With preliminary supplies taken care of seemingly by divine intervention, he continued going through the forngle, now with a machete in one hand while the other poked around the screens in front him, absentmindedly trekking like you should through unknown territory.

He managed to open his inventory by pointing at any pocket on his body, or the backpack. Saying the word ‘Inventory’ achieved the same result, and he wasn’t sure which was cooler. The machete was somehow able to stay in his hand with the dagger on the belt.

Trying to pull the dagger out of the belt teleported the machete into the inventorial void, so there was that, still no dual wielding.

The number of followers ticked up on the right. Apparently, it was a good thing, even though he was half sure that just meant more people were hunting him down.

He also realised that trying to hold on a screen provided him with sort of a helper function, although it usually wasn’t much help at all. There was also a distinct lack of things to look at.

There were apparently no stats, as no combination of words that mentioned character, statistics, stats, sheets, status, or info, provided him with a screen.

This was definitely a weird game. The only tangible, numeric, information seemed to be the mana bar, now at 87, and the follower count.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Three minutes ago, he managed to open his skills tab by slapping his forearm. That was done accidentally on purpose by trying to kill a mosquito. He wasn’t sure why that was the particular action needed, or why only pressing on the left arm worked. And no, he didn’t need to slap it, rubbing it worked just as well.

He tried opening the Upgrade Shop, as he called the shelf which popped out the backpack, but the only icon was that of the backpack itself and the label said ‘SOLD’ with a sad emoji next to it. Was the sadness supposed to be his at being unable to buy any more of them, or whoever designed this for not being able to give out more?

One of the things he did notice is that the sun was now visible directly above, peeking through the crowns of the trees. It was more or less midday. That was another useless piece of information as he walked through the forngle.

The thing that was actually affecting him was the gradual increase in both heat and moisture in the air. It was uncomfortable, and his shirt was covered in sweat that couldn’t evaporate.

Surely, it was time for the monotony to stop, and he was actually curious about why there were almost no animals around him. Animals he could easily spot that is. What was the actual density of animals in the wilderness? The concrete jungles contained so many humans, seeing nothing and no one for what looked to be miles, although was probably much less than that, was disconcerting.

It was finally time for a change of pace and scenery, and that happened when he heard water murmuring nearby. He ran to the source of the sound and lo and behold there was a small river in his way.

Two Goblins were making a camp near the shore, and they sure managed to spot him.