The man wasn't announced. He just appeared.
Ragged yurt at the edge of camp. Didn't bring a horse. Didn't ask permission. Just squatted by the bone pile, stirring a pot of something so foul it made the dogs gag.
No one approached him. Not at first.
Not even the veterans. Especially not the veterans.
---
Tegüs watched from a distance, chin in his hand, chewing dried meat that tasted like leather soaked in horse piss. He'd fought twice more since the Kiren match. Nothing big. Just scraps. The kind that came when you stared too long or stepped too wide. He didn't win all of them. But he learned something every time.
That was the point.
But this man…
There was something off.
Not in the usual way. Most madmen muttered or raved or pissed in the fire. This one sat too still. His eyes didn't track movement — they weighed it. His fingers were covered in ink, scars, and rings from at least three different continents. His breath steamed in the cold, but not like a man shivering.
More like something smoldering inside him.
They called him Arban. Some said he'd been to the edge of the known world. Others said he'd killed a demon in the east. Some said he was just a lunatic who once stabbed a monk for chewing too loudly.
Tegüs didn't care.
He just liked the map.
The old man had one — hand-drawn, half-burned, painted on tanned skin. Not parchment. Not leather. Skin.
And it showed places Tegüs had never heard of — jungles, towers, islands shaped like blades, seas with names that made no sense.
One place had a note scrawled in the margin:
> "Men here eat metal. Avoid the women."
Tegüs was in love instantly.
---
He approached after dark.
No one else dared. But Tegüs had already been hit with rocks, spears, fists, and insults from every direction. What was one more?
The man didn't look up when Tegüs spoke.
"You been to India?"
Still silence.
"Or Egypt? I heard they got temples taller than trees. Gold floors. Crocodiles with jewelry."
The man stirred his pot. Sniffed. Finally, he said:
> "Egypt smells like sand, rot, and ambition. India tastes like blood, sweat, and mangoes. Japan? Japan bleeds like everywhere else, but their blades sing when they do it."
Tegüs sat.
Didn't ask permission.
Didn't need it.
---
The madman talked like someone who wasn't trying to impress. His voice came like stories slipping out of broken barrels — some too dark, some too weird.
> "Saw an elephant take down a wall once. Big as ten yaks stacked up. Carried fire in its mouth. Siege tower on its back had a monk with silver eyes. Said he could see sin."
> "In the west, I saw a man wrestle a lion barehanded. Won. Then we found out the lion was pregnant and half-dead. Still. He told the story like it was war."
> "You ever heard of a place where men fight in arenas, for crowds? Not like here. Theatrics. Some wear masks. Some breathe fire. One had arms like rope and legs like tree trunks. No style. Just instinct. Feral."
Tegüs's heart beat harder. Faster.
He knew that place. Not the location — the feeling.
It sounded like…
Anime.
Like Baki.
Like Kengan.
Like things he used to watch, laugh at, dream about before he woke up in a world full of yaks, blood, and broken teeth.
His stomach twisted.
> This isn't just the past.
Something had clicked. Deep and hot. Like the first taste of sour wine that turned out to be better than any meat.
---
Tegüs didn't sleep that night.
His mind ran wild.
India. Egypt. Rome. Japan.
Not in a textbook. Not on a screen.
Real.
And not just the places. The people. The warriors. The styles.
He wanted to see them. Fight them. Learn. Lose. Win. Bleed and come back stranger than before.
> I don't want to be the strongest.
I want to walk until the map runs out.
I want to find the men who fight like beasts, and the ones who fight like gods.
And if they kill me, I want them to remember it.
---
👁️🗨️ POV: Kiren
Tegüs had changed.
Kiren felt it, though he hated to admit it. The boy didn't just fight different — he moved different. Walked like someone listening to a drum no one else could hear. His reactions were sharper. Not cleaner — never clean — but efficient. Dirty. Smart.
The others began to talk.
Not praise. Not yet.
But questions.
> "Did you hear what he did to the merchant's son?"
"They say the old hermit threw knives at him and he caught one with his teeth."
"He talks to madmen and sleeps in the dirt. Maybe he's cursed."
Kiren's teacher warned him:
> "Watch boys like that. The ones who don't care for form. They start as animals. Then they get clever. And when animals get clever, they stop being prey."
---
Tegüs didn't care what they said.
He was already carving a new plan in his skull.
He needed maps. Languages. Boats. New bones to break. New hands to shake. New rivals. New mentors. New madmen.
He wasn't a disciple.
He wasn't a soldier.
He wasn't even a warrior.
> I'm a savage looking for something that bites back harder.
---
The next morning, he left before dawn. Took a spear. Some meat. Stole a horse with a bad leg but a good heart.
No fanfare. No duel. No goodbye.
Only the sound of hooves on frozen dirt.
And behind him, a half-finished legend trailing like smoke.