Chapter 5 — A Stranger's Campfire

Alex pushed himself off the flat stone, feeling how the cold had already soaked through the fabric of his jacket and was now clinging to his skin, as if trying to burrow deeper. Night fell quickly, as if someone had suddenly blown out every candle behind the palisade. He moved along the wall, keeping a hand on the rough logs so as not to lose his bearings in the dark. Every step echoed with a dull pain in his shoulder, and his wrist burned from an old abrasion, but to stop meant surrendering to the cold that was already chilling him to the bone. The silence following that low hooting from the forest was not comforting—it was oppressive, as if the woods lay in wait.

He felt along the base of the palisade with his fingers, hoping to find something familiar: a root, a clump of grass, a berry. In anime, healing plants were recognized at a glance, brewed into potions, and the hero moved on. Here, everything merged into a black-green mass. He plucked a few thin sprouts from the very base of the logs and crushed them between his fingers—bitter sap, nothing edible. His stomach contracted in a sharp spasm, reminding him that the last time he had eaten was back in that world of neon signs and canned cold coffee. The bag with his dinner had remained there, beyond the veil. Here, there was only emptiness beneath his ribs and a weakness in his legs that grew with every step.

He kept walking because movement was all he had left. Stopping would mean lying down on the cold earth and waiting for his body to go completely numb. His shoulder pulsed in time with his steps; his wrist ached from touching the coarse bark. The inner voice, usually full of irony regarding his own misfortune, now sounded muffled, almost mechanical: "Just walk. Until morning. You'll find a gap. You'll find something." But there was no hope in this—only instinct, bare as a bone in the frost. The forest to the right seemed like a wall, and the palisade to the left was the only barrier between him and total void.

Around a bend in the wall, where the palisade curved slightly, the air changed. The smell of smoke grew closer, but it wasn't the cozy, bready scent that had previously drifted from the village. Here, it mixed with rot, old bones, and something burnt. Alex froze. Ahead, behind a pile of refuse—rags, woodchips, gnawed bones—a faint light flickered. A small campfire, shielded by a wall of branches and torn burlap so it wouldn't be visible from the road or the wall. Beside it crouched a silhouette: a thin man turning something on a makeshift spit. The smell of burnt roots hit his nose—thick, earthy, and unbearably alluring after hours of an empty stomach.

Alex stood on the border of light and darkness, his heart pounding. Fragments of thoughts swirled in his head: in isekais, a wise hermit or a kind girl with a basket usually sat in a place like this. But here, it was a vagabond in a trash heap, hiding from everyone. Yet hunger and cold decided for him. His legs stepped forward into the circle of light of their own accord. The warmth from the fire touched his face like a forgotten caress.

The silhouette jerked. A hand darted to the belt—a quick, animal gesture. The man turned his head: a narrow face overgrown with stubble, eyes glistening with sleep deprivation and suspicion. This was Noll—though Alex did not yet know this name. He looked at the uninvited guest, assessing him: not a warrior, not a guard, just a shivering, beaten man with long brown hair matted with sweat and dirt.

"Sit," Noll grunted in a low, hoarse voice, nodding to the ground on the other side of the fire. "Sit—but don't come closer. Understand?"

Alex nodded, though he didn't make out the words. The tone was clear: a boundary had been drawn. He crouched at the opposite edge, feeling the heat of the fire begin to thaw his skin. The ground beneath him was cold clay mixed with woodchips, but the fire crackled, scattering sparks. Noll hesitated, then reached across the flames with a charred root—black, hard, burnt on the outside and half-raw inside. Alex took it with both hands as if it were a treasure. The first bite—bitterness, earth, fibers that got stuck in his teeth. He chewed slowly, tasting nothing, feeling only how his stomach was finally receiving something. Warmth spread through his body, and the pain in his shoulder subsided slightly.

They sat in silence for several minutes. Only the crackle of branches and the occasional pop of embers. Noll muttered something to himself in his own language—not a threat, but simply the habit of a man who had long spoken only to himself. His tone was tired, but not hostile. Alex looked at the fire, and something absurd, almost funny, stirred in his chest. "Maybe this is my first ally? Not a mage in a tower, not a princess with a sword. Just a vagabond who didn't fit in either. Maybe this is how it starts—with crumbs by a fire in a dump." The thought was tiny, fragile as the fire itself, but it warmed him no less.

Having grown accustomed to the presence, Noll began to examine his guest more closely. The firelight picked out details: the strange cut of the clothes, unlike the linen or wool of the locals. Dark stains on the fabric that, in the dim light, seemed too thick, too wrong. Noll pointed a finger toward Alex's jacket, then at his own tattered shirt.

