17 Back to Yngrave

"Alright, listen up! Young Master Qin wants us to set up an outpost on the edge of Yngrave Forest! And before you complain, we're getting paid double for these four days, and most likely a bonus too if we have something good up and running by the time our replacements come by in five days! This is for the upcoming raid as well, so this is something important! Take this seriously, since in a few weeks time, this is where we'll be staging our yearly incursion into the depths of Yngrave to ensure another year of peace for our people!"

The soldiers around us all nodded as Alessia began to get into the specifics of their orders, Trania and I standing behind her as we let the more experienced woman take the lead.

"Got that?! Good! Let's move out! I want to have a camp set up by dusk, and a plan ready for tomorrow by the time the sun truly sets! Let's move!"

Grabbing our packs - which the Quartermaster had supplied for us - we set out and left Qingrad behind, stepping foot onto the plains and moving towards the gigantic forest that would become my experience farm.

Though, for now, I was content to just continue mulling over what just happened, this mornings events still weighing heavily on my mind even now since it was such a drastic shift in my reality.

Things that I had only ever heard of and dreaded were now true, and I had to accept that some of the things that I had taken for granted inside my Dive Pod was now truly reality, and that there was no leaving the game or saving my progress.

If I died... I died.

If I lost a limb or got kidnapped, there was no returning to a safer spot, there was no going back; I would need to either find a really, really good healer or pray and hope that someone would find me before anything bad happened.

What happened was still making it hard to concentrate, my mind warping everything into something even worse as I envisioned terrible things happening to me; memories of things that I had experienced or almost experienced now brought back, with the horrifying realization that they would really happen to me now.

Things that I had done out of morbid curiosity, things that happened because I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, things that happened because I was too weak for that area...

All things that I would need to be careful of now, and I couldn't help but have miniature panic attacks as particularly terrible memories popped into mind, memories that I didn't mind having when I could confidently say I could escape from those situations no matter what.

But, I stamped down on it all, my mind state from my life having become something that I now relied on to help pull me out of that pit of anxiety and self doubt.

I had the tools available to me, had the resources and know how to do things, had an understanding of the world and an understanding of myself to know that I CAN get through this, that I WOULD get through this.

There was no room for doubt, no room for 'what if's'... none of that.

I KNEW I would be able to live, KNEW that I had what it took to carve out a piece of this world for myself, even if that piece is just a tiny little apartment in whatever city I end up in.

I could and would get stronger, to the point that - while I might not become 'the protagonist' or 'hero' of this world - I would at least be able to care for myself and fight for what I wanted, to be able to lay claim to something.

Everyone has a starting point though, and my own was Yngrave Forest; a place that held monsters at a max level of 70, monsters that could tear down cities if left unattended and unchecked.

Good scaling, good variety, wide array of resources... Yngrave Forest was a perfect spot for a beginner, since it allowed me to get a good foundation going with its weaker monsters before challenging and honing myself on the stronger monsters too.

Then there was the fact that Zargrina Dukedom housed a port city under the control of pirates, which would potentially give me humanoid enemies to fight; enemies that were harder to gauge in terms of strength, since a level 10 Pirate and a level 10 Goblin were nowhere near the same.

Hells, a level 20 Goblin wasn't near a level 10 Pirate, at least if that Pirate knew the difference between the edge of his sword and the tip.

That is all to say that there was variety in my starting area, and variety was a good thing.

But, I wouldn't be getting a taste of that variety for a long, long time, since for now I was going to stick nearby Qingrad and Yngrave for a bit... or not, who knows.

Either way, I would be avoiding any areas that seemed too dangerous since I wasn't under the assumption that I could perform insane, mind boggling feats like defeating a monster 5 times my level or fight a Noble or Warrior 10 times my strength.

Instead, I would be helping these soldiers set up this outpost and work from here for a bit, steadily raking in some more experience and getting myself accustomed to being 'alive' inside if Eden.

Reaching Yngrave took little time, casting me out of my mind and bringing me back to reality as Alessia and Trania dismounted, the two of them looking around the area before consulting the map they had.

"We're here! Buck, Lily, begin setting up the tents! Make sure they're ready for a few nights here, so set 'em up good! Kira, Wels, you two are going to start digging up the fire pit and gather kindling. Everyone else, let's get to chopping down the first set of trees! There's still some hours left of the day, so let's get some defenses set up for the night!"