Time was passing pleasantly in the wagon until: “Time for you to start running again.” Kiyara said with a shooing motion. My legs just hurt so I just looked at her but her stare brooked no argument and with Gilana snoring softly in her lap and Franz passed out hugging a beer keg I was out of allies and got off the wagon. Pro tip: Do not get off a wagon in motion, the slow speed is deceptive and I face planted in the dirt.

Cursing under my breath I started half jogging after the wagon and noted that the landscape around us had changed dramatically since lunchtime. I had been told that it would be like this in our post lunch discussion, but the complete lack of anything man made except the road we were on was a bit unnerving. As far as the eye could see, there were gently sloped grasslands that looked excellent for either pastures or farming.

The others had told me that the massive area between cities and fortified towns were exclusively wildlands dominated by monsters, which had felt like an exaggeration until now. I still remember asking ‘what about villages’ and the look that earned me. There were no villages in this world. People either lived in cities, towns or extremely secluded hamlets. Villages would just get overrun in stampede season which, as terrifying as it sounds, was apparently approaching, yay! Apparently once a year, monsters would send out their young to find their own territories and you guessed it, almost every species of beast and monster known and unknown to man did this at the same time of the year.

“What’s up with that?” I thought while panting and just barely keeping up with the wagon. What was really odd about it was that this always happened at the end of summer. Irrelevant of where on the continent you lived. So, in the south at the equator. “If this oversized planet has an equator…” Monster stampedes would happen later than they did here, and far later than they did up north.

This apparently allowed adventurers and guild members to take part in stampedes for almost a full season if they travelled south with the stampedes. This was apparently something all of my party members had done several times. It was apparently ‘A good way to grow stronger while making ‘bank’’. I guess they had the sword on their badge for a reason. Although Kiyara had looked less than enthused as Gilana and Franz talked about the stampede season like some kind of workout period.

I was starting to fall behind the wagon when it stopped and I stumbled into it as the others jumped out.

“W-what… is going… on?” I asked, wheezing.

“It’s time for some combat practice!” Franz responded with a wide smile that could be seen through the visor of his helm.

“Huh?” Was the only thing I managed to say before I heard howling.

“Nice, grassland wolves!” Gilana said happily. Then she slapped me on the back. “We will be leaving one to you, make us proud!” She grinned and trotted off to the side of the road.

“Hu? W-wait, w-what?!” I shouted in panic. “I can barely stand!”

“Don’t be such a wimp, Goldie.” Kiyara half sneered. “They are only Bronze ranked monsters.” I gaped at her as she lazily leaned against the wagon.

“It’ll be fine boy. That armour of yours is from wyvern leather, it pains me to admit it but these mutts will be unable to even scratch it.” Franz said, before slapping me on my ass and rolling his shoulders, axe and shield in hand. “Oh do you have a weapon?” He then asked as an afterthought.

“W-well I um… I mean I do but I’ve…” I didn’t get to finish my stuttering sentence before Gilana spoke excitedly.

“Here they come!” And so they did.

Eight sleek forms just appeared out of the grass in front of me and charged at us. I gulped and blinked, when I opened my eyes four of the wolves with their green coats had knives sprouting from their eyes and the remaining ones redoubled their charge.

One came straight at me and I panicked. I used: Soul weapon and my knife appeared in my right hand and got into position. Lowering my centre of gravity and placing my knife, which was basically as long as a short sword, in front of me. Then the wolf jumped at me, it's dagger like teeth gleaming in the sunlight. I um… I might have closed my eyes. Not the smartest idea but the wolf was scary okay! Also turns out, this was not the worst idea ever.

Have you ever seen in movies or the like where a really strong swordsman simply cleaves a monster or something similar right down the middle? In the movies the monster just sort of split around them leaving the swordsman spotless just standing there in a cool pose. That, did not happen.

Well the splitting did, apparently when a Bronze ranked monster meets a soul weapon there is little to no resistance. So the split beasty did indeed go sailing past, the blood, guts and other various pieces of gore however, did not go sailing past me. And so I took my first shower since entering Savani.

“Quite the weapon you got there!” Franz said, surprised and I did my best to wipe the gore off my face with my free hand. I did an even poorer job than the butcher Tom once had, at least I could still see.

What I saw was Kiyara trying and failing to hold back her laughter, Franz quietly observing my knife from outside the ‘splash zone’ and Gilana skipping back with two wolves skewered on her sword. All of the wolves were dead. Most had knives stuck in their eyes.

