'What the hell!' Nate inwardly exclaimed in irritation as his attempt to reach the Altar was thwarted by yet another cliff. 'Seriously. Do I have to jump off or something? Should I try to climb down? I've been walking around for four fucking days without rest! Is it even actually possible to get to the center? Is there even an Altar at all!?'

Nate had been walking non-stop for four days and nights. In the process, his foot fell into a rabbit hole more than a hundred times, caught on roots and foliage around fifty times, got bit by a poisonous viper seven times, and was even unlucky enough to walk into a pack of five wolves surrounding a deer. The wolves had instantly turned on him, and he managed to make them retreat by killing two of them. He had taken a bite on his leg and right waist, but they had already healed a while ago.

To top it all off, his path would be constantly blocked by cliffs or extremely tall hills. He had made detour after detour, and if it weren't for the compass in his brain telling him where the center was, he would have gotten lost on the first day.

"Haaaaaaah..." Nate sighed, trying to soothe himself. Nothing good ever came out of him getting worked up, so he had to regain his cool. After regaining his calm, Nate tried to think of what to do. 'Alright, just outright trying to walk straight into the center of this place just isn't working, so what other option do I have? Do I really have to wait around here for six whole months?'

In those six months, his mother would have created a cycle of anxiously waiting for him, not being able to see him for about a month, doing something drastic like escaping from the hospital or something then her memories would reset. This had actually happened before, when he was stuck in another country due to being pursued by law enforcement. Even if she would eventually forget her suffering anyways, Nate didn't want to put her through that, so he had to somehow get back home within the month.

Just as he was seriously considering his chances of surviving a fall this high up, he heard a faint rustling noise from somewhere to his left. Nate reacted quickly, deciding to hide in some thick and tall foliage nearby. He quietly drew the Greek sword on his back and readied himself to lunge forward in a thrust at whatever was coming.

'There's just one, and it seems to be a lot heavier and slower than a wolf... is it a tiger? Please, no.' Nate pleaded to the heavens that it wasn't any kind of large feline creature. Or canine.

Nate patiently waited for whatever it was to show up, listening closely to the sounds of its footfalls get louder and louder. Nate's grip on the sword's handle was getting tenser as the unknown creature got closer. Eventually, he heard a particularly loud rustle and a voice.

"Ah, fuck. Another rabbit hole? Why are there so many of these?" Someone, a man it seemed, cursed as he presumably just had his foot sink into a rabbit hole. "Damnit, I think it's sprained..."

'A person!? I wasn't the only one sent here?' Nate was shocked at first, and he wanted to dash forward and check the person out, but he decided to stay put after some thought. Just because they were sent here together, didn't mean that everybody here would be nice to each other. People couldn't trust each other that easily. At the very least, he wouldn't.

Nate kept still and waited for the person to walk into somewhere he could see. Eventually, a person with a bit of a limp walked into Nate's vision range. It was a man who looked to be in his late 20s. He looked like any average person one would find doing office work somewhere. The man was wearing the same thing Nate was wearing, except the man's were a bit less dirty, which made sense since Nate had been running around for four straight days while also drawing blood from his fights with wolves. The only difference between what Nate and the man were wearing, was that Nate had a sword belt attached around his hip and torso, while the man had a belt with a holster in its front and a small pouch attached to it.

'Is that a... slingshot? I don't remember seeing a slingshot in the white room... but then again my eyes were glued to the swords so...' Nate observed. The man was holding a slingshot, which was unquestionably what he had chosen as his starter weapon. The slingshot wasn't the simple type, the one you would see children often play with. It had a black painted metallic handle larger than what you would expect a slingshot to be. 'It looks like a slingshot that some kind of professional "slingshotter" would use in the slingshot Olympics. If there was one. Also, that pouch probably has lead balls or something.'

"Damnit, I can't find any sources of water here either... what'll I tell the others...?" The man talked to himself. Nate understood him though, since he tended to talk to himself in the beginning too.

'"The others" he said. So he has companions...' Nate mused. In any case, Nate's vast experience in sniffing people's nature out told him that this guy wasn't fishy, he was just about to come out and talk to him, when an arrow flew out from behind the man and pierced through his right shoulder. The arrow's metal tip was coming out of the man's front.

"I got him! Haha!" Another voice, a man as well, exclaimed happily.

