The geography of the empire...kinda made no fucking sense.

  Up to the north, where I called home, was a bunch of arboreal bullshit colloquially nicknamed the Wildlands. There was a reason it was called that, but we'd get to that eventually. The Wildlands were, in two words, fucking massive. I didn't know shit about old world geography, but I felt as though this singular part of Taiman could encompass the largest of nations.

  It dwarfed the rest of the empire, being almost double the landmass of everything else combined.

  And the only reason the empire had it was because the rest of the world wanted nothing to do with the absolute bitch this place could be. The empire had about three dozen cities, dotted across their lands like lovely little landmarks. The northern portion only had three.

  Anik, Yogum, and Florain.

  This land had a...strange relationship with civilization. In the beginning of Auriel's reign there was a concerted effort to make something of the north. Exploit its resources, find the dungeons, and all the lovely logistical nightmares involved with a mass migration.

  Land was cheap, people were plentiful, and for once the empire could expand through something other than the sword.

  The attempt would later be coined The Grave Migration.

  Academics and skeptics didn't agree on the why, but for whatever reason every monster went berserk, bearing down on the people like a scene from the hells. Plenty of cities fell, plenty more people died.

  Now there was an unspoken limit to the population that could stay in the north. Bunch of bureaucratic bullshit that I got to skip because I was born here! How very fun.

  "Why am I learning this?" I whined on the comfort of my bed with a map laid out before me. "I'm never going to travel the north, I'm not some idiot explorer, or a fucking adventurer. Just a whole lot of trees alongside a whole lot of nothing."

  Aira raised a brow as she rocket her chair. It wasn't a rocking chair, Aira just felt like being a gambler today and see how far she could tilt the thing before she ate shit. I was hoping it would be soon. "A little insulting considering it's your home, I didn't take you for one of those fuckwits that idolize the south."

  "The 'south' is the rest of the empire, and yeah, compared to here? At least there's a variety of shit to experience."

  "Well, I could teach you about the empire proper if you so desire," Aira drawled as she tilted just a little further. "But I fail to see the point in that."

  I scowled. "There's plenty of reasons to teach me."

  "Such as?"

  I pursed my lips, I couldn't tell her I was hoping to find some legendary artifacts, that'd be insanely specific knowledge for her to believe. Even if she championed through my recitation of reincarnation.

  The sword of the Dread God Yismir.

  The Tooth.

  Stupid name, but I wasn't about to offend the god of war. I got something like a tickle to the brain, humour and a smile alongside bloody teeth. Well okay then, did Dread Gods make a habit of fucking with our heads when we insulted them?

  First Ulindine, now Yismir; maybe Inoka would be next?

  Nothing.

  I shrugged, probably wasn't smart to get that one's attention anyway.

  Well, relative to the smarts of someone who sought the attention of a Dread God at least.

  The Tooth was close to Ortium, real close, and it was one of the few artifacts I remembered well enough to reliably find. Of those, it was the only one I had a chance of grabbing. The geography of the game got a little funky when comparing it to the map in front of me, but the location was seared into my mind from hours of trying to find it without a guide.

  I was something of a puritan, and I liked challenges, even if they induced many a migraine.

  "Because I want to go to Ortium," I said, puffing out my chest. Not technically a lie.

  "Why in the hells would you want that?"

  I blinked. "The fuck do you mean why? It's the technological bastion of the world! It has the biggest dungeon network in all the empire. There are godsdamned toilets."

  "What're toilets?"

  I gasped at the woman, positively scandalized. "It's the proper thing to shit in! You absolute neanderthal."

  Yeah, Neanderthals' were a thing in this world. Also fun.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  There was an unnecessarily long lore explanation considering they weren't at all relevant, but that was a theme pervasive to the entire game.

  Fun fact, there was a whole wiki article that collaged together a bunch of useless lore surrounding the Yesnian nobles very open orgies. A whole lot of details I didn't need to know, but were something I could never forget now.

  Aira pursed her lips. "I'm not comfortable with you going dungeon delving with how self-destructive you've become. Who's going to watch over you to make sure you don't do something stupid and get yourself killed?"

  "I need to get stronger." I shrugged.

  "So you've said. On multiple occasions," Aira sighed. "Shouldn't you, I don't know, try to find that grandfather of yours instead? So that you can learn from him at least if you don't want to be under the safety of his shadow?"

