A/N: I was seriously tempted to post a joke chapter today >.> Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter 3: Between Life And Death

Cheshire

"Welcome Cheshire! Thank you for purchasing Another Life. I will guide you through your character creation process, but first you need to read and agree to our general terms and conditions"

"What was that? Where am I?" A weird voice wakes me up from my sleep and I wonder where I currently am.

"At the moment you are in the character creation process. Please read our general terms and conditions before you proceed on to creating your character," the same weird voice from before says.

I look around to find the source of the voice but cannot find it. The cat, who is the splitting image of me and standing before me cannot be it either, because she did not move an inch yet. Also is besides us two currently nobody on this platform, which provides us a perfect view to the starry night. Many little lightbulbs in the far distance are visible, they are a lot more in numbers than I could see from home.

"Amazing," I continue looking up and enjoy the view. But after some time I get bored and look around a little more, but there really is nothing much besides me and the other cat. Eventually I look down at my feet and jump up high in surprise.

"Meow!" Below me was a gigantic planet which did not look like any of the pictures of Earth. I begin to feel anxious and to grow restless, almost to the point that I panic. My claws are buried deep inside the chair while my paws are stiff, making me unable to let go no matter what, as my breathing intensifies.

I do not dare to look down again and stay this way with my eyes closed. After some time passes the mysterious voice says something but I cannot clearly understand what the voice tries to tell me. My claws, which are still buried deep in the chair, begin to loosen up and I let go of my grip. As I calm down my breathing stabilizes and I open my eyes again. I let go of the chair so that I can lie down on it.

"Please do not worry, no dangers await you here in this space and neither will you fall down. Look, I even changed the room especially for you." The voice is now much kinder, warmer and even seems familiar. It is unlike the cold voice from before but still similar.

This time however I can even see where the voice comes from. The scenery changed into a beautiful flower field enjoying the warm rays of the sun. And somewhere in the field stands a snow white cat with golden eyes looking at me.

"Have you finally calmed down?" She asks me with her gentle voice and walks with soft steps next to the motionless cat.

Then I say with a questioning tone, tilting my head a little to the right. "You are a cat?"

"Yes and no," the white cat says while putting her paw on the head of my copy. "Do you have any questions before we resume creating your character?"

"You can properly talk to me!" I excitedly get down from my chair. "Did you also hardly find any cats who are not dumb?"

"You are the first I am talking to," she softly answers and finally lets go of my copy. We approach each other a little bit and sit down on the soft earth facing each other. She begins licking her paw.

For a while I stare at her and ask away somehow worried. "Were you not lonely?"

"I was–I am not lonely," she stops licking her paw and looks up again. "Any more questions?" Her dignified eyes are watching me. I finally found a fellow cat I can talk to, but she does not look like the type of cat who befriends others easily. Because I do not want to waste this unique opportunity I do my best to befriend her and thus I ask the cat. "Do you mind telling me your name?"

"I don't mind," she gives me a quick response. "But I won't tell you. You are going to know soon enough anyway and I hope you never see me again—for your own good."

She really does not want to make any friends and so I give up. But I still want to quench my curiosity and ask her a few more questions, in hope she will open up to me and to get some answers. "How did I come here? Where ever this is."

"You used the diving pod and entered the virtual reality game Another Life, currently we are in a space where the players create their avatars. I changed the space from before to this flower field so you can calm down," she explains. "This cat here is a copy of you. Through this you will be able to see the changes you make during the character creation process. Please read and agree to the general terms and conditions so we can move on. Do not worry, anything here gets automatically translated directly into information understandable for your brain when you read or hear it, so everyone can understand each other, including you."

The white cat explained to me more than I wanted to know and I get the feeling that she probably wants to wrap this up now. I still want to talk to her but the next moment a huge wall of text appears in my view. Surprisingly I can truly understand what it is about, but because it is addressed at humans I simply skimmed through it and agreed to whatever it is about.

"Now please choose a race," she said with a voice which is about to return to her original cold voice. Many pictures of different humanoid races appear in my view. I look all of them up, but do not get what this is about and look confused at the white cat.

"Choose a race for your avatar. The avatar is the body you will be controlling in the game. Please choose carefully, as you can only have on character at the same time. In the case you want to delete it, then you won't be able to play the game for a whole week." Her gaze pierces me while she explains me everything.

"I recommend you the demi-human race with the sub-trait being that of a cat's," she suggests.

"Then–then I will chose exactly that," I stutter out. A second later my copy turns into a female human about the same age as my servant.

She has short dark gray hair with light blue strands of hair and out of her hair is a pairs of cat ears peaking out. Her large crystal blue cat eyes look aimlessly forward. And her little mouth and button nose delicately beautify, together with her tiny chin and chubby cheeks, her face. Her frail legs try supporting her thin body, which most likely is a head smaller than Dante. And from behind her a gray tail with light blue stripes sticks out.

"Do you wish to alter your appearance? If you do, know that you are only able to make minor changes, nothing too dramatic." The white cat suddenly asks me.

"No—No, it's fine," I say without looking away from the human girl. The cat however advances to her next question. "Please choose one of the following cities to start in."

Once again pictures appear in my view, but this time they are pictures of many different cities. Although I do not care about them and just randomly tap on one. Afterwards the cat asks how I want to be called there and I answer. "Cheshire," but she immediately replies sharply. "That name is already in use."

"What? How dare somebody other than me use that name! Tell me where he is and I will punish—" the cat coldly interrupts me. "Please choose another name instead."

