Efficiency sure is a beautiful thing, thanks to Martin, I was now able to move faster than before. Since I didn’t have to watch all directions anymore, I could hit any target twenty meters away from me with ease, obviously, thanks to the crosshair. Besides, in half an hour, I killed more rats than I killed in the entire morning! And I even didn’t sweat!

However, I wasn’t happy with that progress. Instead, I was worried, thanks to Martin’s words. In my head, I imagined things like Mutant lions, snakes, gorillas. I was even imagining myself being attacked by a dragon at some point. I was physically ok; my mind was worn out.

Since I was a slow learner, It took some time to me accept Martin’s point of view. But he was older, probably smarter too, a bit impulsive but not crazy. Besides, it was better to hope for the best and plan for the worst.

Two hours have passed since we arrived at St Louis Street, and once again, my quiver became empty, but that message appeared in my head, and again I choose yes. The arrows appeared, but this time, I felt a massive wave of dizziness. Thanks to that, I almost fell and hit my head on the floor.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just a little dizzy.”

“So you too, huh. Let’s take a break.”

Now that was surprising; I didn’t even notice that he was also feeling dizzy. But after he said, I could see that he was continually closing and opening his eyes. Since there was no cars or anything similar on the street, we decided to take cover behind some trees. We could see a lot of vegetation in that party of the city, the grass wasn’t that tall, but we stayed close to the street anyway.

“Do you have any idea why we are feeling dizzy?”

I doubt that he would have an acceptable answer but still asked anyway.

“Well, it is another crazy theory, but I think it’s because we are losing MP.”

Am I losing MP? What is MP anyway? Come to think of it, every time the quiver became empty, I heard a message about something that I would spend. But I since I didn’t notice any difference, I thought it was nothing. There were the other messages about orbs and coins, but again, I didn’t see any difference.

“So you didn’t notice it. You can see the screen in the corner of your vision, right? Tell me exactly what you see.”

I didn’t have anything better to do, so I just followed his instructions.

HP: 46/50

MP: 04/50

STA: 45/50

Evolution Orbs: 40/50

Evolution Coins: 40

“I don’t understand this very well, but I guess I have 4 of 50MP.”

“As I expected, every time you obtain new arrows you spend some MP, this rule applies to my crossbow bolts too.”

“No point in being skeptical about everything anymore I guess, so, this MP I spend makes me feel dizzy? If I use all my MP, I’ll pass out or maybe even die?”

“I don’t think it’s that bad; probably you’ll only pass out and wake up in a few hours. In games, MP represents magic points or mind points. So, I think that our ammo was created thanks to the energy of our brains.”

Games, magic, mind energy… all right, I understand. I’m dumb, without a doubt I’m stupid, my IQ is less than average, but that doesn’t mean that I can accept every crazy theory!

“So this is a game thing, so that means we are in a videogame? This city looks pretty real to me.”

“Well, this is a possibility. Maybe we are hallucinating, maybe we died, and someone transferred our consciousness to a computer, or maybe we were transported to a world identical to ours but with game elements.”

“I can’t accept any of your theories.”

“You don’t have to; I don’t accept it either. I just said that because it is the only explanation. In any case, don’t try to ‘restart’ and don’t think we’ll have another chance if we die.”

“There’s no way in hell that I would do that!”

“Well, you have a strong mind, that’s for sure,” Martin said while frowning.

From now on, I’ll stop asking questions that will lead me to only more questions. Until now, every answer I got brought me three more questions, better to focus solely on finding my parents and siblings.

Since I didn’t know when we would rest again, I decided to relax as much as possible. And for me, the only way to do that was by drinking my lemonade. This time I drunk one liter in ten minutes, thanks to that, my mind was at ease again. However, for some reason, Martin was looking at me like I was some weird creature.

“There’s something on my face?”

“Kid… how the hell can you drink so much lemonade? After two glasses, I already would feel sick of it.”

“Because I like it, anyway. Can you stop calling me kid?”

“Sure, what’s your name then?”

