Over the course of the next few days, my course diverted from the survivor’s camp. I felt the distance like a physical thing. A growing isolation even more apparent with my clone there, teaching the few who would listen what was edible and what was not.

First foraged and scouted, learning what he could and teaching when not. The people from the library had been eating whatever looked edible. A number of them had experienced some side effects that I had already endured myself.

Apparently, one of the greatest contributors to leveling was overcoming adversity. Dangers. I’d thought it had come from killing monsters, that’s when my own level-ups had occurred. This way made more sense.

I also found out I was the highest leveled person in the camp.

Name: Evahn Wynst

Level: 9

Class: [Solo]

STR: 6

CON: 7

DEX: 5

AGI: 6

PER: 9

INT: 10

WIS: 17

WIL: 19

CHA: 4

LUK: 4

Stat Points: 4

Skills: [Never Alone], [Low Profile]

I had reached level 9 a few days ago, with no apparent bonuses. The highest level in the camp was 5. And I wondered if it was because they had safety in numbers, or if it was a result of [Veil of Safety] effects lessening what they would otherwise have to face.

Or simply a testament to the absolute hell I had been through.

I kept my Stat Points to myself, entirely unsure where to place them. Plainly speaking, the three attributes that affected [Never Alone] were the obvious picks, however, I hesitated for the fact that there might be an enemy or danger that no amount of clones could combat.

If no amount of my physical stats could ever overcome an obstacle, then the number of my clones would never matter. Did that call for placing points in those stats? Or should I stick to what I knew?

Instead, I bided my time. Nervous, slightly, at the thought of hoarding something that could potentially save my life now as opposed to making it better later.

Still, I hoped I was out of immediate danger. I had been, aside from those first couple of days. So a little preparation for the future might not be a terrible idea.

“How quickly the mind adapts,” I said to myself, picking over the gnarled roots.

I still had nightmares, waking up in the middle of the night. Of gettings beheaded, stabbed, eaten. Of getting my eyes gouged out. The worst part was that the mind could play these nightmares with the knowledge of how it actually was.

Second, Third, and Fourth were the clones still with me. They were in positions such that I was in the center of a triangle, they at the points. I could admit I was scared, terrified, of this world but I’d also come to learn the swamp was beautiful, the forest magnificent.

Giant pools of murky water interspersed with bridges of roots. Vines hung down from the trees above, filled with birds of all kinds. Moss covered every surface it could grow on, touching the dreary palette of the swamp with muted brightness.

Some of the wildlife, some, were familiar. The birds could’ve been from Earth. There were frogs, croaking in the night, that looked no different than what I knew. Fish close enough to the surface of the water I could confirm were the same.

But then were the ‘dinogators’ which did little but give the mind an idea of what to expect. Alligators or crocodiles in form, but thicker and larger, longer. More lumbering. Maybe the size of a hippo. Yet with an explosive speed I’d witnessed many times over watching anything edible near the waters.

The wolves, which were less ‘wolf’ and more something else. They had the fur and the four-legged form, but the creatures were entirely alien otherwise. Two large eyes set into a predatory head, I avoided them whenever I could. They moved alone aside from when with their young.

And the goblins, though I equated to them some feral, swampy analog of primates. Only without the fur, but green skin that mud and water seemed to slide right off of. Reptilian, in a way. It wasn’t until I’d observed for longer I realized that they were amphibious as well. They dwelled in the waters with ease.

I had been walking on a large root, the largest I’d ever found, and had been simply following it. The thickness had been steady until today. Today, it grew larger, which confirmed I was heading to a tree, rather than away from it.

The forest cleared and suddenly, I was staring at something unimaginable.

The tree was such that its heights were lost to the mists of sheer distance. Its roots were enormous at the base, stretching and branching into an entire network that dug into the ground or plunged into the pools of water surrounding the base.

That wasn’t what made it unimaginable.

It was the skyscraper that was spliced into its side. An enormous building made small, cutting right into the side of the tree like it had been transplanted there, barely a third as tall as the tree itself. I could see the swamp already coming to envelop it, moss and vines hanging from its highest points. Birds perched atop its roof.

As if it had just popped into reality here. The windows and such were still intact, the majority of the structure unbothered. Another building. What’s more, there were figures below at the base. People. More survivors, but so far away and insignificant that my thumb could cover their entirety.

I took a seat there, on the edge of the root, right before it dipped down below into the pools and twisting paths below. My original self, that is. I sat there, staring at a man-made marvel made to look so insignificant, yet so uncomprehendingly large all at once.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, wondering just what had happened to Earth.

[Notice]: You have leveled up: Level 10.

[Notice]: You have gained the Class Skill: [Solo’s Instinct].