To New Horizons

"Back here again, huh? It's been a while..."

The soft voice of a young man who looked no longer than twenty sounded, and from the looks of it, the young man had just stepped out from what looked to be a round spiralling portal of sorts that had soon closed behind him.

The male had somewhat pale but fair skin, with a lean yet athletic build that could be seen rather well through his relatively thin layer of clothing. For his other features, the male had neat straight black hair and a pair of sharp eyes where his left pupil was gold while the other was silver in colour.

Together this his rather charming appearance, he was quite the sight to see.

As for clothing, as stated before, was rather thin. Consisting simply of a black t-shirt underneath a sleek white and silver hooded jacket that he had resting on both shoulders, and neither of his arms were currently put through the sleeves.

Covering his bottom half was a pair of dark-grey combat pants that were slightly baggy, though not enough that it hid his long and skinny legs. He also had on a pair of brown combat boots to match his pants, both boots having pure black soles.

The young man aside, looking around, he seemed to be standing inside a white and gold circular room with a ceiling that gave off a brilliant glow, but was strangely not blinding in any way. As the male looked around, his eyes showed a look of familiarity.

It wasn't his first time in this place, after all.

Although it felt like such a long time ago, he still remembered that it was no more than a year since he had first stepped into this room. It was here that he experienced his first feelings of being reborn and given new life.

"I guess my journey ends here..."

『Congratulations, host』

『You have returned to the Halls of Genesis』

This robotic voice that soon sounded in his head was one he was very familiar with, it was the sound of the system that had accompanied him the entire time for the last year. It was thanks to it that he managed to get where he is today.

Despite knowing that the system was not a sentient entity, he honestly couldn't help but feel as if the system were a great friend of his. True, it made things difficult at times, but it was also thanks to it that he was as strong as he was right now.

『Host has completed his journey』

『Ultimate Godslayer System will now be unlinked with the host』

『Good luck with your next journey』

"...Thank you." Although he knew that the system would disappear like this the day he returned, but he still felt sad about it. Before long, Tatsu could no longer feel the connection he had with the system. "The end of a journey is merely the beginning of another."

Closing his eyes, Tatsu then took a deep breath before opening his eyes as he looked down at one of his hands. Raising his right hand up to his chest, he watched as a small flammed soon flickered into existence before disappearing just as fast.

"Seems like my powers are all still with me, even without the system. At least I can be reassured that I can protect myself in the next world, wherever that may be..."

After a few seconds, a familiar beeping sound soon sounded in Tatsu's ears. He wasn't surprised by this though, he knew exactly what was happening. At the beginning of each traverser's journey, they get a system to go along with them to the next world.

『Host has been detected』

『System Integration underway...』

『...』

『Integration complete』

『Welcome to the Cosmos Tourist System』

"Cosmos Tourist System?" Tatsu blinked before raising an eyebrow in confusion. He had no idea what kind of system he was going to be given, but this certainly was not what he expected. "Not gonna complain, doesn't sound too bad."

If the system's purpose was exactly what he thought based on the name alone, then he'd definitely welcome this system with open arms. He honestly had enough of fighting things like demons and gods, it was time for him to find peace and relax for once.

Even if the world he gets sent into some desolate world, perhaps he could leave with the help of this system. In any case, making assumptions wasn't going to get him anywhere, he'd see its capabilities when the time comes.

For now...

『System has been linked』

『Beginning transfer』

『Good luck, traverser』

Just like that, Tatsu found himself blinded by a light unlike any other.

●●●●●●●●●●●

It didn't take long for Tatsu's vision to be returned to him.

Slowly opening his eyes, he was greeted by a rather beautiful sight. From the looks of it, he was transported to the peak of a rather tall cliff that overlooked a vast land of cliffs similar to the one that he was standing on.

Tatsu couldn't help but freeze a bit as he took in the sight, the wind flowing through the area causing his clothes and hair to dance along with its movements. Tatsu honestly wasn't sure how to feel, it had been too long since he had last seen such beautiful scenery.

For the past year, the only sights he had mostly seen were of a destroyed city.

"Beautiful..." Tatsu muttered under his breath as a small smile could be seen on his face. "Unfortunately, I shouldn't stick around like this for too long. Perhaps I should try and find a civilisation or something if any are around here."

Before making any moves though, Tatsu swiped his hand in the air as a holographic panel appeared in front of him. Fortunately for him, it seemed that this system opened up the same way his old one did, which saved some unnecessary trouble.

『System is activating』

『Completion Rate: 2%』

'Jeez, it's literally just like my old system.' Tatsu felt his eyebrow twitch after seeing what was on the screen. This completion bar was what almost got him killed twice before, at least he didn't need to worry about being defenceless this time. "Can't be helped."

With a shrug, Tatsu closed down the system.

"P-Please help...!"

"Is anyone out there?!"

