I was walking through the forest in a vague direction while examining my current situation. It was fall. The leaves on the trees had already mostly fallen off and were resting on the ground. When I came here it was spring as the trees were finishing up blooming. This meant that at the least I had spent four or five months in the void… at the most? No idea.

I noticed something as I walked. I could no longer directly use earth magic… but I found something better. In fact I found something more than earth magic. Combining elements with my own. I could no longer use an element by itself but now I could use a different version of it. A darker version.

The other thing I found out is how to use the rest of the elements. Wind, water, fire even things like lightning or ice. Even light… that was… honestly the weirdest. The element I currently wielded was probably not darkness but it was definitely connected to it. I decided to name it void since the Void itself seemed connected to it.

The elements themselves were different as I used them with void. Earth created black crystals instead of simple stones. Fire again black fire. Water was also black. The idea was the same. Everything was dark. It was different from normal. Even lightning was black. Light was again the weirdest as it created some sort of dark light. I have no idea how it works. My elements seemed to be the opposite of light at first but now I’m not so sure.

Along with that I myself am much different from before. As in my body is much different than before. I don’t know about any specifics but my true form or body was very close to what I would imagine elementals from fantasy were like. I was made of the darkness or void element. I could no longer transform my hands into dragon claws but void-claws? Those worked. And they were better.

On the subject of transformation I myself could transform into pretty much anything human. Male, female, child, adult. As long as it was human or very close to it anything worked. Weird thing was I didn’t really feel anything about being a woman even though I was a man all my life. Is my mind being influenced again? … Nah probably not. I just don’t really care do I?

The other important difference I noticed as I walked was my body. I no longer grew tired at all. My true body wasn’t physical after all so I guess it made sense. But although it did not get tired it was much weaker than my dragon self was.

As a dragon I could effortlessly jump up and across trees but now my physical abilities were about as good as they were in the prime of my past life. Maybe I could change it. Most of those soldiers I fought were way stronger than humans would be in my past life. That must mean that the humans in this world are somehow able to strengthen themselves past normal limits of what they can achieve without mana. I need to find a way myself as well because I’m currently only as strong as a trained soldier in this world. Well physically… skills were different. I was much better with any of the weapons the soldiers tried to end me with than them.

I walked for around half a day. I didn’t really need to eat food but I still tried capturing a deer like the ones I caught for Kate before. I may not be as strong as when I was a dragon but guess what, having peak human athleticism almost at the Olympic level is still pretty good not to mention that I could use incredibly strong magic like breathing.

The deer were probably not something an average person of this world could handle but the soldiers I fought would be fine. So was I. I killed one of them with a void crystal and I skinned it and took the meat. I left the skin though. I won’t need that and I have no place to store it anyway. I tried to start a fire with my magic but the void fire was too strong so I instead had to work on bringing it down to normal fire levels. It took me about a day of just trying to burn things without burning them too fast but I got the hang of adjusting the fire pretty well.

After that I tried cooking the meat with my magic. It was honestly a good method for cooking but I still needed an hour and a few burnt pieces of meat to get it just right. It was… not bad actually. If only I had spices or some other ingredients that I could cook with I could probably make some pretty delicious stuff with this newfound magic of mine.

I’ll need to practice controlling the different elements though. That earth spike made of void crystal that I used to kill the dear was bigger than intended. Good thing I already had past experience in controlling the earth element or I might’ve blown the poor thing away completely.

It didn't take long for me to reach a road which headed north and south. The north was where me and Kate had come from. I don’t know if that direction is any good but I just felt like going that way would be a bad idea so I opted for going south instead.

Of course a day later I already attracted idio-… bandits. My cloak was made out of my shadow. But it was the void element it was pitch black and had a simple design with no decorations but the material probably looked high class to these bunch of morons.

There were seven of them and they surrounded me as who seemed to be the leader shouted at me to leave all my valuables if I want to live. When I kept ignoring him he got angry so he tried to get closer, probably to intimidate me.

As soon as he took a step forward I used my newfound abilities. I wanted to test them out anyway. In the fraction of a second my shadow stretched like a blade and sliced through the leader’s neck before returning to its formal place beneath my feet. Pathetic. The others didn’t even see what happened.

They just rushed at me as soon as they saw their bosses head fall to the floor. Theirs soon followed. Afterwards I did what any sane person would do after having killed seven people in a fraction of a second without even batting an eye… I checked their pockets. The result was an abundance of silver coins which amounted to around fifty and a LOT of copper ones. I only took around two hundred of the coppers and all the silvers.

I also took the most decent-looking sword they owned. Surprise, surprise it was the one the leader had. It wasn’t really steel or anything high-class but it was good enough. It was a simple iron longsword and that was honestly what I wanted.

After that pitiful excuse for a random encounter I was walking literally non-stop for four more days before finally I could see city walls on the horizon and as I got closer I could make out the pair guards posted at the gate and got close enough to be questioned.

“Halt! State your business!” (Guard #1)

I take off my hood and put on a friendly smile to signal good intentions. My face wasn’t well known anyway. Who would need to know the face of a dead man? Even if he DID kill a few hundred soldiers.

“I am a traveler. As embarrassing as it is for me to say I got lost in a nearby forest and It took me a week of wandering to finally find a road and another weak to reach this city. I was hoping to finally be able to rest and maybe get some supplies as I lost my own a while back.” (Kenos)

The guards looked at me suspiciously as I didn’t look like someone that spent half a month in the wilderness but nodded anyway.

“That is fine but do you have the coin to pay for it?” (Guard #1)

I moved my cloak aside slightly revealing my pitch black attire as well as the longsword I pilfered before which seemed to force the guards back to attention but I just patted the pouch tied to the other side of my attire for it to make a few jingling sounds.

“Okay you can pass but keep that sword where it belongs.” (Guard #1)

I nodded and walked inside of the city putting my hood back on. There were a few things I wanted to do. I need knowledge and information.

I walked around the town for a bit but before I could find an inn I found something else. I was standing in front of a big building with a sign reading “Adventurer’s Guild”. I open the doors and go in. The inside is mostly like a tavern but there’s three receptionist windows. Only one of them occupied at the moment.

No, it was not occupied by a beautiful receptionist lady. The guy was actually quite large and muscular. I walked up to the reception with. There were quite a few people in here but most of them just glanced at me once and turned away.

“What’s your business?” (Receptionist)

“I’m interested in becoming an adventurer. Can you tell me about the guild?” (Kenos)

The man looked at me for a moment and nodded.

“Registering for the guild is simple enough. You just gotta pay a fee of five silvers and fill up this form.” (Receptionist)

He handed me a paper and continued talking.

“After you’re registered you’ll be tested by an examiner and assigned a rank. The ranks go like F, E, D, C, B, A, AA, S, SS and SSS. Of course you can’t get a high rank in a place like this. You’ll need to go to a bigger guild. Maybe in one of the capitals.” (Receptionist)

I nodded and started filling up the paper putting down my name as Kenos, race as human and age as twenty. My profession I put in as swordsman though. Don’t wanna show my magic as I still don’t know about how people would react to it.

Being an adventurer is usually a good way to get information and going to the capital sounds good. Since it was the army doing the kidnapping the king was definitely in on it and even if he wasn’t he had to have known something unless he was just a puppet ruler. And I swear that depending on past and current circumstance this country might need a new one.

I handed the paper back in together with five silvers and he pointed to a door in the back. I went through it to find something like an open training area behind the building. On the other side of it was standing the receptionist holding a simple iron longsword.

“Take your sword out and let’s see what you’ve got.” (Receptionist)

“Working double jobs?” (Kenos)

“We’re short-handed. The town might be big but this guild is new.” (Receptionist)

He didn’t seem like he expected much out of me. He probably thought I was some noble that ran away from home or something if he judged me by my clothes. I unsheathed my own sword and walked towards him until we were only around five meters.

I waited around half a minute and when I understood that he had no intention on starting off the fight I decided to do so myself. My first slash was made as a test. It was a weak slash but I made it hard to parry. It was basically just to announce that the battle started.

As expected the man easily redirected the slash and countered with another but I dodged it so he connected with another. The second slash was faster and stronger than the first one and I couldn’t dodge it so I blocked it and got pushed a step or two backwards.

Interesting. The man was using mana and imbuing it in their body t increase their strength. Seems like mages aren’t the only ones that use mana around here. The man was faster and stronger than me and I felt like he was still holding back. On the other hand I couldn’t strengthen myself in the same way he did since my body wasn’t something physical to imbue mana into in the first place.

Instead I decided to imbue my sword. The mana around was controlled by my void and gathered into the sword flowing in a way to increase impact strength. That’ll have to do for now.

The man looked a bit nervous looking at my sword which was now covered with a dark aura. Whoops I didn’t know it would do that. Aw well this much should be fine. He rushed at me with full strength and slashed his sword in an incredibly fast attack that I could barely see without my dragon eyes.

I could only block it on instinct shoving away his sword thanks to my apparently strong imbuing of my sword and bringing the very same imbued sword to his neck.

“Ugh… beat me good. My fault for getting nervous.” (Receptionist)

I only chuckled slightly. I wonder when’s the next time I’ll go fully insane lie in the void. Heh… Can’t wait. I gave the man a hand as he had stumbled and fallen backwards and he took it so I pulled him up. He was pretty heavy but it wasn’t like I was weak either.

“Brat I don’t know where you got your skill with the sword or that weird imbuing technique but those were pretty good. I’m a C-class adventurer myself so that would mean that you will also be starting out as one since you beat me. Welcome aboard newbie.” (Receptionist)

I just slightly smiled and sheathed my sword. Maybe my life as an adventurer would be kind of fun. Of curse first was finding out what happened to Kate. I don't know if I can still save her after no less than a third of a year but I at least wanted to find out what happened to her first. Adventuring comes after.