The thick fog made it difficult to see further than about thirty meters, but that was enough to see the entire beach, even while still inside the trees. The forest continued practically right up to the edge of the water before the land dipped down to meet the water. The shoreline was sandy, but very steep and narrow, making it very ill-suited for walking. The waves were pounding pretty hard as well, and if Milo had to guess based on his short time observing he would say the tide was coming in. He would definitely want to keep to the woods while he walked…

Which way?

He could turn around and see if anything interesting lay over the mountains, but backtracking would put him closer to his pursuers, assuming there were any. The ocean seemed like a more solid bet for finding civilization anyway. Given that he wanted to stay by the water, his choices were either north or south, with nothing to recommend one over the other.

Milo chose to let fate decide, digging the gold-ish coin out of his pack and flipping it. He caught it and slapped it onto the back of his wrist, then lifted his hand to reveal the result. Heads.

At least, he was calling it heads; the coin was old and much faded, leaving something that only vaguely resembled a person’s face. The other side was an unidentifiable smudge of a design with only a few defined angular bits to give any clues as to what it had once been.

Heads was north, so Milo turned to follow the shoreline to the right.

He slowed his pace somewhat from what it had been, not wanting to wear himself ragged. If he could, he wanted to keep walking through the night rather than make camp anywhere. He could both cover more ground and keep spending his mana that way, which would help him get his mage option faster. He took to using Power Nap every ten minutes, which kept him constantly fresh and alert. Between that and the occasional Fetch Book to surmount rough patches of rough terrain now and again, he kept his mana pool hovering comfortably between 15 and 18.

Milo found himself enjoying the walk. The sound of the waves was peaceful, soothing, and there was a light breeze that kicked up now and again. The scenery, limited though it was by the presence of the fog, was, in Milo’s opinion, idyllic. Massive trees towered overhead, their needles filling the air with a fresh scent that mingled with the briny smell of the ocean. Driftwood lay scattered whenever the shoreline flattened out, and Milo occasionally saw crab-like critters scuttling amongst the detritus that collected near the water’s edge. He’d never been in person, but on the whole it reminded him of pictures he’d seen of the Oregon or Washington coast.

It was a little chilly, but not enough to do anything about until the onset of evening, at which point Milo stopped to dig through his backpack for his blue down jacket. He took the opportunity to grab a Soylent and fill his pockets with the System’s dog food stuff, giving him a snack to munch on as he strolled along.

He’d been worried about visibility during the night, but fortunately the fog faded away as the sun was going down, treating him to a spectacular pink and orange sunset across the water. Milo allowed himself a break, sitting on a patch of pebbly sand for a few minutes as watched its final descent below the horizon.

He continued walking.

Before long, it was fully nighttime. With the fog gone, there was plenty of light to see by. Gazing up at the Altabarian stars, Milo felt a pang of homesickness. There was no Big Dipper here. It was the one constellation he knew and could reliably find, but instead a whole new cast of stars looked down on him from an alien sky. No Milky Way. The moon was different. It was bigger than Earth’s moon, with different markings and even a slightly different hue. It was darker. Purpler, maybe.

A couple of hours later, he was surprised to realize that what he had seen wasn’t the moon, but in fact one of two. A smaller one appeared, maybe half the size of Earth’s moon.

This is crazy. Why did the System pick me? Why am I wandering around on some strange planet?

Milo was surprised to find that loneliness was already getting to him, since he’d always been a bit of a loner. Only in the last year had he realized, much to his chagrin, that he was actually happier and more motivated with other people around even if that wasn’t what he wanted—but even so, his innate preference was usually to be something of a hermit.

Now, however, he was realizing that he’d always had people. He had two parents, alive and kicking, several siblings. Scattered friends. The Internet.

But here, he was alone. He knew exactly nobody. Well, Backlebutt, but there was a good chance he was dead.

This must be what it feels like to be an orphan. Man, that would suck.

