I wake up to the sounds of birds chirping and my head throbbing as if a heavy metal drummer was playing inside it. Taking a look around me, I find myself in some temperate forest. The leaves do not cover the entire sky, trees are space and the ground is mostly gravel. Some lazy rays of sunlight filter through the forest, giving it a beautiful and eerie look.

I'm lying belly up on the ground. As I try to press my temples to ease my headache, a monstrous hand comes into sight. Big, dark-skinned and with sharp pointy claws. My proprioceptive sense tells me it is my own hand. I scream in panic but what comes out is a roar. My flailing tongue hits some long, jagged and sharp teeth. Not human by a long shot.

I stand up and dizziness overcomes me. I have long arms with a rugged dark skin and sparse coarse hairs. The body basic shape is humanoid, four limbs, head, torso. The nose is bloated and feels as non-human as the rest of the body. I feel something coming out from my lower jaw, two long tusks perfect for biting. I tap the tip of one of these tusks and they promptly pierce my finger. A drop of blood drips and the wound closes as if it were never there.

Patting everything, I find two long, upright and spiraled goat-like horns coming out of my forehead. A long, greasy, and straight black hair up to my neck. The headache has eased a bit. I have a bit of balance problem standing up but after a few tries, I get the hunch. Something dangles and I realize I'm naked. My arms are longer than a human. While human arms would touch only the upper part of the thighs, mine go all the way to the knees.

I'm tall. These trees are no different from what they should be on Earth, I can assume I am at least nine feet tall. Maybe more. And that is before adding the horns, they are at least two feet long. With my build, I think I can run like a gorilla and gore something with the horns. There is a problem of laying the head low and looking ahead, I can do only one of these.

Who am I? I know I am from Earth, but I can't recall my name. I can recite the capital of almost all the world's nations, physics, chemistry, philosophy. I can't remember where I lived. I can talk English, Swedish, German and Portuguese fluently. Maybe I am from a country that speaks one of these languages, but that is almost an eight of the planet's countries. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. I know my geography.

Water. Gotta find water. A thought just ran through my mind. When I poked my finger on the tusk, the wound closed almost instantly. Let me prick my left hand. Just a tap with the index fingernail. Yes, the wound closes a few moments after being done.

Regeneration.

I'm in a body with the power of regeneration. I ran a finger all the way across my forearm. Took a few minutes, but the wound closed as if it was never done, to begin with. It is a monster's body.

I walk for about half an hour and find a stream. The water is clear and cold. I don't think it is contaminated, I don't think I am on Earth anymore. Well, my body can regenerate wounds and is a monster, I bet it is more resistant to disease and toxins than a human body. I am too thirsty to care. Let's dig in.

I don't have a way to carry water with me. It is too easy to get lost in the forest, everything feels like the same. I'll make some marks on trees pointing at the stream. Arrows.

I should try to secure food, but I haven't seen a single creature so far. Sometimes movement, but it is always as if other critters are scared of me. A lot of time goes by and I find a marked tree while going forward. Hell, I'm walking in circles. Change of plans. It is afternoon, I'll walk west.

It is almost sunset when I hear voices. I don't understand what is being said, it is a foreign language but the voices belong to young people. There are male and female voices. If I can talk to them, I can find out where I am. Excited about the prospect of getting some bearings on my current predicament, I ran in the direction of the voices and find a campsite in the middle of a clearing. They made a circle of rocks and a campfire is brightly banishing the shadows of the crepuscle that soon will take over the world, even if for only a night. There are four people sitting on animal pelts. Two boys, two girls, all of them teenagers.

Their clothing looks like something out of a renaissance fair. A soldier-looking boy with light brown hair is wearing a metal breastplate with shoulder guards and some plates protecting the hips. Leather boots, gloves, a hard leather cap and a sword dangling from his waist. Another boy with black hair wearing a slight lighter armor made of leather with metal studs and a sword lying at his side, a redhead girl, hair a little below the shoulders with her hand over a composite bow and some daggers on a belt strapped over her boiled leather breastplate. The fourth is a tiny blonde, waist-length hair wearing a natural wool robe and holding a staff that I can't decide if it is a mage's or shepherds'.

As I take a step forward, an acrid smell assaults me and I feel dizzy from just being there. It is as if something is telling me not to approach the place, but I have to talk to them. One of the boys gets up and goes to a pile of branches to get more wood to feed the fire. When he turns back our eyes meet.

Our eyes cross.

I wave my hand at him and try to talk, but again only grunts come out. The boy screams, drops the bundle of wood, and points at me. Of course, all his three companions also look at me and the choir of screaming kids fill the forest with dread. Three of them are overcome by their fight-or-flight response and decide for 'flight' but the blonde girl freezes on the spot. The others run west, screaming.

The mage, for lack of a better term, clutches her staff and looks in the direction their friends went. She looks at me and her sight drops to my waist. Suddenly all color drains from her face and her jaw drops.

Shit, I'm naked. I cover my crotch with a hand and bend my ankles in a very awkward and shameful pose. She can't move but her hands are trembling and silent tears are rolling down her face. I tiptoe to one of the bedrolls left behind and get one long pelt. There are leather straps tied to brass rings punched near the edges of the pelt. Probably for binding after stowing. Clever. But it means I can tie them around my waist and make a leather skirt. Fashion value: zero.

After protecting my monster modesty, I reach a hand to the girl, showing I am not aggressive. I even made several universal symbols for peace using my fingers. She opens her mouth but only a faint wheezing sound comes out. A pungent smell comes out and the bedroll she is sitting becomes damp. She faints and falls to the side.

