Arthur's second day in this world begins as he reaches civilization for the first time, carrying both his armor's weight and his quiet unease.
Chapter 2 – The Town of Arnach
The town appeared first as smoke.
Arthur saw it rising in gentle threads above the low hills—thin, white, domestic. Not the thick, black scar of war or burning fields. As he and George crested the last rise, the land fell away into a shallow valley, where a cluster of stone houses and timber roofs gathered around a central square.
Arnach was not grand. It was a place of worn paths and patched walls, of laundry lines strung between leaning beams. Yet to Arthur, it felt startlingly alive.
Voices drifted on the wind: a woman calling to a child, a hammer striking metal, the rough cadence of men arguing lightly over grain. The scent of smoke, baked bread, and damp soil mingled in the air.
He reined George to a slow walk as they approached the outskirts. Conversations faltered.
A few farmers near a low stone wall turned first—faces browned by sun, eyes tired but watchful. They stared openly at the sight of a lone rider in black armor, a mithril-bright longsword at his hip, and a brown horse that moved with unusual composure.
Arthur felt their scrutiny like a physical thing. In his old life, people had looked at him for reassurance or answers. Here, they looked at him as if he were a question.
The first man, broad-shouldered with a grey-streaked beard and mud-caked boots, leaned on his hoe and narrowed his eyes. "That's no local steel," he murmured to the younger man beside him.
The younger one, barely more than a boy, swallowed. "And no local coin could buy it."
Arthur inclined his head in silent greeting, letting his gaze pass over them without lingering. His instinct was to smile, but something about their wariness kept it muted—a small, respectful curve of the lips rather than anything open.
George's hooves clicked softly on the packed dirt as they entered the main street. Arnach's buildings rose close on either side now—stone lower walls, timber upper stories, roofs shingled in weathered slate. A blacksmith's forge glowed to his left, door wide, heat spilling out.
The blacksmith paused mid-strike, hammer raised. He was thick-armed and soot-smeared, with scars along his forearms that spoke of long years at the anvil. His eyes lingered on Arthur's armor first, then on the sword at his side.
"Looks like trouble found itself legs," the blacksmith muttered to his apprentice, who pretended not to stare and failed. But beneath the gruff words was curiosity, not hostility.
Arthur dismounted near the town square, leading George by the reins. The central space was paved with flat stones and dominated by a stone well. A few market stalls stood nearby—sacks of grain, a stack of cabbages, baskets of dried herbs. Wives, merchants, and idlers all stopped what they were doing.
Their thoughts were plain enough in their faces.
Knight? Mercenary? Tax collector?
The weight of their expectations settled on Arthur's shoulders beside the armor. He cleared his throat softly. "I'm looking for the one in charge," he said, voice even. "And for work. I'm a healer."
The word seemed to ease the tension like a loosened knot.
A woman with a headscarf and flour dusting her sleeves whispered to another, "A healer. In armor?"
The other shook her head. "Might be one of those southern sellswords. But his eyes… look at them. Not like a killer's."
An older man stepped from the edge of the square. His back was bent but his gaze clear, a thin white beard spilling down the front of his plain brown cloak. The villagers parted without being asked.
"Then you'll want Elder Bram," the blacksmith called, nodding toward him. "He keeps the books and the peace both."
Arthur met the elder's gaze. Bram's eyes were pale, sharp with the kind of tired wisdom that had seen loss and kept moving anyway.
"You claim to be a healer," Bram said, voice low but carrying. "Yet you come armored for war."
Arthur unbuckled his helm and lifted it free. The breeze touched his hair, leaving it tousled. His features—soft, freckled, youthful—contrasted starkly with the black steel. His green eyes were calm, ringed with a weariness older than his apparent years.
"I was a healer long before I ever lifted a sword," he answered. "The armor is… new."
Bram studied him for several moments. Around them, people pretended not to listen and failed.
He looks too gentle for all that steel, Bram thought. Soft-faced, like a scholar. Yet he carries himself like a man who knows exactly where to stand in a storm.
"Arnach has need of healers," Bram said finally. "More than it has need of knights. You'll find no rich pockets here, only broken bones and old wounds."
"Those are the ones I know best," Arthur replied.
A commotion flared at the far end of the square. A boy, maybe ten, ran in with another dragging behind him, crying out. "Elder Bram! It's Faran—he fell from the wagon!"
The villagers turned as one. Arthur's body moved before his thoughts caught up.
"Show me," he said.
