Day One of Living as a Barbarian
They say that right before you die, the world slows to a crawl and your whole life flashes before your eyes.
That was exactly what was happening to me.
The plump white clouds drifting lazily across the impossibly blue sky, my own arms flailing through empty air — every scrap of the landscape trickled past in agonizing slow motion.
How many seconds until I hit the ground from this height?
Five? Or a measly three?
Dozens of survival instincts and calculations tore through my head at a frenzied pace, all scrambling for a way out. By my own reckoning, judging the situation and choosing an action seemed to take tens of seconds.
In reality, barely a single heartbeat had passed.
I snatched the crude hand axe strapped to my waist — the closest thing I had to survival equipment — and swung it straight at the cliff face.
But.
KAGAK! CLANG!
Driving a blade into solid rock with the frail body of a child was a fool's hope. The edge scraped down the stone in a shower of sparks, then bounced away into nothing.
The recoil left my grip numb and tingling, but despairing or giving up would have been a luxury. I rolled my eyes frantically, scanning my surroundings, until a lone branch jutting from the cliff caught my eye.
Calculating my falling trajectory and the timing, I flung out my hand with everything I had and clung to the branch for dear life.
CRAAAK! SNAP!
But it was laughably too thin to bear the weight of my accelerating body.
Together with the branch, which broke off with a scream of splintering wood, my body plunged toward the ground once more.
Seriously? I'm going to die like this?
It was nothing like yesterday, when I'd only thought I was about to die as the knife came toward my back for the engraving ritual. This time it was real — I was genuinely about to be crushed to death, every bone in my body shattered.
Dragged all the way into this strange world of a novel, only to end it by falling off a cliff?
The instant instinct told me this was truly the end, my mind went eerily, spine-chillingly cold instead of panicking.
I don't want to die.
Not like this. Absolutely not like this.
A single primal hunger to survive seized every nerve in my body.
"DIE FOR MEEE—!!!"
Throat tearing, muscles and nerves wrenched beyond their limits, I brought the axe in my hand slashing down at the rock wall one more time.
VUUUUMM—!
In that instant, with a strange resonance humming through me, silver tattoos flared to life across the skin of both arms.
CRASH!
With a sound incomparably louder than before, the axe in my hand shattered the solid rock and sank in deep.
SKRRAKAKAK!
As the blade gnawed into the cliff, spitting embers and stone dust, my fall slowed bit by bit. How far did I slide like that?
The moment the scraping blade finally lodged firm, my body stopped dead in midair.
"Haahh... hah...!"
I spat out the breath that had climbed to my throat and looked down. My toes dangled just short of touching the ground. Mustering my strength, I pulled the axe free of the rock and dropped lightly to the earth — whereupon every ounce of strength drained out of me at once and I landed flat on my rear.
"Ha... haha, hahahaha! I made it. I actually made it!"
Laughing like a man driven mad by the relief flooding every inch of me, I suddenly noticed the tattoos still glowing silver on both arms.
"So this is... that Engraving of Urma the old shaman kept droning on about."
The monstrous strength that had erupted at the brink of death, and this tattoo — there was only one answer. The reward for passing the first trial. The light slowly dimmed, and the markings seeped back into my skin until not a trace remained.
I'd have to investigate what this power really was, but at the very least, it seemed I had one means of surviving in this world.
"Those crazy bastards, though..."
I glared up at the top of the cliff, grinding my teeth.
"Throwing a kid off a cliff this high. Twice?"
The last words that bastard of a father had spat just before I fell flashed through my mind.
"You have already survived this cliff and proudly passed the first trial! You are more than worthy to challenge the second!"
Now I finally understood why I'd transmigrated into this body, of all bodies. I didn't know the fine details, but the original owner of this flesh must have thrown himself off this cliff half-naked to complete some damned 'first trial' or other.
The little brat who'd originally owned this body would obviously have died on impact — and my soul had clearly moved into the empty shell he left behind.
Pushing myself up off the ground, I brushed the dirt from my backside.
"Just wait till I get back. I'll bury this axe right in the middle of their skulls."
Swallowing the sour taste in my mouth, I was searching for a way back up the cliff when I stopped cold.
A face drifted up unbidden in my memory — silver hair and cold, keen eyes.
Even in a work stuffed with beautiful girls exactly to my taste, she was the one my gaze had always returned to. And now she was alive — in my reality.
What happens if I just go quietly back to the tribe like a good little boy?
The outcome would be one of two things, no matter how I looked at it. Either I'd fail to adapt, get ground down among the barbarians, and die first. Or someday, just like in the original story, I'd watch with my own two eyes as she was brutally murdered at barbarian hands.
Neither ending was particularly cheerful.
"There's no way I can just stand by and watch that happen."
Usually the heroes of these transmigration stories tiptoe around the main plot, mumbling about how the original story must never be derailed. My thinking was completely different. From the moment I set foot in this world, the original story was already falling apart. So there was no reason to hold back.
I would move, unconditionally, to save her. And to do that, I needed overwhelming power and authority. Only then could I bend this damned world to my will — only then could I seize something and make it move the way I wanted.
"According to the novel's lore, barbarians don't bother training aura separately — it just soaks into every corner of their bodies on its own."
