After killing the freak of nature, I lost all the power in my body and slowly stumbled towards the lush greenery and my food. Never have I felt so weak and hungry.

Reaching for my knife I kneel in front of the beast, slitting its throat and put my mouth on the dying beast and drink its blood.

It is strangely sweet tasting.

The relaxing sensation when you realize you have straight up drank still warm blood from a mutant.

To be honest, it might actually be that every part of my body feels numb after that sprint and pushing my body over the limit.

Wow, I actually slept. Ugh, how horrible. I haven’t slept since I got my nature affinity. It leaves you all groggy but still wanting to sleep more.

Looking around I see the forest in front of me and a beast lying in a pool of blood. It feels disgusting to think I actually drank its blood.

Moving on, I walk into the forest. The trees here are really small compared to my beautiful Abraser trees.

When I step onto a patch of green underbrush I feel a surge of power. I feel a lot lighter. Breathing in the humid air, it feels like I walked into a different world. A different biome, heh.

This has to be a benefit of nature affinity. You can really feel the difference after walking in a desolate wasteland for who knows how long.

First things first! Climb a tree and see how big this place is. Quickly jumping to a branch and pulling myself up I make my way above the canopy. The view is astonishing.

The forest is miniscule! What is this? The forest looks like a wall surrounding a castle, a wall that is around the same height as the trees, maybe six meters? I am really bad with measurements, as you should know.

I make my way quickly to the other side of the wall of trees. A large beast is rushing towards a much smaller figure in the distance. The monster looks like a super-sized version of what I killed yesterday.

The figure turns around casually. The beast leaps in the air and flings its abhorred body at the man.

With a mechanical gesture and incredible speed he moves his hand and slashes with his sword towards the monster.

The beast stops mid-air before dropping to the ground where it stays motionless. The man just turns around and keeps walking away slowly.

What in the actual fuck was that? How can he be this strong? That was ridiculous, I doubt I could kill that brute so easily.

By the way, at this point in time, it might be worth mentioning that I can see inside the city or whatever it is.

The river flows on both sides of the wall, giving it a beautiful view. The town or city itself looks like it has been dug quite a bit down and there are few story high buildings within it even though the outside walls only appear to be a few meters high.

Screw it. I jump down from the highest tree I found and slowly make my way towards that dude of monstrous power.

I jog at a leisurely pace, because the guy is moving as if he was on his Sunday walk around town. When I made it up, the guy finally turns around even though I called out to him a few times.

“Greetings traveler.”

What? Greetings? What is this?

“Uhm greetings, man, I saw you kill that mutant earlier. That was amazing.”

What is wrong with this guy? He’s just absentmindedly staring at me.

“Okay. Well. So, I was wondering what this city is called.”

“This is the great sanctuary of Kaliami.”

This guy sounds a bit off. And his creepy smile isn’t helping at all.

“Alright, cool. I’ve been travelling for who knows how long and was planning on stopping by in this sanctuary, would that be fine?”

“That would be fine, you’ll find the city gates if you follow the river downstream.”

“Thanks man, see you later.”

As soon as I turn to move away from him he just turns back around and went on with his casual walk around the sanctuary.

I am not sure if I like the idea of meeting this kind of psychopath with the power to one shot gigantic monsters.

True to his word, I followed the river downstream and there was a giant gate with two guards by a small secondary entrance.

Strange thing was the road, it leads out of the sanctuary then fades away when it leaves the boundaries of the forest area.

First thing that comes to mind is that this place has something related with the world getting fucked up beyond all recognition.

From a distance I can see the guards chatting and laughing. When I get closer they notice me and suddenly their faces go stiff and have the same look in their eyes as the dude I met earlier.

“Greetings traveler.”

Again with this shit? Thinking about it, isn’t this what an Non-player characters are supposed to be like?

But the way their expressions changed after they noticed me is disturbing. This is why I don’t like people. They are terrifyingly weird. Why can’t people just be normal, like me.

“Hey guys, can you let me in the sanctuary?”