“Well you are better off than I was in my first battle.” Gilana said with a smile. “Still, you should probably wash yourself off.” She pointed off to the side from where we had come from. “There is a creak over there, we’ll skin and collect the meat in the meanwhile.”

“Sure…” I just trudged off, gore dripping off me and leaving a bloody trail as I went and I soon learned that blood, is very hard to clean off.

By the time I was ‘clean’, wet and utterly exhausted, the others were already done with whatever they had been doing and were impatiently waiting for me. I wanted nothing more than to change into some clean clothes and sleep but I had been firmly told that under no circumstance was I allowed to take off my armour. So I settled for sleeping. A few hours later I woke up and with a nagging sensation I opened my log.

00.1.3 15:42,21: You have slain a Grassland wolf, essence gain.

00.1.3 15:42,22: You have accumulated enough essence to reach Level 2. You have gained: 1 Vit, 2 End, 1 Int. 5 Skill points awarded.

“Nice!” I thought, sitting up and checking my stats.

Name: Victor Lynth, lvl 2* Human.

Class: None

HP: 100/100*

E: 68/94*

MP: 146*

Will: 252*

Attributes: Str: 8, Agi: 9, Dex:10, Vit:10*, End:9*, Int:13*, Wis: 11, Cha:9.

Skills:

Special: Interface, Skill point system, True familiar (Simon), Sixthsense, Telekinesis

Passive: Mind palace 1, Mind 2,

Active: Storage 3, Soul weapon 8, Dimensional magic 3.

Boons: Esper

Skill points: 9*

“Nice.” I smiled.

“Did you level up?” Gilana asked, far more softly than usual. And I turned to her with a smile. I was about to answer when she put a finger to her lip and shushed me. She looked down with a gentle look in her eyes and I followed her gaze. In Gilana’s lap rested a curled up Kiyara.

Kiyara had a relaxed expression that was so at odds with her normal expression that I thought for a moment that it was another person entirely. Gilana was gently combing Kiyara’s green hair with her fingers with such gentleness that I could not help but feel that this was closer to Gilana’s true self than anything I’d ever seen.

“Congratulations on levelling up, is this your first time?” She asked softly. I just nodded, almost afraid to break the peace with my voice.

“You can speak you know?” She giggled. “As long as you do not shout she won’t wake up.” She said this as she rearranged a few loose strands of green hair.

“I, eh…” I swallowed hard. “I just feel like… umm, I feel like Kiyara would bite my head off if she saw me looking at her right now.”

“She just might.” Gilana said with a scary smile. “Especially if you keep staring and I tell her.”

“P-please don’t.” I said pleadingly as I looked into Gilana’s eyes. I did this despite being almost positive that she had been joking.

“Don’t worry I won’t, I’ll just chalk it up to Kiyara being far too cute for her own good.” She said with a giggle and leaned down to inspect Kiyara more closely. Seeing the ‘brutish’ Gilana and the delicate looking Kiyara like this made it hard to look at but even harder to look away. With some effort I looked away from the two and checked what new skill I could get.

There were a few standouts namely: Knife fighting 1, Body reinforcement 1 and Bond 1. I called these standouts because I am very interested in getting them and I had no idea what Bond was. There were also sundry skills like Running. There was also the stupid expensive Time attribute magic at 250 skill points. I also learned that I could use the ‘system’ to see how close I was to getting a skill by checking the cost. This I knew because Running only cost me 8 skill points, whereas other basic skills like Knife fighting cost me 10 skill points, at least I think that’s how that works. What I really wanted to do however was to increase the rank of Mind as it appeared to both increase my mana, will and sharpen my senses.

Considering how most things in this world smelled rather unpleasantly and almost all food I had eaten hadn’t been great, sharpening my senses was honestly not high on my priorities. “Still, I think the merits far outweighs the detriment.”

I was about to increase Mind when a thought struck me. “So, I will get more mana. The only way for me to use Mana is with Storage…” I blinked looking at the skill. “I also get more Will but I only use will for telekinesis, which has proved rather useless even after becoming a special skill. So… why did I think Mind would be a good investment for my points?”

This was when I heard a soft grunt and looking over I saw Kiyara walk up and kiss Gilana as the latter pulled the elf into a close embrace. I turned to look away suppressing my blush as best I could.

