Rupegia

"You may now kiss the bride."

But no kiss came, the warmth of her hand suddenly vanished. The feeling of standing in the stable ground was switched to the stomach churning pain of free-falling. And then my consciousness was severed.

"Lily…" I murmur.

My back hurts and my whole body feels like stone, nausea prevents me from trying to get up, my nose is filled with the musky smell of nature. I finally realize I'm laying down with my eyes closed and my belly up.

Once the nausea subsides I decide to open my eyes. I see huge trees that almost covers the entire sky. Like cracks on a wall, the crown shyness of the canopies let small streaks of light pass through.

Regaining control of my body I manage to sit and look at my surroundings. This is a forest with trees bigger and thicker than anything I have ever seen before. Bushes prevent me from seeing too far. The air is damp and hot.

I get up and notice my body feels weird. I look down and see I'm not wearing my tuxedo but instead I have a leather jacket, a woolen white shirt, woolen black pants and some rather uncomfortable leather shoes. On my waist there's a belt where a sword and scabbard are hanging.

I draw the sword and notice it's heavy. Oddly I don't find it difficult to handle and it's almost as my arm moves on its own as I swing it. Its blade is straight and double edged, with about 90cm, there's space for only one hand on the hilt which has a cross shaped guard. The edge is sharp and can easily cut the bushes I swing at. This is not a prop.

"Am I in a renaissance fair?

I can't remember getting here, did I hit my head? The last thing I remember is being in my wedding ceremony.

"Lily…!? LILY, WHERE ARE YOU!?" I scream.

My body still feels weird. At least I'm not nauseous anymore, but now I'm starting to feel scared. I don't know where to go, there's only trees as far as the eye can see. I don't remember how I got here and in which direction I can go to find someone. I'm truly lost in the woods with no idea of what to do.

Besides, I've never seen a forest like this. I'm Canadian living in the cold north where it should be winter and the trees are much smaller. Did I travel to a far away place to the south or is it now summer and I simply forgot the passage of time?

Time passes while I think on what to do and slowly I start to feel an itch inside my head. It's not on the outside, on my hair, but actually inside. Like when water gets on your ear and it gets uncomfortable. It feels like I can almost touch it but it's barely out of reach, so I keep trying and shaking my head, little by little it feels I'm getting closer. Then suddenly I reach it and scratch it, a menu opens.

Now I feel like I'm going insane. There's no source of light or medium where the light hits to explain this as a light projection. It's a floating object that passes through the bushes near me as if it's non-corporeal. It follows my torso but not my head. Curious and scared I use my finger to touch the square that says "Status".

A new black square opens and writing can be seen.

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Info

Name: PRESS HERE TO CHOOSE | Age: 16 | Race: Human

HP: 100 | MP: 100 | Magic Power: 175

Level: 1 | Experience: 0/100

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Stats

Strength: 7 | Endurance: 8 | Dexterity: 9

Speed: 10 | Intelligence: 20 | Wisdom: 15

Willpower: 11 | Charisma: 10 | Piety: 0

Perception: 15 | Sanity: 9

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Other

Status Effects: NONE | Titles: NONE

Affiliations: NONE

Companions: NONE

Crimes: NONE

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I can't believe this. Mom told me this would happen but I didn't listen. I have now officially gone insane, I'm seeing video game status in real life.

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I start panicking a little. This situation is not funny. Compounding on my loss of memory and waking up in an unknown place, now I'm seeing something impossible to explain and a ridiculous looking menu which makes me believe I'm into some ultra-realistic virtual reality game. I can feel the pain in my body, I can smell the forest, my vision is not blurred anymore, I can feel a little hunger in my stomach, I can feel how uncomfortable these ridiculous clothes are and I can taste the saliva. Just to make sure I lick my hand and taste the salt of my cold sweat. All my senses tell me this is real.

Is this the future where I purposely erase part of my memory and enter this virtual reality just to feel like I have been transported into another world? This is the only logical explanation that does not involve a supernatural event. But if this is so, I see no "Quit" or "Logout" button, which only makes my panicking worse.

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Somehow I manage to calm myself, I need to focus on my only ally here, logic. Logic is my friend, logic is my ally and logic will help me get through the insanity and ridiculousness so I can make a proper decision and not break down and starve in this horrible world.

First things first, I have to explore my options. There are more buttons to press on this menu, so let's just pull off the brakes on my skepticism of this fantasy.

On the left of the menu there are buttons on a column, they are: "Status", "Items", "Skills", "Magic", "Notes" and "Messages".

"Messages" has an exclamation point near it, I assume it signifies that there's an unread message. I open it and there is only one message.

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Sender: God.

"I'm sorry for this, but there's no way for you to go back."

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Logic doesn't help when God fucks you over. I'm having another breakdown.

My sanity went down another point.

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No no no no no no noooo. I can't get mad, this is a prank, someone is messing with me. A camera is hidden and soon someone will jump here and laugh at me. I have to keep calm so the entirety of the internet and then the world won't have a reason to point and laugh at my situation. It's okay, keep calm, it's all a prank.

So since this is a prank, why not use magic? I wanna see what kind of special effects they are going to use. So I press the button and...

A blank black box appears.

So I guess I don't have any magic skills yet, let's see how "Items" works. I don't have a backpack so how are the items going to appear? Hah, it's gonna go *poof* and materialize or something?

I press the button and a list appears.

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Items

Item Name: Quantity | Item Name: Quantity | Item Name: Quantity

Empty backpack: 1 | Spare clothes bundl:e 1 | Rock bread: 10

Dried meat: 10 | Deer waterskin: 5 | Sleeping bag: 1

Flint: 1 | Kitchen knife: 1 | Skinning knife: 1

Cooking pot: 1 | Whetstone: Q100 2 | Wool cloak: 1

Firewood: 10 | Rose coin: 1 | Gold coin: 10

Silver coin: 50 | Copper coin: 100

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"At least you gave me money, you shit stain of a god."

I press the "Sleeping Bag" button, the menu closes and above my finger a transparent sleeping bag hovers.

Scared at the sudden apparition of a ghost sleeping bag I step back and pull my hand back, but the ghost follows my finger as if it's glued. Trying to unglue it I press my finger on my jacket, with a *poof* the sleeping bag suddenly materializes and it falls on my feet.

I think I'm starting to get used to the insanity, a sleeping bag materializes from absolutely nothing and I don't really feel anything anymore, is this "shock"?

Anyway. Now how do I put it back?

I notice there's an icon on the corner of the item screen that's animated. It shows a hand grabbing a sword, bumping a button and then the sword disappears. This animation keeps looping.