The boys blinked at him, startled, but Bram nodded sharply. "Take him," he ordered. "If you are a liar, we'll know it soon enough."
They led Arthur to a narrow lane where a stocky man lay on the ground beside an upturned cart. One wheel had broken. A barrel lay split open nearby. The man groaned, clutching his leg. His shin was twisted at a wrong angle beneath torn trousers.
Two women hovered near him—one crying, the other biting her lip hard enough to draw blood.
Arthur knelt beside the injured man, the plates of his armor folding with surprising silence. His hands—bare now, as he had stripped off his gauntlets while walking—hovered just above the broken limb.
"Faran," Arthur said quietly, repeating the name the boy had used. "Can you hear me?"
The man's eyes were tight with pain, but he managed a nod. Sweat beaded on his brow.
"I need to set the bone," Arthur continued, voice steady, low enough that it wrapped itself around the moment. "It will hurt, but only for a short time. After that, it will heal cleanly. Do you trust me?"
Faran gave a ragged laugh that turned into a groan. "I don't… know you," he ground out. "But I don't fancy the leg rotting off neither."
Arthur's lips twitched faintly. "That's a start."
He glanced at the others. "Hold his shoulders and hips. Firmly, please—do not let him roll."
They hesitated, then obeyed. The townsfolk watched, a ring of apprehension and hope.
Arthur took a breath—not because he needed it, but because the ritual of it steadied him. His fingers wrapped around Faran's leg, one hand above the break, one below. He could feel the misalignment of bone, the wrong angle of the joint, as clearly as he once saw fractures under bright operating lights.
In his old life, his hands sometimes trembled from exhaustion. Not enough to endanger anyone, but enough that he noticed, privately ashamed. Now, they were utterly still.
"On three," he said softly. "One."
He pulled and twisted in the same motion, guided by memory and instinct both.
The bone slid back into line with a sickening crunch. Faran screamed, then fell limp as the pain peaked and broke.
"There," Arthur murmured. "It's done."
He moved quickly, using a torn strip of the man's own trouser and a broken slat from the cart to fashion a sturdy splint. His fingers worked with efficient grace, not a wasted motion.
A murmur spread through the gathered villagers.
He moves like someone who's done this a hundred times, one woman thought, astonished.
Those aren't soldier's hands, another noticed. Too practiced at mending, not breaking.
Elder Bram watched in silence, his expression unreadable. But inside, his skepticism loosened.
He is no charlatan. That much is clear.
When Arthur finished, he sat back on his heels. "Keep him off it for several weeks," he said to the nearest woman, who had stopped crying and now clung to Faran's hand. "Change the cloth if it gets wet or dirty. If the skin swells too much or turns dark, send for me."
"Send for—" She blinked. "You're staying?"
Arthur glanced around at the faces ringed around him—curious, fearful, hopeful, all at once.
He didn't know how long he would remain. He didn't know where the road ultimately led, or what this new path of "Sequence Nine: Warrior" truly meant. But he knew this: wherever he went, there would be broken things.
"For now," he said. "If you'll have me."
The boy who had first run to find Bram grinned openly now. "Did you see?" he whispered to his friend. "He fixed it like it was… nothing."
"Like he knew exactly what bones are made of," the friend replied, a little awed.
Elder Bram stepped closer, his walking stick tapping lightly against the stones. "We have a spare room above the storehouse," he said. "And more than enough work for any healer willing to see it through."
Arthur rose, his armor catching the afternoon light in a dull glimmer. "Then I'll earn my space," he answered.
As he walked back toward the square, villagers parted more easily for him. Some nodded in thanks. Others still watched from behind half-closed shutters, uncertain.
George waited patiently where Arthur had left him, dark eyes following his master's movements.
Arthur laid a hand on the horse's neck. "Looks like we've found a place to rest our hooves for a while, at least," he murmured.
Yet in his chest, his tireless heart beat with the same steady rhythm as always. No hint of fatigue from travel, from sudden exertion, from the quick demands of emergency. He could have set ten more bones, ridden ten more miles, and felt nothing.
That, more than anything, unsettled him.
He looked over Arnach again—the crooked chimneys, the patched roofs, the people hanging so much hope on so little.
If this world truly needs warriors, he thought, let it at least have one who remembers how to heal.
Above, the clouds thinned, letting through a spear of pale sunlight that caught his armor and washed it in a brief, soft glow, as if the morning itself paused to consider him.
Arthur simply adjusted his sword at his side and followed Bram toward the storehouse, step by quiet step, into the life of Arnach.