Bondrewd was in a clearing, the forest was not far away, and the sun was inexorably heating everything around to a medium heat. The man looked around, there was no danger around, at least not yet.
"Lord of Dawn" spotted a small stream in the distance and headed towards it, he was interested, no not the water, at least not only it, as he approached the stream he looked at his reflection, what he saw pleased him.
All his equipment was with him, after a brief recounting the man noticed something he had not had before, namely a rucksack behind his back, which took the place of cartridge storage. Looking around once more, the man sat down on the grass and removed the burden from his shoulders. The backpack was quite ordinary, black in the colour of his clothes, with extra straps and pockets, and more importantly filled with something.
The man opened the rucksack quickly emptied it, and laid its contents out on the grass in front of him, the result was the following: 4 tins of tinned food, matches, salt, a litre flask of water, a map, a first aid kit, a black hiking knife, an envelope and strangely enough his white whistle. It was definitely him Bondrewd would have recognised him out of a thousand, for what man wouldn't recognise himself looking in a mirror.
"It wasn't rich, but it would do." The man felt quite normal, looking around the local expanse he found himself thinking how long it had been since he had seen a normal forest, not bowl-shaped swamps, and not piles of trees growing upside down, but a normal forest, as on the ground floor of the abyss.
Putting his belongings in his rucksack, and hanging the whistle in its rightful place round his neck, the man left only the map and the envelope on the ground. Taking the envelope in his hands, Bondrewd broke the old-fashioned wax seal, on which was a picture of an angel surrounded by clouds, the man read the letter, it said.
'If you are reading this then everything has gone according to plan and you have entered the world - Hortus. The surveillance system will be integrated into your soul, a little later. All your devices and artefacts have been redesigned to work with the energies of this world and no longer require cartridges. The principle of their work is quite simple, using them you accumulate a curse, the degree of curse infection will be visible in the interface of the system, so do not be frightened by the sudden symbols in your head, if you reach 100 the percentage of progression of the curse you will die, the percentage of progression decreases with time, and there are other ways to reduce it, but you will have to find out about them yourself. Also in the envelope is a ring, with its help I can contact you, also if necessary you can show it at the entrance to the temples of the light pantheon. All right, go and be a hero, but please try not to kill any children, okay. Your handler Audita.'
After finishing reading it, Bondrewd dug into the envelope and pulled out a small silver ring with the same image as the seal on the envelope. "I don't think there's any point in putting it on right now, if Audita has allies, there are bound to be enemies, so let it sit in my pocket for now." Taking the card in his hands Lord of Dawn was slightly surprised, it looked like an ordinary card on yellow slightly faded parchment, it emitted a faint aura, and a small red arrow was burning on one part of it.
The man turned in the opposite direction and the arrow on the map followed him, it was clear as day, the map was an artefact and he was the arrow. This made the task of orienteering noticeably easier, the Lord of Dawn was about to give himself over to exploring its contents as his sense of danger slightly heightened. The man quickly slipped the map into his pocket and looked around, the source of danger was found quite quickly, on the edge of the forest edge and it was a bear, quite large and by the look of it clearly unhappy with the new acquaintance. The bear walked with a careless gait towards Bondrewd. The man did not delay the inevitable and rushed towards him at a brisk pace.
There they stood opposite each other. There were only 10 metres between them, but no one wanted to move further. The bear sensed danger in the unknown black silhouette, and the "Lord of Dawn" thought about the possible consequences in the form of evil points, after all, the full rules of their calculation have not yet announced, and he did not want to take unnecessary risks, and even more so to attack first. But he was given no choice, and overcoming his doubts, he lunged at Bondrewd with a loud, thunderous roar. The beast overcame the distance of ten metres in a few moments, but if he had known what monsters Bondrewd had fought before him, he would not have dared to take such a gamble.
"The Lord of Dawn" dodged the blow at the last moment, swerved to the side and swung his fist straight at the bear's eye, the bones cracking and a little red blood on the man's arm. The bear recoiled and struck out at the spot where Bondrewd had been, but to his utter surprise the dark silhouette was not there. The man could have easily killed such a reckless beast, but he still wished it would just retreat, he didn't need the meat and hide, and time was of the essence.
Suddenly Lord of Dawn's vision blurred, and an inscription appeared before his eyes, accompanied by a female voice.
