Chapter 1 As If In A Different World
He felt himself lying on the cold ground...
The moment he regained consciousness, a sharp headache immediately began to stimulate Li Ang's nerves.
In a daze, the life of a boy named "Leon" briefly swept through his mind.
The joy from his father teaching him how to draw a hunting bow lingered in his heart.
Above him, the warmth of his mother stroking his hair lingered for a long time.
The twilight of his childhood spent walking on country roads seemed like just yesterday...
Red, was the blood; the rising cold light was the swords of mercenaries, reflecting the pitiful, weak, and frightened face of the boy. The pleas for mercy and the screams of death from his mother set the flames burning in the boy's heart.
Anger and hatred finally overcame fear, but the weak rage was meaningless; the boy was knocked to the ground, and before he lost the last thread of consciousness, all he heard was the mocking, violent laughter of the mercenaries.
...
......
All of a sudden, he opened his eyes wide, the fierce bloodshot threads in the boy's red eyes had not yet dissipated.
As his memory began to clarify, Li Ang frowned and strove to dispel the resentment in his heart that did not belong to him.
He breathed heavily, easing his tense body and trying to prop himself up, but found his hands shackled by a pair of crude fetters.
Having difficulty adjusting his position on his side, he finally leaned against the rough wooden bars, inching his upper body up, before he could look around.
A cage holding many people, surrounded by a large array of similar cages outside.
Those inside the cage were in similar circumstances, men and women, but they had in common the absence of older aged individuals.
Captive mostly were youths, teenagers, even children of seven or eight years old, who were either dressed in dirty and tattered clothes stained with dust and blood, or even stripped of clothing to cover themselves, with many bearing the marks of violent abuse.
Sporadic sobbing was heard as the mercenaries, using a foreign language he did not know, cruelly shouted abuse and mockery, the expressions of those imprisoned either numb, terrified, or filled with hatred, the air thick with a suffocating oppressive atmosphere.
In a part of the camp, Li Ang realized that he had become a captive dragged here... a slave.
He took a deep breath for the hard-to-accept reality, then slowly exhaled, trying to calm his freshly awakened mind, attempting to organize the chaotic thoughts in his head.
Who am I?... Leon?
...No.
I'm Li Ang.
The memory torrents of this body couldn't cover Li Ang's self-awareness, his consciousness effortlessly passing through the soul fragments of this sixteen-year-old boy, finding information that truly belonged to him.
Li Ang, twenty-six years old, single, parents alive, no bad habits, healthy, an ordinary office worker that can be found anywhere on Earth...
As he recalled this, the headache came again, those familiar memories now so vague and distant, Li Ang frowned and held his forehead.
Setting aside his memories for now, he glanced outside the cage at the attire of the mercenary guards.
Spears, long swords, chain armor, iron armor, crossbows... In the era Li Ang lived on Earth, not even the most backward countries would have soldiers cosplaying this medieval style.
And the bloody cruel scenes in the dead boy's memory clearly told him that this place was definitely not a movie set.
Had he transmigrated, then? Soul transmigration? Had he traveled to ancient Europe, or to a strange Otherworld?
...One by one, questions detached from reality surfaced.
Li Ang couldn't figure it out; he didn't remember having any close contact with a tipper truck, he couldn't even remember what happened to his consciousness before entering this body.
He looked down at the iron shackles that were firmly restraining his wrists, Li Ang feeling somewhat lost.
As a modern person with a sound mind, he didn't want to end up as a slave whose freedom and life and death were controlled by others, no matter what.
Putting aside the reasons for transmigration for the time being, the real urgent matter was how to escape.
He calmed himself and began to search for any information in the memories of the boy called Leon that could help him understand the current situation.
...Seryan Kingdom... Holy Sol Church... Holy Land City... Rolannar... the pressing front of Kantadar Kingdom's army... war... invasion... siege... looting... massacre...
Gradually picking up the original owner of the body's memories, the boy named Leon was just a child from an ordinary hunter family living on the outskirts of Rolannar Holy Land City. Before the war broke out, he and his family had lived a relatively stable life on the outskirts of the Holy City, until the Kantadar army from the west launched a massive invasion.
"You're still alive... I thought you'd stopped breathing yesterday."
A calm voice seemed to be speaking to him
Li Ang broke from his thoughts and followed the gaze; it was a brown-haired youth who looked about fifteen or sixteen years old, although in the same situation of grimy conditions, his skin was still whiter than most in the cage.
Li Ang guessed that before being captured, the other might have come from a more affluent, non-working family; otherwise, bottom-tier civilians couldn't have maintained such fair skin despite exposure to sunlight.
"Cough... Who are you?..." Li Ang asked, suppressing the dry cough in his throat.
"Who I am doesn't matter; you should thank that lady instead. If she hadn't insisted on giving you water for the past two days, you might not have survived," said the fair-skinned youth with little expression, tilting his chin in another direction.
Li Ang shifted his gaze, and the young man's pointed gesture indicated a lady probably in her twenties. Despite her inevitably tattered clothes and haggard face due to the circumstances, one could still tell that her features were gentle and outstanding.
"Thank you," Li Ang rasped out sincerely to the lady who had cared for him while he was unconscious.
In such a wretched environment, to still be willing to tend to a half-dead and wounded person, the lady's character truly deserved respect.
The lady managed a strained smile and nodded slightly in response.
