Finally Able to Move!

Finally... able to move!

After sitting up from a suspicious black metal box, Gawain found himself in a state of severe bewilderment. In fact, even the act of "sitting up" had been completed unconsciously.

An unprecedented sense of chaos and dizziness assailed his mind. His ears rang nonstop, all kinds of frantic, indistinguishable sensations flooded in from every part of his body, and everything before his eyes had at least four overlapping images—two of them black and white. Yet amid all this confusion, his ability to think had not completely failed.

Perhaps he should thank whoever had smacked the back of his hand with a stick earlier. At the instant he had nearly been swallowed by the chaos, he had been granted a precious moment of clarity.

But that stick had really hurt...

As his thoughts gradually returned to normal, Gawain finally recalled what had happened before—the abruptly cut-off vision, the activation of some escape program, the constant sensation of falling, and now... this real, tangible, feeling body that could move.

A body!!

He had a body!

After crossing who knew how many tens of thousands of years, after nearly believing he had been born with a third-person overhead perspective, Gawain had obtained a body!

The confusion in his mind was understandable, and so were the chaotic sensations coming from every inch of his body. He had gone far too many years without any senses beyond sight. Even though his mind had somehow remained normal, he found it difficult to adapt to being able to feel heat, cold, pain, and itchiness.

Still, Gawain could feel himself rapidly adapting to this body, adapting to all the sensations of returning to the material world. Once the dizziness in his head eased slightly, his Forbidden: Quadruple Shadow Clone vision finally returned to normal, and the surroundings came into view.

The first thing he saw was the four burly, armed men not far ahead. One was a middle-aged man with graying hair, clad in steel armor that looked exceptionally sturdy, with muscles practically growing up to his forehead and a silver-gray longsword in hand. The other three wore noticeably simpler armor and carried simpler weapons, but they clearly bore the marks of standard issue equipment.

A petite girl was being held half-kneeling on the ground by the swords of those four burly men. Her face could not be seen due to her hair and the angle, but the tip of a pointed ear protruded from between her locks.

Farther away stood a woman in a red gown. Her lovely face carried an air of elegance and maturity, and her curvaceous figure made Gawain unable to resist looking twice. He soon noticed the barely concealed tension and fear in the mature noblewoman's eyes.

But the movement beside him quickly drew Gawain's attention. He turned his head and saw a girl who looked no older than sixteen or seventeen hurriedly jumping down from the stone platform where he was. In her hand was a metal rod that looked extremely painful to be hit with...

Thinking of where the girl had been standing earlier, Gawain's expression immediately turned strange. "Just now... you hit me, didn't you?"

The moment the words left his mouth, he froze: he realized that what he had blurted out was not Chinese, but a language he had never heard before. Yet this unfamiliar tongue felt as natural and familiar as if he had been born speaking it.

Rebecca had no idea how many messy thoughts were spinning through her "ancestor's" mind. This young noblewoman, who had only just inherited the title of viscountess before suffering such a massive upheaval, was nearly in tears. "Ancestor... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"I..." Gawain still had no idea what was going on. Though he had hung in the sky watching this world for many, many years, this was his first time seeing it from a first-person perspective. He was more bewildered than anyone present. "You are...?"

The beautiful noblewoman in the red gown appeared to be the calmest person there. Once Gawain sat up and took the initiative to speak, the fear and tension on her face visibly lessened. Now she stepped forward—though she remained full of vigilance, she spoke calmly. "Do you know who you are?"

"Me?" Gawain paused, but before instinctively saying his own name, he suddenly shuddered and realized that he ought to have another identity now.

Looking at the box beneath him, though its design was strange, it was definitely a coffin. Then he looked at the surroundings. Though this place was larger than his home in his previous life, no matter how he looked at it, it resembled a burial chamber...

Coupled with the expressions on the people around him, Gawain realized something: he had risen from the dead.

If he gave any name that did not match the "corpse" he had possessed, he would definitely be treated as some demon or evil spirit and killed on the spot. What had that girl beside him said just now? Ancestor, right? Then he could boldly guess that he had possessed the body of her ancestor. Never mind what that old ancestor had eaten in life to remain physically undecayed after so many years. The important thing was that, as an outside soul, he had not only occupied their ancestor's body and slept in their ancestor's grave, but had just kicked their ancestor's coffin lid flying... If that got exposed, "awkward" would not even begin to describe it...

With that in mind, Gawain lowered his head and assumed a thoughtful expression, but he was actually searching rapidly for an excuse—something like his memories being confused after a long slumber. Yet the moment he concentrated, a powerful wave of dizziness struck him.