I got a good view of her face. Cute. Beautiful. Big beady eyes that just beg to give their owner a hug. And even beneath that wool robe one can tell she is already a mature woman. Not as well-endowed as the redhead that ran away, but not negligible either.

I hear movement in the bushes around us. We are surrounded.

------------------------- POV Change: Brown-haired boy. ---------------------------------

We finally registered as adventurers! My three childhood friends and I are now an adventurer party! I’m Julius, and I am a (future) knight. The swordsman at my side is Cloude, and the girl walking backward in front of us is Marcy, a scout. Looking over my shoulder, there is Helen, an angel of a magician. Golden hair, a lovely innocent face, and an untarnished one-piece white dress underneath a woolen robe. This is a hero party in the making if I do say so myself. Everyone is pumped up, and smiles abound. Right before the town gates, we stop and check all our gear again. The grizzled old gate guard is looking at us with a nostalgic smile on his face. Don’t ogle our girls!

It is no secret that besides our first expedition this is a double date. Cloude will try his luck with Marcy and I'll just get a bit closer with Helen. Our marriage is almost certain. She won't find any other partner as every other person our age is already matched out and the boys that aren't will go try their luck in another town. Today we will make our first expedition. Two days, one night, in the nearby woods. We took a herb gathering request, a wolf subjugation request and a rabbit meat gathering one. All H rank requests, but we need to start out somewhere.

“Did you buy the monster repellent potion, Julius?” Asks Marcy after getting between me and Helen. C'mon Cloude, do your job. Get this busybody redhead away from my heels. I take out a cone-shaped flask with a cork on top from my pack together with a metal flask. A pink liquid can be seen inside the glass flask.

“Yeah Marcy, I got them here, both the potion and the reagent. Do you want to carry them?”

“No, keep it. But make sure not to break it, or we won’t be able to spend the night out in the woods.”

“Got it!”

We set out toward the woods. We walk for an hour on the road, then, just before entering the woods, I remember something.

“Also, did everyone spend all the skill points in the guild cards?”

“Yeah.”

Good, let's get this adventure started! We enter the woods and begin looking for the herbs. It is not even noon yet and we got enough bundles of herbs to complete the request. Now we can go deeper inside to look for wolves and rabbits. We need three wolf tails and five rabbits to complete all requests, but since those are repeatable requests, the more we can get the better. The wolf meat and pelt can be sold in town, so we will dismantle them, eat some meat for dinner and take the rest back home.

During the afternoon we find a wolf pack and a couple of rabbits. We got five wolf tails, but we will need to search for more rabbits tomorrow. After walking for a while, we find a clearing and decide to set up camp in it. We move some rocks to make a circle, then clear the grass around. Spread some dry wood in the circle, and set fire to it using flint and steel.

Cloude arms the cooking rig over the campfire and hangs a pot with water over the fire. Meanwhile, Marcy cuts some vegetables, Helen sits on her bedroll and begins to chat with Marcy. She may not be doing anything useful right now, but on top of having a weak constitution, she also used a lot of magic today. She even healed the bite wound a wolf caused on Cloude.

I take out the repellent potion bottle and the reagent flask, uncork both and carefully pour the reagent into the pink liquid. The potion turns purple and begins to release faint vapors. The wisps of vapor disappear quickly after coming out.

“I thought this thing would stink, but I can’t smell anything.”

“It does stink, but only to monsters. No wolf or rabbit will dare come near us now. And there are no other types of monsters in these parts.”

This redhead surely likes to flaunt her knowledge of monsters. An apprentice to the Guild Master should know as much, but she doesn't have to rub it in.

"If it is that way, I can rest easy." Cloude uses this as a hook to put his bedroll a bit closer to Marcy's. Go for it, buddy.

“But we will still keep a watch the whole night. Of course, Helen is excused. Please rest a lot to recover your mana!” Marcy beams a smile towards Helen, and she blushes. Oh, what a lovely girl. No, not you. She scowls at me. “Stop drooling and go fetch firewood, Julius! Or Helen will be cold at night and get angry at you!”

Fine. I get up to pick up more dry wood and after a few minutes, I got a big bundle. Is this enough for the night? Let’s go back to the campsite. If this much is not enough and Helen feels cold at night, I can share my bedroll with her, hehe…

While indulging in my delusions, I make it back to the campsite, and then I see it. A huge monster. Ugly skin, hunched back, large head with big teeth and horns, long and burly arms ending in sharp claws. It is huge, maybe over 3 meters tall. Crap why is this THING here? Why is the repellent potion is not working? Cloude, Marcy, and Helen begin to scream to the top of their lungs, and I join them in this choir of terror.

I don’t want to die!

I need to get away from this THING!

Why is this monster here? Why did he kick the repellent potion?

I don’t want to die. Nothing else matters! Run!

We can only run away. Yes, run away. Pray this monster is not fast. Feel free to eat the wolves and rabbits, Mr. monster. But not us. Do not eat me!

I run without looking back. Marcy soon overtakes me, and Cloude pairs up by my side. Rabbits come out of a bush, startled by our screams. They also run away but from us.

We run towards the town without stopping. I don't even feel my legs anymore. When we see the torch poles in front of the gate, some people run to meet us. When we see the familiar faces of the guards, I take the courage to look behind me for the first time.

The monster is not following us. Great, it stayed behind. The three of us are safe! Cloude kneels down, Marcy hugs a guard and cries. I stop standing up, a guard comes to me, holds my shoulders and asks something. I can hear him but don’t understand what he is saying for some reason. Strange.

My legs become jelly, and my consciousness hazy. Three of us? Where is Helen?

Tiredness takes over, and I faint on the spot.