In this dark, cloudy universe, there's a village called Berta, connected to the city of Artun, with approximately 200 wooden houses. This village is the largest village connected to Artun, and most of its people owe their livelihood to mushroom farming.
In one of these houses, a skinny young man in his early twenties was lying on his wooden bed, sound asleep.
The clothes on the young man were quite coarse. His hair was disheveled and long. His beard was slightly noticeable. His feet were hanging off the wooden bed, making the image even more miserable. He wasn't exactly handsome, but he wasn't ugly either. He was around 175 cm tall. In every way, he was the description of an ordinary young man.
The young man's fatigue was evident from how deeply he was sleeping. Because, like almost everyone else in the village, he made his living by mushroom farming. He had worked in his own field all day. This was the reason for his fatigue.
Despite the fatigue of the whole day, the young man had gone to sleep quite late. Because he was about to take the first step to change his miserable life. He had sold half of his mushroom harvest from that day to the city lord's mansion and had accumulated enough contribution points to trade for the necessary information to step onto an extraordinary path. Therefore, despite all his fatigue, he had tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep from excitement. When he finally fell asleep was a mystery.
A few hours later, the young man woke up naturally and yawned. When he rubbed his eyes and looked up, he was greeted by the usual few holes in the ceiling. These holes made his job harder. But he couldn't do anything other than try to cover the holes by adding a few more planks.
To help the mushrooms grow, the village headman performed a rain spell three times a week. Therefore, the existence of holes in the ceiling made the young man's life even more difficult. While the young man struggled to survive in these conditions, he missed his past life even more. He wasn't very rich or powerful in that life either, but like everyone else, he could live in a house and spend time with people. He could play on his phone and watch videos. But here, none of these existed. Even a basic house with a leak-free roof was a luxury for the young man.
For April of the 21st century, these living conditions were like hell. Therefore, the young man had a very hard time getting used to this life. Even though it had been almost 10 years since he started this life, he still drifted into his past life while doing some things.
In his past life, the young man was a somewhat known survival expert. He uploaded videos to the internet and organized shows in some challenging places. But this wasn't his first job. He had studied architecture. After graduating, he worked in this field for a few years. But he found the field boring and pursued his dreams.
He loved survival shows and nature sports, and he decided to build a career in this field. He had a very difficult time in the beginning; muscle cramps, injuries, and ridiculous falls were inevitable. But after a few years, he managed to become a small internet celebrity known in the industry. His financial situation wasn't bad during this period either. He had bought his own house and car, fulfilling the first two dreams of all ordinary men. He knew the danger of his job, and therefore, he didn't dare to marry, which was the third dream. But fundamentally, he was considered a happy man.
What made him wake up to his miserable life here was that he had to do a mountain climbing in his last program, and it was a loose rock on top of a moment's carelessness. The result of that accident was not very pleasant for the young man. Extreme jumping was always exciting, but only if your safety was ensured. That jump without a parachute was not exciting at all. The result was even more miserable than the life he lived here.
During the ten years he had woken up in this young man's body, he had tried to live in hardship. But his only consolation was that he had carried his name here as a connection from his past life. Both young men were given the same name. This name, Victor, was the only thing left in his hand that he thought connected him to his past life.
When Victor first opened his eyes in this world, he was in the body of a ten-year-old child, and this body was quite ill. His fever was very high, his consciousness was fading in and out, and he was dizzy. He didn't even have the strength to stand up. The moment he first opened his eyes in this world, he was perhaps about to close them again. He didn't even know how he spent that day. But even though he survived that day, he had to lie in bed for almost a week. If it weren't for his neighbor, Uncle Sam, during this time, his illness-ridden body would have starved to death. Despite all these difficulties, he somehow managed to survive.
In the memories of the child whose body he took, his family occupied very little space. Initially, like every family, they had gone out of the city for forestry, and that was Victor's last time seeing them. His only consolation was that he had inherited the field his family used from the city lord's mansion. This field was more than enough for Victor to survive, and he was considered better off than most families in the village.
His neighbor, Uncle Sam, was his father's friend and helped Victor from time to time. He used to take care of his field when he was much younger, but as Victor grew older, he took full care of his own field. Uncle Sam was a loyal person in this regard and didn't covet Victor's property.
Although Uncle Sam wanted to find Victor a girl to marry, Victor refused. In both lives, he was determined to live a bachelor's life. Jokingly, since he heard that people in this universe could develop themselves and do extraordinary things, he was determined not to live an ordinary life. Therefore, he didn't want to do anything that would tie him to this village. He was an adventure enthusiast who left his regular life and went out into nature in his past life. In this life, he wanted to see bigger landscapes.
