Such a weird dream. Normally I can’t even remember half of what happens in my dreams, but this one was so vivid. I can remember almost the entire time spent running through the plains, stealing magical sticks, and dodging scaled predators. Other than the short stature and the silver body, I didn’t get a good look at who I was running around as, but I still have a sneaking suspicion that it’s that asshole who keeled me where the sun don’t shine.

How many other short silver assholes could there be, right? Hopefully the answer to that question is: not very many. I want the lowest chance of running into him out in the grass while I hint for rabbits. Revenge sounds good, but I’ll leave that until I manage to dodge an attack in this new world. Unlike in the VR games, there isn’t any built-in or built-up instinct in this body for combat. Yet, at least.

If I don’t have to worry about dying, I can just keep practicing my skill until I can tango with the best of them. Not that I’m going to attempt to die, but it makes me feel a whole lot more upbeat about going out and exploring than it would if I were still dead.

. . .

Yeah, that made perfect sense in my head. Maybe I need some breakfast before I go exploring today. It will give me time to figure out the fact that I can’t figure out my dreams before I go out to almost certain painful stabs and scratches.

Turns out that I’m still pretty hungry after all the soup I was ferried last night before sleep. Baron was nice enough to bring me a few more before wandering back out to the campfires and leaving me helpless on the floor. I mean, theoretically I could have picked Buffy up and moved out there myself, but for a number of reasons that didn’t happen. I will never vocally list them, especially the reason involving the concept of weight.

Not that Buffy was around to hear and be offended by any lists of why we went to sleep on cold, stone flooring. I can remember a girlish “Eeep” from around when I was waking up, and then a bunch more cold, but I was still processing that weird dream back then. And then I was awake, alone, and most important of all, free to explore my way to some delicious victuals.

From the smell of things, that’s reheated soup. I’m not complaining, just noting it down. Maybe a week of eating the stuff will have me out foraging for steaks and fruits, but right now I’m happy enough to head out there with last night’s soup bowl and prepare for my first real day of adventuring.

The shanty-town outside of the cathedral was somewhat expected. There were makeshift tents, campfires, log seats, and one large campfire that actually had a cauldron sitting atop it. That bit about a cauldron was outside expectations, but it made a certain amount of sense. How else were they making soup?

I have no idea where it came from, but the stuff inside of it was more important to me. I almost had tunnel vision during breakfast, after waiting in a short line for some soup. Despite my predatory focus, I did notice a few things. First was Buffy, hiding away across the camp. She would glance over at me, blush furiously, and then hide behind some of the tents for a while before repeating the cycle. I caught bits of that as I was eating, and it made half-sense to me.

She had almost always been the closest person to me in the guild, but that was more of a buddy camaraderie type thing. At least that I remember. She didn’t do the whole embarrassed thing before, but I supposed I hadn’t died right in front of her before. At least not when she wasn’t sure I would respawn. Even then, she was usually a good enough healer that I stayed alive if she was around.

I’m still not going to assume this is a big romantic thing, despite the cliche appearance. That seems like a road to possible misunderstandings. I would be embarrassed if I got worried to death over someone, latched onto them and then made myself into an nondetachable blanket without their consent. Would I react exactly like this? Maybe not, but people are weird.

That was the entertainment and thoughts I had as I ate through my soup. On a more important not to the camp itself, a bunch of people returned through the grass, heading directly to the cooking pot in the center of the camp. It looked like around thirty or forty people, all trailing into the disorganized camp with the sun at their backs. Lazy that I am, I just so happened to be sitting next to it as I finished off the last of this delicious meal.

They were a weird bunch. Some of them had animal skins crudely tied or sewn into clothing. Most held sticks as clubs or spears. Some few had metal weapons or in the case of one lady what looked like a greatsword made of glass. All of them were covered in blood. Probably from all the animal corpses that they were bringing back shoved over shoulders or carried like stretches through the camp.

Other people, the early risers up with the just-a-bit-past dawn, made comments as they closed in. Mostly jokes about the smell or the size of the animals. Some of them were talking about the absence of some people from the party, and that clued me in on who they were, if I hadn’t already figured that out from the person leading them.

