The boy awoke, his mind clouded by a wave of confusion.
"Ugh! What happened?" he said, holding his head.
He struggled to open his eyes, and for a few moments he couldn't gather his thoughts. Fortunately for him, the state was only temporary, and little by little his mind began to clear.
Finally, after several blinks, his eyes opened, and at the same time an entirely new world unfolded before him.
"What the hell... where am I?" he said in astonishment.
Before him stretched a plain that reached as far as the eye could see. The grass was an intense green, and there wasn't a single living soul anywhere within his field of vision.
Realizing he was in an unfamiliar place, panic began to take hold of him.
"Shit... did I get kidnapped?" he guessed, but he couldn't understand why anyone would go through the trouble of kidnapping him only to dump him in the middle of nature right afterward.
Several other theories raced through his mind, but none of them made any sense. In the end, he decided to calm down and think with a clear head about the last events he could remember.
He sat back down on the prairie grass, closed his eyes, and began to think.
"I was sitting in front of my computer looking for a fanfiction when I got a notification from someone I didn't know."
As he searched through his memories, he frowned.
"That's weird. Why can't I remember what series I was looking for a fanfiction of? No matter how hard I dig, I can't find anything."
The boy spent several minutes torturing his mind, hoping to remember more, but eventually gave up, deciding it was more important to figure out how he had ended up here.
"I'll come back to that later. I have more important things to remember. The notification was actually a link to a website, and after clicking on it I found a character creation sheet, kind of like a CYOA."
His frown deepened.
"Remembering everything is getting harder and harder..."
Still, he persevered.
"I filled it out using an existing character instead of creating one from scratch. It was Counter Guardian EMIYA... if I'm not mistaken."
The boy rubbed his temples, trying to force his increasingly distant memories back.
"After that, the program handled the rest and adapted EMIYA to the power system of the fanfiction's world... which I still can't remember. It added limitations, drawbacks, and bonuses, and after that... I passed out."
Then something inside him shattered.
The barrier holding back his memories broke, and a flood of information crashed into his mind.
The boy remembered a life he had never lived.
Ten years of memories poured into him all at once.
The headache that accompanied them was overwhelming.
"Argh!"
The boy clutched his head and rolled across the ground several times, groaning and gasping for air.
But as quickly as those new memories had come, most of them vanished once again. The unbearable migraine subsided, leaving behind only the most important memories.
He remembered only three things from that new life.
A lake.
A woman with long hair, pointed ears, and unusual eyes.
And lastly...
"Haah... haah... haah... Hahaha! So I really am in another world, huh? And as Archer EMIYA, no less," the boy said between heavy breaths. "Even though that's not actually my name. No matter how hard I search my memories, I can't remember my old name. Yet I remember my previous life perfectly."
He wiped the cold sweat from his face with his arm before smiling.
"But that's fine. From today onward... I'll be Emrys."
Emrys struggled to stand and took a stance.
He didn't last long before collapsing back onto the ground.
"Yeah... I'm not moving. I'm good right here."
After finding a comfortable position, Emrys immediately began thinking about what he had to do next.
As strange as it seemed, he had already found his next objective the moment the memories from those ten years returned.
"I have to find Mom. She must be worried sick."
And by "Mom," he was obviously referring to the woman who remained etched in his memories.
"But I don't even know where I am. And if the only restriction placed on my character was being unable to access his memories and experience, then the world I'm in must be incredibly dangerous."
Along with the flood of information came not only his sealed memories, but also all the knowledge related to his abilities, whether he had awakened them yet or not.
"I'm almost certain I'm in the world of an anime. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been so obsessed with finding fanfiction about it. And knowing myself, if I chose EMIYA as my character, then it means I believed his abilities would work well in this verse. So this is almost certainly a world where magic is everywhere."
The more Emrys thought about it, the worse his situation seemed.
He had been dropped into the middle of the wilderness at barely ten years old, in a world where magic most likely reigned supreme. Worst of all, he hadn't even awakened his magical power yet—or rather, what this world seemed to call special abilities: Unlimited Blade Works.
"At least... all hope isn't lost."
Indeed, amidst this nightmare, there was a glimmer of hope—a gift he had been given to keep him from dying right from the start.
Or rather... gifts.
Haki.
Modified Drainda.
And Blink.
"I have a feeling I'm really going to like Blink."
Blink's mechanics were ridiculously simple.
Emrys only needed to focus on a location within a one-meter radius of himself.
There was no cooldown, and it consumed no magical energy whatsoever.
Only mental energy—whatever exactly that meant.
"And as for this mental energy... even though I don't fully understand what it is, I think I know how to train it. Haki is perfect for that."
Since Haki was a power system based entirely on mental strength, he couldn't think of a better way to develop it.
And as if the good news kept coming to make up for the bad, there was one crucial detail about Haki.
"I already know how to use it," Emrys declared with a grin. "Granted, it's only Observation Haki and Armament Haki at a very basic level. But at least I don't have to go through the process of awakening them."
Then there was Modified Drainda.
Emrys still didn't know exactly what the modified version looked like, but he at least knew how to access it.
"Drainda exists as a Projection. But unlike normal Projections that rely on magic, Drainda uses mental energy instead. Makes sense—I can't exactly materialize an anti-magic weapon with magic."
Besides being an incredible advantage—since Drainda was basically a vastly superior version of Gáe Dearg—it also meant he could create multiple copies of it and even use Alteration on himself, provided he had enough mental energy.
Emrys' smile widened.
Now that the migraine and dizziness had mostly faded, he took the opportunity to stand.
Fixing his gaze on the horizon, determination shone in his eyes.
"Don't worry, Mom. I'll find you... and I'll keep my promise. I'll show you the world."
His resolve renewed, Emrys stretched, working the remaining stiffness out of his body before getting into motion.
"Enough talking. Time to start training."
---
Before throwing himself into push-ups, dips, and squats, however, Emrys decided to look for one thing first:
A source of clean drinking water.
That would tell him whether there were any living creatures nearby.
After all, where there was grass and water, there were herbivores.
Where there were herbivores, there were prey.
Where there was prey, there were predators.
And where there were predators...
There were apex predators.
Truth be told, Emrys didn't actually need to eat, drink, or sleep to survive.
That was simply a consequence of his race:
A Corporeal Soul.
As the name implied, he was literally a tangible soul, just like the Heroic Spirits. Like them, he sustained himself with magical energy and could also assume a purely spiritual form.
It was an incredibly useful state.
Besides becoming almost impossible to detect, he also became intangible, allowing him to pass through physical obstacles.
The downside, however, was that the same intangibility prevented him from interacting with the world while in that form.
As for surviving solely on magical energy, that also had another effect on his biology.
But that was a topic for another time.
Since he didn't actually need food, the reason Emrys was searching for nearby life was to observe how magic had altered the local wildlife—and how that same magic interacted with Haki.
Unfortunately for Emrys, there wasn't a single body of water within several kilometers.
"Haaah... I have to face reality. There's nothing here," Emrys said, dropping onto the ground and staring up at the sky. "Looks like I'll have to leave sooner than I expected. But..."
Emrys suddenly sprang to his feet and assumed a fighting stance.
"I think I can at least learn a few cool tricks before I go."
Author's note
The very first real chapter of The Faker in Britannia, tell me what you thought of it. And feel free to spam the power stones.
Regarding the winner of the LI poll, it's Merlin with a score of 5-4