Disclaimer: Log Horizon, all of its characters, musics, and stories belongs to their own respective owner. In this case, is written by Mamare Touno, illustrated by Kazuhiro Hara and published by Enterbrain. The only things I own here is the OC named Drest. This fanfict may or may not be canon. Besides that, I've got nothing else to say. So with that, please take a seat, grab your drink, pick your snack, and have a pleasant ride (or read).

[Episode I : Meeting with The Adventurers]

Chapter 1 "Mismatch Memories"

Waking up, the first thing the man saw was the moss covered ceiling. He moved his head a bit to the left and then to the right, trying to confirm the condition of his own body. After making sure nothing was out of place, he slowly lifted his body into a sitting position.

He rubbed the back of his head. As his glove covered hand caressed his thick black hair, he tried to remember something.

(...How did I get here?)

As he pondered that, he looked around his surroundings. The place seemed to be abandoned decades ago judging from the condition of the floor, furniture, roof, and wall. Vines sprouted from the cracked wall and covered the turned over and broken furniture inside the room. The sunlight came from the hole on the top part of the wall. The window beside it failed to do its function due to the number of leaves and moss covering the window, thus making the hole on the wall as a primary source of illumination in the room.

"…Ugh, my head," he said while rubbing the back of his head again. A small bump was there, evidence that one way or another he bumped his head not long ago.

He stood up slowly, avoiding any chance of hurting himself more than he already had. While dusting his clothes, he noticed something strange.

"…What's this?"

In front of him, floating words appeared. A few translucent windows showing a variety of stuff was hanging in front of him. He turned around with the intention of trying to look at the windows in a different position. To his surprise, the windows followed him and stayed in front him. Giving up that idea, he started to read the windows.

A lot of stuff was really cramped there. But the first thing that he noticed was the part on the upper right.

"I-Is that..me?"

He said as he saw the image on the left part of the window. It was a portrait of him from the bust up wearing a neutral expression. Next to it was a symbol consisted of a pair of identical cutlass crossing each other. Still confused at what's happening, he read the words next to the portrait.

"Drest. Race/ Human. Swashbuckler, Lv. 90."

Under those words, two bars were visible. The top bar, which had the gradient color from bright yellow to dark green, had the word 'HP' on it and the numbers '10225/10225'. The bottom bar, which had the gradient color from dark purple to dark blue, had the word 'MP' on it and the numbers '10125/10125'.

"…What the? Is that supposed to be me?" He said as he looked to the word 'Drest' next to the image of him.

"Is that supposed to be my name? But my name is–AARRGGHHH!"

But before he could finish his sentence, a painful shock invaded his head. He clutched it in his pain. The pain was so much that he was forced to kneel.

After a while, the pain subdued little by little. The pain was so much, that he was forced to gasp for air.

"W-What was that? I was just remembering my nam–AAAARRGGGHHH!"

The same pain struck him again, forcing him once again to clutch his head in pain. This time, the pain went a bit longer, making him suffered much more than he expected.

After a few excruciating second that felt like years for him, the pain finally subsided, the black haired man breathed over and over with raging breath. Wiping his saliva from the edge of his mouth, he concluded his condition.

"No more name recalling, ever!" He shouted to no one in particular.

With no memory of anything, he surveyed the whole empty room for any clue that might be useful. And in split second, he found it.

"Huh? What's this?"

He picked up the object. It was a rugged looking book. The cover was made from leather that looked worn out from repeated use over the times.

He looked at the front cover but fail to find any writing that indicated the book's title.

Curious at the content of the old book, he flipped it open.

"W-What the!?"

The book glowed brightly, blinding him. He let go of the book. But instead of falling into the cracked floor below, the book stayed afloat in front of him. The pages flipped open with incredible speed that he could feel wind was created through that.

Strangely, no intention of leaving appeared inside his mind. It was as if he was meant to be there at that moment.

(What's going here!?)

Although confused at the sudden turn of event, he tried to keep what he thought inside his own mind.

A few seconds later, the pages stopped flipping. Still feeling wary at the possibility of danger from the floating object, the man stood in his place without making any movement.

The book then glowed brightly, blinding him.

"ARGH! What-AAAARRRGGGHHHH! NOT AGAIN!"

He screamed not because of the blinding light, but because of the same searing pain, for the third time, invaded his head.