Obviously, it was Hera returned with the hunting party. There were a few people who seemed somewhat familiar walking behind her as she strolled up. The one who was walking a few steps behind her and trying his hardest not to stare at her butt was Yolt, obviously. A few people back, carrying a cat covered in scales all by himself was probably Jorm the Slightly Ok from how he seemed comfortable with the weight and made walking with what had to be over a hundred pounds of meat seem easy.

There were others that weren’t obvious, like the lady with the greatsword and a thin man with a noticeably larger quantity of blood on him, but that was more like an itch at the back of my head on who they might be.

Greeting them was the cook who had been passing out food this morning. I hadn’t really paid much attention to him, but he seemed ready to take charge as the group strode closer.

“Kevin, get up and get ready to butcher some meat, we need to divvy this up pronto or else lunch is going to be late.”

Not bothering to give a second look to the spectacled gentleman he had started kicking awake, the cook started walking through the tents to meet up with the guild and their wares.

“Hera, good to see your people still alive!” he shouted out.

“Nice to see you awake, Coral. No need for a rush on the meat. We can pick it up mid-afternoon after sleeping.” replied Hera.

“I’ll set someone trustworthy to watching it for you then.”

“If Baron is up, he would probably do it. I’ll send him around if I see him.”

And that was the end of their conversation. Hera handed off the four rabbits she was carrying to the cook, Coral, and then made a bee line for the cathedral. The rest of her sleepy-eyed party began stacking their haul near the cauldron and then staggering off elsewhere, presumably to sleep. There were loads of rabbits, a few of the cat-lizards, some blue-and-orange speckled birds, what may have been an armadillo, and what I had somehow missed seeing at first, a giant feathered snake that was nearly twenty feet long. It took four people to carry it tucked under their arm, and the feathers seemed to blend in stunningly with the grass.

Taking all of that as both a challenge and a cue to leave, I made my way off into the grass to redeem myself against a rabbit.

Step one, finding a stick, was harder than it would at first seem. The area around here had obviously been picked clean of good wood for club-used or fire-use, so I had to find a tree that was farther out. That took almost two hours of searching, though part of that was me being cautious of any loud sounds I heard in the grass.

A few times I was startled by tiny birds or the wind, but nothing threatening showed up to put me back in life time-out. The number of humans in the area and the obvious hunting that had been going on had probably forced the animals out of the area near the cathedral. Considering the fact that I didn’t mind walking out and enjoying the beauty of nature for a few hours, I’d say this was a good thing. Once I had myself a club, I could even spend a few more seconds appreciating the view of sunlit plains without having a heart-attack every time I heard a sound. Eventually, I found a small clearing around a tree that had a few dead-looking branches, perfect for arming myself.

The fact that I relaxed so much right then is probably a dumb thing. Almost like fate was watching me, a horned rabbit burst through the grass in the clearing with me. It’s like the animal knew that I was finally equipped to fight it and decided to catch me off-guard as I made a few celebratory test-swings with my new club.

We froze, exactly like what happened the last time I ran into a rabbit out here. This time there was not Buffy to brutally avenge my death, and I was not unarmed. Also, I knew that they were missiles of fluffy death that traveled at screw-you miles per hour. Thus, when it inevitably pounced a few seconds later, I managed to get impaled in the arm instead of the chest.

Searing pain? Check. Clubbing the rabbit who is hanging from your arm with vengeance? CheeeeAAGH!

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow ow ow.

Ow.

. . .

Ok, that was super dumb. Who hits something that is literally impaled into your arm in hopes of killing it? I mean, It broke the thing’s neck, sure, but I think it might have fractured my arm too.

Ow.

. . .

. . .

Lets see, I can leave the rabbit in, an eternal shame on my name, and return to the cathedral like this, or I can pull it out and return to the cathedral while quickly bleeding to death.

. . .

I think. . .

. . .

The option where I don’t die because of a rabbit is probably the better choice here?