“That was awesome!” Urvi exclaimed.

There was a big smile on my face as a rush of emotions filled my chest. The mana band shrunk, though not by a lot. “It felt awesome too,” I said putting down my arm.

“You did that with ease. Is it really that simple?” She asked.

“I am not sure… You swing the axe and sword like it is just another part of your arm. You make it look so easy.”

Urvi’s face looked in awe. “I guess you were the sorcerer all along.”

“And you were paladin,” I added with a smile.

She smiled back. “Will I not be able to do magic then?”

“Not at all. We need to find you an amber shard first. Also, can I have my sword back?” I asked kindly.

“Oh yeah!” she said as she began looking around. “But where is it?”

Now that I think about it, we each were carrying a weapon, so it made sense that it was present physically. Does that mean we need to carry all the weapons we collect?

“Oh! There is it,” she said pointing at it. It was back under the tree, leaning against the trunk.

“I see. If we lose them by any chance, they end up here,” I commented.

“But why here?” Urvi asked.

“That is where our home is, right?” I said as I walked to it.

“Oh yeah!” She followed.

I picked it up and held it with a steady grip, but it still didn’t feel right.

“Hey. You still have to pick a skill. Maybe that would help,” Urvi said.

“Oh yeah!” I sheathed the weapon and pulled out my journal. Flipping through the pages, I landed in the skills section. I had eighteen choices in total. When there is a lot to choose, you end up choosing nothing. This appears to be the case with me.

I stared at the book for a few good seconds, trying to decide what to choose. Urvi, meanwhile, tried her best to wait patiently, but that didn’t last long. “Okay, why don’t we do some more exploring while you think about it?”

I sighed dully. “Okay…”

“Come on. Say it with more energy!” she said, trying to encourage me.

I looked up to see her wearing a cheerful smile. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling after that.

“That is the spirit!” Urvi said.

***

We set out north, walking through the hole I had left.

“That is some massive damage,” Urvi commented.

“It is… But I wonder how it fares against actual enemies.”

I pulled out the map, wondering if it would show anything interesting. However, much of it was still a blank page. “If this thing is going to show us what we have already seen, it is pretty useless. Don’t you think?”

“I guess… But what else can we do?” Suddenly Urvi stopped in the middle of her tracks. She looked ahead as her face turned cautious. I looked ahead and spotted a strange creature in our way. It was yet another treant. However, this one was shorter and bulkier. It stood up straight and seemed to mimic a human. It seemed to slowly lung forward with great effort as the wood on its limb creaked.

I let out a soft breath and whispered, “Okay. My turn.”

Urvi quietly stepped back as I positioned myself in front of her. The treant stopped and slowly turned towards me. It spotted us, but I was not afraid this time.

I tried to remember how I did it before, but this time I was going to control the power of it. I had used up a lot of mana earlier and if I continued in the same path, I would exhaust my mana with just three to four shots.

The treant stepped forward, its leg landed with a fierce thud. It looked strong, but I had the advantage of speed. Or so, I thought. I pointed my finger in its direction, ready to charge up when the treant rushed towards me at a blazing speed. Within a mere second, it had covered almost one-third of the distance and its speed only increased.

“Oh, crap! It is fast!” I exclaimed and jumped out of its way. The treant rushed past me and towards Urvi. Urvi, however, had a big smile on her face.

“My turn!” she said gripping the Saber, but the treant had already reached her. She watched in shock as it smashed into her sending her tumbling into the forest ground.

“Urvi!” I shouted.

She recovered fast, resting on her left knee as her eyes gazed at the treant with fury. “Try that again you bastard,” she said. The treant seemed to have heard her as it walked up to her, before delivering a mean left hook. Urvi dodged it with ease, swinging her Saber into its swing before slicing its arm off. The treant stepped back, seemingly in recoil. Small roots began to protrude from where the arm was sliced off. “Urvi! It is healing!” I said.

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“I don’t think so!” she shouted, pulling her Saber into the air before bringing it down onto its head. The treant blocked it with its left arm before smashing her with its regrown right arm. She gritted her teeth as she retrieved the Saber. Thankfully, it didn’t get stuck in the arm of the creature. The treant rushed in, trying to headbutt her, but Urvi took advantage of this. She thrust the Saber into the beast’s head, using the moment of the beast against it. As the Saber popped out from the back of its head, the treant slumped forward before collapsing into a pile of forest debris.

Urvi panted hard as she stepped back. “Fuck! What happened to me?”

I dusted my clothes and asked, “What do you mean? That was awesome!”

“No. I was a fucking snail! What happened to my speed?” She asked.

Oh. I knew what happened. “You are wearing heavy armor. It affects your speed.”

“Seriously? Then I am better off without it.” She was still struggling to breathe easy.

“Look at your health,” I said. She saw that the band had barely budged. “You sacrificed speed for defense.”

Urvi didn’t look convinced. “I don’t like this. I want my speed.”

