Lucas felt great after his nap. Or maybe it was more than a nap. What do you even call something more than a nap, anyway? Everyone he knew would just say they fell asleep, but you fall asleep during a nap, but it’s a nap because it’s short, so why wasn’t there a name for something longer than that?

Although he had no idea how long he slept for, it didn’t really matter in the end, since his situation hadn’t changed much. He was well-rested now, but the cabin still reeked, the blizzard was still ongoing, and his body was still slightly sore. Out of curiosity, he checked his status to see how much health he had recovered.

[Lucas (?) – Human (?)

Level 20 Ice Mage

HP 55/55

MP 20/38

Strength - 10

Dexterity - 10

Vitality - 10

Perception - 0

Intelligence - 19

Wisdom - 1

Luck – 0]

It seemed he was at 100%, which was nice, but the fact that he was at full yet still felt sore wasn’t a great feeling. Was it because his soreness didn’t impact his overall health in any way, and he was just sore from sleeping in a disgusting straw bed? He had no idea, this world was strange and didn’t exactly give him the best first impression; its logic worked under different rules, since there was magic, so perhaps that meant other certain truths would be wrong too.

Ah. He was getting ahead of himself, though. One step at a time, Lucas. The big problem right now wasn’t finding intrinsic truths about this world, it was figuring out how he was going to leave this cabin.

Well, rather than how, more of a matter of when. There was no food here, and he felt is stomach getting hungry, which was odd, because he really should have been feeling hunger pangs much sooner than this. Or at least, he assumed he should have felt hungrier sooner, because it certainly felt like he had spent a lot of time here, but he couldn’t exactly tell how much time. Which worried him, but there was nothing he could do about it. So, ignoring the time issue, and focusing solely on hunger, there was no food here besides that moldy bread he found in the dresser earlier, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to eat that.

Obviously, he needed to go out and find something to eat, but that blizzard was still raging out there. Seriously, this world is too hardcore. Going out and hunting something in the middle of a snowstorm wasn’t something he felt he was capable of. Sure, doing something like that seemed to be this world’s way of saying “go out and adventure! Find your true self!” but he really, really did not care for what this world expected of him. Call him crazy, but he wasn’t super thrilled about being stuck in some crappy, exiled noble’s body, while also having to fight off a magical wolf in the middle of nowhere.

But there wasn’t really any other options here, either. It wasn’t like food would just magically appear at his front door. He couldn’t just call D*** D*** and have them deliver some greasy and delicious food.

“Do I really have to go out there?” Lucas complained. He tentatively made his way over to the desk that was blocking the door frame and looked outside. Yup, it looked as bad as it sounded, and it could have just been his paranoid thinking working its magic on him, but he could have sworn that the blizzard had become even worse. He couldn’t exactly tell, since looking at it depressed him, but it felt like he could have seen farther out into the storm before, whereas now his vision was limited even more.

“I guess I can always follow my footprints back to the cabin if I need to,” Lucas muttered. He had spent so much time trying to dissuade himself from going out there, yet here he was, going out hunting.

…

Hold on, something didn’t add up here. Was food really that much of an issue right now? Sure, he was a bit peckish, but was that worth the risk of going out into the blizzard, where anything could be waiting out there for him? No, of course it wasn’t. He’d been like this before his nap, too, where for some reason his thoughts kept telling him to go out, even though he knew it was the worst idea possible for his current situation. Sure, there wasn’t food here, but the cabin at least provided him a little bit of protection. Out there, though, the only protection he had were his skills, and he wasn’t exactly thrilled at how useless most of them were.

No, no, this blizzard expedition wasn’t coming from him at all, was it. This was a world of magic, surely someone else was having this stupid crazy idea and forcing it on him. There was no way he could be stupid enough to try and go out into a raging blizzard all on his own. He knew that he wasn’t the smartest cookie in the jar and all that, but that didn’t mean he was stupid enough to fight mother nature like this. Surely, someone was implanting thoughts in his head, and that someone really wanted him to go out into a deadly blizzard. Right?

Ugh. Just thinking about someone potentially brainwashing him made his head hurt something awful.

No. You know what? He didn’t care if it staying in this cabin would slowly starve him to death, he was prepared to plant his ass in the straw bed and bunker down until the storm was over. Even if it was just a sliver of a chance that someone else was inside his head – probably an almost 0% chance, really – he didn’t want to give them what they wanted. Screw them. Going into hid mind and attempting to manipulate him was a form of control he didn’t want to give into, no matter what. His thoughts were his own, and he was going to prove it here and now.

“I’m staying right here!” Lucas shouted over the blizzard’s ambient shrieking. No one responded.

“Maybe I am going crazy,” he said to himself, and laughed.

“What the hell am I even doing here?” He said in-between fits of laughter, which was growing more hysterical by the second. Man, he hadn’t laughed like this in years. This whole situation, being abducted into another world, was just too funny.

It took a white before his hysterics left him, but when they did, he noticed someone else was in the room with him. A young man in a very heavy-looking cream colored coat was staring at him like he’d gone crazy. To be fair to the stranger, he’d also probably have a similar look on his own face if he saw someone laughing like this.

“Is this a bad time, or…?” The man asked with a low voice. Lucas inherently knew he was speaking a language different from English, but it sounded like English to him. The weird, pseudo-translation must have been thanks to his [Language Expertise], and he was thankful to it and all, but hearing English in this magical world was an interesting experience to say the least.

