”What the-!?” I heard a voice sound out from the side.

”W-Who are you!? How did you get in there!” Another voice cried out and I heard the sound of a sword being drawn.

My head turned towards the voices and I saw that a pair of men stood a couple of metres in front of either side of the entrance, one with a sword and shield in hand and the other also had a shield and was on his way to draw his sword. Both men wore a grey suit of plate armour that covered their entire body and a helmet with a T-shaped slit that showed some of their mouth, nose and eyes. Over their armour both of them wore a deep purple coloured tabard with the insignia of an owl embroidered on top in gold. They looked to be guards of some kind.

The other drew his sword out of the scabbard at his side and both of them approached me in an aggressive fashion.

I waved both of my hands in front of me and shook my head. “Nonono, this is a misunderstanding. I had no idea I wasn’t supposed to be here; I swear!” I pressed out in a panicked voice.

“Shut up and get on the ground or we’ll cut you down where you stand!” One of the guards growled and held up his sword towards me. The other guard said nothing but started moving to my side so that they surrounded me.

I thought about doing as he said for a second, but then I looked into the eyes of the soldier that was trying to corner me. I caught a glimpse of exhilaration in his eyes. He looked like he was ready to cut me down any second, no matter if I complied or not. I made my choice.

I felt around inside my body for that warm feeling that was starting to become familiar. When I found it, I spread the mana all around my body and felt how the warmth spread everywhere. It didn’t take much more than a second before the world around me slowed down and the guards were moving in slow motion, at least from my perspective.

I didn’t waste a second of the precious time that I gained from ‘Chronal Shift’ and immediately dashed forward, running between the two guards who’s eyes barely managed to shoot open in surprise before I had passed them.

The tower stood on a lone hill in the city with a gravel path leading down to the rest of the buildings. I’d gotten to the end of the hill and was just approaching the first buildings when the world around me started moving at a normal pace again and I heard the guards scream from the top of the hill.

The gravel path lead onto a large cobblestoned street that was filled with all kinds of people. I didn’t really stop to get a good look at them as I was currently running for my life. Although I caught the attention of a lot of them as I ran through the street with the two guards screaming at me from the hill. Most people moved to the side as I passed them by, but there were a few who tried standing in my way. Surprisingly, a group of kids that carried wooden swords and staffs tried blocking my way as they screamed something about justice, but I was considerably quicker and more agile than them, so I managed to pass them by without problems and without harming any of them. I handled other people blocking my way in a similar way. This body really was fantastic.

But I couldn’t run at my full speed because of all these people and when I looked back, I saw that the guards were closing in on me as the people were actively trying not to get in their way. The guards were still relatively far behind me because of my head start, but if I didn’t lose them sometime soon, they’d catch me eventually.

When I looked ahead of me again, fear gripped me. Another couple of soldiers with similar armour to the guards that were chasing me but with red tabards were walking on the street and looked back at me as they noticed the disturbance behind them. Both of them immediately reached for their swords and started making their way through the crowd towards me.

I halted and desperately looked around me for a way to escape. I caught sight of a small alley that were close to the soldiers that approached me from the front. There’s no way I could reach that alley before them normally, but with ‘Chronal Shift’ it might be possible. Problem was that I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since I last used it. If enough time hadn’t passed, I’d just end up incapacitating myself and they’d catch me. But if I didn’t try it, they’d catch me regardless.

I tried moving the mana inside my body again and let out a sigh of relief when I didn’t feel it fight against my attempt to spread it throughout my body. I started running again and with time slowed down around me I reached the alley just before the two soldiers did. One of them was stretching his hand out towards me and was close to touching me, but with him moving in slow motion I easily avoided his hand and quickly aimed a kick at one of his legs to slow him down before I ran into the alley.

I turned the corner at the end of the alley and entered another alley that led out into another larger street. Time was sped up for me when I reached the street and I hurried to blend into the crowd just as time returned to normal.

I could hear yelling from the alley, but I ignored it and followed the flow of the crowd. Now and then when I felt enough time had passed to use ‘Chronal Shift’ again I used it to move further and further away from where the tower was. After ten minutes I felt safe enough to stop for a second and think.

