Chapter 1 The Never-Ending Land

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Test number two. This is a fantasy isekai story of a man who finds himself in a foreign world where he must find a way to survive and gain proper freedom.

Also I have some more stories under the concepts tag 

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My eyes glanced at the clock on my other monitor. Damn it, it was already so late. It feels like I just woke up and started playing, and now I already need to start preparing to go out. Fortunately, today will be an interesting training session.

Saving the latest game that I was playing, I was actually happy that at least now we were getting some properly good strategy games, as there was a period of time when there was a shortage of new, good games. There still aren’t any good MMOs, but hopefully in the future, there will be.

It had been about four hours since I woke up, but I was just starting to make breakfast. That was not good, and my nutritionist was going to be mad at me again. It was good that he cared, but I guess the amount of money I’m paying him means that he would do the very best he could to help me.

Thanks to him, a lot of my problems from sitting around and eating junk food since my late teens have been fixed. Of course, a lot of training has helped as well. Still, I'm not that good at going to a gym; it's just a bit too boring for me. But coming here to Germany to practice how to actually fight with a sword turned out to be a brilliant idea.

When the egg and sausages were done, I piled them up on a plate along with a lot of greens and some other vegetables. Going back to my computer desk, I opened up my favourite YouTube news channel to see what's actually happening in the world. I did have to turn it up a bit because of the construction happening next door. It was always depressing to see what was going on, but it was better to know than not to know.

Seeing how much prices were actually increasing made me glad that I didn’t have to worry about it for the rest of my life. I still can't believe that I started to make money by selling MMO gear or accounts. I grinded for so many hours and didn't go to school most of the time. Mainly because of my family situation, I needed the money to actually eat.

If I have to say so myself, I was one of the best in the world back then. I could grind non-stop for so long, and if it wasn't for that one client, I would most likely not have a happy life. Back then, Bitcoin was still new. Normally, I wouldn’t have accepted that as pay because they were worth so little, but I was good on money for a few months.

I promptly forgot about them for a long time until they properly started to be talked about, even on the news. Back then the price wasn’t as high as now, but I still cashed out. One day, I was barely making enough money to survive, and the next, I had close to 150 million dollars.

Fortunately, I had some contacts and got in touch with some proper money managers. Now, my monthly income is good enough that even if I spent all that was left, I could still happily live in luxury. Buying this apartment and coming to Germany was a large investment, but in my opinion, it was one of the better decisions I have made.

The building looked beautiful, and my apartment was large. Maybe I shouldn’t have spent so much on this apartment as currently, I was barely using even one-fourth of it. Most of my time I spent behind my computer desk, but now it wasn't hurting me as much as I literally had a custom desk and a custom chair perfectly made for me.

I was about to finish eating when there was an emergency alert on my phone. It was a weird alert, something I hadn’t seen before. When I started reading it, it turned out that it was a warning to certain residence of buildings that some company had cut corners and that anyone living in these buildings should vacate immediately so those building could properly be inspected to see if there were any dangers currently present.

The list of buildings was impressive. Then I felt a small shake. Was that an earthquake? This one did feel a bit strange as I had felt them before back in the USA. No new emergency message came through, so I guess it was just a small one. I almost put down my phone when I froze. Wait, did that say my building name? Immediately, I triple-checked it. “Shit.”

Then I felt the shaking again and even heard a loud crack. A moment later, I could see the falling dust settling on my desk. My heartbeat quickened as I looked up to see a crack that was getting larger. Immediately, I rushed towards the exit, but before I could take more than three steps, there was another shaking and a crash, then everything went black.

My forward movement was stopped, but I still leaned forward. It took my brain a moment to understand what was going on, and I saw a large drop in front of me ending in some nasty-looking rocks.

Immediately, I tried to lean back but for a moment, I almost started to fall forward. Fortunately, I was able to take a step back and fall safely to the ground. Out of sheer confusion and panic I felt, I just stayed like that.

The wind eventually made me aware that I was completely naked. Looking around, I seemed to be in a rocky area above a forest surrounding me. I edged closer to the edge of the cliff to see that the fall was about 50 meters. Fortunately, it seemed that there was a decently safe way down to the forest.

That didn’t, however, help me as I was utterly confused as to what the fuck was going on. When I finally started to calm down a little bit, I remembered what happened. Son of a bitch, what the fuck is happening. Why? But I didn’t even have the strength left to yell any longer. Was this my afterlife?

It certainly didn’t feel like hell, and how the wind was blowing through me, causing me to shiver a bit, I was quite certain this wasn’t heaven. It more resembled some kind of anime. I have watched a few, but other than gaming, my preferred hobby was to read history books, not fantasy or entertainment media, except games.

Wasn't there supposed to be a game screen or something like that? “Status, stat page?” I continued to try different words, but literally nothing happened. So I guess no overpowered powers. Was this world dangerous? Currently, I wasn’t sure, but focusing on logical thinking and survival was helping me keep my panic down, so I guess I’ll keep doing that.

