The north wind cut like a serrated blade, gnawing at the bone.
Kaelen tightened his thin, lice-ridden roughspun tunic, breathing into his cracked hands. A cloud of white mist vanished instantly into the freezing air. He glanced up at the leaden sky.
"Late afternoon," he muttered, his voice raspy. "The wood is chopped. Maybe I can rest before the bells ring."
He rubbed his aching lower back and limped into the woodshed, sinking onto a chopping block. As he watched the snow drift through the gaps in the rotting wood, his mind began to wander—a dangerous habit in this world.
He did not belong here.
In a life that now felt like a fever dream, he was a Senior Architect for a massive tech conglomerate on a pale blue planet. He remembered the project: "Project Nirvana," a hyper-realistic simulation boasting 70% neural synchronization. He remembered stepping into the immersion pod, the hum of the machine... and then a blinding flash of pain as a power surge fried his brain.
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer a coder. He was Kaelen, a malnourished serf in the Kingdom of Aethelgard.
There was no logout button. No customer support. Only the crushing reality of the Era of the Black Frost.
The original Kaelen had been a peasant's son. His mother died in childbirth; his father succumbed to the 'Rotting Lung' plague six months ago. Before passing, his father had sent Kaelen's younger brother to live with an aunt in the capital, Oakhaven. The aunt had married a minor clerk—barely nobility, but enough to ensure a full belly.
Kaelen, stubborn and proud, refused the charity. He sold himself into servitude at Blackwood Keep, the stronghold of House Vane, hoping to earn enough coin to buy his freedom one day.
But reality was cruel. He was worked like a mule, fed swill, and treated worse than the hunting hounds.
"Kaelen! You lazy rat! Get out here!"
The shrill voice of the Steward snapped him back to reality. Kaelen stood up quickly, ignoring the dizziness from hunger, and stepped out into the snow.
Outside the kitchen, the Cook—a greasy giant of a man—looked at him with undisguised disgust. Kaelen had been coughing blood recently, and in a world without antibiotics, sickness was viewed as a curse.
"Stay back, plague-rat," the Cook grunted, kicking a wooden bowl across the snow. It contained a ladle of brown, watery gruel and two rocks of black bread. "Eat. Then work. Don't touch the pot."
Kaelen picked up the bowl. He forced the tasteless slop down his throat. In his past life, he wouldn't have fed this to a dog. Now, it was fuel. Survival was the only code that mattered.
He had barely finished the last crumb when the Steward, a man with a face like a dried apple, pointed a gloved finger at him.
"You. Come with me. There's... refuse to be discarded."
Kaelen followed the Steward to the back of the stables. There, lying in the mud, was a long shape wrapped in coarse black burlap.
Kaelen's eyes twitched. It was the shape of a man.
Servants died often in Blackwood Keep. Cold, beatings, or the whims of the sadistic Baron Vane. A dead servant was just meat to be buried before it attracted wolves.
"Take this to the Woods of Silence outside the walls," the Steward commanded, his voice devoid of emotion. He gestured to another trembling boy, a scullion named Tom. "Take Tom with you. Dig deep. And keep your mouths shut, or you'll join him."
The Steward turned on his heel and left.
Kaelen fetched a rickety handcart. He and Tom heaved the heavy, stiff bundle onto it. Tom was shaking violently, his face pale as milk.
"K-Kaelen..." Tom whispered as they wheeled the cart into the dark, silent forest outside the castle walls. "Should we... should we just leave it here? The ground is frozen solid..."
Kaelen glared at him coldly. "Abandoning a body is a crime against the Church and the Crown. Do you want to hang? Or be burned for spreading the Rot?"
Since the Great Plague a decade ago, corpse disposal laws were strict.
Tom swallowed hard and grabbed a shovel.
They found a clearing and began to dig. The earth was like iron, but fear gave them strength. After an hour, they had a shallow grave, barely two feet deep.
"Good enough," Kaelen panted. "Let's dump him."
They grabbed the black bundle and shoved it into the hole.
Suddenly, a hand shot out from the burlap.
It was a hand thick with calluses, pale and strong. It clamped onto Kaelen's ankle like a steel trap.
"Hhhhuuuugggh..." A raspy, desperate groan erupted from the fabric. "Help... me..."
Kaelen froze, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Tom screamed, a high-pitched wail, and scrambled backward, wetting his trousers. "It's a ghoul! A revenant!"
Kaelen looked down. The grip tightened, bruising his skin. This wasn't a zombie. This was a man who hadn't finished dying.
If he's alive... and the Steward wanted him buried...
Kaelen's mind raced. If this man returned to the Keep, the Steward would know Kaelen had failed. The Baron didn't tolerate witnesses to his dirty laundry. If this man lived, Kaelen died.
A cold, ruthless logic took over. The logic of a man who had already died once.
Kaelen grabbed the shovel.
"No... wait..." the voice rasped.
Kaelen didn't wait. With a savage grunt, he brought the sharp metal edge of the shovel down onto where the neck should be.
Thud.
Blood sprayed across the white snow, hot and red.
Kaelen didn't stop. He struck again. And again. And again. Until the movement ceased. Until the grip on his ankle loosened and fell away.
Tom was curled in a ball, sobbing.
Kaelen dropped the shovel, his breath coming in ragged clouds. He wasn't a killer by nature, but this world demanded it. It's him or me.
"Go," Kaelen said to Tom, his voice flat. "Run back. Tell no one. If you speak of this, I will say you did the killing."
Tom nodded frantically, scrambled to his feet, and sprinted back towards the castle walls, disappearing into the gloom.
Alone with the corpse, Kaelen knelt. He needed to know who this was.
He pulled back the blood-soaked burlap.
He froze.
It wasn't a servant.
It was Garret, the Master-at-Arms. A veteran soldier, the man who trained the Baron's knights. A man feared by everyone in the Keep.
Why would the Baron kill his best sword instructor?
Rumors flashed through Kaelen's mind. The Baron's young wife, Lady Elara, had been looking at the soldiers with wandering eyes. Garret was handsome, in a rugged way.
An affair. A purge.
Kaelen realized the danger he was in. He had to finish this. He pushed the body deeper into the hole.
As he did, he noticed something glistening at Garret's belt. A pouch.
Kaelen hesitated, then reached out. The dead need no coin.
He opened the pouch. Six silver stags. A fortune. A peasant earned maybe four silvers a year. This was freedom money.
His fingers brushed against something else inside the pouch—a cold, smooth object. He pulled it out.
It was a small, jagged stone, black as the void, carved with a single, glowing rune that hurt his eyes to look at.
The moment his skin touched the rune, a shockwave of ice-cold energy surged up his arm, slamming into his chest.
Kaelen gasped, his vision blurring. The world spun.
And then, text began to burn itself into his retinas. Not the digital blue of a VR game, but burning gold letters, like ink on ancient parchment.
[ The Codex of Truth - Activated ]
Host: Kaelen
Lineage: Human
Condition: Malnourished / Hypothermic
Absorbed Essence: 8 Units