After Ella finished talking, she motioned for our group to start moving again. Now that we weren’t in immediate danger and we had moved far enough away from the Orukthyri to be safe, I finally had time to look over my System notifications.

Slaughter: Kill an Orukthyri Spellcaster for the first time

Achievement +1,500

Slaughter: Assist in killing an Orukthyri Shaper-commander for the first time

Achievement +600

Influence: Contributed to the battle of the Tunnel by a [Minor] amount.

Achievement + 800

I looked over my System notifications, and had a strangely mixed set of feelings as I scanned them.

My Achievement had increased from 7,200.89 to 10,100.89. And I had gotten decent rewards for participating in the battle, at least when one took into account the fact that we had lost. I did notice that the battle was worth quite a bit less than usual. Perhaps it was because my actions ultimately didn’t matter much? With or without my help, we would have still lost the battle, so in a strange way, it made sense that I didn’t get much Achievement for it.

As I looked over my rewards for the battle, I couldn’t really feel happy, even though I was usually pleased to see my Achievement increase. As I looked over the System notifications, I thought about my missing parents and siblings, and about the fact that hundreds of civilians in the city were either being eaten, or fleeing for their lives. More might die of hunger or thirst as they made their way to another city, and more might get lost in the tunnels, never to reach another city…

Sure, some would certainly survive. It had taken several hours to really process what had happened, and when we had just been escaping from the city, my adrenaline had kept me moving. However, during the past six hours, I had nothing to focus on except for my thoughts and keeping track of our surroundings.

I couldn’t help but wonder if there was more I could have done. Perhaps there had been some way to swing the battle in our favor. Some method of getting Stats and Abilities that I could have employed in our previous world, even. I just kept thinking that there must have been some way to change the outcome of the battle, if I had just done better, and I felt guilty about that, even if I couldn’t really figure out what I should have done differently.

I sighed again, and shook my head, trying to comfort myself. I had done everything I reasonably could have done. I had prepared for future worlds while on the islands, and had walked away with a huge amount of Achievement and a new keyword ability. I had spent years honing my weapon skills. I hadn’t been lazy or prepared poorly. And in this world, I had taken my shaping and spellcasting studies as quickly as I could. I had focused more on my attunement than my spellcasting, but I felt that was by far the most reasonable decision, given my talents. I had never slacked off during my training, and I had done my best to contribute to the battle against the Orukthyri at every chance I had.

And yet, it hadn’t been enough.

Tier 4 worlds were harsh. And right now, the three of us were just too weak to easily change major events on our own.

I hoped that next time, we would reincarnate somewhere easier. Another Tier 2 world would be better. Preferably in an area that wasn’t quite as… bizarre as the islands had been in our previous life. From what I could see of a Tier 4 world, the islands had probably been closer to a Tier 3 world than a Tier 2 world as far as strength of the surrounding creatures went, and the strange environment meant that it was quite a bit more dangerous than it had any right to be. Olav’s discussions about his time outside of the islands, as well as the creatures I had seen in this world, made me seriously consider whether strange mana imbalances on a certain planet could cause areas to be ‘higher tier’ than the rest of the world. A world’s Tier was apparently decided by how much mana was present on the planet. However, as far as I could tell, this was an evaluation for the world as a whole. If 90% of a Tier 2 planet’s mana was concentrated on one area, and the rest of the world only had 10% of the world’s mana, it would still be a Tier 2 world, as far as I knew.

Of course, I was just guessing right now, but I felt my reasoning made sense. From what I had observed about how Skills worked, the biggest reason people were stronger in higher-Tier dimensions was because more mana made it easier to train and improve Skills.

As we started to move again, I started wondering what kind of world would be best to land in next time.

It would be best if we could help Felix get his magic system online. Since his affinity was Binding, it would be best if the world was at least Tier 2, and had access to binding essence…

And, most likely, it would be best if the world was on the lower end, tech-wise. The less people lived in the world, and the less organized the militaries of the world were, the more of a difference the three of us could make in fights. And most importantly, the less people lived in a world, the fewer ‘outliers’ there would be in that world. Which naturally meant that we would have a bigger relative advantage compared to the other people of a given planet.

Of course, a world that was too technologically underdeveloped would also be a problem, since that might mean the magic system was undeveloped as well. I wanted Felix to have the best resources available for his magic system. I didn’t know what the right balance was between a world that was developed enough for Felix to have access to good resources, but undeveloped enough that we could actually make a difference in the world.

As I was pondering where I hoped we would be born next, the group had continued moving forward. Ella set an even slower and more careful pace than before, while Felix’s parents occasionally paused to toss out a few sensing spells.

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We spent another six hours walking, before I started to realize something interesting. Due to the strange ring shape of the planet, the cycle of day and night wasn’t very pronounced. I could clearly see that the planet was rotating as time passed, and that did occasionally cause parts of the sun to get obscured by other parts of the ring. However, it didn’t seem like we ever got a ‘completely’ dark section of each day. Instead, there were small intervals of light and darkness scattered throughout the day, happening every couple of hours. However, periods of darkness were still bright enough to easily see in, and much briefer than a ‘true’ night time.

“-ed.” yelled Felix’s parents.

I frowned, realizing I had gotten caught up in my thoughts. That didn’t usually happen.

Why was I having such a hard time focusing? My thoughts had wandered from one topic to another much more than usual, even given my high Intelligence and low Perception.