This time, there was a difference. The difference was that while there was pain, he was seeing and hearing a lot of things.

Places he never been on his life. People he never meet. Language he never heard. Clothes he never saw.

Those things moving at a blinding speed inside his own mind, confusing him and dizzying him.

"….Don't forget….mission…The…..last one…."

(Huh?)

That one sentence felt different than the other things. It sounded familiar, but somehow also felt foreign.

With a sizzling sound, the book ceased to glow. Just like the glowing, the pain stopped attacking him and the wave of foreign information stopped moving inside his head. But the effect of the pain made him unable to sit properly, let alone stand up. He just stayed still with both of his hands and legs on the ground, panting and trying his best to keep his saliva from pouring onto the floor. Seconds became minutes, but he was still unable to do anything else except keeping his mind checked and holding his consciousness.

He tried to focus his mind as best as he could do, but the stream of information from before had made it much more difficult that he expected. But he knew that he needed to stay conscious. He didn't know why, but he just knew.

"…Urgh…"

With a groan, he finally able to relaxed his body. Although inside his head there was still ringing and spinning happening around, he finally managed to bring it down to a level that will not force him to faint.

But the moment he tried to put strength to his legs, his knee gave out and he fell again. The only thing he could do was to rolled over to his backside, making his view once again the moss covered ceiling.

Shifted into a more comfortable position than before, he man tried to recall back what happened while avoiding trying to remembering his previous name. He resigned to his fate, thus accepting the name 'Drest' as his for now.

Blinking rapidly, trying to gain view from his cloudy eyes due to the previous torrent of pain, he explore the translucent windows while regaining his power.

He read each of the available windows very slowly, finding the task was much harder than he expected. Drest tried moving his finger into one of the word and found that it react to that simple gesture. Another window opened. Inside it was another set of foreign information.

He found information about his self, from his strength, to his dexterity, to his vitality, to his luck. How they were gauge was a mystery of their own for him.

He then moved on to another window. This time, it contained the description and explanation for his gear.

His weapon which was consisted of a twin dirk called 'Monochrome Shine Dirk' that had a rather high damage point and speed point.

The clothes he was wearing also had a name. It was called 'Silent Verdant Trench Coat'. It was a very unique item that had the ability to conceal any of the sound the wearer made and the wearer's voice completely, in this case the sound he made and his voice.

And there was also something that piques his interest, a ring that was put into the so called 'Accessory Slot' with the name 'Fools Ring'. The accessory in question was said to be able to fool everyone around the wearer and make the wearer to be ignored or hardly recognizable. As he read that, he lifted his other hand. And just as the window stated, his eyes quickly laid upon the ring in question. It looked very ordinary indeed. Just a simple golden ring that had the color of white, purple, and green. He could only looked at the object with confusion, unknown whether to accept the fact that a simple object like this could have such a tremendous ability or rejecting the fact altogether.

Even if the ring confused him, there was another thing that confused him more. It was the fact that for some reason, he understood what those terms meant.

"…The book," said the lying man while remembering a certain book that gave him that agonizing time.

He looked to his side and found the book. It was just an arm reach away from his head.

(The book will probably give me an answer….I hope.)

But before he could reach onto the book, the book started to crack. And seconds later, it turned into dust that carried away by the passing wind. Drest could only look at the scene without even changing his expression. In the back of his mind, he knew something like that would just too good to be true. But the other part still resulted in a very disappointing feeling that one of the way– he hoped it will not be the only way– was gone.

With another heavy grunt, he tried to move into a sitting positing. Still unable to do anything serious, Drest just tried to regain his breath. As he did that, he realized that the window had disappeared all of a sudden, clearing the view in front of him. He still didn't understand what that was.

From the outside, he could hear a lot of commotion, like a lot of people yelling and shouting. No, rather than a human being, the sound was more like the cry of agitated beasts. Feeling curios about the situation, he tried to stand up. This simple act was much harder than he expected at first. But after a few minutes of slow process, he finally able to stood up.

He moved closer to the vine covered window. Pulling the vine apart slightly, he was given a view of his surroundings.

It was a place filled with many unknown building shaped in a foreign architecture. It seemed he was in one of those strange buildings as he could see the situation from a higher level of view. As he peeked through the window, a single word escaped his mouth with a shallow breath.

"…Akiba…"