The day was like any other, Gabriel was working on one of his projects in his now small village which only had him as a resident, furnishing the different homes even though he knew that they wouldn’t be populated ever or at least not anytime soon.

He had just finished the bedroom of a new house and he believed it was the best one he had made when he felt a slight rumble below his feet. He knew that the house he had made was stable, so it couldn’t be that it was falling apart, but he thought that perhaps there was an underground creature caving right below his feet that made the movement and noise he felt.

But the movement didn’t seem to stop even when he left his house, in fact, it seemed to only grow louder and stronger. He touched the ground and analyzed its mana signals to see if there was anything there, but nothing was there.

Perhaps it was a larger creature that wasn’t directly below him, but its sheer size made the shockwaves travel all the way to him and to explore this possibility he exited the core of the mountain in order to be closer to the ground and have an easier time finding the underground animal.

But once again nothing was detected. The movement had already been going on for about two minutes and it was turning quite difficult for Gabriel to keep standing up. So, he got close to a nearby tree and hugged it to prevent from falling over, but then decided to sit on the ground.

This event was very weird for me as I didn’t know what an earthquake was so not only did the movement itself catch me off guard, what came after was also unexpected. I wasn’t living on a volcano or near one, but the mountain did move, causing great changes to the inner landscape.

Once the movement was over a few trees had fallen down, being uprooted and some cracks had formed on the ground, causing some traps to be accidentally activated, luckily not causing much damage, but it was still quite a chaotic sequence. If these cracks had also formed inside the mountain, then he could have lost a lot of things and even if no house broke, the sideways movement had definitely done some damage to some of the decorations he had handcrafted or to some of the higher furniture that had likely fallen down.

But it was worse than he expected, because already in the tunnels and the doors he had installed there had been broken down, either because of its surroundings, as in the ground or walls sustaining damage, but some also broken down due to the intensity of the movement, showing off a crack that clarified the process that had happened.

When he got closer to the houses he had built, he had already lost the hope of them being alright, but now he could only pray for them to be in a usable condition, else he’d be homeless for a while. This wasn’t as bad as it could be, because it was spring and the nights weren’t that cold, though the insects would trouble him a bit.

The tunnels were filled with tiny rocks that had probably fallen down during the tremors and when he made the final turn to see the clearing inside the mountain… he was met with a wall. A dead end. But he observed it and realized that it hadn’t been there before, it was a large rock that had fallen recently and coincidentally blocked the entrance.

He could try to break through it or enter through the other tunnel. If none of these two worked, he could always try to scale the mountain and enter through the natural window which he enjoyed watching through so much.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

But first he’d traverse the tunnels to reach the other entrance. Though he quickly learned that it wasn’t only the entrance to his clearing that had changed, many inner sections of the mountain had changed to greater or lesser extent. For example, some tunnels had grown larger, others smaller. Some had disappeared and he believed that some had even appeared, though they probably were already there, only with something blocking the access to it beforehand.

Luckily, he wouldn’t need to use brute force to enter the now caved-in clearing. And the situation was worse than he expected. It wasn’t only that one rock that blocked the entrance that had fallen down, instead multiple boulders of different sizes had broken off the ceiling and most buildings were completely destroyed, while some still had some walls standing.

He moved to his original home where most of his property was, but it had been one of the unluckiest buildings, with a huge boulder completely crushing it. The rock wasn’t circular and was more like a thick leaf, which meant that because it fell with an angle, he could still crawl under it and access a part of his bedroom.

But he decided not to do it at the moment because considering that the rock had fallen out of nowhere due to recent ground movement and his lack of knowledge of this process, he considered it too risky to get under the rock because it was likely to fall on top of him, probably crushing him instantly. The other option was that he got stuck and died a slow, pitiful and painful death.

Not wanting to experience any of these things, he wandered out of the mountain and into a clearing of the forest, making a small bed far from any trees that could fall on top of him. And just like he predicted, as he was about to sleep, the ground moved again. This time with less intensity than before, but he still didn’t want to experience this inside the dangerous mountain.

The night went without a hitch, though maybe it was due to his constant watchful eye that no beast roamed near him. The earth didn’t move again either. But while he rested, his mind could wander, and he decided that it wasn’t safe to stay there. If these movements were unpredictable, as they appeared to be, he could easily be crushed in the middle of the night before he could react. He may be woken up by the noise and movement, but he wouldn’t be able to escape his doom.

Therefore, he would need to search for a new home, but before he was going to save as many things as he could from the rubble that the earthquake had caused. He moved in carefully, making sure that he was able to exit the mountain swiftly if the telluric movements ensued.

In this manner, carefully moving the rubble and instantly escaping whenever he felt that the whole cave could fall down, he managed to rescue some half-broken tools which with some work he could mend and also some clothes which he could turn into bags.

But sadly, many buildings had been completely crushed, meaning that Gabriel couldn’t even try to get something out of it. Most of them had been partially destroyed and some had sections which were basically new. From these ones he also managed to get some food supplies which he had luckily spread through the whole village in order to make it feel more alive. This meant that he wasn’t forced to hunt or hunger through the first few days while he gathered everything, he took on his new trip.

He was checking everything on his three bags when the earth moved once more, cementing the urge to leave the place as some doubts started to arise, but they quickly dispersed and as soon as the earthquake finished, he set onward to live on another place. He’d probably visit a few towns and look at the current situation before picking where he wanted to live then. Maybe he didn’t need to live so alone, but there was also the chance that he was still being searched for.

Perhaps he would remember that which he had forgotten or maybe he would find someone else to fill that hole in his memories. Anyways, he wanted to use this chance to explore the world, even though he knew it was safer to stick to one place, he had already had enough of that. He had nothing and no one to tie him down and he’d use the time that it stayed that way efficiently.

Quickly walking in a random direction, he reached a small dirt path that wasn’t very concurred, but big enough to see the signals of civilization. Some sort of cattle used to go through this path and after throwing his coin, he turned left and continued walking.