I grab the sleeping bag, press the button and *poof*, the sleeping bag disappears. On the item list appears an entry named "Sleeping bag".

So is there an item limit? Weight limit? Is it limited to things I can carry on one hand? Maybe I should write these on my notes and test them later, it should be a priority to understand this world if I'm going to be stuck into this fantasy land.

Now finally let's see the "Skills" menu. It has a column with the writing "Skill Points: 10". Below it is written "Acquired Skills" and below that there is [Sword Use 1], which has a minus and plus sign to its side. It seems I can increase or reduce the skill points at will. To the side there are the following tabs: "Physical", "Magical" and "Miscellaneous".

"Physical" has things like [Sword Use], [Axe Use], [Shield Use], [Block], [Parry], [Bow Use]. Some of these look like they might be overlapping, perhaps the benefits stack, sounds troublesome to test. There are others where the name isn't very descriptive like [Antushi Style], probably related to martial arts schools. Then there are some like [Enhanced Reflexes], [Muscle Explosion], [Hawk Eyes] and [Battlefield Perception] that should give a variety of effects. There's also dozens of crafting skills like [General Blacksmithing], [Armor Smith], [Weapon Smith], [Jewel Crafting], [Woodwork] and [Bow Crafting]. And finally there are some ridiculous ones like [Enhanced Sexual Stamina], [Oral Technique], [Enhanced Genital Control] and [Enhanced Semen Recharge].

Magic sounds extremely interesting to me. Starting with the standard elements like electricity, space, light, dark, fire, water, earth, wind, nature. Then there are the more exotic ones like, spirit, summoning, conjuring, blessing, cursing, [Undead Creation], [Bloodwork] and many more. There's magic enhancements like [Mana Control], [Mana Efficiency], [Mana Recovery], [Mana Absorption], [Mana Reflection] and [Reduced Mana Cost]. Mana seems to be the name of the source of magical power in this world and MP should be something like "Mana Points". There's resistances like [Poison Resistance], [Fire Resistance] and so on. Then crafting like [Armor Enchanting], [Weapon Enchanting], [Jewel Enchanting], [Alchemy], [Potion Brewing], [Magic Tool Carving], [Poison Brewing] and [Golemancy], the last seems extremely interesting for me since I have a degree in robotics. And there's ridiculous ones too like, [Slavery Magic], [Sexual Charm] and [Sexual Metamorphosis].

Miscellaneous contains things like [Weapon Appraisal], [Jewel Appraisal], [Metal Appraisal], [Ore Appraisal], [Flute Playing], [Lute Playing], [Musical Improvisation], [Singing], [Oratory], [Acting], [Writing], [Housework], [Cleaning], [Washing] and even [Folding]. Then there's some interesting ones like [Sense Presence], [Hide Presence], [Quiet Steps], [Quiet Action], [Intimidation] and [Charm]. There's even a bunch that's related to language proficiency, but I don't know which one to choose so I will leave it for later. Some look like they belong into the "Physical" category but with things like [Charm] and [Sense Presence] maybe they revolve around some weak form of magic, so they are a mix of both physical and magical skill.

Luckily at the top there's a search function, but typing on this menu is very awkward. Unlike a keyboard where you can feel the feedback of pressing a key, this keyboard passes through the finger so you don't feel anything when you press a button. The feedback is even worse than that of a smartphone.

"Notes" operates like an office computer software where you create and organize documents and simply write things in them with an awkward, floating, non-corporeal keyboard.

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Now that I have seen it all I need to decide my next step. I have some food, although something like "Rock bread" doesn't sound appetizing, I don't think I will starve to death so soon. But still if there's no civilization nearby I need to secure a source of food and water. Perhaps conjuring will give me something to survive, but I'm not sure relying on magic to survive is a good idea. I have no idea what kind of nutrition magically created food has, I also have no idea of the mana cost of conjuring or how fast mana recovers. I will need to test it, but testing it now might cost me precious time.

Since I have no idea where to go maybe it's best to find a vantage point where I can look over the surroundings and search for a river or a man-made structure.

I had an idea, since I can add or remove skill points at will, I can see which magic gives which spell, maybe there's something useful in there. Once I put one point into a magic school it gives me at least one spell. Most magic schools require 10 points until the next spell is unlocked, some require 5. After level 11 I don't know since I don't have enough points.

Although [Golemancy] seems interesting it doesn't look like it is useful for now. Conjuring gives me a source of water but I will have to test it later how much water it gives me. It might also be a good idea to have at least one offensive magic since I have good stats for magic, I believe. I wanted some healing magic but since my "Piety" is zero I'm uncertain if it's a good idea since normally in other games healing magic is tied to religion and piety. I'm starting to wish I wasn't an atheist. If this truly is a different world then I better start believing in the divine seeing how supernatural things are happening around me.

When I look at [Summoning Magic] I get an excellent idea, the first spell for summoning is [Summon Small Bird], which might be my best way of finding my way on this land. So I put a point on it, go to the magic tab and press the magic button. I feel like my blood is being sucked from my body through multiple places, then a ball of light appears in front of the finger that pressed the button. Not knowing what to do I decide to touch the ball, gravity suddenly starts to apply on it, it falls on the ground and stops shining. Suddenly I'm looking at the sky again.

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When my head stops spinning I understand I fell on the ground. My vision is distorted and on one side I can see the sky and the other side I can see the sole of my own boots. My body feels weird and it's like I have grown more limbs. My hearing is noisy and much louder than before. I feel much more hungry and my insides are churning.

After getting used a little bit with the situation I raise my upper body. On one side of my vision I see a small brown bird that looks like a fluffy ball, on the other side of my vision I see... Myself? I don't remember looking like this, I'm younger, much younger. This baby face that I didn't see for more than a decade is staring at… Me?

I assume that this little bird in front of me is my summon and I'm sharing its senses. Things like sight, hearing, touch, taste, proprioception and heat. Maybe even more, there are so many that I'm getting a strong headache, my mind is not ready for so much information. I wish I wasn't sharing all of those senses. Then the sharing suddenly stops and I feel so sick I almost puke.

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A flush of information followed by a sudden cut was too much for me to handle, I had to spend a few minutes controlling my stomach so I don't puke. After a while I look back and the bird is still on the same spot, with its beady little eyes staring intently at me.

If all I need is to wish to control the flow of information from the senses then I wish I could only share the sight. And now my vision is back to seeing two images.

It's not like my vision decreased, it expanded and now I can see much more, which puts a strain on my brain and makes me a little queasy. But now I know that this little guy is the perfect thing to help me find civilization.

