The plaza was now covered in smoke and dust. The only thing I could make out was the ruins of the tower. It seemed like the green flame obliterated the entire structure.

Suddenly, with a whoosh, the obstruction in the air was gone. I could see a silhouette emerging from the rubble, taking their time. I honestly had my suspicions, from his disappearance to the green fire.

Fucking Aizen.

‘Holy shit.’

He walked up to the invaders without a care in the world, with his usual expression and pose. The soldiers let him through easily as he came up to the leader, where they nodded to each other and shook hands.

‘Goddamn.’

But now that I thought about it, it made sense. The guy was really strong and had a pretty big role in Valley of Secrets, but he was stationed here with us weaklings, and he sure didn’t need training. Even with the other people in the prison, it seemed like they didn’t really get along, just business.

Being treated like that, I wasn’t surprised he went to the other side. But it wasn’t my problem anyway so I was out of there. But just when I was turning around, I saw it. The fucker looked at me. And he smiled!

Now, one might say it was the stress or the adrenaline at the moment but I saw it. He knew. I wanted to scream at the guy and just punch him.

And after that? He nodded his head the other way, like he was pointing me somewhere. And I knew what he meant. So I gritted my teeth and went where he told me, making sure to keep my distance from the plaza and anyone that might blast me on sight.

On the way I found some poor souls that were thrown in the explosion. Needless to say, I looted everything, including their bodies. Today’s highlight was the body of a gorilla guard. He had absolutely nothing in his inventory, but just his body was a win for me. It wasn’t that he was looted, he had some storage rings but they were all empty.

I was pretty sure he wasn’t really human anymore, so it kind of made sense. Not my problem anyway.

Eventually, sandwiched between the wall of a house and a huge stone slab laid my target. One of them, anyway.

“Oh, beautiful Alinna,” I whispered.

She opened her gorgeous eyes weakly, gazing at me. I had to say, she was indeed a beautiful woman, despite her character and the current circumstances.

I got closer to her, crouching between the broken stones and caressed her face.

“How does it feel, you bitch?” I whispered.

She said nothing, only staring at me. Eventually, she spit right on my beautiful face.

“You better get away from me, you filthy animal!” she said.

Wiping my face, I told her.

“I can still spare you if you say ‘pretty please’, you know.”

She spit again. Goddamnit.

I wiped my face again, got up, and looked at the evening sky, sighing.

“You wanted it.”

A hatchet appeared in my hand, and I swung.

—----

The dark forest was illuminated by a small fire, tucked between the trees. Standing on a log, I was roasting a white blob on a stick.

Yes, I was having marshmallows in a fantasy world.

Surprisingly, I found quite a few packets in the Red Bitch’s inventory, among other things. Sadly, no chocolate to go with it.

After accomplishing my goals for today, I made my way out of the town uninterrupted and kept walking until it was night, when I started a fire. I had some jerky first before finding marshmallows, which I couldn’t resist. First time in decades, baby!

I also gobbled and drank every sweet and juice I could find. No sweets in prison, sadly.

While my desire was to find Alinna’s +1, I couldn’t find him after minutes of searching, so I got too scared and left. Not too heroic, but it is what it is.

Remember when I said the gorilla dude was the highlight of the day? Now it was Alinna’s inventory. She had so much good stuff. There were too many things to list, but among them were tens of thousands of Mana Crystals, magic weapons, all kinds of artifacts, gadgets and some miscellaneous items.

Right now I was using some of those artifacts. A Formation Flag, an artifact that could activate a Formation on its own. While called a flag it was just a stake that you would plop on the ground, containing a slot for Mana Crystals, used to power it. While usually said Crystals were the size of a fist, these were especially carved to about half to fit inside.

You just had to put the Crystal in and it would start. The small size of it didn’t really matter, it was only needed for activation, after that the Flag would take Mana from the environment by itself. This one made an illusion over a small area, making it look like nothing was there before.

Anyway, now with that out of the way, I was enjoying my time alone, free, in a magic world.

Just like my dreams.

The feeling was inexplicable. I could do whatever I wanted, had a myriad of chances and opportunities. Unlike Earth, here you could become stronger and richer easily. Kind of.

On Earth, there were barely any new things (at least that’s what I thought). But here, things popped up every day. I was sure I could take something that was normal on Earth and use it here to become rich. I didn’t know what yet, but I had hope.

Whatever, now the problem was that I didn’t know any magic. Besides the fact that I was still at the equivalent of Level 0, I also didn’t know any spells. While I could make a few fireballs or create a slight breeze, those were nothing. Actual spells had detailed structures, and I didn’t know any of those.

Like I said, that kind of information was protected. Also, none of the rings I got had anything of the sort.

Now, there were quite a few ways to learn magic. One, enroll in an academy, learn almost nothing for five years, then come out as someone that can call themselves a Mage. Not to mention they took all your money and barely let in any ‘commoners’.