"Nice. We get another ranged weapon." A different voice said. Since you already have a bow, I get this one."

"Sure, sure." The first voice casually agreed.

Two men then walked out from behind, then inspected the man with the slingshot writhing on the ground in pain. One man was carrying a bow and a quiver full of arrows on his back, while the other one was holding a spear in his right hand. Both men looked to be in their early 20s and each had an additional sword on their right hip

'They took them from others...' Nate surmised. The two men were obviously not good people. Nate had met plenty of their type in his career in the underworld. 'Hm... I should observe for now...'

"Hey watch this." The man with the spear gave his companion a little nudge, then took a throwing stance.

'Oh, is he gonna...?' Nate's eyes widened. He thought that the two men wouldn't kill the man with the slingshot, since they had aimed for his shoulder instead of the head or the back, which was a much wider target. Seeing the spearman preparing to throw his weapon shocked him. Was he wrong? Were they actually going to kill this man for his slingshot?

A fraction of a second later, Nate's thoughts were proven correct. The man threw his spear with perfect form, and it pierced right through the fallen slingshot man's head, essentially nailing it to the ground.

'Holy...' Nate remarked inwardly, as he watched the man's blood run down the part of the spear that went straight through his head. 'Brutal...'

"Woah. Nice throw." The man with the bow remarked nonchalantly, as if he was complimenting someone's choice of what tie to wear to work.

"Haha." The man who threw the spear chuckled proudly, as he walked forward to extract the spear from the dead man's body. "I used to do javelin tossing in Highschool."

Nate didn't give him the time to get his weapon back though, he ran out of the foliage he was hiding in, and lunged forward, aiming to stab the man in the stomach.

"Wha--!!" The man, who was busy boasting, could barely react before Nate's sword plunged into his torso. Once it was deep in, Nate twisted the blade repeatedly to make sure that the guy was deader than dead. The man quickly spat up some blood with his eyes widened in shock, then lost consciousness soon after.

"He-hey! Who the fuck are you!?" The man with the bow exclaimed in shock as he pulled out an arrow from his quiver and nocked it, aiming for Nate. Before he could fire it though, Nate dragged the skewered man's body, much like he did during his first scuffle with the wolves, and used the corpse as a shield. It worked, and the arrow that the man fired at him struck the corpse's back instead. Nate let go of the sword that was still skewering the spearman and pushed the body aside as he ran forward while pulling out his falchion.

"Fuck!" The man, realizing that he wouldn't be able to ready another shot in time, let go of his bow as he backed off and drew the sword on his hip. He was a bit lanky, and it was unknown whether he would be able to put much strength into his swings.

As he backed off, Nate ran forward and brought his sword down in a vertical slash. The man tried to block it by holding his sword with both hands, but there was too much of a gap in physiques and weapons. The man was lanky while Nate was incredibly physically fit. In addition, Nate's weapon, the falchion, was a front-heavy weapon that was excellent in slashing while the man's 'sword' was a Gladius. Furthermore, the man had just been backing off and his footing wasn't stable, so he wasn't able to brace properly. The impact that was received by the Gladius didn't break it, but the shock traveled into the man's palms, momentarily loosening his grip and making him stumble backward.

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Nate didn't notice that the opponent's grip had loosened, but he knew he had an advantage in physique, so he closed in even more and rammed his sword's guard into the man's face. Blood spurted out from the man's nose, but it wasn't enough damage to incapacitate him. Due to the shock of being hit in the face though, his already loose grip on the sword made him drop it completely.

'You're done!' Nate thought triumphantly. The man was still reeling from being hit in the face by his sword guard, so Nate took the chance to give him a good knee right up the man's nuts.

"...!!!" The man opened his mouth to scream in pain, but no sound came out. He had experienced so much pain that he momentarily lost his voice. He sunk to the ground clutching at his family jewels.

Nate picked up the man's Gladius, kicked him into facing up then stomped heavily on his exposed stomach.

"I'm going to ask you some questions. Answer them" Nate threateningly commanded. "Do you understand?"

"Urghhh..." The man continued to groan in pain while cupping his crotch with both hands. He glared at Nate angrily.

"Huh." Nate shrugged off the man's glare, then proceeded to stomp on his face three times, each footfall was punctuated by a scream of pain. "I asked you something. What's your answer?"

"Aghhh!!" The man was clutching at his face this time, particularly his now-broken nose. "You fucker! I'll kill you!"

