This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

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Truly opposite to the lands I was coming from. I then travelled half of the day while following the coast before finally finding a small stream of fresh water. The trek had been exhausting and the headache caused by dehydration was killing me, but I didn't take any chances and still decided to boil the water first before drinking it. I couldn't afford to get sick, alone in the wilderness. I drank as much as I could and filled my canteen before considering my next steps.

Since there were still a few hours of daylight left, I decided to walk deeper inland and follow the stream to its source. If it was coming from an underground source, collecting it from where it come out of the ground would allow me to skip the boiling step. Hoping to drink cold water instead of a smelly brown soup, I decided to push on and go further inland.

I hadn't walked for more than a few minutes, but a discovery prompted me to stop and investigate. I still hadn't reached the water source, but up on a cliff-side was a cave and its location seemed simply too good not to be used as shelter. The only problem with it being at such a good location was that something seemed to be living in there already.

My sensing ability was telling me that something was deep inside of it, but for some reason, I wasn't feeling afraid or anything. Cautious about the possibility of whatever lived in there being a poisonous creature, I lit a fire near the entry then threw some bundles of burning vegetation inside the cave, hoping to smoke whatever lived there out.

I ran a few meters back, grabbed a fist sized rock and readied myself to throw it as hard as I could. A few seconds went by without any sign of movement but I could feel the creature getting agitated inside. I tightened my grip on the stone I was holding, ready to throw it will all my strength.

I had killed many creatures in the past by simply throwing rocks at them. My throwing arm was so powerful that the rocks would usually go right through the creature's body like a cannonball. As I nervously stood near the cave entrance, the creature finally decided to make its move and run toward the exit.

I immediately readied myself and adopted a throwing position, then finally saw a silhouette rushing out of the cave and running toward me. What I saw was a strange looking creature which looked like a mix between a big cat and a small bear. The creature had long and sharp looking canines and by the look of it, seemed to be some type of mammal.

This was surprising since all the mammals I had seen in this world so far had been only to the level of rats. As I prepared to throw the deadly rock in my hand, the creature then spotted me and froze for an instant. It threw a quick look at me before turning tail and running away in the forest. Seemed like I wouldn't need to fight it to take over its home after all.

It also seemed like the creature was smart enough to realize when it was outmatched by a more powerful predator. With that taken care of, I walked near the cave entrance and put out the fire. I then entered the cave and began to explore it, but soon found a few bones which were clearly remains of the creature's past meals. Going through the bones to know what type of creatures lived around, I found something I wasn't expecting to see.

Small human skulls and bones were piled up among what looked like deer antlers and other unknown creatures' bones. This was not the cave of something like a dragon that could carry its prey over long distances, but something closer to a tiger, so that had to mean that humans lived nearby.

I could hardly imagine this creature dragging corpses over hundred of miles just to eat them in his cave. Excited by the discovery at first, I then became nervous. The locals would most likely react aggressively if they saw me, which made me hesitate about the idea of making contact with them.

I then continued deeper into the cave but soon reached a dead end. This cave was quite spacious, but was no deeper than 20 meters. With the entire cave now explored, I began to pile up the bones it contained near the entrance and burned them. The idea of sleeping next to human remains was a bit too creepy to be overlooked.

I hid my backpack deep inside the cave and piled up a few rocks on top of it as camouflage. Next, I grabbed a tree branch and used it like a broom to clean the cave's floor, then spent the rest of the day gathering grass to make a bed and collected firewood for the night. As long as I kept a fire burning near the entrance, I doubted the big bear-cat would return while I slept.

Going back to my backpack to grab some dragon jerky, I then sat next to the fire and ate until I felt satiated. Afterwards, I drank the remaining water in my canteen and laid on my grass bed for the night. With a roof over my head, I was already feeling safer, but the foreign noises coming from all direction kept preventing me from sleeping soundly. There were also these constant thoughts about Rambo's well being. While hoping for him to be safe wherever he was, I couldn't help but shed a few manly tears.