Option two, work in a Mage Tower. Accomplished Mages had Towers where you could work your ass off for years, barely getting to learn anything. After that, you would be forced to sign a contract that made you give them a percentage of your research and income.

Another one was finding an ancient ruin or a dungeon. I actually knew of quite a few from my past life and I planned on scouring some, but right now it would be suicide.

Then there were the options that were nothing more than dreams, such as finding a master to teach you with no strings attached (no), being part of a noble family (double no) or making the spells yourself (triple no).

And the option I liked the most: stealing. Hell yeah.

Of course, it was easier said than done, but that was where my journal came in. You see, in my past life, I wrote notes about my experience, my thoughts, my dreams and other useless stuff. Among them was something I saw on the news not long after the recent attack. This attack was also on the news, and through that I learned its location. It just turns out there was a beast horde that trampled a close city owned by some poor Baron, something I’d already forgotten but seen in the journal.

Same plan, take advantage of the chaos, sneak in, steal everything and leave.

If the name didn’t already give it away, beast hordes were an amalgamation of creatures that attacked and ate everything on sight until they were eliminated or got bored. Some said it was because there wasn’t enough food, but with the Beast World’s vitality plants popped up every day and beasts were born by the minute, so that was bullshit. Others said they were just expanding territory. Either way, nasty stuff. Not for me, though.

Now how to get there?

Yeah, uh… I didn’t think of that.

If I hadn’t already mentioned, the Beast World was huge, so a single Barony was just immense, and also hard to travel through.

And I was lost.

The news said the attack was in Hont Barony, but it was the size of America. Not to mention I ran in the first direction I saw. Now I was stuck in a gloomy forest with a pack of marshmallows and no idea where to go. Awesome.

Well, that was a thought for tomorrow, now it was time for sleep. Literally every single person I looted had a tent, and a tent in a magic world meant cool stuff. Most of the weaklings had normal ones, but Alinna had one that set on its own. It came as a metal box no bigger than a cat that you would throw on the ground, and after pushing a button would unravel and turn into a five meter tall tent. Nice.

G’night!

-------------

I woke up feeling refreshed and sure that it was the best I’d ever had.

Now it was time for business. Lazing around was cool and all, but the city wasn’t gonna come to me. I packed up and got ready for the road - the road in question being a trek through the woods, up to some mountain I’d seen before. Mountain was kind of an overstatement, since compared to everything here it was merely a baby.

Anyway, before that it was time to strengthen myself.

And that meant poison; something surprisingly easy to get.

After having my breakfast of marshmallows and jerky (don’t judge) I went to the Marketplace. The legal stuff was first. Putting ‘poison/toxin’ in the search bar, I was given a myriad of choices. Opening the first five links at the same time, (I love the System) I started going through everything.

Since you couldn’t just sell lethal poison for everyone, the best I got was some paralyzing stuff, hallucinogens, and such. It worked anyway so whatever. Most probably wouldn't do anything since I already experienced the better stuff before but eh, didn’t hurt.

Putting everything in the cart, I went to the paying stage, where I could choose whether to use my super-duper Free Shipping Coupons. It was 10% of the total, and since the whole thing was barely 100 gold my answer was a big no.

With a flash, my purchase was now in front of me, all nicely packaged. I put it all in the ring for now and went to get the good stuff. Remember when I got access to the Black Market? Well, it was finally time.

In Black Market fashion, the System screen turned black and gloomy, now fully opaque. The writing was all in white, no exception, while the layout was the most boring I’d ever seen. All you had was a search bar and links. That was it. The ones on the first page weren’t even the most popular or anything, it was just random stuff.

Anyway, I just searched for poison. One word, nothing more, and I got what I wanted. Did I mention I loved the System?

The first link was apparently from a very notorious person, since it was the most popular. And the guy obviously knew what he was doing. He had some of everything, from the most basic to the most obscure.

I got a drop of everything, which was all I hopefully needed. It all came out to over 10 thousand Mana Crystals… which was quite a lot. Probably the last time I’d spend so much money in a while. It also meant I used my Coupon. Thousand Crystals saved, nice.

Again, it appeared before me all nicely packaged in a metal box, which would dissipate after I opened it. I left that aside for now. The next part was kind of boring, I bought a lot of food, supplies that I already didn’t have, down to the last, most obscure one, like animal food. Hey, you never know.

I of course got potions of all types, like Recovery, Sleeping, Fasting and more. I don’t think I need to explain what they do but not everyone is as smart as me, so number one regenerates, number two makes you sleepy sleepy, and number three you take instead of eating and it instantly tops you up. I could only get the shittiest ones, but it would do.

