Chapter 2: The Grind Begins
POV: Viktor
Viktor woke to the feeling of ants crawling through his veins, except the ants were made of broken glass and they'd brought friends. Every muscle in his body had apparently held a conference during the night and unanimously voted to hate him.
He tried to sit up. His abs cramped so hard he saw stars.
"Fantastic." The word came out as more of a wheeze than actual speech. "Day two of 'how not to die horribly' and I can't even move."
Pale morning light filtered through the canopy above, and with it came the cheerful realization that he was lying in a puddle of his own sweat mixed with yesterday's mud. The smell was... educational. A advanced course in what the human body produced when pushed past all reasonable limits.
The system interface flickered to life, helpfully displaying his current status:
[CURRENT HEALTH: 8/10]
[CURRENT MANA: 37/37]
[STATUS: SEVERE MUSCLE FATIGUE]
[RECOMMENDED ACTION: REST AND RECOVERY]
"Rest and recovery?" Viktor tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a death rattle. "I've got ten days left, you digital sadist. Rest is a luxury I can't afford."
He forced himself upright through sheer bloody-mindedness, his body protesting every inch of the way. The forest looked different in daylight—less mystical, more like the kind of place where people came to dispose of bodies. Perfect training environment, really.
His stomach chose that moment to remind him that he hadn't eaten anything since... well, since before he'd died. The hunger hit him like a physical blow, cramping and urgent.
Food. Water. Basic survival needs that his panicked brain had completely ignored yesterday while he'd been busy having an existential crisis and accidentally killing swamp monsters.
Viktor stumbled toward the stream where he'd nearly drowned twice, moving like an arthritic eighty-year-old. The water was clear enough to see the bottom, which was something. He cupped it in his hands and drank, trying not to think about all the medieval diseases that were probably swimming around in there.
The cold water helped clear his head, if not his aching muscles. He needed a plan. Not just for training, but for everything. Food, shelter, equipment. All the practical concerns that video games usually glossed over in favor of the exciting bits.
"Berries," he muttered, scanning the treeline. "There have to be berries. Or mushrooms. Please let there be something that won't kill me."
An hour of foraging yielded a handful of what looked like wild blackberries and some nuts that he was only sixty percent sure wouldn't poison him. It wasn't much, but it was enough to take the edge off the hunger.
He was cracking open his third nut when he heard voices.
Viktor froze, every instinct screaming at him to run. Voices meant people, and people in this world were almost as dangerous as the monsters. More dangerous, in some ways, because they were unpredictable.
The voices grew closer—multiple speakers, talking in the kind of casual way that suggested they weren't actively hunting anyone. Yet.
"—tell you, I saw tracks. Someone's been camping rough out here."
"Probably just another deserter from the wars. They'll move on soon enough."
"Better hope so. Don't need some wild man scaring off the game."
Viktor crept toward the sound, keeping low and moving as quietly as his protesting body would allow. Through the trees, he could see them: three men in rough clothing, carrying hunting bows and game bags. Locals, probably from whatever village was closest to this godforsaken swamp.
"Mad hermit in the woods." He almost laughed at the characterization. If they only knew.
One of the hunters was examining the area where Viktor had done his training yesterday. The ground was torn up from his makeshift workout, rocks scattered where he'd been using them as weights.
"Look at this. Like someone was having a fit out here."
"Or practicing for something. See how the marks are arranged? That's not random thrashing."
The third hunter spat into the dirt. "Whatever it was, I don't like it. Something's not right about this place lately. Old Henrik swears he saw lights in the trees two nights back. Said they moved like they were alive."
"Henrik's half-blind and drinks more than he hunts."
"Maybe. But the drowners have been active too. Found one washed up on the bank yesterday, looked like something had caved its skull in."
Viktor felt a cold spike of recognition. That would be his drowner, the one that had obligingly killed itself on the log. Apparently, dead monsters washing up on the riverbank was noteworthy enough to get the locals worried.
"Note to self: hide the bodies better."
The hunters moved on, their voices fading into the distance, but their conversation left Viktor with a queasy realization. He was already affecting this world, creating ripples that people were starting to notice. In a universe where being noticed by the wrong people could get you burned as a witch or worse, that was a problem.
