The sun was slowly making its way across the lightly clouded skies, approaching darkness at a gentle pace which still left plenty of room for the orange hue to wash over the quiet forest.
Scott didn't feel like moving away from the tree he had been sitting under for the last half-hour or so. It was a lovely spot, surrounded by dense copses of vegetation and a huge boulder to the south where the vegetation was slightly scarce. He was more or less hidden from anyone, or anything casually roaming the area. Of course, they might sense him in some other way, but so far Scott hadn't encountered any such thing.
His hyper-aware persona screamed at him internally, urging him to keep moving, but at the moment, Scott was really feeling the effect of fatigue.
He had been traveling north, as directed by the System's compass, for a long time. Scott didn't have a watch on his hand when he was teleported, and he didn't even know whether 'modern devices' like those would even function in this realm. He was roughly keeping track of the time by imagining a mental arc from east to west and dividing them in one-hour slices in his head. He was a bit wary about the celestial bodies visible from Athionia but had long since figured out that the 'Sun' visible from the ground was similar to the one on Earth. Since it also kept following roughly the same pattern in terms of position in the sky, Scott was more or less confident about his time-tracking. According to his deductions, it was roughly 6 pm when he'd given in to his fatigue and sought rest under a tree, where he had camped himself ever since.
As he sat and brooded, the reality of his situation was finally hitting him with full force.
'I'm in another world. I have no idea what to do except go to a stupid marker several thousand kilometers away. I have no resources, no local knowledge. I'm here on the whim of an ancient deity who I was foolish enough to somehow summon. And to add to the absurdity of that, the deity sent me to another world with a fucking video-game System. Except it's not a video-game world. Monsters don't respawn, and you don't either. It's a real world in which I am interacting with a video-game System. And this is somehow supposed to help me exact my vengeance. Why is this happening? How is this happening? What is even happening????'
"GOD…FUCKING..DAMMMIT!"
Scott could no longer restrain himself and swore out loud, his frustration finally reaching its peak.
He never wanted this. Being part of some bullshit Isekai fantasy. His family was dead, people who did it were living their lives free of all consequences back on earth. He'd tried everything in his power to bring them to justice. And when none of that worked, when Scott had exhausted all options available to him legally, he'd tried the illegal methods. Unsurprisingly, that had also failed. Complete and utter despair drove him, in the end, to seek help from the supernatural. He could not even remember why he'd started studying all those ancient texts and rituals and summoning in the end. It was the act of a person who'd probably already lost hold of his own sanity, but then again…sanity was not a concern for Scott at that point. In fact, the fact that he was literally insane was probably the key factor in his success.
Scott wanted more than anything to bring his family back. He didn't want a hollow 'victory' by killing the people responsible for the death and destruction of his family. No, he wanted their plans, their traps, strategies, fail to harm his family and continue to fail until they were destroyed in the process. He wanted his family to come out unscathed from the whole ordeal, ideally without even having any notion of attempts against them. Yes, he wanted the complete reversal of the situation that had befallen him. He wanted to defy logic, science, and the way the world works.
Well, he did manage something.
Getting stuck in a new world that still felt like a bad dream.
But he wasn't sure if it was a dream he wanted to wake up from. Because if he did, his family would still be dead and he'd be on the run, powerless to change his situation.
***
It was a pleasant summer afternoon to anyone who cared to treat days like this as the perfect time to relax with the family, go to the beach to swim or sunbathe, or visit the town on a small, but exciting shopping errand. To many, it was summer at its peak, an absolutely serene and beautiful moment. However, to a certain individual named Darkness, it was a dreadful time of year.
Bright nights, happy days, and a sense of ease meant that Darkness' jobs were few and difficult.
His profession was a dead giveaway at first glance, though unless he was actually proved guilty, the guards and the militia could do little but keep an extra pair of eyes on him. Even the weapons on his back, a pair of short blades, perfect for close-quarter combat, was a sight common enough to be ruled as either an individual mindful about his personal safety or an adventurer. As long as the person wielding weapons does not have a known history of crime, the guards couldn't just arrest someone for 'looking' like an assassin.
In his case, however, the guards were very much aware of his…vocation. But he would never leave any trails that'll lead back to him, so all they could do were glare and mutter, and shadow his every movement in the name of 'patrolling the streets'- the moment he would step into a town to restock supplies or sell anything he's acquired.
That was one of the main reasons why he was in the forest right now, instead of hunkering down in some hole in the nearby towns. He'd readily give up all the amenities civilization provides for a moment of peace in a place where eyes won't automatically hover over him and start judging. He had a particularly rough experience in the town he was in this morning. Apparently, some of the merchants lodging in the inn had been robbed of all their possessions, and the moment Darkness was spotted at the front gates, he was subject to a litany of veiled threats, harassments, and insults, all under the veneer of trying to find the 'vile culprit who would rob hardworking merchants'.
'Should have killed those bastards just on principle. How dare they bring me down to the level of a petty thief! Do they really not know who I am?"
That was a moot question even in self-reflection. Darkness knew those guards were untouchable in broad daylight (and at nighttime as well, for the most part). Raising his blades to strike down civil servants following the orders of their superiors - that was a low Darkness would never stoop to, no matter how much he was provoked.
"If not death, maiming should be fine, right? A few broken bones maybe? Just enough to give their purse strings a few panicked tugs?"
Darkness dismissed the idea after some thought. The small period of satisfaction was not worth having the entire Guard-force bent on making his life an absolute misery.
With a few aggravated mumbles, Darkness came towards a large tree. The comforting presence of a cool shade underneath the large canopy was enough to drive away the bleak cloud of frustration and anguish…at least momentarily. He placed his rump firmly on the ground, back curving up the length of the tree until it straightened out, head leaning into the dried, rough surface, eyes peering up into the varying colors of orange, white, and yellow that made up the sky, through the gaps of leaves still firmly holding onto their branches. He closed his eyes…and let the world around him fade to a dull blur.
***