The trees looked familiar, like back on Earth, until I saw a few leaves that I didn’t recognize on some of the trees. Of course, there was a possibility that I just didn't know about these leaves and these trees, but it seemed that whatever ecosystem there was here, it wasn't just Earth-based.

Finally, I probably stood up to look around and saw that this forest was a huge one, but toward one direction, I could see it end. Getting there, however, would not be easy. While right now it was easy enough to see where I needed to go, when I will be inside the forest, keeping a straight course would be a lot more difficult.

I think I have to thank my childhood; it might save me. I lived on a farm near a large forest, and exploring it was one of my favorite pastimes before things got difficult. It will be hard but I think I might be able to get out of the forest. The problem was my feet didn’t want to move. They wanted to stay here and help my brain convince itself this was all fake.

The amount of adrenaline that had been pumping through me was now causing my muscles to shake. I could feel the rock underneath my bare feet, and the way the wind felt was all too real. If this was some fabrication, it was too real to not take seriously.

Taking some deep breaths in and out, I finally started to relax a bit and looked upwards. That was a bad choice because something felt wrong. The sun seemed more violent, and for some reason, I could see a lot further towards the edges of the world than I expected, and everything got foggy when I kept looking further away.

The weird feeling eventually passed. Fortunately, it also seemed that I wasn’t thirsty or hungry. Those old friends, however, will return if I don’t find civilization soon. Now I might survive a bit out here if some nasty monster wasn't going to kill me, but I was certain that I didn't have the skills to survive long-term.

Then from the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of light. Immediately, I looked towards it, but it was already gone. That movement helped me see another flash. They were coming from where the forest ended. The flashes also didn’t stop, and they were never in the same spot. But they were all towards the edge of the forest.

Immediately, I started to rush but stopped myself after the first step. I couldn’t run without having any shoes, but I still hurried as much as I dared down this surprisingly gentle slope. When I reached the bottom, I waited until I saw more flashes of light coming from the correct direction.

So I was right. I could see the light through the forest. The forest looked quite old, but it was surprisingly easy to navigate as the trees weren’t that close to each other. Whatever wildlife there was seemed to be keeping pathways open, so navigating wasn't that difficult.

Even without the flashes, I tried to keep my direction as best as possible. Now, however, I needed to walk even slower because one wrong step and I would hurt the soles of my feet. If anything punctured them, I would be one step closer to being dead.

It took me hours of walking through this forest, guided by the occasional flashes of light, to finally notice that the sun was going down. The forest itself was safe, and the only creatures I’d seen were small birds and one squirrel. They didn't look like murderous monsters to me, which gave me hope that perhaps this world wasn't as dangerous as I originally thought.

One problem was that the lights were coming less frequently now. It was getting darker and darker, and I wanted to curse my luck. If there was just a bit more daylight, I think I would have made it. It started to get pitch dark. I looked up expecting not to see a moon.

I was pleasantly surprised when one started to appear. It looked to be a big one and seemed to illuminate the forest well enough that I could somewhat keep going. It helped that the forest was thinning out even more. Then I heard screaming. At first, only a few screams, but they were human screams.

Then screams came from another direction but still forward towards where I wanted to go. Once again, my legs didn't want to move as I didn’t understand what was going on. More and more screams from everywhere, and then I heard branches breaking and the screaming getting closer.

I finally broke out of whatever was keeping me still when I saw many naked people running towards me. Some seemed completely out of it while some still ran with purpose. "Why are you running?" I yelled towards one of the ones who was in front, but he only looked towards me once before putting on a burst of speed and soon running past me.

More and more people were coming, all of them naked and running for their lives. When the second person reached me, I decided to turn around and start running as well. In my haste, I didn’t see the tree root sticking out from the ground. I fell, scraping my knees quite badly.

Fortunately, I was able to absorb the fall with my hands, so I didn’t hurt my head. Before I could push myself up, there was another sound. A sound of horses running towards me.

Finally, I pushed myself up a bit to look backwards. Because of this, I saw one of the people running be struck with something from behind and immediately lose his footing, tumbling to the ground from the speed of his run.

The arrow in the man's back snapped from the tumble, but there was no question that he was attacked by someone.

"Keep running, you little fresh rat!" I heard someone yell. Another one was shot, this one in the leg, but she didn't stop running. Then I saw further back more people on horseback. It was hard to see in this darkness, but it seemed that they were cutting down everyone.

I wanted to run away, but just before I turned around, I saw a few people stop and the men on the horses simply ran past them, this time not killing them. I swallowed hard and just sat against the tree with my hands raised. The next moment, an arrow hit straight above me, just inches from my head.

I could now see one of the horsemen who was the closest and had just shot at me. He looked grimy, wearing different kinds of armor from leather to metal, none of them seeming to be from the same set. His horse, however, seemed to be properly taken care of.

