With a loud *clang* the sword was deflected.
"Who-" *POW* the fiend was interrupted with a punch that snapped his jaw into two pieces.
He reeled back when a strange man positioned his blade in the middle of his forehead before piercing through it. He died before he could even grasp the situation.
"filthy devils all of you" the stranger said with obvious amounts of disgust in his tone as well as anger. he left the man whose jaw was now mush to die slowly as he sheathed his short sword.
rushing to the aid of the dying man he takes out a healing flask and dumps it onto his torso and leg. 'Don't you die on me' he said mentally. The liquid envelops his body he visibly begins healing, though at this point he was already unconscious and didn't have to feel the pain of his body knitting itself back together. "what could you possibly be dreaming about?" he questioned, eyebrows raised seeing the look of contentment or maybe acceptance written on the man's face.
the person in question was chase withers, a man with dark brown skin and dreadlocks down to his shoulders, he was average looking wearing a mix between a robe and leather armor, he was a transmigrator who had been here for a few weeks.
Unfortunately he took the body of someone with no familial ties who was working at a local church when the church's military branch stormed in for a draft. Thinking about how they treated innocents for the war effort, his eyes carried a glimmer of anger before he shook it off. 'focus you idiot' picking the injured man up and throwing him over his shoulder, he then began running out of the hot zone to get to safety.
While running chase seemed like was dashing at high speeds. while almost at a safe zone as he could see were a bunch of white tents he saw a few people fly overhead, looking free as birds of you ignored the various injuries. It left him with a bad taste in his mouth. he had learned that this world has many ways of learning "magic " but he had no way of accessing it the way humans here did.
One of the tests that the holy church do before they draft you is to test your capacity for mana. 'Maybe if I die here I can get a reincarnation reroll. I didn't get brought into a fantasy world just to get flexed on by half of the people I'm fighting beside' thinking about it just made chase more annoyed.
he figured out that apparently his mana core had been shattered since birth and his mana pathways have been rearranged according to experts from the church who did an appraisal on him. Having that done to you while already of age would have killed him apparently.
even if he didn't have a shattered core his mangled mana paths just mean any amount of mana could mess up parts of his insides and blow them up. 'I will have a word with whoever thinks this is funny' he said, looking to the sky for whatever higher power had placed him in this predicament.he had to hold back tears as he reached the base.
thankfully what he lacked in mana, he kinda made up for in physical strength compared to your average person with the ability to use mana. he was a physical dynamo and was stronger, faster and more durable than most. as he got closer to the large group of tents, he saw a very organized and fluid structure in terms of what people were doing.
Between the vast assortment of tents used to house the soldiers here, there was a dirt path paved through them, sometimes caravans would come through delivering fresh "recruits", weapons and food to keep the war effort going.
In between them was a giant tent where the war commander, appointed a member of clergy was stationed. But that's not what he was here for. Many already turned to him and saw something slung over his shoulder and some had even come over to help.
Chase noticed one of those approaching him was a well built man, with long flowing blonde hair and green eyes. his robe didn't even have sleeves and his body reminded chase of those power lifters. He stood a head taller than chase who was 5'11.
in a rather jovial tone the man grabbed the unconscious stranger from his shoulder and said "thank you for helping this idiot. He's a friend of Mine and I wouldn't know what to do if something happened to him" at first he was smiling, looking relieved. Then his face turned more serious near the end of his words.
"No worries. I assume everyone here would do the same for me" the smile chase had on his face was real, getting to help a well meaning person was always a boon that lifted his spirits, but he wasn't so naive to think that in a world where people worshiped and served actual demons, that someone on his side wouldn't look the other way at his death for mere convenience.
since he was already on route to get to the physician, he decided to chat with this stranger
"I'm curious,What is your name?"
"Noah baker. I'm a trainer in this part of the camp."
"in what?"
"archery"
chase was dumbfounded, looking at this tall buff man like he was a unicorn with squid tentacles. What type of bows arrows was he launching at the enemy? was he carrying ballista bolts over his back into battle?
at first Noah was confused but eventually he got it. It had dawned on him that he looked like the kind of guy who never let go of his giant mace with how buff he was. It looked like whatever bow he might wield would get snapped in half just from him drawing it.
that being said the look of genuine shock on chases face was some of the funniest shit ever. Noah tried to hold back his laughter but he was failing.
as they walked past men eating, some soldiers had cool scars from battle and showed them off. others talked about their mission details.
finally they got to the physician. Once they went inside they assumed they would find slightly injured soldiers. After all chase was given a healing flask that prevented a man from dying. But flipping through the curtains and walking in they found half dead men.