The first day was spent fully on traveling. I reached my bedding by the wall at dusk and after a short meal, just went to sleep. When I woke up I ate again, and after a brief inspection of equipment went hunting. I was happy and excited about how its gonna be with my new, upgraded body. I could feel the difference in movement. Even after half of a night, and a whole day of travel I wasn’t really that tired.

Maybe my physical condition was not on the level of pro athletes, but it definitely was up there. I ate and went to sleep. Dreams welcomed me pretty quickly. I was a king loved by everyone in that imaginative world.

Reality came back with backpain. Nothing too terrible, probably an effect of sleeping in a bad position. I got up quickly, ate, and packed my stuff, just to a moment later be on my way to hunt. I repeated everything just like before and got myself a nice amount of 46 crystals.

Fighting was easy. I was way faster than before, and my stamina was incredible. I wasn’t getting tired at all.

After collecting stones I started to head to the camping spot by the wall. My mind drifted away quickly, and before I knew it, I was planning how I’m gonna spend the points earned this week. I needed to fix my eyes, which I forgot to do, lured by combat statistics. I even had thoughts about unlocking superpowers if I rise my statistics high enough.

[0)ᴠᴇʟ The device was an unchanging secret. Giant question mark standing right before our noses. Who made it? What was its purpose? What were its limits? Nobody knew back then.

I ate, and went to sleep, to wake up the next morning. Quickly filled my stomach, and gathered equipment to be on my way as soon as possible. The shield was in a bad condition, and probably would break very soon, so I kept in mind, to be wary of it.

The hunt began as usual. I killed one rat by their nest, and ran away, to wait for the first searching group. It took some time, but they finally showed up. It was a very quick fight. To the point, I started doubting if I have to wait here for them. I could go back, closer to their nest, and if it would get too hard, I could easily escape.

In my mind, it was totally logical. I got drunk on power. Greed overtook my mind. After making my way closer, and closer to true strength, and finally earning crystals faster than ever before, I discovered that I was actually wrong in my assumptions. By the way, I managed to earn 84 crystals.

But back to the point. I assumed that they are using smaller groups to cover more terrain. Just like goblins, which charged as a horde, rats also had their horde. It just didn’t go too far away from the nest. The smaller parties were scouts that had a simple mission. To discover the enemy, and get the main force, but since I was alone, they were not afraid and attacked.

I heard them before I saw them. Problem was, they also heard me. When I was getting closer to take a look, they surrounded me. Not the main force, cause I would notice, but several smaller teams.

Stupid rats didn’t sneak all the way to the end and jumped while squeaking, that’s why I can actually tell this story, instead of being skeleton or something. I smacked down the first few, but there was no end to them, and even bigger numbers were still approaching. It quickly turned into a strange fight.

I was jumping from tree to tree trying to use them as a cover, and not get surrounded totally. They were coming from all directions, but I was somehow able to navigate while actually moving away from the main forces. Well, not exactly. They were approaching quicker than I was increasing the distance, but all I wanted was to make my way through the ambushing group.

My mind was never before as clear as in the middle of that fight. I was doing great to the point, that escape was almost in my hands, and then one lost knife cut me horizontally across my stomach. Like on a signal I bolted as fast, as never before, making it past the last enemies, while desperately trying to hold the open wound together. It was bleeding heavily, very heavily.

I dropped the weapon. Only straps of leather were attached to my hand, the rest of the shield was also gone. I kept marching and jogging in panic. Trying to make it out. Rats were slow, but in my condition, I wasn’t very fast either.

Upgrading my constitution had to have an effect on my pain endurance, cause I don’t think I normally would be able to withstand it.

I remember that I kept pushing forward, very clearly aiming for the city gate. Rats were behind me, but I was slowly losing them, just like I was losing consciousness. Minutes turned into hours. My vision started to fade away, and my eyelids closing on their own.

– Just one more step, one more… – I was repeating in my mind over, and over.

And coldness overtaking me, that’s something I also can clearly remember.

Day ended, and night came, but I kept walking….