"Urgh, close the window, dammit," I muttered.

I was getting the best sleep I've ever had in a while, and whoever the dastard was who opened the up the windows was going to pay. The biting chill of the morning air and the songs of the early birds were starting to grate on my ears. As I waited for a response from the apparent prankster, I noticed that the acoustics of my room seemed to be different today, as if my walls didn't exist at all… Wait.

I opened my eyes.

Hmm. That's odd. I could have sworn that I went to bed last night in my room. Certainly not on the ground, and even more certainly not in the middle of a forest. Blearily, I slowly raised myself into a sitting position, blinking away the sleep and shuddering at the cool wind.

Looking down, I noticed I was clad in nothing but a set of blue plaid pajamas, soft and comfortable. Well that's reassuring, in a way. I was wearing these last night, so whatever this, this everything is… It's still somewhat rooted in reality. Still awfully strange for a hallucination, though.

As I crawled to my feet, I noticed what seemed to be a small crater in the clearing where I was laying.

Huh. Could it have been a kidnapping? Perhaps some bozo had me in the back of their 'free-candy' van, but forgot to shut the rear hatch so I fell out and landed here.

No, that would be silly. There were no tire marks, anyways. And surely I would've noticed that, unless I was knocked out with bear tranquilizers or something. Oh well, I better get an idea of where I was, perhaps my roommates decided to sneak me into the park during my sleep or something. Google Maps, to the rescue!

Unfortunately, as I patted down my pockets, I found them empty.

"Ah, shiiiiiiiiit," I muttered. I looked around desperately, hoping that it might have just slipped out of my shallow pajama pockets somewhere. There! Something poking out from a bundle of leaves!

I quickly grabbed it, pulling out… my slippers. Alright, if this was a prank, it was getting awfully cruel now. Someone, or something, had to have deliberately moved me here. Perhaps there were people in the treeline recording my reactions?

"Alright guys, you've got me. Ha ha. I've been pranked. Can I get a jacket, now?" I yelled good-naturedly into the trees surrounding me. "Guys? C'mon, now…"

Finding no response, I started getting worried. In my years of life, I couldn't recall anytime I've had the experience of being lost in the middle of nowhere, especially without the tools of modern society to help me out. What do I do? I don't have a survival kit, phone, or anything. I'm hardly in the getup to travel in a forest for an extended period of time.

Think… think! What did those survival blogs to say in those situations? Stay put where you are, so rescue crews know where to find you? Get a mirror to signal passing aircraft for help?

Grrrr…

Thaaaaat… That sounded like a bear or something. Perhaps even more than a bear, considering how loud that growl was, in fact. Yeah, nope, I'm not dealing with this. Quickly slipping on my slippers, I beat a 'brave' retreat from the direction of the deafening sound.

After jogging for a while, I stopped for a moment to catch my breath. As I leaned against a tree, I rubbed my foot gingerly. These slippers definitely were not meant for running, and although I couldn't feel any pain, it still felt rather uncomfortable to be walking along the rough forest floor with only a cheap layer of felt between you and the harshness of mother nature.

*CRUNCH*

What.

*CRUNCH*

That sounded like footsteps. Awfully heavy footsteps, at that. The kind of footsteps you'd expect from a tractor-trailer that grew legs. Probably something that can turn little old me into chunky salsa without a sweat. Could it be that mega-bear from earlier?

I poked my head around the tree, only to be greeted to what appeared to be a solid wall of gray fur. No wait, that was a wolf. A wolf the size of a small house.

"Meep!" I squeaked, and quickly slid back behind the tree.

Did I end up in some sort of demented Jurassic Park or something? Had Elon Musk finally gone off the deep end and started growing mutant test-tube animals for leisure?

I tried to quiet down my breathing and sat down at the base of the tree, hoping the wolf hadn't noticed me yet. Fortunately, after a few heart-shattering minutes, it appeared that was the case, and the house-on-legs had vacated the area.

Alright! Looks like I'm fucked! If this really was a prank, it was starting to seem awfully cruel. What kind of person would leave someone else in a forest full of apex, no, make that SUPER-apex predators, for fun?

I peeled myself off the tree and started walking again, this time in the opposite direction of wherever the house-wolf was heading.