“Did you have a nice nap sweetie?” Gilana asked lovingly. I could not help but glance over as Kiyara stretched and yawned. “Is she a cat?”

“I did. I feel like I can finally breathe again, human cities stink.” Kiyara said, wrinkling her nose. “That many people shouldn’t be allowed to live in a single place.” She noticed me glancing at them and I looked away and she snorted derisively and Gilana giggled.

“You two are hopeless.” Franz said disgustedly. “It be one thing if you were like Sirial or any of the other beauties from back home that’d be one thing but two gangly girls like the two of you just creeps me out. Wouldn’t you agree Victor?” Franz said, looking to me for support. This caused Kiyara to look at Franz and then me coldly and Gilana’s expression turned challenging as her eyes bored into me.

“I plead the fifth!”

“What?” Kiyara asked with a raised eyebrow and the other two just looked confused.

“It’s a saying from my world.”

“Yeah we got that, what does it mean?” Gilana asked, pressing me for an answer.

“Umm… w-well…” I tried to dodge the question but the other three did not let me. “It means that I refuse to incriminate myself…” I sighed at the looks I got. “I mean, I don’t think I could give a ‘correct’ answer to that question so I exercise my right to stay silent. Also know in my world as pleading the fifth.” Franz and Kiyara tried to press me for an answer but I just looked at the slowly moving landscape and ignored them, this was why I missed Gilana’s wide smile.

As the sun began to fall the wagon slowed to a crawl and Kiyara shot me an angry look and said “This is your fault.” Then she jumped off the wagon, vanishing into the thicket of trees. I looked at the other two confused but they didn’t even notice. Franz was nursing a mug of beer and Gilana was sharpening her sword.

“So do you remember when you asked about villages earlier today?” Gilana said as she inspected her sword in the light of the setting sun. I nodded. “Since we are not going to reach the town of Embry tonight as we had planned, we will be resting at an old acquaintance. She and I don’t get along.”

“She doesn’t get along with anyone.” Franz said unamused. “She barely even tolerates her own pets.”

“True.” Gilana said with a half-smile. “But her place is safe and as long as you bring gifts she is a…” She paused trying to find the right words.

“A terrible host?” Franz supplied.

“Well you are not wrong.” Gilana said and laughed. “Anyway long story short, she is a witch and she is more than a little insane.”

“So um… why are we going to her home? You are not really looking too eager…” I asked, looking between the two. They shared a look, then Franz shrugged.

“Because nights out in the open can be far, far worse than anything you could imagine.” Franz said with a grunt. “Since you’re new here and we might not always be there with you I will warn you right now.” He looked me dead in the eye with an utterly serious expression. “If you ever have the choice, make sure you stay inside any safe place you can find at night. Do not think twice about begging, bribing or even making threats to secure a safe place for the night.” Franz just looked at me making sure that took him seriously.

“You should trust on this. That lesson is one that you should avoid learning at all cost.” Gilana added in a sombre voice before shrugging. “That said, 9 out 10 times nothing will happen and most people think that people like us are just paranoid.” She laughed but it was a hollow laugh. “But it is because they have not seen what we have, they have not survived by luck and the sacrifices of others.” Gilana looked me dead in the eye and there was both fear and sadness in her vibrant green eyes.

I did not know what to do. “I mean what can I do?” No words of comfort, nothing I could say, nothing I could do would change the past. I wanted to comfort Gilana, someone I considered my friend. But it was an old wound and I did not know how to comfort her, nor did I feel it was my place. As I began panicking internally, Kiyara returned with a sour expression.

“What the fuck is going on here?” She growled. She looked at the sad looking Gilana and the immobile Franz.

“They were telling…”

“IT WAS YOU!” Kiyara said and I saw a fluctuation in her aura that terrified me. She looked like she was about to lunge at me when Gilana snatched her out of the air and hugged her tightly and bit her ear. Kiyara yelled and after a moment of squirming Gilana grinned and spoke.

“Well, aren’t you the cutest thing in the world sweetie?” Gilana pulled the elf into her lap and huffed. “We were warning Victor about sleeping outside.” Kiyara stopped squirming then and frowned unhappily. “We just got a bit emotional.” Gilana said, loosening her grip. Not enough that Kiyara could leave but enough that she could get into a comfortable position.

