Chapter 2

Aryan POV~

I looked at the transparent screen in front of me with bafflement, bewilderment and a little bit of excitement.

'Don't tell me that email was the real deal?!' I thought to myself as I gazed at the never ending sea of sand all around me.

"Nonono. This… this can't be right…" I said while frantically looking around for any type of cameras or something.

'Somebody had to be playing a prank on me right? Right!?'

Although I always hoped to be sent on an adventure, just being dropped into the middle of the desert without any word beforehand whatsoever was… a bit extreme.

Not to mention the transparent screen that was floating in my vision. It was anything but normal.

It was so weird in fact, that a small part of me couldn't help but believe the authenticity of this.

Perhaps some higher power had really decided to send me to the past, as a response to my thirst for adventure. That would be a scenario like those various novels that I had read in the past.

'But even in that case, why here? Why now? Why start in the middle of a god damn desert?!' I screamed inside of my head, internally cursing the higher being that decided to send me to ancient Egypt for the first adventure.

But even that thought couldn't continue for long.

Why?

Because the heat of the sun was now becoming unbearable. It was fine at first, but slowly with time, the heat seemed to only increase.

For a moment, I wondered how the various desert civilizations used to survive in such a tremendous amount of heat.

'Ah right. Most of, if not all of them were situated at the banks of rivers. Egypt is even called the Gift of the Nile because of that.' I thought as I begun to move in a random direction.

I didn't know where I was, and as such, I could only move in a random direction and hope that I find civilization. Otherwise, either I'll dehydrate under the sun, or if I, somehow, miraculously manage to survive the day, freeze up during the night.

My steps were heavy. Each step I took, made my feet sink deep into the sand, making me need more force to move through the rough landscape.

But while I was moving, I couldn't help but notice that the screen continued to silently float in the corner of my vision.

I tried to touch the screen but that resulted in my hand passing right through it.

Seeing this, I was confused. How the hell do I get rid of this?

If it's a system like those novels I read, isn't it supposed to give me something like a tutorial? Isn't it supposed to make me overpowered and shower me with starter gifts?

But instead of doing that, the system was right here, doing absolutely nothing.

All it showed was the same message.

[Welcome to History!]

[You are during the era of Ancient Egypt, the making of the Pyramids!]

'Hey, aren't you supposed to do something?!' I screamed in his mind. I did not want to scream out loud, not when he's being bombarded with the scorching heat of the sun. I wanted to prevent being dehydrated.

But the fact that I was under such extreme heat was making me extremely irritable and the only thing that I could vent out his anger on was the system screen.

'This useless floating screen! Who in the f*cking hell decided to get me such a useless system! For the love of-'

I kept walking while cursing out the higher entities that dropped me off here.

'Status! Status Screen! Show Status! Properties panel! Open Dashboard! Open Hub! Fuck You!!'

And this continued on for another 5 to 10 minutes...

After that, I was way too irritated to even scream out at the screen.

"Fuck you." I whispered while narrowing my eyes at the screen.

My whole body was covered with sweat and my breathing was becoming heavy. The slightest effort needed to traverse through this complex and hot environment turned out to be extremely difficult.

So much so, that I was completely exhausted from walking after only 10 minutes.

It was really not a good look...

If this continued on, I would no doubt be dead in no time.

'And this stupid system isn't helping me at all.' I thought to myself as I climbed up another hill of sand.

As I reached the peak, I overlooked all of the distant sandy hills. But in comparison to the previous views I had seen, this one was different in one specific respect.

My eyes couldn't help but notice the small dust cloud at the end of the horizon. A dust cloud that seemed to be getting larger by the minute.

And then, the dust cloud fell down with the slope of the hills, and then it rose up again, and then down. It maneuvered across the sandy hills; undoubtedly, it was a traveller or perhaps a group of travellers.

'I'm saved!!!' I screamed inside of my mind and a beaming smile found its way onto my face.

Overcome with extreme happiness and excitement, I enthusiastically waved my arms in their direction, "Heeeeeyyyy!!! Over here!!!! Help me!!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, hopig that they would hear my voice and come to help me.

And sure enough, the small dust could turned its direction as soon as I started to scream. Now, it was heading directly towards me.

My mind lost all reason and I ran down the hill, towards the direction of the travellers that I had seen, not for a second realizing just how dangerous doing this could be.

