Late August, 1349. Backlund, Loen Kingdom
The crimson moonlight streaked through the single-paned window inside the room over a pawnshop on the Iron Gate Street of the East Borough.
It was a relatively small room, spanning about 200 sq.ft. The room inside was empty for the most part, with a small container containing dying embers of coal. On the east wall was a small cube-shaped shelf were keys, a hand-mirror and two small cans of alcohol, the western wall had a brown pants, a belt, white shirt and a long coat hanging from a hammered nail, the northern wall—close to the door—had a table with a bottle of water and a pair of socks and shoes underneath it while the southern wall had a thin foam alongside it.
Right over the foam was the window through which the Crimson Moonlight streaked inside.
On the thin foam was a young man in his twenties. His eyes were closed and his face was long and thin like a horse. His eyebrows were messy and ferocious, but his facial features were relatively soft. His light brown hair was long and was sprawled all over the white sheet of his hard pillow that had a faint blotch due to the fragrant oil in his hair.
His chest was not moving up and down. His complexion was pale and his body laid motionless amidst an arid display of Half-and-Half.
Half and Half was one of the most popular alcoholic beverages in East Borough, made from malt beer and fortified grape wine, and because it was precisely made up of two constituents of equal proportion, it was known as Half-and-Half.
There was an eerie stillness in the air, well complimented by the noxious mist outside that invaded every street and made it harder to look even at the buildings across the street. Despite that, the rays of Crimson Moonlight illuminated his features as if the mist had estranged itself from its path.
Suddenly, the index finger of the man twitched and he sat up immediately right after. The man was breathing loudly, sweating profusely and had a distant, vacant look in his eyes as if his soul had been stretched, compressed and clobbered violently.
After a few quick breaths, he tried to calm himself down, but his heartbeat remained significantly over the normal range. His thin white shirt had completely stuck to his back and front, making it semi-translucent which made his protruding ribs and skinny body even more visible.
He looked around, taking in the unfamiliar and dilapidated surroundings. He tried to move, but a splitting headache invaded him.
He clutched his head and rolled to the sides. It was as if there was someone screaming inside his head, constantly lashing his psyche.
Memories—one after another, accompanied by a steady stream of whispers and the sound of gushing water that kept on lapping over itself, again, and again, and again. After a few minutes, the sound of the maddening water started to filter out, like walking out of a storm inside a Sea of Chaos and finally arriving at the shore.
The man got up immediately, half wobbling, half hazy as he tried to stabilize himself. Using the knowledge that came out of nowhere, the man reached out for the keys on the small cube-shaped shelf and unlocked the door before running down the flight of stairs and opening the door to the shared bathroom.
Storming inside, he emptied the contents of his stomach and then washed his mouth with water from the tap beside the toilet. After that, he washed his face with soap, submerged his head underneath the running water and then dampened his neck and the lower side of his feet.
Once he was done, he finally walked back to his room slowly and closed the door behind him, before quickly walking over to the cube-shaped shelf.
Half-nervously, he took out the hand-mirror inside it. As he looked into the mirror, he felt his eyes widen for a fraction of an inch before going back to normal.
"It should not be possible..." He mumbled quietly to himself, a cold shiver ran down his moist body, "...although technically it is possible, now, because it happened." He talked quietly to himself as the Crimson Moonlight receded bit by bit, leaving the room in even more darkness than before.
He picked up a bottle of water from the table, and drank it before going back to the foam mattress and sitting down on it, his back against the wall.
"Let's recall what happened." He spoke to himself, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath before trying to remember his last conscious thought amidst the plethora of alien memories.
"I was inside my dorm room after attending the gym and went on a small nap." He stopped, and his lips pursed just a little.
"There was a package on my table. I opened it and then..."
"I do not remember anything after that...?" He talked to himself in rhetorics, and there was obvious confusion in his tone.
"Transmigration, hmm?" He continued to talk to himself. Closing his eyes, he pinched his brows as if concentrating on something or remembering something that he had long forgotten. Then, after 10 seconds, he opened them.
"This body is of a man named Williams. An information broker cum bounty hunter. He barely makes ends meet and has a huge drinking problem." As he talked to himself, he felt his headache reducing.
"That should explain the headache. Likely due to overdrinking. That might also be the reason why he died, given my hypothesis that I only exist as "Williams" right now because the original consciousness, or in a more cosmological context, soul, has faded. Otherwise, I should've felt some interference." Kiyotaka deduced and then sighed, sinking against the wall.
