Staring at the sky again.
I'm not joking.
This is genuinely one of the only moments where I'm not busy with trying to help the kid find the most effective method to kill me.
Yeah, that would normally sound bad in so many situations that it doesn't quite register in my head anymore. I've just gotten used to the thought that sooner or later, this kid will genuinely kill me.
But in any scenario, she's been getting better. Faster, more streamlined in how she moves, finding the best possible way to make me hurt in each of our little spats.
And yes, I mean spats, because that's what she does when she's still standing and I'm on the ground trying to nurse the multiple broken bones that she's given me.
I'm not gonna deny it, she's gonna overcome me sooner or later. And I'll be a very very dead man by then, so I'm trying to think about this. Do I cut my losses and just leave her here as I try to get out of the forest?
I have a cycle and routine here, one that I'm familiar with. The fear of the dark is second to the fear of the unknown, and I'm gonna be experiencing both if I leave this place.
This world could be a fucking paradise compared to whatever I'm doing here, and yet within paradise, if there was ever a variable that proves to be intolerable to the natural order, it's pretty much going to be game over for me.
So I'm staying for now. When she finally makes the choice, I'll make my own. If she still wants me dead, then I'll leave, teach her everything she needs to know before I go. If she gives just enough of a shit about me then I'll probably stay, make this place my base of operations.
But seeing as my plans normally include a metric shit ton of industrialization, well, you can see the sort of issues I'm getting myself into. I will do my absolute damnedest not to go to the extreme, but knowing the sorts of ideas that I have swimming within my head, it's not gonna be a very clean journey.
Groaning from the snowflakes getting into my eye again I walked my idiotic ass all the way back to the tree. Yes, I was in the snowy ground thinking about my life plans. Latching my grip onto the normal spots, I climbed the tree once more, just like everyday, whenever I need to go to the fire.
The kid was still there, taking a log from the pile that I kept near us and feeding it to the flames, making sure that the fire still had some extra air to breathe while she did so.
The soot and ashes were a bit of a hassle to try and figure out what to do with, but we ultimately just throw them down the side of the tree. I was walking over to her as I heard mumbling. "What you talking about there kiddo?"
My question was a tad more intrusive than what I'd like to go with, but I didn't have any other topic to strike up a conversation with the child. ".....Nothing."
She didn't even give that much shit as she stood up and grabbed some of the meat again. The plus points for sparring everyday is that whenever she kills me, I'm essentially a source of food for her.
So I didn't pay too much mind to anything else that she said, and just ate my fill and walked to my side of the branch. I wanted to live a little, and I guess that I got what I wanted. Living alongside a literal elven child as we shared meat in the cold winters, hilarious.
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/Kid's POV/
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Old man, he asleep.
"Voice, you still there?"
I hear voice many time, many many times when me and old man fight. That's what old man called it, fight.
"Voice, old man is asleep. Be quiet."
[Channel access has been accepted, welcome #02]
Voice was odd today, it kept calling me something. Old man never told me what I was, only taught me how to speak like old man.
"Voice, tell me what me is. Tell me what old man is."
What did old man call it? Kwezschon? Me wanna know. Me know that little other gone. Me no like the old man. Me want to send the old man to little other.
\Status:
Name: ?????
Lvl: 98/100 (Evolution Imminent)
Age: 200 Years
Health: 20,000/30,000
Mana: 800,000/1,000,000
Strength: 80
Agility: 45
Wisdom: 48
Endurance: 53
Free Points for Allocation: 27
Skills:
[Xenophage Lvl. 12]
[Hunter's Scent Lvl. 3]
[Dancer Lvl. 5]
[Bloodlust Lvl. 9]
[Dagger Proficiency Lvl. 5]
[Axe Proficiency Lvl. 3]
New! [Identification Lvl. 1]\
Voice weird, but voice make me see thing.
Voice help me see thing better.
"Voice, what is old man?"
Voice showed me old man when me look at old man.
\Status:
Name: ?????
Lvl: ????? (??????)
Age: ?? Years
/ERROR 404/
/INFORMATION INVALID/
/PLEASE REQUEST REVIEW FROM 1294572-QDFCJE/\
Voice no help me know what old man actually is. Voice no good. 'Voice not good at finding what old man is. Me ask old man tomorrow.'
Me tired, me finished meat. Me go to sleep.
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/MC POV/
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Another week has passed. My access to the realm was more than perfect, and I was able to grab more materials this time. Lots of water, and even some snacks as well! I was actually working on my little "apartment" in there for me to lounge about in.
Today was initially looking up for me. That is, until I got a question from the kid about six days ago. She asked me: What was I?
Okay, yeah it was a little off-putting to try and answer that little question of hers, but I did my best to try and giver he a decent enough explanation. "I'm the old man. I don't know my own name. You don't know your name either. We both don't know our names."
It was, simply put, one of the best terrible answers I could have formulated within that short amount of time. And I wasn't gonna deny that. "But if we live long enough, I suppose we could get ourselves some names, can't we?"
Yes that was rather cheesy of me to say to her, but I was more or less caked in sweat and wood chips from me stripping another tree with lots of effort.
It's not the best way to say it, but it was the one that was quickest in my mind. The kid didn't even seem to give that much of a shit as she went and continued out daily routine of fighting, killing me, eating me, and then sleeping near the fire.
I can tell that something was bothering her, and it may have been related to the question that she had earlier. But it's not me who'll drag it out of her mind, it'll be her, and on her own terms, I suppose.
Lot easier when I do it myself, it's not gonna be good in the long term. So we kept to the same cycle over and over.
Wake up.
Spar.
Kill me.
Butcher me.
Cut tree into firewood.
Cook my meat.
Eat my meat.
Look at sky.
Fall asleep.