I excitdely ran up another hill and by the time I was on the top, the 'travellers' had almost reached me.

But the look of the 'travellers' shocked me greatly.

'...That does not look good...' I thought to myself as I overlooked about 20 people with brownish skin color, mounted atop horses of different proportions coming towards me with full speed. But it was not all this that surprised me. It was the variety of different weapons that they were holding and the fierce expressions that they held that made me realize how fucked I was at this moment.

"Gaap khat merun! Shipokh yite shiya chieu!!" The man whose horse led the others screamed at me. Hearing his voice of steel, my legs freezed up and my mind went blank.

'Why are they being so ferocious? Aren't I just a man that's lost in the desert? What language are they speaking' A plethora of thoughts made their way into my mind.

Most of which were questions about the origin of these people, the language that they were speaking and the reason for their obvious display of hostility towards me.

But before I could begin to form any form of an answer in my mind, I was rudely interrupted as the men atop the horses surrounded me completely.

I looked around me in bafflement.

'What in the actual hell is going on?!' Although I was panicking on the inside, I somehow managed to keep a calm facade on the outside.

"Um... Excuse me sir. I'm just a normal man lost in the desert. Can I trouble you to help me?" I asked in a polite tone, not sure if he understood English.

The man I spoke to turned to the others.

"Yanal yak shehh jejef? Uhkof himan nui-yu kimoh yoahr"

"Jujul khamut, yuvid chahei."

"Ahmen tu khisfat chu, harud kha ki, tu tii ve kha!"

They all spoke in some strange language that I could not understand, and that gave me enough reason to believe that they all could in fact not speak English.

'Of course! According to the floating screen, I'm in ancient Egypt. How would they know English. They're obviously speaking in ancient egyptian!' I thought in my mind, inwardly praising myself for my intelligence. '...But then how would I communicate with them?!?!?!'

Before I could go into another panic attack, all of the horse mounted men moved and pointed their weapons at me.

"Yalak Gumeo! Shipokh kite Chieu yavaou!" The man, who I could only assume to be the leader of the group, spoke once again.

'What should I do?' I thought as I continued to stare blankly at the spear that was pointed at my face. They are no doubt proficient in handling those weapons. Even if they're not, I wouldn't like to test it out.

'...Should I run now?' I quickly shook away that thought, after all, I'm in the middle of the desert without a mount or even food or water. While my pursuers would be mounted atop horses while being heavily armed.

Seeing no way out of it, I spoke once again.

Speaking in English, I told them that I'm only a normal man who isn't looking for any trouble. It didn't matter if they could not understand me. What mattered was to convey the thought that we both spoke very different languages and negotiations were impossible.

Seeing that, they might just take pity on me and take me with them... or they might as well kill me on the spot. You can never tell.

I bowed a little at the end of my speech to show my respect to them.

Seeing my little display, they all exchanged contemplatery looks. They all seemed genuinely confused, and looked at me with interest.

They seemed to consider me as some sort of a special foreign object to be studied.

Under their intense gazes, I couldn't help but fidget a little bit in embarrassment.

They once again exchanged looks and talked in the same language of ancient egypt. I kept quiet throughout the exchange, hoping that they would take some pity on me and not kill me.

That was the only thing that I could do at the moment. It didn't matter if I ran or stayed here. Either way, the chances of me dying here were maximum. The only thing that could save me at this moment was their curiosity in me and I wasn't so prideful as not to admit that.

They talked for some time before three of them got off of their horses and two of them tossed me down to the scorchingly hot sand.

"What the fuck!" I reflexively screamed out in surprise, feeling the hot sand on my face. Then the third man moved with a rope and hurriedly tied up my body with it.

With that, they carried me over to one of their horses and placed me on the back.

'Seems like I'm getting captured.'

And then, with a glorious roar by the men of Ancient Egypt, the horses galloped ahead through the sands.

'Here I am, in such a situation where my survival is in danger' I thought to myself as I analyzed the situation. I had just been captured by these people and I had no way of communication with them.

And from what I had seen on the internet about the rituals of these ancient civilizations, at best, I'll be killed and at worst, I'll be killed a lot more brutally.

'And yet... and yet...' I thought to myself, feeling the hot wind upon my face as the horses strode forth in the desert. In this situation, a small smile etched out upon my face.

'Why the hell is my heart beating with such excitement!'