I look at my status and see that my max MP was halved and my current MP is now on 15 points. It seems that summoning is an advanced form of magic, or I'm just bad at magic even though I have good stats. Also, I didn't put any points into things like [Mana Control], [Mana Efficiency] or [Reduced Mana Cost], so maybe that's why this magic is so expensive. That was a mistake, I wasted a lot of mana points.

But it doesn't matter, now I need to know how to control it. First I try to wish for it to move, like I wished to stop the sense sharing, but nothing happened. I guess it only works with voice commands, which makes it impossible to use it as a puppet.

"Sit on my hand," I say. I open my palm and it obeys.

The sudden flight makes me nauseous again, but I guess it's just a matter of getting used to it. Now, with the bird closer to my face I can finally see myself properly.

I'm truly much younger than before, I'm really 16 again. Round face, protruding jaw, full cheeks, traces of pimples, a few characteristic freckles, complete lack of my stubble that made me look manly, short black hair neatly combed into the side now slightly disheveled. That's me, the young baby-faced me. Considering how I'm seeing my younger self through the eyes of a little bird, I can feel my sanity dropping another point.

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I need to get a hold of myself, I'm not supposed to be affected by this anymore, my safety is the top priority right now. If this is really a video game then just by looking at the large amount of combat skills would make you believe that this is a dangerous world. And I'm alone in the woods, the most common place for enemies to appear. So I need to prepare myself and focus back on finding civilization.

While calming myself I notice something odd on my head. Like an itch, I recognize it's the similar to the itch that I have to scratch to open and close the menu, maybe this is related to the [Summoning Magic]? I feel like I don't have to make an effort to scratch it, so I will leave it like this otherwise I could dismiss the summoned bird and lose the mana I already spent.

Finally it is time to scout the area.

"Fly high in a circle and come back after two minutes," I say.

Hopefully it knows what two minutes are, I also said this since I'm afraid it won't come back unless I tell it to.

The bird quickly flies upwards and crosses the canopies, which gives me a breathtaking view.

A sea of trees, that is how this place looks from above. There are some trees which are much taller allowing you to see their trunks, they show huge vines hanging from the canopies. There are huge roots thicker than a house that twist around the ground and disappear among the trees. Blue, red, yellow, orange, white and black patches of leaves paint the sea as if they were drops of paint on a green canvas. The sky is completely clear and blue, at least this isn't an alien world. Based on the position of the Sun it looks like it's still a few hours before noon. The sunlight reflects on the leaves and creates beautiful twinkling lights.

Far away on the horizon I can see a grassland. Just on the edge of my view I see something that makes my heart stop. I can see multiple black lines standing on top of another black line. Perhaps those are towers around a city wall? It's definitely man-made and not a mountain or another tree. Finally I have a direction to go. After the bird comes back I will make it go in the direction of that city to investigate more. But wait, that doesn't look like a modern town, it reminds me of drawings of medieval fantasy towns. Just another piece of evidence this situation is not normal.

Suddenly the view gets shaky and blurry, a shadow blocks part of the bird's view. It got captured by the claws of a large scaled animal. I don't know what happens if it gets killed, I fear that a feedback of pain through the connection could happen like it does in some games when a familiar is killed. Immediately I scratch the itch on my brain, after that the vision of the bird gets blurry and slowly goes black. My field of view goes to normal and the discomfort of double view goes away. I lost my first familiar.

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This brings another bucket of cold water to my heart. It shows again this world is dangerous and I need to prepare. So far I only have 1 point into [Summoning Magic] and [Sword Use], I still have 9 unused points so I better prepare.

First I want healing magic. I put 10 points into [Light Magic]. I have a suspicion it uses "Piety", since I have 0 it might be useless to me. I go to my "Magic" tab and press [Heal].

And nothing happens... I guess I was right. If 0 "Piety" means I can't cast it then maybe it works like a multiplier, I might need 10 "Piety" before it becomes actually cost effective.

Well then, at least there's another healing spell I can use. I put 5 points into [Nature Magic], it gives me two spells: [Constricting Vines] and [Regeneration]. Both seem very useful for someone like me that does not really want to fight. Then I put 2 into [Sense Presence], so I can detect enemies coming. I put 1 into [Electric Magic] so I have one offensive spell, [Lightning Bolt]. I don't wanna use [Fire Magic] in a forest since I'm not confident I won't start a forest fire. And the last point goes into [Sword Use] making it level 2.

Now I have two more itches on my head, with a total of 4. As if it's some sort of subconscious understanding I can differentiate between the "itches". One is the menu, one is the [Summoning Magic], one is the [Sense Presence] skill and the last is the [Lightning Bolt] magic. With a little bit of familiarity it seems it will be very easy to use the one I want whenever I want.

My mana is back to 20, I think I will wait more until it's back to full.

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It took me at least an hour but my mana is now back to full. While waiting I focused on calming my heart so I can do what I need to do. My "Sanity" went up 1 point so it's now at 8. I assume the average is 10 like in other games. Being at 8 is not necessarily bad, but I believe this means I have to work more on keeping calm.

This is possibly a medieval fantasy world, with swords and magic, which means that it's different from my society. I need to be mindful of things such as respecting the nobility, avoid triggering the superstitions of locals, understanding local laws, adapting to the food and etiquette, understanding the economy, understanding the common sense and other things.

If I fail on this first contact I don't know if I could live until I reach the next town or the next opportunity. I can't bring attention to myself, things like [Slavery Magic], [Bloodwork] and [Necromancy Magic] sound dangerous and potentially illegal. [Summoning Magic] seems advanced and also exotic, it's best people don't ask where I learned it. Also the skill system seems abusive, I could turn from a swordsman, into a mage, into an assassin, into a craftsman, into a negotiator, all in a small amount of time. It doesn't seem like normal for people to be able to do this. Even the menu and things like "Items" could be abnormal here.

Now I'm starting to accept this might really be another world. "God" may have sent me a message that I can't go back, but there's no evidence of that, it's just the words of a suspicious being that I have never seen before. Perhaps I can go back, perhaps not, but first I need to search for knowledge about this world, knowledge about teleportation and knowledge about other worlds. Then I can truly decide if it's possible or not.

Even if this is truly a game, I can still feel a lot of pain, I can feel the pleasure of the wind, I can feel the hunger. Now that I think about it I should eat a piece of meat.

It's too salty for my taste, too hard to cut and too rubbery to chew, I really want normal food now. I didn't even get to taste the buffet that I ordered for my wedding, there were so many choices of chocolate candies that I never got to enjoy.