Hours passed. The sun was starting to sink into the line of trees on the horizon, just like my stomach felt like it was sinking in on itself. I'd had naught to eat or drink for the full day, with nothing but myself to keep me company. Thankfully, I found what appeared to be a trail halfway through the day, and began following it, hoping it'd lead me to civilization. But now, with night rapidly approaching, things weren't looking promising anymore.

In the dim lighting of sunset, I managed to spy the reflection of water. A stream! I sprinted greedily over to it and started scooping mouthfuls of water into my mouth with reckless abandon. Deadly stomach viruses and water-born bacteria be damned, dying of thirst was a more pressing concern right now. As I finished gorging myself, I heard rustling over to my left.

Wait! A glow in the tree line! The crunching of leaves! That could only mean one thing: people! I'm saved! I turned towards the light with a relieved grin, only to come face-to-face with a gaggle of burly torch-wielding men outfitted in furs and equipped with what appeared to be honest-to-god axes and bows.

Eh? Did I end up in some underdeveloped nation? Were these tribal woodsmen or something?

"H-Hello? You speak English?" I asked slowly, hoping they'd understand.

The men looked me up and down like I was an idiot.

"English? The hell is that? Ah, whatever, you know how it goes, kid. Hand over your goods, kid, and we'll leave you with your life, got it?" responded the man, in surprisingly understandable English and without any distinct accent.

"Whoa there, wait a second. I think you've got the wrong person, I'm just lost. Would you know the way to the nearest U.S. consulate, perchance?" I responded, getting increasingly confused.

"Consu- what? Agh, just shut up and hand over your stuff, if you know what's good for ya" grunted the lead man in an aggravated tone. He then got closer and directed his axe at my head to drive in his point.

Finally, it seemed my last two remaining brain cells clicked.

"Wait. Are you guys actually bandits?"

The men almost seemed offended.

"Eh? Of course we're bandits, the toughest of the bunch!" cried another man, now identified as a bandit.

Seriously? Bandits? In this day and age? As I glanced at the awfully sharp blade of his axe, which was covered in worryingly fresh blood, mind you, I quickly did a mental run-through of the list of third-world nations that could still have axe-wielding robbers. Surely, I wasn't in the United States anymore.

"I-I'm sorry guys, I've got nothing on me." I pulled out my empty pockets for emphasis. "Really, I'm just lost as hell, I woke up in the middle of the forest this morning, and I have no idea where I am. I mean, if you could help me get to the nearest city, I'd happily withdraw some money from an ATM for your troubles." I added, hoping they'd cut me a break.

"Nothing, huh? I dunno what an 'Ayy-tee-ehm' is, but you know the rules. No money, no life!" the lead bandit yelled with bloodthirsty glee and raised his axe to strike.

Hmm. Medieval weapons, no ATM's, and modern English. What kind of anachronistic mess did I end up in? No matter, I'm going to be dead anyways. Oh wait, guess what time it is: it's bluffing time! I widened my eyes comically and looked at a random point behind the gaggle of bandits.

"Oh, thank god you're here. Save me from these ruffians!" I cried theatrically, praying they'd fall for the classic trick.

"God?" muttered one of the bandits.

"Wuh, who?" Another asked, as they all simultaneously turned around to look for the imaginary threat. While they did that, I turned around and beat feet.

"Huh? There's no one ther- HEY! The squirt's getting away!" roared a bandit. They gave a furious yell and started chasing me. Unfortunately, the combination of the uneven ground and my mediocre slippers was seriously hindering my mobility. I'm was starting to think this wasn't the best idea, but, before I thought it could get any worse…

Whizz!

An arrow flew right past my head. Ah yes, they had an archer with them. How could I have forgotten... dammit who the hell uses a bow to rob people in the freaking 21st century?! Uhh… right! Serpentine! I'll run in a serpentine pattern, that's what to do if you're getting shot at, right?

As I started zig-zagging through the forest floor, another arrow whizzed past me. And then another, but now noticeably closer to my body. Evidently, my little trick wouldn't work for much longer.

I heard another 'twang' of the bowstring, and braced for impact… but it didn't feel like I was shot. Yet, no arrow flew past either. Odd.

"Eh?" I heard one of the pursuing bandits grunt.

Oh, he sounded quite close. That's not good.

Another twang of the bowstring, yet still no arrow flew past me. I wondered where they were flying to.

"H-how the hell is he doing that?" yelled one of the bandits in the distance.

Doing what? I was just running, wasn't I?

"Leave me alone, dammit! I just wanna go home!" I screamed back at them, only to stumble over a stray branch and end up flat on my face.

