Donavan descended the steps rubbing at his temples. What he wouldn’t give for a smoke right about now. He hadn’t even been here for a whole day and already it was a parade of tits, ass, and goblins. Thankfully not goblin tits and ass but with the rate things were going would he really be all that surprised?

No... no, he wouldn’t be. A fact that was more than a little depressing.

Man did I ever choose the wrong month to try and quit.

Donavan pushed his way back past the crowd of villagers in front of the temple and set off down one of the well-trod dirt paths with no real destination in mind. He had some time before the village meeting, and some things needed to be addressed before he actually encountered any of the major characters.

First, his lack of information on this world. His encounter with Caspiera had proved to be fruitful in that regard, but it ended spawning more questions than it had answered. Luckily though, Erwin's lack of originality might actually work in Donavan's favor. So far, all signs pointed to this world being of the classic, medieval fantasy variety. There was magic and monsters, and the fact that the first things he’d run into happened to be goblins made it easy to set his expectations moving forward.

He might not know much about Erwin's world in particular, but he did know fantasy. He’d probably be able to extrapolate a great deal of info on genre-savvy-ness alone. The only issue there was that Erwins tastes dipped more towards anime-style fantasy than it did classical. Something he was slightly less familiar with.

Speaking of which, if he saw anyone trip and somehow accidentally end up groping someone, he was gonna kill everyone in a fifty-foot radius.

Ok, no he wouldn’t, but he also wouldn’t put it past Erwin to have somehow made hijinks like that more likely by programming them into this world's laws of physics or something. Like some kind of messed up murphy’s law. Anything sexual that can happen will happen- Erwin's law.

Well, whatever, he’d just have to add it to the list of nonsense he’d have to put up with before he could get home. What he needed now was to start putting together a plan on how he was going to do that, which brought him to the second issue.

His Identity.

Not only did he need some type of cover story that explained his ignorance of the world, but he also needed something that would allow him to get close to the main characters. He couldn’t very well go around telling people he’d been sent from another world by the creator of this universe to try and unfuck the plotline. Nor could he just act all cryptic and mysterious whenever he was asked about himself.

For Erwin’s plan to work, he’d need the main characters to trust him, confide in him, bare their weaknesses to him so he could then exploit them to facilitate growth. If he wanted them to trust him like that, they would have to feel like they knew him.

What was it that Erwin had said? If this were a role-playing game…

That was it! He just had to think of this whole thing as a big, overly elaborate role-playing game. Erwin was the game master, and Donavan was a player in cahoots with him. He’d play one character as one of the good guys, and another character as the campaigns big bad.

He still had absolutely no idea who exactly his villain persona was supposed to be, and Erwin had said there was already an established backstory for him, so until he had more info on that, he’d have to put that part of his role on the backburner. This ‘Don of Navan’ however; was a clean slate.

So then, who would he become?

If he was treating this like he was making a character for a game of dungeons and dragons, then the first thing he’d usually consider was his class. Erwin had chosen his abilities for him, so it wasn’t much a matter of deciding on a class as it was thinking about what already made the most sense.

As long as he was wearing the ring, his magic was sealed away. He needed to wear the ring to keep up his disguise, so any kind of magic user was out. His body was incredibly strong and durable so… some kind of barbarian maybe? But he wasn’t really the raging brute type as far as personality was concerned. So what other class was known for having a powerful body?

How about a monk?

The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Monks were known to spend their lives training their bodies to superhuman levels at mountain-top monasteries. Add in some fantasy mumbo jumbo like ki or chakras and he could plausibly claim that his inhuman physical abilities came from decades of harsh training.

Which gave him another idea.

He’d had to get this fake training somewhere right? He’d already told Caspiera he’d come from the mountains. He could’ve easily meant a secluded monastery atop some distant peak that no one has ever heard of before. He could call it the Navan monastery. Yeah, that would even explain his new name. He could've also, let's say… been abandoned by unknown parents, taken in by some monks, raised and trained at this monastery his whole life, cut off from the rest of the world and therefore it would make sense he had no knowledge of anything beyond the monastery.

A small smile dared to tug at Donovan's lips. Now he was getting somewhere.

So now the question was, why had he come down from his monastery, and why was he looking for the main character?

In this instance, it might be easier to just go with a version of the truth. He could say that some obligatory prophecy or whatever spoke of a chosen one destined to vanquish a great evil, and Donavan… no, not Donovan, Don had come to find and guide that chosen one to his destiny.

Of course, he was that great evil, but the hero didn’t need to know that.

He’d basically be setting himself up as the ‘mentor’ character. The Obi-wan to the main characters Luke, or Gandalf to the main casts fellowship. Which would put him in the perfect position to guide them as he saw fit.

Great, now I'm even scheming like a villain.

Donavan shook his head, now was not the time to dwell on that. He was just a guy doing what he needed to do to get home, no more, no less. He had what he needed. He was now Don of Navan; traveling monk in search of the chosen one.

“The chosen one, honestly, how trite,” He chuckled to himself. It was far from original, but it would be good enough for what Erwin wanted from him. Now he just needed to find the bastard.

Donavan stopped walking. Folding his arms, his thoughts began to drift as he looked up at the scant clouds lounging amidst the evening sky.

Not for the first time today, he wondered just how long was he going to be stuck in this world. It could be months, hell it could be years. Would he be able to adapt to his new surroundings at some point? Did he even want to?

He closed his eyes, grit his teeth, and slowly inhaled. He’d never asked for any of this. It didn’t matter if the years spent here only equaled minutes outside. To him, he’d be a stranger to his own life by the time he got back, all because Erwin wouldn’t just go to a seminar like a normal writer.

Then that would be the third thing on his list. He didn’t know when he didn’t know-how, but he would pay Erwin back for every second of his life that he took from him. That was a promise.

With a long exhale, he let the confidence of having a plan fill him. Setting his shoulders, and straightening his back, he opened his eyes.

Opened them just in time to see the blur of cotton candy pink hurtling at him from down the street, accompanied by the distressed, high pitch whine, of a girl screaming “Watch oooouuuut!!!”