“Of course traveler, everyone is welcome in the sanctuary as long as they follow the rules.”

“The rules?”

Nodding at my question, he opens the gate for me. I was expecting an explanation about the rules though.

Should I ask him? Nawh, fuck that, I can’t stand their weird smiles. Quickly making my way past the guards, I get a view of the sanctuary.

It has to be said, it looks far smaller from the outside. There are a few decent sized farms in the outer circle of the city.

The river must be channeled through here in some way or form because water is flowing beautifully through the farm areas.

Beyond the farms is a bunch of four to six story high buildings. There is a wide road in the middle going straight to a building in the middle, it is spherical and is a bit bigger than the surrounding houses.

Strolling through the sanctuary gives off a nice calming feeling.

Ohhh, wait let’s try this! I bring out my knife and cut a small on my forearm, the wound heals at around the same pace as when I meditate.

That pretty much confirms it. This is an NPC town. It has to be some sort of protected area.

Constantly empowering my eyes, I watch some of the people working in the fields and the people walking down some of the streets. They all look relatively happy with no worry in the world.

Oh! It just occurred to me, can’t I get empower hearing or smell? I’ve got to experiment with this.

Too bad it takes some dedication to actually get the skills and if you aren’t sure it works, it is easy to quit halfway through if you make no progress.

Every time I meet one of the people around here their facial expression changes into this fake smile with dead eyes.

I asked them a few questions about where they came from or what their name was but all I got was “I don’t remember.”

Every time I ask something personal about them or other people I get “I don’t remember” or “I don’t know.”

Noticing a store, I walk inside, there is a man behind a desk reading a book.

I walk around the store inspecting some of the goods, there are swords, leather armors, metal armors and what looks like bulletproof west, I think it was called kevlar? No guns though.

I mean the variety here seems to go from simple rags to militaristic combat gear.

The prices are all in silver or even gold. Silver and gold? Where the hell am I supposed to get silver and gold?

This is ridiculous, nothing has dropped any kind of minerals, am I supposed to go mining? What in the actual fuck is wrong with the system?

Alright time to make conversation with these zombies.

“Hello.”

“Ah, Greetings traveler, how can I help you today?”

Again with this.

“I was wondering if you could tell me how to get silver and gold.”

“Of course, you can sell parts of monsters, take them off bandits and mercenaries, rewards for specific services, hunt people with bounties or take them from other travelers.”

Right let's go through this flood of nonsense. You’d think the programming for these people would be better.

First of all, I’ve never seen bandits or mercenaries’, no need to talk about any posters with bounties on them.

Rewards for specific services huh? That must be quests. It has to be quests. And then the guy is telling me to steal from other people? So much for human decency, but that is what is to be expected.

Just another reason not to get close to people. Thieves, the lot of them.

Actually, giving it some thought. Won’t I be able to find a bank or something? Will they have gold? Maybe in locked storage compartments.

But is there something here worth buying though? Aside from food.

Oh I know! Maybe I can buy skill-books somewhere or training in either combat or crafting weapons and armor. Another thing to put on the list of things to figure out.

I take off one of my belts and hand it to the clerk.

“Old man, will this belt sell for anything?”

“Oh, let’s see. This belt would sell for half a kilogram of silver.”

Kilograms? Can’t it just be coins? Kilogram, shit I’m horrible with measurements. I'll sell this belt, although it’s good, it can’t be eaten. Or is leather technically also food?

“Alright old man, I’ll sell it for five hundred grams of silver.”

Grabbing the leather bag he hands me, I look inside and thank heavens, it is silver coins. What was that nonsense about the weight of the thing? It’s just coins!

This motherfucker is messing with me. Again this just proves that people are endless pits of torment.

I walk around for a bit and ask for a hotel. I get pointed in a few directions, there are apparently many hotels in this sanctuary, even though there seems to be more than enough housing for every person here, let’s just call them NPCs in this place.

There is a dining area on the bottom floor left of the receptionist area. What in the holy tree-mothers name is going on in this town?

