It's been roughly 10 years since I came to this gloomy world.
Yes, gloomy.
Not sure what it is, the overall vibe just seems off, it seems as if nothing has meaning.. or motivation. As if this world is long gone from its former age of sunny bright skies. It will often get so cloudy, the entire landscape just gets enshrouded in a slight thick layer of fog.
You don't even hear birds chirping in the morning.
I'll tell you what you do hear though, and it's the constant screeching of crows with no respect for the people around them trying to sleep in for the morning.
I swear on my wife I'll find a way to make them go extinct.
Or maybe that's just me being picky about my current place of residence.
The old man I first met 10 years ago introduced himself as 'Lux Pavillion'. I told him I wanted to be called 'Alek', and he gave me a look of slight confusion, then offered to call me 'Aleksander' instead. But he quickly dismissed that idea after I gave him a look of disapproval. And he hasn't really explained why, but he's now having me wear a bandage wrapped around my right hand, covering my doodle.
He decided it was a good idea to start raising me far off near the outer wall of the Luthran Kingdom in a pretty run down, small house within a village, which is basically this world's idea of living in the 'boonies'.
I just don't get it, isn't he a top dog with a close connection to the King? The hell is he doing living and raising me in a house that can't even avoid getting its insides damp with rain whenever god decides to rub salt on my wounds?
I guess it isn't so bad, he's saved me the effort of traversing and learning of the many laws of this world by myself, and probably the only person I can somewhat communicate with without gagging from the excess nerves.
I should go out and meet new people.
But when it isn't so gosh darn depressing out, the sky will eventually clear, and the unbelievable sight of a gigantic grey cathedral suspended high in between the clouds will cast its ominous glow onto the poor plants and flora below.
I swear to fuck, whoever built that thing is just a massive show off.
And if "god" really is hiding up there like a little sissy, I do intend to pay him a confrontation.
I'm still ticked off from having my first moments in this world sullied by unwanted fuck-mothering arthropods.
And I HOLD grudges.
Sadly, no one has ever been up there.
According to the old man, the only living mortal that has is the current King.
But for some left out reason, the King refuses to speak about it, as if he was in some kind of contract to not disclose a thing he saw.
There is something interesting I do recall him telling me, in fact it's one of the few things I've kept a mental note on despite all the stories he's told me.
My attention span is lacking.
Apparently, there have been tales of groups of people breaking the law of attempting to reach it. And they never came back, as you may have guessed.
Some went atop dragons.
Some on aerial summons.
And some with flight magic.
That last one is hilarious.
Imagine you're zooming through the clouds, taking on the impossible of reaching what is basically the unreachable promised land, and you get suffocated by clouds and die.
Or you get struck by lightning.
Or you get lit by a fire dragon and become its happy meal.
I could go on and on, trust me it only gets stupider.
There is however a very famous story of a man named 'Draken' that did succeed.. on coming back.
When he returned atop his sturdy, trusted Wyvern he raised from birth, it died.
Just like that, on the spot.
Dead.
Done deal.
Done-zo.
Also he was missing an arm.
Apparently, they've been through hell and back, overcoming many harsh storms, getting swarmed by amphitere, dueling to the death with other wild wyverns, or just getting bored along the way.
I know I would.
Remember how I said my attention span was lacking?
No matter how fast they went, they just couldn't see any signs of getting even an inch closer to the damn cathedral.
The whole expedition took 5 years.
And another 5 just to get back.
The man already had hundreds if not thousands of gray hairs on him. He's been recovering somewhere within the Luthran Kingdom's capital ever since.
It's pretty shocking too, wyverns are supposed to last for hundreds of years, they're pretty sturdy.
And for it to just die like that is hilarious sad. I guess it just reached its limit.
It makes me want to not get one, why would I? Waste of time and effort if it's going just give out on you like that.
I'd rather much learn flying magic.
Heh.
So yeah, my bold ambition of meeting "god" is going to have to be put on hold for now. I still need to collect more souls for my eventual rise to stardom.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"Shit, I may have gone too far.."
I realize I strayed too far from the village. Can't help it, I'm out for blood. I guess that saying that went something like "Time flies by when you're having fun" wasn't a load of horseshit after all. But man, I should really think about heading back, it's starting to get real dark, and if I have to deal with the creatures of the night I'll come back home covered in scratches, and what will I tell the old man then? That I survived from getting my guts slurped like it's a nice ramen meal by a horrible monstrosity?