He needed to be more careful. And he needed to get stronger, fast.
Viktor returned to his makeshift training ground and surveyed the damage. The hunters were right—it looked like a tornado had hit a rock quarry. He'd have to find a more secluded spot, somewhere off the beaten path where curious locals wouldn't stumble across his activities.
But first, he had a stamina point to earn.
The second day was worse than the first. His body, already pushed to its limits, rebelled against every movement. The rocks felt heavier. The running felt slower. The meditation felt like trying to find inner peace while being slowly digested by a particularly philosophical dragon.
But he kept going.
Somewhere around midday, when the sun was high enough to turn the forest into a green-tinged oven, Viktor made a discovery that would have been hilarious if it weren't so pathetic.
He'd been attempting to meditate by the stream, sitting cross-legged on a moss-covered stone and trying to achieve the kind of spiritual transcendence that would regenerate his MP. The system had been perfectly clear about the mechanics: 5% MP regeneration per hour of focused meditation.
What the system hadn't mentioned was that medieval meditation was apparently harder than it looked.
Viktor's eyes had been closed for maybe ten minutes when his exhausted body decided that sitting upright was optional. He swayed, caught himself, swayed again, and then tipped over sideways like a falling tree.
He came to an indeterminate amount of time later to the sensation of something small and sharp poking him in the ribs.
"What the—"
He opened his eyes to find three village children standing over him, the youngest one wielding a stick like it was a sword. They couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old, but they were looking at him with the kind of wary curiosity usually reserved for interesting roadkill.
"Is he dead?" asked the stick-wielder, a gap-toothed boy with hair that looked like it had been cut with a dull knife.
"Dead people don't snore," replied a girl with pigtails. She poked Viktor again, harder this time. "Are you dead, mister?"
Viktor sat up slowly, his neck protesting from whatever position he'd been sleeping in. The children backed away a step but didn't run, which suggested they were either very brave or very stupid.
"I'm not dead," he croaked, his voice rough with sleep. "Just... resting."
"You were sleeping sitting up," the third child observed. This one was older, maybe ten, with the kind of serious expression that suggested he took his role as expedition leader very seriously. "People don't sleep sitting up. That's weird."
"It's called meditation."
"What's meditation?"
"It's... complicated."
The children exchanged glances that clearly said 'adults are weird' and 'this one might be extra weird.' The girl with pigtails stepped forward, apparently having been elected as the group's spokesperson.
"Are you the hermit?"
"The what now?"
"The mad hermit. The one living in the woods. Old Henrik saw lights, and Father Marcus said there's someone camping rough out here, and Tommy's dad said he heard someone screaming yesterday—"
"That wasn't screaming," Viktor interrupted quickly. "That was... singing. Exercising. Vocal exercises."
The children looked skeptical.
"Didn't sound like singing," Tommy—the serious one—said. "Sounded like someone was being murdered."
"Well, I'm clearly not murdered, so..."
"You look terrible," the girl pointed out helpfully. "Like you haven't eaten in days. And you smell funny."
"Thank you for that valuable feedback."
The boy with the stick was still eyeing Viktor with fascination. "Are you going to curse us?"
"What? No. Why would I curse you?"
"You're a hermit. Hermits curse people. It's what they do."
"I'm not—" Viktor stopped, realizing that arguing with children about his hermit status was probably not the best use of his limited time. "I don't curse people. I'm just... camping."
"For how long?"
"A while."
"Where's your tent?"
"I don't have a tent."
"Where do you sleep?"
"On the ground."
"What do you eat?"
"Berries. Nuts. Whatever I can find."
The children exchanged another round of significant looks. Clearly, Viktor's lifestyle choices were not meeting their standards of basic human competence.
"You should come to the village," the girl said finally. "Mother Gertrude makes good soup. And you could use a bath."
"That's very kind, but I'm fine here."
"You're not fine," Tommy pointed out with devastating accuracy. "You're living in the woods like a wild man, sleeping sitting up, and you look like you haven't had a proper meal in a week."
Viktor wanted to argue, but honestly, the kid wasn't wrong. From their perspective, he probably did look like he'd lost a fight with civilization and decided to hold a grudge against it.
"I appreciate the concern, but I have... work to do here."
"What kind of work?"
