It was about night time, the carriages were taking a break after travelling for 12 hours. They took a break for about an hour in between too, to rest and offer passengers water.

Carriages were parked at the side of the road. Both sides of there road were dense forest. A fire was lit so passengers could sit around and keep themselves warm. It was dinner time. They cooked an entire goat which they carried alive. They had couple of goats, chickens and even vegetables.

This seems to be a very smart business. A carriage dedicated just to carry supplies for a long journey. Could afford to hire more guards in case of bandits or wild animals interrupting. All this is possible only if large number of passengers are travelling at once. Three carriages full of passengers and one to carry supply.

With this thought, Takeshi too stepped out along with other travelers to look around. He thought it was a mistake to climb into the carriage without wearing the disguise necklace. There were people who occasionally took a peak at him and looked away when their eyes met his. Some did try to approach him and made a gesture to greet him, but he wasn't able to understand anything they said so he just bowed slightly in return. Whenever he greeted them back smilingly with one of his hand over his head, people were startled as if they weren't expecting it.

The man who took the payment gave Takeshi a bowl with some soup with chunks of meat and vegetables in it, but there wasn't any spoon. Takeshi sat down on a log and began picking up meat with his dirty hands and started eating this bland dish. Although he was quite hungry so it didn't tasted that bad.

He felt someone's hand on his shoulder. He looked back and was surprised. It was the girl from the inn.

What the hell is she doing here? Wait, is she coming with us? Like with me? Wait, did this trip costed only 1 gold coin and the second one was for her? Did she disappeared because she was packing her stuff? I didn't saw her mom in the morning, this teenage girl is always working in the morning, did she tell her mom? She isn't running away or anything right?

Hundreds of questions and explanations ran through Takeshi's mind, while his confused face faced smiley little face of the girl.

He stood up staring her down with an expression of anger. The girl immediately backed off and started talking as if she was trying to explain something. Takeshi at the sight of her talking rested his face on his palm.

Why is she here? Is she thinking of some fairy tail about her being from small town going to a big city to seduce and marry or whatever they do to some blonde prince? It's all right, just ignore her, and she'll go away. I can't take responsibility for this girl. After we finish this journey I'll go my way, and she'll go wherever she wishes to.

With this thought Takeshi just ignored the girl still rambling and resumed eating his food with a bit of annoyed expression on his face. The girl kept talking for a while, without receiving much response she left him alone.

After finishing his soup he reached to a guy he thought was a staff member and gave the empty bowl to him.

Takeshi's eyes were caught by a person who had something similar to a magic staff from animes. It was a wooden stick with a big fat crystal sitting on top. This person looked like someone cosplaying. He thought to himself if this really was a magical world.

What is even magic? A certain phenomena which cannot be explained by current understanding of nature? What possible rational explanation could there be?

He knew that this is a different world, so laws of this world might be different, or at least slightly different from his. But he cannot accept magic. He thought maybe this is not magic here in this world, its so common that no one really calls it magic. Maybe some sort of smart energy that does complex task for them? But there must be some law governing it. What could it be?

He then pondered thinking about his console. Why is his console working here? This console is just a code. How can it exist in real world? How is this possible? There was no doubt in his mind about how real this world is after picking up rotting corpses. He could eat and end his hunger, quench his thirst, poop. Everything was extremely detailed. The more he looked at anything, he could see that things didn't get smooth or blurred. They were very real, very detailed. The dust was another thing he previously didn't noticed, there wasn't just graphics but actual dust that settles and one can pick it up by rubbing a finger on any given object.

Then how was this console working here? How could he pull out a gun, a shovel and clothes he is wearing out of nowhere? Does god exist and made it so that he can do this? Or is he in coma and due to watching too many animes and playing fps games his brain is giving him dreams with both concepts mush together? For some reason he thought that the idea of him being in coma and this being his brain's attempt to fulfil some isekai fps fetish of his was the most rational explanation. Otherwise why would a gun appear out of nowhere, should he keep on living in this coma while being aware of it?

He decided to discard these thoughts for now and sleep to keep his brain from overloading. There was no point thinking about these things right now. He went back into his carriage at his spot. A staff member approached the carriage and gave him a blanket. Takeshi smiled back at him while wrapping himself in the blanket.

Where am I? Wait, this seems familiar. That deer, I have seen that deer before.

*Giggling Noises*

Where did that noise came from? What's that, is that....that couple? They are alive? Wait no, how could they be alive? Is that guy's hea...h... head open?

*Intense blood curdling scream*

Takeshi's eyes opened and he alarmingly sat straight up. He had a terrified expression on his face. He looked around and all the passengers were sitting tightly at the deep end sobbing for some reason. He realized it was just a bad dream, then he again heard similar screaming coming from outside. He took a peak outside.

The trees across the road were on fire. He looked where the screams were coming from. They were coming from another carriage. There were some short 'green' people outside of the carriage. He could see them because of the fire.

Are these goblins?

A woman was tossed out of the carriage. The goblins below got hold of her. They tied her mouth so she would shut. Then they began dragging her inside the forests.

Takeshi looked at the other side after hearing an explosion, it seemed some people were fighting these guys, there were people with swords and a woman with the staff throwing fire balls. There were simply too many of these little guys. This wasn't just happening to a single carriage, all the carriages were under attack.

Suddenly an arrow out of nowhere hit Takeshi in left arm. He clenched his face in pain and fell back. He wanted to scream but suppressed it. It was the most painful thing he ever experienced.

This is too real.