I didn't even mean to venture out this far into the dark forest, I was originally meant to go out and gather a few medical herbs around the outskirts of the village to ease the old man's training wounds. But I got distracted when I stepped on a slime and got rather annoyed, so I sent it to a better world with no mercy.
Still, this world is pretty dang hostile. If it weren't for the protection of the Kingdom's walls and many knights stationed around the various points, this entire continent would be devoid of all human activity.
It isn't an exaggeration.
A mere slime may seem like EXP fodder you'd find in the starting point of an RPG, but the slimes in this world are something else, man.
If you so much as step on a small piece of slime the size of your shoe.. well have fun seeing your life flash before your eyes. It will eventually gobble up your feet and increase in size the more of you it starts taking in. It's like stepping in quicksand, except it's alive and eating you from the leg up until you're drowning in its body. Then you'll be a subject to its wet and gooey insides. And you'll likely stay that way till all your clothes are melted off, and your slowly decaying body is torn apart.
They're not exactly the most pleasant-smelling monsters; I've encountered many slimes with a couple decomposing heads inside it. I remember how I met one with a human intestine peeking out from its behind. It was like a small fluffy green puppy. One that smelled like wet socks.
The weird doodle on my right hand hasn't faded, not exactly sure why I was chosen to bear such thing, or why the old man wants me to conceal it, but I'll admit, it has its perks.
It allows me to absorb the essence of any living being I kill, and strengthen my body, albeit slowly.
And because of this, I am able to carry this black great sword I found under a pile of rubble on the discarded remains of a certain group of ruins, a couple steps away from the village. I usually stash it under a bush behind my "house" so the old man doesn't steal it, he has his own, he can't have it.
"Sniff Sniff... blood?"
The sudden scent of iron hits my nostrils, and I hear screaming near the abandoned shack that's by a pond.
I then look up at the ugly floating cathedral and spot the sun setting slowly.
Am I really going to risk nightfall just to indulge my curiosity?
You bet your bottom dollar.
I lift the heavy great sword onto my shoulder and take off in a dash at the direction of the shack. I step on a couple slimes, but I just kick them off with overwhelming force, I ain't got time for this.
By the time the sun isn't visible, I reach the pond, and everything falls into an eerie silence. The only sounds around me being the distant owls, the rustling of the water, the wind hitting the side of my ear, and the sudden sound of glass breaking inside the shack followed by screaming shortly after.
It's go time.
I kick open the wooden door for dramatic effect, and step inside.
THUD
"Huh?"
The body of what looks like a bandit in his 30's falls onto the creaking wood boards below, unconscious.
Ok I lied, he's very much dead, it seems the sudden surprise of the door being forcibly opened gave him a heart attack.
Lamest bandit ever.
And here I was hoping on seeing just how many slashes it would take to make mincemeat of a human bandit.
I'm very much sane.
CLINK
The sound of a bowl rolling and making contact onto the bandit's dropped knife is enough to make me jump and point my heavy great sword to the darkness ahead of me.
Seriously, why does it have to be so dark? I swear I'm not scared of dark corners.
I used to play a lot of horror games.
I get tense.
The moonlight, along with the faint glow of the grey cathedral's rays shine through the hole above the broken roof and onto the room, revealing a young girl with pink hair just in front of me.
She appears to be my age, and she's holding up and pointing a broken table leg at me. And she's got blood running down her face.
Now this is where things get tricky.
And that's not because of the distant howl and growls of whatever the heck is out in the darkness getting closer to this place.
It's because I have no clue on just what I'm supposed to say.
Seriously how do I handle this situation?
Do I just introduce myself?
No wait I can't, she'll think I'm creepy.
Do I point my sword at her and go "Aigh't, next yer givin' me erthang you've got on ya"
No, I couldn't possibly, stealing from the wealthy isn't even at the top of my bucket list right now.
Do I ask if she's alright?
No, scratch that, it's clear as day she isn't ok at all, she's bleeding and visibly shaking for pete's sake. I'll end up looking like a reta-
"u-uhm.."
I look at her after having my thoughts interrupted. "What?"
"Eep!" She visibly flinches.
Oh shit, I let out a bit of my frustration on her, I should really find a way to apologize.
Wait how do I go about doing that?
"I-i'm sorry.. um.. a-are you with them..?"
