“-t hurry up and.. Oh! Nevermind!” Quill Surroundings changed from a white void to a very dark cave. It took him a few seconds while blinking his eyes to adjust and thankfully nothing with sharp teeth or claws came rushing out to devour him. He almost cursed out the system again for putting him back underground but it seemed like it actually was throwing him a bone for once as he saw the faintest bit of light coming off in one direction of the cavern system.

  Swallowing and stealing his nerves he began to make his way towards it. He didn't know what to expect, this system did threaten to drop him in a D-grade monster nest, whatever that meant, so for all he knew the system decided to throw him into an e-grade monster nest or something similar.

  Quill prepped himself as he stepped out of the cave, a brief flash of light causing him to flinch before staring out across a sea of green. Trees! Beautiful, beautiful trees! A small breeze tickled against his skin and without realizing it, he turned on all five of his enhanced senses.

  The wind felt cool, nice, and refreshing. The sea of green from all the trees became a vivid plethora of various shades. HE could even make out how each individual leaf almost seemed to dance in the wind. He could make out hundreds, maybe even thousands of birds chirping and singing. Regular sized bugs buzzing around. The smell of Earth, and dew tickled his nostrils. And if he had to describe the taste, it tasted like liberation.

  A small chuckle started to bubble in his chest which soon erupted into a full on laughing fit as he fell down to the ground. All the stress he had built up seemed to just disappear as he lay on the ground unable to control his laughter. He had finally gotten out of that damn dungeon with all its stupid bullshit. He was on fucking Cloud 9 at this point.

  “Great, you've officially lost it. You better tone down the laughter before the system decides to upgrade your insanity to something higher.”

  “Not even you or the system can ruin my mood now.” He managed to get out between laughter. Though his ears perked up as he heard the faintest sound of water rushing and he quickly bolted upright.

  “Holy shit I might actually have to thank the system, it put me in an area where there is water! I might actually be able to have a fucking bath! I should have gotten soap from the tutorial store!” Picking the location up where the sound was coming from, he quickly started to skid his way down the steep hill where the cave was towards the valley. Jumping off a 30-foot cliff and landing down with a quick roll before running as fast as he could towards the direction of the water.

  He eventually burst through some oversized bushes and looked up at what appeared to be a massive waterfall coming out from the center of a mountain and pouring down into a glistening small lake of natural beauty. He didn't even bother taking off his clothes, he just jumped right in with a happy little “WooHoo!!”

  It felt really nice to just try and scrub some of all of the dirt and grime that he had on him. He even manifested a razor and some scissors so he could trim down the matted mess of a beard and hair he had grown from all that time he had spent in the dungeon. it wasn't perfect as he was only using his reflection in the water but it was a lot better than what he had.

  After spending a bit more time in the lake he trudged up onto the shore, stripping down and throwing his clothes over a low-hanging branch as he collected some wood to make for a fire.

  “Hindsight being 20/20. Probably should have also bought some extra pairs of clothes too” he happily muttered to himself but Grey still answered.

  “ Nah. just let it all hang naturally. I certainly won't be complaining.”

  He almost asked her if she even had a sex drive seeing as how he didn't really know what she was. But that would mean he would have to engage in conversation with her which he wasn't going to do.

  “Can't ignore me forever~”

  “Yes I can, just watch.” he responded, ignoring the paradox of his response while he threw a bunch of the wood he had collected into a pile before manifesting a shovel and digging a small fire pit. After that he threw some larger rocks that were by the pond around it. He wasn't sure if this was technically what you were supposed to do but it seemed like it would work good enough for a small makeshift fire pit.

  “Maybe there is an achievement in starting a forest fire. That would be funny”

  He continued to ignore her as he tried to scrape whatever information in the back of his brain existed on how to start a fire naturally. If he was remembering correctly, all he really needed was some dry leaves or pine needles to act as kindling and then a shit ton of friction with two dried sticks.

  He quickly gathered those and thanks to all of his enhanced stats in his body he quickly ignited his kindling. After blowing on it a few times and putting on a few branches he got his fire going.

  He then manifested a makeshift clothes hanger over the fire pit and threw his clothes on top of it. He still had no regrets about taking that bath with them on, because damn did it feel good. Plus they were just horribly messy. and after closer inspection, really tattered and worn.

  So now that he had all of that out of the way, he sat down next to the fire enjoying the warmth it gave off as he took out some food from his storage ring and began to munch on it with equal delight.

  “ Maybe some more hindsight, probably should have gotten some cooking utensils too.”

  “Yeah that would have been smart” he said with a mouthful before facepalming as he didn't actually mean to respond to her which of course elicited a giggle from her.

  “Still ignoring you.” he grumbled as he finally pulled open his system screen that had been flashing at him incessantly since he had gotten here.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Congratulations you have unlocked the credit section of your status page!

  available credits: 120,000

  Well he would have to assume that he got the credit reward for killing off all the roaches. Still didn't know what he could use them for, and with no frame of reference he wasn't sure if this was a lot or little. Though it was definitely way more than any money he had ever owned in his previous life.

  Out of curiosity he decided to take out his upgraded Village ticket that could now give him a D-grade Village and looked it over.

