The Will to Live Is My Strongest Skill

I only stopped once I reached a half-ruined stone gate. The town beyond it looked like a movie set from a dirt-cheap film about the Middle Ages.

​Biological resources: zero. Heart rate: off the charts. Glycogen reserves in the muscles: depleted, I noted to myself, leaning heavily against the wall.

​Malnutrition, severe vitamin deficiency, atrophied muscles. A bag of bones, to be perfectly honest. In my past life, I used to complain about back pain after spending twenty hours straight in an office chair. Right now, I would give up all my savings for that old, healthy body. At least back then, I knew my limits.

​"And where do you think you're going?" a raspy voice muttered from the deep shadows of the gateway.

​I tensed instantly, even as every single bone in my body cried out in protest. My hand instinctively snatched a sharp stone fragment from the mud.

​But then, an old man stepped out of the gloom. Though calling him an "old man" was an understatement. He wore tattered, layered sheets of a gray cloak coated in a crust of road dust, carried a knotted wooden staff, and possessed eyes that seemed to scan right through me.

​He grunted. At that exact moment, the same trio from earlier burst out of the alleyway. They were breathing heavily, their faces flushed crimson with rage. The one in the vest was already swinging a rusted, serrated cleaver.

​"Got you, you little bastard!" he roared.

​I braced myself to throw the stone, even though the odds were abysmal. But the old man's staff sliced through the air instantly. A dull thud struck the first man's kneecap of breaking bone. The cleaver flew from his fingers, and the brute collapsed. The second movement was a swift thrust into the next man's throat. He choked, clutching his neck, and slid down into the mud. The third one froze, looked back and forth between his accomplices, and... just ran.

​The old man stared at me long and hard.

​"You don't think like a child," he said slowly. "There is experience in your eyes. What is your name?"

​"...Iron Everfall," I replied.

​Perhaps he can be trusted, the thought flashed through my mind.

​"Well, in the forest, the brave are eaten last," Zeno—as he introduced himself a bit later—nodded toward the exit of the town. "Come along."

​We walked for about an hour. My legs were buckling beneath me while my brain frantically analyzed our surroundings. Two moons hung in the sky, causing a real sense of cognitive dissonance. One was massive, silvery, and pockmarked with craters. The second was smaller and copper-red, orbiting at a noticeably faster speed. How did a system like this even maintain stability without causing catastrophic tidal waves? Either the gravitational constant here was different, or... magic acted as some sort of cosmic glue.

​Zeno's dwelling turned out to be a lopsided shack on the absolute fringe of what the locals called the Black Forest. Inside, it smelled of dried herbs, smoke, and something sharp and metallic. The old man silently pointed to a corner where a pile of straw lay.

​"That's your spot. Tomorrow, you start earning your bread."

​He tossed me a piece of stale bread. I tried to take a bite, and my gums immediately started bleeding.

​"Listen, old man," I mumbled, my mouth half-full. "You swung that staff entirely too fast. It wasn't just a matter of technique. What did you use?"

​Zeno settled by the hearth, poking at the embers.

​"Magic. Or more precisely—mana." He extended his palm, and the air above it began to ripple. My internal analyzer screamed: Localized alteration of the refractive index!

​"It's everywhere," Zeno continued. "It permeates you, the stones, the trees. But your body... it doesn't hold a charge."

​I closed my eyes, trying to detect this "charge" of his. A ringing sound filled my ears. A barely perceptible tremor ran beneath my skin. The sensation felt frustratingly like the static charge right before a severe thunderstorm. The hairs on my arms stood on end.

​"Careful," Zeno warned. "If you try to release too much without preparation, your veins will simply vaporize."

​That night, while the old man was already breathing deeply and evenly in his sleep, I caught myself thinking a strange thought.

​Why the hell do I even know this much? Trajectories, masses, all this physics... In my previous world, I may have been into science, but I certainly wasn't a genius. And then there's this bizarre skill...

​Hey, "Will to Live," I called out mentally. What the hell is going on here?

​In response—dead silence.

​Hey! I'm talking to you. What is this crap?

​[RESPONSE: UNAVAILABLE]

​Unavailable? I smirked mentally, feeling my consciousness gradually drift away. Fine then... This actually makes it more interesting.

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