“No, no, I’m good,” Lucas told the stranger. He didn’t look dangerous, but the way he leaned against the wall so carelessly, and the way he sneered at him so rudely made him think this guy wasn’t good news.

“So then, what was that about?” He asked but sounded like he genuinely didn’t care.

“Oh, you know, I was just attacked by a [Mirage Wolf] and almost killed, and I’ve been stuck in this blizzard for days now, and now there’s some stranger looking at me like I’m insane, but I’m just peachy, thanks for asking,” Lucas response sounded more aggressive than he wanted it to, but the man irked him something fierce so he didn’t care if his words sounded mean or not.

“Mirage wolf? Stranger? You alright, Xandrious?” The man asked again. Great, the guy knew Xandrious, but since Lucas didn’t exactly have access to Xandrious’ memories, he had no idea who this punk was. He had to quickly think of an excuse to give him.

“Uh, a magic experiment of mine went wrong, and some of my memory is a bit hazy. Who are you again?” Lucas asked while giving the most flimsy excuse. This dude would have to be an idiot to believe something this dodgy.

“I see. Your sister told you over and over again “no magic,” and yet you tried anyway. Why am I not surprised,” the man let out a large groan. Great, this guy seemed to be in contact with the woman that Xandrious wanted to kill/get revenge on. Neat. Fantastic. Even in exile, Xandrious still had to deal with his family, and now Lucas had to clean up the crumbs since his host apparently went and got himself killed, or had his soul absorbed by Lucas, or some other mystical nonsense.

“Yes, yes, whatever,” Lucas had no patience for this, but he saw the light at the end of this miserable tunnel. If this man could make it through the blizzard, surely he could lead him out of it.

“And you said you killed a mirage wolf? That’s the biggest lie I ever heard. You couldn’t even kill a fly, let alone a wolf,” the man said, with no respect in his voice whatsoever. It appeared that Lucas wasn’t the only one that had a low opinion of this Xandrious dude.

“Its corpse is in the basement,” Lucas said without thinking, only realizing he probably said too much after the fact. That demonic ritual circle was still down there, wasn’t it. Crap. This guy didn’t react too well to him using magic, so he imagined that if he saw that ominous looking ritual magic downstairs, he would never hear the end of it at best, and at worst...

“Really now,” the man asked with a tone that told Lucas that he didn’t believe him.

“No, you’re right, I lied,” Lucas said, pedaling back.

“Then why is your door broken?” The stranger asked. What the hell was wrong with him, make up your mind! Were you going to believe that a mirage wolf attacked or not?

“I kicked it down in a fit of rage,” Lucas lied. Most people thought the truth would be what they wanted to hear, and in this man’s case, he seemed to want to hear about how Xandrious was a terrible human being, so this fib would probably be taken as the truth. Presumably.

“Sounds about right,” The man nodded, agreeing with him for the first time since he came here. Bingo, Lucas hit the nail right on the head, booyah, but he wasn’t exactly too happy about that. Xandrious really was a piece of work, wasn’t he, if someone believed that he would kick down a door to his own house out of anger. Lucas couldn’t wait to get away from anyone and everyone who might know him as soon as he could. Being trapped inside of a P.O.S noble’s body like this definitely sounded like it would invite more troubles than it was worth, and this noble didn’t even appear to be worth all that much to begin with. At the very least, this punk seemed to be stupid enough to lie to. After all, what kind of kick left wooden splinters all over the floor?

“Anyway, why are you here? And you still haven’t told me your name, either,” Lucas pointed out.

“When we told your sister about this terrible blizzard, she got worried about you. Why she still worries over someone like you is beyond me,” The man ended his words with a hearty harumph, and he still didn’t tell him his name. Neat.

“No one asked your opinion, Frank,” Lucas sighed. Guess he’d just have to assign him a name, then.

“My name’s not Frank.”

“You look like a Frank to me.”

“Well I’m not.”

“Pretty sure I know a Frank when I see one,” Lucas continued arguing with the man. The arrogant punk it brought on himself by acting so rude.

“Anyway, with your door like this, I guess I’ll have to let you stay in the village until the blizzard is over,” Frank bent over and looked at the door’s leftover pieces on the floor as he moved on from the name argument, making Lucas the winner by default.

“Not interested,” Lucas said.

“What?” He looked at him and blinked a few times, as if he couldn’t believe that Lucas wouldn’t just up and do whatever this jerk said.

“What?”

“You obviously can’t stay in this cabin during a storm like this,” Frank talked down to Lucas like he was trying to reason with a child. This guy must have had some sort of ego complex for him to consistently talk like an arrogant moron.

“I agree with you there,” Lucas said, trying not to give into his anger.

“Great, then let’s go back to the village,” Frank said, his voice becoming more and more irritable with every passing second.

“No. I don’t like the idea of being housed anywhere near you. You give off some extremely disrespectful vibes,” Lucas said. Plus, now that he had the time to think about it, if this man could make it through the blizzard, surely he could. This man looked pathetic as all get out, after all. The only intimidating things about him were his height and size, but the size could be explained away by the thickness of his coat, and being intimidated by someone taller than him was childish, and since he wasn’t a kid, he didn’t feel pressured at all by Frank’s height. Lucas made to grab the belt that was on the desk, the one with all his potions on it, before he realized he was already wearing his belt.

“See ya,” Lucas said as he sprinted out of the cabin and into the blizzard.

Wait.

Why did he let himself do this?

This was a dumb idea.