In retrospect, what was the point of telling a pursuer to leave me alone? It wasn't like they were going to just be like 'oh yeah, my bad. I'll just leave you alone now.' For example, cops don't actually expect fleeing people to just stop when they yell 'stop' right?

I suppose that would be the last conscious thought of my life, as I shifted onto my back to view my impending doom, the source being one of the bandits who was standing triumphantly above me, his axe raised.

"Gotcha, snake!" he cried with glee, and swung down-

I closed my eyes, bracing for the end. I briefly felt a vague pressure on my skull, but it quickly went away.

…

Uh, I said, I was bracing for the end. An end was taking a lot longer than expected.

After realizing that I seemed to be noticeably un-axed, I cracked open an eye, only to see the bandit staring at his axe incredulously. The two bandits flanking him looked equally surprised.

"Huh? The hell was that?" muttered the axe-bandit. He rubbed his eyes and swung again at my head.

I braced once again, but still felt distinctly un-axed.

"I-impossible! How the hell are you doing that?!" cried another bandit, who wielded a sword.

Doing what? What's he talking about?

"Argh, let me try!" roared Mr. Sword-Bandit, who then promptly slashed at me...

Only for the sword to bounce harmlessly off my shoulder. That's new. Still left a noticeable cut on my pajamas though.

The bandits and I both stared goggle-eyed at my unblemished shoulder. Then we stared at each other. I grinned, and slowly rose to my feet. Time to ham it up.

"Alright mortals, I'm happy to forgive and forget, but even I have a finite patience." I thundered, despite my hoarse throat. Remembering they seemed to react when I said 'god', I continued. "You dare challenge the champion of a GOD?

I paused, taking in the reactions of the bandits. As expected, they seemed a hair away from vacating their bowels, but at the same time seemed a bit confused.

While the latter expression was a bit odd, it seemed my desired effect was reached. I drew myself to my full height and faked as confident a smirk as I could.

"Run."

The bandits all let out a scream of pure fear and turned tail to flee. Unfortunately, they didn't drop their weapons as they retreated; I was looking to nab one of those to for myself. I may not have any experience in combat nor the strength for it, but with my apparent invincibility, I'm not sure that would be necessary.

As the bandits continued their escape, my stomach decided to make itself known again. Right, I was still running on fumes.

Getting into a stereotypical thinking position, I pondered my situation. I could either stay here and starve, or chase after the bandits for their supplies. Since I was no longer in any immediate danger of dying by way of axe, and that I was in great danger of dying by exposure or starvation, it seemed quite a reasonable move to pursue the bandits. Besides, even though they were bandits they were quite respectably toned, indicative of a fair diet and a healthy, if not unscrupulous, lifestyle. My inner-Schwarzenegger nodded in approval.

Shrugging, I took off after them.

Unfortunately, after a few minutes of running, I realized I had lost them. My fluffy house slippers were about as conducive to pursuing as they were to escaping, that is - they were awful at it. I took the time to quickly think about my newly-acquired invincibility. While it conveniently deflected lethal axe strikes painlessly, it didn't seem to do anything for the growing blisters on my soles.

As I meandered about the forest, I heard distant clanging in the background, perhaps a fight? Before I could investigate it further, I made out a rasping croak nearby. It seemed to be coming from a ditch hidden behind a dense copse of trees.

I walked into the thicket to investigate, only to find a person laying down in the mud. It was a mousy looking middle-aged man, who was wearing a very fancy, though bloodied, coat. He seemed a hair's breath away from kicking the bucket.

"Oh damn, dude are you okay? Did the bandits do this to you?" I asked worriedly while running over to his side, wincing at the gaping wound in his abdomen. Eeesh, that's a lot of blood. I grimaced from the strong scent of iron in the air. I'm a city boy, dammit! I haven't dealt with any of this before!

He slowly looked over with unfocused eyes, breathing ragged.

"P- pl.. s… vul…vu…ry…" he croaked, weakly lifting a finger to point towards a bag a few feet away.

"Vul- what now?" I asked, as I walked over to the bag.

Digging through it, I found a few vials of… something. It smelled pretty bad, too. Walking back over, I looked at the man, who was deliriously mouthing silent words. Looks like I won't getting any answers from him anytime soon.

Lacking any instruction, I decided to run off of intuition, uncorking the vial and emptying the contents down his throat. I uncorked a second vial and poured the smelly liquid over his wound. As I reached for a third vial, I noticed that the wound seemed to be… closing.

