1 Arrival

Paper acquired, 1 per week manageable, word restriction. writing tool, sharpened charcoal. Local writing tools aquiral currently impossible. Local written language mostly unknown. Current occupation, harbor laborer. Previous occupation, farmer. Moved to city 2 moons ago. Future goals, increase in income.

5205 days after arrival. 564th year, 34th month, 3rd week, 12th day of Sturjan kingdom. First register.

The river stretched before him, his body ached thoroughly and the day of labor was done. It took him one year to acquire a fixed residence with privacy.

His meager wage didn't help much, it barely managed to feed and house him, but the savings he got by helping the harbour taskmaster with accountability was enough, though the rewards were inconsistent, but it was far better than being slaved by the taskmaster, that went light on him in view of his contributions.

He was weak, terribly weak, this was a fact he learned after living for almost 1 year on this world.

After analyzing the properties of a new particle discovered on the Large Hadron Collider, he suddenly felt an intense sense of dizziness and fainted. The next time he opened his eyes, he found himself on the body of an adolescent farmer suffering from a fever. All he got was a rough understanding of the village he resided and its surroundings, meager mastery of the local language and an intense sense of confusion.

The teen's name was Prometan, no surname, but now it's his name. He was the 3rd son of a small farmer, the spare of the spare son. After spending one week in confusion and denial he decided to gather more information. The teen had no friends due to his awkward status, the villagers often ignored his presence.

The sparse information he managed to gather after pestering everyone he could talk with confirmed his suspicions, he wasn't on earth anymore. The year here had 36 months, each month had 4 weeks, each week had 13 days, the day could be divided in 4, before and after the moon or the sun reached their highest point in the sky for day and night. More precise methods of time keeping were reserved for the big families on the city.

He only managed to learn this after pestering a wandering merchant passing through, the low status villagers he could come in contact with only had a rough understanding of the planting seasons by observing the moons. Yes, moons. This world has 3 moons, each moon waxes and wanes for 12 months and has 4 stages that last for 13 days each, and although the night day cycle felt similar, it felt longer than usual, with daylight seemingly lasting significantly longer. The current moon was the inert moon silver in color, the other moons where the life moon, orange in collor, and the death moon, blue in color.

If he had paid more attention to the sky he could have realized this earlier. Although the moon hadn't changed yet, it's simlilarityes ended on its color, he also couldn't find the constellations he knew anymore. After learning the current day, month and year from the merchant, he spent roughly half a moon trying to learn more from this new world. Although he still had to help his family with farm labor, it wasn't as much as before the fever, so he could roam the small village asking questions in his spare time.

He could have shown a bit more of his already existing knowledge to the villagers so that he could stay a bit longer on a stable and safe place, but he was scared, the little curiosity and knowledge of the world he had acquired there that he had shown already garnered significant hostility from the villagers, one more reason to drive his status even lower.

His attempts rapidly deteriorated his already small status in his family and in the village, he was soon known as a bottersome individual by most, his family included. Add this to the fact that the village was suffering from a row of bad crops sealed his fate, perhaps this was the reason for the avoidance and tolerance i received, perhaps even pity.

As soon as he reached adulthood at 13 years old, he would be delivered to the taxman as workforce for the nearest city, fortunately not as a slave, but my status wouldn't be far from it.

But he couldn't go any deeper without letting the village know, as it was a fairly closed community with strict hierarchy, it was better to relent and go to work in the city, where more opportunities could show themselves. At the very least no one knew him there, and he could make use of some of his knowledge without incurring much risk.

A few week later, on the day scheduled for the taxman arrival, he and other 4 youths were gathered by the village chief and ordered to stack the offerings beside a cart. He wondered why they hadn't loaded it. After the job ended, they were gathered on the front of the main road of the village in order to wait for the taxman that would arrive at high noon. Not long after, the taxman arrived and the village chief kowtowed on the ground and prompted me and the other 4 youths to do the same.

"Lord, those youths are the labour force promised in exchange for the lunar tax reduction."

"The offering is received, you just need to hand over 8 parts of ten from the usual"

"B-But Lord, the de deal i made with the previous Lord was 5 parts of ten"

"Silence! Just do as you are told and you will live a long life"

"Y-Yes Lord"

"You five, let's go gather the rest of the tax, don't let the Lord wait."

After reaching the storage room he asked the village chief.

"Why are you so afraid of him? There are more than 80 people on the village"

He could see the displeasure on his face as he answered, remembering the reports of his constant pestering.

"Fool, the Lord could kill all of us if he wished, don't address Him so casually"

At first, he found it odd that the village chief submitted so thoroughly to the lone taxman. The taxman also was extremely confident that nothing untoward would happen to him. But soon, those questions were answered.

As they reached the cart stacked with the offerings and added their burden to it, the taxman took a pouch from his belt with his right hand, made a few symbols with his left, and opened it, soon the entire stack of village produce in front of him disappeared inside it.

Shock. Shock was the only word that could define what he felt, the second time he felt such emotion was when he arrived. No wonder, no wonder despide his meager diet he was so strong when compared to the former him, no wonder he still looked 13 despite being 3 times older by earth standards, no wonder the villagers are so strict, no wonder they had stacked the offerings beside the cart, no wonder they were so afraid of the taxman. This was a world where powers that could be only described as mystical by him existed. And a world where strength reigned supreme as his latter experiences would show.

"Get on the cart"

The taxman said.