Tursed my worid upside down

Klaus inhaled the familiar air. Fresh, damp and a little cool. He was standing on a small hill, and not far below he could see a village, surrounded by forest on all sides. The prince smiled. "Finally, I'm home."

Throwing his bag over his shoulder, Klaus headed towards the village. It was several hours away from here, and a small forest as an obstacle. His blood began to boil with anticipation. He knew that he wouldn't just walk to a residential area. But judging by the small area of ​​densely growing tall trees, there was nothing waiting for him there that he couldn't handle.

Klaus took a few steps forward and stopped. His head was spinning, his body was tingling. He felt the magic rapidly filling his body. Klaus sat down and took out a bottle of water. He took a few big gulps and caught his breath. "I need to wait a little while before going into the forest. It would suck if I died from an attack by a small monster."

Klaus sat on the ground and looked around. The dark forest, the light haze of fog, the smell of blood. He looked at the sky. It seemed to him darker than in the other world. He saw all the differences so clearly now, he felt the weight of his burden, and for just a second he wanted to turn back, but at the same time the thought flashed through his mind that he could change this world. Make it at least a little like that one. Yes, it would be hard, what can I say, it would be almost impossible, but had such trifles as unreality ever stopped Klaus?

He felt the familiar and almost forgotten smooth flow of magic in his body, raised his hand and released a couple of small lightning bolts. This is what he missed so much, this is the part Klaus was missing. The young man smiled and stood up when a bright white light lit up behind him. Klaus turned around abruptly, pulled out a new katana, not yet stained with blood and death, and stood in a stance. A short figure came out of the light. The portal closed, and Klaus was stunned.

"What are you doing here!" he growled at the stunned blond youth.

"It's so good that you didn't go anywhere," Egor exclaimed joyfully.

"I asked you a question!"

"I came to help you, no matter what you planned!"

"Do you even realize what you've done?" Anger began to cloud Klaus's eyes, and he quickly approached Egor, grabbing him by the collar of a shirt similar to Klaus's. "And where did you get these clothes?"

"Grandma thought of everything," the fair-haired man shrugged.

"I'll find a strong enough air mage today and send you back," the prince abruptly let go of the shirt collar and looked at him with his most menacing gaze, almost hissing.

"Firstly, it's almost night, and secondly, I'm not going to go back anywhere," Egor's whole insides were shaking under this furious gaze, and he was afraid that his legs wouldn't hold him up, but despite all this, he had definitely decided that he would stay. No matter what it cost him.

"You can't even imagine what could happen tonight! I can't guarantee that you'll stay alive after crossing the forest. I don't have time to babysit you!"

"Then go yourself, but I will still follow you! Your threats will not work on me. Klaus, accept it already, I am not going anywhere."

"Why do you need this? You do not know where you ended up, and that there is no life waiting for you here, only eternal survival. So answer me, why do you need this? What do you want to achieve?"

"I do not want you to be alone," Egor shouted, covered in crimson spots. "Are you happy? That is my reason!"

"God!" Klaus hit himself in the forehead and his anger began to gradually recede. "Listen to me carefully. I will not repeat myself twice. From this moment on, you obey me unquestioningly and in everything. If I say, run - you run. If I say, be silent - you are silent. If I say, you do not ask questions, but quickly follow through! Got it?"

"Yes, my lord," Egor said sarcastically.

"I'm serious."

"I understand you," Egor answered seriously. "What's the plan next?"

"First, we need to get to the village, but to do that we'll have to go through the forest, and it's never safe there. I don't think we should waste time here. We need to leave immediately. What difference does it make whether it's night or day? It's always night in the forest."

"Then shall we go"

The closer Egor got to the forest, the more his bad feeling grew. The young man had just found himself in a completely unfamiliar world and hadn't seen anything except nature and the incredibly heavy sky, but he already felt how different these two worlds were. Now he understood some of the prince's oddities. It must be difficult to grow up in such an oppressive environment and adapt to a bright, as it now seemed to Egor, kind world. His world.

They stopped at the edge of the forest, and Egor turned pale with fear, hearing a heart-rending cry. A child's cry.

"What is this? We need to help him!" the fair-haired guy overcame his numbness and took a step towards the invisible victim, but the prince's firm hand pulled him by the shoulder.

