“He fell to his knees. He’d failed his duties. Through no fault of his own. Even his son had met his demise in the chaos. The kind-hearted shaman could not face the reality in front of him. He was the only survivor. He blamed himself. And only himself. He was not good enough. He wept. His heart torn asunder.”

==========================================================================

The first thing Cary noticed was that his surroundings changed. He'd closed his eyes when he pressed the bottom, and suddenly he was standing up and overlooking a cliff. Peering down on a village; the village was burning. He could see blurry figures lying on the ground between the houses.

The village was isolated, barely touching the cliff and being surrounded by forest with a small area that looked to be used for farming.

However, that wasn’t really what caught his attention.

The first thing Cary cared about was his breath.

He took a deep breath, something that would normally make him cough if he did it too suddenly and without his inhaler.

He felt like he’d breathed through a straw his entire life from the moment he took his first breath in his new body, the body, he presumed, of Sergeant Edward ‘Fortis’ Smith.

He was in another world! Their wish had worked!

He smiled, then laughed. He could breathe!

His laughter, too, wasn’t like breathing through a straw. His voice was deep and healthy.

He looked down at his own body and was shocked at what was staring back.

He was huge!

At least 2 meters tall, taut muscles that looked to be ready to kill at a moment’s notice, almost no fat, and a head full of hair.

He wore a soldier’s uniform, with thick and heavy military boots, and a knife strapped to his waist. A different person. No longer Cary, the weak and fragile older brother of John, but something that nearly rivalled him in pure physique.

He stepped away from the cliff edge, wanting to experiment with his new body, when he heard a primal growl.

Looking up, he saw a bear walk slowly towards him, staring at him like he was its next meal.

He only smiled in response when he saw it. It had something that looked like blood-red tribal tattoos covering its entire body.

An enormous bear, at least 700 kgs, it was almost as tall as him walking on its six limbs. Six! He was definitely not on Earth anymore, unless a freak monster had escaped a lab.

It was an earthy brown and had green intelligent eyes.

Logically, he should be scared, no matter how strong he’d become. A man would have trouble killing a bear.

Some part of him disagreed with that logic. Like he instinctually knew that he could defeat it.

So, he grinned, and pulled out his knife, and dashed in a frenzy towards it.

Cary had never handled a military knife in his life in his original world, but the knife in his hand felt familiar, as if he was an expert knife wielder.

The bear roared when it saw him charge towards itself, raised its claws, and swiped at Cary.

His body took over and easily dodged it with a single, smooth movement.

Then he stabbed his knife into it between the eyes, easily passing through its skull.

It tensed for a single moment before dropping heavily to the ground with a loud thud, dead.

The knife smoothly sliding out of the skull when he pulled on it, which he wiped against some nearby leaves to remove the blood before sheathing it.

“Sergeant! Where are you? I heard a Direbear roar nearby!” A man dressed in a soldier's uniform dashed from the bushes beside him.

Cary, no, Edward, smiled like a madman and said:

“I found the Direbear.”

The soldier sighed in relief when he spotted the corpse on the ground.

“That’s a relief. It would be terrible if it attacked the refugees. We’re lucky it attacked you instead, haha.”

“Yeah, I thought these things were supposed to be smart. I can’t for the life of me remember if these things were edible, do you know?” Edward smoothly continued the conversation.

The soldier smiled and said: “I think so? I heard from the shaman who said something about becoming stronger if you ate it. I’m not sure. We can just carry it to him. He’ll know if it’s edible.”

“Yeah, let’s. Come here, help me carry it, it’s always a pain to carry these things.” Edward said.

He and the soldier, whose name he didn’t know, took 2 limbs each and started carrying like a stretcher. The last pair of limbs dangling loosely to the sides.

He didn’t fail to notice how easy it was to carry despite its seemingly heavy weight.

If his estimation was correct, he was easily carrying a 700 kg bear, and it felt no heavier than his schoolbag, and he wasn’t getting tired at all.

The soldier took the lead with Edward carrying the back end, lest he reveal that he was now a different person.

They leisurely walked on the mountainside towards a camp he could spot in the distance.

He yet again appreciated his body. It was an effortless walk, his steps were light and easy. Never even being close to tripping, despite the rough terrain.

A hike like this in his old body would’ve exhausted him after a mere minutes, yet now he could maintain a much higher speed easily.

He started humming happily, simply enjoying the view.

Admittedly, it was a fantastic view. It looked to be straight out of a fantasy world. He even saw a 4-winged eagle in the distance. The sky was bright and unpolluted; the sun shining softly on Edward.

When they were walking down the mountainside, they entered a forest, probably part of the one he saw earlier, that was connected to the village.

He’d nearly forgotten the village on the account of being in a new body and being attacked by a Direbear, as well as easily killing it with a single stab of his knife.

He’d only glanced at it, but he remembered the burning and the corpses lying in between the houses.

‘Right, I am a soldier. Soldiers wouldn’t be needed unless there was a war, so I’m probably fighting someone who’s raiding these villages, and the refugees he mentioned are from said village, or more probable, villages.’