"—him," I finish my previous sentence and think for a while about a name and finally decide for a name of someone I always admired. "The name I choose is Miltonie. I am huge fan of the great cat Milton—I even want to meet him once, but he should now probably be dead—or alive."

"The name Miltonie is available. Please enjoy your stay in Talovin." She says while leaving through a door which just appeared out of nowhere.

I want to follow her but everything around me suddenly vanishes and I get embraced by a gentle light. Seconds later I find myself on a wide platform in a city, where every wooden building is built high up on huge tree branches or carved out of the thick tree trunks. The city is in the middle of a forest of gigantic trees and various demi-humans are walking on roads—made on big and lengthy branches—or they use swing bridges connecting thin branches to change branches.

Welcome wayfarer!

Big adventures, but also many challenges are awaiting you in Another Life.

You will unravel many mysteries, make friends as well as enemies. Grow stronger and challenge the mighty beings inhabiting this world to prove your strength or you might even enjoy your time by simply admiring everything beautiful this world has to offer. It is your choice, be who you want to be!

Now go wayfarer! Explore and conquer the big world of Talovin!

I am being greeted by a blue notification in my view, which I cast away after I read it a few times. Reading is surprisingly fun, especially now that I can understand it. After reading it I resume looking around.

"Hey, cutie," a brawny demi-human, with dog ears sticking out of his head, wearing shiny armor walks up to me while I am observing my surroundings. He calls me a few times but I ignore him because I try to enjoy the view. The dogman however does not stop annoying me and I retort sharply at him. "Stop bothering me, lowly dog!"

"What? Another rude girl! I just want to be kind and helpful to beginners, but what do I get in return? Nothing but rude answers! I am done!" He snaps and leaves angrily while mumbling. "Damn the girls from this generation! I am never going to help a girl from now on, even if–"

'He can understand me?' I think. 'Nobody ever understood what I said to them until now!'

"Hey! You the––" I call out to someone and excitedly run towards him, but when I tried to walk I instead trip and fall down hard. That is when I notice that I no longer have the four feet of a cat.

I look at my paws—no, rather I look at my hands and finally realize that I turned human for real. Being able to move my fingers in such ways feels different and I test various movements out. After experimenting a little with what I am now able to do, I once again try walking forward, while grabbing the air.

But not knowing how I am supposed to move makes it very hard. Every time I want to walk, I unconsciously put my hand forward out of habit and crawl on all fours, but I stop halfway. Therefore I stayed on one spot for a long time.

By observing the others I come to the conclusion that I need to stay on upright on my feet first. Which is easier said than done. After a few trial and errors I manage that both my soles touch the ground, while my arms support my body. I rise up my butt but at first I do not dare lift up my arms. After resolving I finally lift one arm up. "Alright, I can do this!"

But as soon as I raise the other arm I fall down face first on the ground. The fall hurt and I cover my nose with both my hands. An elderly woman—who has enormous flapping elephant ears—saw me falling down and now walks worried towards me.

"You there! Stop laughing at others! Don't you have any shame?" She says while pointing at the dogman from before.

"Sweetie, are you okay? Do you need a helping hand?" She gently asks me and reaches out her hand to me. I do not react at first and lie on the ground, but after that pause the old lady opens her mouth again. "Come on, sweetie. I will help you up."

Hesitatingly I grab hold of her hand and she easily pulls me up. She is holding my arm with both of her hands and supports me so I can somewhat stand.

"Don't get ahead of yourself. One step at a time," her breath tickles my ear as she speaks. "Slowly, go slowly, we have all the time in the world."

Slowly but steadily I learn how to walk like a human, but even after a long time am I still relying on her. The old lady has a very satisfied expression on her face as she helps me. "You are doing good, now try walking on your own."

"No—no, don't let go—please," I quietly say.

"Aw, sweetie. You can do it, believe in yourself," she says and lets go of me.

I am wobbly standing, trying my best not to fall down. The old lady quietly observes me as I raise my right leg and make a small step forward and then I do the same with the other leg. Sometimes out of habit I put my arms forward instead of moving my legs, which already cause me to trip a few times.

But after some time I get the hang out of it and walk towards the old elephant lady opposite of me without tripping once. Even so, I trip with my last step, but she fortunately catches me. When I look up I see her smiling at me and I hear people cheering and rejoicing from my surroundings.

"You did well," she pats my head and smiles.

"Th—thank you," I softly mutter.

Nick

In seconds my computer turns on and I open the folder where my game footages—from my point of view—are saved. I want to edit them, so I can upload a video about the mysterious event which just happened not too long ago.

The first videos to appear in my folder are the ones from my first days I played the game together with my new friends, whom I met in Talovin. The next few footages are from the last couple of days.

I watch the video and see how I get captured by the ones who wanted to kidnap the linis girl. The footage about the time I fainted and entered the white grave luckily was not recorded, so I did not have to skip it specifically. After the scene ends I watch the underground party of those noblemen and how I get sold off together with the linis.

But I pause at the moment where the host is visible and try to imprint deep inside me every detail about his appearance, his voice and his every moves and re-watch those moments for a few times. I grit my teeth as I do so.

"I will come for you. Just wait and see," I furiously say. "Someone like you, who kidnaps innocent children and sells them off as slaves does not deserve to live a good life!"

After re-watching the same scene a few times I move on to the next one. I watch how I get even better tied up as they move me into a room, where they put me inside a straw bag. From then on I only hear how they move me to one of the carts pulled by the automata horse, unique to the city of Contessa.

These inanimate horses can only be seen in Contessa, even though they are very useful, but they are also very expensive, that is why only very few really posses them—most of them just lease the horses. Although they are only useful inside cities, because they are very slow at moving but they at least do not dirty the streets and inside Contessa are no horses allowed. They are one of the reasons why this city's roads are so clean.