Going back to the previous train of thought, I can feel the satisfaction of eating something. So I don't want to live a poor and hard life. If I can basically do anything with this skill system then maybe I can use it to my advantage and have a quiet but fulfilling life while I search for knowledge on how to get back.

I sigh and lay back on the cold hard ground. I can see the sun on top of the canopies now, so I guess this is about noon.

I just wanted to hug you one more time Lily…

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I try to eat a piece of "Rock bread", but it really was as hard as rock, I guess this is why it won't spoil easily. Then I try to wet it with saliva and it easily crumbles into a mush. Bland, wet, white bread, delicious.

I gotta test [Lightning Bolt]. It's best to know your tools even if I'm going to waste the mana right now by firing into nothing. I scratch the "itch" of [Lightning Bolt], on the point of my left finger I feel something getting hot, I also feel again the sensation of blood leaving my body. I look at my finger and it's shining a little. I point it forward and after two seconds of holding it still a lightning bolt leaves my finger and flies toward the bush.

After the flash and loud thunder I see the bush is completely carbonized and slightly burning. I have no idea how to measure damage but it feels dangerous, maybe it could kill a person in one hit? But there's the status values and HP values, maybe people can get resistance through endurance or something.

I cast [Constricting Vines] on another bush. Where I'm pointing green vines burst through the ground and wrap themselves around the bush. It took a few seconds for them to wrap around, I don't think I can use this on an enemy that's moving.

These spells cost me ¼ of my mana, I only have 3 more uses or so for [Lighting Bolt]. I will wait again until my mana is full. I also don't know what happens if you use all your mana. In some games you can feel sick, faint, lose health or even die so I'm unwilling to test my mana to the limit.

Finally after resting again I get the motivation to move on. Now I need to walk into the direction of town and reach safety.

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I walk with [Sense Presence] activated, but I realize it makes me very tense, I certainly would tire of keeping it on all the time. Maybe I will get used to it if I level up or put more points on it or something like that.

I'm really tense but I can still appreciate the environment. The trees are all 10 to 15 meters tall, with a girth that would require at least 5 people to surround it. The occasional huge root snaking around the trees, periodically going bellow the ground, make it seem like it's the roots of one huge tree.

There's also plenty of different bushes and small trees with fruits. I tried to put the fruits into "Items" but they all give a "??? fruit" so I'm not sure what they are or if they are edible. The fruits look like multi colored berries and grapes.

Then as I was walking through a small patch of blue leaved trees with a white trunk my [Sense Presence] picked up something different from the animals. Like a radar inside my mind I felt something "red" a few meters to my right.

With [Sense Presence] it's like I have a small radar into my mind, there I can "feel" small "dots", small animals that come and go. But this "red" dot is something dangerous, I feel a pain in my heart that increases because that dot is coming directly to me. Did it notice me? Does it also have [Sense Presence]? I can't even see it because the bushes are on the way.

I hide besides a bush and crouch, if possible I would like to avoid combat. In games killing monsters give experience, which will make me increase my "level". But I don't have confidence in my abilities and I also don't even know what kind of enemy is coming.

The presence keeps coming. I notice the intercept route is a little off, maybe it was just a coincidence that our paths would cross, but it will still be very close. I can't afford to move and make a noise. I put my hand on the hilt of my sword.

As I wait the enemy coming closer I can hear footsteps. It seems to be a quadruped, perhaps it's a dog? Then I notice the sound of someone breathing air quickly. It's smelling me, there's no escape now that it caught my scent and it's going to come to me.

A bush in front starts to move and out of it a small wolf like animal comes out. It has a long snout that gets thinner at the nose, fangs coming out of the closed mouth, a round body with spines covered in moss. The parts of the body without spines are covered in a Grey fur. It's certainly not an animal that I know.

I freeze for a moment, I'm still not used to the ridiculous things that happen to me. But this was a mistake, the monster noticed me. It immediately bares his fangs and lunges at me. It's coming, it's gonna bite me, it wants to kill me, I'm going to die.

"AAAAAAAH," I scream.

The fight or flight instinct kicked in and this time I decided to fight. When the monster got close enough it jumped, aiming at my face.

While drawing my sword I aim the blade and hit the monster on the side of its mouth. Such an attack is not the standard way of using this sword, so the wound was merely a scratch but it held enough power to deflect the animal. It passed by me and fell down two meters away.

Immediately I turned and the animal did a move that sent chills down my spine. It lifted the hind legs and lowered the lower legs, the spines then moved its pointy ends directly at me and started to shake. The next moment they flew at me.

Through some incredible reflexes or luck I lunged to the side and behind the nearest tree. But even then it wasn't a perfect dodge, the side of my legs were assaulted by a wave of pain as the mossy spines entered my skin.

I was already filled with adrenaline since a few seconds ago while anxiously waiting for the monster to come, so I managed to ignore the pain. But I'm still panicking and decide to use my trump card, I start casting [Lightning Bolt].

I hear the footsteps of the monster rushing towards me. He has to go around the tree so he can't be that fast, but still he's faster than I can cast. I see him and he jumps again towards my face, then the bolt flies.

The lightning roars and the animal screams. It tackles me but it does not bite, I protect my face and manage to grab him by the snout. He's not very heavy so I manage to not fall backwards. Then I throw him to the ground.

Part of his fur is burned and smoke rises from his body, his eyes are cloudy and possibly fried. He starts to convulse, but he's not dead yet. Anger runs through my body and I pierce his head with my sword, then he stops moving. I killed something, the feeling of my sword piercing flesh is disgusting.

"You are now level 2," says a female voice.

"W-what? Who's there?" I ask.

I look around but there's nobody around. After a while I assume this voice is inside my head, like a video game announcer.

I stand still for a while thinking about what just happened but the adrenaline goes away and the pain of the spines in my skin comes. I quickly pull the spines out and it just makes my body to hurt more. Now my skin trickles with blood and stains my clothes. I noticed 4 spines got stopped by the leather jacket, I guess armor really is useful here.

I cast [Regeneration] and a ball of light appears on my left palm. I touch myself and keep still for some time, it seems this is a continuous spell. It took ten minutes but slowly I can see the blood stop, the pain subsiding and the wound starts closing. I guess this magic is not something you use during battle, but it remains in effect for a bit after I stop channeling it.

My mana fell down to 20, I seriously need that [Mana Efficiency] skill.

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While waiting for my mana to recharge I look at my new stats, but they didn't change. Perhaps like "Sanity", status values change based on training and other conditions instead of level.

