Stepping through the gate isn’t disorienting or strange. The only thing Sen notices is that his feet seem to have become just a slight bit heavier, possibly from a higher gravity. Curious, he pulls up a world map of the actual fifth dimension on his handy little tablet, only to be surprised. It seems that the fifth dimension has decided to ignore normal physics, the curvature of the planet is faint to the point of being unnoticeable except over extremely long distances.

While they have figured out the approximate size of the fifth dimension, the entire population across the galaxy only takes up a tiny fraction of the super planet that the fifth dimension is. Sen wonders how that’s physically possible, but his musings on density of the planet versus size are interrupted by a strange sensation.

It feels almost like something is worming into his skin through all of his pores, and he panics a bit before he recognizes the feeling. It’s the same energy that he had become so comfortable controlling in the game.

Looking around to the others, they all have a similar uncomfortable look on their faces. After a few breaths of time, the strange sensation stops, and Sen can feel the familiar flowing of energy that seems to follow his blood.

“Now that all of you are here, you’ve been assigned a room in one of the buildings, and you will have free access to stay there for as long as you like. You will also have free access to the automated vehicles, similar to in game. This is all paid for by the crystal tax. 10% of any crystals you bring back will need to be handed in. Yes, this means that you don’t have to pay tax on any crystals you personally eat. Most small purchases will be made in credits. Your credit account is linked to your tablet, so don’t lose it unless you want to go through a bunch of DNA scans and pay a fine. It’s a large fee to get a replacement one,” a woman, seemingly there to greet them explains.

Everyone in the group nods, and backpacks are handed out to everyone. “The closest farming area is a thirty minute drive from here, and will be filled with G rank to E rank monsters. All of your stats should be approaching E rank due to the conditioning from the game capsules, so try not to die in a stupid fashion.”

The woman leading the group finishes her speech, and then just sets everyone free to do... whatever it is they’re supposed to do. Sen looks around at the city while trying to come up with a plan, and isn’t particularly surprised to see that it’s almost a replica of what he’d seen in game. Massive skyscrapers tower above them, constructions of steel and glass, and most of the automated vehicles look exactly the same, tall, slightly rounded things that are made to contain up to a dozen people.

The only differences are the occasional customized automated vehicle, and the occasional flying vehicle that lifts off from the tops of the buildings. The flying vehicles seem to make no noise, and Sen figures that they’re using the same technology that the spaceships from Earth had been using.

“So what do we do now?” Jennifer decides to ask what everyone is thinking.

“Hunt?” Sen decides to be the one to answer.

“Well I want to check out the room we got first,” Lynna overrides him.

The rest of the girls end up agreeing with Lynna, and they’re soon following the map on their tablets to find their new home. They’re soon in front of one of the massive skyscrapers, and hop in an elevator, as they’re on the eleventh floor. Once they arrive, they’re greeted by almost the exact same thing that they’d had at the military base, three bedrooms, a small kitchen, and two restrooms.

Once they’ve figured out who gets which room, They check their tablets to see how much food is going to be. It turns out that they can just have any food delivered for a pittance, but they currently have a big fat zero in their credits, though the small kitchen had come with some simple frozen meals.

They each have one of the rather good frozen meals, then head to go do some hunting in order to try and rectify their current monetary situation. Calling one of the automated vehicles, and thankful that they’re free, even if they’ll be forced to pay a tax, the group is soon heading to the closest farming field. It’s marked on the map on their tablet with a bright red pin, Sen feeling like they’re being treated as technologically incompetent.

Deciding to figure out how humanity hadn’t completely overhunted the monsters, Sen looks it up, and finds that they come from within the planet, and they seemingly have endless numbers down there, only the excess monsters coming to the surface. As far as humanity can tell, monsters can survive on pure energy, and at least low ranked monsters reproduce at phenomenal speeds, leading to the situation where they never seem to run out unless a high ranked party decides to go underground and wipe out most of their population, which has happened a few times until it was made illegal. Even then, the area repopulates with astounding speed from deeper within the planet.