‘Then who am I fighting against? I’d assume it would be some evil aristocrat normally, but these uniforms look somewhat modern, it wouldn’t surprise me if they have guns. I’d place them around the end of World War 2.’

‘Maybe another country or a warlord, I can’t be sure, but regardless my top priorities are finding my brother, since he’s here too, and finding out who I’m fighting against…Maybe I’m just a part of some reserve that’s rescuing civilians.’

‘So far, I know I’m supernaturally strong. There are creatures inconceivable in my old world…Does that mean there are stereotypical fantasy creatures? That’d be awesome: “Edward Smith, Dragon slayer”. Improbable but not impossible.’

‘The trees still look like normal trees, if a bit twisted or mystical, nothing too out of the ordinary, what you’d expect of a magical world.’

‘But because of that, I can’t be sure if this world is made specifically for us, or if the wish just placed us in one that already existed somewhere in the universe. Since we picked characters when we started “the game” I assume we can beat it and return…Yeah, no thanks, I may not have been in this world for a long time, but I’m here to stay, bye-bye asthma.’

‘John's character had the same last name as mine, so we’re probably siblings in this world as well, but I need to be discreet, who knows what could happen if I suddenly reveal to be someone else, or maybe I should fake memory loss after an injury…’

During Edward's musings, they’d finally reached the camp with surprising speed.

The camp in question looked like a stereotypical military camp, with guards, wooden fences and towers, and unassuming tents.

Edward immediately looked at the guards’ weapons: ‘So they ­do have rifles…’ he noted when he saw what looked like automatic rifles, not entirely dissimilar to AK-47’s.

He didn’t fail to see the stares when he walked through the gate; they weren’t staring at him, but at the Direbear they were carrying, still it wasn’t unusual enough to make people stop working. The other soldiers merely seemed mildly surprised when they laid eyes on it, nothing more.

They carried it towards the largest tent in the camp, located to the right of where they entered.

It seemed to be the supply depot, as he saw several boxes with different labels.

But he realized he could read them despite not being in any language he could recognize. The writing was more like circles cobbled together.

It came to him easily, like merely glancing at something and knowing what it said, the weird circle language familiar, yet foreign.

‘So, the spoken language just sounds like English, and I can understand the written language despite it looking entirely different from normal written English, that’s good to know.’ The written language smoothly appeared in his mind, like new knowledge suddenly being put into him.

‘I assume that this has to be coming from the previous Edward. Does that mean I’ll eventually remember everything about him? Or is it just practical knowledge and not his memories? I’ll have to find some way to experiment with it.’

‘Because if I regain his memories, I’ll be easily able to fit in, but if not, I’ll have to watch what I say.’

Edward curiously observed the soldier gently drop the bear and go fetch someone inside the depot who looked important.

The important-looking person exclaimed at Edward: “A Direbear? You usually don’t hunt Rasts. Why now?”

Mentally noting the word ‘Rasts’, Edward casually smiled “Well it attacked me, and he said something about it making you stronger if you ate it.” Nodding towards the soldier who’d carried the bear with him.

He shrugged. “Fair enough, its bad luck is one more ration for us.”

“Leave it here, I’ll have to fetch the shaman, he probably knows how to dismantle this thing, I think.”

Edward and the soldier nodded and turned around to leave, when he called out. “On second thought it’s better if we just put it on the table inside straight away, William come and help me carry it, darn things are so annoying to handle.”

The other soldier, William, and the important-looking person, easily carried it inside, showing that every soldier he’d talked to so far had proved supernaturally strong.

Granted, he’d only talked to 2 soldiers so far, but it was a good probability that every soldier was strong.

The next problem he faced was fitting in, and learn everyone’s name quickly and quietly, he was here to stay, so trying to fit in was a given.

‘If you wanna get ignored, look like you’re going somewhere.’ Edward said to himself and started walking away as if he had somewhere to be.

The camp itself was quite small, so he couldn’t walk for too long without looking weird, as he’d just end up walking in circles at some point if he didn’t find someone to talk to or something to do.

He didn’t have to walk very far till he came across what was obviously a training ground. Soldiers without shirts on were sparring against each other in the warm sun.

‘I really didn’t get a chance to test my physical abilities outside of the fight with the Direbear. Screw it, I can always blame it on needing some release…I hope.’

He walked towards the training ground, where 6 pairs of soldiers were sparring with some relaxing under an open tent right beside them.

“Hey boys, I hope you don’t mind if I join you.” He said, sending an open challenge to every soldier there.

“Ooh, scary, Little Eddie here has a bit of fight in him today, doesn’t he?” The largest and most muscular soldier that sat under the open tent slowly stood up, at least 20 centimetres larger than Edward, he arrogantly looked down on him.

“Sure, I’ll play, but I’d hate to hurt you, so let’s do it like real men first, yeah?” taking his shirt off, and the knife that every soldier seemed to carry, of his belt too.

“Fine by me.” Edward answered, confidently taking of his own shirt and knife.

Slowly walking towards the training grounds and taking a boxer’s stance he’d seen from the movies, locking eyes with the giant in front of him.