“Oh, I didn’t tell you, did I? My name is Ethan. For the past years, my social skills have been rusting. Thanks to that I forgot to introduce myself, sorry about that."

After the fight incident, I became infamous as a violent teenager. Thanks to that, I barely talked with my new classmates after the transference.

"Anyway, shouldn’t we start moving again?”

“No, let’s wait until we have at least half of our MP.”

“Well, I already recovered half of it.”

“You don’t have to lie, kid. I mean Ethan.”

“I’m not lying; those numbers suddenly went up while I was drinking my lemonade.”

“Oh! Well, in some games, you can recover your energy eating and drinking. In that case, you will take care of the beasts, since my MP is still low.”

Even though I loved so much lemonade that I hesitate to offer him, I ended up offering, but thank god, he refused. However, my supply was quickly running out; I would have to find my family before that.

We walked until the end of the day, and even though we stopped two other times, we managed to walk twelve kilometers. Along the last two kilometers, we faced a lot of enemies, but nothing dangerous happened. I was only a few kilometers away from home when the sun disappeared entirely in the horizon, I wanted to continue, but Martin insisted on finding shelter. He was right, it would be too risky to cross the city in the dark, I had a lantern, but that would make me an easy target.

“I think we should stay on high ground, a place that would be difficult to reach, but it has to offer us a good vision of the street.”

While saying those words, Martin was carefully looking at some buildings. We still could see many trees, but since we were only a few kilometers away from downtown, many buildings could be found close to St Louis Street. Thanks to that, we quickly found a ten meters tall inn. The doors and windows on the lower floors were closed tight, but we managed to climb to the last floor balcony, Martin climbed like he was a spider, he didn’t look much reliable, but he was resourceful. On the other hand, I had to be helped by him. Since we didn’t have any choice, we broke the door.

“Did you grew up on a farm something?”

“You are quite perceptive, that’s right. I grew up on a farm, and I learned many useful things. However, it was a cousin of mine that taught me how to use a bow; she’s quite good. She even trains at this city’s Olympic center, but she never dedicated herself entirely to archery. She enjoys more being a teacher than an athlete.”

If that is the case, I should have seen her sometimes, but even he described her, I doubted that I would remember. I didn't even remember the name and faces of those who I saw every week, much less someone who didn't take archery seriously. Martin looked pretty lonely when he mentioned his cousin, he seemed to care about her, but Martin never said that he would look for her. But I had the impression that she was like a little sister to him.

“Aren’t you going to look for her?”

Looking at his expression of sadness, I understood that it was a difficult topic.

“I would if I could, but she would hate to see me again, even with the city in this situation. I said some insensitive things to her in the past, and now she hates me with all her heart.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really, that memory only makes me feel miserable and pathetic. Anyway, I’m going to sleep; you’ll stay on the first guard duty, is that fine for you?”

I nodded and then Martin left and threw himself on the bad. On the balcony, I began to watch the street, but soon the night arrived, and I barely could see the things more than fifty meters away from me. Occasionally, a rat or two would appear, and I would use them as my targets to practice. Soon, I would have to walk alone, thanks to that. I had to raise my hit rate as much as possible. The skill concentration would help me gradually more as long as I stay awake, but practice never killed anyone.

Thanks to Martin’s tips, I was improving faster. But the process to shot a perfect shot it was difficult and slow, and that wasn’t a thing that I could be, slow. Every single movement had a reason, every muscle being used had a function, and I had to master them and do them instinctively and do that as fast as possible That would undoubtedly take years, but who knows, even a small improvement could save my life at some point.

After a few hours, I could hear Martin’s snoring, even though he was a tough guy, he was still a human. That day had been exhausting for him too; on the other hand, I was fine. I could stay awake the whole night easily, and the cold wind would help me to stay alert.

Then it happened, after killing the tenth rat, I heard a mechanical and uninterested voice in my head.

‘Congratulations, you have successfully collected fifty evolution orbs, and now you can break a limit of your body, what limit do you wish to break: Physical limit, mental limit or Sensorial limit?’