Whoa, what? No way, was this guy Deadpool or something? I've never seen this kind of regeneration from anyone before! Then again, I haven't seen anyone with axe-deflecting skin before, but here I am. Was this forest full of mutants? First giant wolves, then blade-bouncing me, and now hyper-regenerative people…

I stared at the vial in my hand. Wait, perhaps the regeneration is coming from whatever stuff is in this. But then again, what kind of medicine is capable of healing trauma wounds in seconds? Is it… don't tell me, mutant medicine?

Chuckling at my bad joke, I turned back towards the man, only to see him unconscious now. He was still breathing, so that was a good sign. I headed back towards the bag to see if I could uncover any clues about where I was, perhaps an ID card or something would do.

I rifled through the sack and pulled out a small pouch. From it, I withdrew a handful of gold-colored coins. No, judging by the weight of these, these were actual gold coins. Okay, I was probably not on the Earth I knew and loved anymore; no modern country I knew still used gold currency. I put them back in the pouch and set it aside for later use. It's not like I could phone up Cash-4-Gold or something (not that I had my phone on me, anyways), but in this situation, I assumed gold was cash.

After emptying the rest of the bag, I found more vials of the strange medicine, as well as a few books and a card. The books appeared to be leather-bound and handwritten, the kind of old-timey stuff you'd expect from a medieval scriptorium. They seemed to be about basic math, so after a cursory flip through them, it didn't seem like they would be of much use in telling me where I was. The card, I assumed, was some sort of identification, though mud and blood had ruined much of the original lettering. The only thing I could still make out was 'rofes.' Was that part of the guy's name?

I stood up and noticed that the sounds of fighting in the distance had stopped. Stopped for a while, actually. Might as well head over there and check it out now. I can't leave the guy behind though.

My first attempt at a fireman's lift failed miserably - the guy was pretty built. Was everyone here buff as hell? What did they put in their drinking water? The other attempts at getting him up failed, I resorted to just dragging him. Not the most elegant, but I didn't see any better alternatives, and he'd probably die out here if I left him alone. With his bag slung around my shoulder, I began the long and arduous journey of dragging the man off towards where the sounds of battle were last heard. Hopefully I could find medical assistance and answers there.

Well, it turns out dragging a heavy dude through a forest was extremely taxing on the body, especially considering how hungry I was. I even chugged two of the vials of liquid out of desperation, despite its horrific smell and even worse taste. Eventually, I decided to call it a night; I was about to fall asleep on my feet as it was. I leaned the guy against the base of a tree, then took shelter under a particularly dense tree of my own and conked out nearly immediately.

I was awoken once again to brisk morning air and chirps of the songbirds, just like yesterday but minus the disorientation. After blinking off my sleep and remembering where the events of yesterday, I shambled over to the man.

"Yo, you good?" I snapped my fingers in from of his face. "Hey, anyone in there? You alive?"

Seeing no response, I hovered one hand under his nose, and then placed the other on his neck. Yep, there's a pulse, and he's still breathing, albeit shallowly. Still a good sign, considering the dire state he was in last night.

After doing a few stretches, I dumped another vial of the vile medicine on his wound, which was mostly closed by now, and resumed my arduous task of dragging him towards what I hoped would be civilization.

Evidently, I had been isekai'd in some way, shape, or form. Aside from the familiar-looking trees, everything I've seen so far, with the giant wolves and iron-age warriors, made me presume that I was no longer on Earth. I was beginning to worry about what would happen back at home; would my family be worried? Who was going to pay the power bills? Would my boss wonder why I wasn't showing up for work?

However, these worries were quickly smothered by the overwhelming jubilance of-

"I'M INVINCIBLE! HA HAHA!" I suddenly laughed, as I dragged my unfortunate passenger along. "IN-VIN-CI-BLE!"

As I trudged past a tree, I grinned and launched a full-force headbutt at it. And just as expected, my head bounced off harmlessly. That being said, the tree took no visible damage, either. I may be invincible, but I'm still no superman. But who cares? That giant wolf from before? Let him try to eat me! I'll punch out his intestines! Those bandits? I'll just repeatedly crash tackle them until they give up- no wait, that wouldn't work. If they somehow restrained me… Yeah, that'd probably still be bad.