The cart I had been inside soon arrived at the city gates and they swapped the automata horse with a real mount. Our travelling speed had increased afterwards by a lot.

Even through the video can I hear how the cart follows the path along the river. I fast-forward the video to the point where the cart finally arrives at its destination. The cart stopped and some people carried me away and threw me into a dark and cold cell together with Alissa Pyttel—the linis who was bought with me.

They removed the gags and the straw bags, but left the shackles on and eventually they themselves left for good.

I fast-forward again, because nothing noteworthy happens, but I stop at the moment where Alissa begins to cry. She looked pitiful and I consoled her for the next couple of hours, but not even once did she look up to me and reply.

And so I fast-forward the video again until the guy who had bought us appears. He no longer had his mask on, but his voice remained the same. This time his name was even visible, Isaac W. Powell. And I add his name on my mental list.

"Hello there, little linis," he greeted Alissa. "Won't you look up at me? Look at me."

Alissa however continued to cry, which quickly angered the man until his face became red. Isaac opened the door and entered with a few of his guards the cell. He ordered his guards to restrain me, while he walked towards the crouching and crying Alissa.

"Did you not hear me?" He asked with a cold and harsh voice. "I. Said. Look. At. Me."

I struggled and tried to shout "Stop! Let her go," but the guards stopped me and one even hit me on my stomach and I lost a quarter of my health points. Isaac got furious as Alissa did not respond and he grabbed her head.

"Look at me, filthy linis! How dare you ignore me," he snapped and began to shout. "Never disobey me! I am going to show you what obedience is and train you in here until you are ready to serve someone for real."

Even now watching the video makes me cringe as Isaac takes a big swing and slaps her. I remember clearly how I fought and fought but could do nothing but watch as he slapped Alissa a few times until her face turned blue from all of her blood.

"Do you understand now? I do whatever I want with you." He asks her. "Now look at me."

I clenched my fists when I watched how that bastard humiliated Alissa. Alissa looked with teary eyes up and thankfully Isaac left with a satisfied expression the cell. The guards restraining me also left and I immediately rushed to the sobbing Alissa and took her in my arms to console her once again.

The next half an hour nothing happens, but I do not fast-forward and watch. Again half an hour later Alissa looks up at my eyes through the screen. She stopped crying.

"Shush, everything will be okay. I will get us out. I promise." I said softly and wiped off her blood of her face.

"Thank you." Her weak and soft voice was almost not audible.

A blue window appears in the video. It was the quest notice I had gotten after I heard Alissa's voice for the first time.

Quest: Prisonbreak

After trying to save a girl from a group of devious men you both got kidnapped and were later sold as slaves. Your new owner is a vicious and violent man, who does not even bat an eyelash when beating a little girl up. After consoling and caring for the girl, she opened up to you and even trusts you enough, that you will be able to help her escape safely.

Do not betray her trust in you.

A quest is something, which can only be triggered through actions. In other words they are more like events and they are harder than jobs, which mostly are tedious tasks to gain some money but in return they are easily accessible and repeatable. But the rewards from a quest are generally many experience points and not rarely come some special items along with the experience points. Quests also open up many new possibilities for adventures, which someone can do after successfully finishing a quest.

Even though I had gotten a quest for the first time I could not rejoice, looking at the cause of it. After I was done reading the quest window a guard came back with a plate of food and sat down at the wall opposite to the bars of the cell and ate his food.

However, after some time he fell asleep and the knife—he used to eat with—dropped down and almost reached the bars. Thinking this was the chance the quest gave me, I immediately went to the bars and tried reaching out for it. With both hands bounded I could not even touch it, but then Alissa came to my side and tried it herself.

She easily got hold of, pulled it back and quickly hid it away. Although the guard had woken up he did not notice anything and only wondered why we were so close to the bars.

On the video—we silently sit and await the perfect chance to escape and I fast-forward until it happens.

We waited until the guard had fallen asleep again and when we heard him snoring loudly we began cutting away the thick ropes binding our hands with the knife. It took not long until our arms were free again.

With our arms free we began picking the lock at the door. I tried it a couple of times and failed, then Alissa took the knife and opened it with her first try. She truly was a skilled girl. The knife was back in my hand and I sneaked to the sleeping guard and slit his throat open.

But it actually did not really wound him much. He only lost a third of his health points and got silenced. The guard was not inexperienced and immediately readied himself to fight, but while he did that I stabbed him a few more times and reduced his health points to a quarter of his original life.

Then he pulled out a hidden knife and countered. Our knives clashed a few times and we both lost a lot of health until we were both at the red zone. If the fight had dragged on then I would have lost, but fortunately Alissa ram him from behind and he fell towards me, losing his balance.

I once more hit him and he finally died. After I picked up all the trash loot he dropped, we ran away taking the less illuminated ways in this underground prison. On the way we opened a few more doors to cells with slaves in them, but they were already that broken, that they did not want to leave. Some even attacked us, while shouting that they will get punished because we freed them.

But thanks to the commotion the other slaves caused they drew all the attention of the guards away and we did not have to fight any more on our way outside and left through a door. Their hideout had been neatly hidden in a forest.

"Thank goodness it is night," I exclaimed.

"Hurry up, they soon will be chasing us," I said to Alissa, who was out of breath.

"I can't run anymore," she told me.

From behind the voices of people chasing us were heard. I wanted to escape as fast as possible but I could not leave the exhausted Alissa behind, and so I lifted her up and carried her away. I ran away closely followed by our pursuers.