I spent the entire night, waking up every few minutes to put more wood into the fire and made sure to never let it die out. After one of the longest nights in my life, the sun finally showed itself and made some of my anxiety fade away. Not wanting to waste any daylight, I immediately began to boil water and filled my stomach with it before doing anything else.

While I was waiting for the water to boil, I began to ponder about what to do next. This cave was probably the best shelter I could hope for, but staying here wouldn't help me get back home. Since the wood from this world was too fragile and easy to break, could I really build a seaworthy boat?

Wouldn't I simply end up stranding myself at sea once more by doing so? The idea of getting lost at sea again was enough to make me consider building a house and living here. Thinking about it for a while, I concluded that I needed to explore my surroundings before deciding anything. There was a high probability of humans living nearby, so I first needed to know where and how far away from here they lived.

Maybe they had already smelled the smoke from my campfire and would come to investigate. I needed to avoid such a situation if I wanted to avoid being caught in a fight. Having made up my mind, I grabbed my backpack and walked up to a giant boulder which was as big as a truck.

I crouched next to it and positioned myself before ejecting a good amount of red mist. Then, as if the stone was a fake one made out of Styrofoam, I simply rolled it on its side and exposed what was underneath. Right after doing so, a few creepy crawlies scurried away, making me flinch and jump back like a frightened little girl.  

I might have looked ridiculous, but I remembered that back on earth, even the smallest and most inoffensive looking creature could be the deadliest. Those of you who have seen a black widow should understand what I meant. There was no way for me to know if these creepy crawlies were in fact murderous creatures or not.

With the giant boulder now on its side, I went and found a flat shaped rock which I used as shovel to dig a hole big enough to fit my backpack in, where the giant boulder used to be. I then put my backpack in the hole, and rolled the boulder back on top of it. Just like that, my backpack should be out of reach from anything wanting to steal it.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The plan was to travel as light as possible by leaving my backpack behind. All I intended to bring with me was my sniper rifle, knife, handgun, some pipe bombs and what I could fit in my vest pockets. Wearing my ghillie suit should allow me to remain undetected if I come across the indigenous inhabitant.

I immediately began to walk while following the coast, since any human population would usually settle near the coastline. Once again, I marvelled as how beautiful this jungle was. I walked for almost two hours and still hadn't seen any sign of any human activities but soon found what looked like a delicious fruit.

The reason why this fruit in particular had caught my attention was because of its smell. The sweet smell emanating from these golf ball sized blue fruits was mouth watering. Their smell reminded me of fruit punch, but their appearance was somehow scary. They almost looked like blue scaly living organism, making me wonder if they were eggs or something.  

Curious, I plucked one of the fruit and carefully dissected it. The scales covering it seemed to be a peel of some sort, while the juicy fleshy part beneath it was a beautiful, tasty, looking orange colour. Like most fruits, a big nut looking seed could be found in the middle.

With my hands covered with the sticky juice, I decided to lick the tip of one of my fingers and wait to see if it would trigger a negative effect on my body. The sweet taste of this fruit was highly addictive as it reminded me of raspberries, which was my favourite fruit back on earth.

Tasting such a small amount of it should be fine as long as it wasn't the most poisonous fruit in the world. Knowing that it could take hours before I felt any allergic or poisonous reactions, I plucked a few more of them and stuffed them in my pockets before resuming my journey. I held one of these fruits in my hand as I walked alongside the coast, trying to resist the urge to take a bite out of it. “I really wish I knew what they are.” I then asked to myself, unaware of what was going to happen next.

Òkfah Fruit:

This unusual fruit is covered in bluish scales, which must be peeled away to get to the flesh. Popular with the locals, the fruit is, often eaten by scraping the flesh over your bottom teeth to separate it, from a large internal seed. It is an excellent source of vitamins A and C, and the pulp is also occasionally used to treat burns. When,fermented, it makes a delicious, exotic wine!