Li Ang noticed that next to her was a solidly built young man whose watchful gaze came over like that of a wounded animal.
He resembled the kindly lady quite a bit, they might be relatives, probably siblings judging from their ages. The youth's strong physique showed signs of exercise, and his skin was darkened from being constantly exposed to the sun. However, at this moment, the swellings from the beating by the mercenaries were also very apparent.
Li Ang moved his gaze away to avoid provoking the youth. He understood that the hostile look in the young man's eyes was not out of malice, but merely a desire to protect the only family he had left in this chaotic and cruel situation.
As he continued to look around at the other people in the cage, they were all similar, their faces ashen like walking corpses, with few uninjured. Even the lady who had taken care of him had bruises and pinch marks from being abused, and Li Ang did not want to think about the sad experiences she must have gone through.
Moving his gaze away from his fellow captives who shared his plight, Li Ang looked at the cage behind him. It was very solid, and obviously, he could not break out from inside. And even if he could escape the prison, the feeble prisoners without weapons would be no match for the armored and armed mercenaries guarding them.
After much thought, he eventually let out a helpless sigh. It seemed that there was nothing to do but wait.
Time slowly and excruciatingly ticked away, with even a few hours feeling as long as several centuries. Li Ang had never experienced such torment before. Compared to now, his past life as a dull corporate drone now seemed heavenly—at least then he had his freedom.
A long time passed, and the sky dimmed.
(In Urian Language) "You Seryan pigs! Get up and eat,"
Li Ang's tangled thoughts were interrupted by the incomprehensible babble and yelling of mercenaries outside.
He looked up at the sound to see several Kantadar mercenaries carrying sacks to each cage, cursing in a foreign language as they pulled out what appeared to be dry, food-like substances and tossed them into the cages as if feeding livestock.
A few blocks of hardtack were thrown into Li Ang's cage, followed by two large leather water bags.
Li Ang looked at the grey-black supposed food that had tumbled onto the dusty ground and counted. The mercenaries had provided even fewer pieces than there were prisoners in the cage—they would not suffice for one per person.
While Li Ang was still observing how others reacted, the dark-skinned youth was the first to dash toward the food. He quickly grabbed two pieces of hardtack and scooped up a water bag before running back to his sister's side.
After him, others began to step forward and pick up the hardtack that was closest to them.
The whole process was without conflict. Firstly, because people were not yet desperate enough to die from hunger, and secondly, the captives hardly had the energy or will to fight over it.
Li Ang was not quick enough to grab a piece of hardtack before it was all taken. He simply sat back down in the corner; he was hungry, but it was still within the limits of endurance.
At least there was enough water. The two large water bags were passed around among everyone. All had their fill, and there was even some left over.
""
By the time it reached his hands, Li Ang endured the psychological discomfort that came from everyone else's lips having touched the spout. He slightly lifted the mouth of the canteen, pouring water into his mouth, finally relieving the dryness in his throat.
In such dire times, one couldn't afford to be squeamish.
After quenching his thirst, Li Ang continued to pass the water skin to the next person beside him. His gaze inadvertently glanced towards the direction of the siblings and just happened to catch the lady—who had cared for him while he was unconscious—looking back at him.
Her face bore a slightly apologetic bitter smile, grasping the dry food her younger brother forcefully took for her first, yet she hadn't tasted it, because she noticed that Li Ang, who had just awoken from unconsciousness, hadn't received any food.
Her expression seemed to struggle for a moment, and then the lady stood up intending to share her food with Li Ang, but was promptly pulled back by her brother's hand.
"...Sister, you didn't eat enough yesterday!" the robust young man didn't speak softly, his tone both firm and pained, clearly unhappy with his sister's action of caring about others too much, which was also why he was the first to forcibly take two servings of dry food.
Li Ang could clearly hear the young man raising his voice, obviously intending for Li Ang to hear, so he wisely gestured with his hand.
"Thank you for your kindness, but I'm not hungry yet."
Li Ang politely declined, even without her brother's protective stance, he wouldn't feel comfortable always accepting the poor lady's care.
"Let me split this in half with you, I'm not that hungry either," a voice suddenly interjected.
Li Ang looked over, and it was the fair-skinned young man who had spoken to him before, his unexpected benevolence surprising Li Ang.
The young man sat down next to him, breaking off half of his dry food and handing it over.
"...Uh, thank you." Li Ang didn't refuse this time and readily accepted the food offered by the other party.
"About the question from earlier, my name is Azeryan Flarrell, from the Flarrell Family, and you?" the fair and brown-haired young man bit into the hard-to-swallow dry food, then seemed to casually ask Li Ang.
Li Ang hesitated slightly, but considering his own real name happened to be similar in pronunciation and intonation to the original owner of the body, he let go of his apprehension.
"I am called Leon, with no surname." Li Ang chose to adapt to the local customs, using the original name of the young body he inhabited.
The young man named Azeryan was taken aback for a moment.
He had just seen the other party's clear reluctance to share the communal water skin and thought he might be a noble's son not yet accustomed to their situation.
But now it didn't make much difference, Azeryan thought sarcastically to himself—a noble's son or a civilian's offspring, at the moment they were all slaves subject to the whims of the Kantadar people.
After exchanging names, there wasn't much else to say, and the atmosphere once again fell into a resigned silence like leaving it all up to fate.
...