"Important work. Very important."
The children waited for him to elaborate. When he didn't, they seemed to reach a collective decision that adults were hopeless and wandered off, probably to report back to their parents that the mad hermit was indeed mad but not immediately threatening.
Viktor watched them go, feeling an odd mixture of amusement and loneliness. When was the last time he'd had a normal conversation with other human beings? When was the last time anyone had offered him soup?
"Focus." He shook his head, trying to clear away the distracting thoughts. "Geralt doesn't care if you're lonely. Renfri doesn't care if you're hungry. The only thing that matters is getting strong enough to survive."
He forced himself back to his feet and resumed training.
The rest of the day blurred together in a haze of pain and determination. Running until his lungs felt like they were on fire. Lifting rocks until his arms wouldn't obey him anymore. Crude calisthenics that would have made a medieval peasant laugh at his weakness.
But slowly, incrementally, he could feel his body adapting. The runs felt marginally less like dying. The weights felt marginally less impossible. His stamina was improving, even if the system's cold numbers couldn't capture the small victories.
Evening found him collapsed by the stream again, barely conscious and thoroughly defeated by his own ambitions. The system interface materialized, as helpful as ever:
[TRAINING SESSION COMPLETE]
[STAMINA INCREASED: 3.7 → 3.8]
[CURRENT MANA: 38/38]
[ESTIMATED TIME TO GOAL: 9.2 DAYS AT CURRENT RATE]
[WARNING: HOST SHOWING SIGNS OF EXTREME FATIGUE]
[RECOMMENDATION: MODERATE TRAINING INTENSITY]
"Moderate intensity." Viktor laughed, a sound with about as much humor as a funeral dirge. "Sure. Let me just take it easy while I prepare to face one of the most dangerous fighters in the known world."
He tried to meditate again, this time lying flat on his back to avoid any embarrassing encounters with local children. The 5% MP regeneration was pathetic—less than two points per hour—but it was better than nothing.
As he lay there, staring up at the darkening sky through the canopy, Viktor found his mind wandering to the vision he'd seen. Geralt's cold amber eyes. The marketplace. The blood.
Blaviken.
He knew the story by heart. Renfri, the cursed princess seeking revenge against the wizard Stregobor. Geralt, caught in the middle of their conflict, forced to choose between two evils and earning the title "Butcher" for his choice. It was a perfect storm of destiny, prophecy, and political manipulation, and Viktor was going to be right in the middle of it.
Assuming he survived that long.
The meditation finally started working, his MP ticking upward at a glacial pace. 38.5... 38.7... 39.0...
It would be hours before he recovered even a fraction of what he'd spent on the vision, and he still needed to figure out food, shelter, and a dozen other survival concerns. But for the first time since waking up in this nightmare, Viktor felt something that wasn't quite despair.
Progress. Slow, painful, inadequate progress, but progress nonetheless.
"Day two down," he whispered to the gathering darkness. "Nine to go."
The forest rustled around him, full of sounds that could have been wind or could have been something with teeth. Viktor closed his eyes and kept meditating, counting each precious point of recovered MP like a miser counting coins.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled, and the sound sent ice water through his veins. Another monster to worry about. Another way this world could kill him.
But not tonight. Tonight, he would rest, recover what strength he could, and prepare for another day of forging himself into something strong enough to face destiny.
Even if it killed him.
Which, statistically speaking, it probably would.
+1 CHAPTER AFTER EVERY 3 REVIEWS
MORE POWER STONES == MORE CHAPTERS
To supporting Me in Pateron .
Love [ In The Witcher With Deja Vu System ]? Unlock More Chapters and Support the Story!
Dive deeper into the world of [ In The Witcher With Deja Vu System ] with exclusive access to 26+ chapters on my Patreon, you get more chapters if you ask for more (in few days), plus new fanfic every week! Your support starting at just $5/month helps me keep crafting the stories you love across epic universes like [ Game Of Throne ,MCU and Arrowverse, Breaking Bad , The Walking dead ,The Hobbit,Wednesday].
By joining, you're not just getting more chapters—you're helping me bring new worlds, twists, and adventures to life. Every pledge makes a huge difference!
👉 Join now at patreon.com/TheFinex5 and start reading today!