"There, they are!" Someone shouted from behind us.

The next moment a burning arrow flew past me and hit a tree. I hurried up and jumped down a slope, but because of the additional weight I lost my footing and wasted some precious seconds. Alissa had been on my back, holding my shoulders. She let go one of her hands and I cautioned her while looking back. "Don't let go of me, you will fall!"

But she pointed her palm at the earth behind us and magically created some stone spikes down the slope. Many of our pursuers, who chased us fell on the spikes and mostly got hurt. Only a few died that way, but having less people chasing one was still better than a whole bigger group chasing after us.

Without stopping once did I ran deeper into the woods. A few more burning arrows flew past me and Alissa countered most of them with her own magic, but one arrow still hit my foot, which slowed me dramatically.

The arrow made me trip and I fell down and Alissa rolled a few times until she stopped. Nine of our pursuers were left and they immediately had closed in.

"Hihi, you can't run away from us," one of our pursuers grinned as he pulled out his sword.

"You will pay for what you did to Merle, you bastard!" Another one shouted and rushed at us with his sword pulled out.

I got up and prepared to face the man coming at me, but I could not find my knife. The only weapons left for me, were my fists.

"Go easy on them, after all we need them alive if we want to stay alive," a woman said to the man charging at me.

Alissa was still trying to stand up again. I could hear her heavy breathing from behind me as the man almost reached me. Again another one of the group called out to the man. "Try not to trip this time!"

And as if he jinxed it the man tripped and fell down right in front of me. He let go of his sword and without thinking twice I picked it up, while the others were busy with laughing. Then I immediately equipped the sword, so I could use it outside of this fight too and stabbed the man on the ground until he died.

The others at first did not realize what just happened and looked as if they were stunned at us. Then I heard from behind Alissa calling out to me. "Let's run away!"

I turned around and ran away together with Alissa. Our pursuers then followed us. Alissa used her magic a few times to slow our pursuers down but she soon ran out of mana.

We ran as fast as we could, but Alissa was too exhausted to continue running and she slowed down. The moment she did, one of our pursuers grabbed her arm and we stopped there. They all had caught up and the one who grabbed Alissa now put a sword at her throat.

"Don't move, buddy," he said. "You don't want our little princess to get hurt, right? Now be a good guy and give up."

Alissa was close to crying again, she probably thought that I would abandon her, but I had never even thought about it.

"Let her go and take me instead," I suggested.

But the one holding Alissa simply smirked. "Are we playing hero here? How noble of you!" As he said that, everyone burst out in laughter.

"Why should we comply when we can have both of you?" A woman from there asked mockingly.

"Because if one of us dies, then your employer will kill you," I explained. "Or did I hear something wrong earlier?"

"Of course you heard wrong," the one holding Alissa replied.

In the next moment I moved my sword and lightly stabbed myself at the surface of my stomach and asked. "Are you sure?"

"You are bluffing," someone laughed out and I stabbed myself a little deeper, reducing my health points a little. When they saw that, their faces twitched.

"Alright, let go of the sword and come here. I will let her go at the same time," the guy holding my partner answered. It went just like he said it and soon they had let go of Alissa and caught me instead.

"Run away!" I shouted at Alissa.

After some hesitation she ran, but two of our pursuers immediately caught her. Then one of the guys restraining me laughed. "Did you really think we would let her go?"

"No, but it was worth a shot," I replied. "And maybe there was still something good lingering deep inside you."

All eight of them laughed out loud but their laughter soon stopped as they heard the rustling of the bushes, followed by a deep growl.

We all were silently awaiting what was about to jump out of the thicket. The group went into their battle stances and watched closely into the direction the sound came from. It seemed like the time had stopped as everyone stopped moving.

Seconds later a bear, armored with bone like scales growing out of him, jumped out of the thicket. In fear the ones holding me threw me at the bear, but it in turn just ignored me and ran past me. The men immediately wanted to slash with their weapons at the bear, expecting it to attack them, but the attack never came as it ran past them too.

Everyone got confused at why the bear was running and all of them came to the conclusion that it was running away from something much worse. So they all once again faced the direction the bear came out from awaiting a much bigger threat jumping out of there.

Only if there would have been something chasing after bear. Because they all turned their back to the armored bear they fell down one after the other as the bear began its attack.

Not letting this golden opportunity slip away I grabbed my sword and ran away with Alissa, while our pursuers were busy fighting the armored bear.

Thanks to the bear we lost our pursuers, but we went too deep into the woods and got lost. We searched for a few days a way out of the forest or at least a river which we could follow to reach the city. But as if fate wanted to, ours pursuers eventually found us. And once me were we running away from six people chasing after us.

"Finally, the video I am going to post will be about this scene," I say without looking away from the screen.

On the screen I can see Alissa running ahead of me and soon reaching a clearance where she stops moving. When I had seen that, I sped up because I wondered something happened to her. But as soon as I got there a window popped out in my view and my heart began to beat at a much faster rate and I started to sweat out of every pore of my body, while I stayed there awestruck.

Warning!

You have been induced with the highest level of fear for seeing the true unknown.

Every fiber in your body wants you to escape immediately but you are unable to do so. You are stunned until the cause disappears or until you break free from the stunning state with pure willpower.

Note: Nothing besides your true willpower can help you against this level of genuine fear.

In the clearance stood a humanoid being. It had shining white eyes which could directly see through me. And when one looked at his mostly black body then it felt like there was no end to it, it was as if one would look at another universe. Its body literally looked like it had stars and galaxies inside. This actually should have been a sight one should be amazed at, but one could not feel anything but terrifying fear in the presence of this being.

