Even the shittiest clothes turned out to be expensive, and it wasn’t like I had many options. With everything being hand made in this world, it wasn’t like I could just go to a superstore to support sweatshops. Sadly, I had to pay for artisan goods or whatever. Between that and how much the tavern owner had charged just to run a bath, I was beginning to suspect something. Looking at my rapidly dwindling pile of coins just confirmed it.

“I’m being scammed. Again.”

Not knowing what anything cost or was worth certainly wasn’t ideal, but wandering around naked and covered in blood made it even worse. I barely had enough time to visit another clothing store before dark but this time in my second finest attire. I remained unconvinced that the loose green fabric was an improvement to my birthday suit.

“We could sell you a pair for six copper, but I can’t go lower!”

The salesman tried to look harried by my bartering, but my exasperation wasn’t aimed at him. I decided to buy the extra underwear just in case and held my hand out for the change. Nine big copper coins and three small ones were my reward, earning another frown from me.

“Oh, my apologies. I forgot a coin.”

This salesman was really pushing his luck, probably. So the big coins were ten and the smaller ones were…one, meaning my silvers weren’t all that much money. At least, what I had left wasn’t a lot.

The first clothing store charged me two silver for a set of clothes and no shoes. The tavern charged the same for a simple bath. This world really wasn’t leaving a good impression on me.

With more coins in my bag than I started with, though a depressing total nonetheless, I stepped outside to realize how late it was. Really, I’d just gotten lucky that I tore through dimensions around midday instead of midnight. Everyone would be winding down for the day now, going to sleep and having dinner. Pathetic! I was beyond such simple needs and could go all night long!

More importantly, I couldn’t afford those tavern prices. Holy shit, if it’s two silver for just a bath then there’s no way I could afford a bed. Not that I wanted to sleep, of course. Why would I want to take a break after an untold period of time training alone…

Determined to acquire enough money to relax in the future, I returned to my place of employment to get a lay of the land. Aside from the dungeon that I tore out of before, there seemed to be a number of rifts in the nearby fields, ranging from danger level one to five. Perfect! I’d just go back to the place I popped out of, which was the closest one and apparently DL2, and clear it for the money. If the big bug was the type of monster I could expect to face in there, then I’d have an easy enough time. Especially considering my newly improved stats.

Speaking of, how does one train magic if they have no magic? Or spirit for that matter. I have ideas for grinding my perception, but the other two are a total loss for me. In fact, there’s just a mountain of things that I don’t know, and it keeps costing more of my dwindling supply of coins.

With a sigh, I developed a new plan. I’d go clear out a dungeon or two, cash out the reward, and use the money to buy information. Surely, they’d entertain my probably dumb questions if I pay for their time.

With that out of the way, I set off on my new quest.

“Hey, you have to register if you’re entering the Rift Fields,” an armored guard spoke from the left, stopping me before I could leave through the gate. Which was also closed and would have stopped me. I really wasn’t used to needing to pay attention to my surroundings.

No wonder my awareness is so shit.

“Oh yea. I was asked to come back after and show you my neat dog tag as well. Does this work for both?”

I dangled the metal plate in front of me after pulling it from my coin purse. I had limited locations for storage right now, and these shitty clothes didn’t exactly have pockets.

“Wait, you’re the blood soaked nudist?”

Not all nicknames are winners, but I was surprisingly ok with this one.

“Yep, that’s me. I was born naked and covered in red juice, so it just feels like home to me.”

The guard couldn’t look more uncomfortable if he tried, and that was saying something. With a hand gesture from him, the gate began to creak open as some underling somewhere was given the go ahead.

“We won’t hold you up, then.”

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It paid to have a reputation. It got these men to work harder just to ensure that I could leave them alone as soon as possible. Being alone for so long may have eroded some of my charisma, but it seemed to do wonders for my intimidation. I’d take what I could get.

“I’ll be back later, so don’t freak out if you see someone wandering up while covered in blood.”

I gave my best wave and reassuring smile, but the discomfort in my newest acquaintance was only increasing. Funny how that worked.

Either way, I decided to jog across the fields as dusk began to settle in. It was a strange sensation for me since I hadn’t been out of the sun in a long time. I’d probably be able to back calculate the time frame when I could watch my health recover, but for now I just moved on.

The stretching shadows made it harder to identify landmarks and find the correct dungeon, not that they weren’t obvious. In fact, that was the problem. As soon as I made it a hundred feet from the town, I could see the faintly glowing maws of three portals in the distance, all fairly far apart from each other. Honestly, any one of them could be my intended target. There was only one way to know for sure.

