The carriage jolted forward, and with it so did the "cuffs" around my wrists. I was crammed into the back of a carriage, drawn by an unfamiliar animal. Some sort of reptile which almost looked like a dinosaur. Beside me were crates and sacks, the belongings of my captors, was this some form of intentional belittlement? Soon after the capture, I began to realize this was not my world. The only thing that came to mind was transmigration. I had sparsely heard of the concept on social media before my death. I never got into it as we wealth mongrels had better things to do than sit around watching cartoons.
Outside, I could hear the roar of a crowd—cheering. At first I thought maybe they were cheering for me. Ridiculous right? But no. It became painfully clear who the applause was for: them, my captors. The Tragic Artists. A party of popular adventurers, heighling from noble households. Confidently standing on the footboard as though they had just slain a dragon rather than hauling in a random kid from another world. The nation clearly honored them dearly. As I sat there detained like a criminal. The crowd's applause shifted to revulsion when they caught a glimpse of me, booing and hissing as if I had caused some unspeakable harm to this land. Their faces contorted as if I was less than human. I almost laughed. These people in tattered attire glaring at me? Back home I could have bought this whole street, torn down their settlements and made them grovel. My throat burned with the words I wanted to spit at them, but I swallowed them back. The cuffs around my wrists reminded me of the position I currently held. Through the spacious opening at the back of the carriage I was given plenty of visibility, I tried to take in the kingdom. It wasn't anything like the sleek skyscrapers or polished marble halls I used to walk through. This place was crude but alive. Stone roads that were clearly not placed through the use of machines, wooden stalls crammed shoulder to shoulder. Shouting merchants. The stench of sweat and waste made my nostrils wrinkle up. And the things they sold… Slaves shackled like my current self, their eyes dead. Suits of armor gleaming under the sun. Shops that looked to sell books and strange glowing trinkets. One thing really caught my eye though. A woman walked by whose ears stretched long and sharp like a blade. An elf? I wonder if they are similar to the elves of fantasy in my past life, that's an exciting find! I thought internally.
Anyway, this wasn't even close to my world. This was a medieval, fantasy styled world, a world of swords and sorcery. By the time the cart screeched to a halt, the shouting crowd had become a dull roar in my head. My ears still rang as I was dragged out and thrown into a stone-walled room that reeked of mildew. An interrogation room I realized, if you could even call it that. No pleasantries, no introductions, no "tell us your story." Just suspicion– guilty until proven innocent. A barrage of questions flew at me in a tongue I didn't understand. I tried answering them, utilizing the skills of discussion taught to me for negotiation back home, but my words were useless to them. The language barrier was a brick wall, and I was the idiot beating his fists against it. Hours passed like that, my captors eventually gave up. I didn't know it then. But later after piecing the language together, I came to realize what they were muttering amongst themselves. "Well that was an easy one, huh? Let's go collect our rewards." "This guy is powerless anyway". Powerless. That was what they had called me. I stood there, head tilted higher than I felt. My pride as a juggernaut of wealth and status refused to accept this reality. And so, with all the pomp and pride of a knighted hero, I was tossed into custody.
The cell they dumped me in was worse than anything I could've imagined. "Basic living conditions," they probably called it. I called it an insult to my being. I was given coarse fabric in dreadful condition for attire, no shoes, no socks. There was a stone floor; no sign of carpet, a singular pathetic candle sputtering on a wall bracket. Straw shoved into a corner pretending to be a bed. No sheets, no blankets, no privacy. Not even a single dorm. As my eyes traced the room, they came to land on another person. An older, simple looking man whose silence weighed more than words. He sat on his straw mat, staring at me with eyes that made the air feel heavy. I forced a grin, trying to brush off the tension. "Hey man, I'm Reed. What are you in for?" Nothing, no response, just that stare. I added , jokingly: "I'm here for the crime of existing." Still nothing. Well of course not, he can't understand English. But finally–one phrase, dropped like stones into water. "You're out of luck." Then he laid down to sleep. Back then I had no idea what he said but when I came to realize. He was right. I looked around again, the weight of my reality began to weigh down on me like a semi-truck. This wasn't my custom-made bed with the highest quality fabric humanity could produce. This wasn't a penthouse with a skyline view. Not even two days ago, I could have snapped my fingers and had any and every luxury placed at my feet. And now I had a straw mat and a roommate who probably would kill me.
