Pain, indescribable pain! That's all Martin could feel as his brain was torn from his skull. But what he felt at the time no longer mattered.
Martin was dead, and now he couldn't feel anything. No, he shouldn't feel anything, but for some reason he still does.
Martin groaned loudly; his skull felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it; his vision was also fuzzy; and there was this irritating, high-pitched ringing in his ears. It took a little while for him to muster up the strength to attempt to stand up.
However, for whatever reason, his sense of balance was screwed up. He wobbled and fell down multiple times until he finally gave up and laid on his back panting.
As he was sprawled on the cold ground, Martin couldn't help but feel very confused. Was what he experienced real, or was it all just a nightmare?
'If it was a nightmare, it was pretty damn realistic!' He thought as his vision began to clear. It was then he realized he was outdoors in some dirty, dirt-filled ditch.
He quickly jumped to his feet; with the ringing gone and his vision restored, it was much easier, and he looked around in a panic.
There wasn't much to see though; his surroundings were mostly just rocky barren soil with sparse patches of dried-up brown grass. The environment he was in reminded him of the American South West, like in Nevada or Arizona.
Martin looked up at the sky; it was devoid of any clouds, and the air was very dry. The only thing he could see up there was the bright light of the sun, and he needed to shield his eyes from the harsh rays with his hands just to look.
Martin's face was scrunched up; his half-open eyes felt like there were on fire even though he was covering them with his hands, so he quickly stopped staring at the sky and instead hoisted himself out of the surprisingly deep ditch.
After getting out, Martin found himself standing in the middle of a narrow dirt road.
Martin grunted in frustration, roughly ruffling his hair and stomping his feet like a child throwing a tantrum. He had no clue where he was, what was going, or even if any of this was real. The only thing he knew for sure was that it was too fucking hot!
He couldn't say for certain how hot it actually was, but he guess the temperature had to be somewhere between 90 and 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Martin was already sweating up a storm, and it hadn't even been 15 minutes since he got here.
He wiped the sweat from his brow, and it was only then, when he saw his thin, dark-skinned arm, that he realized his body was radically different. It was scrawny and malnourished, his skin tanned by the sun.
Before Martin had been short, 5'4 to be exact, and his limbs and fingers were stubby, but this new body was tall, about 5'9 or 5'10, and its limbs and fingers were longer.
He didn't have a reflective surface to check his facial features, but his hair was long enough that he could pull it and tell it was dark brown in color like his old hair.
'This is freaky, but it explains why I'm having trouble moving.' Martin thought as he inspected his spindly body, or rather, it was spindly to him.
It was his previous body that was oddly proportioned; in life, he simply never accepted the fact he had been an ugly, overweight dwarf.
"Woah, what am I wearing?" Martin said while looking at his clothing with a puzzled expression, and he thought they looked like something a village NPC would wear in a fantasy game.
The outfit consisted of a white tunic with brown leather pants and boots, but they were dusty and ragged, not to mention the dried-up droplets of blood on his tunic.
Martin's expression became ugly when he saw the many small cuts and bruises on his body. This would explain the soreness he'd been feeling for a while now, which he initially chalked up to having his brain ripped out of his skull.
He sighed in frustration, having no choice but to accept the fact he'd been transmigrated into the game, something he really, really didn't want to be true.
Now I know what you're thinking: shouldn't a guy like Martin love to be transmigrated into a game world? We'll you'd be wrong in that assumption.
The people who fantasize of such a situation are usually tired of their mundane lives and desire something more, but Martin was happy with his hermit lifestyle.
The man could play games all day and eat whatever he wanted without having to worry about anything; to him, he was already living the dream.
However, he'd now have to go walking around outside, go on strenuous adventures, interact with other people, and undergo character development—all things Martin despised the most.
"Fucking bullshit!" He swore, kicking a nearby rock in anger. He picked a random direction and began walking, muttering more curses as he moved unknowingly in the direction of a distant town.