After waking up, Victor continued to laze in bed for a few more minutes. This laziness was rare for him, so he enjoyed it. On other days, he would do his exercise routine from his past life as soon as he woke up. Then he would have breakfast and go to work in the fields. Towards the evening, he would practice archery. He didn't want to go outside the city without any defense. Although ordinary archery wouldn't change much, it at least provided peace of mind.
A few minutes later, Victor got out of bed and washed his face. He opened the window and looked towards the village while airing the room. The village resembled an ordinary medieval village. The only difference was that all the houses here were made of wood. Mushrooms had grown in the fields everywhere, and harvest time was approaching. Victor had set the harvest time ten days earlier because he wanted to have a buffer time to leave the village after trading the extraordinary information. Ten days was considered quite sufficient.
Victor shook his head and moved away from the window. He went out to the small garden outside the house. This was a very small area that came with the house, but it provided enough space for Victor to do his morning exercise. He started doing his daily mixed exercises like push-ups, squats, and sit-ups. This exercise routine lasted about an hour. Although they were ordinary exercises, Victor somehow worked his whole body and didn't let his body rust. Victor's skinny structure could be deceptive from the outside. But Victor was quite a sturdy young man for his build.
When Victor finished his daily exercise routine, he rested for a few minutes. He drank his water and went home to take a shower and prepare breakfast. He quickly took a shower and opened the box where he kept the mushrooms at home. He had enough food stock, so he didn't have much trouble with food. Only eating the same thing every day was tiring. As for the water issue, the village headman knew the rain spell, and there was no water problem in the village. Almost all of the village's water consisted of water collected by the rain spell.
Victor fried the mushrooms and had his breakfast. Afterwards, he took the bow and arrows hanging on the wall and set off towards the field. He had paid almost 1 silver coin to get this bow, but it was worth the price. Despite using it for so many years, no problem had occurred.
The field was not very far from the house. It was about a 100-meter walk from the house. In fact, the entire field could be seen from Victor's house. He occasionally took advantage of this and checked his field. Although creatures or pests did not enter from the outside, there were thieves in every period, and the fields needed to be checked. Since the field was empty right now, it was much more comfortable to practice archery.
He had harvested his mushrooms yesterday, and he had set aside half of the harvested mushrooms for himself and delivered the other half to the village headman in exchange for contribution points. The village headman would then deliver these mushrooms to the city administration in bulk. Since the village headman was the only extraordinary person in the village, he carried out this task. The village headman was a highly respected person in this village. This respect stemmed not only from his power and status but also from his personality. He was not oppressive and protected the villagers. No one in the village had a problem with him. Victor was also considered lucky to have such a village headman. There were people everywhere who exploited those below and feared those above. Fortunately, the village headman was not one of them.
Victor quickly reached the field and started shooting at the target at the end of the field. The shots were quite accurate. He had been doing these exercises for 7-8 years, and seeing that he was constantly improving made him happy. He also thought that his archery skills were not bad. He started with shots from ten meters at first and couldn't even hit one out of ten shots. Afterwards, he made ten out of ten and started increasing the distance. He reached 10 out of 10 from 20 meters, 30 meters, and 50 meters. Now he was practicing 100 meters. His success rate here had reached up to 90%. This gave him a lot of confidence.
In this world, people lived quite miserably. Outside the village, unknown dangers were everywhere. This was an inevitable result. For someone going outside, having to fight was only a matter of time. Victor also thought that fighting at close range would only kill him faster, so he started archery. He never slacked off in this area. It was unacceptable for him to slack off here, which would hold him back when he needed to use archery. Victor didn't dare to gamble with his life. He practiced for two hours and stopped practicing when his arms could no longer lift the bow or pull the string. He rubbed his arms, rested a bit, and set off back home.
When he got home, it was almost noon. He quickly changed his clothes and rushed out of the house. The village headman was supposed to be at his house around this time. Therefore, he waited until noon and set off towards the village headman's house.
Victor slowly started walking among the old wooden houses. The roads were quite narrow and earthen. In some places, there were protrusions, and in some places, there were pits. Stubborn weeds were growing on the side of the dirt road. Although these weeds were not useful, they at least made the dirt road look more lively.
Along the way, there were sounds of arguments from some houses and the sounds of children playing from others. Victor couldn't help but smile for a moment. Ordinary people had their own struggles and lives. Even in the most miserable life, people somehow found a way to adapt to that life and survive.
Victor shook his head and decided not to think. People had to fix their own lives first to think about the quality of life of society. Grandiose statements while living miserably yourself could only be seen as foolish from the outside.