"Greetings, the process of integrating the "oversight system" has begun, the process may take about 10 minutes, and will involve minor temporary inconvenience. We hope for your understanding ;)"
A myriad of numbers and words in an incomprehensible language flashed before Bondrud's eyes, not only were they blocking the entire view, but they were glowing like a Christmas tree, disorienting the man.
"What..." Bondrewd did not manage to finish the sentence, as his furry vis-a-vis, decided to repeat his attack, and by the way, speaking very successfully. The beast rammed Lord of Dawn off his feet and without giving the man a break, tried to bite him in the shoulder, the creak of metal spreading across the clearing. Dawn's armour steadfastly held the onslaught of the angry predator's jaws. Bondrewd did not delay and counterattacked, putting all his strength into the blow, which came to the bear's belly.
The fist pierced through flesh and bone and plunged into the "Rich Inner World" of the bear, the beast to its credit did not open its jaws and with a wild roar began to tear Bondrewd's shoulder, moving his jaws in different directions and dragging the man's body behind him, only the leaper did not take into account the fact that the man's hand was still in his own body. "Lord of Dawn" with a sharp movement squeezed his hand and pulled it out of the massive carcass, the bear unclenched its jaws and with a pitiful roar fell on its side. Blood poured from the wound in rivers, showering the grass with a red waterfall.
The man stood up and took a few steps away. "I don't know what I got out of him, but I hope he'll settle down now." In his hand the man held the ripped out liver of his visage. "Lord of Dawn" tried to close his eyes or shift the direction of his gaze - all to no avail, visibility was almost at zero, realising his position the man started to retreat back, and it was the right decision, the bear was no longer alive, but obeying his animal instincts the alpha predator launched one last suicidal attack.
Bondrewd kept running until the water sloshed under his feet. Behind him the beast was closing the distance. And then an idea arose in the man's mind.
'If I can't see you, I can hear you anyway.'
Bondrewd rushed deeper into the creek and stopped only when the water level came close to his knee. "Lord of Dawn" turned towards his opponent and began to wait.
10... 15... 20... seconds.
And the bear stepped behind Bondrud into the creek, orientated by the sound of the water the man uttered, "Gunblade" hundreds of purple rays burst from the band on the man's helmet and streamed out in all directions.
Pierced by dozens of rays, the bear fell dead into the water with a great splash. Bondrewd waited a couple more minutes to be sure and stepped out of the water onto solid ground. It was time to summarise the results of this fleeting battle.
"More or less unharmed myself, but I did dislocate my shoulder." - Bondrewd touched the bruise and his shoulder gave a slight pain, luckily the armour was intact. The man sat down on the ground and waited for the system to finish setting up.
...
Somewhere at the junction of worlds.
The girls stood on a stone plateau, staring into a rather large mirror. There was a dead silence, which was interrupted by Mina.
"You couldn't have found a better time to implement the system than when you were fighting a bear. You weren't embarrassed at all by a huge bear trying to gnaw him." The woman was almost yelling at her interlocutor, and her face was a mixture of anger and surprise.
"Eh... Well I, I thought it was over already, he was getting away from his blows so easily, so I thought the fight was over." Audita replied in almost a whisper, she felt just awful. Because of her naivety, another newfound saviour of the world almost got eaten.
"I hope he never finds out what caused such a delicate situation." After the girl's words, the dead silence continued, only occasionally interrupted by Audita's sobs.
"Okay, bygones, he didn't die and thanks for that, I have to go to my place, I have urgent things to do too, and you keep watching him, and I beg you, I beg you, I just spell you, don't kill him with your idiotic actions.
"No don't go, I need you, I can't do this alone." Audita clung to her friend, the girl understood everything, but common sense decided to take a break and give way to the tandem of fear and insecurity.
"You'll do fine," Mina hugged her friend tightly and disappeared in a bright flash of light.
...
Hortus's World
Bondrewd sat on the bank of the stream, and waited. His shoulder began to ache slightly, but it was impossible to see what was wrong with it, the system interface blocked the view. The Lord of Dawn was not human and such wounds were nothing more than a scratch, but still very unpleasant. Bondrud's train of thought was interrupted by a voice message from the system.
"System integration and customisation is complete, would you like to see the result?"
"YES!"