2 The Beginning of a Journey

It was late. The last time Ethan Raphaël had checked the time it was 12:57 AM, and a few minutes had likely passed since then. Ethan, who was sitting on his bed in his apartment hunched over his computer in mid January, knew that he should be getting sleep because he had to get up early the next morning, but his favorite web novel author had just released five new chapters and he couldn't wait until the next day to read them, even if he knew that he should.

[It's not a big deal] he thought to himself [I can still function with just a little bit less sleep, besides I really want to see if the protagonist defeats this dragon. That would be awesome to be an isekai protagonist.] He thought this as he began reading the first of the five new chapters, but he was starting to have trouble keeping his eyes open. A minute later he dozed off for a couple of seconds.

[Wow, maybe I really do need sleep; I'm more tired than I thought.] he figured as he finally closed his laptop. The young man then set an alarm on his smartphone and then pulled his covers over himself and quickly faded off to sleep.

Ethan was confused when he woke up to the alarm on his phone going off what felt like the next morning. He was not confused by the sound on the phone which was what woke him up every morning, rather, what confused him was his location. He was clearly in a wooded area and it was around spring time. He was still in his pajamas that he had put on last night and he was under his covers, but he was on top of a bed of leaves that had apparently remained from the previous autumn. He reached into the pocket of his pajamas, pulled out his phone, and turned off the annoying buzzing of his alarm. [Where on earth am I?] wondered Ethan. He looked at his phone. It no signal whatsoever. He opened the Maps function and it didn't even have a gps signal. [Could it be? Am I actually in another world like the characters in the books, manga, and anime that I like? In that case, if this is a fantasy world with the level of technology in the past, I'll live like a king with my modern knowledge plus whatever cheat skills I have. I need to figure out what kind of world I'm in though. Maybe I'm in a video game world that will respond when I give a command.] Thought Ethan

"Status open!" He shouted. Nothing happened.

"System respond!"

"Open main menu!"

"Link start!"

After Ethan shouted all of these video game type commands to no avail, he came to a conclusion [Well, I guess I'm not in a video game world. That probably means that I can just give up on the idea of having a video game cheat ability. That's okay. If it's a fantasy world with the level of technology in the past, I still have modern knowledge. Once I put my knowledge into practice I will rule this land… if only I can find people to rule over…] his thoughts trailed off as he realized that he was still in the middle of the wilderness. He opened the compass app on his phone and began to travel west. He figured that if he traveled in a straight line long enough, he was bound to come across a road or a river that could lead him to a human settlement. As he kept walking for a couple of hours however a loud roar in front of him made him stop for a moment and tremble with fear. Although he was frightened, he felt strangely drawn to the source of the noise. With this morbid curiosity of his, he continued walking west through the thick forest for a couple of hundred meters until he finally reached the edge of a large clearing. There, he saw the source of the sound.

It was a massive four legged dragon with no wings. It was about 20 meters tall at the tallest part and it measured 75 meters in length from the snout to the tip of the tail. The scales were bright red in color, almost looking salmon in the sun-light. Surrounding it were half a dozen medieval knights clad in chain mail and wielding broadswords who seemed to be trying to kill the beast. These knights, though standing, looked to be exhausted and badly injured. On the ground near the dragon were nearly twenty knights either unconscious or dead. Suddenly the dragon turned its head towards Ethan. It locked eyes with him. It was at this point that Ethan began to regret his decision to continue west.