But something was even more unusual about it. Its name and level were not even displayed. Not even question marks—which normally displays that someone does not fulfill the right requirements to be able to see the real name or level—appeared. There simply was nothing above its head.

With graceful and majestic, but slow steps it closed in but stopped when it reached the very center of the clearance. Afterwards it looked away from us and observed the thicket behind me. And then suddenly our pursuers finally had caught up to us and jumped out of the thicket.

But like Alissa and me, they too stood still motionlessly and in fear. When one them dropped his sword I woke up from my state and gathered all of my willpower to fight against this terror. I grabbed this chance of a lifetime and ran away while I grabbed Alissa and carried her away with me.

I ran as fast as I could to escape the one causing this unbelievable fear, which I felt for real and not because the diving pod made me think it was real. But I soon reached an abandoned cottage in the forest and entered it. I put Alissa down and asked her, while the sweat out of my forehead. "Alissa, are you okay?"

However, she did not respond and only moaned a little. Her face lost color and she almost had no more strength to even raise her arm.

"What's wrong, Alissa?" I worriedly asked her, but she again only moaned. And then I noticed that something shiny was stuck at her shoulder. So I took a better look at it and found out that it was the tip of a broken arrow, which had some black liquid flowing out of it.

'A poisoned arrow,' I thought and then I told Alissa to wait there. I left the cottage and went back to the clearance, because I thought that our pursuers surely had to have some antidote for it.

So I begrudgingly hurried back the way I came from, gripping strongly my sword and hid behind the thicket to observe. But what I saw astounded me. The men we had so many problems with got easily dealt with by that thing. Two of them were lying dead on the ground with their faces gone and the others ran away while wetting themselves.

After seeing this I got even more terrified by that thing and could not dare to search for an antidote, especially after it looked my way. I felt that he somehow knew that I was hiding here and I immediately set off to run away from it.

When I reached the cottage I apologized to Alissa for not being able to overcome my fear to get her antidote. I then nursed her a little. I did everything I could think of to help her at that moment, but my knowledge was very limited and I decided that we should make a run for it to a city. So I carried Alissa on my back and rushed off to quickly find help and also to escape something more dreadful than our previous pursuers.

The video then ends sometime later when I was too tired to continue running away, and when I logged out after I had found a safe place to stay for the both of us.

I edit away all the unnecessary parts and upload—on the homepage of Another Life—the scenes where I recorded it—that mysterious being.

While the video is uploading I browse the top videos of the week and a particular video—with the title "First Steps"—catches my eye. It is a film about an adorable catgirl learning how to walk. The whole film is very touching, especially when she finally manages to walk on her own.

But I get furious when I read the comments to the video. Most of them are ridiculing and laughing at her. They joke about how stupid she could be because she cannot even walk or they laugh at her clumsiness.

I clench my fist, but loosen it up after scrolling down the comments a little. The bad comments begin to disappear and get overwhelmed by comments explaining, that she may never had been able to walk on her own in real and probably has not been able to afford prostheses. They mostly think that Cable Corps. charitable gave her a pod as a present.

And so the negative comments disappear to get replaced by comments cheering her on. After seeing something this touching I jump back into a game with a warmed up heart and hurry so I can finally save Alissa.

Dante

I have been walking since I left the clearance. Soon the sun will go up again and I still did not move much because I was so slow due to my low agility stat.

The whole night was spent on walking into one direction. I did not come far and did not find anything else besides trees and once even an abandoned cottage. But not even local animals crossed my way, which gave me the feeling that this game was a little bit too peaceful and uneventful.

At least I had time to experiment with my ability, which I could only use when my satiety bar was not full. That is why I tried keeping it constantly at five percent. I tried absorbing every material I could find in this forest and had no problems whatsoever dissolving or absorbing them. But I learned from doing so, that the denser the material the more my satiety bar filled.

For example if I absorbed the same amount and volume of a common stone and dirt, then my satiety bar filled a little more by absorbing the stone.

While walking I ducked my head to avoid hitting a branch from a tree. I finally arrived at something other than more trees. The light of the rising sun was being reflected on the surface of a river. At the other side of the river a big featherless grey bird drank the river water, while a wolf was sneaking up from behind it to prey on it. But they both stopped doing what they were doing and looked my way as if they had seen a ghost.

At this point I no longer cared and somehow got used to this weird occurrence. So I walked along the river and noticed that my satiety bar fell below three percent. For a moment I wanted to put my hand on the ground to absorb it, but then I got the idea that I may be able to do the same with other parts of my body, for example my feet.

I focused the same way I have done with my palms to absorb but this time I thought that I would absorb the ground below my feet. At the mere thought the trampled down grass under my feet disappeared and my satiety bar filled a little bit.

Furthermore this gave me more ideas at how I could use this ability more efficiently. A thought at how I could use it would be to use only the tip of my finger—to reduce the speed my satiety bar fills—when attacking, so I could use it for many more enemies.

At this revelation a system message appeared in my view.

You created a new skill!

Absorption

You are able to absorb any form of energy to fill your satiety bar. It is not usable when your satiety bar is full. If your satiety bar is full, you will not be able to use it for another 3 hours. This process is irreversible, you won't be able to bring back what you had already absorbed.

Use this ability with utmost care, if used wrongly then you may regret it for the rest of your life.

Skill level: 1/4

Rank: Unique

You created a new skill!

Disintegration

Everything you touch can be decomposed into their very basic particles. During this process are huge amounts of energy set free. This ability needs some deep understanding at atomic level to work. You need to consume ??? to use this.