I kept myself entertained along the rest of the journey by throwing punches and kicks at random rocks and trees along the way, flexing my newfound superiority on inanimate objects. Hey, I was bored, go find the pebble's union to sue me. However, my celebration was then rudely interrupted.

I was walking backwards as I dragged the man, without a care for getting ambushed, when my heel suddenly found purchase in something soft. With a brief cry of surprise, I lost my balance and fell onto something fleshy and disturbingly wet.

"Urgh, the hell was that…" I muttered as I shifted my head to see what tripped me. What met my eyes were a pair of glazed-over purple ones, unseeing and dead.

"G-Gah! What the f- HUUURRRRLEEGHH!"

I'm not ashamed to say that I immediately regurgitated the contents of my stomach, the little that remained, that is. Sure, I've seen images of corpses on questionable websites before, but the sensory overload that came from being just inches from a mutilated and decomposing body along with the sheer uncanniness of death in real life wringed out my gut as if it were naught but a wet towel.

Thankfully, the more… unfortunate stages of decomposition hadn't kicked in yet - the corpse was still fresh. When I got my wits together, I started looking over the body for clues, though carefully averting my eyes from the more gory bits.

It looked like a young man, around my age, with a shredded uniform that looked like a less extravagant version of the one on my injured charge. Perhaps they were of the same group or institution; given my knowledge of fantasy tropes, perhaps they were part of a royal caravan or a merchant group. Considering the gold coins in the pouch and the fancy uniforms, I was leaning towards the former.

Whoever killed him must've also looted him pretty well; his pockets were popped out and remnants of pin-marks could be seen on his uniform, probably where a brooch once stood.

Cringing, I moved over my hand to close his eyes. Despite my disgust at touching the corpse, it seemed like the right thing to do, or the only thing I could really do. I just hoped that flesh-eating bacteria didn't transfer onto my finger or something.

With nothing left to observe and my respects paid, I took hold of my 'travel buddy' and continued my slow march to find help, but now with my spirits significantly dampened.

As I got closer to the battleground (or what I presumed were battlegrounds), I started seeing obvious signs of conflict. A stray arrow here, and bloodstain there. No corpses, though. There were large pools of blood in certain areas, but I suppose someone must've gone over this place and cleaned up the bodies, given the streaks of red leading away from them.

Eventually, I spied what appeared to be a stereotypical medieval-like town in the distance. Cobblestone-walled huts with wooden roofs dotted the perimeter, while fields of crops surrounded the area; it looks like I've finally found civilization, albeit a few tech-levels below the one I'm used to. With a grim smile, I redoubled my efforts and trudged towards the village proper.

An elderly man came out of one of the huts and looked the pajama-clad me up and down. After seemingly ascertaining that I was not a threat, he called out to me.

"Hail, traveler! What brings you to our humble village?"

"Uh. I… W-wounded! I have a wounded man with me!" I stuttered, frantically gesturing at the unconscious man.

Sensing my alarm, the elder quickly hobbled over and took a look.

"Oh goddess, we better get him to a healer quickly. Was he attacked by the bandits from last night?"

Healer? What, were they going to put poultices on him and give him a 'wolololo'? I'm not sure I had too much faith in the medical capabilities of this time period, but then again, this world has some sort of super-mutant medicine, so I didn't really have the right to complain.

"Yeah, the bandits got him good. I found him in a ditch bleeding out, and poured this stuff on him," I gestured to one of the visible vials in the bag slung across my shoulder. "Speaking of which, do you know what this stuff is? And more importantly, do you know where I am? What's the name of this village?"

While I rattled off my questions, the elderly man called back into the village from help, and some more people came out and took my charge off my hands. He then turned back to me.

"That? Oh, that's just a vulnerary! And you've arrived in the humble village of Remire, traveler," answered the man. "Where were you coming from?"

Instead of replying, I froze for a second. Remire… I heard that name somewhere. Oh, yeah, it's that place from Three Houses! Huh, I didn't know Intelligent Systems named the place after a location in real life!

I instinctively reached a hand into my pocket to Google the name on my phone, only to remember it wasn't there. Woops.

Wait.

No.

This wasn't real life, or the life I knew, at least. This wasn't Earth either, so Remire couldn't have been a historical location of the distant past. Vulnerary was a pretty generic term, but given the context… it clicked.

"Ah, I see... Oh crap," was my very intelligent answer.

AN: I have no idea what I'm doing. Feedback is appreciated!