There was an unhappy grimace on his face as he was looking at me, but as soon as he turned away from me and most likely saw another one running, there was a cruel smile on his face as he took another arrow from his quiver.

Now I could see the other horsemen better as well. Basically, no one had proper armor; everything was cobbled together. The weapons they were wielding were also quite different. There were some weapons that were bronze, some were simply wooden clubs, but I also saw proper swords. Most had some sort of spear.

When a few horsemen rushed past me and glanced towards me, I was incredibly thankful for that tree root that caused me to fall to the ground. The number of horsemen seemed endless, but in reality, I had only seen about 20.

More were coming; those I saw stop near the people who had stopped running. I could see some starting to run again, this time towards the sides, but there were already too many horsemen around, and they were quickly killed.

Finally a horsemen stopped near enough that I could see what they were doing. It made my face go white, and I could feel panic returning. They were stopping to tie up the hands and feet of everyone who was naked. Then they would jump back on their horses and move to the next one.

Eventually, one of them reached me. "Well, look who’s comfortable." The person said, but how they said it was weird. I could understand what he was saying, but the sounds didn’t sound correct. He roughly started to tie together my feet and then my hands. "If you try to get these ropes off, we will kill you. If you try to run, we will kill you."

My brain was still panicking, so when I finally started to ask a question, the man was already back on his horse and started to rush further into the forest. The sheer panic from what was happening and the fact that I could actually understand what he was saying had frozen me for too long.

At least now I didn’t have to hold my hands up. Looking at the knots, I figured that they wouldn’t be too hard to loosen and get out of, but it seems like they really didn’t care. If you tried to escape, they would simply kill you. No new horses were coming, and all that was left were naked people tied up, waiting on the ground.

Many were groaning, some just seemed lifeless, but the few like me looked around. One decided that now seemed to be the perfect time to try to escape. Like I had expected, it was easy enough to get the ropes off, although it did take a bit of time.

The moment he started to get up, he was hit with multiple arrows. I squinted my eyes to see more people coming this way, but this time they weren’t on horses. None of us missed the laughter that came from them when the person was filled with arrows and fell back to the ground.

To my surprise they didn’t seem to continue to talk amongst themselves. It also didn't take long for me to properly start to see them. While the horsemen at least had armor that covered basically everything, most of these people only had chest armor and helmets. Their clothes also seemed like something from a medieval world and looked like they should have been scrapped a few seasons ago.

While they didn’t speak when they reached some of the other people tied up, those people did try to speak to them. For their trouble, they were beaten but not too heavily. "No speaking!" they said after the beating. Only two people needed to get beaten for the rest of us to shut up and not even think about speaking.

When they finally reached me, I could smell how badly they stank. I could see why some had puked when the soldiers got close. Well, perhaps ‘soldiers’ was giving them too much credit; they looked more like bandits, and really poor ones.

I was pulled to my feet and taken closer to the others. It was really awkward to walk with my feet tied up, but there seemed to be enough slack for me to take small steps.

Every time I took a step, the rope burned me a bit. If we were going to go somewhere far away, I expected that I would lose my feet well before we reached that destination. I could feel the panic making my heart race, but my mind seemed able to keep calm for now. It felt kind like just before going into a fight back on Earth.

Those last words almost broke the calm of my mind. Immediately, I focused back on my surroundings. Now I saw a long piece of rope being brought out and used as the central line to attach our hand bindings to it. When they finished, there were ten people tied to this one line, five on one side and five on the other.

They proceeded to remove all our feet bindings. "You three, take them back," a bandit said who looked a bit better armored. One of the men grabbed the rope and started to pull us back towards the edge of the forest, while the two others flanked us from either side, keeping a bit of distance.

No one still spoke. We all were certain that whoever did was going to get beaten. When I looked down, I saw that the knots they had originally made were now basically impossible to loosen unless you could remove the central rope that was currently being pulled. I had no other choice but to follow.

There were a lot of dead bodies we walked past. Some looked older, but some also looked younger than me. Almost all seemed to be human, but I saw some that had other features but still looked awfully like humans. Once in a while, I felt that I wanted to puke, especially when someone else puked.

Eventually, we reached the edge of the forest, and I saw a lot more naked people tied up the same way we were. There must have been hundreds. We were taken close to the others that had been tied up like we were. "Sit," the person holding the central rope said.

It was more difficult to sit down than I expected when your hands were tied up. I still managed quite well, but some might have bruised their butts. There was sobbing all around, but I focused back on the person who had held the central rope. He had some kind of a metal stake that he was pounding into the ground, and then he attached the rope to it.

"If you try to loosen your bindings, try to speak, or try to get up, you will be killed." He left after that with the other two who brought us here, but there were plenty of others nearby, guarding all of the people they had captured. We continued to sit as time passed, but then I realized that they didn't tell us we couldn't sleep.

I was feeling a bit hungry, but the thirst was the worst. Those, however, were familiar feelings, and all of this had exhausted me thoroughly, so I actually managed to fall asleep.