Erin trudged across the muddy construction site, the weight of bricks pressing into his broad back like an iron yoke. Each step sank slightly into the churned earth, straw sandals sucking at his heels. The sun had already dipped low, turning the sky the color of bruised copper, yet the foreman still barked orders from the scaffold above. Erin did not pause. He never paused. Pausing invited the whip.
His ragged tunic—once perhaps brown, now the gray of old ash—clung to sweat-slick muscle. Rough, tanned skin stretched over shoulders that belonged on statues of ancient warlords rather than a boy of sixteen. Square jaw clenched tight against the burn in his thighs. He was Erin now. Not the scrawny college kid from Earth who had accepted a drunken dare to chug a suspiciously glowing energy drink labeled "Re:人生やり直しドリンク." A joke. A meme. A one-way ticket to this medieval hell.
By the time the last load was dumped and the site fell quiet, the horizon had swallowed the sun. Erin rolled his neck, vertebrae popping, and began the long walk back to the orphanage on the edge of the lower quarter. No coin in his pocket. No dinner waiting. Just another night of thin gruel if the matron felt generous.
Halfway along the rutted path he passed Mirror Lake—more pond than lake, its surface unnaturally still in the windless dusk. Habit made him glance down. The reflection staring back stopped him cold.
A giant looked up from the water.
Six feet seven, easy. Traps rising like hills, arms thicker than most men's thighs, veins mapping forearms like rivers on a map. Bodybuilder bulk packed onto a frame that should have been impossible for a teenager. In his old life he had been five-nine on a good day, ribs countable, wrists fragile as twigs. Here the gods—or whatever cruel clerk handled reincarnation paperwork—had rebuilt him like a siege engine.
Erin snorted. A pauper siege engine. No cheat skill. No status window. No mysterious old man offering a grimoire. Just muscle he had not asked for and hunger he could not escape.
Where was the golden finger every web novel promised? The system that dinged sweetly after every kill? The protagonist halo that bent probability until heroines swooned and villains tripped over their own swords? Apparently those stories were advertisements. False marketing from whatever cosmic entity ran the transmigration business. Erin had been sold a lie, paid in full with one stupid dare.
His brooding carried him another hundred paces before a wet, rhythmic sound intruded. Someone chewing. Sloppy. Juicy. The kind of noise that belonged to ripe fruit or fresh roast pork—except the hour was too late and the street too empty for either.
Curiosity tugged harder than caution. Erin turned into the narrow alley between a tanner's shed and a collapsed grain store. The stink hit first: copper, rot, voided bowels. His nostrils flared. Then his eyes adjusted to the gloom.
A corpse lay sprawled on its back. Male. Middle-aged. Shirt torn open, abdomen split from sternum to navel in one savage rip. Loops of intestine glistened wetly on the dirt. A kidney had been dragged halfway out and bitten into like an apple. Blood had puddled black under the body, spreading in slow fingers toward Erin's feet.
Above the ruin crouched another figure. Human in outline. Naked to the waist. Skin pale as bone under filth. Long, matted hair curtained the face. Both hands buried wrist-deep in the abdominal cavity. The chewing stopped the instant Erin's shadow fell across the scene.
The head lifted slowly.
Eyes met eyes.
The creature's irises were molten gold ringed with black—no white at all. Pupils stretched vertical like a cat's. Lips smeared crimson. Teeth sharp enough to shear meat from bone without effort. For one suspended heartbeat the alley held only their breathing and the distant lap of lake water.
Then the world detonated.
A roar of flame and timber erupted from the direction of the main settlement. Orange light bloomed across rooftops, painting every surface in flickering hell-glow. Screams followed—high, panicked, layered. Bells clanged wildly. Something massive collapsed in a thunder of stone and sparks.
The cannibal thing did not flinch. It simply stared at Erin, mouth still full, cheeks working as though deciding whether dessert had just arrived. A low, wet growl vibrated in its throat.
Erin's pulse hammered in his ears. Fight-flight calculation flashed through his mind in fragments: too big to outrun in these sandals, too strong to overpower bare-handed, no weapon, no skill, no system to save him. Yet the body he wore felt strangely calm. Legs steady. Shoulders loose. The muscle remembered things the mind did not.
He took one step backward.
The creature rose in a single fluid motion, abandoning the corpse. Sinew slid under skin like cables under canvas. It tilted its head, nostrils flaring, tasting the air—tasting him.
Another explosion rocked the night. Heat washed over them even here, thirty paces from the blaze. Embers drifted like fireflies.
Erin turned and ran.
Not blind panic. Controlled. Long strides eating ground. The giant frame moved with surprising grace, bricks and labor having forged coordination he never possessed before. Behind him came wet footfalls—fast, loping, inhumanly smooth.
He burst out of the alley onto the main cart road. Flames now towered three streets over. Thatch roofs burned like torches. Silhouettes fled in every direction. A child wailed. A horse screamed as its stable caught.
Erin veered toward the orphanage. Instinct. The only place he knew. Halfway there the pursuer landed in front of him—crouched, fingers splayed in the dirt, gold eyes locked on target.
No time to think.
Erin lowered his shoulder and charged.
Impact felt like tackling a tree. The creature snarled, claws raking across his ribs, tearing cloth and skin. Pain flared hot and bright. Yet momentum carried them both backward. They crashed into a rain barrel. Wood splintered. Water gushed.
The thing twisted under him, impossibly strong, teeth snapping inches from his throat. Erin drove an elbow down, felt cartilage crunch. It howled—sound more animal than human—and bucked him off.
He rolled, came up spitting mud. Blood soaked his side. Shallow cuts, he told himself. Not deep.
Across the road the fire had spread to the next block. Smoke choked the air. People ran past without stopping, without seeing.
The cannibal rose again, licking Erin's blood from its claws. A smile split the gore-smeared face. Recognition. Hunger. Anticipation.
Erin straightened to his full height. Six-seven of corded muscle, backlit by inferno. No cheat. No halo. Just the body they gave him and sixteen years of Earth-born spite.
He spat blood onto the dirt.
"Come on then," he said, voice low and steady. "Let's see how much of me you can eat before I break your fucking neck."
The creature lunged.
Behind them the settlement burned.
(Word count: 1,082)