Nameless village

Feeling my body freezing, I started missing being inside the Nexus and not having one.

"God dammit, Ai. Where the fuck did you send me?"

[Ethan, the world was a bit far and to avoid any risk of materialization inside the ground or other dangerous areas I chose the highest mountain peak available.]

"Does this look like a safe place to you? I'm naked in sub-zero temperatures. I'll actually freeze to death."

[Don't worry, Ethan. You will reach traces of civilization if you walk North-West for five minutes. I'll provide you with a compass for guidance.]

Seeing the compass that just appeared in the top of my vision I didn't even bother to argue with Ai any longer and started making my way through the snow in the North-West direction. I could feel my entire body slowly becoming numb and the cold air stinging my lungs, making it harder and harder to breathe. I started speaking with Ai inside my mind to distract myself from the cold.

'Ai, if I die in this snow I swear I'll get out of that spirit poor or whatever and hunt you down for eternity.'

[That is impossible as if you die in this world I'll just pull your soul back to the Nexus.]

'Wait a moment, so I'm immortal?'

[Not exactly, If your physical body dies it's possible for your soul to also suffer damage, which will take some time to heal. Also, if your soul gets destroyed I will be unable to bring you back.]

'I see. Doesn't this mean that if I die while inside a world I can just come back and try again as long as I don't suffer damage to my soul?'

[Negative. To transport your soul here I had to burn the bridge between this world and the nexus, making it impossible to transport you here again and resulting in this world's destruction.]

'So, if the world is destroyed will you send me back to spirit pool?'

[No. You will receive a point penalty. Your points can also go into negative value, making achieving your goals harder.]

'I see.'

I kept making my way through the snow, holding tightly onto that sliver of consciousness. Soon, I could see some fuzzy shadows that looked like giant mushrooms. Making my way towards the closest one, I suddenly hear a high pitched scream. Knowing that I finally reached some civilization, I decided to leave my fate into their hands and let myself fall unconscious.

Some time later, I slowly opened my eyes, not having any idea how long I've been asleep for, and noticed that someone brought me inside what seemed to be some kind of an igloo. As I move my eyes to the left, I noticed a young woman hugging me close and keeping me warm while sleeping.

'Ai, do you know what happened to me after I passed out?"

[You were picked by this young woman half frozen and brought inside. Not having any source of heat in this house she got naked and used her body heat to bring your temperature up.]

'So that's how it is. By the way, will she understand anything I say?'

[No, she will not. You will need to learn the common language of this place on your own.]

'Damn it, you really are useless aren't you?'

[…]

'Sigh.. Is it possible for you to teach me?'

[Negative. I don't have access to any information from this world's will.]

'Useless... I should at least let her know that I'm all right now and stop taking advantage of her…'

'Well, I'll just wait five more minutes. This feeling is not bad at all.'

[…]

[…]

I don't know why or how but I could feel that Ai was staring judgmentally at me and decided to end this earlier by slightly moving my arm that was under the girl.

Startled, she immediately sat up with a red face and started talking some words that sounded like gibberish to me. I ignored the fact that she was still naked and said.

"I don't understand you."

"Is there any chance you speak english?." I said out loud deciding to test my luck anyway. Of course, my luck was never good so she started staring at me with a look of confusion.

Sighing again I pointed towards myself and said to her "Me, name, Ethan." Before pointing towards her and asking "You, name?". Seeing no reaction from her, I kept repeating the same thing, hoping she will understand what I'm trying to say.

After five or six tries she pointed towards herself timidly and said " Name, Anna".

'Yes, finally progress.' I said in my mind before putting a hand on my heart and bowing my head slightly before saying "Thank you.".

She look towards me curiously for a moment before grabbing one of her twin peaks, with her face getting redder by the second, tilting her head to the side and asking me back "Thank you?".

'Great. Now she thinks I said something about her breasts. Ai, do you have any suggestions?'

[You can try to interact with her more and learn a few words. I will also record everything and compile a dictionary from your interactions, but that will probably take some time.]

I looked back at the girl who seemed to wait for an answer, grabbed her other hand and shook it slightly before thanking her again. She looked even more confused now, so I just gave up and took my hand back, waiting to see what she would do next.

Seeing that I was not going to say anything, she got dressed with some wild animal pelts and walked outside of the igloo after saying some gibberish again. Being left alone I decided to check some stuff with Ai.

'Ai, what can you do? Please don't tell me that you are completely useless.'

[I can provide you with status information…]

'That's all?'

[…]

'Forget it. Show me my status. I'm curious how it looks.' After saying that, a game like status appeared in my vision.

[

Name: Ethan Knott

Age: Avatar 18;

Race: Avatar Human;

Experience: 0/100;

Health Points: 10/10;

Mana Points 10/10;

Level: 1;

Vitality: 1;

Strength: 1;

Dexterity : 1;

Intelligence: 1;

Resistance: 1;

———

System Points: 0;

Spirit: 120;

]

'So basic game stuff. Can you explain everything to me?'

