Chapter 3: Transmigration gone wrong
How beautiful does the world look from the horizon?
I had always been sickly and mostly stayed inside the house, so I couldn't answer this question before.
But if someone asked me the same question now, I could answer them easily.
After all before I could even properly sort my thoughts, the floor of the lobby suddenly vanished and now I was free-falling from thousands of feet above the ground!
The clouds obscured the ground as strong gales kept playing Catch with me.
As for enjoying the scenery?
I would have tried to admire the beauty in leisure, if I was given a parachute.
Within seconds, I parted through the clouds and could now see my destination.
It was a large island covered by water as far as eyes could see.
Turning my head, I tried to see if anybody was near.
'Will he grow wings if he continued to flap his limbs like that?'
But I wasn't any better myself. I was spinning like the propellor of a helicopter about to take off.
Before I could try to see more, the speed increased as I continued to fall.
Strong gales made me spin. I was having trouble distinguishing between sky and earth.
I could barely open my eyes and my ears felt like they were about to fall from pain.
It felt like I was thrown inside a blender. I was barely holding back my breakfast from also skydiving beside me.
Not knowing what to do, I did what I could think of and spread my limbs in hopes of stabilizing my descent.
'Calm down…..Calm down....' I didn't dare say anything out aloud for fear of biting my tongue.
Using my arms to shield my eyes, I tried to look around. Now, not even the flapping kid could be seen anymore.
As my fall somewhat stabilized, I was able to look at my destination more clearly.
Now the piece of land, or island, looked much larger. Its entire surface was covered with heavy vegetation as the rivers flowed through it, with cliffs occasionally peeking through it.
But the most conspicuous was the volcano at the center surrounded by four peaks that jutted out of the land.
The volcano emitted smoke surrounding the sky with ashes.
I squinted as I tried to scrutinize more details, but the gales were too fierce and I was too far to make out anything.
Nathan had already surpassed 120mph, and his speed was still increasing. Like a bomb dropped from the sky, he was also going to explode if his descent didn't slow.
I felt like my skin was being scalded. The friction was a little too strong.
Now that my vision was almost reduced to zero, I could barely see anything.
The ground kept coming closer and closer. Currently, there were only 5000 feet left.
The distance continued to shorten as the winds increased.
3000 feet….
2500 feet….
2000 feet….
I could feel my heart ready to jump through my mouth.
1500 feet….
1000 feet….
500 feet!
Just as the distance between me and the ground was 500 feet my right wrist shined, and four circles manifested in the air between me and the ground.
The circles had a radius of 10 feet and had an intricate design.
As my body phased the first three circles, the speed decreased drastically, and my body almost came to a standstill.
And after passing through the last circle, my fall completely broke and was now floating in the air.
A fall of a few thousand feet was broken so easily and smoothly.
"Haah…Haah…" I knew I only had to wait, but free-falling from thousands of feet was nonetheless nerve-wracking.
But before I could think more, my body again came under the effect of gravity.
CRACCK-! CRACCK-! THUD-!
"My ass." I rubbed my ass while standing up.
The tree helped me break my fresh fall. But I wasn't able to land properly and fell in the wrong position.
"Thankfully, I didn't break any bones."
After the check, I sat while leaning against the tree.
I needed to calm down and collect my thoughts. The last few minutes had been a little too wild.
"If my guess is correct, I transmigrated. That too inside of 'Saga of Heroes'."
Even believing in transmigration was unbelievable.
But I knew that everything I had felt within the last few minutes was too realistic to be a dream.
Though the more shocking, or worrying fact, was that I didn't transmigrate into any world but the world of 'Saga of Heroes'.
"Still, I could be wrong and the previous similarities might be superficial coincidences."
I was trying to be optimistic. Finally I took a deep breath and decided to confront the truth.
"Status."
As words flowed from my mouth, a blue screen flickered into existence in front of my eyes.
======
Name: Nathan Hunt
Rank: Meta
Level : 3
Exp: 300/450
Remaining SP – 00
-->Stats:
Strength – 09
Agility – 14
Stamina – 11
Constitution – 09
Aura – 10
Intelligence – 11
Luck – 07
-->Skills:
[Pierce {Common-Rank}]
Extend the tip of your weapon by 5 feet.
=========
"It's the same."
This status screen was the final nail in the coffin.
"Couldn't I have transmigrated anywhere else?"
I shouted with a wronged expression.
'Saga of Heroes' was indeed my favorite novel, but I never wanted to live in that damned world. Only a masochist would want that!
As a reader, I knew the precarious situation this world was in, as well as the calamities that were coming in the future.
This world was a modern fantasy world where superhumans, called awakeners existed.
Due to the Second Great Disaster and the Third Great Disaster, almost half of the awakeners of this world had died.
The story was set in a few years after the Third Great Disaster. As such, the loss of fighting potential of this Earth had greatly impacted its survival chances against invading races.
Not to mention, in the future after the protagonist goes through various hurdles and had protected Earth a few times, a full-scale invasion by other cosmic races was going to happen.
Unlike the threats that the protagonist had faced before, the scale of this threat was on an entirely different level. It was a war on planetary level.
And this was also shortly followed by a Demon King's descension.
The future of this world was as bleak as it could get.
But this wasn't the source of my current worry.
"This is the worst possible timing."
After a few minutes of rest, I was able to sort out my thoughts to a degree.
As shocked as I was, if my guess was correct, I didn't have the time to mop around. The current situation wouldn't allow me to rest.
"If I remember correctly, we had to do this and…" I began tapping all over my right wrist.
After a few tries, I succeeded in activating the bracelet.
Following this, another blue hologram popped in front of me.
=======
Name: Nathan Hunt
ID: 210102064
Points :
Time Remaining: 120:00:00
=======
"Hmm?" Only now did I realize that my first name was the same as my previous life's name.
Since the girl in the lobby seemed to know me, I knew that I had transmigrated into a pre-existing person.
Speaking of her, I felt that I was forgetting something when she came to my mind.
Anyway, the coincidence of having same name bugged me. But no matter how much I racked my brain, I couldn't think of an answer.
So, I decided to focus on the task at hand.
"I have to survive five days."
I had transmigrated at the start of a surprise exam by Ward.
Ward was the top military academy in this world, which raised awakeners to combat the growing threats.
As a top institution, anybody who entered it would be guaranteed a paved road to success. But the competition to enter it was just as fierce.
Every year, the entrance test has 4 stages. These were the written test, physical test, followed by talent and potential measurement, and lastly, an interview.
But this year the executives of Ward had decided to change the content of the exam to find special talents to nurture.
As such, they changed the last stage, which is the interview, into a five days survival competition.
Of course, none of the applicants knew this.
Now students had to gather points by killing beasts on the island while surviving for 5 days. It would take everyone a while to understand this fact.
But the biggest problem here wasn't the contents of the exam but the fact that it was a surprise exam.
Due to this, most of the applicants didn't have the basic resources to survive in the wild.
"But I guess I'm not that unlucky."
I tried to remember the details of a specific location.
"I need to find it before these 5 days are up."
I finally picked myself up as I began wandering to look at my surroundings.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone