"Am I dead?" He tried to move, but everything hurt. His entire body was in pain, as if he had been through an entire session of training with the sandbag, and he was the sandbag.
"If I can feel pain, I'm alive... but this armor wasn't supposed to withstand that."
He struggled to move; his vision was dark, even when he looked around. Forcing his arms to move up to his head, he managed to remove the helmet with some effort, and once again, light returned—but it wasn't white light.
It was a blue sky, with countless trees and mountains surrounding him. He looked at it all from the ground, still trying to understand the situation, and noticed that the core in his chest was dark.
He soon crawled over to a nearby tree and sat down.
"Lost in some strange place after being blown up by a mysterious bomb... Did the empire create a teleport bomb? That's a new one."
He let out a nervous laugh as he began to dismantle the armor on one of his arms. Upon closer inspection, it was in shambles, completely destroyed, and considering the level of destruction, it was a miracle Kane was still alive.
After several long minutes, he managed to remove the arm, leg, and torso parts of the armor, which were still emitting small puffs of smoke. Then he thought:
"AI, tell me where I am?"
But the system didn't respond immediately.
[ System compromised. No connection with the mother base. ]
He raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "What do you mean, no connection? The signal was supposed to cover the entire planet, even reach Mars!" He stood up, picking up the sword and attaching it to his waist—the belt of the armor was lighter and could still be worn by design.
"Might as well look around. If the empire managed to make a teleport bomb, blocking the connector signal wouldn't be hard." Kane began walking toward the edge of the mountain he was on, and when he got there, he had a better view of the green mountains of a vast forest. In the distance, there appeared to be a city.
"Curious shape for a city, seems like there's a large circular wall around it." He was intrigued by this, but he couldn't see clearly from that distance, and without his helmet's visor to zoom in, there was nothing else he could do but walk toward it. But before that, he heard a powerful flapping of wings behind him, in the sky.
He turned, looking up, and saw something in the distance he didn't know existed. A giant creature with four legs and a large pair of wings, its scales a crimson red. Kane stood there, mouth agape.
"A... a dragon?!"
Taking a step back, he fell onto the ground, still staring at the scene. He knew dragons were fantasy creatures in his world, but here... wherever he was, he was witnessing it for real. Even from far away, he could still feel the strong wind from the flapping wings of the creature.
Placing a hand on his face, he then heard:
[Kane, your heart rate is elevated. I suggest you control your breathing.]
He had no words, really. It was all too unreal for the young man, but even so, he did as the AI suggested and soon stood up, dusting himself off. He looked around for a moment, thinking about which way to go.
"Is there anything useful from the armor?"
[ No readings from the exoskeleton. It has been completely rendered useless, except for the katana, which still has energy, thanks to its separate core. ]
"Great, better than nothing. I already have it here."
And so, he began walking down the mountain, skirting along the edges while looking around, searching for anyone. The first thing he needed to do was confirm if he was really in... another world. "No. That can't be possible. But what are the chances?"
[ Still no connection to the mother base. ]
"Okay, I didn't ask that. Anyway, leave me to my thoughts now; I'll call you if I need you." He didn't hear a response, and he continued his descent.
After a few minutes, he had reached a denser part of the forest. Kane walked in the direction of the city he had seen earlier, when the voice echoed in his mind once more.
[ Life signal detected at 600 feet. ]
At that moment, Kane stopped, hiding near a tree. "Is it a human signal?"
[ Without access to the mother base, the scan's range and precision are limited. I cannot tell if it is human or animal. ]
"Curses... Alright, I'll analyze it first." The AI had some functions that could operate without access to the mother base, but as mentioned, they were quite limited. However, they were still there.
Kane looked in the direction indicated and analyzed the situation. After a few minutes, he could see something moving among the trees ahead, as if something was shaking the bushes vigorously.
"A boar, maybe?" That was Kane's first thought. The leaves were low, and the way they moved indicated a small animal. Kane gripped his katana with both hands—now, without the armor, it had almost doubled in weight.
After a few seconds, something emerged from the bushes. Kane, ready to strike, let out a sigh instead. Emerging from the bushes was a small boy, maybe 10 or 12 years old.
"A child! There must be a town nearby then."
Stepping out from behind the tree, he approached the boy, raising a hand.
"Hello!" Kane spoke calmly to announce his presence and not startle the boy—or not startle him too much. As soon as the boy noticed him, he fell backward. Kane hadn't managed to avoid scaring him, and soon the boy started speaking.
But Kane couldn't understand a word. It was a dialect he had never heard before, and theoretically, he should know all the common languages, given that the AI provided him with that knowledge.
[ Unknown language detected, initiating translation. 10% complete. ]
Fortunately, the boy was quite talkative. After falling to the ground, he stood up and looked at Kane with curious eyes. Kane couldn't know it, but his current appearance was quite different.
Without the armor, he was a slender young man with a defined, muscular body—nothing too exaggerated. However, he was wearing a black bodysuit under the armor, and this bodysuit was in a rather poor state as well, not only dirty but torn in places. His blonde hair was almost dark from all the soot.
[ Language translation 35% complete, conversations possible. ]
As the AI spoke, a surge of knowledge about the language filled his mind, and soon, Kane could begin to understand the boy's speech.
"You're all ****, where **** are you from? Why are you *** in the **** this forest is ****" He had understood most of the sentence, curiously. The boy was full of curiosity about Kane as well.
"Hello, boy. My name is Kane. Can you tell me, place, where am I?" The translation wasn't finished yet, and he needed to talk more with the boy—it would take some time to complete, but the more they conversed, the faster it would progress.
[ Language translation 46% complete. ]
"I can understand you now ****! My name is Gaki! We are in the **** forest, you are **** how do you not know that?" Kane let out an awkward laugh as he replied, "I am... lost here."
"Lost?" The boy looked Kane up and down, thinking. Kane then continued speaking. "Do you know, city nearby?" The boy laughed again and replied, "You talk funny! *** Village just at the foot of the ****, not far away."
[ Language translation 55% complete. ]
Things were going well. Kane was starting to understand more of the local language, and he also discovered that there was a village... down at the foot of the mountain. "And the, city, in that direction?" He pointed to the direction where he had seen the large city.
"City! It's big! But it's **** far from here! It takes *** days to get there." Kane hadn't understood how long it would take to get there—the translation hadn't gotten to numbers yet, but it soon would.
"How long to get there? Can you take me to the village then, Gaki?" He asked, waiting for a response, which didn't take long—the boy nodded enthusiastically. "Of course!"
At that moment, Kane felt relieved, but he knew it was another challenge ahead.
The boy may not have been too suspicious of Kane, but he didn't know how the adults would react to him, especially with his strange clothes and weapons.
[ Language translation 64% complete. ]