"When I died, I expected silence. But I heard a voice instead. Not divine. Not even human. Just… tired."
---
The last thing Emil Weber remembered was the damp cell in Berlin. Concrete walls. The low hum of fluorescent lights. And the silence after the judge declared him guilty of "subversive incitement."
His heart hadn't given out. Something else had pulled him under.
Now he was face-down in dirt.
Rough. Cold. Smelling of smoke and bark.
The air tasted… clean. Too clean.
His fingers gripped loose grass. He coughed, rolled over, and saw something unbelievable:
A forest. Dense. Old. Untouched.
No cell. No city. No chains.
His body felt different — not unfamiliar, just… lighter, younger, like he'd shed years of stress and fatigue. Still thin, but lean. Sharper. His clothes were gone — replaced by a coarse tunic and boots.
"...This isn't Earth," he muttered.
---
The first day was survival.
He wandered through the forest, drinking from rivers, eating bitter roots and mushrooms that didn't kill him — though one made his vision blur for hours.
By nightfall, strange sounds began.
Monsters.
Snarls. Shifting shadows. Eyes that blinked in the dark.
He hid beneath a moss-covered log, clutching a rock like it was a dagger.
The next morning, he saw the remains of a boar — torn apart by something far too large. Claw marks on the bark. Deep ones.
He didn't speak. He just walked.
---
It took him three days to find the village.
A worn trail. Smoke rising beyond the trees. Wooden fences. Ragged fields.
They nearly drove him off — bowmen on alert, children hidden behind huts — but the village elder stepped out, a crooked man with deep eyes and a staff bound in vines.
"Name?" he asked.
"Emil," he said, tired.
"From where?"
"…Far."
The elder stared at him, then nodded. "You smell of ash and other worlds."
They let him in.
---
The village was called Kartha's Edge — the last freehold before the Southern Marches.
It was small — two dozen homes, a crumbling shrine, a central well, and a barn that doubled as a meeting hall. The people were poor, but kind. Suspicious, but not cruel.
He worked for food — mending fences, hauling water, chopping wood. Anything.
He listened more than he spoke.
He learned that magic was real — but rare. Flickers of flame from the shrine priest. Healing herbs that glowed faintly in the dark.
"Most of the magic is kept by the High Families," the elder told him, one evening by firelight. "The nobles, the capital-bred. Serfs don't get taught. We barely get books."
"What about the kingdom?" Emil asked.
The elder spat.
"They don't care for us. Not anymore. The king is a puppet. The dukes rule their lands like warlords. Taxes go up, food goes down. When the serfs beg, they're whipped. When the villagers protest, soldiers come."
He paused.
"And those in the Assembly who once stood for the people? Hanged. Or worse. The few who still speak out… vanish."
Emil listened. He didn't speak.
---
That night, in the loft of the barn where he slept, Emil sat with a lantern, staring at the wooden ceiling.
He didn't understand it. The world. The death. The forest. The monsters.
Why was I brought here?
He whispered to himself, almost jokingly:
"Status."
Nothing.
He tried again, with a dry smile.
"Menu."
A click.
A soundless hum.
Then, in the air before him, a faint golden light flickered — and something appeared.
> 🎖 [You are Emil Weber]
Class: ???
Origin: Lost Soul
Alignment: Neutral
> 🔧 System Compatibility Detected...
Activating latent ability...
> 🛠️ Skill Tree Unlocked: Revolutionary Engine
Current Skill: Inactive
Passive Trait: Union Calling
⚙️ No workers connected
🧱 No workshop established
🧨 No armament blueprints available
> [Skills will activate upon exposure to injustice or ideological trigger.]
The menu blinked, then faded.
Emil didn't speak.
He didn't scream, or stand, or punch the air.
He sat still, breathing slowly.
Not excitement. Not power.
Curiosity.
And in the background, a seed quietly cracked open.
Not a revolution.
Not yet.
But something was beginning to grow.