“What the hell are you doing with that crappy stance of yours? You look like an idiot.” The giant commented with a smirk.

“Does it matter? I’ll kick your ass, anyway.”

“Feisty today, aren’t we?”

Then, in an instant, the giant threw his punch.

The punch went in right between his raised hands and landed forehead with surprising grace.

Edward barely had time to register what had happened, because in his perception he was suddenly lying on the ground, having stood on his feet a second earlier.

The giant laughed, so did the men watching their spar.

Edward quickly got up again. ‘That doesn’t make sense. I should’ve been able to react to that, right? My body should’ve reacted.’ He thought for a second before an answer came to him, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t think too much, but let my body do the work. That’s what happened when I killed the bear.

“Again.” Edward said, glaring at the giant.

“Sure thing, little Eddie.” The giant smiled sadistically.

Edward let his arms drop to his side and tried to calm his mind so his body could take over the fighting. It was obviously more used to it than he was.

“Another terrible stance, don’t mind if I repeat myself then.” The giants grin widened as he charged towards him.

In a moment, Edward once again found himself lying on the ground, staring at the sky.

‘Wrong again, no, not entirely. My body reacted but my hands were too far from my face to properly block or parry.’

‘Then, let’s try something in between.’ He thought and got up for a third time.

“Again? Listen, this is gonna get boring if we keep doing it like this. I don’t wanna waste my time lightly knocking you on the forehead.”

“It’s going to be different this time. I was just warming up.” Edward fired back, hoping that third time was indeed the charm.

Just then, an alarm sounded from one of the towers of the camp, and the giants' aggressive and goading demeanour changed.

“Oh well, training's over, let’s get going.” His sadistic smile faded, and he turned serious.

Edward caught on quickly and knew that he had to kick his brain into overdrive to fit in. Something military was happening, and he couldn’t act casual now, he wordlessly put his clothes back on, and followed everyone to where they were going.

With diligent haste, every soldier gathered around the supply tent and lined up to be handed guns, after which they gathered in the open area where the bell had sounded from.

The bell was on a platform accompanied by a very serious and important-looking soldier.

It turns out Edward didn’t have to worry about gathering clues, as the important-looking soldier on the platform started speaking once everyone had lined up in 5-man lines in the open area.

“Ape attack from the north, man the towers especially. I want them to almost collapse from how many men are up there. The rest of you, be ready for a bloody battle.

“SIR YES SIR.”

That was all they were told. Edward followed everyone else to the presumed north part of the camp. There seemed to be a pattern as everyone made way for certain men to man the towers.

Edward, together with most of the other soldiers, stood in front of the camps to guard them, guns pointed towards the forest.

Edward was excited, not nervous. He was going to get some real action!

This was his fantasy; he would get to fight monsters! Spray bullets at incoming enemies!

He didn’t have to wait long. He heard animal bellows approaching them, and by the sound of it, there were a lot of them.

‘Apes, I presume.’ He thought confidently.

Then he saw them in the distance, approaching like rabid beasts.

Some were running on the ground, others were jumping between the trees, all of them angry.

They looked like brown furred gorillas, coupled with thick arms, huge canines, and ripped muscles all over their upper body.

The apes climbing the trees looked to be the juveniles, as they were smaller and more agile, gracefully swinging on the branches above.

“OPEN FIRE!”

The shout came from somewhere behind him, and all hell broke loose.

Almost immediately deafened from all the gunfire, machineguns spraying at the enemy ahead. He looked ahead and saw absolute carnage; the Apes being easily torn to pieces by the gunfire

Edward, of course, opened fire as well, and he felt primal energy fill him as he shot down the army of apes.

He roared in jubilation at all the chaos in front of him. Apes in front falling to the ground only to immediately be climbed over by the apes in the back, like an endless tide of monsters.

‘This, this is heaven! It's like playing DOOM’ The apes were gaining ground, climbing over the dead faster than they could be shot down, slowly approaching the firing line.

His magazine emptied, and he didn’t have time to reload, so he pulled out his knife to combat the incoming gorilla.

Up close it was a magnificent monster, time seemed to stop, and he saw all of it, the bulging veins on its fists, its practically red eyes that wanted to kill every human in sight, breath so hot it exhaled visibly even in the hot weather.

Then it attacked Edward with a leap.

Just like with the bear, his body took over, rolling to the side.

He stood up, turning to face it when it was gunned down from the side. He nodded to the soldier that had killed and picked up his machinegun from the ground to reload.

He’d barely fired any shots when another one was on him. His machinegun was too large to effectively turn it against the gorilla in time, so he dropped it and leapt backwards.

He charged forward just as quickly and put his knife in its neck, forcefully pushing it so it wouldn’t fall on his gun.

Then, just as quickly as it started, it was over.

Every ape was dead or dying on the ground. He saw a few soldiers on the ground as well, being quickly attended by the medics on standby.

He exhaled a deep breath and smiled. Edward had survived such a bloody battle, something Cary wouldn’t have, Cary couldn’t even have held the gun, let alone fire it at the monsters.

The afterglow of the euphoria he’d experienced was still there, and he had a light buzz. He felt like he’d finally found his place.