He looked up and then stood, walked over the gas lamp, lit it up and then ignited the coal for some heat, since even his bones felt like trembling from the cold.
Once that was done, he tried to probe for more of Williams' memories.
He was currently in the poorest district of the East Borough in The City of Cities, Backlund: Loen Kingdom. The East Borough was a sprawling hub for thugs, lowlifes, gangs and informants with over 1.35 million residents.
Kiyotaka—Williams walked to the window and saw himself in the reflection. Despite the time on the cheap watch saying 4am, it was still pitch black outside.
"Grains act?" Kiyotaka suddenly blurted out as a random piece of information entered his head. However, it soon dawned on him what it was. The Grains Act repeal had given rise to quite a lot of social unrest and hence, due to the commotion, Williams had earned 5 pounds by helping the police arrest a criminal, which he later bought alcohol with.
The same alcohol that had killed him due to overdosage.
"I suppose he died doing what he liked." He mumbled before sitting back down.
A wave of nausea and headache invaded him once again. "I think I need to rest...this person's mind has been debilitated to an abnormal extent due to the alcohol consumption." He spoke as he laid down, unable to control his body and his eyes blinked once before closing completely.
********************************
The sun had come out, however, it was unable to pierce through the smoggy ambiance of Backlund. Kiyotaka had woken up, taken a bath and had changed into the clothes that were hung on the hammered nail by the left wall.
He had noticed quite a few things. First it was that while Williams had an average build, he had a bad posture and most of his mental and physical capabilities were limited due to the usage of alcohol.
Kiyotaka had not drunk a single drop of alcohol after he woke up sober, and he was having symptoms of withdrawals already.
A part of him, or rather Williams, was screaming to have just a single drop of the Half-and-Half.
Once Kiyotaka had donned the entire outfit, he shook his head and drank some water. He was hungry, and when he probed through his pocket, he found a pocketknife and 4 1-pound notes.
Through Williams' memories, he noticed that there were three units of currencies: the lowest unit—Pence, which came in denominations of quarter, half, one and five pence.
The second unit was called Soli, which was equivalent to 12 Pence and came in denominations of 1 and 5 Soli.
The final unit was called Pounds, and it was equivalent to 20 Solis. Pounds came in denominations of £1, £5 and £10.
"How strange." Kiyotaka mused silently. "Not only is the monetary system absurd in the equivalence, but it is very close to ours history, given how pounds was one of the oldest currencies still being used in the modern era."
Through the pain of withdrawal, Kiyotaka drank some more water. "Was there someone like me in the past who made it? Hmmm...Roselle...Emperor Roselle?" He spoke as more thoughts, no, memories flooded in.
"Most of what he did seems like something a transmigrated person would do. While people on earth also did the same thing, the curvature of improvement is too steep...maybe this Roselle was really a transmigrator."
Kiyotaka had his suspicions but he decided to not pay much heed to it right now. He merely put the thought in the back of his head and then decided to come back to it later on. Kiyotaka lifted the mattress and took out the old fashioned revolver and the 20 spare bullets. Holstering it inside his long coat, he put the remaining bullets inside the inner pocket.
Once he was done, he casted a look at his reflection in the mirror. His blue eyes reflected a bright color and looked much more enchanting than the ones on earth. Although his face felt like quite the downgrade. From facial symmetry to the overall posture that was quite hunched, he was not even remotely close to his former glory.
Kiyotaka sighed. It was not that he placed any special attachment to physical features, but that his new body had a lot of issues. It lacked strength, balance, and most of all, had the constant urge for alcohol and sex.
It made his head swing. Not to mention he was also quite short, compared to before. He was a 25-year-old man with the height of his 15-year-old self.
Once he was done practicing his best "Williams" impression, he shook his head over the caricature attempts.
Kiyotaka walked over to the door, closed it after him, locked it and then made his way through the streets of Backlund.
He walked and took in the information. From the pre-industrial revolution era architecture to the horse-pulled carriages and dogs being walked in posher areas. It reminded him of earth, in every way possible.
'Perhaps, I am in the past.' He tried to reason with himself. However, since there was nothing much to base a counter-argument on, he accepted it, for now and assumed that it was the case.
