British hegemon

Chapter 2 Soul Travels to the Middle Ages

A moment ago, in another time and space.

Night falls in the dimly lit alleyways of a small coastal town in a major Eastern country.

A thug in a suit was running for his life, blood gushing from the knife wound on his cheek with each step. The crimson blood soaked through his shirt collar and flowed down his right arm onto the fire axe covered in bits of flesh and bone.

Excessive blood loss left the suit-wearing thug, who was not yet thirty, with a pale and ashen face, and the gaping wound on his cheek that exposed his teeth was even more horrifying.

After running for a while, he leaned against the mottled alley wall, panting heavily. He glanced back at the several figures following closely behind him, and then turned to see more figures in front of him.

There was no escape. The thug in the suit hardened his heart, picked up his axe, turned around, and charged at the pursuing figure.

I had only run three or four steps when there was a loud bang behind me.

The lead bullet from his homemade gun pierced his left shoulder, and the huge impact knocked him down, his body tumbling half a circle before crashing to the ground.

The ensuing excruciating pain caused him to briefly go into shock.

After a moment, the sound of leather shoes pacing on the ground gradually became clearer, and a figure holding a homemade gun came to his side. After confirming that the man had fainted, he slowly squatted down, raised the barrel of the gun, and flipped it over the gun wound of the thug in the suit.

He said grimly, "Roger, you do your smuggling, I do my drug trafficking, we don't interfere with each other, but you insist on blocking my source of income. I'll send you on your way right now."

As he spoke, he pointed the cold, rough muzzle of the gun at the temple of the thug in the suit on the ground.

The moment the gun was pressed against his head, the suit-clad thug's right hand, gripping the axe, silently tightened slowly.

Just before the trigger was pulled, the fire axe in his right hand suddenly swung up and chopped down at the head of the man holding the gun.

Bang!

............

Bang.

The loud thud of the door being kicked jolted Roger awake from his nightmare. Though he didn't open his eyes, he sensed a tall man barging into the bedroom and heading toward the bed.

"Sir, you've finally arrived." A middle-aged woman with tears streaming down her face got up from beside Roger's sickbed, forcing a smile onto her haggard face.

The middle-aged man who kicked the door open was wearing a hard leather coat, covered with chainmail, with a dagger and a knight's sword at his waist. He had a long, scarred face and a thick beard.

He paced to the bedside, his face full of displeasure. "The priest said this bastard won't die?"

The middle-aged woman stepped forward, her tears already wiped away, and her face beaming with joy. "Thank God, our son is alive! Although he often talks nonsense in his sleep, he is finally alive."

In stark contrast to the middle-aged woman's reaction, the man's expression showed no joy whatsoever. "The Campbell family has been noble for generations, yet they have produced a devil that even God wouldn't accept."

The middle-aged woman said with a hint of reproach, "Sir, Roger is your son. No matter what, he is of Campbell blood."

The middle-aged man snorted coldly, turned around and walked to the small window of the bedroom, looking at the small island across the bay in the distance. "This afternoon I will lead the manor soldiers to Brodick to assemble, and tomorrow we will take a boat to Galloway to fight the English."

"When I return from this battle, I will send this scourge to his uncle's ship and let those uncouth sailors teach him how to be a good man."

"I disagree." The middle-aged woman took two big steps to stand behind the man.

"Roger is a nobleman's son, how could he associate with those lowly sailors?"

"Moreover, the sea is treacherous and piracy is rampant. How can our son endure such hardship?" The middle-aged woman's voice was not loud, but her attitude was very firm.

"It's not your place to agree," the man snapped, turning around.

"Don't forget, this bastard is only the second son. Since he doesn't want to be a servant of God, then let him befriend the sea monster. In any case, we can't let this bastard stay on the island and cause trouble."

After saying that, the man glanced hatefully at Roger, who was lying on the bed with a pale face, and turned away.

At the bedroom door, the man gripped the hilt of his sword and ordered the old butler standing beside him, "Confine this bastard to his quarters for a month. If he escapes even half a step out of the bedroom, I'll chop off both your legs."

"Master, you can't do this..." the middle-aged woman pleaded as she chased after him, the bedroom door slamming shut behind her.

Finally, with peace and quiet, Roger slowly opened his eyelids. A thick layer of eye discharge made this simple action extremely difficult. After a long while, a glimmer of light finally appeared in the endless darkness.

Including the three days he was in a deep coma, this is Roger's sixth day in this world.

The things that happened to him were too bizarre and beyond his imagination, but he accepted reality in just a few days.

For a suit-wearing thug who has already died once, extreme adaptability is simply the most basic survival skill in that cruel world.

The sky was clear and bright, and the soft light of the rising sun shone through the small stone window into the dim bedroom, the light carrying fine dust particles.

Roger squinted for a moment to adjust, then, enduring the waves of pain, slowly turned his head to scan the entire bedroom.

The room, which was about twenty square meters, had only one window opening, about two feet square. If it weren't for the diffused sunlight filtering through that window, Roger would have thought he had fallen into a dark kiln.

The gray-black, moldy stones on the surrounding walls made the room even more gloomy and dark. On the left side of the bed, an iron candlestick held a half-extinguished, yellowish candle.