Use this ability with utmost care, if used wrongly then you may regret it for the rest of your life.

Skill level: 1/4

Rank: Unique

For creating two unique skills you gain:

+7 Intelligence

+5 Wisdom

For being the first one to create a unique skill you gain +5 Luck

'Finally! Now I have some skills,' I thought. 'And now it feels like it really is a game.'

I happily walked along the river, while absorbing the ground with my feet to keep my satiety at a steady five percent. While walking I left some obvious footprints behind and enjoyed the nature. Although it got boring after some time and I picked up a stone.

The stone I held was from then on used by me to experiment my abilities on it. I used my skills to see to what extent I could use them to do some precise work. The result was that I learned two things out of it. I learned that it is hard using it on such a tiny scale when your fingers are thick and the other thing I learned was that I am a genius at art because the stone totally looked like modern art.

'It looks atrocious,' I looked at it and jokingly thought. 'Perfect for some modern-art-museums. Some could even interpret something out of the holes, for example they display the emptiness in the stony heart of the artist—also known as boredom.'

Every kid could have made a stone like this without trying. If the kid kneaded on some dough then it would have looked the same as this stone. After joking a little I threw the stone away.

The sun was by now high up in the sky and illuminated every spot of the forest. When I looked into the distance I could see that the river ended at a lake. At the lake stood many buildings and even some people walking on the streets were visible from this far away.

I accelerated to my maximum speed—though it was still very slow—and hurried to get there. This may could be my chance to try out my idea on how to communicate with others, given that they are even willing to talk with me.

As I almost reached—in high spirits—the village, a system notification popped up.

You discovered Clock Town!

Clock Town was founded by human clockmakers who were fed up by the many different races migrating to Contessa. They also wanted to listen in peace to the ticking of their clocks without being disturbed by the grinding noises caused by the many automatas.

The specialty of this town are the many terrific clocks made by its skillful residents.

You are the first one to discover the town hidden in the woods, Clock Town. For being the first one you get the opportunity to publish your discovery at the homepage of Another Life.

By publishing the information you gain fame.

Do you want to announce your name and your discovery to the public?

YesNo

'Yes, please,' I confirmed immediately.

Error!

Error #404: Name not found

Due to an error you are unable to announce your discovery.

Error!

Error #404: Name not found

Due to an error you are unable to gain any fame.

My jaw would have dropped if it could and I was literally speechless when I stared at the notifications. I probably stood there for around five minutes thinking why the game would make so many things much harder for me.

'Well, that's the least of my worries,' I thought. 'At least everyone fears the awesome me. So I got that going for me—which is nice.'

The houses in this town were made out of bricks and wherever someone looked at, hundred kinds of clocks would come into his view. Every single wall was decorated with many different looking clocks of different sizes and different forms, but none of them showed the same time.

'How do they know what time it is?' I thought upon stepping on the cobbled way and entering the town, when I did I felt like I passed an invisible barrier because I met some resistance doing so.

Currently, nobody besides me was using this path and I followed it until I arrived at a spacious place bordering the lake, where many people had gathered. It did not look like someone noticed me yet and I came closer to them. But every single one of them ignored me and none perceived my presence among them.

Even if I should have been in their view they did not notice me. I even stood between two people who were talking to each other and the result was that they did not stop their conversation and walked away ignoring me.

"Brother, don't cheat!" A little girl scolded her brother.

A group of children were happily playing together. Neither did they notice me being here and they also did not feel any fear because of me. And it felt good seeing something adorable among all of those oblivious residents in this damned town, although it made my time here not that much sweeter.

Though I knew that the kids would not notice me, I quietly distanced myself from them as if not to disturb them and instead approached a man who was fishing at the lake. I tapped his shoulder a few times, but he did not even care or bother to look back. Although I got no response from him, I nevertheless wanted to try out my idea on how to communicate with somebody.

My first thought at how to achieve was, just repeat what I had been doing until now in the game. Everything worked only then if I thought strongly enough about it. This was how I approached this matter this time, while the fisherman in front of me pulled out a dead fish out of his bucket, hooked it up with the fishhook and put it back into the sea.

After observing this man and resolving myself to speak up, a deep roar coming from the plaza resounded from behind me. I turned around to look at what was happening and saw a jet black beast, which looked like a wolf, jumping on to the streets. That thing went to one of the people, picked out the little girl—who has been playing in the center with her brother and some other kids—and easily shredded her into pieces to eat her afterwards.

Not even one of them cared about the kid among them, whose blood painted many of their clothes red. People walked over her ripped off arms and legs as if they were never there. Even the other kids—who played with the now dead girl—ignored her as she got eaten and they leisurely continued their little game without the dead kid.

'Gross,' I felt disgusted. 'This certainly is no normal town.'

The beast, which had an ephemeral appearance and bloodshot red eyes, filled satisfied its belly, but upon seeing me it stopped ripping of another piece of flesh from the girl and looked my way. Its eyes clearly had fear in them and its whole body was trembling.

'Looks like you noticed me,' I ascertained. 'Well, at least this means my mojo is not gone.'

It began weeping and breathing heavily when I closed the distance between us. I wanted to kill it fast before it regained its composure and attacked me. The beast however had a different opinion and resolved itself to flee far away from me.

'Aw. Come on! You would have been the first mob I killed.' I felt disappointed even though I was sure I would have died if it attacked me. Then I looked at the oblivious people around me and then at the remains of the kid, whose guts were lying everywhere around.

'Poor little kid.' Although I did not feel as sad as I thought I would be, I still pitied the kid for having met such an awful end. Nobody deserved to die like this and it became only worse for her, because nobody—not even her brother—cared that she died.