Kiyara wore a slight blush possibly because of her overreaction, or because of Gilana rather forceful disarming of the situation. “Or because of the rather intimate cuddling that happened after Gilana caught her…” I would probably never know.

“Now that you have calmed yourself sweetie, how about you tell us what Grish said?” Gilana said prodding Kiyara. Kiyara snorted and got an unhappy expression on her face. She had stopped staring dagger at me, in fact she had stopped looking at me at all. But her aura had returned to the blue tinged green it was before her outburst. “But damn, I have never seen such rapid change before.” I shuddered slightly at the thought.

“She said that she will ‘happily’ put us up for the night.” She looked more than a little unhappy about it but the other two let out a relieved breath. “The price is as ever, one thing she has never seen before.” That was actually good news! I had a bunch of stuff that didn’t even exist in this world yet.

“Um, since it is my fault we are late so how about I pay the price?” I smiled, maybe I could finally contribute. The three looked at one another sounding more than a little reluctant.

“Um, you know Victor, she has seen a lot of things by now.” Gilana spoke slowly. “The only reason we know that we have something she has never seen before is because she cast a…”

“She cast a curse on us that allows us to see what items she is interested in.” Kiyara said when Gilana stalled. “That is the other part of the price when staying in her ‘sanctuary’.” They didn’t believe that I had something unique enough that the witch had never seen it before. I snorted.

“You are the people saying that I’m a weirdo from another world” I pulled out the half empty shampoo bottle of vodka. “You think that the only thing I am storing in my Storage are the supplies we bought for the trip?” The three looked at the item curiously before Franz’s eyes went wide and he snatched up the bottle smelling it.

“By the Holy Mother!” He took a disturbingly long sniff. “This has an even purer smell than the Holy Mother’s sacred water!” Franz’s eye turned a bit bloodshot and he looked at me with almost manic intensity. “Is this from your world? Have you got more? Can I buy it? Did you make it? Do you know how it’s made? Can you make more? Have you got more?” Franz spoke like a machine gun and was almost in my lap panting when he finished.

“Help!” I said only to hear Kiyara laugh uproariously and Gilana giggle.

“WELL?!” Franz shouted frantically. His visored face mere inches from my own.

“First of all please get away from me and calm down!” I yelled and tried to push the dwarf away. He did not move an inch, it was like trying to push a block of solid steel.

“HOW COULD I BE CALM!” Franz grabbed my shoulders in a vice-like grip and shook me. “This holy water is what my clan has been searching for, for generations!” He stopped shaking me and held the shampoo bottle in my face. “And you were about to just hand it away to some witch!” He was about to continue when Gilana spoke sharply.

“Franz.” Her voice froze the dwarf. “We are entering her domain.” Her words were enough to make Franz’s mouth clamp shut as if some spell had been cast on him and he spoke very softly as he sat.

“We will talk more about this tomorrow.” Then he took his axe and strapped on his shield and sat absolutely motionless. “What the fuck is going on?!” I really wanted to scream but I had a pretty clear indication that’d be a bad idea.

“Victor.” Gilana spoke softly as we were suddenly surrounded by trees. “Be very still and quiet. Do not speak until I say you can.” She waited for me to nod before she continued. “Girsh is a semi reasonable person, her pets however are not. If they attack, just hide under the bench and we will drive them off. Do not hurt them or we will have more to worry about than to find a new place to stay for the night. Do you understand?” I nodded only a ‘bit’ terrified.

Gilana nodded and sat still with her sword out scanning the woods that had appeared out of nowhere. Kiyara was doing the same with two knives in her hand and eyes darting between the far too dark shadows in the forest.

This lasted far longer than it should have, and everywhere around us I noticed what looked like spider webs crisscrossing the between trees, bushes and the ground all around us. The webs were almost shining with internal light that somehow did not even remotely light up the dim forest. Worse, they made me almost nauseous just looking at them and they were slowly growing in number as we moved further into the forest.

As time passed the trees that had at one point looked normal, if a bit too closely grown, started to grow twisted and stunted with thick crowns that denied what little light we had once been enjoying. Yet, somehow we were not plunged into complete darkness. It was as if the entire forest was trapped in a state of perpetual twilight, never knowing the light of day or the blackness of night. Instead deep dark shadows stretched from each and every twisted tree, making the entire forest the stuff of nightmares. What was really creepy was that even with all the untamed vegetation and twisted trees, the way ahead was clear with just enough space for the wagon to make it through. This was clearly unnatural and it really disturbed me and I very much wanted to talk to ensure that everything was fine. Yet I had been warned, so I kept my mouth shut and watched the seemingly unbothered horse plod along.

