章節 2: Roye Valdrin
It was already morning by the time I woke up. The sun's rays were filtering in through the trees, hitting me on my face.
My surroundings were the same as well; a large puddle of blood lay in the center of the field, surrounded by trees and mounds of corpses.
Wait a second. At once, the events from last night came barging into my head.
At once, I jumped up on my feet and began running towards the pool of blood. Ignoring the smell of blood and the stink of rotting corpses, I jumped in, my entire focus on the murky reflection in the pool.
"No way." My eyes widened in shock, and my throat closed.
Floating on the surface of blood in front of me was a face familiar yet so unfamiliar.
With hollowed cheeks, hair as black as obsidian, and dark blue sunken eyes, which were symbolic of a certain House Valdrin, staring at me was a face not my own.
"So it was true." My mind immediately raced back to all the new memories I had experienced last night. From the moment I was born to when I was kidnapped by Siv.
'Siv' was a lunatic from the undercities who had somehow made a contract with a demon.
I slowly stood up and walked out of the pool. Moving past the corpses, I walked to the nearby tree and laid down under it.
"Had I really transmigrated, inside that damn book no less?"
Normally, the idea of transmigration itself would have made me laugh, but considering how I had lived a different life in the span of one night, a life very similar to the one in the book 'Echoes of Fallen, the notion seemed more and more possible, or more like the only conclusion.
"Roye Valdrin, that was this guy's name before I took over." I glanced down at my skinny body, slowly going through all those memories I had received.
Thinking back at it, the only thing recognizable about this guy was his last name. House Valdrin was one of the strongest houses in the Alliance. It was also the home of 'Mira Valdrin,' one of the main villains in book one.
That also explained why this body wasn't reacting much to the hundreds of corpses surrounding it. Valdrin was a military household. This wasn't the first this guy had seen a massacre.
"Damn it." Come to think of it, this guy had been mentioned in the novel once.
Wasn't he that joke Ex-Fiance of 'Aria Nyrith' who drunkenly puked on her during their engagement party? The reason why she disliked 'Ashe Valdrin' so much.
Suddenly, the memory of the incident resurfaced in my head. Drunkenly entering the hall, swaying and slipping in front of the most important people in the alliance, puking on 'Aria Nyrith.'
And finally, being disowned and kicked out by Father out onto the streets.
That incident must have been the last straw. The guy had never been the family's favorite. From constantly being outshone by his elder sister since his childhood, added with parents who never gave a crap. He had turned to drinking and all kinds of hard drugs.
The novel itself had never mentioned any of this, but the constant stream of emptying bottles was more than enough convincing.
Remembering something, I hurriedly began rummaging through my pockets and pulled out a metal card and some other stuff.
Looking at the card with the name Zane on it, I couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. Thank god that lunatic hadn't bothered emptying my pockets after poisoning me last night.
Banishment from a noble family was a big deal, after all once a noble lost the name and protection of their family, they are bound to be targeted by rival houses to extract the house's secrets.
"Thankfully, the guy had enough sense to run away and get a fake identity…"
I grabbed a ring engraved with different runes and put it over my finger.
"… and a fake face." At once, my face morphed, resembling the one in the fake ID.
This was my only way to get back into the city. Without it, I would have been screwed.
Taking a deep sigh, I stood up on my feet.
I didn't know whether it was because of Roye's memories or something else, but I was able to deal with this situation much more calmly.
Whatever this whole transmigration business was, for now, I needed to put it in the back of my head.
Even though I hadn't even completely read the first book, I had read enough to know how dangerous this world was.
Even the forest itself. The only reason I had been so relaxed was because I knew Siv had a habit of warding his ritualistic ceremonies to protect himself from any distractions. I had seen firsthand what happened when he got distracted.
Still, warded or not, I needed to get out of this place and get behind the city walls. Thankfully, I had an idea of where this place was, so finding the way back was still possible.
Dusting myself up, I cautiously began moving towards the city.
If I wanted to survive in this world, I needed to get stronger, fast. This will severely affect the plot, but thankfully, I already had an idea of where to start.
===
It took me several hours to walk back to the city. Suffice it to say, I would have been long dead if the alliance hadn't cleared up the areas near the cities.
Walking for hours in this weak, drug-riddled body was difficult enough if I had to deal with those mindless beasts as well.
Over a hundred meters tall steel walls rose up in the distance, covered with large artillery weapons from head to toe. At the top of the walls one could see several men and women in uniform constantly patrolling the surroundings.
I hurriedly moved towards the large gate in the distance. All around me, I could see several excavation parties. People dressed in powerful armor, riding large lizards like beasts, and carrying swords and axes moved towards the gate, some leisurely while others, usually covered in blood, in a hurry.
Today seemed especially bad. I sighed, looking at a man being carried by his squad mates.
Moving past them, I walked to the nonpriority line.
Thankfully I didn't have to wait for too long. My turn soon came. Making sure the face changing ring was working I flashed my id to the guard.
"You seemed to have a rough day." The guard commented, looking at my blood-drenched clothes.
"It was an accident; I am just a porter, so my teammates sent me back first. Thankfully, most of it isn't mine. I sighed.
The guard nodded with understanding and let me enter the city.
If I had been surprised looking at the walls, now I was flabbergasted. Tall skyscrapers pierced the sky. Neon lights and symbols flashed everywhere. Thousands of people walked through the streets immersed in the headset attached to their heads.
Humanity has truly made great innovations in the last centuries. Unfortunately, my destination wasn't the glimmering city.
Walking past the people staring at my bloodied clothes, I moved towards the opposite side of the district. There, walking past several alleyways, I walked down the stairs into what seemed like subway tunnels.
The moment I entered the tunnels, it was as if the entire atmosphere had changed. Gone was the glamourous city, instead replaced by drug addicts and beggars lying at the side of the large tunnels. Things only became worse the further down I moved until I eventually reached an opening leading to the undercity, built underground.
This was humanity's history. It had taken humans thousands of years before finally reaching the surface seven hundred years ago and conquering some ground of our own, fighting against hordes and hordes of nightmarish beasts, enduring through countless death zones, exploring and expanding into the unknown.
As for before, seven hundred years ago, this broken, crime-riddled underground city scattered around the human domain was all that was left.
There were no records of how or when humanity had gotten here. But there were records of the great migration.
As soon as humans had managed to build up cities, the rich had escaped to the surface while the poor had no choice but to stay back, risking themselves against the occasional beast that would dig out into the city.
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