As if on cue, information flooded his mind. The presence of Gods was the first thing that flashed in his mind—The Evernight Goddess and The God of Storms. Then it was the slightly vague intel of people with supernatural abilities who were called "Beyonders." Supernatural powers that were gained by drinking a concocted potion.
'I suppose this is really the past...?'
'But this level of ingenuity and detail is impossible to pertain and then lose it to history. It should've had some records. Yet, we have none. Nor was any of this information privy to some. Does that mean that I am currently in a different "version" of earth in the past...?'
Kiyotaka thought and then a new idea, a hypothesis popped in his mind. 'Could it be that it is the future? A future where technology laid ruin to mankind and it was erected back on the basis of the "magical" aspects that were considered as superstitious in the past? That should make sense given how things from currency to architecture and steam locomotives are based on past version of earth. Even the language seems to be a mix of languages spoken in The Americas with a Latin-Nordic runic-script.'
He took in different notes from the blurry haze of "Williams" memories.
'Hmm...I should come back to this matter soon. Even if this hypothesis is wrong, this world has a lot of potential to invest into. With everything so well structured, anyone with knowledge from the modern world can easily leverage over the blueprint provided by Emperor Roselle.'
'Although I can not become the face of anything. Attention, unwanted at that, in a world I barely know of can be lethal. Although I am having a more solid grasp on the extraction of Williams' memories, I still cannot probe for a memory that I do not know correspondence of.'
'Like how when I thought about the innovations, memories of Roselle came flooding. Same for the Grain Act at night.'
'Sigh... with my luck I am sure that this wish to stay behind the shadows can only be considered a dream. A better approach should be to strengthen myself enough that even if I step into the limelight, I should be able to hold my own grounds.'
Once he was done contemplating over the history, he gave up. There was too little basis to form any concrete arguments on. He had a train of thoughts, but there was no telling if he was on the right path.
He redirected his thoughts and decided to take in the general map of Backlund. It was divided into different Boroughs. One of the important ones was the North Borough where the Church of the Evernight Goddess's Backlund diocese's headquarters and Saint Samuel Cathedral was located.
The areas with the tightest security—much to Kiyotaka's disdain—was the Empress Borough and the Western Borough. These two boroughs belonged to the nobles and the richest magnates, with more of the nobles living closer to Empress Borough.
It was full of influential establishments such as Sodela Palace, Royal Coat-of-Arms Office, Backlund Police Department's headquarters etcetera, etcetera.
"Psst– hey, you-" Suddenly, Kiyotaka heard a voice. "Oi dandy!"
He stopped and slowly turned around. Leaning against the barebrick outer wall of a Single Storey building was a woman who looked to be in her late thirties. She had long golden blonde hair and beautiful half-lidded blue eyes. Her bosoms were giant, almost spilling out of the wide neckline. She had a dark-red tint on her lips and she was pouting deliberately.
She pointed her finger at Kiyotaka and curled it, calling him over. She pulled her skirt a little, revealing her plump thigh while walking back into the darkness of the alley.
Kiyotaka frowned and looked ahead. However, he stopped suddenly and cold sweat ran down his neck.
...
Something was very strange.
Or rather, something was really stiff.
Kiyotaka sighed and pressed the stiffness between his legs, almost cursing at the lack of sexual control Williams had over himself.
'On a second thought, it is not that surprising. From the way my head is hurting after just a few hours after waking up due to withdrawals, this kind of loose control makes sense.'
Once it was over, he wasted no time in running away from there. It wasn't strictly running, but rather he walked really fast, however, he slowed down relatively quickly. The area he was walking in was full of well-dressed people and running like an ignoramus donkey was attracting quite a bit of unwanted attention.
Kiyotaka slowed his pace and slipped into a narrow alley a few stalls ahead. Inside, the muffled din of the marketplace faded, replaced by the breathless cadence of gasps. Moments later, his gaze landed on a white-haired man bent over a young woman, no, girl, as he thrusted within her with unabashed lust.
Kiyotaka felt uncomfortable. The girl looked no older than 15.
Once again, a steady stream of information flowed inside his head. According to Reporter Mike Joseph, one in six women in the city of Backlund, aged 15 to 55 is or has been a street girl. There was a growing trend of noble women whose family had become bankrupt becoming street girls.
Kiyotaka sighed and got out of the alley immediately before running back. He had remembered and seen enough for today.
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Soon, Kiyotaka found himself standing in front of a bar that he had navigated via Williams' memories. The bar was called "Bravehearts Bar," which was situated in Backlund, specifically in the Backlund Bridge area.
The district was a working-class and industrial part of the city. This area was known for its rough, lively atmosphere, contrasting with the upscale Cherwood or West Boroughs.
Pushing the doors, he walked in. Pulling the collars of his long coat up, he hid half of his face inside and then tucked his hands inside.
The bar was a typical Backlund tavern, characterized by a rowdy environment with patrons drinking, playing cards, and engaging in loud conversations. It was a place where sailors, laborers, adventurers, and Beyonders often used to frequent, making it a melting pot for rumors, deals, and surreptitious exchanges.
This was when the bar was experiencing its peak business. Kiyotaka could smell the strong aroma of malt beer and hear a din. Unsurprisingly, he saw two stages in the middle of the bar. One of them was having a rat-baiting with dogs' competition, and the other stage had two boxers patiently waiting for the fight to begin.
The aroma of alcohol mixed with the smell of sweat emanated. Kiyotaka had the urge to pinch his nose but restrained from doing so. He was an alcoholic, someone who used to frequent this place as well. Doing something like this would definitely put him in jeopardy.
Suddenly, Kiyotaka felt another pang of headache. His hands were shaking slightly, and he was covered in cold sweat. Enduring through the urges, he squeezed his way to the bar counter. He sat on a stool close to the counter as the bartender came over.
"Oh, Williams." The bartender recognized Kiyotaka, despite him trying to stay incognito.
'I suppose it is really foolish to stay incognito in establishments like bars. Especially for someone like Williams.
Before the bartender could say anything, Kiyotaka raised a finger and said: "A glass of water, please."
The bartender, the one mopping the floor, and the person washing the mugs all looked at him in unison.
'Well, this isn't helping in shedding the addiction!' Kiyotaka lamented, before sighing. "Just to clear the way."
The bartender scoffed and the others returned to working, chuckling to themselves. Kiyotaka took the glass and gulped it down. His foot was rapidly moving as he tapped his fingers over his knees. His muscles were twitching, and he could not sit straight for more than two minutes without looking like he had been possessed.
'Well, this is getting worse.' He thought before raising his hand a little. The bartender came over as he ordered a small Half-and-Half. Once the bartender brought it over, he immediately downed it. The carbonation from the beer hit him first, tiny fizzing bubbles lifting the aroma towards his nose. Following it was a grainy, toasty note from the malt, like crusty bread pulled from the oven.
A satisfied moan left his lips which surprised Kiyotaka himself. He was sitting on the stool with a hunched posture and was taking one big sip after another. Almost immediately, the dense sweetness started to creep in as well, likely from the dark grape, raisin, and a faint tang of a fig, with a hint of the spirit used to fortify it which added a warming burn.
'That felt...good? Relaxing? No, it is not relaxing, my motor functions are growing sluggish. This euphoric feeling is from the receding anxiety.' At the same time, the queasy feeling in his stomach vanished and he no longer felt like throwing up.
"You look like you saw a ghost. Sober for once...oh, I guess not." Suddenly, a voice greeted him. Kiyotaka removed his trembling lips from the wooden mug and looked back and then down. In front of him was a very short woman who had soft facial features. Although her shoulder-length blond hair was messy and unkempt, she carried an indescribable look of dignity and a convincing charm.
She had malt-colored skin due to her continuous forays out in the sun.
A sense of familiarity and a warm feeling coursed through Kiyotaka's chest.
He could immediately tell who it was!
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Author's Note: When life gives you lemons, you publish a chapter.
Jokes aside, after a not-very-detailed discussion with Delulu, I realised just putting up the author's note gives the story a bad look, especially for those who are seeing my profile/story for the first time.
So, I decided to publish a chapter today. Today is Tuesday, so you can expect to see a chapter update between Tuesday and Thursday every week. I now have almost 60K words written (1K short) so it shouldn't be an issue. Chapter 10+ are all 7K words, with the latest one (chapter 14) being 8100 words.
I have been sceptical since I have the habit of going back and rechcking and adding and removing stuff, but oh well, I suppose I have gatekeeped the novel for too long (ik its been literal months)
You might find the pacing a little slow (it is still quite fast compared to OG LOTM) but it picks up later on. LOTM is one of those things where you can't rush it, unfortunately.
Well, I suppose I have yapped enough to make this chapter 3.5K words, lol.
Tschüß.
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Next update:
Chapter 2: The Blonde Man