"Sure you will." Nate said nonchalantly. He then stabbed the Gladius into the man's right thigh, and twisted it once, making the man shriek shrilly in agony. Nate pulled it out afterward, then wiped the blood off on the man's clothes. "Answer."

"Ughhh... Y-y-yes... I u-u-understand, j-just stop. P-please. I'm sorry..." The man sobbed as he stammered while gripping his wound with his right hand and cupping his nose with his left. His lower body was still squirming around, apparently still in pain from the knee to his gonads.

"See? Human language is great, isn't it? Now we can communicate instead of hurting each other." Nate commented as he smiled in a manner that he deemed "kind".

The man unconsciously looked at Nate in horror and disgust at first but he immediately realized and righted his expression. He tried to force a smile as he nodded "Y-yeah... I'll t-tell you anything you want... just don't kill me, please..."

"Then, first question." Nate immediately began questioning. "When did you start killing other people, and why?"

"A-around three days ago..." The man stammered out. He then pointed in a direction as he continued explaining, "Th-there's an abandoned village-like place over there. A-and there's a stone slab that says we get points for every animal or person that we kill... and we can use those points to purchase food and other things when we g-get out of this forest."

"Hooh..." Nate rubbed his chin as he thought about what the man just said. He asked, "And you really can exchange these points for food? Have you actually seen it done or done it yourself before?"

"Ye-yeah..." The man stuttered out. "In the beginning, someone managed to kill a wolf, then buy water and food using the points. Me and Robert... that's the guy with the spear that you... Anyways, I and Robert managed to kill a few wolves, but the points they gave were too little, a-and it was dangerous if we came across a large pack so... we killed two guys while they were asleep..."

'Wow. What a piece of work these guys are...' Nate inwardly remarked at how scummy they were. He gestured towards the man with slingshot's corpse as he asked, "So, you seemed to have followed that guy from somewhere?"

The man nodded while trembling from the torturous agony he was feeling, but still powered through as he replied, "Th-there were other groups of people... hanging around the v-vi-village and using the abandoned houses there... You can also o-only exchange points for food when you're near the st-stone slab... You can also only see how many points you have by touching it. We followed someone f-from one of the small groups."

"I see... I'm assuming all of these other groups are armed?" Nate inquired as he started walking towards the slingshot man's corpse, picking up the dropped bow on the way there. He wasn't worried about the guy running away, since he had messed up his leg.

"Ye-yes, they are..." The man fearfully replied. Despite Nate moving away from him, he held no thoughts of running away or retaliating in some way. He had realized just how dangerous Nate was.

"Alright." Nate said casually, as he extracted the slingshot's belt holster and attached it to his own belt. He also took the pouch which did contain small pieces of lead. He then picked up the man's slingshot and put it in the holster, then pulled out the spear from his body. "Keep talking. Anything you think might be useful."

"O-o-okay... Uh... There's a well in the village, but it ran out of water a few days ago, so e-everybody is rushing to find a new source..." The man stammered as he watched Nate bring his friend's belt, sword, and spear over to him. Nate then casually extracted the the the wounded man's arrow quiver and his belt, then took out the sheath. He sheathed the gladius after he fully wiped off all the blood using a ripped-off piece of fabric from the spearman's corpse. He then used the belt to tie together the quiver, the bow, the gladius, and his friend's sword, which was a one-handed German Messer. Nate shook it around to see if he had tied them securely enough, and when it didn't seem to be coming undone, he nodded in satisfaction, he then looked at the wounded man intently, as if prompting him to continue.

"R-r-right... Ummm... Oh! Right, the only way to get to the center of the forest is through the village, apparently..." The man said as he watched Nate uneasily.

"What!" Nate's eyes widened. He hadn't really been expecting much out of the guy, so he was just casually pressing him for information while he prepared to move on from this place. Nate eagerly asked the man, "Are you sure? How do you know that it's the only way to the middle?"

"Oh, th-that...?" The man was surprised to discover that Nate unexpectedly seemed to want this information a lot. He was practically champing at the bit! His eyes brightened as he thought of an idea. "I-I'll tell you i-if you let me go and..."

The man wasn't even able to finish his sentence before Nate stomped on his thigh's open wound. "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

"The hell? You're trying to negotiate? Really?" Nate looked at the man with a mocking sneer. He put more force on his foot, letting more of his weight push down on the man's wound. "You answer. Or I do this."