I cannot rightfully tell you how long it has been since we entered into this dark forest that could have been ripped out of some child’s worst nightmare, but at some point we passed straight through one of the webs. The others either did not notice the web or they simply did not pay any attention to it but I was not so lucky.

The nausea I felt at first when I looked upon the webs had long since made me sick enough that I had to fight to keep my stomach contents inside. The web simply let the horses, the wagon and even us pass straight through them without as much as a flutter. But when I touched it I felt as if my skin and eyes were suddenly on fire and wordless scream was erupting out of my throat heedless of my will.

Gilana’s hand clamped onto my mouth in a blur, a worried look flashing across her face as Franz and Kiyara swore and stood in the wagon ready to meet whatever horrors hid in this forest. Yet what arrived right in front of my face was a young woman. Her hair was the colour of darkness itself and her skin was paler than the whitest snow. She had appeared out of nowhere and her pure black eyes stared into my own from a close enough distance where I could feel her cold breath on my face. So I did what any reasonable adult would. I passed out.

I woke up some time later and wished I had not. The wagon was still trudging forward and the other occupants were sitting unnaturally still even their eyes were locked straight ahead not even noticing me walking up. What I could see from my prone position was truly the stuff of nightmares.

Spiders the size of oxen were walking along with the wagon on the left and newts the size of dogs scurried about in the trees to the right. Ahead I could see a flock of miniature birds flock above the black hair of what I must assume was the witch like a swarm of insects. Yet, despite all of this it was almost completely silent, only the creaking of the wagon and the clomping of the horses could be heard. There was not even any wind to ruffle the leaves of the trees.

I slowly and cautiously pushed myself into a seated position and the witch, for that is what she must be, turned backwards to face me as she slowly walked along ahead of us. Her infinitely black eyes seemed larger than possible and she observed me without the slightest change in her expressionless mask. I just stared at her transfixed, like a deer caught in the headlights.

The two of us just observed each other for some time. Or rather she was observing me as I was frozen in place half in terror half in confusion. She was surrounded by something. I was reasonably sure it was not something from my Sixth sense, as by now I had gotten reasonably used to that. It felt like something else, something that made me nauseous, like when I had been looking at the spider webs before.

I had to close my eyes and focus to keep my stomach contents down and when I had calmed my unruly insides the wagon came to a halt and the others breathed collective sigh of relief.

“You really had me worried there.” Gilana said as she clapped me on the back and jumped out of the wagon. Franz muttered something about ‘Nightmare fuel’ as he jumped out of the wagon more gracefully than what looked possible in all that armour, and Kiyara was dead silent as she passed.

The mood improved rapidly as soon as the three were out of the wagon and when I joined the others on the ground I noticed that there were no strange animals around. There was only the gloomy clearing, a moderate sized house that looked utterly out of place and the witch. The witch was speaking with Kiyara in a language I did not understand and as soon as I walked up to the group her eyes shifted to me and I froze in place.

“Dugatha vactani ecata. Budrta de kath.” The witch said to Kiyara as she turned away from me.

“Um… what did she say?” I asked my companions nervously.

“Umm… She said that you will be sleeping in the wagon with the driver tonight.” Gilana said somewhat apologetically.

“Okey… did she say why?” I asked as I watched the witch walk off towards the house.

“Gilana was being nice, what she really said was: ‘His face is so dull I have already grown bored of if.’” Kiyara said flatly then added. “She is not wrong.” She shrugged.

“W-what?...” I asked, sputtering.

“My boy, think of it like this.” Franz said, trying to sound profound. “Your face looks like the gods started making a basic mould for the human face, then they sort of forgot to add any defining features and slapped that on your skull.” Franz clapped me on the back and followed the witch

“B… h… tha… h-harsh!” I finally managed to stammer out, stunned as I was by Franz’s words.

“He is not wrong.” Kiyara said with another indifferent shrug. Then she strode off after Franz.

“Goldie.” Gilana said, trying to sound comforting. “I like you, but they are not wrong.” Then she too walked off and I just stood there. I don’t know how long it took me to recover, but the first thing that I became aware of was Simon’s ‘Hungry’ ringing in my head.