1 Alfred Von Autarch [Part 01]

"Wake up, My lord. Wake Up."

Listening to someone yelling near his ears, Alex furrowed his brows in annoyance.

"Sweetheart, give me five more minutes and then we will go shopping in the afternoon." Without opening his eyes Alex replied in fluent Federation language.

"Nathen, did you understand Lord Alfred just muttered now?" The middle aged female voice asked in a low voice.

"No idea. I have never heard the words which came out of Lord Alan's mouth. Do you think it may be some kind of side effect from the lingering poison?"

"I don't know, Nathen. No other patient had shown such symptoms post detoxification of poison."

"Is that going to be a problem?"

"As I said, I don't know. Most soldiers infected by the poison from Monstrous Beasts die before or during the detoxification treatment. Those few survive mostly, they end up ok, but…"

"But what?"

"You too know the condition of the less fortunate ones. Rest of them either end up losing their mind and kill themselves shortly after recovering or become mentally unstable for the rest of their lives. In any case the ending for the unlucky ones is ultimately death."

After the female voice stopped speaking the room became pin drop silence.

"As for Lord Alfred, we can only wait. For now, the only good thing I can say is that his life is not in any kind of imminent danger. He is currently in a weird sleep-like state where we can only wait for him to wake up by himself. We can only pray that he wakes up soon."

Alex, still half asleep in the bed, was silently listening to the conversation between the man and the woman. At First he did not pay much attention to their conversation and tried to fall back asleep. But the more he listened, the more confused he became.

"Han? What Lord Alfred? Don't they understand Federation language? Wait, are they talking about me? I clearly remember I was in a business retreat with few colleagues from the office. We were celebrating the successful completion of the last deal and were chugging down beer like there was no tomorrow. After that I went back to the Hotel room with two very friendly ladies from Federation and was preparing to spend the rest of the night with them. After that…"

As Alex was recounting the escapades of the previous night, out of nowhere his head was hit by a sudden stroke of headache. Unable to bear the sudden pain, Alex passed out.

The middle aged man looked at the unconscious Alex. Faintly feeling downhearted, he again looked at the woman next to him for advice.

"Natalie, is there really nothing we could do to help the young master?"

The woman shut her eyes and started to contemplate Alex's condition. After a short time the woman opened her eyes and replied, "As i said before there is so much i can do to improve the young master's condition. I have already thoroughly cleaned young masters wounds and also detoxified them several times just to be safe from some kind of wild poison. The only other thing I could do to help the young master is to give him a potion to relieve his pain. Other than that, there is nothing I could do."

"Sigh," The middle aged man, after listening to the woman's explanation, can only sigh in helplessness. After all he knew what the woman said was true."If that is the case I'll just step out. Other than guarding the young master, currently my presence is required outside."

"Are those pesky knights still making trouble in such a time?" The woman asked as her tone suddenly became cold.

"It's not Rudolf and Redwinson I am worried about, it's the serfs I'm most worried about. After the last attack the morale of these bunch was severely hit. It did not help that many saw the young master getting injured, which made them more worried. If I don't take care of the matter now, I believe many of them will run away under the cover of the night."

"They dare?" The woman said with anger in her voice, "Don't they know that desertion is a crime punishable not only by their death but also the death of their whole kin. And they still have galls to have such thoughts?"

"Calm down Natalie. There is nothing we could do. After all, these serfs have nothing to lose except other than their lives. Even if meny care for their families, when their own life is on the line, I don't believe they would care about the consequences." The middle aged man said as his tone became more and more helpless.

"Humph," The woman first humped in disgust and then continued, "As expected from the vermins of the society, this lady has more spine than those so called lavies of the lord. After this campaign is over this lady is going to half their bread and double their working hours. They dare forget their lord's kindness and dare to even think of desertion? This lady will sell their wives and daughters to brothels, while making their sons work like cattles in this lady's land. This will let those vermins know that even thinking of desertion is far worse than actually deserting."

Listening to the woman's ranting the middle aged man kept his mouth shut, silenting agreeing with the woman's views. After if these do not serve the purpose they were bought for, what use was there spending hundreds of coins to buy them. And then there was food. As far as he knew, the young master had spent a small fortune of silver to buy food, forge and other supplies for the campaign.

"No matter what I could not let the young master down." After quickly reaffirming his own resolve the middle aged man strengthened his previously little hunched back and stroad out of the room with quick and wide steps.

On the other hand, the woman who was previously angry and was cursing her tongue out on serfs, had long calmed herself down from her previous fit of rage. Staring at the middle aged man's departing back, she too reaffirmed her conviction and left towards the study which was located in the adjutant room.

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As two people went out to attend to their own respective jobs, Alex was the one left all alone in the room. Not that he will mind. In fact, he will very much appreciate the gesture. As far he was concerned the immediate thing a traverser will need after traversing was privacy. After all it's not an easy fact for anyone to accept that he or she died. Every traverser needs his or her sweet time to mourn his or her own death. That was what Alex would say if someone popped the wired question.

After thinking about the wired question that suddenly popped in his mind, Alex's slowly mind woke up from the daze. As he tried to slowly open his eyes, the brightness of the room forced Alex to shut his eyes again.

"So bright" Alex complained in his mind.

Time passed and slowly Alex opened his eyes again,trying to get used to the intensity of light.

"Damn that was some crazy dream I had last night." Alex mumbled as he tried to push his body up. Suddenly he felt something wrong with his hands. He suddenly found something different with them. They were too small. Not just his hands, as he tried to move his head it seemed… heavy? It was not only his hands or legs, his whole body seemed to be too small and heavy. It was as if his whole body had shrunk. It was as if he had become a baby.

"The hack happened to me." He panicked. He did not know what was happening to him today. "Damn my luck. First that weird dream and now this. What funky stuff those idiots add to my drink yesterday." Alex's mind started to run like a wild stampede. "Wait a minute. Dream. Yes, this is also a dream. A highly realistic and ultra HD dream. This is not real, just an ordinary but very very weird dream."

Alex started to look around trying to figure out what was going on. Looking at the style of the ceiling he figured, he was in some kind of the old european styled Castle he visited during the tour.

Next he found himself sleeping in some kind wooden king size bed with soft and warm bedding underneath him. The room was closed and the only source of lighting seemed to be a small skylight in the upper part of the wall in front of him. Looking around he found the room to be decorated with the skins of various animals and various luxurious items befitting a king.

"Han, at least it looks like i am somewhat rich in the dream. Good for me" Alex thought to himself.

With the intention to explore the strange dream further Alex tried to move his body to get up from the bed. That is when he suddenly heard a strange sound in his mind.

[Ding. Requesting User's Permission To Activate The System.]

"What?"

[Requesting User's Permission To Activate The System.Yes/No]

Thinking that the strange sound was just a part of the weird dream, Alex replied Yes in his mind. After all, what could go wrong.

[Ding. System Activation Complete.]

[Ding. Welcome User to the Overlord System]