"Gaaaah! S-stop! I'll answer!!" The man stammered in a panic. He rattled off an explanation as rapidly as he could and with a surprising amount of clarity so that Nate would quickly take his foot off his wound. "The village is in a clearing right before a valley! There's this stone archway right before you enter the valley!! There's another stone slab near the archway saying that that was the only way to the Altar!!!"

"I see. So that's it." Nate nodded in understanding, then took his foot off the man's leg. "See how easy things are when you cooperate? Don't try to negotiate with your captors in your next life okay?"

"O-okay..." The man unconsciously nodded as he nursed his leg wound, but then he raised his head up in horror at what he just heard. "N-n-next life...? B-but I answered all your questions!!"

"Hm. You did." Nate nodded as he picked up the bundle of weapons and slung the belt over his left shoulder. He had made a makeshift weapon carrier out of the belts, so that he could easily carry them around and just set them aside just in case he suddenly had to enter combat. He had also attached the man's bow and quiver into the bundle instead of equipping it properly since he planned to mainly use the slingshot as his ranged weapon instead of it. It was easier to use and reload, after all. He also wouldn't have to worry about ammunition, since in addition to the lead balls, he could also use the stones on the ground. That was why he chose to bundle up the swords, bow, and quiver together, in a way that he would be able to carry them around more comfortably but not be able to pull out and use them effortlessly. "Maybe I can trade these weapons for points with the others there. Although I probably shouldn't give out the bow... Anyways, you think I would let you go just because you answered all my questions?"

"Y-yeah... you said..." The man stammered in fear.

"I didn't make any promises, friend. I just told you to answer my questions and then you did. Although I had to... persuade you first. I never said anything else." Nate said matter-of-factly as he took out the slingshot from its holster procured a stone from the ground and nocked it. He then aimed it at the man's chest.

"W-what are you doing..." The man asked in horror.

"Yeah, well, my initial intentions were to let the wolves that would eventually sniff out the blood finish you off. But then you said something about us getting points for killing others. So, I decided to just do it myself. It's pretty much free food after all." Nate casually said as if he were merely talking about the weather. He then let the nocked stone streak towards the man's chest.

"AGH!!" The man screamed in pain.

"Although I can be an emotional person at times, I am, in essence, a practical person." Nate prattled on as he took out a lead bullet from the pouch on his right hip and nocked it, aiming for a different part of the man's chest than the part he previously hit. "So, since I'm going to kill you anyway, I thought that I should get a few extra uses out of you, y'know? And it just so happens that I have this new weapon here which I'm not quite used to. You're going to be of great help to me."

"N-no... please! I'm sorry...!" The man begged as he tried to cover his chest with his arms.

"Hey, you're making it hard to aim... Don't worry man, even if you're human scum, I'll find plenty of use for you." Nate said with a 'kind' smile as he switched his aim to the man's stomach. "Even if you die while in the middle of testing, I can still use your corpse to test this puppy's lethality."

Nate fired the lead ball into the man's stomach, causing an ear-shattering screech of agony. Nate inwardly thought that the man's throat might just burst from all the shouting.

'Hm. The lead ball is obviously more lethal than an ordinary stone, but it doesn't really pierce through flesh huh? I even aimed at the stomach, where the flesh is soft and thin...' Nate analyzed. 'Ah. is it because there was additional resistance because of the clothes? Also, since the ammo is spherical, does that reduce penetrating power? So if I use a stone I picked up from the ground, it should be one that's a bit more jagged?'

Nate performed a few dozen test shots until he realized that the man had stopped reacting at some point. He gave him a good kick in the crotch to see if he was just faking, but when the man didn't react at all, Nate shrugged.

'I didn't notice when he died. I mainly aimed at non-lethal areas this time, but if I hit someone in the head with this, it'll do major damage. Maybe not immediately fatal, but it would definitely stun and debilitate them enough so I can take them out in close combat.' Nate mused. 'Well, in any case, I gotta get the fuck outta here. I'm not really in the mood to fight wolves while lugging around this much stuff.'

Nate walked towards the direction the man had pointed in earlier. Towards where the village and the path to the Altar were supposed to be.

'Let's hope that there are people there who're aiming for the Altar, too.' Nate wished as he trudged forward.