So now I look into my skills, I have 4 points to spend. I use 2 for the [Mana Efficiency] skill and 2 for [Sword Use]. Even though I barely used the sword it was because I made a mistake and kept it sheathed during the beginning. The monster was fast and magic takes time to cast so I need to defend myself if I get into melee.

I know that there's a [Dismantling] skill so the corpse of monsters might be valuable. Because of that I put it into my "Items", it showed as "Hedge-wolf? monster corpse". I don't understand why there's a "?" there. Maybe it's like the fruits, the naming is based on my knowledge so it picked the most appropriate name I could think.

I also changed my pants, the smell of blood could attract more monsters. The bloodied pants were put into "Items" and were named as "Bloody black woolen pants". The bundled spare clothes were tied by a small cord, maybe it needs to be like this so it can "stack" as one item instead of each piece of clothing being separate. The bundle also had some linen underwear, which is the same as the one I'm wearing, It's loose fitting and a little uncomfortable to me.

Now I keep reflecting upon this world, it's clear that there are monsters different from animals and that they are hostile. Unfortunately this one found me by smell, I believe. Even if I was completely silent it wouldn't have helped. Maybe there's some magic that erases scent somewhere. I need to fight and I need to kill what I fight, there's no other way.

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After recharging my mana I start moving again. Now I feel a little more confident since I calmed my heart, but I'm still feeling a little stressed. The [Sense Presence] skill is taking its toll on me.

After walking what seems like a half hour I got another hit on my radar. I know it's a different monster than the last time. This time it's not coming directly at me.

I hide behind a bush with good vision ahead and wait until I can see it. After a minute or so a bush moves and the monster comes out of it.

It's a skinny green little man with an ugly oversized bald head full of wrinkles and a large pointy ear and nose. It's a goblin, a standard enemy of fantasy worlds. It's completely naked and its disgusting genital is dangling around waving as he moves. He's also wounded, I can see bruises and cuts that bleed a little. On his left arm he is dragging a long thin dagger, probably used for piercing.

This is a golden opportunity. A single Hedge-wolf gave me 110 experience points and let me level up, now I need 200 points, but every single point counts. Just a single point in [Electric Magic] was enough to be the difference between life and death, or at least life and a nasty bite on my face. If I want to survive I need to kill this goblin. The chance of success on this is high, unless if I'm mistaking the strength of this little green thing. He's not even a meter tall, he should be weak.

Yes, that's it, I'm charging.

I draw my sword and dash towards him. With the sword held high the goblin barely has a chance to react before I'm into range and I slash my sword downwards.

The goblin has experience in fighting and tries to deflect my sword with his dagger, but it's not enough. He's not fast or strong to enough to parry but he still moves my sword sideways a bit. What was supposed to be a single hit kill by slashing on the head becomes a deadly wound as I slash his shoulder. The sword passes through flesh and bone and opens his chest with a deep nasty cut.

"GYEEEEEH!" The goblin screams. A nasty scream so loud it hurts my ears.

With this the color went out of my face, he could be calling for allies. I believe I'm in trouble now.

With anger fueling my movements I bring back my sword and slash horizontally on the goblin that fell on the ground. The slash cuts his neck and his head rolls away, this is an awfully sharp sword.

I don't have time to be stunned by the bloody scene. If a wounded goblin appeared, maybe there are others who just finished fighting. Even if they are wounded I have no confidence in fighting more than one enemy, specially if they can just throw things at me, like spears.

I quickly add the goblin's body, head and knife into my "Items". Then I dash into a right angle from where the goblin came from to maximize my distance from where I killed this goblin.

After a minute or so I slow down and catch my breath. I look at the sword in my hand and realize I forgot to clean it, this is bad because other monsters could follow the smell of blood. I pull the already bloodied pants from "Items" and use it to remove the blood. Then I start moving quickly towards my destination.

This goblin gave me 180 experience points, now I only need 10 more for the next level. This is good, just two more points into [Sword Use] allowed me to properly swing the sword twice and get a kill. But still, it was a surprise attack against a small monster with a knife. I hope I don't find anything worse.

­­­­

But I did. I found what that goblin was fighting.

After another hour I got another hit on my radar. This hit sent chills down my spine. It was large, I could estimate the body size and it was as big as me but its body was long and thick. I immediately crouched behind a bush and hid in fear.

The monster is just going to pass nearby, there's no risk of it getting too close. It's slowly strolling around, it doesn't even have a fixed destination, it's not searching for me.

After two minutes I can now hear the monster walking, it's another quadruped with a very heavy body. Then I hear a small growl, it was unmistakably a bear growl. I'm now sweating cold, even on my world a bear is not something you fight with just a sword and a party trick spell.

Then the bear stops. Did it notice me? How? I can't hear it trying to smell the air. Then I hear it turn. I wait for a few seconds, my heart on my mouth. Then it growls again, this time, it looks to be angry. Yeah, it noticed me.

I should have walked away. I should have taken [Quiet Steps] so I can walk way from any dangerous encounter but I didn't think this would happen, I didn't predict they could so easily detect my presence. I thought the hedge-wolf was an exception but I was naive.

Now what do I do, flee? I'm getting tired, the bear is on the way of my destination, I'm not sure if I can outrun a bear. Maybe I should fight and test the waters and then flee if the situation gets bad. The problem is if I get hit once then maybe I'm dead, there's no room for a mistake here. I need to at least look at what kind of enemy this is, the hedge-wolf was bizarre, maybe this one will have a clue on how to defeat it.

I get up and peek from behind the bush. The enemy is truly a bear, a frightening bear with 5 claws the size of my hand on each paw, fangs the size of my head protruding from its open, salivating mouth, grey fur covered its body. It is wounded, I can see multiple pieces of what seems to be spears protruding from its body, I can see blood dripping from its face, one eye is closed, on the grey fur multiple marks of blood can be seen. It's heavily wounded, it's probably what the previous goblins were fighting, there's a chance of victory.

But I can't get hit, if I do, I'm dead. I have to use it all here, all my magic. I draw my sword and start casting [Lighting Bolt], the bear that was looking at me immediately starts charging. I don't want to use [Constricting Vines] because it's too slow, I also have a feeling that simple vines won't stop the charge of something that big.

He's fast, but so is my casting, I manage to use my bolt twice before he gets into range. He seems to have slowed down and the smell of burnt flesh fills the air, he no longer can trample me.

Then he gets on his hind legs and tries to use his huge paws to swipe at me. Too slow, I jump backwards and cast again. He roars.

