Floki's eyes fluttered open inside a fairly dark place.
His face contorted into a confused expression as he slowly scanned his surroundings without getting up, still afraid that he might be back in the forest.
The confusion on his face deepened when he realized he was inside an unfamiliar room, one with a structure that clearly should not exist in the twenty-first century.
There was a single window in the room. It allowed a thin stream of moonlight to seep inside, providing only minimal illumination.
The walls were rough and red, their uneven surfaces indicating that they were made of clay. The construction felt crude, ancient, and completely out of place.
A faint, foul smell lingered in the air, strong enough to make him wrinkle his nose in discomfort.
Only after confirming that there was no immediate danger in sight did he finally lift his head slightly.
"Where is this?" he muttered.
The place was totally unfamiliar to him.
For a brief moment, a strange thought surfaced in his mind, one he did not want to acknowledge.
Somehow, he felt like he had been—
"That can't be…" he muttered again.
He shook his head firmly, rejecting the impossible idea before it could take root.
"The black thing swallowed Magnus and Noah as well," he said under his breath. "Where are they?"
"What the heck even happened?"
A dull ache throbbed inside his head as he tried to piece together a clear explanation for everything that had occurred.
However, being someone who hated overworking his mind, especially in situations he could not understand, he stopped forcing himself to think further.
If answers existed, he would find them later.
He attempted to push himself up, intending to walk toward the wooden door positioned a few meters in front of him.
And then he realized something he had not noticed earlier, likely because he had been lying still.
"Ouch…"
He winced as a sharp, aching pain surged through his entire body.
The pain was intense, comparable to someone who had been badly beaten by a group of men without any chance to fight back.
His limbs felt heavy and unresponsive.
The sudden weakness caused him to lose balance, and he fell back to the ground almost immediately.
"What is happening?" he muttered, breathing heavily. "I can't even stand… Is this because of that black thing?"
Of course, there was no one present to answer his questions.
Just as that realization settled in, a faint sound reached his ears.
Footsteps.
His senses sharpened instantly.
"Who are they?" he wondered silently. "Are they the ones who brought me here?"
Before he could think any further, the footsteps grew louder and clearer, until they suddenly came to a halt right in front of the door.
Floki dragged his body backward with what little strength he had left, only stopping when his back pressed firmly against the cold wall.
His breathing grew shallow.
His eyes remained fixed on the door, unblinking, as he waited for whatever was on the other side to reveal itself.
And it did, or rather, they did.
The door creaked open slowly, and three tall figures were exposed.
They were middle-aged men dressed in strange attire that seemed to be made out of rags.
They also stank badly, increasing the intensity of the faint smell that had been lingering earlier.
Under the moonlight, he could see their solemn expressions, as well as the changes that occurred the moment their eyes landed on him.
"H-he is alive!"
One of them shouted.
He spoke in a strange language, yet coincidentally, Floki understood it perfectly.
"Young Chief Floki is alive!"
The other two barked.
Floki watched the sudden jubilation in silence.
Before he could utter a single word, the three men, muscular in their own ways, stormed toward him. One of them was even shedding joyful tears.
Before he could move or attempt to protest, the man at the front grabbed him with ease and lifted him into a princess carry.
Floki winced as the ache surged through his body.
However, the men ignored his reaction and carried him outside the hut.
Now outside, he finally got a clearer view of the place around him.
And it was definitely unlike the place he grew up in or any setting available on Earth.
The view looked as though it had been taken straight out of an ancient painting.
Thatched huts spread across the area, each standing in alignment that proved they were built without proper planning. Some of them were misshapen, others broken, and one had been completely taken down by the rain. All that remained of it were puddles and a destroyed roof lying atop the mud.
But aside from the buildings, what truly confirmed his suspicions were the people.
They were dressed in rags similar to the three men carrying him.
The children were completely naked.
For a moment, he even thought that he had been sent to a barbaric tribe on Earth that had not yet been civilized.
At that moment, the people, numbering less than three dozen, sprinted toward him while screaming out the same barbaric title as the men, their reactions even more emotional.
"Chief Floki is alive!"
"He fought those scoundrels and did not lose his life!"
"No wonder the lcrystal of authority picked him!"
"He is the true son of his father, the great Chief Ragnar!"
They shouted as they closed the distance.
They formed a circle around him.
If the men had not lifted their hands to stop them in time, they would have completely engulfed him.
Floki remained speechless.
He felt as though he was trapped inside a dream.
Everything he heard and everything he had seen was utterly bizarre.
Yet all of it pointed toward a conclusion he had been desperately avoiding.
That he had been transmigrated.
To an ancient world, or rather, a barbaric one.
Though he bore the same name, an unfamiliar title had been added to it.
But should not a transmigrator at least receive memory fragments containing information about their new body, or better still, a clearer picture of the new world?
And maybe a system to help navigate this unfamiliar place.
As though his thoughts had acted as a trigger, a powerful migraine slammed into his head, causing him to black out instantly.
Before he completely lost consciousness, he heard a robotic voice.
[ Inf.... ]