Once Sen has satisfied his curiosity, he looks through more of his tablet, and finds that all of the basic elemental body enhancement skills are loaded on his tablet. After a bit of contemplation, he decides to stick with the wind versions, and waits for the vehicle to arrive before starting his practice

He is only able to get his spine done by the time they arrive at the field that they will be farming at, and notices that everyone else in the group had decided to join him in practicing their body enhancement skills.

After a bit of a walk, they find their first monsters, which of course is a group of goblins. They’re easily wiped out, but Sen is very satisfied with the fact that they actually bleed, the area they’d once occupied now a mess of blood from torn arteries and punctured hearts.

Once they’re done, they have to look up on their tablets what to do before taking some knives out of their backpacks to remove the crystals from the monsters, which are located in their heart. Luckily, the bones are easy to get through after Sen smashes their ribs with his sword. The girls all seem to be handling the gore surprisingly well. Even if it’s the same as in game, Sen had expected them to balk at the blood and guts.

“You know we’re going to have to eat these,” Sen mentions.

At that comment, all the girls turn a bit pale, but Sen pressures them into eating them, as they’re the first crystals that they’ve earned in the true fifth dimension. Lynna looks quite nauseous as she pops her crystal into her mouth after washing it off with a bottle of water from her pack. She soon calms down though, and Sen copies her, rinsing off the crystal and popping it in his mouth.

It isn’t flavorful like the ones in game, almost feeling like warm ice as it melts in his mouth. As it slowly disappears, Sen looks to the other girls. Jennifer is doing her best not to gag, Julie seems completely fine with it, and Xue would be doing fine if she wasn’t looking a bit pale.

Once they’ve all finished their first crystals, Sen notices that nothing noticeable has changed, which isn’t surprising considering that it’s only a G ranked crystal, and it takes more crystals to change your stats in reality, as much as a different dimension counts as reality.

They continue hunting, keeping around half of their crystals for trading in for credits, and it goes very smoothly, everyone used to working together from all the time they’ve spent together in the training game.

Julie keeps complaining about how she’s going to need to buy her knives and engrave them again to make her arrays, and eventually everyone agrees to give her a good deal of the money so she can have her arrays as soon as possible.

They stop their hunting relatively soon, as they can’t set up an illusion array to rest in peace, and head back to the road, where the automated vehicle has been kind enough to wait for them. Along the way, they start seeing quite a few other groups, which they hadn’t seen while further in the grasslands, and they wonder why everyone seems to be sticking to the outskirts.

They’re soon back in the city, and hand over a tenth of their crystals as tax before going to find out where to sell their remaining crystals for credits. The tablets come in handy yet again, and they take the automated vehicle to a building that looks suspiciously similar to the gaudy building that the crystal shop had been in game.

They enter the building that practically looks like a cathedral, and end up in the back of an annoyingly long line, even with what looks like eight people handling the visitors. The line moves quite quickly however, and they’re soon handing over all of their crystals for credits. They all smile as they see the number zero on their screen change to around five hundred each, which, while they’re not sure how much it can buy, according to the person at the military like base, should be enough to feed them for a few months without any problem.

Their first stop now they have some money is to hop on their tablets and order some food that isn’t just frozen meals. After a short discussion, they find that Lynna and Sen are the only two who have any idea how to cook, so they’re designated the cooks for the group.

Once they’ve handled the groceries, they head to one of the larger weapons stores, as Julie doesn’t need fancier knives for her simple arrays, simply engraving cheap ones, and using a different material to fill in the engraving.

They’re barely able to afford the many knives Julie wants along with a high quality engraver, and Sen looks at his now nearly empty bank account with sadness. Sen mood only lasts a moment, until he realizes that a single day’s worth of hunting had been able to afford them this much, making him surprised at exactly how valuable crystals are.

Once they’ve finished with their shopping for the day, Sen deciding to get some throwing knives of his own once he has better control over the wind again, they all head back to their small apartment to relax the rest of the day away, everyone exhausted from their new situation. While there, Sen decides to read up a bit more on reincarnators.

