After sitting up from a suspicious black metal box, Gawain found himself in a state of utter bewilderment. In fact, he hadn't even consciously thought about the act of sitting up—it just happened.
An overwhelming sense of disorientation and dizziness clouded his mind. His ears were ringing, his body was bombarded with sensations he could barely process, and everything he saw had at least four overlapping shadows. Two of those shadows were even black and white. But amidst all this chaos, his thinking ability hadn't entirely abandoned him.
Maybe he owed that clarity to the sudden smack on his hand from some heavy object, which had jolted him awake just as he was on the verge of succumbing to confusion.
Although, he had to admit, that hit hurt like hell…
As his thoughts gradually cleared, fragments of recent memories returned to him—the sudden blackout in his view, some sort of "escape protocol" being triggered, the sensation of falling, and now… here he was, in a real, tangible body with full sensation and the ability to move.
A body!
He finally had a body!
After who knows how many eons of drifting as a third-person, aerial observer, Gawain had gained a physical form again! The disorientation in his head was understandable, and the overwhelming sensations from his body were no surprise—he'd gone countless years without any sense beyond sight. Even though he'd retained his sanity somehow, adjusting to a state where he could feel hot, cold, pain, and even itchiness was no small feat.
He could feel himself quickly adapting, though. As his dizziness lessened slightly, the four-fold shadow vision started aligning, and his surroundings gradually came into clear focus.
The first thing he saw was a group of four burly men, fully armed. One of them, a graying middle-aged man in robust steel armor, looked like he had muscles on his muscles and was wielding a silver-gray longsword. The other three had simpler armor and weapons, but still seemed like trained fighters.
A petite girl was on her knees, held at swordpoint by the four men. Her face was obscured by her hair, but a glimpse of a pointed ear peeked out from under the strands.
Further away, a woman in a red dress caught his eye. Her refined, mature appearance and elegant figure made Gawain look a little longer than necessary.
But something in the tension and fear in her eyes drew his attention back.
A nearby movement distracted him next; he turned his head and saw a teenage girl, looking no older than sixteen or seventeen, stumbling off the platform where he was lying. She was gripping a metal staff that looked like it could do serious damage.
Recalling her position from earlier, Gawain's face took on an odd expression. "Were you the one who hit me just now?"
As he spoke, he was startled to realize he wasn't speaking Chinese but rather an unfamiliar language that felt completely natural, as if he'd known it his whole life.
Rebecca, however, was too rattled to notice her "ancestor's" bewildered thoughts. She was almost in tears, the trauma of recent events and the pressure of her new title weighing heavily on her. "Ancestor… I'm so sorry, so sorry…"
"I…" Gawain was still trying to make sense of everything around him. Despite having spent countless years watching this world from above, he was experiencing it in first-person for the first time. His confusion was easily on par with everyone else's. "And you are…?"
The elegant woman in the red dress seemed to be the most composed of the group. As Gawain sat up and spoke, her expression relaxed noticeably. She took a cautious step forward, still wary, but addressed him calmly. "Do you know who you are?"
"Me?" Gawain hesitated, realizing he'd almost blurted out his original name. A quick glance around told him he was in some sort of coffin, albeit a rather peculiar one. His surroundings, though spacious, unmistakably looked like a tomb.
Judging by the expressions on everyone's faces, Gawain quickly pieced together the situation: he had, effectively, "risen from the dead."
If he made the mistake of saying anything inconsistent with the identity of this body, they'd likely assume he was some kind of demon or malevolent spirit. That young girl had called him "Ancestor," so he could safely assume he was in the body of one of their ancestors.
He lowered his head in a thoughtful pose, but in reality, he was frantically coming up with an excuse. Something like memory confusion from a long sleep might work, but just as he tried to focus on that idea, a fresh wave of dizziness struck him.
Just as he'd started getting used to this new body and shaken off the initial disorientation, another wave of nausea hit him, almost toppling him back into the coffin. The woman in red raised her staff, preparing to blast him with a fireball, but Gawain's deep, resonant voice stopped her.
"Gawain Cecil, I am Gawain Cecil, Pioneer of the Kingdom of Ansu… What year is it now?" He spoke calmly, lifting his head with a steady, ocean-deep gaze.
Inside, his mind was in turmoil.
Memories of this Gawain Cecil were flooding into his brain like files being extracted from a computer's hard drive. He managed to access the most basic parts of these memories during that brief moment of disorientation and learned his current identity.
To his surprise, the body he inhabited shared his original name, "Gawain." Except this Gawain had a different surname: Cecil.
Coincidence?
He didn't have time to dwell on it. The torrent of Gawain Cecil's memories was unrelenting, and he had to concentrate to avoid losing consciousness. In his daze, he heard the young girl from earlier, who had knocked him with her metal staff, answer cheerfully, "It's the year 735 of the Ansu calendar, Ancestor! You've been asleep for over seven hundred years…"
Hetty, the woman in red, let out a sigh of relief. As a scholar of magical theory, she knew that true undead beings suffered from critical soul defects; they couldn't speak or think upon revival. Even those with strong will would lose all memory of their past life.
Moreover, undead could never say their own name without triggering a soul fire backlash. Such an attempt would result in a painful reaction that was impossible to hide.
So, Hetty relaxed a bit, though she remained deeply puzzled. If their ancestor hadn't become an undead, then what in the world was going on? Why would he wake up after so many years?
Etiquette demanded that she suppress her confusion. She stepped forward respectfully, bowing with both reverence and tension. "Ancestor of the Cecil family, I am your descendant, Hetty Cecil, and this is also your descendant, Rebecca Cecil. Please forgive her for her rash actions… and our intrusion upon your rest."
Ah, so this was his many-times-great-granddaughter, and the other was likely of similar descent.
The flood of memories had finally ceased, and Gawain, pushing aside the urge to analyze them in depth, tried to get a handle on his surroundings. He reached out, bracing himself on the coffin's edge as he attempted to stand.
"Not to worry, not to worry. I don't even know how I woke up… Could someone give me a hand here?"
He had clearly overestimated his control over his new body. A failed attempt to stand left him feeling rather embarrassed.
Rebecca, who had been watching him with nervous excitement, saw her moment to shine. She quickly bounced over to help, clutching his arm as she assisted him out of the coffin. "Let me help you out of the coffin, Ancestor!"
There was something strangely awkward about how that sounded.
"Seven hundred years, huh…" Gawain stiffly climbed out of the coffin with Rebecca's help. He glanced down at his clothing, puzzled. "What kind of fabric is this?"
"I think it's Elven moon-weave cloth?" Rebecca answered uncertainly.
"High-tech stuff…"
Rebecca: "Huh?"
Ancestor's words are so deep. (Picture a puzzled expression.)
With Rebecca's support, Gawain managed to step off the stone platform and finally stand on solid ground. He could feel himself rapidly gaining control over his new body, as if his soul was downloading the drivers it needed to sync with this flesh. The connection between his mind and body was strengthening at an impressive speed.
Letting go of Rebecca's arm, he took a tentative step forward.
In that moment, he felt like he could weep with gratitude. If there had been a microphone, he would have given a lengthy speech, thanking everyone he knew.
After all these years, in any novel, a transmigrator would have practically unified the universe by now, and he'd just completed his first milestone: walking upright…
And after savoring that success, he remembered the girl surrounded by four muscular men.