I felt that the reaction from those guards were unreasonable. Yes, maybe that tower was a restricted area where people weren’t supposed to be, but how was I supposed to know that? If you don’t want people to enter your little tower, then don’t make it so that anyone can just teleport inside of it like I did. And besides, killing somebody for trespassing just feels like overkill. But at least I’m safe now. This looks like a large city; I doubt they’ll have an easy time finding me in it. I don’t think they really got a good look at me so if I change what clothes I’m wearing they should have a hard time recognizing me. It’ll also give me a chance to see if I can trade what I have in my storage, considering that I don’t know what kind of currency they use here.

I spent the next few minutes looking around for a shop that sold clothes. The clothes I wore didn’t stick out that much, but they weren’t common either. The shop I found was a quaint little place at the corner of a street with all kinds of clothes displayed in the windows and a sign above the door that had something written on it in the same language that I’d seen inside the books in the tower. I still had no idea what it meant though. But at least ‘The Interpreter’s Prize’ worked with the verbal language here. That much I’d at least learned from my encounter with those guards.

When I entered the small shop, a bell rang from above the door and a chubby middle-aged man appeared from a room in the back and went up to me. “Good day to you, young sir. How may I help you today?” He said as he performed a small but elegant bow.

I moved my hand to a pocket that was sewn onto the chest of my tunic where I’d put a few of my coins. I wasn’t expecting them to be worth anything as currency, but perhaps I could trade with them just from the sheer value of the metal?

“I want to buy some clothes that fit in better with the area. But I don’t have any of your currency, all I have is this.” I said and stretched out my palm with two gold coins on it. Both coins were round and engraved with a ring around the edges that had the shape of an eye in the middle of it.

I was just about to ask him if I could trade these for anything despite it not being the right currency around here when he interrupted me.

“Oh, I see. A foreigner, are you? You should probably do more research of the places you visit in the future. Luckily for you young sir, your country seems to use the Old Dominion’s coins as well, so those gold coins will work just fine.” He said. He then looked at me with an interested look on his face. “But if you don’t mind me asking, which country do you hail from?” He asked.

“I-I’m sorry but I’d rather not say…” I answered and awkwardly looked around the shop.

He chuckled lightly and started moving to the back of his shop. “Of course, of course. How rude of me to pry into your background like that. I hope you can forgive an old man’s curiosity, young sir. After living in in this city for so long you sometimes get a little bit bored.” He stopped in front of a small desk and turned to me. “Now, young sir, I believe you were here to buy a pair of clothes? Anything special you want?” He said.

After that I talked a bit with the man about which clothes it was that I wanted and the of cost them. I ended up buying two different sets of clothes that I’d seen some of the citizens wear for a little under one gold coin. One gold coin was worth 50 silver coins, the same as in the game. The cost came down to 46 silver, so I handed him a gold coin and he gave me four silver coins in return. The price left me pleasantly surprised. That meant that with 100 gold in my storage, I was decently well off. At least I had enough to live off of for a while.

But the fact that my coins from ‘The Wayfarer’s Realm’ worked here… It was definitely nice as it made things a lot easier for me, but it bothered me. There were too many similarities with this world and the game. It wasn’t exactly the same, but I could see signs of the game almost everywhere I looked. In the architecture, the clothing, the people, and even the currency too. Not to mention my body and my magic that were just taken straight out of the game.

There’s just no way all of that was a coincidence. So that begs the question then; Is this world based off of ‘The Wayfarer’s Realm’, or is the game based off of this world? I wish had a way to find out the answer. Perhaps then I’d know what the hell I’m doing here too. I haven’t really had much to think about it, but I really am stuck in another world. Its cool and all, but eventually the novelty wears off and you realize that you’re cut off from all your friends and family and might not ever get to see them again.

I’m not sure what I should do in this world, but I do know one thing. Learning more about how I got here, and any possible ways back should be one of my main priorities.

With that I left the small shop behind and with my new sets of clothes on I blended into the groups of people on the streets and let the crowd’s flow lead me further into the city.