John stared at the body and sadly sighed. The first human he encountered since he fled Earth was a dead one. His luck in the recent hours wasn't good.

He crouched by the body and lifted it. He carried the middle-aged man out of the tent and placed it on the ground next to the campfire.

"Sorry about my intrusion" John whispered and then began searching the body. He took every object from the body and put them in the ground.

After he was done searching the body, John stood up and took the Matter Manipulator from his Inventory. He searched for a suitable place and used the Matter Manipulator to create a hole at the ground about the size of a person and with 1 meter of depth. He then returned to the camp, lifted the body and gently placed it on the grave that he just made. After he places the body on the grave John used the Matter Manipulator to fill the grave with the same soil he had previously dug.

He returned to the campfire and used 2 wood boards that was in his Inventory to fuel the fire. He placed a few pieces of the bird's meat on the fire and sat by the side of the fire and looked at the starry sky. He ate the roasted met while admiring the the stars. The meat had a somewhat bland taste because of the lack of seasoning, but John ate it with no problem. He was already used to it. In the Terrene Protectorate training they had to learn how to eat every kind of food.

It was already night, but the lack of artificial light made it possible for one freely see the beautiful sky filled dots of lights from all sizes.

The was so beautiful that John was entranced by its beauty.

Suddenly John was shook awaken from his trance by a few roars coming from the distance. The planet was beautiful, but amidst its beauty, danger might lie anywhere. It was nighttime, the moment the most dangerous predator leave their dwellings to hunt.

John swiftly threw soil in the campfire to extinguish the flame and stored the objects that were in the ground in his Inventory. He stood up and climbed the nearest tree. He decided to sleep in the branches to a avoid the predators on the ground.

He found a thick branch, rested his head on the tree and soon enough he doze off.

It has been a long day and the emotional burden affected his mind and body as he was already very tired.

He was awoken early in the morning by first sunlights that hit him right at the eyes causing him to be momentarily blinded when he woke up.

He climbed down from the tree and made a fresh campfire using the woods in the Inventory. John placed a few pieces of meat on the fire, and while it was roasting he decided to take a closer look at the belongings of the middle-aged man.

He took two objects from his Inventory, a piece of paper and small notebook. He started with the notebook.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Opening the first page John saw that the notebook was in fact a diary. He read through the entire diary while eating his breakfast.

Apparently the middle-aged man was a Explorer. Those who travel through the universe exploring way beyond what Organizations like Terrene Protectorate would explore. The man came to this planet because he found some recordings say that somewhere in this planet there was an Ancient Gate, a infrastructure created by the mysterious race long gone, the Ancients.

While the man explored the planet he found what looked to be a abandoned mine. He tried to explore the mine, but the high quantity of agressive creatures made him reconsider his actions. So he decided to call for reinforcements by the next day, but... He didn't lived to see the next day.

John stored the diary and went to look at the piece of paper. When he unfolded the piece of paper he saw that it was actually a map that had a huge red cross at the extreme right side. John carefully looked at the map and realized that it was a map to the abandoned mine.

John stood up and started to clean the site. He thoughtfully looked at the tent and the hiking backpack that belonged to the Explorer. He hesitated a little, but decided to take it with him.

He found a lake that close to the camp and decided to clean the tent and his uniform.

After everything was ready he started to walk toward the abandoned mine fallowing the direction indicated by the map and using the compass option of his PIPS.

On his way he found some berries he took all of them and kept walking.

John stopped by a lake and decided take a moment to rest. He used his Matter Manipulator to absorb a few trees and then he skillfully used his hunting knife to carve the wood into simple wooden compartments to fill it with water. He didn't had rubberand neitheir a bther cutting equippament to use and create a btter lid to prevent the content from leaking at the opening, but he didn't need it since the dimension on the PIPS would prevent such situation. He filled them to the brim, stored them into the Inventory and resumed his travel.

The day was about to be over when John finally found the abandoned mine. On his way, he took everything that looked edible and useful, and stored them. You never know when they might come handy.

He hid behind a tree and took a careful look at the entrance of the mine. He was acting stealthly because as soon as he saw the mine he also saw that parked just outside the entrance was a old looking orange Hoverbike. Despite the rust here and there, the vehicle looked quite new.

Hoverbikes doesn't have wheels, they have two disc-shaped hovers, one at the back and one at the front, that create a magnetic field strong enough to push against itself, generating the lift which levitates the bike off the ground. And at the back is where the thrusters are located, they are the one who pushes the bike forward. This bike model doesn't use Erchius Fuel, but rather the good old fossil fuel.

John carefully approached the bike and saw that even though it was an very old model it was in fact still operational. He glanced at the exhaustor and tried to touch it. It was warm, it was used not too long ago.

John crouched at the ground and saw footprints that went from the Hoverbike toward the mine.

[The murderer?] John remembered the clean cut in the middle-aged man's throat.

[No...]He looked carefully and saw another set of footprints going into the mine. This one was older than the previous one since most of the footprints had started to fade.

[Two people... One of them is probably the murderer] John thoughtfully looked at the dark entrance of the mine.

He walked and than stopped by the entrance. He took the pistol and the flashlight from the Inventory and entered the mine one step at the time.

Soon he was engulfed in darkness. He turned on the flashlight and resumed his walk.