[Ora ora, if the PS doesn't reach 25 in the next five hours no more extra chapters for y'all!]
***
I'd been walking through this forest for so many days I'd lost count. Maybe a week? Maybe more? Time felt weird when you were just fighting monsters and trying not to die every single day.
At first, even the weakest creatures in this forest could have killed me easily. A single goblin with a broken club was a life-or-death fight. A wolf was basically a death sentence. Even those bouncy slimes that looked harmless could hurt me if I wasn't careful.
But now things were different. Really different.
Every single fight taught me something new. Every time a goblin swung at me wrong, my Archive would record it and show me the right way to swing. When wolves tried to bite me, I learned better ways to bite back. Even when slimes just bounced around stupidly, I figured out how they moved and how to predict where they'd go next.
The Archive never stopped working. It was always watching, always learning, always writing down everything it saw. Then it would take all those sloppy, broken techniques and make them perfect.
Right now I had ten different skills stored up, which was apparently all the first floor could hold:
My fireball spell was way more efficient than the garbage goblins used. I could cast it faster and it used less energy. My club fighting was clean and precise instead of wild swinging. I'd learned group fighting tactics by watching goblins fail at teamwork. I could intimidate enemies by pushing out scary feelings. I had a piercing attack I'd learned from wolf fangs. I could howl like a wolf to communicate or scare things. I could build simple traps using sticks and rocks. I could sense mana in the air around me. I had a quick-step technique that let me dodge faster. And I could throw rocks with perfect accuracy.
Ten skills. The Archive's first floor was completely full.
But here's the thing that really frustrated me. Even with all these skills, I was still pathetically weak. My body was small and thin like a little kid's. I barely had any magical power. I got tired quickly and I couldn't hit very hard.
All these improved techniques were nice, but they were still just polished versions of monster skills. Goblin magic was garbage even when it was perfected. Wolf attacks were basic even when they were refined. I needed something better. Something actually powerful.
I needed human skills. Real magic. Proper fighting techniques. The kind of knowledge that could make someone truly strong instead of just barely surviving.
That's why I kept walking deeper and deeper into this forest, looking for any sign of civilization. Every day I hoped to see smoke in the distance or hear human voices or find a path that led somewhere important.
Most days there was nothing. Just more trees, more monsters, more of the same boring fights against weak creatures that couldn't teach me anything new anymore.
But then, after what felt like forever, things started changing.
The trees weren't as thick anymore. Instead of being surrounded by dense forest on all sides, I started seeing patches of open space. Clearings with grass and wildflowers. Areas where someone had obviously cut down trees on purpose.
The air smelled different too. Less like rotting leaves and monster droppings. More like... smoke. Wood smoke, like from cooking fires.
My heart started beating faster. Could it be? After all this time wandering around lost?
I climbed up a small hill to get a better view of the area ahead. And there, spread out in a little valley below me, was the most beautiful sight I'd seen since arriving in this world.
A human settlement.
It wasn't very big. Maybe thirty or forty houses clustered together behind a wooden wall. The houses were simple, made of logs and thatch, but they looked sturdy and well-built. I could see people moving around between the buildings, carrying baskets and tools and doing normal human things.
There were fields outside the walls where crops were growing. I could see a well in the center of the village. Smoke was rising from several chimneys. There were even some animals - chickens and pigs and maybe a cow or two.
It looked like a normal, peaceful farming village. The kind of place where families lived and worked and raised their children. The kind of place I'd never really belonged to, even back on Earth.
I stood there for a long time, just staring at it. Real people. Real civilization. After days of fighting goblins and wolves and sleeping on the ground, the idea of talking to actual humans felt almost impossible.
But then I started getting nervous.
What if they didn't want me? What if they took one look at my dirty, torn clothes and my skinny kid body and decided I was just some homeless brat to get rid of? What if they thought I was dangerous or crazy or just not worth their time?
Back on Earth, that's exactly what would have happened. Nobody cared about people like me. I was just another piece of trash that society could throw away without a second thought. Poor, alone, worthless - the kind of person everyone ignored.
But then I remembered something important. I wasn't the same person I'd been on Earth. I had the Archive now. I had power, even if it wasn't much yet.
"It doesn't matter if they like me or not," I said out loud, clenching my fists. "I can still learn from them."
Even if these villagers looked down on me, even if they treated me like garbage, I could still watch them. Every spell they cast, every fighting technique they used, every skill they had would get recorded by my Archive. I'd copy it all, improve it all, and make it mine.
Monsters had filled up my first floor with basic skills. But humans? Humans would have real magic. Advanced techniques. Knowledge that actually mattered.
If they welcomed me, great. I could learn openly and maybe even make some friends. But if they rejected me like everyone always did, that was fine too. I'd just have to be more sneaky about copying their abilities.
Either way, I was going to get stronger.
I took a deep breath and started walking down the hill toward the village. My hands were shaking a little bit, but I forced myself to keep moving. This was my chance to finally interact with real people again. To start the next phase of my growth in this world.
The wooden gates got bigger and bigger as I approached. I could hear voices from inside now - people talking and laughing and arguing about normal everyday things. Children playing games. Adults discussing work and weather and village gossip.
All the normal sounds of human life that I'd missed so much.
I stopped right in front of the gates and looked up at the wooden walls. They weren't very high, maybe ten feet tall, but they were solid and well-maintained. There were guards walking along the top - just regular villagers with spears, not professional soldiers, but still people whose job it was to protect this place.
One of the guards noticed me standing there. He was a middle-aged man with brown hair and a beard, wearing simple leather armor. He looked down at me with curiosity rather than hostility.
"Hey kid," he called down. "You lost or something? Where are your parents?"
I swallowed hard. This was it. My first conversation with a human in this new world.
"I... I don't have any parents," I called back up to him. "I've been traveling alone. I was hoping maybe you'd let me into your village?"
The guard frowned and said something to another guard I couldn't see. There was some quiet discussion up there before he looked back down at me.
"Wait there, kid. Someone's coming to talk to you."
A few minutes later, the gates creaked open. A woman stepped out - probably in her thirties, with kind eyes and graying hair. She was wearing a simple brown dress and had flour on her hands like she'd been baking bread.
"Hello there," she said gently. "I'm Martha, one of the village elders. What's your name, child?"
I realized I'd never actually picked a name for myself in this new world. Back on Earth, my name had been completely ordinary and forgettable. Maybe it was time for something different.
"I'm... Rimuru," I said, picking the first name that came to mind. "I've been traveling alone for a while. I was hoping maybe you'd have some work I could do, or a place I could stay?"
Martha looked me up and down, taking in my dirty clothes and thin frame. But her expression wasn't disgusted or dismissive. It was concerned.
"Oh you poor thing," she said. "When's the last time you had a proper meal? You look half-starved."
My stomach chose that moment to growl loudly, which was embarrassing but probably helped prove her point.
"It's been a while," I admitted.
"Well we can't have that," Martha said firmly. "Come on, let's get you inside and fed. We can figure out everything else after you've had some food and a bath."
Just like that, she turned and walked back through the gates. I hesitated for a moment, hardly believing it was this easy, then hurried to follow her.
The village was even nicer on the inside. The houses were well-maintained and there were flower gardens everywhere. People nodded to Martha as we walked past, and several of them gave me curious but not unfriendly looks.
This was it. I was finally among humans again. And if I was lucky, I was about to learn a whole lot of new skills to add to my Archive.
***
[Just joking, but please do try your best to vote the power stones are too low for the amount of fan's I'm seeing]