Eventually I walked away from the scene and decided that I would investigate at the weird behavior of the residents. While walking I noticed that my satiety bar reached an absolutely critical value of one percent.

'I almost died again,' I thought while I absorbed some of the ground. 'Better keep it at a steady ten percent from now on.'

My plan was to investigate, but I did not know where to start considering that I would get nothing out of the residents. So I began observing the town.

All the people here were oblivious to what happened around them. They did all their normal daily activities, some talked with each other, others played poker, a few people made some clocks in broad daylight and a group of kids played cheerfully together.

Nothing unusual at first glance, if it were not for their weird behavior. From my first observations I could not get any useful information and decided to go to the library in hope I would find something.

So I walked around the town in search for the library, I walked at every street, entered almost all houses which looked like they could be a library but ultimately I did not find even a single book in those houses.

'Most of them probably can't read,' I concluded and put my hand on my chin. 'And a library would be unnecessary in a town full of analphabets. But someone should at least know how to read.'

After I came to a conclusion—that the guy at the top should at least be able to read—I went to the town hall. I found the town hall directly at the plaza, entered it and went straight to a room I believed it was the mayor's office.

An old man was sleeping at a desk in the office. While he was snoring, dripped saliva out of his mouth on a sheet of paper he probably had been writing on before he fell asleep. Nothing much was in the mayor's office besides the couple of books on his desk and the many, many clocks decorating the walls.

When one looked out of the window, then everything on the plaza was visible. From there I could see how the people outside were, without any care, walking over the remains of the dead girl and stepping on her guts.

It quickly became dark outside as clouds began to hide the sun. Soon rumbling thunder was heard—when the sun was completely covered behind dark clouds—and occasionally raindrops hit the ground and roofs. The people on the streets dispersed and retreated to their own homes.

The rain suddenly got much stronger and it went really dark—though, I still could see fine—and only the thunderbolts, which appeared from time to time, illuminated the streets and the room I was in. A flash shined a light on the bloody street as the rain cleaned the street from all the blood, however parts of the body remained, because the rain was still much too weak to wash away the bigger parts.

Another thunder rumbled. The sound of rain and thunder soon had drowned out every little sound in the town. But all the clocks outside and inside the office suddenly went crazy and their ticking sound soon drowned everything else. Some of the clocks sped up by a lot, others slowed down drastically and then there were even some which changed the direction they were ticking in.

'What the hell is going on?' I definitely did not get what was happening to this town. The clocks were annoying and I wished at that moment that I could go back to my silent and peaceful space, full of my beloved glowing orbs.

Anyway, I decided to get this over with quickly and moved to the desk, where the man was still sleeping on. On his desk stood something like a nameplate and his name apparently was Majorae Personae.

I took one of the books and skimmed through it. The contents of the book were not really relevant to this weird situation. The book was about the expenses of this city and the mayor clearly noted every little thing down. Thanks to this I learned that the weird things have been going on since about three months, because that was the time when the irregularities in his notes appeared.

When I read the other three books—about the town's events, decisions and the registered residents—I noticed that the same kind of irregularities appeared there too. So I put every book back.

Out of the corner of my eyes I thought that something had moved outside and I anxiously walked to the window to observe. But nothing unusual came into my view and I went back to investigate a little bit more. The only thing left to look at was the paper the mayor was drooling on.

I carelessly pulled away the sheet of paper, because I did not care if I disturbed his dreams as he would not notice it anyway. And—like expected—he did not wake up. Thus I read the piece of paper, which had a few wet spots here and there.

My Love,

You probably will never even be able to read this, but I write you anyway in hope this will reach you someday against all odds. I may never ever see your beautiful face, never taste your sweet lips, never hear your calming voice. I miss you already so much, but we can't see each other anymore, because of my foolishness. Know, that I have sinned and I am well aware of it. The gods have punished me for what I have done, but the worst punishment I got from them is, that I will never hold you in my arms again.

Because of my carelessness the whole town got cursed and we are all doomed to live in already lost town. I should have listened to you, because you were absolutely right. Thus I am writing this letter for the 47th time, hoping that one of them will ever get to you and tell you that I am so sorry for having ruined our future together. I am sorry for not listening to you. I am sorry for going against you. I am sorry for taking your friends and parents with me.

I tell you all this because I love and that's why you should heed my words. Never ever return back home. Please listen only this time to me. I know that you want to come back but only death and eternal torture awaits you here. I beg you not be stubborn and stay in Contessa!

Farewell, Maia, my one and only.

Quest: The Mayor's Sin

After you came into Clock Town you noticed an anomaly and thanks to your hard work you found out that it was all the mayor's fault, though it is still unclear what he did to cause it.

Investigate to know more about this anomaly and save the lives of the residents.

'So this is all the mayor's fault and damn, it's a red quest. This is going to be very difficult,' I thought. 'But I still don't know what's happe—'

As I was thinking, a sudden smell of something very unpleasant interrupted me. It actually smelled like exactly like urine. I looked up from the letter and saw that the mayor woke up and looked at me wide eyed. The smell definitely came from the mayor, who—upon seeing me—began chattering his teeth out of terror.

'Finally someone, who does not ignore me,' I rejoiced silently.

The mayor however did not seem one bit happy finally meeting me. He could no longer take it and stormed out of the office. I closely followed him from behind, but he eventually outran me. We left the building and I was desperate at catching my only chance to get to know more about this town. He also would be my first guinea pig to test out my idea on how to communicate, but he was too fast for me.

