[Chapter Size: 2100 Words.]
Third Person POV
Cintra, northern kingdoms.
...
...
In the dim light of dawn, a six-year-old boy awoke with a throbbing pain in his head. He opened his eyes, confused, scratching the ache on his forehead while an old woman scolded him severely. "Useless!" she shouted. "You do nothing worthwhile and still spill all the water from the well before bringing it to the orphanage!" Her voice was as rough as gravel, and her face was wrinkled by age and disdain.
The boy, still dazed, looked around, trying to understand where he was. The earthen floor beneath him was damp and cold, with blood from his head. He was in an open courtyard, surrounded by dark stone walls that formed the orphanage, a place he should recognize, but his mind was blank. The woman continued to berate him, but her words seemed distant, muffled by the buzzing in his ears as he tried to figure out if this was a very strange dream.
Finally, he found his voice, weak, and looked at the woman freaking out. "Who are you?" he asked, staring at the woman with eyes full of confusion. The question seemed to surprise her, and for a moment, but soon the perplexity on her face gave way to anger again.
She glared at him, her narrow eyes studying him as if he were a stranger. "What do you mean, who am I? I'm Mother Greta, the head of this orphanage, and you are one of the orphans I have to endure day after day!" Her voice rose an octave in frustration.
The boy tried to get up, but dizziness overcame him, and he fell back to the ground. He put his hand on his head, feeling the wound formed where he must have hit.
'This doesn't seem like a dream, where was I before this, wait, who am I...?' He thought, and the answer came soon after with another migraine with clouded memories. The memories were still hazy, escaping his grasp like shadows in the fog.
"I don't remember you... I don't remember anything," he murmured, more to himself than to Mother Greta. His heart began to beat faster, a growing panic taking hold of him at that moment. Where was he? Who was he?
Mother Greta sighed, a sound laden with impatience and disgust. "Get up, boy. We have no time for foolishness. There's much work to be done, and you've already caused enough trouble for today."
The boy tried to obey, supporting himself on trembling arms. He looked around, seeing other orphans beginning to gather, drawn by the commotion. They watched him with a mix of curiosity and caution. No one came to help him.
As he struggled to get up, a strange feeling began to form in the back of his mind. The memories that had been clouded until then began to emerge, as if something inside him had awakened with the fall, an unknown force he couldn't understand.
He pressed his temples with his thin fingers, a sharp headache hammering in his skull even more. He closed his eyes for a moment, and flashes of memory began to come one after the other. He remembered poor, loving parents, a life that now seemed distant and unreal in a small village until there was a monster problem. While they sought a better life outside the village, there was a brutal ambush by bandits on the roads near Cindra. The terror of that fateful night flooded his mind – the glint of swords, the screams of his parents, the feeling of helplessness and fear, watching them die in front of him, he would be taken as a child slave, but the bandits had been found by city soldiers, after all of them died, he was a lonely and traumatized 4-year-old boy. With no one to claim his guardianship, he was taken to the orphanage, a place that should have been a refuge, but which turned out to be another form of prison.
Since then, the life of this boy had been an endless cycle of hard work and cruelty with adults demanding endless things from the child and he would have to do to have something with which he could fill his stomach at the end of the day. Even being just a child of four, five and now six years old, he was forced to perform heavy tasks, far exceeding what would be expected of someone his age.
Mother Greta, the person in charge of the orphanage, had no sympathy for sad stories. To her, everyone there was just mouths to feed, hands to work. Over the years, she often wondered why life had to be so relentless, why he had to lose everything he loved. But no one in the orphanage had time for such reflections; survival was the only concern, even among the children.
As the other children began their morning chores, the boy tried to gather the strength to stand up. The headache was slowly diminishing, leaving behind a strange sensation, a kind of tingling in the back of his consciousness.
Gradually, the boy stood up, leaning on the stone walls of the orphanage. He looked at his hands, small and calloused from work, and felt strange, he was that boy, but at the same time, he believed he was not, that he was actually someone else. Then another flood of memories appeared in his mind, but without pain, he remembered another world, one where he was not a boy and much more developed than this one. Still leaning against the stone wall of the orphanage, he felt a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions flooding him. He was lost, not just physically, but in his own existence. The memory of his death, even though he was young, a confusing and distant event, began to emerge in his stunned mind. He had died... and now, somehow incomprehensibly, was here, in this place, in this body of a child that should not exist.
The city of Cindra, which before seemed familiar, now he knew he was in a specific world that should not exist, as Cintra should only exist in the universe of "The Witcher," a realm of monsters, magic, and warriors. How he, a person from another world, did not know how, had come to be here? Was this a whim of fate, a quirk of the universe, or something more? He kept asking, but there was no one to answer other than the angry eyes of that woman who didn't seem to care if he was a hurt child or not.