Milo’d never stopped to consider orphans before. They occasionally popped up in books and movies, but he’d never really taken a moment to ponder what life must be like for someone in that position—which only increased his horror. The majority of people were probably a lot like him, uncaring. How awful would that be, to go through life with the feeling that your existence was...irrelevant?

For the first time, Milo found himself truly yearning to return to Earth. He had exactly no idea how to make that happen, though, so he tried to put it out of his mind for now.

And orphans make friends and get married and have kids, so stop freaking out. Jesus.

***

Milo walked through the night, and it felt weirdly fine. He was actually getting a lot of sleep compared to normal, given that he’d used Power Nap every 10 minutes since mid-afternoon of the previous day. What surprised him most was that his feet and legs weren’t complaining at him; the skill truly must help his body recover a bit with each use.

Once the sun rose, he made a point of writing notes about his progress in his binder so that he could retrace his steps and find the Descent entrance more easily in the future. That done, he went airborne to see what he could see. He was disappointed by the results.

For miles and miles in both directions, it looked exactly the same: just a whole lot of forested coastline. Inland, there were trees. Just...trees.

Milo walked the entire day with nothing of particular note happening. It was overcast and rained briefly, but it was just a light sprinkle that didn’t even soak through his clothes.

When the light began to fade, he took to the air again in the hopes of seeing any signs of people. There was nothing.

Onward he trudged, through a second night. An uneasy feeling was growing inside him with the knowledge that, if he didn’t find people soon, he was probably going to starve to death.

No, you’re not helpless. You can hunt. You can’t make a fire to cook what you hunt yet, but maybe once you’re a Runemage. And if you still can’t, eating meat raw when it’s fresh is a thing. You got this.

He did his best to stay positive.

There was plenty of water, at least. He stumbled across several streams and rivers emptying into the ocean, refilling his canteen and empty Soylent bottles with fresh water at each one.

When the sun rose again, Milo took once more to the sky and was once more disappointed at the lack of civilization. He jotted down some more notes, which simply read “another day and night of walking, with flying at rapid speed for twenty seconds every 15 to 20 minutes”.

It would hopefully be enough to guide him back.

Later that morning, Milo became extremely excited when he saw a small wooden boat on the shore. It was upside down and in rough shape, but very clear evidence of people; he just hoped it hadn’t washed up there from a thousand miles away.

Around the middle of the day, his third spent wandering, Milo took a brief food break. He eyed his last three unopened bottles of Soylent. He selected one, drank it somewhat despondently, then took to the air to have a look at what lay ahead.

When he reached just above the treetops, his eyes widened and he immediately dropped back down and out of sight.

There was a kid down there.

At least, Milo thought it was a kid. A boy. He’d been in a clearing just past a copse of trees along the shore that separated him from Milo. From Milo’s brief glimpse, he’d been skipping rocks out into the ocean.

Holy shit. Wow. Okay. What’s the move here?

He wanted to rush over and say hi, but he could imagine that going poorly. He didn’t want to scare the kid and risk inciting his parents’ wrath.

But like, what else was there to do? He supposed he could try to stalk the kid back to wherever he’d come from, but that seemed worse. Perhaps he should simply meander over, rather than rush?

Lacking any better ideas, Milo enacted the plan. He tried to avoid making noise as he moved through the brush in the stand of trees, and stopped as soon as he could see the person. Milo studied him.

He determined it was a boy, after all. He had short, sandy-colored hair and was dressed in very plain clothes: dark suspenders over a white, long-sleeved shirt. He was currently combing the beach for suitable stones, his back to Milo.

Don’t act nervous or weird. If you do, you’ll probably freak him out. Just be friendly.

“Hey!” Milo called out, walking forward and raising his arm in greeting. It was his left, since his right was holding his book and his binder.

The boy’s head whipped around. Milo smiled widely at him, going for ‘jovial’ and praying he wasn’t treading into ‘creepy’ territory.

“I’m Milo!” he said, injecting as much cheer and enthusiasm into the introduction as he could.

The kid took off, scrambling into the woods as fast as he could.

Damn it.