"No… This is not acceptable." I thought to myself. I refused to live like this. Anger boiled in me. I'd sit here and wait for– the next guard who came by would hear exactly what I thought of this ridiculous scene. Except, the guard never came. Not during the night at least. By the time morning arrived, my body ached from exhaustion. My resolve had begun to crack and I finally gave in– sinking onto the straw mat. Surprisingly, it felt softer than expected. Probably because of fatigue but I could accept it for now. I let my eyes drift shut. Exactly as I began to dose off, a thunderclap of shouting snapped me awake. "Inmates Up!" The door crashed open. My silent roommate was already standing by the entrance ready as if this was a routine, face as emotionless as I remembered. I was still groggy, still trying to understand. The guard didn't wait, he shoved me toward the door. "Hey, watch it!" I exclaimed, which earned me the empty stare of the guard. I began ranting about the mistake made placing me into custody, how these living conditions were not fit to my liking and a demand to see a superior. As I finished, the guard continued staring at me, his eyes cold with indifference. "Hmph!" He aggressively shoved me towards the exit again. "Alright, I've had enough of this." This time, in my exhausted state, I balled up my fists, ready to defend myself. "I have to make him understand, this is wrong, so very wrong!" I thought to myself. At that moment, an intense feeling of dread washed over me. Was this real? Do I really have to fight this guy right now? I've never attempted physical altercation in the past as my bodyguards could resolve those matters. As I hesitated, the guard swiftly closed in, there was an explosive impact in my abdomen. As the air and strength was forcibly driven out of my body, I instantly collapsed. This was not a joke anymore. This unfamiliar pain coursing through my body was proof. Coughing violently, I looked up at the guard who gestured towards the exit.
That was when the routine began. Wake. Labor. Eat. Sleep. Repeat. Everyday blurred into the next. We hauled stone blocks for walls that never seemed to rise. Dug ditches until our hands were numb. Carried buckets of water for miles, until our shoulders screamed. Making the construction work of my past life look like playdates. Food was bread so hard it bloodied gums, along with a broth tasting of rust. And every mistake– the wrong pace, the wrong gesture, was punished with a beating. My pride withered away yet it never ended. I would lash out when I got overwhelmed, hoping they would understand sooner or later, but that understanding never came. The guards swiftly suppressed my rage, treating my turmoil as entertainment. I wondered, is this how people I'd treated similarly in my past life felt? Powerless and stuck with no way out of the behemoth's grip that slowly sucked the life out of them? As our days followed this harsh rhythm: wake early, work all day, choke down whatever passed for food, then collapse into sleep, I slowly began to pick up bits and pieces of the language. Out of some deeply rooted instinctual necessity to break out of this cycle, I began to use the gestures and mannerisms of prisoners and guards alike as an early form of translation. Mimicking phrases I had heard then and watching how others reacted. My first attempt at normal communication started as I waved to a fellow prisoner, exclaiming the words I thought to be simple greetings. Which was a success, at the price of a few dinners, the other prisoners even began to humor my actions allowing me to learn basic conversation relatively quickly. To my ear it carried a sharpness– something reminiscent of German, at least from the little I remembered from attending events back in Europe.
As the weeks bled together, I finally found my voice– fragmented and clumsy yet enough to form the bones of conversation with my cellmate, Elias. At first, our exchanges were little more than gestures and scattered words. Upon returning to our room one night, while exhaustion draped itself across us like a second set of bounding, I decided to pitch a conversation. "Speaking with a roommate will definitely speed up the translation process." "Hello… I'm Reed." I said again. Elias turned to me with a placid expression. "I know," he replied evenly. "I have seen the fervor with which you chase this tongue. But tell me… why? What use is language to an illiterate slave of this Kingdom?" At the time, most of his words slid past me. Still, I caught his curiosity. He wasn't mocking me, he wanted to understand. "Ah yes, my name is… you may call me Elias". I answered with what little I could offer: halting words, clumsy gestures, a stubborn insistence that I needed to LEARN. Something in me refused to remain silent, even in chains. Perhaps it was my persistence which led to it but Elias chose to humor me. From then on he began to speak in fragments, as if cutting his thoughts into smaller stones I might carry. Our days were filled with simple conversations which had taught me a bit about this world. This world was ruled by power, not the kind of power I'd known in my past life— not wealth, not politics, nor any subtle webs of influence. Well each of those had their place yes— but here, the true dominating factor, was battle prowess. The strong carved their place into the very essence of this land while the weak existed only to oblige… or be discarded. During his explanations of this world, betraying the usual steadiness of his character, Elias's voice would deploy an undertone. The undertone of a man who's already faced his reality and knew which fate awaited him. But this was exactly what I needed. Clarity of progression. If this world bowed to power then my path was plain. My worth had already been measured these past weeks— I was weak, barely more than an insect. But with this truth, my resolve hardened. A smirk crept across my face as I began contemplating my way back to the top. It was the same crooked grin I wore in my first life. One evening, after hauling the heavy stones that chained our souls to this kingdom, I let one crash to the ground. All around me, the labor was brutal, men exhausted and passing out only for the guards to beat them awake. My muscles screamed with every movement, yet Elias moved beside me with an almost effortless precision towards his tasks. Something finally snapped and I came back to my senses. "This is unacceptable, I will not live like this." I thought to myself. "Elias," I said. If this world ran on strength. "Help me get stronger." Then I'd climb until it bowed to me. For a moment he simply stared, unmoving . Then I saw it. Something sharp, almost delighted, flickered behind his tired eyes. A shadow of the man he must have been before these shackles. His lips curled into the faintest smirk, a smirk I knew all too well. The kind born of pride that refused to die completely. "Stronger, is it?" He scoffed, though there was no malice in it. "…Very Well, I will help. But strength is not without its price, Reed. Remember that." He leaned back against the stone wall we were currently building and looked up at the sky. Murmuring, "what fate have you in place for me now…"