Comfortable with the distance between me and the walls, I broke into a sprint, setting my sights on the portal to the left. The incredible power and speed of my muscles launched me forward so fast that I could hear the wind tearing past me. In moments, I managed to reach the first portal and realized what I’d actually been hearing.

I just tore my brand new pants. These clothes really were shit.

Annoyed, I decided to just return to nature for the time being. I had stuffed the extra pair of underwear into its natural habitat, so I could leave a full change of clothes outside of the portal while I ventured inside in nothing but a pair of tighty not-so-whiteys.

That felt a little stupid. I was still incredibly poor and had almost nothing to my name. I could use the old prison wallet to store my money while I fought but that probably wouldn’t be ideal for flexibility. I also hadn’t needed to shit since reincarnating so there was no guessing what kind of mess that might unleash.

Settling for a half measure, I scooped out a chunk of grass from the field, which was obviously not mowed unlike my old home, and dug up enough dirt to fit my clothes and coin purse. That done, I gently placed some of the grass back on top while clumping the dirt into a ball for disposal. With my remarkable hand strength, I was able to get it quite compact, giving me a fun idea.

After all of that, I ventured into the portal and began my first dungeon clear.

The inside was a lot less fleshy than the place I remembered, meaning I’d stumbled into someplace new. Which place, I couldn’t say. I really should grind up my awareness at some point before my flippant attitude got me killed again. If nothing else, the absence of trucks in this world would help my life expectancy tremendously. Assuming that the cities didn’t have magical buggies that crotchety divine could hijack for a joyride.

I pushed the wandering thoughts from my mind as I focused on my surroundings more seriously. It felt like I had been shoved into a massive cave system, with ceilings over fifty feet high and twice as wide. Taking a closer look, I could see that the walls of the cave had some kind of glowing rock interspersed at specific intervals, otherwise I’d be struggling to see at all.

Past those glowing stones which were closer to stalactites were a series of honeycomb styled perforations. As soon as I realized what I was looking at, I heard a rumbling sound all around me. The walls and ceiling began to shake from the vibrations as hundreds of thousands of living things became aware of my presence in their massive home.

“Why is it always insects?”

The bees flew out of their hive, too fast for me to get a good look at them. In fact, I couldn’t even be sure what they were with how quickly they darted around. It wasn’t until the first approached me at an angle of attack that I could get a better beat on them, throwing my clump of dirt towards it and hitting nothing.

They were massive. Each one was larger than me with a stinger the size of my forearm. Rather than the friendly colors of a bumblebee, these creatures were a dark gray to match their home and had a hard carapace exterior. In fact, they looked closer to a hybrid of a bee and an ant rather than anything I’d ever seen on Earth.

I dodged as quickly as I could, barely escaping from the monster's path as it sailed past my chest, moving too fast for retaliation. Before I even found my footing, the next one came flying in. This time I had to drop to the floor to save myself from being impaled. I knew I was tougher than a tree, but I was not about to test my resilience by taking one of those things to the chest.

The third approached as I lay on the ground, and this time I had a plan. Rolling out of the way at the last second, I turned the maneuver into a kick as the insect got its stinger stuck on the floor. It wasn’t my best attack and was missing a ton of momentum due to my compromised position, but the blow landed and sent the creature flying. Then the fourth came at me.

This time, I was caught mid movement and couldn’t fully dodge the attack, getting scraped on my side as I tried to roll away. The fifth scored a deeper one on my flesh soon after, and the sixth managed to stab into my shoulder before I jumped back out the portal.

Surprisingly, the big round fucker came with me, still stuck in my torso. A few swift punches reduced it to a quivering mess of flesh before I pulled it out of me, throwing it back where it came from. The last thing I needed was to encourage more to come through after me.

A quick look at my health revealed that I’d taken less damage than I thought. Still, getting stabbed through the shoulder was a good tenth of my health by itself, so I wasn’t all that keen on jumping back in there. Fortunately, I had two other portals nearby to try out. I’d come back for my revenge once my stats were higher, awareness in particular. Trying to hit something you couldn’t follow was just a nightmare.

I could have used this as an opportunity to track my health regeneration and learn something important. Hell, I could have just taken this as a sign to take things slow and go back to stat grinding. After all, I could probably go find myself a dumbbell or something if I looked around enough. Even a bucket of rocks would be an improvement over what I had before.

But something about getting the shit kicked out of me made me want to return the favor. Looking over at the remaining portals gave me just the idea.

It was time to squash some bugs.