Manav opened his eyes.
He was ready to be sent into some strange form of eternal torture or simply death for simply looking at the creature once again but,
The beast stood where it had but....
It's arms...if one could even refer to the indescribable shape the tendrils it possed as 'arms' were seemingly stuck in midair.
Manav flinched,his pupils dilated and even the sweat rolling down his cheeks froze.
The great being had moved...perhaps to attack the lone human.
But the ompnipotent assault seemed to have been stoped.
Manav spent one more second gazing upon the sight infront of him.There seemed to be some dimmed runes floating in midair-
forming a faint semblance of a gargantuan wall,dwarfing even the gigantic beast.
This wall had protected the young man from the unknown horror's wrath.
But Manav didn't spend too much time investigating the wall,he just turned around and...
sprinted in the opposite direction once again.
He ran
He ran as fast as he could
He ran till his legs couldn't move
He ran even when he became numb in his lower body
He ran past the canopy of dry trees
He ran past various landscapes
Until he he had to stop.
It was a small opening in a particlarly large boulder,like a small,cheap copy of what would call a cave.
But it was the only shelter in the desolate land.
Then he walked.
The desolate landscape did not change much.
Dry grass stretched endlessly beneath his feet, crunching softly with each step. The black rocks came and went, sometimes clustered, sometimes scattered.
The smaller mountains in the opposite direction to the taller mountains behind which the horror stood had become his goal of sorts.
They never seemed more closer, no matter how long he moved.
Time passed, but it didn't feel like it mattered.
He stopped when his body refused to move, and he slept when he could no longer stay awake. Hunger came and went like a quiet ache. Thirst was worse—but even that dulled after a while.
Once, he thought he heard something following him.
He didn't turn around.
It was a great choice.
If something was there, it would reach him eventually. And if it didn't… then it didn't matter.
At some point, he started talking to himself.
"…keep walking…"
"…don't stop…"
"…there has to be something…"
His voice grew a little steadier each time he used it, though it still sounded kinda dry to him.
Manav tried his best to maintain sanity but,as he would realize later-
He failed.
The sky shifted slowly over what might have been days.
Sometimes it dimmed. Sometimes it brightened. The clouds above remained flat and endless, never breaking, never revealing anything beyond.
It made the world feel both smaller and grander than it should have been.
He found water once.
A shallow pool, barely more than a dip in the ground. It was murky, still, and tasted wrong—but he drank anyway. He didn't think about consequences. His body decided for him.
After that, he kept moving.
He had reached the foothills of the smaller mountains.
When he first saw the village, he didn't realize what it was.
Just shapes on the horizon. Low, uneven outlines that didn't belong to the land.
He stopped walking.
For a long moment, he simply stared.
"…people?"
The word came out uncertain, like something half-remembered.
As he got closer, the shapes became clear.
Small houses. Roughly built. Smoke rising faintly from one of them. A fence—broken in places, but still standing.
It wasn't much.
But it was something.
He didn't feel relief.
He thought he should have—but the emotion didn't come. Instead, there was only a quiet heaviness settling in his chest.
Suddenly he felt much more conscious.Much more observant and....stable.
His identify and purpose returned to him.His memories of the frantic escape becoming dimer and dimer.
Somehow,his sanity had returned.And so did his sense of paranoia.
Despite,other people....humans being so close,he felt distrusting.
A strange thought crossed his mind.
'Were they a threat...were they human?'
How could civilization set itself up in this desolate hell?
Manav doubted it severely.
He then received a notification,in gods know how long
[You have completed hidden quest-"Half-a-thousand kilometer marathon"!
Your stamina is truely impressive!]
[Level up!]
[Congratulations! You are now a level 7 human!]
'Huh?'
'I had leveled up three times already?...Wait..did I just run for five-hundread kilometers?!'
'How much time has passed?'
It seems the young man had lost his sanity several times in the escape.Perhaps as a side-effect from glancing at the eldritch beast.And with his sanity went his memories of the time when he was crazed.He once again forgot a lot of important information
Perhaps multiple months or even years had passed in his mentally unwell state.
Luckily,he regained his mental faculty this time.
He was also...strangely refreshed
"Open inventory"
All the slots were empty.It seemed even in a crazed state I had managed to use the level up rewards to keep on living.
Maybe I should be grateful for my temporary insanity.Maype that lack of intellect allowed me to surpass human limits and find enough will to travel the massive distance.
It was also time to check up on the human settlement.
If it was truely half a thousand kilometers away from where I came from,life was not entirely impossible.
When I marched towards the village,I immediatly felt a shift.
The people of the village...though still too far to be seen accurately...were preparing.
They picked up what looked to be makeshift spears and swords.
They were getting ready for...war.
Were they getting ready... to fight me?
But a taller and more mature figure walked forwards and seemingly signalled for the people to keep their weapons down.
Then he turned towards Manav and shouted loudly
"Welcome to our village,young reincarnator!"
That was my first encounter with 'elder' as the tall,pale and thick bearded man was called.
It also my first encounter with a young boy named Luster,
who would go on to become my side-kick of sorts.
It was also going to be my first time....killing another human.
But that is a tale for another day.
----PROLOUGE COMPLETE----