come from, anywhere.

I was somewhere very far from home - that was clear. The sky was still the same azure blue, but I was standing on a road which had been paved with stone. Odd- because nothing in my hometown was made like this road. It seemed like the kind of cobblestone road you'd only see in old movies.

So, I was just there, standing on a street. I didn't see anyone, but there were buildings in front of me and a small stream behind me. The buildings were cylindrical at the base, with rounded roofs that ended in points kind of like a gnome's hat, and which seemed to be made of overlapping tiles in a sort of fish scale pattern.

I had never seen a house designed like that before- I mean, I'm sure you could build one, but I had never seen architecture quite like it before.

I took out my phone - I wasn't getting a signal at all. With no other real options before me, I went down an alleyway, only to immediately run out.

What I saw first was rather cute - something that looked like an axolotl only the size of a house cat being walked on a leash. I might've even wanted to pet it given how much it reminded me of Cheddar in that moment, were it not for the fact that I saw what was holding the other end of the leash.

The axolotl was being walked by something I could only initially describe as a bipedal crocodile, though once I saw its long legs, slender hands, and the fact that it was dressed in a yellow robe; in addition to its slightly more humanoid facial features did the right word occur to me to describe what I was seeing - a lizardman!

I thought of that later, as my only immediate reaction was to get away as soon as I could. My first fear was that it would eat me, my second was that it was some kind of alien and I had been kidnapped by a UFO and they were going to harvest my organs or something along those lines.

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