There are no people here aside from the hotel workers. If I didn’t know better I’d assume this was some kind of dystopia town where everyone has been hypnotized. Actually that might be one answer to this twilight zone.

I bought a room to stay in and something to eat, turns out my bag of silver is a lot more than I expected. I could stay here for a few months if I didn't have to buy food to eat.

They weigh everything as well. A very basic electronic measuring device is on the desk of every place that does any kind of business.

I should go to that center building and try to get some general information about the state of the world and maybe if I am lucky something about the system.

Actually, what the hell is with this system? I realize we’ve gone over this before but come on. This is like playing on hard difficulty with no user interface or basic information.

Shouldn’t there be health bars, floating damage numbers or at the very least some god damn assistance.

No wait, I am thinking about this the wrong way. Who says the system is in place to help anyone progress?

I think all the people in this Sanctuary are people that have died too often and they don’t even have to be from my world.

No, my world? Is this still my world or a different one? Even though I don’t know, I think some research and theory crafting is in order.

On a whim, I decided to listen over my most recent recordings and I noticed a problem. It doesn’t seem to record everything as I initially believed.

From quick observations I think I can assume it doesn’t record what I believe to be of no value or just fleeting thoughts.

But every moment of my inner monologues appear to be recorded. Is this a good or a bad thing?

Why did it record some of my fights but not all of them? Why didn’t I realize this before? Shit, fuck fuck fuck. This isn’t good. How many things didn’t it record! This could be devastatingly bad.

There are too many odd things in the logs I can’t explain. Is this a form of auto-correct? Sometimes I randomly think about something I previously did and it has overwritten previous recording of the incident.

Or one part didn’t get recorded at all. Ah this is making my head spin, I might as well start doing quantum calculations, would be less stressful.

I’ll leave it be for now, since I can’t come up with any viable theories yet nor have any ideas to experiment with it in this Sanctuary.

Time to meditate and then explore this place further then get the hell out of this strange dystopia.

Long story short, these people are all morons. None of these dead fish-eyed fuckers have any authorization to reveal anything beyond public knowledge.

Which are essential things like the prices of items, ways to make money. Good news is that I found and bought a map of the area.

Got myself a decent backpack which has that magical thing I’ve been looking for. Not some hole in time and space to store items.

But I can lightly channel mana through the bag's material and it becomes a lot lighter. I asked a leather-worker if he could teach me how to make it, actually I asked him if he could teach me anything at all in regards to crafting.

And by the will of the Tree! He could teach me nothing! Not even if I had to do something in order to get training or anything. I asked like a thousand questions but no.

I was planning on leaving this place but I ended up meditating in my hotel room for the better part of a month, time really flies when you put your mind to it. Only ate, went to the toilet and paid the bill.

They wouldn’t take me on my word that I wasn’t going run away and not pay them. I would do the same if I only had one customer.

After examining my new map, which cost me most of my silver. I got a few grams left for food, filled my backpack with canned beans, tuna, some smoked meat and spices.

How the hell did they make canned food here? Well they wouldn’t answer me, strike that, they did answer “I don’t know.” I want to beat the shit out of them.

I feel like I should invent a new imaginary friend. Don’t games usually have ways to summon or get a pet, maybe train a cute little monster cat? No?

Perhaps a hermit needs no company other than himself. Luckily i’m pretty good company myself, if you don’t mind me saying. Oh, no. I don't mind at all.

I am going to head towards a big city that apparently has a population of a few million people.

At least I think so, can’t say for sure, I only know that the city looks pretty big on the map.

The reason I’m heading there instead of to the other not as big cities or towns first, is because it is down river. That means an endless amount of water to drink.

There are no names written on the map and I’ve always been bad with geography. No thinking about it again. It is most likely that I’ve forgotten a lot of things.

Wait a fucking minute, is this why I can’t make sense of measurements? Oh by the spirit of the all-knowing tree. It all makes sense now, I can’t even tell how long a meter is!

Why do I know what a meter is but not how long it is! This is some selective memory loss. Maybe I should have stayed in the forest. At least I wouldn’t die unless I put myself in harm’s way.

