The orc frowned. Clearly annoyed by the high-pitched scream.
Then he tossed Richard aside.
Richard flew through the air like a sack of wet laundry and landed near the water's edge with a heavy splash and a mouthful of mud. The ground was cold, soaked, and uneven. He coughed hard, water burning his throat.
For a moment, he just lay there, face down, chest heaving.
'Okay,' his mind said calmly, his panic subsided as he determined not to be killed.
'You're alive. That's good. Being thrown by an orc is…why an orc here? Am I…transmigrated?'
He forced his arms under him and began crawling backward towards the bank. His body felt strangely lighter than before, but he ignored it for now.
What he didn't ignore was the orc in front of him.
He kept his head up, his eyes locked on the creature, watching every movement. Years of training told him one thing very clearly:
Don't turn your back on your enemy.
As he crawled, his foot brushed something soft and thick.
Fur. Thick and heavy.
He kicked it again by instinct. It felt like he's kicking a large animal—dense muscle under coarse hair. It wasn't moving despite his kick, probably dead.
He swallowed but didn't look back yet.
The orc stood a few meters away, enormous shoulders rising and falling slowly as he searched under water like a man looking for dropped coins. In one hand he held a massive axe, its blade chipped and stained.
Blood dripped from the weapon into the water.
But it wasn't red.
It was light blue. Almost glowing. The drops hit the ground and shimmered faintly like liquid sky.
The orc suddenly glanced at him.
Its tusked mouth twisted.
"You," it growled in a deep voice that sounded like stones grinding together. "Half-breed."
Richard froze as his focus was on the blue blood.
The orc scratched its head and added with clear disapproval, "Scream worse than lady orc."
Richard blinked.
Half-breed?
Also… sun?
Because now that he noticed it—the light was wrong.
He slowly looked up.
Bright sunlight poured down from above.
Richard's brain stalled.
Wait…
Wasn't it night a minute ago?
I am really transmigrated.
He pushed himself to his feet, still keeping his distance. His eyes stayed on the orc, wary, but his confusion leaked into his voice.
"Okay… I've got a few questions," he said carefully. "Where am I?"
A pause.
"And what exactly am I doing here?"
The orc ignored the tone completely. It crouched beside a massive body lying nearby—another orc, very dead one—and pulled a huge metal shield from its arm.
The thing was as big as a door.
Without warning, the orc tossed it toward Richard.
"War," the orc said simply.
Richard reacted by instinct and caught it.
That was a mistake.
The shield slammed into his arms like a falling refrigerator. His feet slid across the wet ground and he was dragged halfway back into the shallow water before the weight finally forced him to drop it with a loud splash.
He stared at it, offended.
The orc stared at him.
"...Weak," the orc declared.
He scratched his chin thoughtfully.
"Why half-breed so weak?"
Richard ignored the shield entirely and stood again, shaking water from his sleeves. But something caught his eye.
His reflection in the water.
He leaned closer.
The man staring back wasn't him.
The huge, overweight body was gone.
Instead, a tall, slender young man looked back. Sharp jaw. Smooth skin. Long silver and black hair drifting slightly in the breeze. Bright green eyes blinked in confusion.
He looked like a young man with a middle-aged man's hair.
Richard blinked again.
The reflection blinked too.
He touched his face slowly.
"…so it is," he murmured.
Another pause.
Then he nodded to himself.
"I'm a handsome man now. But the hair."
It was a very sincere observation.
The moment lasted about a second.
"Hey! Half-breed!"
Richard turned.
The orc tossed something toward him.
Two daggers spun through the air.
Richard caught them easily—far easier than the shield, actually. They felt balanced, light, almost eager in his hands.
He frowned at the orc.
"Why do you keep calling me half-breed?" he asked. "And where exactly are we?"
The orc rolled his shoulders and glanced toward the horizon.
"Many questions," he said. "We at war."
He sniffed the air.
"Live first. Answer later."
Then he added casually, like commenting on the weather,
"They coming again."
Richard finally looked around properly.
His soldier instincts immediately regretted it.
Few hundred meters away, a creature the size of a tower screeched across the battlefield—a massive black centipede nearly a hundred feet tall, its body thick like a bear's torso, dozens of armored legs tearing the earth apart as it fought something equally absurd.
A giant machine made from wood and metal clashed with it. Gears screamed, wooden limbs swung like siege weapons, and sparks flew each time they collided.
Closer to the ground, chaos stretched across the field.
Lines—if you could call them that—of fighters waited for the next charge.
Orcs. Elves with long silver hair. Stocky dwarves gripping axes. Goblins clutching weapons that looked stolen from three different armies. Humans scattered among them.
No one looked organized.
Everyone looked very ready to kill something.
And that something was coming.
Across the plains, a horde of dark brown beasts rushed forward. They looked like wolves, except each had three pairs of glowing eyes and twisted horns curling from their skulls.
Their fur pulsed faint blue.
Then the fur hardened.
And launched outward.
Thousands of glowing blue spikes shot into the sky like living arrows.
Richard stared upward as the projectiles filled the air.
"…Well," he muttered, "that seems bad."
Above them, the sky darkened as another swarm arrived.
Flying creatures shrieked down from the clouds—bat wings stretched wide, vulture heads with three blinking eyes, and human-like torsos dangling beneath them. No legs. Just two pairs of arms gripping curved blades.
There were enough of them to block the sun.
Another army rose to meet them.
Winged demons surged upward—humanoid shapes with bat wings and horned heads. Some carried spears, others swords that burned with dark fire.
The sky became a screaming collision of claws and steel.
And just as the blue spikes from the wolves were about to rain down—
Another sun rose from the ground.
Not a real sun.
A phoenix.
A massive bird of living flame burst upward with a thunderous cry. Its wings spread wide enough to shadow half the battlefield.
With a single powerful flap—
The falling blue projectiles turned to ash before touching the ground.
Richard stared at everything in stunned silence.
Then he slowly looked down at the daggers in his hands.
"…Right," he said quietly. "I should've just stayed on the bridge."