Uh? Some green writing suddenly appeared right in front of my face, making me jump back in surprise, but as I backed away, the text remained as close as it was before. It was as if these writings were displayed right in front of my eyes, almost as if I was wearing a futuristic pair of glasses able to display information.

I shook my head left and right, and even knocked on my head with my hand but the message stayed there. I then began to rub my eyes but noticed that the message could still be seen with my eyes closed. Puzzled at first, a memory then kept being replayed in my head. So it was not a dream after all? Nanites he said?

Nanites where the only thing I could think of that would be able to do something like that. Seeing a message being displayed inside my eyes, or even inside my brain like that, made me feel as if I had become a cyborg or something ridiculous like that. "Nanites" refer to nanotechnology, microscopic mechanisms that could hypothetically be injected into living organisms to produce various effects.

With this confirming that what I had went through hadn't been a dream, I was left with an even greater amount of questions. This mysterious man sounded as if he knew everything about me. I certainly had many theories in my head but none of them seemed even remotely plausible. But then again, I had been teleported to a different world containing something similar to mana in the air. What had he called it again, dokari?

Leaving what I didn't know behind, I then decided to test out how this display thingy functioned by grabbing a flower growing next to me. I then stared at it, hoping to see some information but nothing appeared. The last time, I had said out loud how I wished to be able to know what the fruit was, so was that how it worked? “What is this flower?” I skeptically asked out loud.

Notrakuh Fruit:

Native to the jungles of the central continent, the notrakuh fruit looks more like  an orchid flower rather than a fruit. To get to its pineapple-like flesh, the scaly exterior must be flaked off and delicately prepared. Interestingly, this fruit takes as long as 2 cycles to ripen and to be safe enough to eat — it can be toxic if unripe.

Woaa.. This was going to be insanely useful. I could finally start eating plants and fruits! I mentally thanked the mysterious man for his amazing gift before starting to identify every single plant I came across. Knowledge was what I lacked the most in this world, but this new found piece of technology was going to help me remedy this weakness.

I kept walking alongside the coast, totally engrossed by my new found encyclopedia and even discovered that I simply needed to 'think' that I wanted information on what I looked at, and didn't need to say it out loud. After a few hours of that, I had completely forgotten to keep an eye on my sensing ability. It is later, when I heard the sound of voices coming from afar that my attention went back to my surroundings. These voices sounded human, and more precisely female.

My sensing ability then confirmed that there were at least 50 entities, less than 200 meters away from me. I immediately entered stealth mode and crouched to the ground, hoping not to have alerted them. With my ghillie suit on, I should be almost impossible to see among all the bushes surrounding me.

I then crawled to a location allowing me to see the beach, where I had localized some of those entities at, and was amazed by what I saw. Humans! There were at least 15 women on the beach, and the rest further away where I couldn't see. I laid my sniper rifle in front on me, and used the magnifying scope to get a closer look.

Looking through my scope allowed me to confirm that all of them were females, and that they were all completely naked. They seemed to be peeling some type of root with sharp stones while some others were turning in circle with fishing nets in their hands. Once again, these humans seemed to be very small, maybe 4 feet and a half tall or something.

Once again, they had tanned/purplish skin, black hair and giant black eyes. Actually, their eyes seemed twice as big as they should be, but there was something else bugging me. The first woman I had seen back in the king dragon's cave had Asian features, yet these people seemed closer to Native American or even Caucasian like me.

They were all wearing feathers and various colourful trinkets in their hair and also had various designs painted on their faces. Their faces being painted like that seemed similar to war paints from indigenous tribes, but it was probably not the same since they were simply peeling vegetables. They didn't seem ready to go to battle to me. Had I also mentioned that they were completely naked?

“Gulp* F-fascinating...” I thought to myself, completely mesmerized by the scene.