Noll spoke quickly, abruptly. Alex didn't understand a single word, but the question sounded in the voice itself: lower, more tense, with a sharp emphasis on every phrase.

Alex tried to explain with gestures. He spread his arms wide: "far away." He pointed up, then at himself: "another path, another world." He swept his palm through the air, mimicking a road. But every movement only added shadow to Noll's eyes. The man saw blood; he saw a stranger who couldn't properly say who he was or why he was here. The vagabond's gaze changed—not to anger, but to something sharper. Fear. Alex felt everything tighten inside him. Fear in the eyes of a man surviving on scraps was worse than rage. It made Noll unpredictable.

Noll stood up abruptly, pushing the fire with his foot so that the flames were between them. The heat hit Alex's face. The vagabond pointed at him, then at the palisade behind his back, and then at the dark road.

Noll spat out a few more phrases, no longer asking, but accusing. His voice trembled; his finger darted toward the palisade, then the fire, then again toward the darkness beyond the village.

The gestures were sharp: a hand sliced through the air, pointing away from the camp, away from the village. The meaning was clear without words. Noll lived here invisibly—a petty thief who was tolerated as long as he didn't get in the way. A bloodied stranger at his fire was a beacon of trouble. Alex raised his palms, showing: "I am not dangerous. I'll leave." He slowly stood up and took a step aside, away from the light. But Noll shouted something nervously, backing away and clutching his belt.

Noll nearly broke into a shriek. The words remained foreign, but the impact of the voice was simple: don't come closer, don't touch, get out.

Alex saw in him a distorted reflection of himself: an outcast fighting for scraps of warmth and food. But instead of understanding, there was only fear. In this world, even the dregs did not gravitate toward one another. They competed for survival, and any hint of a threat turned a neighbor into an enemy. The hope that had flickered by the fire went out, leaving only the cold closing in from behind.

Alex made one more cautious gesture—hands up, palms open, a step back. "I'm leaving." In the twilight behind the fire, this movement looked different: a figure in dark clothing, with stains that Noll read as blood, hands raised, but the body leaning slightly forward. The vagabond's fear boiled over. Noll whipped out a thin, rusty stiletto from his belt—not a warrior's weapon, but a kitchen knife darkened by time. With a short cry, more like a sob, he lunged forward. A clumsy thrust, devoid of technique, simply the panic of a cornered animal.

Alex saw the glint of the blade in the reflections of the embers, but his brain refused to accept it: this couldn't be a real threat. Not a knight's sword, not a monster's claws. Just a rusty knife from a vagabond in a dump. He didn't have time to retreat. The stiletto entered his side—between the ribs—with a wet, unpleasant crunch, piercing skin and muscle. The pain didn't come immediately: first a heavy pressure, as if someone had punched him from the inside, then warmth spreading through his body, and only then—a white, blinding flash that narrowed the world to a single point.

Alex clutched his side; his fingers became wet and hot. His knees buckled, and he collapsed onto the cold clay by the fire. Noll jerked his hand back, his eyes widening in horror. The stiletto remained protruding from the wound—a thin blade buried in the body. The vagabond backed away, tripped over his bag, grabbed it, and bolted. His feet slapped through the mud, and his figure dissolved into the darkness of the forest. He didn't even look back to finish the job. He just ran—just as terrified as the victim.

Alex lay on his side by the dying fire. His hand was pressed to the wound, blood seeping between his fingers, hot at first, then colder and colder. The shoulder that had ached all night now seemed distant, insignificant. His breathing became short and ragged. He looked at the embers—red, shimmering dots in the blackness. Thoughts came in fragments, without heroic pathos, simply as they do for a man who is leaving.

"So this is it. Not a white truck with a blurred logo. Not bright headlights. Just... a rusty knife. In a dump. Not even from a real enemy."

The memory of that first death flared brightly: wet asphalt, a horn, a flash. Quick, almost painless. This death was slow, dirty, smelling of burnt roots and wet clay against his cheek. The fire crackled quieter and quieter. The embers pulsed like those headlights in his memory. The ground beneath his back began to give way strangely—not sinking, but stretching, like rubber. The sound of the fire distorted, stretching into a low hum. The smell of smoke mixed with something new: ozone, metal, wet stone. Alex wanted to open his eyes wider, but the world no longer held its shape. He was not in darkness, nor in light, but in the gap between.

His consciousness melted like wax. The final sensation was not a thought, but simply a quiet, tired: "Again."

Then—nothing.