  “Uh… Activate?” he spoke out loud but there was nothing that gave any sign that this ticket would magically turn into a village. He then went through every single word that he could think of that was the synonym for activate or use but still nothing. Even identify didn't give him shit, but the skill rarely did though and that was partially his fault.

  He scratched his head in confusion before finally sighing and putting the ticket away. He just didn't know what to do with the damn thing and he would just have to ask Ssevinac whenever he saw him. speaking of.

  He took out the little rat totem and poured some Mana into it. The glowing light seemed to point him towards the mountain he had climbed down from and where the waterfall currently was. So the rat kin was apparently somewhere over there or maybe inside the mountain since he was also inside it when he left the tutorial. Either way it could wait till tomorrow. He was just going to enjoy his time here as much as he could while he could.

  A thought crossed his mind and he wondered if there was anything monster related nearby or if that was only in dungeons? If they only existed in dungeons then he wouldn’t need to worry about potential ambushes and could just take a nice nap by the fire. But until he had confirmation he should probably keep his enhanced hearing on and make sure to pay attention to anything scary coming for him

  “So you know I had a thought.” Grey spoke up in his head which he didn't respond to.

  “You don't want to ignore me on this one. It's probably very important and likely something you'd want to know.”

  He huffed a little before responding, feeling like she was just saying this so he would talk to her. “Fine. What are your thoughts?”

  “ Well Ssevinac mentioned that when you leave the tutorial you would end up in roughly the same place you entered barring something like a collapsed tunnel blocking your spawn or however you want to say it. He also mentioned that structures and buildings would roughly be how they were left barring some changes for dungeons or potential monster nests.”

  “ Yeah, and?” he said, not sure where she was going with this.

  “ Well, didn't you live in a city? Shouldn't said City be where you are? Why are you in the middle of a giant forest?”

  It took him a couple of seconds to process what she just said before snapping to his feet and heading towards the cliff with the waterfall. He quickly manifested some rope and shot it upwards to the cliff. Having the end manifest into a hook as it latched on to a surface. Then, since he had full control over the manifestation he used it to pull himself up.

  He did that several more times until he reached the peak of the mountain. Having long since passed the waterfall that was coming out from the center of it and looked around, making sure to turn on his enhanced eyesight as he did so.

  The mountain range extended to his left and right, in fact the mountain he was currently on was probably the smallest of the bunch. Looking in the direction that the waterfall was on he saw more trees but he was pretty sure if he could squint, the trees broke into a grassy plains far away but he wasn't entirely sure. Turning the other direction it was once again a sea of trees. However there appeared to be a massive tree far off in the distance that towered over the horizon. Either that or a really funky looking mountain.

  “ Or a giant, funky looking mushroom.”

  “Pretty sure I can see some vague looking branches from here maybe. or perhaps my eyes are playing tricks on me.” he muttered half-mindedly trying to get a better look.

  “That's why I said it was funky looking. Also why is a funky looking mushroom less believable than a funky looking mountain???”

  before he responded a system screen popped in front of his face snapping him out of trying to look at the tree.

  Enhanced senses has leveled up.

  “Well that's convenient.”

  “Well that's convenient.”

  They both muttered at the same time and Quill dismissed the screen to look at the giant tree. It was subtle but he could make out differences and he was now 99% certain it was a tree and not a funky looking mushroom or mountain.

  He then turned back around to see if he could figure out if the trees did break in into a grassy plains in the other direction and he was now fairly confident they did. All of that begged the question. Where the hell was he?

  He probably would have stayed up there longer but the frigid coldness of the wind at this altitude was starting to sting against his naked skin and he fastened his manifestation rope to the top of the cliff and began to descend back to where the waterfall and lake were.

  So what was he supposed to do now? He couldn't tell if getting transported away from the city was a blessing or a curse. On the positive side he probably wouldn't have to see anybody he knew assuming they lived. On the negative side…. he thought long and hard for a moment.

  “Can't think of the negative side can you?”

  “No, I can't. Huh... Well I suppose the only negative side would be Ssevinac in his Rat Kin aren't around to answer some of my questions or help me out. But I'm a big boy so I can figure it out. And he's a big rat. I'm sure he'll be fine without me. This might actually be the best case scenario for me.”

  He then realized he just answered her again and facepalmed a second time which in turn earned another giggle from her.

  “Told you you can keep ignoring me. My irresistible charm is just too much even for you. So what do you plan to do now?”

  He wanted to keep silent purely out of spite but she would also just learn what he was going to do in a few seconds anyways so there wasn't much point. “I am going to see if there is anything from the tree break we saw up in the mountains and I also want to check out that giant tree on the other side too. If I was a betting man I would assume there will be monsters by the giant tree so I'm heading to where the forest seems to end first and see what I got there.”

  “Sounds like a man with the plan.” her voice held absolute delight which he attributed to the fact that he was talking to her albeit unwillingly. “Onward my pet! Adventure awaits!”

  His face twisted into a scowl at her little nickname but he didn’t say anything in regards to that. “Not yet, I'm first going to wait for my clothes to dry.”

  “Boooo! Stop being such a prude!” she loudly protested as he made his back to his little fire and sat back down.