Now he's angry. With a sudden burst of speed he waddles a little closer and swipes with a speed that caught me by surprise. All I could do was defend myself with the sword, the claws hit the sword and the massive strength sends me flying. I hit a tree and air leaves my lungs, I feel immense pain on my back.

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With the vision blurry I manage to cast again. This time the bear stops and starts convulsing. An opportunity! I could run away, but now blood fills my head. Anger makes me move forward, the sweet deal of getting a large amount of experience fills my thoughts with greed. I charge forward.

How long are his convulsions going to last? I don't know but if this is low level magic then it will be short, so I start casting again. My head hurts, I think this is the last spell I can do before getting drained.

The bear stops convulsing, he looks at me and roars again. I finish my cast, nearly point blank range. The bear flinches, I thrust my sword and it goes through his eye and into the back of his skull. The bear twitches a little and his body gives up and falls down.

"You are now level 5," says the female announcer again.

I look at my stats, my MP is at -4. A massive headache attacks my head and my mind goes black.

­­­­

My back hurts a lot, I'm shivering and having difficulty breathing. My head hurts so much I don't think I can stand. While laying down I look into my stats and now my MP is at 10 but my HP is at 90. Even though I blocked the attack I got damaged, scary.

My "Magic Power" grew by 5 and my maximum MP by 10. I now have 12 skill points, I put them all on [Mana Efficiency] and cast [Regeneration] on myself. It takes another 10 minutes and I heal until I only have 1 MP left. It helped with the pain but the headache got worse and I'm still feeling tired.

I simply rest on the ground until my MP reaches 20. Using [Regeneration] again the pain subsided enough that I can stand.

I look around and see that the bear is dead with my sword sticking out of its eye. I did it, I fucking killed a huge bear, a monstrously large bear. Fucking hell.

I take the sword out and clean it on the bear's own fur. Then I grab a paw and store the bear on "Items". Now I need to properly distribute my points.

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I have 31 points total, so I put them like this:

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PRESS HERE TO CHOOSE Skill Report

Physical

Skill Name: Level | Skill Name: Level | Skill Name: Level

Sword Use: 5 | Dodge: 3 | Quiet Steps: 5

Sense Presence: 3

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Magical

Skill Name: Level | Skill Name: Level | Skill Name: Level

Mana Efficiency: 3 | Mana Recovery: 2 | Electric Magic: 4

Nature Magic: 5 | Summoning Magic: 1

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Miscellaneous

Nothing

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I should at least be able to use 5 times [Lightning Bolt] without fainting, perhaps one more and then fainting. I don't know which is more efficient, [Mana Efficiency] or [Reduced Mana Cost] so I'm just gonna bet on efficiency. I don't have time to test, it's way past noon now and I need to keep moving. I also prefer to spread out my capabilities instead of focusing on only one thing, I need to be versatile and adaptive here.

With unsteady steps I start moving again. I'm still hurting, my HP is at 98 and after another rest my MP is at 40.

[Sense Presence] is slightly larger but makes me less tense. Which is good since I still have a headache. Slowly I can see my MP going up even while moving so [Mana Recovery] is a good investment. I heal myself again while walking and finally the headache and back pain stops, but I still feel very tired.

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After another hour I get another hit. This time I know it's another goblin. I don't want to fight anymore, I'm too tired. But I need to test [Quiet Steps], I need to know how far he's likely to notice me. I believe that in games goblins usually attack in numbers to compensate their lack of intelligence or equipment, so finding a single goblin is lucky. Maybe not so lucky since I found the reason the goblins are scattered but still, this situation is a lucky find.

So I activate [Quiet Steps] and start moving. My footsteps are much more quiet now. It seems the skill gives me a very strong intuition on where and how to step so I don't make a sound.

I notice the goblin is standing still. I manage to catch a glimpse of him and he's looking downwards. So I circle around to get behind him and continue approaching.

From an opening in a bush I notice he's treating himself, he has a nasty cut on his shoulder and he's wiping it with a relatively clean cloth. How smart is he? Then I notice he's wearing a small leather jacket and he has a wooden spear with a shining metal tip next to him. He's not the same as the other goblin, this one is more experienced and much smarter. He also has better equipment, I need to kill him in one attack.

Slowly I approach. I'm inching closer, little by little, I must have patience. I'm barely within reach of my sword.

"Gah?" He leaks a sound and looks behind, but it's too late.

I lunge forward and my sword stabs his throat. He grabs his own throat and writhes on the ground. All he can do is garble some words and gasp for air while slowly dying from drowning on his own blood. He stares at me, his beady little eyes don't contain anger, but surprise. Maybe he's surprised he got attacked, or just surprised he's going to die.

I'm feeling nauseous at this scene, he's way too human for me to just watch this. Perhaps I made a mistake. Perhaps he's conscious and a person belonging to a community on this world. Perhaps I committed a crime. I never allowed those two goblins to attack first, I surprise attacked them both.

I can't look at this anymore and I decapitate the goblin. Shit I feel even worse now. He gave more experience than the last goblin, but it's not enough to level up again. I look at my status and see that my "Crimes" section is still saying "NONE". This gives me a little comfort, but only a little.

I put him and his spear in "Items" and turn back to keep going towards my objective again. Then I see something frightening.

A human skull, multiple bones and a skeleton torso are laying around the foot of a tree. The bones are small but they are definitely human. Or at least I think they are, goblin heads are much larger than this skull. Then I see something besides the skeleton, a ruined backpack.

­­­­

When I looked at the goblin equipment I noticed the leather is ruined and dusty, the spear was clean but chipped. It seems the owner of this equipment was the skeleton remains, the goblin had just found the equipment by chance.

When I look inside the backpack I see a small ruined notebook. I open it and while it's mushy and the words are blurred I can still discern some foreign characters every once in a while. So I remove one point from [Sword Use] and start adding it to each of the languages that I have on my skill window. Finally I found the language this notebook belongs to, it is Norvok.

The notebook is a diary. A dwarven young man was traveling around to the other side of the continent. I had to use 5 points on the language for me to be able to make sense of what was written. It seems the maximum for language is 10. There's only tellings of what was eaten, killed and minor details. I couldn't absorb anything from the culture just by reading this, but it helped me get a pointer into the language used by the locals, it's named Andraste.

There is no identification so I don't know the name of this dwarf. I feel like I should bury him but I don't have a shovel, the energy or the time to waste here. So I just put all his bones in a pile and move on towards my objective.

After another hour walking, I finally see something glittering beyond the trees. It's grass, grass touched by the sun. I have finally reached the border of the forest.