And it repeated, for as long as the sky was gray, and the winds were cold. Slowly but surely, I was also venturing out even further and further from the skeleton tree, which seemed to be getting sicker and sicker every single fucking week.
I don't know how this bodes, but this doesn't quite bode as well as I'd think. It was a shelter for the two of us, and I don't think that my shack-making skills are that good just yet. It could be a lot better, but it could also be a whole lot worse. Thankfully the extra strength and dexterity really helps out with some of the more tedious aspects, but it's still hard to do.
I need fucking materials to stick the logs and planks together, there aren't any epoxies or no-nail fillers that I could use. I don't have drills or even chisels. Actually scratch the part about the chisel, I do actually have some, but power tools aren't quite there just yet.
And there are so many more to try and think about that it just hurts my head with a pain comparable to the thing I feel when I actually make shit. It's not as bad, but it's rather close. So we just keep going at the same cycle, up until I noticed something in the dirt.
I was walking around, trying to make a good enough map to try and remember where I was. I was using the number of trees I passed over and over as a legend. Every ten trees I scratched off a large portion of the bark. The center was the skeleton tree in the clearing, obviously enough, so it was a point of reference while I did so.
Eventually, I was able to get to fifty legends or markings, which was five hundred fucking trees. And there were still more. The oxygen in the air was damn good, no fucking wonder. It was as clean as a whistle.
I shook my head and made sure to try and make a decent enough grid for me to properly plot out. Now I don't have graphing paper, but I can always draw a decent enough Cartesian Plane, which I did, after getting the values right enough.
Now that I had my "north" and my "west", I needed my "east" and "south". No, I don't have a needle, a leaf, and some fucking water. Yes, I should've made sure to actually think about making the things before I actually marked the trees.
'Fuck it, at least there actually are legends and plotted points for me to work with.'
My thoughts were essentially askew when I was snapped out of them with a heavy punch from the kid in front of me. Yes, I was sparring while getting deep into thought about a grid system for the forest.
My priorities aren't exactly all that linear, I'm very much a "go with the flow" kind of guy, and less of a "proper planning" man. Normally whenever I made plans, they blow up in my face, just like that time in 2045 where I accidentally may have set off a vacuum bomb in a highschool.
Oh, you don't wanna know the stupid things I've done in my life? That's fine, that's fine, not like they're pretty enough for the camera or anything. "Old man, why you let me hit?"
"I was thinking about another mistake that I made. I did something without the use of a proper plan. And in double-retrospect, it's not exactly all that remediable. Well, it can easily be fixed, hell it technically doesn't need fixing in the first place.
It's just a random little thought that I got mixed up while we sparred. This isn't the first time my mind wanders whenever I'm doing another thing."
The kid looked confused as she went back to her stance, and I groaned from having been sent back flat on my ass for what was the tenth time in this fight. She was good at keeping me down, I will give her that much.
But I ain't the type to stay down for long. So I got up again, and cracked my neck. 'This is going to hurt a lot more than needed. Well, needed for me. For her, this is just vital.'
So I went back to being the punching bag of a child again, hoping and praying to whatever deity, which didn't include Cressentia, was possibly watching this happening between us.
I could really really really use a pick-me-up right about now. God, I miss alcohol. The stuff in the realm is good but I don't have a method to safely store it at the right temperature.
Welp, whatever happens happens I suppose, que sera sera.
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/??? POV/
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'The warmth from the sun was scorching me. This wasn't what I asked for. My back was filled with boils as I kept drudging my skinned feet across the desert sand. My sight was nearly gone after all of this time, but I kept walking, even as it hurt.
I don't deserve rest, I don't deserve to be forgiven for what I've done, and that's why I'm here. That's why she sent me here, for what I did to her father. The damage I did to her would've been minuscule to the pain I gave to the one that raised that....thing.
Oh what do I know? I DID THAT TO HER. I MADE THEM THINK THAT SHE WAS A MONSTER, WHEN ALL SHE WANTED WAS HELP. I deserve everything. She was scarred after what I did and I was paying the price right now.
And so I kept walking in the sand, looking at my status as I slowly but surely succumbed to the heat and pain. I'm sorry everyone, I didn't know any better. I didn't know that she was friends with THAT man. I didn't want to disappoint everybody by making things worse.
I just wanted to be a hero.
I didn't know that we were the villains.
And..I...didn't....know...that...her....father...was...'
The poor lad's thoughts finally ended as he collapsed, his body on the verge of a shutdown as something was trailing behind him. A figure covered in rags, as they clicked their tongue and lifted the dying man's body onto his back.
'The things I do to ensure the wellbeing of my lord's servants. I truly hope that this boy comes to his sensibilities and snaps out of the idea that that bloody beast is a creature that deserves sympathy.'
The figure didn't even groan as they whispered a choice few words while a portal opened up for him to pass through. But something stirred in the desert as the strange figure stopped going into the portal and sighed once more.
"And here I thought I could get out of this without alerting any of them." were his words as he tossed the boy in as he turned around and was greeted by the sight of something truly horrifying.
"Just how many of these things has he made? It's like an ocean of sand filled with these beasts!"
The servant's annoyance was made obvious as they started to run as quickly as they could to evade the aberration before him. The beast's mouth was filled to the brim with encircling teeth as the servant sighed and realized that he didn't have much choice but to go the way of all that came before him.v
'Sorry about this little Abby, I didn't think it would turn out this way. Time for daddy to do his duty.'
The final thoughts of the man were finished as he then turned back to face the beast and finally got a good sight of the thing. Large, made of metal, and eyes of pure red. The smoke it emitted was more than enough to kill a city, and the beast blasted out jets of it everytime it made a minor move.
It's segments slowly spun as it looked towards the unlucky servant as he conjured a blade within his palm, and started to run at it.