Then some of these 'green goblins' came into the carriage. Everybody screamed at the top of their lungs. It was as if the world was coming to an end. Takeshi looked backward and he saw scared men, women and children. He also saw the girl form the inn.

While some attempted to fight back, goblins started to grab women and counter attack. Takeshi saw one woman grabbed by three goblins. She was holding on to a five year old. She was screaming very intensely. Takeshi heard her dreaded scream. He saw her child crying. The goblins separated her child and threw him back in the carriage while tossed out the woman. Takeshi was frozen with horror for the entire time. Then they tossed out two more women, one of which had a baby and they didn't even cared separating the baby from her. Some goblins were just fighting while others were trying to grab anyone's foot and drag them out.

Takeshi felt someone grabbed onto his foot. He looked and it was the girl from the inn. The goblin yanked her but she didn't let go dragging Takeshi too. One of the goblins with a small axe came in proximity of Takeshi's leg and swung his axe. It hit the girl's forearm and dug into her bone. Takeshi saw this with wide eyes. She let go of her grip and was dragged out.

After this Takeshi raised his arm and his watch opened up the console. He started navigating it with his brain and selected something. His eyes went black and few words appeared in front of his eyes.

LOGGING OUT FAILDED. COULDN'T CONNET.

There was no end to this nightmare.

He then came back and saw goblins dragging out women who were holding on to the carriage, he heard screaming, goblins swinging axes so women loose their grip and people defending back off. It looked like goblins were in a hurry and weren't interested in fighting as much as kidnapping women.

Takeshi took a deep breath. He always had a problem of loosing grip of the moment due to stress since he was a kid. His father to help him out hired a meditation expert. He taught him how and why one gets stressed? Why people snap? Why they zone out? What happens when they loose grip of the moment, stop hearing things in the background, freeze because they don't know what to do. He also taught him how can one overcome it. One of the technique that stuck with Takeshi was focusing on breathing. It helped him to calm down, collect himself and take immediate action. He had been doing this trick since he was a child. Even as an adult whenever some shocking news came across he just breathes, two long breathes and immediately start devising a plane of action.

Takeshi took two long breathes. He broke the arrow's wooden part while leaving the arrowhead alone. He then looked at his console and pulled out a M4A1.

When goblins saw him pulling something out, one of them immediately threw an axe at him. He dodged it. He then aimed and started shooting.

He first took out the goblin who threw the axe, then the guy with him. He then looked at his back where goblins were yanking women who were holding on to the carriage. They were very close to him, so he pulled the trigger and shot three more. Rest of the goblins immediately jumped out.

Takeshi too jumped out of the carriage and started shooting them. With loud noise he grabbed attention of all the goblins. An arrow from appeared. He just bent his head sub consciously and dodged the arrow.

Takeshi's avatar was very strong physically and had a sort of Spidey sense. He also had experience of playing with it for a decade. Aiming was in his bones at this point. He pointed at goblins, they were quite visible due to massive fire on the other side of the road. He looked in the direction of arrow and saw some goblins sitting on the carriage aiming at him. As soon as goblins with bows and arrows eye's met with Takeshi and they saw his gun pointed towards them, they immediately tried to running away. But to their dismay Takeshi's movements while shooting targets were mechanical. He shot and killed three of them, while other two escaped. Another goblin near him swung an axe which Takeshi dodged again and shot him. Now there were goblins who were coming at him with axes. He shot them down. One of them jumped to his back attempting to stab him with a knife. Takeshi grabbed him before he could do anything and threw him at least 10 meters away.

He pulled out third 30 round magazine and reloaded his assault rife. He noticed that goblins were falling back. He saw a group of women that were tied up like goods being dragged towards the dense forest. He ran towards them aiming at the goblins involved in dragging. There was the girl form the inn tied up too. He shot the goblins, but instead of untying her, he went after goblins. He went near all carriages to sweep the goblins who were still trying to kidnap.

When he attempted taking out another magazine he immediately felt weakness in his leg and stumbled to the ground. He tried taking it out again, but whenever he put his arms across the holographic screen he felt as if his body was giving up on him. The woman who Takeshi saw throwing fire balls appeared in front of him. She separated the crystal from her staff and offered it to him. Takeshi looked at her with a tired but dumbfounded expression. She was full of injuries with two arrows sticking out of her back. She then took his hand and tapped the crystal on his watch. Nothing happened. Accidently a screen opened, she tried tapping the crystal on the holographic screen, the crystal vaporized as it went through the screen.

Takeshi was bewildered, but he didn't bother thinking about it, instead he tried pulling another magazine. He didn't felt dizzy anymore. He climbed up the carriage closest to where dense forest began. He took out another equipment from the game. It was night vision goggles. But they were advanced and could detect heat signatures too.

The goggles he had also synced in with the weapon and pointed out where he was shooting. It seemed this feature was also working in this world. He didn't really needed it, but when goblins started moving into the dark forest, it was helpful. He shot a few shots, but realized that the goblins were now gone and couldn't be aimed at easily.

He looked around. The fireball woman and other survivors were opening up tied up women. There were a lot of corpses lying around including children's.

He came down to help the girl from the inn. When he came closer to that tied up group. He saw something very disturbing. There was body of a baby. He held his breath and tried touching it to see if he was alive. A woman who was tied up with the girl from Inn started screaming when he came closer to the baby. The baby was dead. He looked at the woman who screamed despite her mouth tied up very tightly. It was a horrifying experience. He came closer to them, took out an army standard knife to cut off bondages of the entire group.

He decided to follow goblins. He had heat sensing goggles. The goblins had kidnapped a lot of women and children. He couldn't just allow it. So he went deep into the forest.