Maybe it was the influence of this land called the Demonic Lands, or maybe it was because they'd been chewing down the flesh and blood of demonic beasts since infancy. Either way, these barbarians supposedly grew stronger simply by living their way — repeating nothing but battle and hunting from the day they were born until the day they died.
Having finished that thought, I turned toward the dense forest on the far side of the cliff. If simply living their way was enough to grow strong...
"Fine then. I'll live as a barbarian too."
With long, deliberate strides, I set off into the depths of the forest, where unknown dangers lay in wait.
At the edge of the Demonic Lands, where it pressed against the Empire's northern border, within a dense stretch of forest — a company of knights in gleaming armor picked their way cautiously along the woodland trail on horseback.
At the very head of the column, a silver-haired man guiding his horse turned and called out.
"Ceris! Stay right beside Rene!"
From the middle of the column, a girl riding alongside a blue-haired knight with her hair tied up waved her hand and shouted back at once.
"Don't worry, big brother!"
Dazzling silver hair, a perfect mirror of the man at the front, and eyes as clear as a mountain lake. The youngest daughter of House Argent — Ceris Argent.
Rene, who held the reins with the girl gathered protectively against her, dipped her head slightly and asked, "My lady, are you not frightened?"
Ceris pressed a small fist to her chest and answered stoutly. "Rene, I am an Argent, through and through. Something like this won't even make me blink!"
She puffed out her shoulders, clearly convinced she was brimming with courage, and Rene couldn't hold back a smile — to her eyes, the girl was simply adorable.
"Besides, we have plenty of the Argent knights with us to keep us safe."
Ceris tilted her head back to look up at Rene and flashed her a sweet grin.
At that very moment, one of the knights watching the perimeter sensed something and leaned close to the commander of this punitive force — Ceris's older brother, Klaus.
"Young lord, they're coming."
Klaus, who had already felt the killing intent seeping from the forest, nodded with a hardened face and raised his voice.
"All units — battle stations!"
At his ringing command, the knights drew their swords as one.
"Form the warding circle!"
Under Klaus's direction, the knights snapped into formation, encircling Ceris and Rene in a tight ring with blades pointed outward.
Even Ceris, so full of bravado a moment ago, tensed and swallowed dryly.
KUGUGUGUGUNG—!
An ominous tremor, the pounding of something stamping the earth, drew steadily closer. And then, from between the dense trees, a horde of demonic beasts came pouring out.
"KYAAAAAK—!"
Monsters baring needle teeth and wicked claws charged savagely at the knight company.
Klaus was the first to move, his blade flashing in a vicious arc at the throat of the leading beast.
SHWAAAAAK!
Blood sprayed through the air as the beast's head tumbled to the ground.
"Do not break formation!"
Slashing down beast after beast while stealing glances toward Ceris's safety, Klaus's brow slowly knitted tighter.
Something's wrong. There are far too many!
For demonic beasts to come surging out in these numbers — and not even deep in the Demonic Lands, but at its very fringe — made no sense. This was territory his house had routinely swept with punitive forces precisely to keep the beast population in check.
"Young lord! Something's off! There are too many of them!"
The knight beside him, cutting down the onrushing beasts, felt the same wrongness.
And then—
"KYAAAAAAAAK—!"
Ceris's piercing scream tore through the air behind them.
Klaus's eyes went wide as he whipped his head around.
"CERIS!!!"
Barbarians had appeared from out of nowhere. Seizing on the chaos as the beast horde wrecked the formation, they had struck the rear of the column, plundered the supply train, and now swarmed over Ceris and Rene.
"GET AWAY FROM HER!"
Rene swung her sword with everything she had, but she couldn't hold out against their superior numbers, and in the end the girl in her arms was torn from her.
"My lady!"
Seized by the collar by a barbarian, Ceris thrashed with all her might. Desperate to break free, she sank her teeth without mercy into the man's thick forearm.
"KARAK TAR, TSVAR KUR!"
The barbarian twisted his face into an ugly scowl and let out an incomprehensible howl, then struck Ceris roughly across the cheek with his open palm.
SLAP!
Her small body went limp from the blow, and she slumped unconscious.
"MY LADY!!!"
Enraged by the sight, Rene lunged forward — but in that instant—
THUD!
Another barbarian swung a blunt weapon into the back of her head, knocking her out cold.
"BRUTAK HAR, KRASH TUR!"
At the bellow of what looked like their leader, the barbarians hoisted the unconscious Ceris and Rene over their shoulders like sacks of cargo, snatched up the plundered supplies, and vanished into the forest in a flash.
"CERIS—!!!"
Blocked on every side by the demonic beasts, unable to give chase, Klaus's bloodshot shriek shook the entire forest.
As consciousness flickered back to Ceris through a haze of pain, bestial screams crept into her ears one by one.
"@##!$%!!"
"&^%#!$%%!!"
CLANG! KRAK! SHWACK, THUD!
A chaos of sounds — flesh being pulped, steel cleaving bone — until, at some point, it all stopped as abruptly as if a switch had been thrown.
In the dead silence that followed, Ceris forced her trembling eyelids halfway open.
Light bled into her bleared vision, and the silhouette of someone reeking of blood burned itself into her eyes.
An unfamiliar figure, half his face swallowed by unkempt hair.
Ceris's blue eyes, flooded with terror, began to shake.
And in that moment, through the dirty tangle of that unknown man's hair, a pair of dark red eyes — gleaming as if drunk on blood — stared back at her.