He had only just adapted to the new body and shaken off the dizziness, but now a second wave hit him. His body swayed, and he nearly fell back into the coffin. The noblewoman in the long gown immediately raised her staff nervously when she saw Gawain acting strangely, looking ready to blast her own ancestor in the face with a calm, focused fireball—yet the deep voice from Gawain's mouth halted her.

"Gawain Cecil. I am Gawain Cecil, pioneer of the Ansu Kingdom... What era is it now?"

As he spoke, Gawain raised his head slightly. His gaze was calm and unfathomable, deep as the sea.

Inside his mind, however, stormy waves raged.

Memories belonging to Gawain Cecil were pouring out madly, yet they were being rapidly filed and recorded like data on a computer hard drive. During that brief spell of dizziness, he had read the most superficial portions of that information and learned the identity he was supposed to have now.

What shocked him most was the name of this body—it was also Gawain.

It was just that this "Gawain" did not share his surname. He had another surname: Cecil.

Was this some kind of coincidence?

At that moment, Gawain had no spare attention to consider how strange that coincidence was. The memories belonging to Gawain Cecil were still pouring forth endlessly. He had to exert every ounce of effort to keep himself from fainting or showing a savage expression. In this dazed state, he vaguely heard the girl beside him—the one who had struck him with an iron staff—answering in a crisp voice, "It's Year 735 of the Ansu Calendar, Ancestor. You've slept for more than seven hundred years..."

Heti also breathed a huge sigh of relief upon hearing Gawain's answer. As a Spellcaster with exceptionally extensive theoretical knowledge, she knew something about the resurrection of the undead—those blasphemous creatures possessed fatal flaws in their souls. When they first awakened, they were almost incapable of speaking or thinking. Even the stronger ones, who could quickly regain their ability to think, would completely forget everything from before their deaths.

Moreover, they could never speak their own names—whether they had recovered their memories or been reminded by someone else, once the dead spoke the names they had borne in life, it would trigger the backlash and burning of their Soulfire. Even if they were not burned "to death," the pain was something even the undead could not endure.

And the signs of Soulfire backlash were impossible to conceal.

So she relaxed, yet she remained deeply puzzled. If the old ancestor before her had not been resurrected as undead, then what was happening now was even harder to explain—

Ancestor, how had you suddenly gotten up while you were busy being dead?

But no matter how confused she was, basic courtesy was still necessary. Heti stepped forward and bowed with tension and reverence. "Ancestor of the Cecil Family, I am your descendant, Heti Cecil. The one beside me is also your descendant, Rebecca Cecil. Please do not hold her rash actions against her on account of her youth and ignorance, and... please forgive us for disturbing your rest."

Uh, this one was his great-great-great-great... granddaughter, and the one beside her seemed to be as well.

The mad influx of memories finally seemed to have ended. Gawain had no time to carefully examine the neatly arranged information in his mind. He wanted to understand the situation around him as soon as possible. Bracing himself against his coffin, he tried to stand while muttering, "It's fine, it's fine. I don't even know how I woke up. Could someone give me a hand?"

He discovered that he had overestimated how well he had adapted to his new body. He exerted himself but still failed to sit up, leaving him a little embarrassed.

Rebecca, who had been standing nearby clutching her staff and watching nervously for so long, realized that it was finally her turn to shine. She immediately bounced onto the stone platform and helped Gawain out by the arm, saying, "I'll help you out of the coffin, I'll help you out of the coffin..."

It sounded awkward no matter how she put it.

"More than seven hundred years..." Gawain was stiff all over as the girl helped him from the coffin. He lowered his head and glanced at his clothing, then asked something that left Rebecca thoroughly confused. "What material is this fabric?"

"It seems to be Moonmark Cloth woven by elves..." Rebecca said uncertainly.

"Truly black technology."

Rebecca: "Huh?"

The ancestor's words were so profound.jpg.

With Rebecca supporting him, Gawain finally stepped down from the stone platform and stood firmly on the ground. He could feel his control over this body improving rapidly, as if his soul were swiftly installing drivers. His consciousness and body were synchronizing at an astonishing speed.

He released Rebecca's hand and tried taking a small step forward by himself.

The next moment, he nearly burst into tears. If there had been a microphone beside him, he felt he could have thanked every person and every television station he knew without repeating himself once.

After so many years, a transmigrator in a novel would have long since slaughtered gods, destroyed Buddhas, and conquered the universe. Yet he had only just completed humanity's first challenge achievement: walking upright...

And only after achieving upright walking did he remember the little girl he had nearly forgotten, who was still surrounded by four burly men.