And I got a battle axe. A normal, non-magical one, made from plain steel, but it would work. You know, the one with the blade on both sides. Actually, after I thought about it I got another one. And another two for back-up. They were cheap anyway.

Now, the part I dreaded. I got both boxes out of my inventory, with a mental command the box was gone, and I was left with five hundred and fifty bottles… yeah. Poison took many forms, and since I got every single one, from worst to best (that I could afford) well, you can imagine.

I started with five of the basic ones, the ones with the weakest effects. And when I say basic I mean in my brain, I just knew what each did, not grades.

Anyway, along with those I took out five Recovery Potions, just in case.

Taking the cork off the first one, I took a deep breath in and downed it. I could kind of… feel it, going down through the throat and in the stomach. Weird. And then I could feel my heart pounding faster and faster, until it stopped. Or at least it felt like that, since I was still kicking. Then my head hurt. Then I wanted to vomit. And then it stopped.

After a couple minutes of waiting, nothing happened.

“Nice!” I pumped my fists. It worked!

Celebration over, I had to get it over with the other ones. And so, I drank myself silly. Literally, I saw Santa… Oh, you know what I mean. It actually went pretty well, not all made me feel like I was gonna die. Some just knocked me out instantly, while some made me really sweaty.

At some point I thought I was cool and drank two in succession, and it somehow made the Sword of Judgement down there get really excited. Needless to say, I didn’t do that again. I did note down what I combined (you never know, okay?).At the same time, some were useless, I probably already gained immunity to a similar thing.

Anyway, it went well, until about halfway, when whatever I was taking was probably too strong and it took a while for it to make its effect, meaning I was in pain for a minute or two. Still, I had to stop when I had about fifty left - it was already the middle of the day, and I needed a break. So I really packed up this time and started walking.

On the way, I put on some Beast-Repelling Perfume, something I desperately needed. I could probably beat a half-beast, but anything stronger would have dear old Lukas for dinner.

And.. then I realized I had more stuff to do. But I left it for later.

Anyway, the road was pretty peaceful. I did have to go around a few shady open spaces, something the beasts were obviously using as hunting grounds, but everything else was good. The Perfume did its thing.

After a few hours, when the sun was on its way to sleep, I finally got up the mountain to a place I could use for the night, a nice little indent in the cliff, barely qualifying as a cave. Making a mental note of its location, I went on higher. I eventually managed to climb over the treeline with the help of some ledges, (mind you, the trees were huge, and there was no road on the mountain, it was all vertical). Plopping myself down on a bigger edge, I turned around, ready to see my goal.

Instead, I saw absolutely nothing. More trees, a bigger mountain in the distance, and what once served as a base for my captors, now in ruins. No city in sight. Fuck. Now what?

Mind you, that internet I talked about was full of people who only cared about themselves. Asking for directions? They wouldn’t care. Which was interesting, because most people you met face to face were pretty nice (or so I’d heard).

Now my best shot was buying a map, which sucked. You see, the System had a map function you could buy, that would record everywhere you went and update it. This way, a lot of people sold the ones they completed at an absurd price. And trust me, people buy. A lot. Maps were important.

I thought I could do without one but apparently no. Oh well. I would wait until tomorrow either way, it was getting dark and maybe something good would happen until morning.

Now back to my sleeping place, I set up the Formation again, got a fire going, the tent up and took out the marshmallows again. A nice, cozy, evening. Though it was still barely 7 PM so I had time to kill before bedtime.

First, I went shopping again and got climbing gear, something I desperately needed today. It prorbably wasn’t getting used for a while, but you never know.

After that, it was time for magic. And I was damn nervous. First time is always unnerving, you know? Well, second, but whatever.

But first, I wanted to try something. I put everything in its place, took a small pillow, found a small patch of even ground, and sat down. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes.

Did you know? Clearing your mind is a hard task. It took a good half an hour (probably) for my mind to go blank.

And it was… interesting. A state of bliss, but at the same time nothingness. And also everything…ness? It was hard to explain, but it was certainly an interesting feeling. Now that I managed that, I had to look inside. I literally had to think about myself. Yes, it beats the point of thinking of nothing before, I know.

I had to think about my experiences, my virtues, my character, how I act, how I think, then I had to think about the physical part, my body itself, the skin, the hair, the organs. And mainly, the blood. The bloodstream, to be exact. The way it flows, the way it curves and straightens itself, all going back to the heart. I imagined myself as a blood cell, swimming through the veins. Then I thought about the heart, and what was inside. But now the physical part was over.

I imagined the heart as something else. As a core, as the center of everything. Most of all, I considered it a database. Slowly, I could feel it, and somehow see it, right inside. The seeing part was just imagination for now, but it certainly felt real. And inside, I could see them. Orbs of different colors, swimming around, bouncing from one another. There were so many, it almost formed an image akin to a night sky.

There they were. My poisons. My immunities. The database, ready to be used.