"This is one of the monsters. This is how he lures his victims into a trap. In fact, this is a weak creature slightly larger than the average dog with an ugly slobbering mouth and tentacles. He can imitate the sounds he has heard and perfectly adapts them for hunting."

"It is impossible to imitate a child's cry of pain so realistically! What kind of creature is this!"

"It doesn't have a name," Klaus shrugged. "There are so many different kinds of evil spirits in the forest that we simply don't see the point in calling them anything. Usually they call it a coward, because this creature only lures its prey and waits until it loses all its strength in its trap and only then devours the victim."

"What a terrible death," Egor whispered, imagining the poor man sitting in a hole for a week and slowly dying, and then a slobbering mouth tearing off pieces of flesh from an unresisting, but still living body.

"And what should we do with it?"

"Ignore it. It won't come out on its own, and if we go around the sound, we won't fall into its trap."

The young men did just that. Klaus was unperturbed, but Egor winced at every heartbreaking scream. Yes, he already knew that there was no real child there, but this did not help him abstract himself and stop his fantasy of drawing terrible pictures of the child's death.

In addition to the coward's cry, Egor heard various sounds: growling, whistling, cackling, rustling of dry leaves. The body reacted to each. It understood the danger before the brain.

They had not managed to go far when something very similar to a bat flew at Egor and for some reason beat its sticky wings on his face. The young man screamed and tried to remove the nasty creature. The next second, the creature fell dead at Egor's feet, and Klaus stood opposite Egor, thin electric discharges coming out of his hand. He was smiling. He enjoyed using magic, but the next second, the black-haired man grabbed Egor by the hand and dragged him behind the nearest tree, knocked him face down on the ground and pressed him down with his body from above.

"What are you...," Egor tried to say.

"Shut up. These scavengers never fly alone."

Egor heard an approaching sound, as if a huge swarm of bees was flying towards them. There were many of them. Hundreds. These creatures flew to the place where the dead body of their relative lay, and when the swarm rose higher, a clean skeleton without a single piece of flesh remained on the ground. Egor held his breath, involuntarily falling under the influence of the prince lying above. They lay motionless, Egor's lungs were already burning from lack of oxygen, and at the moment when he could no longer hold his breath, a crackling of dry branches was heard nearby. The swarm of bat-like creatures left the skeleton of their fellow and flew towards the sound. Both young men exhaled and assumed a sitting position.

"They are so disgusting! Did you see? These creatures even ate their own!"

"Yes. They don't care what to devour. They attack in a large group, devour everything that doesn't resist, and what resists, they cover with saliva, which literally glues the victim together."

"It's impossible to escape from them," Egor was horrified.

"They have no sense of smell or sight, only hearing. If you manage to get out of the swarm and hide, they will leave you alone."

"How can you stand still when such creatures attack you!"

"That's why they never have problems with a lack of food," Klaus grinned. "Ready to move on?"

"Do we have a choice?"

"No."

Klaus went deeper into the forest and his blood boiled. He wanted someone to attack them. He dreamed of throwing out the magic that was overflowing him. He wanted to use the new katana.

His wish came true surprisingly quickly. They had passed almost half the way, where the prince met only small and vile creatures, unworthy of his attention, but he still destroyed each of them. When Klaus pierced another parasite with the tip of his katana and raised his eyes from the ground, he barely managed to dodge a branch flying at him.

"On the ground," he shouted, hoping that Egor would fulfill his promise and unquestioningly carry out his order.

He himself ducked, the branch flew further, turned around and headed back to its victim. Klaus released several lightning bolts. A living hand made of branches and leaves caught fire, twitched, and a piercing howl was heard from the side of Klaus, which deafened him for several long seconds.

Following the already smoldering branch, another one flew at Klaus with greater force, and the tree on the side with a thick trunk began to move, tearing its deep roots out of the ground. Klaus had never encountered such a monster before. He fired another volley of lightning, but the branched hand quickly dodged and crashed into the prince's stomach with all its force, throwing him back several meters, slamming his back into the trunk of an ordinary tree.

Egor was still lying on the ground, clutching the soil with his fingers, and looked at the prince and the tree with horror.

"Hide! Quickly," the prince shouted, spitting out blood and getting up. Egor, to his delight, did just that.