It isn’t anything official, but many reincarnators have claimed to have met up with their great rivals or lovers of the past. There is no supporting evidence, but how does one prove that they’ve met someone from their past life?

Once they arrive, they wait a bit for the food to be delivered, which doesn’t take long, and Lynna is soon cooking up a spicy curry. They all enjoy the meal, and Jennifer expresses interest in learning how to cook. Lynna quickly agrees, wanting to spread out the duty a bit more in order to be able to spend more time lazing about.

The next few weeks are filled with pretty much the same thing, though the group soon finds a few different restaurants and places to get refreshing drinks to spend their time away from hunting. Sen and Xue go on a few dates on their own, and Sen learns quite a few things about her. She’d been taught from an early age to handle her parents massive business, but her parents had soon gotten information from one of their investors about the fifth dimension, and had quickly transitioned into having Xue become a hunter in it.

“So why is everyone pushing so hard to have us be hunters? It’s a very lucrative job, but that’s about it,” Sen eventually asks her.

“You really haven’t been keeping up with the news, have you?”

Sen turns his head away, he’s simply been enjoying the hunting, and hasn’t bothered checking any of the news, or even looking around on his tablet.

Xue sighs. “At least on worlds other than Alpha, you’re treated as a second class citizen if you don’t have a bunch of crystals. The people in power tend to stay in power, especially when they can live practically forever.”

“So our parents are basically just using us to help stay in power?”

Xue shakes her head. “It’s not so much just to stay in power. If you don’t have any connections with a hunter, on other worlds you won’t be able to be anything but one of the lowest class of citizens. You have higher taxes, you can’t control a large business, you can’t hold any sort of political position. Our parents haven’t bothered to ask us to send them crystals, aside from Jennifer’s. They’re simply trying to get us in a good position for when the new laws come through. They’re trying to help us, not themselves.”

Sen feels a spike of guilt pierce his heart. His parents are simply trying to get him a good life, and he hasn’t bothered doing anything for them.

“I’m going to start sending back a bunch of crystals. I honestly had no idea it would be that bad. Is the situation that bad for those who don’t have connections to a hunter though?”

Xue gets a sad look on her face. “Honestly, a hunter can pretty much get away with murder on a non hunter. At worst, they’ll get away from it with a fine.”

Sen is aghast at this. “Wait, if the situation is that bad, why don’t they simply fight back?”

“It isn’t that simple. It was the people in power and the military who got access to the fifth dimension first. There’s no way they can fight back when the people in power are so much above them. A high rank hunter can’t be harmed by anything short of a nuke.”

“That seems a little ridiculous. We got strong in game, but it wasn’t nearly to that extent.”

“They toned it down in game. In reality, a rank G skill if your body is at rank C is enough to destroy a tank, and with your reflexes enhanced, you can literally see as someone pulls a trigger on a gun and get out of the way. By the time you hit rank B in a skin enhancement skill, you can just ignore guns. They couldn’t up the power levels in game because they can’t simulate the improved senses and reflexes.”

Sen shakes his head. “Well let’s just do what we can to keep our families doing well for now.”

“That’s the plan.”

The two of them finish off their frozen treat before heading back to their apartment. They hold hands on the way back, and Sen ends up sharing some more of his past life.

“So you spent your life doing nothing but being a bodyguard?”

Sen shrugs. “My earlier life was… bad, to say the least. I grew up an orphan. I learned how to use a sword, and used that the rest of my life.”

“So how did you die anyway?”

“I was stopping some pursuers from chasing after my lady. I was able to stop them, but I died at the end of it. I still don’t know if she got away.”

They both go silent, Sen wondering if his lady had gotten away, and Xue pondering what she’d learned.

They arrive back at their apartment, and Lynna instantly greets them with a “Did you have fun?”

The two are pretty much inured to her teasing at this point, and both reply in the affirmative. They all practice their body enhancement skills for a while before going to bed. As they go to bed, Xue pulls Sen aside, and gives him a quick peck on the cheek before running away.

Sen holds his hand to a cheek for a bit, and goes to bed after thinking that maybe he should reciprocate with some affectionate actions, as he is clearly on the back foot in this relationship.