What does she mean by that? There's no one else here, who else would I be with? Is she the retarded one?
I suddenly look back at that lame bandit that died in the most boring way I've seen.
He's got blood running down from his head for some reason. Pretty strange, I don't think you bleed from a heart attack.
I look back at her, causing her to flinch again.
"No."
That's the only thing I manage to let out, I'm really not cut out for these types of things.
"oh.."
"...."
The room is now just filled with a deafening, awkward silence.
"....."
She suddenly drops the broken table leg she was holding and slumps down onto the floorboard, raising her hand to the wound on her head.
Wait I know what to do for this part! I remembered the herbs I have stuffed onto my small leather bag around my waist.
I approach her and kneel down in front of her without thinking, quickly putting my flawless, unrivaled idea to action.
"Here, stay still." I reach onto my bag and pull out some herbs, then start crushing the herbs in between my hand and the side of my great sword. The friction causes a sort of powder to release from the herbs and onto a cloth I placed on my knee.
Then I pull out a water canteen from my bag and begin pouring a small amount onto the cloth, but no more than that, it's my water, and I only have a small amount since I ended up drinking half of it after going to town on some slimes.
I then place it against her forehead, causing her to squirm in slight pain.
She looks up at me with her big blue eyes, like she's studying my features for any sign of malice.
"t-.. thank y-"
I suddenly tense up as I realize just how close I am to her. I then give her the cloth and quickly stand up, then turn away and lean against the door I kicked in to cover my mouth as I start feeling nauseas.
The hell was I thinking just getting all up in her grill like that?
My nausea gets replaced with surprise as the sound of scratching against the wooden door I'm leaning on fills my ears.
"Oh god damn it."
It never occurred to me just how dark it got, and as a result, I now have to see the sight of furry black beasts staring into my soul with their glowing white eyes through the window on my right like I was an item in an all you can eat buffet.
They start clawing at the window, creating the annoying sound of rubbing a fork against a plate.
I would go out there and bash their faces in with my great sword, but that's going to be hard to do now that the girl behind me is shaking uncontrollably in fear behind me, and for some reason it now feels like I'm obligated to protect her.
Suddenly one of the beasts drops in from the roof above, and it looks hungry.
I quickly pounce and slash its head clean off, causing its furry head to roll across the floorboard and stop just short at the girl's feet, which causes her to faint.
This is going be a long night.
The sound of glass exploding and scattering its many sharp parts across the floorboards erupts into the room, and a whole group of beasts pour themselves through.
It was like watching a mob of fat people forcibly squeeze themselves through the fragile doors of a supermarket on a black Friday.
Alright now this is getting ridiculous.
I channel the power of my right hand and grip onto my great sword, causing it to be enveloped in a red glow. Now I'll be able to swing it as if it was a short sword, but it'll pack a bigger punch than that asshole garbage truck that came between me and my shiny object.
Which is very frustrating to think back on, and I am now pissed.
The swarm of beasts pile on each other against the floorboard like a wave, consumed in their own hunger as they inch closer to my delicate tender flesh.
I raise the great sword up high dramatically, before swinging it down against the floorboard with my anger of never seeing what the shiny object was in my previous life.
This causes a wave of pure red to be unleashed across the floor in front of me, engulfing every observable thing in a shade of crimson light, which blinds me and causes me to fall back onto the rough floorboard.
.
.
.
*-*-*-*-*-*-*
"Well then."
I may or may not have gone too far, because the following morning after waking up from my unwanted nap I was forced into from the impact of my previous attack, there was no shack.
Well, half of it still exists, which is the part of the shack me and the still sleeping girl find ourselves in.
Also the mountain that used to exist just up ahead in the landscape isn't there anymore.
Bummer, was hoping on climbing it one day and planting a flag at the peak with my initial on it.
I turn to look at the girl still sleeping next to me and decide to just bring her back to my "house". If I have to leave some girl alone in a war-torn place like this, it'll leave a bad taste in my mouth.
I kneel and pick her up into my arms and step foot outside, the pond that was there is now dry and empty, and I wonder where all that excess water went off to..
I stroll through the grass back to the direction of my "house" before looking back at the half-destroyed shack briefly.
Why was it even there? Who's out here living in a place like that out in the middle of bumsville?
In a way, I've done this area a favor.
I resume my journey home without looking back as I hear the loud sound of collapsing behind me.
.
.
.