Klaus took his katana out of its sheath and rushed towards the tree trunk with a cry. He chopped the branches flying at him, threw lightning bolts. He liked it, adrenaline was filling his blood. Several glancing blows to the tree trunk did not bring any result, only angered the monster even more. Klaus tried to pierce the tree trunk with lightning. Unsuccessfully. Then he noticed one oddity. As soon as the prince approached the tree trunk, the tree-monster began to drive its roots back underground

Klaus dodged another attack of branches and delivered a precise blow to the hiding root. The tree howled piercingly. Green blood flowed from the wound. Klaus smiled, put his hands on the ground, temporarily throwing away the katana, and released a strong discharge. The ground began to smoke, the roots began to free themselves one after another, soaring upward. The prince picked up his katana and began to attack each slightly blackened appendage, cutting them off one by one.

The monster hit him with its branches several times, but the adrenaline in his blood prevented Klaus from feeling any pain. The prince rose again and attacked the roots trying to save themselves with even greater enthusiasm until he cut off the last one. The tree began to rot before his eyes until it left behind a handful of severed branches and rotten wood dust. Only then was he able to relax and fall on his back, spreading his arms out to the sides.

Egor ran out of his hiding place. Klaus had taken quite a beating, but when the fair-haired man came closer, he saw only the prince breathing heavily with some kind of crazy gleam in his eyes. He was laughing. Loudly. Egor sat down next to him.

"You're really crazy," the young man shook his head.

"Yes," was all Klaus answered, trying to cope with the emotions that were overwhelming him and the pain that had replaced the excitement.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll lie down for a bit, and then we can move on. These branches were lashing me like a whip!"

"And how do you know how to lash with a whip?" Egor raised an eyebrow.

"There's still a lot you don't know about me," Klaus smiled slyly.

"Such details scare me. Are you a masochist?"

"Yes, no, probably not. Although... who knows," Klaus laughed again, but with a calmer laugh.

They reached the other side of the forest well after dark. The dense treetops did not let in any sunlight or moonlight. It really was eternal night in the forest, and if it weren't for Klaus's lightning, which replaced a lantern for the young men, one could get lost in these wilds. Now Egor understood why the prince was so afraid of crossing the forest. He was afraid not for himself, but for his burden in the form of a fair-haired guy who was not fit for survival. Egor understood that he really was slowing Klaus down. It was his fault that the prince was injured in the forest.

When they came out into the sunlit clearing, Egor took a deep breath. The danger was over. This special haze that seemed to envelop this entire world reminded the young man of fog, or even, most likely, dust that appears on the battlefield after a hard fight. Egor also associated the air with heavy, saturated gunpowder and blood. The young man understood that firearms were not used in this world, but he could not do anything about his associations. He inhaled gunpowder and blood even in this seemingly peaceful clearing.

Klaus set up a mini-camp. The young people decided to have a snack and get themselves in order before heading to the village visible in the distance.

"I have never visited settlements of free people and I do not know what awaits us," admitted Klaus, chewing a strip of dried meat.

"They are peaceful inhabitants, what could go wrong?"

"There is no one here who could be called peaceful," the prince answered thoughtfully. "Everyone here is fighting for their life, and these people are also fighting for freedom. We must not show ourselves as warriors, otherwise they may decide that we have come for their magicians."

"I think I will have no problem posing as a non-warrior," Egor grinned.

"We need to come up with a legend. Who are we and what do we want."

"And what do people usually do here?"

"Fight."

"Then it will be difficult to come up with something that will not make them turn against us."

"We can introduce ourselves as travelers who decided to leave the army and live freely."

"Are there such people?"

"Yes, but they usually don't live long. Let's say you were a cook," Klaus said thoughtfully. "It's hard to imagine you with a sword."

"I promised that I would listen to you in everything, but to be a cook... I don't think I can live up to the role."

"In our army, cooks are those who are not suited to war, but do not want to lose their freedom or be killed. In fact, they are cowards who join the army. They offer their services, any that may be useful, and the soldiers make them a part of themselves, thereby protecting them from death or slavery."

"Well, then that suits me," Egor grinned sadly.

"You are not a coward," Klaus said seriously. "Let's go."