The pain in his head was unbearable. Alex woke up completely disoriented. Everything he saw seemed to be taken from a fantasy book. He was in a small, ramshackle cabin, with woodworm-eaten wooden walls and a boarded-up window. The smell of mold and dirt was pungent, and Alex grimaced in disgust.
He slowly rose from the bed, a simple dirty mattress with a torn blanket, and tried to organize his thoughts.
"Where the hell am I?" he murmured, looking around. Suddenly, a wave of strange memories flooded his mind. He saw fragmented images of the body he now inhabited: a teenager named Marcos, alone in a small town called Stalvar, surviving as best he could. He remembered being harassed by a group of nobles the day before. The leader of the nobles, an arrogant young man with a shiny sword, had ordered one of his guards to stab Marcos because he didn't like dirty people with "rotten" blood. Marcos had been approached in a narrow street of the town. The nobles surrounded him, laughing and mocking him.
"What is this scum doing in our way?" asked the leader, a haughty-looking boy with perfectly combed blond hair.
"I was just trying to go home…" Marcos replied with a trembling voice.
"Home?" laughed the noble leader. "You, with a home? What a joke. Don't you know that your mere existence is an offense to us?" The noble's friends laughed, and one of them, with a sadistic smile, suggested:
"We should teach him a lesson." The leader nodded and, with a careless gesture, ordered his guard:
"Stab him, but don't kill him. We just want him to remember his place." Marcos felt the sharp pain as the guard's sword penetrated his side. He doubled over on the ground, gasping and trying to hold back tears. The nobles left laughing, leaving him to bleed out in the street. The townspeople, though sympathetic to him, feared the repercussions of helping him. Marcos, full of fury and pain, managed to drag himself to his cabin at the edge of the forest, where he finally collapsed on the bed.
"Great, I'm reincarnated in a medieval world and I'm in a stabbed body. Now what?" Alex thought sarcastically, his dark humor helping him cope with the situation. As he tried to assimilate everything, he heard a noise outside. Someone was knocking at the door. His heart beat faster. Who could it be? According to Marcos' memories, he had no close friends or family.
Cautiously, he approached the door. Before he could ask who it was, the door burst open. A tall, burly man in light armor looked at him in surprise.
"I didn't expect you to still be alive, boy. According to reports, you were seriously injured. I came to inspect your house to collect your body, but you gave me a pleasant surprise…" said the man, visibly surprised to see Marcos alive and without visible wounds, although with dried bloodstains on his clothes. Alex tried to respond, but the soldier didn't give him the opportunity.
"This will be easier for both of us," said the man before striking Alex's neck with precision. Alex felt a sharp pain and then everything went black. When he woke up, he was being carried like a sack of potatoes on the soldier's shoulder. His body ached from the uncomfortable position and his head still throbbed.
"I thought this would be a simple mission…" the soldier murmured as he walked. Alex, or rather Marcos, tried to assess his situation. Apparently, they hadn't killed him, which was a step forward. However, being carried unconscious by an armed man was not exactly reassuring.
"Where are you taking me?" he asked in a weak voice, trying to sound stronger than he felt.
"To the village. We have to sort this out. You can't stay here alone, especially after what happened. Now be quiet and cooperate, boy," the soldier replied without stopping. As the cabin grew further and further away, Alex allowed himself a moment to reflect.
His previous life had ended abruptly and brutally. Now he had a new opportunity, albeit under much more difficult circumstances. The distrust of everyone, born from his betrayal and murder, mixed with a steely determination. He needed answers and, to get them, he had to adapt to this new world.
As the soldier advanced through the forest, Marcos clung desperately to the fragments of information he had acquired. He remembered that his new home belonged to the kingdom of Illas, a place marked by war and political turmoil. Compulsory military service had been imposed on citizens in response to an external threat, although the exact details of the situation were still unclear to him. As he contemplated his situation, Marcos noticed the absence of dragons in such a fantastic world. With a touch of sarcasm, he murmured to himself:
"What kind of fantasy world is this without dragons? Are they on vacation or something?"
Marcos didn't miss the irony of the situation. In a world full of magic, mythical creatures, and warring kingdoms, the lack of dragons seemed out of place.
However, he had no time to delve deeper into his thoughts when the soldier took him deeper into the dark and mysterious forest.