A dark fireplace was embedded in the stone wall opposite the bed, and the wooden door of the bedroom opened directly opposite the bed; the oak door was low and heavy.

The only two pieces of furniture in the room were the hardwood bed with rushes on it that Roger was lying on, and the low square table next to the fireplace that was cluttered with earthenware pots, wine glasses, plates and wooden spoons. Two plump rats were scavenging for food on the plates.

If the chair with a limp leg next to the wooden bed can be considered furniture, then it is the only three pieces of furniture in the room.

This family wasn't poor; in fact, Roger's "father," Knight Colin Campbell, was the wealthiest nobleman on Arran Island besides his brother, Baron John Campbell.

Rumors suggest that the Campbell family was founded by the illegitimate son of Brian Bolou, the High King of Ireland.

Two hundred years ago, this family migrated from Ireland to Scotland and had kinship ties with the Soller family, Dukes of the Western Isles, and several Indigenous families in Scotland, and even had a very thin maternal blood relationship with the Dunkeld royal family.

Therefore, the Campbell family has always inherited a small territory at the southern tip of the Argyll Peninsula.

Forty years ago, King Haakon IV of Norway invaded Scotland. Roger's great-grandfather, John I, spent all his wealth to organize a small force to join the Scottish National Guard. The two armies fought a decisive battle at Rags on the River Clyde.

Ultimately, the Scottish army defeated the Norwegian invaders, and Roger's great-grandfather was made a baron by King Alexander III of Scotland for his outstanding military achievements and was granted the Isle of Arun.

The island of Arran, which was recovered from the Norwegians, became a nominal royal vassal territory of the Scottish kings, breaking away from the control of the Earl of Argyll.

From Roger's great-grandfather to his grandfather and father, three generations ruled and gradually accumulated a substantial family fortune, especially his grandfather, John II, who was extremely skilled in business.

The Isle of Aran was once a jewel of trade in the western Scottish Sea and an important tax-collecting location for the Scottish royal family.

By Roger's father's generation, the Isle of Arun, along with the Campbell family, was gradually declining due to the instability of the national government and the invasion and rule of England, but it still had a rich heritage.

The Campbell family of Arane Island had been a single-line family for generations, until Roger's father had two sons and a daughter. So, although Roger's father was not the eldest son, he still received a knighthood and a fief.

Over the years, the island of Arran has fought many battles with the English, and Roger's father was promoted to the rank of Knight of the Square for his military achievements.

The manor house where Roger lives was also built by his grandfather.

By the standards of that era, the mansion was practically brand new. It was called "Milk House" by the islanders because its walls, main house, and towers were all made of fine white stone, which was painstakingly transported from the Gote Mountains.

The main beams and rafters of the mansion are made of oak logs, and there is a small spire on top of the attic.

But Roger's bedroom was the most dilapidated of Sir Colin's three sons, not only because his bedroom had been neglected for many years, but also because he was Sir Colin's least favorite son.

Roger was not yet fully aware of these circumstances; he was even unaware of the background of the family he had come to.

Later generations did hear of the Campbell family's great reputation, but judging from the surrounding environment, it seems that even if it was related to that famous and powerful family in later generations, it would be several hundred years later.

Roger didn't care about any of that; his eyes were fixed on the opposite wall.

A wooden-handled hunting knife hangs on the stone wall above the fireplace. The knife must have been abandoned for many years. The bare blade, without a sheath, is covered in rust and layers of spider webs. Both the rusty blade and the wooden handle are slightly bent and curved.

Roger desperately wanted it; if he had a sharp weapon, those haunting nightmares might disappear, and the unease he felt in this strange place would be relieved.

But now, even turning his head is difficult for his body, and he can't get out of bed at all.

These days he's been plagued by all sorts of bizarre and fantastical nightmares.

Occasionally, a terrifying fight scene will occur in that dark alley.

But more often, I have inexplicable dreams—sometimes I'm stealing chickens and dogs in a farmhouse courtyard, sometimes I'm bullying farmers' children with a group of thugs, sometimes I'm listening to tedious dogma in a church-like building, and sometimes I'm naked on an ambiguous and hazy bed...

As soon as he closes his eyes, those dreams recur.

Strangely enough, Roger could not only understand and speak the languages ​​in his dreams, but even more strangely, he could no longer speak his own language clearly.

This is what the middle-aged woman meant by "nonsense".

Roger gradually realized that those nightmares were actually memories of his two lifetimes in his mind, and he was becoming the master of this body.

However, Roger couldn't form a three-dimensional impression of this world based solely on those vague fragments of memory. It felt like watching a flickering, fragmented black-and-white film, always with a sense of estrangement.

He tried to sit up, but as soon as he lifted his head, which was wrapped in linen, he felt a sharp pain and his forehead was covered in cold sweat.

"Young Master Roger, please lie down." The young man who pushed open the door quickly put down the toilet he was carrying and rushed forward to support Roger's shoulder.

"The priest said that the wound on your head has not yet healed, and moving around will cause it to bleed again."

The boy was about fourteen or fifteen years old. His still-childish face was covered with freckles, and there were already a dozen or so light downy hairs on his thin lips. His worn-out gray wool coat was obviously ill-fitting, but the narrow leather belt was tied very neatly.