When I woke up, the thought was still there.
It had followed me into sleep and come back with me when I opened my eyes.
I was supposed to be the one helping my family, not the other way around.
After lying there for a while and trying not to think too hard, I finally opened World Chat.
[World Chat
[Tero]: If anyone who knows me is alive, please send a whisper!
]
It was not much, but it was something.
For now, that was all I could do.
Hope it worked.
For the rest of the morning, I walked around the city looking for work. The tailor did not have another quest for me, which was disappointing but not surprising. The cartographer, on the other hand, did.
"Hi again, [Tero]! Since you learned to map recently, can you map out The Meadow?"
A quest window appeared.
[Accept Quest?]
[Map The Meadow: Make a map of The Meadow with at least 40% completion and 60% accuracy]
[Reward: 200 XP]
[Yes] [No]
Looking around the shop and checking the tooltips on the example maps, forty percent completion basically meant the major features had to be marked. Forests and hills shaded in, roads followed, landmarks noted. The map itself could still be sparse. You did not need to chart every single house in a village, just that a village existed and where it was.
Of course I accepted.
It was free experience, I already had part of the area mapped, and it gave me an excuse to explore farther out for stronger enemies.
So I left the shop and started walking toward the gate again.
There were even more people in the city now. Some of them were standing near the exits calling out for others to join their groups.
It was nice to see the community already coming together.
Even if I had no intention of joining that community.
Walking back into the forest was just as nice as before, though nothing was ever going to match the first time. Nothing was going to beat the Fields of Peace either.
At some point while mapping, I got a notification.
That alone made the trip feel worth it.
Mapping The Meadow ended up being genuinely fun. Along the way I killed a few wolves, bears, and boars, though none of them were over level five. They dropped meat, and sometimes I got the option to take their hide too.
That made me stop and think.
I knew I needed a knife to skin properly, and I had assumed I would also need the skill. Skinning had cost five silver back in the city, which was why I had not picked it up.
Still, I wanted to see what would happen.
When I tried to skin one of the wolves, I got a message.
[You do not have a Skinning Knife]
Interesting.
No mention of the skill.
Just the knife.
After thinking about it for a while, I came up with a stupidly complicated solution that was, unfortunately, also easy.
I built a spell circle in front of me and made a temporary skinning knife out of mana.
It took an attempt or two, but I got the spell working without too much trouble. Then I tried again.
This time, I saw [Wolf Hide] enter my inventory.
Weirdly, the wolf itself did not even change.
It was still lying there exactly the same, like the hide had been duplicated instead of removed.
Everything about this world is game-like.
Useful, yes.
Still deeply off-putting.
By the time I finished the map, my inventory was pretty full.
[
[Stats][Magic][Inventory][Help]
Inventory: 20/20
Copper 437x
Parchment 1x
Pencil 1x
Compass 1x
Stew 7x
Wolf Meat 20x
Wolf Meat 20x
Wolf Meat 20x
Wolf Hide 20x
Wolf Hide 20x
Bear Meat 20x
Bear Meat 20x
Bear Hide 20x
Boar Meat 20x
Boar Meat 20x
Boar Meat 20x
Boar Meat 20x
Boar Hide 20x
Boar Hide 20x
Boar Hide 20x
]
Looking at all of it, I was hoping to make at least twenty silver.
Maybe more.
As usual, reality was less generous.
When I got back to the city, I tried selling the materials to NPC shops first, but they were not sellable items. Which meant my only real option was the auction house.
Selling to players.
Players who, at this stage, mostly did not have money either.
Still, I listed everything.
It cost me seventy copper to put it all up, either for bidding or for direct purchase at ten copper per piece. I probably could have done the math and figured out a better price, but it would not have changed much.
Most people were at least level five by now.
Given a few more days, all of these materials were going to be dirt common.
Maps, on the other hand, might not be.
Turning in the quest got me the full reward and pushed me straight to level twelve.
Two more stat points.
Straight into Intelligence.
Of course.
The map itself could have sold for three silver, but the quest took it as part of the turn-in. That was a little disappointing, though it did give me that chance to check something important.
My memory was good enough to recreate the map.
So I decided to try.
I sketched out another map right in front of the cartographer and sold it to him for three silver.
[Cartography XP 1/3]
Then I tried for a third.
[Cartography XP 2/3]
"Sorry, sir, we already have that map. Please try again tomorrow."
So.
One a day.
Still, three silver for about an hour of work was good money compared to everything else I had seen.
No matter how I looked at it, there was money to be made there.
After that, I checked my still-small skills screen.
[Stats][Magic][Inventory][Skills][Help]
Cartography: 2
Skinning: 14
]
It was a good start.
Definitely a screen I wanted to fill up a lot more.
After that, I gave myself time to just walk around the city.
The streets were full now. People drinking, dancing, arguing, bartering, shouting across roads, wandering in pairs or groups like they had already lived here for years.
The town square sat beneath the shadow of a massive church.
That was one place I had deliberately avoided.
The idea that a god might actually be behind all of this did not sit right with me.
I knew Earth was not perfect.
Still.
Walking past the church, I stopped by the auction house to see whether anything had sold. Just getting through the building was difficult. Like every auction system in every game ever made, it had become a natural gathering point for half the city.
When I finally reached the auctioneer and checked my listings, I got this:
[+Copper 51]
Not much.
But not nothing either.
So I took it without complaint.
After a little more aimless wandering, I decided the day was done.
It had been a productive day, all things considered.
The new spell had worked.
I had a few possible paths forward.
I had made some money.
And everything was starting to make sense.
On the way back to the inn, I saw even more people out in the streets, going about their lives like this had always been their world.
Humans adapt quickly.
Maybe too quickly.
They face things head-on, settle into routines, build groups, make systems inside systems, and move forward.
At least for now.
But once we conquer this system, then what?
Once humans conquered nature, all that was left was other humans.
Would it be the same here?
Can the system even be conquered?
Only time will tell us the real bounds of humanity.
The upper limits of what we can become.
And I want to be at the top of that.
The best of the best.
Because how can I be someone if I am no one?