I should point out, I feel like nature affinity is about to rank up or level up. I’ve been turning my energy shield on and off at random to train my control with it as well.

I got a bit better but turns out, the better it gets, the more energy it drains. So I can hardly hold it up for fifteen seconds straight. Which sucks but not unexpected.

After a few days I finally see the silhouette of the city! It’s been a very boring journey so far.

Only thing that got my attention was that sanctuary but it turned out to be a waste of time, maybe if there had been sentient lifeforms it could have been alright.

What I am most surprised at is the lack of people. I know they might not be running around in the open or out in the middle of nowhere but I am traveling beside a river right? Towards a city no less! But that’s all fine.

This area of the city is all rather messed up looking houses that could have housed two families each.

I was hoping for a wall somewhere, maybe they occupied one of the sky-rises.

I’m being extra cautious now. My spear in hand, empower: eye is always on and I'm currently working on channeling energy into my ears, but it isn’t doing anything.

I can hear some low roars every once in a while, but they are too far away to locate.

There is an unpleasant smell in the air, something might be rotting nearby. The ambient noise is steadily climbing the deeper I go into the city. There are many ways to hide here but it is a lot less than in the forest.

The city is called Kalou. It doesn’t ring a bell but at least I know I can still read properly.

I’ve found some books in people's houses and stored them in my bag, in case I want to read something later.

This is weird. I expected a lot more danger in a city. This is probably bad, if there aren’t a lot of monsters nearby. Then isn’t that exactly like my lovely tree-house?

Something stronger must have made a big area its territory. It’s been half a day and I am still only crawling slowly through the outer perimeter of the city.

I am currently on top of a seven story building with empty office spaces. Things aren’t in as bad a shape as it would appear.

Sure, the outside looks like a hurricane went through a couple of times but the insides, where the windows haven’t been shattered, it is actually pretty nice. I wonder what made all the people up and run away from here.

After surveying the area for the better part of the day I’ve seen some clues of beasts and actually seen some of the smaller kind of monsters roaming about, it is either a very fast beast traveling alone or in a pack of smaller ones.

They were still too far away to describe them. But one thing is for sure, they travel in a pattern. Never too close to a certain area. And that area is where I am located.

So that leaves us with two options. One, they know I am here and are for some reason avoiding me. Second option is that there is a beast extremely close to me.

But that makes no sense. I can’t see a place where I could possibly be hiding.

It hit me! it might be underground, wow. Can’t believe I am one of those people that can’t see what is standing right in front of them.

There is an underground train system. But that sounds like it would be a very small area. The beast doesn’t need to be gigantic though.

I have been picturing giants and dragons though. What you don’t know will kill you. But why hasn’t the ambient noise been ramping up considerably if I am this close?

Time to cause some chaos, I picked up a can of gasoline from a gas-station, let’s make some use of it.

I can’t throw it as far as a spear but my physical strength has become somewhat superhuman.

It just happened so slowly I didn’t notice it. And I am never near other people to see the difference.

I throw the metal canister down the train-station entrance, followed by a spear I lit on fire with a bit of oil.

There wasn’t a loud boom more like a muffled cough. The fire and smoke obviously started to rise and I throw another canister then run towards the nearby building and straight to the second floor.

Something has to come out, the smoke must be spreading far and wide. It’s been a few minutes but nothing is happening.

Oh what is that? The fire is rapidly being put out, the smoke is still lingering. What the hell can do that? That’s an oil fire.

Mother of all that is green! Hundreds, maybe thousands of little insect-thing creatures are pouring out.

I’m starting to get itchy just watching it. They are literally destroying everything in the surroundings.

A building just collapsed on top of them but they just keep going as if nothing happened.

I am still a fair distance away from them but I am definitely not getting involved with swarming insects again. Once bitten twice shy? Well I got burned alive and very shy.

There is only one thing to do. Abandon this sacrilegious place, almost no greenery but they still have insects.

I’ll visit one of the nearest towns and if that gives me similar results then I am heading back to my boring life in the forest.