Mother Greta called out to him, bringing him back to the harsh reality of the orphanage. "Boy, stop daydreaming and start working!" Her voice was like a whip, cutting through the cold morning air.
With a sigh, the boy simply turned away, completely ignoring the severe words of Mother Greta, and left through the gate without caring about that woman, leaving the old woman talking to herself. As soon as he found himself outside the orphanage, his eyes opened in a mix of surprise. Before him lay the city of Cindra, not like a game or a story in a book, a place that seemed to belong to a dark and complex fairy tale in medieval times.
Calandre Castle dominated the horizon, an imposing fortress of gray stones and tall towers that rose like silent giants over the city. Its robust walls and flags fluttering in the wind spoke of a past filled with battles and glories, a constant reminder of the strength and history of that land and the battles that Queen Calanthe always fought without backing down.
In the streets, the boy continued walking away from the orphanage and observed a constant parade of soldiers and citizens. The soldiers, with their polished armor and swords hanging at their sides, moved with a purpose and confidence that only came from the certainty of protecting and serving. The citizens, on the other hand, displayed a variety of attire, from simple and practical garments to more elaborate clothing of those who seemed to have a higher position in society.
As the boy walked through the streets, he inevitably found himself in the way of people. Some citizens cast glances of contempt or irritation at him, muttering curses under their breath. "Get out of the way, kid!" a man grumbled as he gently pushed him aside. The boy, still absorbed in his admiration and confusion, barely noticed these interactions, his mind focused on absorbing every detail of the world around him.
The city was a melting pot of activities: merchants selling their goods in colorful stalls, children running through the narrow streets, and the constant sound of conversations, laughter, and the occasional argument filling the air. It was a living place, pulsating with the energy of its inhabitants, each playing their part in the fabric of everyday life.
For the boy, this was a completely new world, a place of endless possibilities and mysteries to be discovered, since he was naturally a fan of The Witcher 3 game. Madara wandered the streets of Cindra, his eyes capturing every detail of the vibrant and strangely new city for his old life, and familiar to the life that was in his memories.
"How is it possible that I am here?" he murmured to himself now, his voice almost lost in the city's hustle and bustle. "How can this world, which I only knew in stories, be real?" Each step he took seemed to confirm more and more the reality of this world, a world he only knew as fiction.
The boy was also drawn to the city's architecture. The stone houses with thatched roofs, he passed by taverns filled with laughter and songs, where travelers and locals shared stories. Sometimes, he caught fragments of conversations about terrifying monsters, powerful sorcerers, and, of course, the witchers – the monster hunters who seemed to be as revered as feared.
All of this was incredibly fascinating for the boy, but also deeply disconcerting. With each step, he kept asking how he had gotten there and what his presence in this place meant.
After a few minutes, exhausted from his wanderings and overwhelmed with thoughts about his new reality, the boy found refuge at a lake in a square - a common water well in many cities. Sitting on the edge, he looked into the calm water's reflection, seeing his own face for the first time since he woke up in that unknown world.
His hair was dark, almost as dark as the night, and framed a face that could be considered handsome for a boy, were it not for the layer of dirt that covered it. His eyes, now fixed on his reflection, had a depth and intensity that seemed disproportionate for his age.
As he watched his reflection, a vague memory of that face began to tingle at the edge of his consciousness. He felt he knew that face, that appearance, from somewhere, but couldn't remember where.
As the boy moved away from the water, suddenly, in front of his eyes, a translucent blue screen appeared, floating in the air as if it were an illusion. The words on it glowed with a soft light:
"Madara Uchiha Model System!"
"Congratulations, you have unlocked the system. Bonus received -> 1% of Uchiha Madara's peak!"
The boy was initially startled, but then stared at the screen, his eyes widening in disbelief. He blinked several times, not understanding what he was seeing. "This is impossible..." he murmured to himself, still staring fixedly at the floating screen. He reached out his hand, almost expecting his fingers to pass through a mirage, but felt a soft, almost electric resistance.
"This..." he repeated, his voice a whisper of astonishment.
"Uchiha Madara... wait, now that I remember and realize... this is my name in this world!" Madara, the 6-year-old boy, hadn't thought about what his name was in this world, but now he remembered, and most importantly, on the screen was, "Peak of Uchiha Madara."
The boy knew the stories of the legendary Uchiha Madara, an overpowered character from a completely different world. And now, somehow, he was connected to this character, not just by name and appearance, as he remembered that his appearance was that of Uchiha Madara in childhood as he remembered now, but also by being a bearer of a system that promised him a fraction of Madara's legendary power. What did this mean for him? How could he, a simple orphan in an unknown world, harbor such power?
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