I start to run. I don't care if I find another monster, I just want to see the town. If it is within reach then the last stretch of my journey is close and with that comes safety.

The view opens up and suddenly the trees disappear. I'm now in a grassland, the grass is tall and reaches my waist. It's a beautiful sight, the green and the gold of reflected sun makes me wish I could spend an afternoon here relaxing. But the most beautiful sight is beyond the grassland.

I could see the wall, it must be a good 20 meters tall, with towers double the size. Very far away, to the left of where the wall ends I could see something resembling wagons. That must be where the entrance is located and travelers pass by. I see people so small they look like ants. Finally, civilization.

I remove [Quiet Steps] and [Summoning Magic], reduce [Sense Presence], [Dodge] and [Electric Magic] and put all on [Andraste Language]. Now I start running towards the wagons.

­­­­

As I run I manage to take on the sights. There are other buildings beyond the wall, they have odd, crooked shapes, mix of dark and light wood and white, dark blue and cobble stone. Like someone partially demolished a cobble building and then used whatever wood it had to rebuild it. It wasn't hastily made, both the stone and wood parts are full of relief, details and decorations. Some buildings increase in diameter with every level and on the supporting pillars some have an assortment of statues and other decorations. Truly an odd town.

On the edge of the grassland a small cobble chest high wall can be seen. Beyond that small buildings appear, even a water wheel can be seen. Those are farms.

As I approach the wall I attract attention, some men with cloaks wait for me near the wall. With that my energy runs out. I realize I haven't thought of a story to tell them yet. Even if I can communicate it's best that I don't tell them I came from another world or that I'm a lost traveler who lost my memories. There's a probability that I will be taken advantage of, so I need to decide on a story.

I take out my backpack from "Items". I fit a few things on it like the sleeping bag, cooking pot, change of clothes, pieces of food, knives and some coins. Now my backpack is full and heavy. I hope nobody noticed I didn't have it on me before. The waist high grass hid me while I was preparing my things. Then I continue walking.

As I get closer I notice the men looking at me are wearing a hauberk with a grey tabard and a mail coif. On their waists are swords and a small kite shield on the arm. The tabards are black with a simple white kite with a golden sword and a rose crossed on the kite, this must be the heraldry of the town lord. This truly looks like a medieval world.

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When I get close enough I notice there are 4 men and 2 women watching me.

"Ooi, are you okay?! Are you an adventurer?!" Shouts one of the men when I get close enough.

Well, Adventurer? No, that sounds dangerous, I'm just a traveler.

Their speech sounds really odd to me. I hear the foreign words he's saying but in my mind I can still understand what they mean. This may be the effect of the language skill.

"N-no, I'm just a traveler. I got lost on the woods and got attacked!" I answer.

The soldiers start murmuring between each other, they seem friendly, but surprised. Once I get close enough to properly see their faces one of them starts talking.

"Wow, you look really young. You are also really lucky, just 2 days ago a culling was done on the forest so there's barely any monsters about. But still, you need some skill to survive on that forest. You gonna enter the town?"

"Yes please. I'm tired, I really need some rest," I answer.

Lucky? Pff, if that's being lucky please wake me up from this nightmare.

"Alright, I'll process your entry, come with me. Now everybody, back to your stations!"

Saying that the soldiers disperse. I notice that this man wears a golden armband on both arms, perhaps he's the leader of the watch.

I could only look at them for a short time, but these men and women are all tall, burly and with fair faces. I'm surprised they are not uglier.

I jump over the wall and fall on a raised cobblestone road. We pass by two stopped wagons, each had another soldier writing something with a... Pen? They used a scroll and they are talking to a civilian. Both the civilians had some fine embroidered woolen clothing that made my clothes look like rags, one even had a silk cloak. They must be merchants.

And then we reach the huge portcullis. We cross a long wooden bridge lowered across a moat. I finally pass the wall and enter the town.

A short row of boring and bland buildings were on the other side of the wall. After that the spectacle of crooked, bizarre and beautiful buildings starts. Perhaps these boring buildings are barracks.

The man leads me to a small office stuck on the wall with a few chairs around a table.

"Alright, sit. Do you have any identification?" He asks.

I sweated a bit. I don't know what identification is so I need to lie here.

"No, I lost it when I got attacked. I had another bag but it got torn," I say, doing my best to keep a poker face.

"Right, we will just use the Inspection Crystal, is that alright with you?" He says, for some reason the last part had a very stern tone.

I have no idea what this stone is so I'm just gonna go with the flow.

"It's ok," I answer.

"Then wait here. Let me grab it in the other room," he says and leaves.

Perhaps this stone will see my status window. When I open my status, I notice I hadn't written my name yet. I hastily try to write down my own name on the awkward floating touch less keyboard. Wait no, my name sucks, it's time to choose a cool name my parents were too boring to pick for me.

"Wolf Ryder".

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The man comes back with a box where a crystal ball and a crystal tablet are cushioned.

"Alright. Put your hand on the ball and keep it there until I say otherwise," he says.

I do as he says and when I touch the ball the transparent crystal tablet changes color to black and white letters start to appear. The letters are in Andraste. The man looks into the tablet, from the short time I could see it I noticed the first thing written was my new name. I'm glad I took the time to write it.

"Hmm… there's nothing wrong here but you are awfully low level for someone of your age. What's up with those skills? No conjuring or fire? Also no farming or housework or any other life skill here. Pff, what kind of sheltered child are you?" The man laughs and asks me.

"Well… Uh, I'll..." I try answer and look away.

He's not lying. My life on Earth might seem sheltered in comparison to the people of this world. I could come up with an excuse, but that would just give more rope to the conversation. Even if he looks down on me I shouldn't speak carelessly.

"Hah! it's kind of a miracle you survived the Sea of Trees... Well anyway, go to the monster hunter guild or the dungeoneering guild if you want to survive here. You might have some skill in combat but it's useless if you die out there alone. Now, let me see what's in your backpack."

The way he said Sea of Trees makes me think this is the true name of that forest.

I open it and show all the things that I have inside.

"Alright. The ball says you don't have an [Item Box] so the tax is just gonna be 1 silver coin for entry and 5 copper for using the status stone."

[Item Box]? Perhaps it's different from my "Items" ability. There was something called [Space Magic], so perhaps [Item Box] could be found there?

I pay him the amount.

"Go look for a guild and make your identification there. You don't need to pay tax depending on which ID you show. Also, is this your first time here? I can sell you a map for 10 copper coins," he grins, his teeth are very white.