Tatsu's ears twitched after picking up on a few voices, although they were faint, he could immediately tell which direction they were coming from. From the sounds of things, it sounded as if they were in danger.

Without saying anything, Tatsu disappeared from his position above the cliff. Don't get him wrong, he had not teleported, the only evidence you really needed was the small disturbance of wind on the spot where he once stood.

Catching up with Tatsu, he could be seen running at unprecedented speeds, so fast to the point that the world couldn't even properly react to his running. It was as if he was running past everything without creating any disturbance with things like the wind as he ran.

Due to how fast he was, Tatsu soon arrived on top of another cliff before looking down. Upon doing so, he narrowed his eyes at what he saw. There seemed to be three humans backed up against the wall of another cliff, two children no older than ten while the third was an older male, perhaps their father.

However, unlike the other two, the man was motionless on the ground with various wounds all over his body. It didn't take a genius to tell what had caused the injuries, no doubt the other group that was surrounding the three humans.

'Are they humans too? Doesn't look like it...'

The other group was strange, although they resembled humans in a way, they did possess some unnatural body shapes that spoke otherwise. He also couldn't help but compare them to tribal people, mainly due to the way they dressed.

This group had a number of different figures among their ranks, some who were smaller than even the children, and very few that were much larger and easily over two or three meters tall. From the looks of it, they obviously didn't have any good intentions.

With no hesitation at all, Tatsu jumped off the cliff and began descending quickly.

"Ch-Cheng, what do we do?"

"I-I don't know! Papa won't wake up!" The boy named Cheng responded while his eyes were bawling tears, the same was said for the girl who asked him the question as they both stared in fear at the incoming group. "Is papa... dead?"

"That..."

Although none of them wanted to believe it, they weren't children who were completely clueless about everything. They knew their father wouldn't be able to protect them forever against such a large group of hilichurls, it was just impossible for a normal person!

With fear evident on their faces, they could only watch as the large tribe of hilichurls slowly but surely closed the distance between them. At the forefront of the group was a large mitachurl wielding a massive crude-looking axe.

However, just as they closed their eyes, ready to pretty much accept their fate.

*CRASH*

The loud sound of a crash immediately made them open their eyes unconsciously, though had to close them again when a powerful gust of wind pushed against them for a moment while sending a cloud of dust in front of them.

Confused, they watched as the dust slowly dispersed, revealing the mitachurl from before now motionlessly lying on the ground inside of a small crater. However, it wasn't the mitachurl that they were staring at, it was the male standing on top of it.

Neither of them could say anything and continued to stare in shock at the male, just where did he come from all of a sudden? Just looking at his position and all the factors, did that mean he had jumped down from somewhere and killed the mitachurl with that alone?

It sounded ridiculous.

They saw the male glance at them before stepping off the mitachurl's body and turning to face the rest of the hilichurls, all of whom were staring at him with stunned looks. Wasting no time, the male seemingly dashed around with speed fast enough that it was causing powerful torrents of wind to fly everywhere.

The children could only watch in shock as the hilichurls all found themselves brutally killed in one way or another, either by being sent crashing into the side of an opposite cliff, their bones crushed under the force of the male's strikes, or some other way.

The mitachurls weren't spared from this either as they too had been sent flying with enough force that they crashed into cliffsides more than ten meters away and died immediately upon impact after leaving a large dent where they crashed.

In what was only a few seconds at most, the entire tribe of hilichurls were eradicated.

"You two okay?"

They both watched as the male walked over, his face showing a small and reassuring smile that seemed to calm them down slightly. Before they could respond, something seemed to hit them as they both turned around before rushing over to the downed man.

"Papa, wake up!"

"Please don't die...! We're going to be okay now!"

As the children continued to cry out to the motionless man, Tatsu could only frown as he saw the looks of devastation the two kids had on them. He was not unfamiliar with such looks, in fact, he had seen similar if not worse in kids even younger than these two.

Tatsu had seen enough of such scenes that he could tell that these kids already knew that their father was dead, but even so, they were clinging to a dim hope that by some miracle he was alive despite the severity of his injuries.

With a sigh, Tatsu walked over calmly before gently placing his hands on both of the children's shoulders.

"Don't worry, your father is only sleeping. He'll wake up soon."

"R-Really...?" Cheng stuttered with doubt clear on his tear-filled face and in his tone. "Papa..."

"Will remain with you."

Tatsu interrupted whatever words the male was going to say as he knelt down next to the man, and although it wasn't anywhere near the worst he had ever seen, it was still a horrible sight for children like these two to see. Especially since it was their father.

The children watched as Tatsu held his open hand above their father's body, to which they widened their eyes when his hand began giving off a dense beautiful green glow. His eyes also gave off a gentle yet powerful glow of green.

From Tatsu's fingertips, the dense green energy surrounding it began seemingly pouring and being absorbed into the body of their father. Before this had all transpired, they had heard Tatsu speak out one single word.

"Samarecarm."