“Oh boy, now I hear strange voices in my head…”

Even though I listened to every single word carefully, that annoying voice repeated that message again and again.

‘Congratulations, you have successfully collected fifty evolution orbs, and now you can break a limit of your body, what limit do you wish to break: Physical limit, mental limit or Sensorial limit?’

“SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

My angry shout made Martin jump off the bed and immediately aimed his crossbow towards me, it was very dark, but he still could see me with my hands on the air. He sighed annoyed and then put his crossbow on the floor before asking.

“What, the hell, happened?”

“Sorry, I went overboard because there is a weird voice in my head that doesn’t let me think.”

He looked at me puzzled, but before he could ask anything, I explained what happened.

“What are you waiting for? Just choose one option already.”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Dude, you sure like to question every single thing. Alright, you don’t have to choose an option. Instead, you can hear that voice for the entire night.”

That wasn’t something that I would let happen; noise is one of the few things that I hate. But even so, I couldn't just suddenly pick an option. According to the voice, one of my limits would break; any of them would be useful if that would really happen. But I had to choose the best one of them, the one which would fit me. Using the bow was easy since I was now using the muscles of my back. Pull the bowstring to its limit was impossible for me, but that wasn’t necessary for me yet.

“I guess I don’t need to break my physical limit.”

“Is that so?”

The impatience in Martin’s voice was evident, but that didn’t make me rush. The mental limit would probably make my mind stronger; maybe I would become smarter, that was certainly something interesting. But intelligence wouldn’t make me defeat the rats more efficiently or faster. No, perhaps it would. I also would be able to create arrows more easily. But that wasn’t a problem, as I long I could drink my lemonade.

“I guess I don’t need to break the mental limit either, but what will happen if I break the sensorial limit?”

“Probably, your five senses will become stronger; I guess that fits you since you prefer to avoid fights after all.”

He had a point, but his tone annoyed me. It wasn’t like I was a coward; I was a pacifist.

“Well, then. Guess I will choose to break the sensorial limit.”

As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt a shock wave running through my body. More specifically, through the outer layer of my skin. For a moment felt a burning pain like something was eating my skin and then in the next moment I felt refreshed. That process repeated itself dozens of times in a few seconds, and that almost made me pass out. I fell on my knees when the process ended, but instead of relief, I felt terrified. My body seemed ok, but that pain had been much worse than the pain I felt when I got the wounds on my first battle.

“Are you ok?”

“Not so great, that hurt like hell.”

“I could see that; you trembled a lot. But, do you feel any difference in your body now?”

The whole break limit thing had vanished from my mind while I was in pain, but now I was interested again. Something had to be different. Otherwise, I would feel very frustrated.

At first, I couldn’t see any difference. But after a few seconds, I noticed, I could see Martin a little more clearly now. When I looked outside, my field vision looked more wide and clean. I could hear the sound of the wind a few moments before I could feel it.

“I think it’s just like you imagined; my senses got better.”

“Oh, this is awesome. If we can break the limit more than once, then our chances of survival will increase manifold.”

Martin sure was excited; I could understand the reason for it. But, I felt a little weird with that. Anyone at some point in time wants to become stronger or smarter. But that strength was different from the strength that I was seeking.

“I guess we should grind a little; sleeping can wait. By the way, what happened to your evolution orbs?”

HP: 46/50

MP: 33/50

STA: 50/50

Evolution Orbs: 00/60

Evolution Coins: 50

“It’s gone; now I have zero evolution orbs. Also, the limit is now sixty.”

“So, basically, the evolution orbs represents the experience to break the limit. It’s just like a level up, and since that is the case, every time we break the limit, it’ll be harder to break it for the next time.”

Martin looked pretty sure of that stuff, so I understood that was another game thing. Since he was very close to breaking the limit, I decided to let him handle the next enemies. While he was doing that, I decided to do a little experiment. My senses got better; in that case, if that got better too, I would have another reason to break the sensorial limit again.

“AMAZING! It’s even tastier than before!”

Martin looked at me startled after he saw the bottle of lemonade in my hands, he sighed.

“Dude, you are just unbelievable.”