"Alright I'll take one."

I pay him and he gives me a sealed roll of weird textured paper that was lying on the table.

"Then that's all. Welcome to Rabanara, the great fortress on the shore of the Sea of Trees," he says with a rather fake smile and dismissive hand gesture.

I ask for an inn recommendation on the middle range and he tells me to go to the Resting Spring's Inn.

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The map is quite crude and lacks beauty but it gives the location of all the important locations. The Bazaar, the Flea Market, the Farmer's Market, the Guild's Corridors, the Crafter's Corner, the Gambling Den, the Theater, the Carnival Field, the Colosseum, the slums, the commoners area, the nobility quarters, the multitudes of inns and the brothel district. After some searching I found the Resting Springs.

As I walk through the streets I can see a large amount of weird looking people. People with animal ears, tails, claws, snouts, patches of fur, animal looking digitigrade feet and hands that almost look like paws, in any sort of combination imaginable. People with horns, tails and wings and plenty of other body parts that I can't really recognize, with skin colors of all the colors in the rainbow, most wearing very revealing clothing, plenty are floating around or flying slowly. Humans with different colors of skin wearing things like togas, kimonos and even animal pelts. A carnival of people with mismatching armor and weapons, from big, burly and tough to small, cute and scrawny.

All those things in combination with the bizarre architecture makes me feel like I'm actually the normal and well dressed one. I saw a few small animals that look a bit human-like in their behavior. They run around like children and then they simply appear and disappear out of thin air.

Surprisingly the town looks clean and doesn't smell. Behind nearly every wagon there is a floating yellow broom that sweeps on the floor by itself without even lifting dust, like it just disappears. Perhaps these are spells that keep the roads clean.

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The inn is close by. It's still a few hours until sunset but my body and mind are exhausted. All I want is to rest a little while.

The inn is a large building. It isn't as crooked as the other buildings and it's made entirely out of cobblestone. It has three floors and gives off a rustic feeling. No spring though.

Once I enter, a middle aged man with a small chin, brown hair and small circle glasses greets me from behind a desk while he writes on a book.

"Welcome to the Resting Springs Inn. Would you like a room?" He says on a kind tone with a kind smile.

"Yes please, what kind of rooms do you have?"

"We have a few single bed rooms on the third floor. On the second floor there's still space on the communal room."

The communal bed might be one cheap room where multiple people sleep together. No thank you.

"Single bed please."

"That's 1 silver a day, would you like to reserve the room for multiple days?"

"10 days."

"We also give breakfast and dinner, 5 copper for each meal. During dinner the public bathhouse is open, the bath is included in the meal. You can reserve a room for bathing for 10 copper. There's also a magician responsible for the bath that you can rent personally for 15 copper at any time."

"I would like both meals for each day. Also what's the exchange rate for silver and copper coins?"

"Avgi silver coins are equal to 90 copper coins," the man says while raising an eyebrow.

Perhaps this is not something you ask the innkeeper. Maybe you should know this before entering the town. Also, now that he said "Avgi coins" I saw that there's something written in the coins. It's written in the [Andraste Language] but it's only a few letters and some numbers, perhaps it's some identification?

I pay the innkeeper and he gives me a key with the number 304 on it and a smaller black key.

"Here it is, room 4 on the 3rd floor. The smaller key opens a safe. Once you leave give me the room key but keep the safe key. Don't leave anything valuable outside of the safe. The safe can only be opened by us after your stay ends. Would you like to be called for breakfast and dinner?" He says with a smile.

"Yes."

"Please write your name here. Okay, thank you for your patronage," he bows lightly.

I start to write my name, my hand just moves by itself, it's a very odd feeling, I don't really know what I'm writing until it is done and the translation skill tells me it's my name. The squished characters are a bit difficult to tell apart. Then I move towards the stairs.

The inside of the inn is made entirely of light brown wood. It's simple and a little small, perhaps they are simply maximizing the space. I can see shining jewels on the ceiling giving out a bit of light.

I enter my room, lock the door, take my sword belt, boots and jacket off. Then I drop on the bed and fall asleep.

­­­

I dream of the unpleasant sensation of cutting flesh with my sword.

­­­­

I wake up with a knock on the door.

"The dinner is ready, the bath is hot," says the voice of a young woman.

I don't know what the bed is made of. It's not hard, but it's not really good for my back. I might need to search for a proper bed if I'm going to stay here for a while.

I put my clothes back on and go downstairs.

On the first floor there's a communal area with a few square tables and chairs. A small amount of commoners are sitting waiting for the food and more people are coming down the stairs.

I sit and wait, soon a plate comes to me. Vegetable stew, a piece of roasted mutton with spice and herbs and a piece of fluffy white bread. It tastes okay, the stew lacks some spice though, but the mutton is well done. Perhaps due to the amount of woolen clothing sheep are the common staple.

After eating I go through the back door and reach the baths. Contrary to every single fucking medieval novel, baths aren't that rare. The romans loved baths, you know, bathhouses were a thing throughout history, you know.

I ask the attendant on the front how it works. For 4 pieces of copper she gives me a towel, a very small piece of soap and a sponge. The bath uses the heat of the kitchen coupled with the help of a mage to heat the water. The bath is divided into 3 parts, men, women and mixed. Using the men or women's costs another piece of copper. Curiosity got me and I entered the mixed, which was free for patrons.

Let's say that some light prostitution was going on inside that bath. I immediately leave and pay for the men's bath. I'm not a puritan but seeing sex live is too stimulating for me right now.

The etiquette is that you gather a bucket of water and first use it to wash away all the dirt with the sponge and soap, then you relax into the pool of hot water. So I did this but I started to feel conscious of my body, most men here are somewhat handsome. I'm not ugly, I have a cute baby face, but damn, are all the people in this world at least somewhat attractive?

When I get out of the bath it's already night and people are either going to bed or to a tavern to drink. I don't really drink so I go to bed early today.

Now I get some time to reflect on what happened today. I got sucked out of my wedding into a painful, dangerous, magical, insane and ridiculous world. I killed two humanoid beings in a very gory way, I killed a bizarre animal and I killed a huge bear that almost killed me. If not for [Regeneration] I think I would be dead now.

What kind of god would throw me here at this precise timing? Fuck you God. Help me, help me because I wanna go home. I wanna see my wife, I wanna hug her, kiss her and have sex with her then have her fall asleep in my arms and wake up with her smile. Fuck this world, help me please, God, help me.

I felt something change inside of me. I open my menu and saw my status. My "Piety" raised to 2.

I break down and cry myself to sleep.