Gregory did not know when he had picked up that rock but it came in handy as he bashed a man's skull through his helm, in need of some clothes, instead of simply asking as he would have normally done, he snuck up in them and slaughtered them.
Even though he realised that he wasn't acting as he should, he failed to remember how the past him would have done it.
He washed himself of their blood with their canteens of water and took what hadn't been stained red, forcing him to rip off some bloody parts and resulting in him looking like he had been attacked by a bear.
He gobbled whatever they had as food, his appetite had never been satiated ever since he had come out of that lake, he ate and ate, devouring everything available to him, anything that could count as sustenance but it was useless, it was as if his stomach had been changed into a black void.
Only the stuff of these people and dried puddle of bloods were left behind as he crushed even their bones between his now much stronger teeth.
He sometime wondered if he was a ghost as even when standing right in front of beings, they wouldn't notice him at all but the man in armor hadn't had that issue, he wasn't a ghost, it was a new skill, a new ability.
Everything was foggy, he barely remembered the distant past and even recent events were cloudy, he was certain that he had met a peculiar man by the lake, a man? A shadow perhaps, maybe nothing but a figment of his imagination, a delusion.
Thinking about that misty memory he instinctively reached from something, pulling a beautiful green coin, he couldn't tell what it meant but he was certain that it had been that shadowy figure that had given him that.
Had he said something? Gregory couldn't remember, he flipped the coin around and he remembered something else entirely.
He remembered what happened before the lake, that was right, he had a goal, he wasn't a crazy killer, he was on a vengeance.
Without even acknowledging it, he changed his direction, even though he remembered these events, he was unable to tell whether they had happened the day before or months ago, everything was both close and distant, as if they were right behind him but to reach them, he had to walk the opposite way.
He found himself before a large house, pierced in its center by a larger tree, the habitation was old and covered in vines, other trees also grew through it and the soil itself seemed to be on the verge of swallowing it whole.
Had Gregory killed those random people a moment ago or had he been walking for longer? He felt like he had had an absence, like he had jumped in time, his thought never remained focused however and he put his attention on the house.
The surroundings were rather dark as trees covered up most of the light coming for the sun or suns, Gregory never understood how suns and moons worked in this world.
He looked at the green coin in his hand, the coin and his hand were covered in blood and seemed so far away, he tried to bring it closer but noticed that his hand didn't move.
Upon closer inspection, he noticed that the blood wasn't dry at all and was still flowing, he took a look at this wrist and saw one of his own bones and flesh, blood splattering out endlessly.
In spite of the gruesome injury, Gregory felt no pain whatsoever and no panic either, he simply wondered why his hand was detached from his body.
A single look forward gave him the answer he had been looking for, a tall man, wearing clothes that seemed strangely reminiscent of his old world stood before him, green jacket, white shirt with a motif on it and so on.
A wooden mask with a slight smile carved on it, secured onto his face by barbed wire, he was holding a rusty machete, which was covered in blood.
That explained the missing hand, Gregory and the mysterious person looked at one another.
It seemed like the man had approached him without being noticed, in a similar manner to how Gregory could.
"301" spoke the man in a bizarre tone, raising his machete but instead turning around and walking away at the last moment of his swing, leaving a cut on Gregory's neck.
Gregory felt no fear but was still paralysed by the man's overwhelming bloodlust, that was strange, only now did Gregory notice that he had been showered in intense bloodlust to the point of being unable to move.
Gregory fell back, collapsing like a sack of potatoes and blacking out completely.
Once he came back to his senses, the house was completely gone, replaced by natural vegetation as if it had never been there in the first place, his severed hand was back in place but dried blood remained on the grass.
But since Gregory was surrounded his half eaten corpses of animals and monsters, determining whether he had hallucinated or not was impossible, his hand felt fine and he didn't feel dizzy from blood loss either.
He remembered his encounter vividly, he had felt a strange feeling toward this masked man, as if he was looking at someone important to him, though different.
He felt like he could relate to him in a way he had never related to anyone before.
As he remembered the man's get up, Gregory realised that it had simply been another otherworlder, however, Gregory had encountered other otherworlders before and never had he felt such a deep link toward either of them, it was like him and that masked man had something different than other otherworlders.
Gregory stood up, unable to pinpoint the exact reason but now, his mind felt clearer, he remembered the past more vividly.
Mirlini, Allema and Kolgat, he remembered them clearly, he remembered perfectly how he had seemingly been living like the cliche isekai protagonist.
Gregory chose a direction to follow and walked, feeding on whatever came in his vision as he went, even with a better state of mind, he couldn't help himself from trying to fill in his stomach.