Because of the rain the mayor's clothes were drenching wet but I somehow did not feel wet at all. The distance between us increased and he disappeared behind some buildings, making me lose sight of him. I was left standing alone at the plaza. This was his town, he should know it much better than me and it probably would be almost impossible for me to find and catch him, so I gave up running after him.

But at the moment the mayor was the least of my problems. The beast from earlier appeared and he brought two friends with him. One of his friends however was twice the size of him, almost as big as a bear. The other one looked almost the same as the first one and I could somehow instinctively discern both of them.

Even though the beast courageously brought help, they still feared me. We were staring at each other. Nobody made a move—except for the trembling from the beasts—and everybody waited for the other side to start the fight.

I checked my satiety bar and was relieved that I did not fill it in the town hall. After all, every bit counted and could decide whether I come out of this alive or dead.

The background noises mostly came from the all the clocks. It was still raining heavily. It rained so much that I wondered how the beasts could still see me. For a second a thunderbolt flashed the town and it was followed by the rumbling of thunder, which signaled the start of our fight to the death.

'Come at me,' I readied a battle stance and with my hand I motioned them to come at me.

The wolf-like beasts reacted first and charged straight ahead at me, after they heard the thunder. The little ones were faster than the bigger one and they reached me soon. I did not know how I could discern the two beasts, but I somehow knew that the one jumping at me was the same beast, which ate the little girl.

My agility was too low, that was why it was pointless to try dodging the bite completely. On the other hand was taking it head-on also no solution, because of my unnaturally low health points—or rather, my health point. There was only one way left.

I was now rather calm and saw the beast flying at me in slow-motion. Its jaws opened wide and many rows of teeth greeted me. A single bite would kill me and I did not know why I was that calm. Was it because I knew it was just a game and that I could come back anytime, even though it looked so real? Or was it because I was confident in my skills and abilities?

The other beast was a step behind the one, flying at me right now, and jumped now too with its sharp claws aiming at me. I had prepared myself to use my unique ability long ago and was already holding my right hand at the beast coming at me. My plan was simple, making them disappear as they touched me.

Although I was somewhat prepared I did not expect, that the beast would avoid my hand and would instead aim at my body. I reflexively bended slightly sideways to avoid a full clash of our bodies in case I somehow did not managed to dodge.

But I could not entirely dodge the attack and the second of the supposed impact, when one of the beast's teeth should touch my chest, I used out of reflex my ability to disintegrate and absorb it. When the deed was done, it lost half of its jaws and teeth, but avoided losing the rest of its head by avoiding to hit me anymore.

Not even a second passed when the claws of the other beast reached me and I also left it clawless afterwards. Though the first paw, with which the beast wanted to hit me, got completely eaten by me.

Blood dripped out of their wounds, which immediately got washed away by the heavy rain. The ferocious beast suddenly looked no longer dangerous. They actually looked rather pitiful and wimpy.

After this first exchange of our blows, the beasts got even more terrified by me and stopped moving at the spot, even the big one who almost had reached me.

And I felt superior to them and got the sudden desire to annihilate them, which somehow got conveyed to them when I walked towards the one, who only got half his jaws left, and they shrieked back. But the one I was aiming at changed its mind. It did not want to escape again, it was too prideful for that and it also wanted revenge, because I ate half its jaws.

I was almost touching it, but it dodged to the side, ran behind my back and used its claws this time to attack me.

But upon getting touched by them, I immediately ate them and this beast also lost one paw now. As it was still standing behind me, wincing in pain, I kicked behind me and ate again another part of its body.

The big one got furious while watching its little friends getting beaten. This time it rushed at me and the other two made room for it. The beast jumped straight at me and opened wide its jaws. This one had even more rows of sharp teeth than the others, but it did not matter, because it would lose them soon too. Especially when it did not expect me to charge at it too.

The big beast was in midair and had no way to dodge me. We crashed and it almost got divided into two, because I absorbed most of its body in the middle. I luckily did not get hurt as the impact was too weak, otherwise I would have died just now.

I was standing in the middle of the plaza and around me lied the dead body of the beast, missing its head.

With a quick glance did I look at my satiety bar and saw that I still had four percent left to fill, enough to kill the remaining beasts.

The beasts however, no longer wanted to face me, after they saw what I had done to their big brother. But I was hungry for more.

So I approached the one most hurt, because the other one ran away as soon as it saw me moving. The beast remaining here had lost its will to escape and only sought revenge at me for ruining its body and killing its friend.

We looked at each other in this heavy rain, while closing the distance between us. Its red eyes glared at me full of hate and also full of fear. But it did not give up, however much it feared me. And so our short fight should come to an end as we both charged with our full speed for our very last clash together.

Fighting this beast I felt happy and excited, and although the beast was terrified and hating me, it also seemed like it would enjoy our final exchange of blows. This feeling was something mysterious I never had felt before and it also was accompanied with the feeling of camaraderie for the enemy, and I wondered whether the beast felt the same.

And so we came almost close to clash with each other, but its wounds were too severe and it fell down because of all the blood it already had lost. It did not lose its momentum and slid towards me while I was still running. It left behind a trail of blood, which soon should get washed away by the rain.

The winner was decided. Neither of us had won, because I realized too late that it slid towards me and I did not manage to jump out of the way, instead I tripped over its body and fell on to the ground. Me face-planting on the ground was enough to make me lose my one and only health point.

In the next moment I found myself—forced out of the game—in the diving pod. The many lights greeted me once again.

Chapter 3! Yay! I am sorry for the long delay... I hope this chapter makes up for it :)

I am gonna keep the Author's Notes at the ends short from now on or leave them even out. Nobody reads them anyway >.>

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