[Name it's the name that was given to you on Earth.]

[Age is the age took by your avatar. It can be changed with System Points]

[Race is the race took by your avatar. It can be changed with System Points]

[Experience can be gained by completing quests / defeating or killing enemies]

[Health Points is the durability of the avatar.]

[Mana Points is the magic energy present inside the avatar.]

[Level is the representation of the main power system in this world. It can be increased by gaining experience]

[Vitality increases the health points of your avatar as well as it's overall defense]

[Strength increases your physical strength]

[Dexterity increases your reaction speed, movement speed, accuracy as well as your evading ability]

[Intelligence increases your comprehension abilities, magic damage and mana points]

[Resistance increases your ability to resist penalties and damage dealt by negative status effects]

[System Points are the main rewards obtained through quests provided by the system]

[Spirit is a numerical representation of your soul power. It is also the only stat that stays with you after you leave this world]

While I was reading the information from the system, the girl from before, who I think was called Anna, came back carrying a bowl of soup. She put it before me, pointed at me and said something again before gesticulating for me to eat.

A smile appeared on my lips, thinking that she looked a bit cute. I picked up the wooden spoon from her hand, thanked her again and started eating. I was honestly kinda hungry, so I didn't really care about the taste, even tho it could be barely called a soup.

After we were done, she started gesticulating for me to follow her out of the igloo. I got up and realized that I was still naked. Thinking about it for a minute, I pointed towards my lower body and picked the corner of her clothes. She seems to understand because she went to a corner of the igloo and picked some leather clothes before throwing them towards me. After spending a moment, I managed to finally stop being naked in this new world, which in my opinion was a big step forward.

We both walked out of her igloo and I finally got a look outside. It was a relatively small village, made completely out of igloos. We walked towards one of the biggest ones there, located towards the center of the village and stepped inside.

There, a man that could only be described as wild looking, looked me up and down, before starting to speak with me.

'Here we go again.' I waited for him to finish before I started gesticulating again that I don't understand. After a bit of back and forth that lead nowhere, he pointed towards Anna and said something to her in an angry tone.

Anna seemed on the verge of crying but just responded something, grabbed my hand and waked outside, pulling me with her. After arriving inside she started picking up stuff after stuff and saying something after picking up each one of them. I was looking at her confused before Ai's voice sounded in my head.

[Ethan, she's trying to teach you to speak in her language. Try to focus on memorizing her words. In the meanwhile I will also compile the dictionary.]

Hearing Ai's explanation, I started focusing on Anna's explications. After finishing all the objects inside the room, she started gesticulating different actions and explaining them. A few hours later, she yawned slightly and pointed towards the bed.

When we got into the bed, she stripped both of us naked before hugging me close again and closing her eyes. What can I say, that night was a long night. First I was a bit excited about being hugged by a cute girl to sleep before memories from earth started haunting me and I started to feel guilty about being hugged by a cute girl to sleep.

'I haven't even been dead for two days and here I am, hugging another girl to sleep while my girlfriend is probably mourning my death.'

Tears slowly started flowing down my cheek as I started thinking about Alison and I cried silently until I fell asleep.

Early in the morning, after eating something together with Anna, we started our lessons again. This process of waking up, eating, learning, eating, crying myself to sleep besides a naked girl went on for almost a week until I finally managed to learn the language enough to communicate with Anna. I also found out that this village surprisingly does not have an actual name.

One week later, after we ate our breakfast, she suddenly said to me.

"Ethan, can you hunt?"

"Hunt? Do you need to hunt here? What are you hunting?"

"In the forest outside, wolves."

'Ai, what do you think? Am I strong enough to go hunting?'

[You don't have any experience and all your stats are at the level of an average adult man. If they go in groups you can go and maybe get a lucky stab but I wouldn't recommend going alone.]

"I never hunted but I want to learn."

"I'll go tell the chief." Replied Anna as she left to inform the village chief.

'Ai, can you help me in any way in fights?'

[No, Ethan. You are on your own]

'I don't even know why I asked.'

After Anna returned from the village chief, she took my hand and started leading me somewhere. I was already used to it. After a while we reached a place with a lot of weapons, if you could even call them that. They were some straight branches with sharp stones tied to one of their ends. After picking one that looked decent, at least in my eyes, we made our way inside the chief's igloo. Inside there were around a dozen villagers, each of them carrying spears.

Everyone there looked at me like I was a monkey at the circus before the chief asked me.

"Can you speak now?"

"Yes, chief. I learned from Anna a little."

"Good. To stay in our village you will have to hunting at least twice a year and return home with at least one wolf. As Anna said you never hunted before I organized a hunting party so you could get used to it. You'll follow me and try not to die. Let's go."

When Ana asked me if I knew how to hunt I thought I would get some training or something. Here, it seems the practice of throwing the baby out the nest is the norm. Nothing else I could do other than comply.

I said my goodbye to Anna and followed the rest of the party to the forest for my first hunt.