Seeing my confusion, Felix’s father spoke again. “Weird creature up ahead.” Felix’s father said, keeping his voice down as he stared at something in the distance.

I frowned, and looked at it with my soulsight. I couldn’t quite make out what I was supposed to be seeing, but now that Felix’s father had called my attention to it, I could almost see a bright yellow soul moving in the distance…

I looked down at my hands, and realized they were shaking.

My breathing was getting faster and faster, and my vision was getting blurry. I forced myself to stop and take a deep breath, before I looked again.

It was a little easier to see this time. I had a hard time making out the yellow soul, but apparently, that was because I had been hyperventilating, instead of because of my poor perception.

I reached towards my alteration essence, and nearly fumbled while trying to take control of it. I tried again, and this time I was able to seize control of my essence.

What was wrong with me right now? I shuddered, and focused on the creature again.

Nearly eight hours had passed since the battle with the Orukthyri, and even if I hadn’t had a full day of rest to recover all of my essence, I was at least in fighting condition again.

I prepared to extinguish something, and stared at the creature moving towards us. I felt sweat start to build up around my fingers. My hands were shaking again.

Finally, I realized what was wrong. I heard a small, hollow chuckle escape my lips.

Had losing the city done that much damage to my self esteem? I was scared. I didn’t want to fail again. I didn’t want Anise and her parents to die here, or Ella. Lauren was already gone, and I had no idea what had happened to my parents. I had been pushing away my thoughts by thinking about future reincarnations, and Felix’s magic system, and a bunch of other things…

But at heart… I was just scared now.

I shoved down my anxiety. I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes here. I wanted Anise, Ella, and everyone’s parents to stay safe here. I wanted to live longer. If we died this early in this world, we might truly fail to buy more lives in the future.

I needed to fight well, not panic the moment I realized another fight was coming.

I eyed Sallia, and realized that she also looked nervous. She wasn’t as shaky as I was, but she didn’t have the confident stride and eagerness I usually associated with her before a battle.

Seeing Sallia also scared finally forced me back into focus.

I wouldn’t let anything hurt my friends as long as I was alive. I squinted into the distance again, and finally identified the enemy.

What appeared in front of us was a giant plant. It appeared to be a plant, at least. Its limbs were bright pink, much like the sparse patches of grass in the landscape around us, and its skin had a certain plantlike texture that was easy to distinguish, even from a distance. Furthermore, a large part of its body looked as if it were rooted in the ground.

However, some of its roots were slowly pulling the creature towards us. It was slow enough that it was hard to spot, if I wasn’t explicitly paying attention to it. However, since I knew it was there, it was easy to notice that every second, it moved slightly closer to us.

“Sleeplurk,” said Ella, and I noticed the tension in her shoulders start to bleed away. She turned towards Anise, Sallia, Felix and I. “Now, this is one of the things you need to keep an eye out for while on the surface. It’s a rather dangerous creature… but ONLY if you don’t pay attention. They’re called sleeplurks because they like to creep up on you while you’re sleeping. Do you see the little needles at the edge of its leaves?”

Sallia squinted at the creature and nodded, although it was too far away for me to see.

“Those are poisonous. If you get stung by them, you’ll enter a pretty deep sleep… and the plant will then wrap you up. Its roots will slowly dig into your body, and the plant will then digest you over the course of about three days. But as long as you’re paying attention, they’re very easy to deal with, because they’re one of the slowest creatures in the wastes.” said Ella.

I nodded, feeling some of the tension bleed away from me as well. An easy creature to deal with. Nothing like the Orukthyri who had destroyed the city. “Are they dangerous at all, as long as you notice them?”

“Not really. Their body is a bit resilient against some surprising elements, like fire spells, but they’re very weak to ice spells. Of course, this creature counters my attunement pretty well. Its mind is too dissimilar to mine for my attunement to work. But even a second-circle spell can drop it instantly.”

I nodded, and then hit it with an extinguish. It died instantly.

Slaughter: Kill a sleeplurk for the first time

Achievement +35

My Achievement increased from 10,100.89 to 10,135.89. It was a small increase, but it was still useful. More importantly, I also got a new Skill for killing something with water for the first time.

Endless Hunger of the Ocean has devoured Sleeplurk for the first time. New Skill created.

Camouflage: You become slightly harder to spot, so long as you’re moving slowly.

I took a look at the new Skill, before dismissing it. I didn’t think it was more useful to me than any of my other current skills. If I could use the Skill while moving quickly, I may have dropped my {Acid and Poison Control} skill for it, but if I needed to move at a glacial pace to make the Skill work, it just wasn’t worth it.

Then, I felt a strange sense of relief.

I realized that I had started to worry that every single fight in this world would be like the battle against the Orukthyri. A battle that seemed nightmarishly hard to win, and was fraught with danger and fear. However, it was easy to forget that, at least one on one, I could extinguish an Orukthyri rather easily. And Sallia and I could handle 2-3 Orukthyri with at least some margin of safety.

I felt some of the stress I had been feeling for the past eight hours start to bleed away.

Even though we were in a Tier 4 world, and even though the city had just fallen… maybe things weren’t as bad as they seemed. It was important to keep in mind that we were still weaklings in this world, since Orthanoids were so much weaker than the proper powerhouses of this dimension, but it also wasn’t a bad idea to keep in mind that things weren’t as bad as they seemed. Even though we were rather mediocre by this world’s standards, there were still places where we could survive and thrive. We just needed to be cautious, avoid stupid risks, and move forward.