“We will find you new armor. Speaking of which.” I bent down and picked up the orb from the pile of rubble. Tossing it to her, I said, “Go ahead.”

She struck it with the hilt of her Saber. It burst into streams of light before dropping onto the ground as loot.

A few more bottles of strange liquids and another green-colored package. Food and more potions. Not bad. Not exciting, but not bad. I pulled up my map again, in hopes of finding something in and around us. Unfortunately, it was still empty.

“Karna, fuck the map. You are relying too much on that map. Let’s just explore on our own and see what we find,” Urvi suggested politely.

She was right. I always needed a map to get by in video games. But it is pretty useless at the moment. “You are right.” I put the journal away. “Which direction do we go?”

“Hmm...” Urvi looked around before pointing to our left. “North is where the gate is. Let’s try going left. This place is fucking enormous.”

“It is. Let’s see what more this place has to offer,” I added.

Turning off the navigator and using only our senses was somewhat cathartic. It felt like we were back in the stone ages, in a way we were. Sure, our rations are being managed by divine intervention, and we are safer than we were in that shack I called home. But the wonder of exploring and becoming one with nature was a feeling I never imagined that I needed.

We pushed our way through the busy forest floor, looking for any signs of loot we could. Every now and then we ran into treants. However, most of them turned out to be docile but a few did attack us. The forest was teeming with them, and they came in all shapes and sizes. It seemed as though all the aggressive lifeforms were replaced by these treants. They mimicked the beasts and packed a punch, but they lacked the brutality and aggressive nature of real creatures. Since we were meant to die as much as possible, each death feeling like hell can be taxing. So, it made sense why they, whoever they were, chose to put them here. Plus, they are made of trees themselves. They are almost limitless.

Urvi hacked and slashed her way through most of them, the various kinds of treants put her through a variety of situations. Some used speed, others had enormous health, and still others tried to swarm. While she appeared to struggle, they really couldn’t put a dent in her health bar. She was raking up experience like crazy, in no time, she was already at level six.

Meanwhile, I blasted my finger gun anytime I saw a big enough treant, taking down a good chunk of the forest with it. Other times, I used my claymore to cut down smaller ones. It was slow, very slow. I finally reached level three. It is not for a lack of trying but the disconnect I felt towards the combat. My body refuses to adapt to a weapon, each one feeling like a pain to use. Perhaps there was some innate ability locked in when I arrived here.

Level

Health

Attack

Defense

Speed

Special Attack

Special Defense

3

62

14

12

13

11

11

But it was not all dull and gloom for me. What compensated for the lack of combat was an abundance of loot. There were so many hidden chests scattered throughout the forest, that it became a mini-game trying to find them all. The loot we found could be divided up into rations, potions, weapons, and armor. It was quite funny to see how much loot we ended up with after just exploring what I can presume is less than a quarter of the total area.

The quantity of rations made sense, since there were no animals to hunt and most of the trees were sentient, gathering food and water must not have seemed like a sensible option. However, I wonder how hard it would become once we stepped out into the open world.

We carried all the loot in two handmade sacks, each weighing at least thirty kilos. It was a bit frustrating at times and we wished we had a magic coat like Faeren did.

As the daylight seemed to be fading, we looped back and began to make our way to the center. At that moment, the forest seemed to clear up and eventually, we found ourselves staring at a stone arch, sitting plum at the center of the clearing.

“So, that is the gate, huh?” Urvi asked.

“Looks like it.”

“What do you think lies outside?”

“I don’t know. But I can’t say I am not curious to know.”

“Think we will ever be ready to go outside?” She asked.

I was taken aback by that question. All this time it was Urvi who seemed confident enough to conquer the world. “Why do you ask that?”

“Just... The world outside looks a little frightening,” she said. She looked at the arch with a somber look.

I smiled softly. “Don’t worry. Whatever the world throws at us, we will conquer it.”

Her lips curled into a wavering smile. I dropped my sack onto the floor and pulled out the journal. I flipped through the pages and stopped in the skills section. I had four skill points, two of which I began with and two more I earned as I leveled up.

“It is a bit frustrating that I never got to choose what I wanted to be. But I have no other choice but to play with what I am given,” I said.

“Why do you say that?”

“I always preferred to swing a sword over casting a spell. Even in RPGs, I would always pick a swordsman over a mage. But now, my body is rejecting the sword and we have got no bow and arrow to speak off. That leaves me as the sorcerer.”

Urvi remained quiet for a few seconds before she asked, “Do you think we have a role to play in what is happening in the outside world?”

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe we were brought to this world for a purpose.”

I never thought of it that way. If that was the case, why did Faeren make it sound like we had a choice in all of this? “I can’t say for sure. But we must play our part from here on out, I guess.”

As I stared at the table, I was eyeing two particular skills. Namely: Fortitude and Balance. Both of whom gave me bonus stat increase in Special Attack and Special Defense. I rolled my luck and picked Fortitude, but it was partly inspired by Urvi’s pick.

Fortitude: User’s casts take up ten percent less mana and cause five percent more damage.