  I rolled my eyes. "Two problems with that. I don't know where to start looking and I don't know how strong he is. Also, relying on someone else's strength for safety is unreliable at best."

  "That's three points."

  "I came up with the last one on the spot."

  Aira let out a snort and rolled her eyes. "Ah, the famed wisdom of the elves. Coming up with something that sounds wise on its face, but is really just bullshit."

  "What part of what I said was wrong?" I huffed.

  "Explain Anik, and how it exists," Aira drawled. "Almost everyone living here couldn't handle a basic monster, it's the army and the regular culling by hunters that allows for farm and country and all that. If everyone needs strength to live, then civilization as a whole wouldn't be functional."

  "You need strength if you want to live freely," I scowled.

  "Or survive the apocalypse?"

  "Yes. I still don't know how you're so cavalier about that."

  Aira shrugged. "I'm not a mage or a warlock, exponential growth isn't in the cards for me. Might as well hunker down in one of the cities you said actually somewhat survive instead of going on a suicidal race for essence."

  "So you'll come to Ortium with me?" My eyes sparkled.

  "Yeah, sure." Aira shrugged again. "Still don't get why you want to rush over there though."

  I shot up my hands to the ceiling and let out a whoop of celebration. "Fuck yeah!"

  "You know, for a supposed reincarnator, you're surprisingly childlike," Aira chuckled.

  "Fuck off!"

  The need for sleep was funny.

  Once overcome there was so much more a person could spend their time on! I hadn't overcome it to be clear, but consolidating the Word meant I could stay up for much longer than was reasonable. Two days, that was the last time I had to actually succumb to biological bullshit. Granted, I was tired as fuck, but not nearly as much as I should've been!

  There was a fun fiction in my mind, one that claimed I'd never need to suffer through dreaming ever again. But that was just a fiction.

  Awake was a full Word, and like mend, that meant that progressing it was going to be slow as fuck now. So unless I could manage to make a spell or absorbed a ridiculous amount of essence, then sleep was still on the menu.

  Considering I only knew two Words as I was approaching a full year since my awakening? That was...unlikely. Also a waste of time when I needed to focus on coming up with shit that helped with my combat potential. Getting enough essence for it to matter probably would've made me the strongest person alive, considering Loklan still needed a full eight hours.

  Or close enough to where it was basically eight hours.

  Sure, as my tolerance increased, so would the amount of mana I could invest in staying awake, but continuously dumping mana into the effort just gave diminishing returns.

  Some shit about supplementing sleep with magic becoming less effective the longer I'd been doing it until I let go and it reset.

  Felt like bullshit to me, but whatever.

  But still! More training was always a plus, which was a hollow solace considering I couldn't completely drain my mana now. The last time I did that I had an intimate experience with my guts melting.

  Not by much, in the grand scheme of my intestines, it was probably less than a percentile.

  It still felt like a goblin was clawing out my innards.

  Which was fine! More pain meant more growth in the Word, so long as said pain couldn't kill me. Potential organ failure wasn't something I was willing to risk with the amount of mana I could hold.

  At least I was getting closer to making the droplets useful!

  Fuck progress was slow.

  I grumbled with my chin on the table as Xae finished scarfing down her rack of ribs. The absolute savage was covered in grease and somehow a bit of blood? I had a feeling the chefs had long given up on making her diet resemble something normal.

  "Do you have any sense of decency?" I said from across her.

  Xae blinked, pausing on her next nibble and she gave me a confused look. "What do you mean! This is premium meat right here, I need to show proper respect!"

  "And that involves tearing through it like a goblin?"

  "Exactly," Xae nodded with altogether too much grandiosity. "It's only right after all. Trying to be all fancy and proper is a poor fiction for the reality of prey and predator!"

  "Could just be that people prefer not be gross little shits," I mumbled.

  Xae scoffed and continued her meal, ignoring my judgmental glares. We just got done sparring, and I beat her again because of my spell...but it didn't feel satisfying. I still lost every time we fought on an equal playing field, so it was obvious that my skill had nothing to do with the victories.

  On the contrary, Xae was starting to get closer to matching me with my spell, changing up her tactics to accommodate the change in power. I felt like that was bullshit, weren't mages supposed to eclipse non-mages? My progress felt way too slow for having access to something that could change the shape of societies.

  Bleh, I'd figure it out.

  I thumped my forehead and let out a groan, the mana sickness was still there, just a bit, and it sucked. Xae chuckled at my sorrow.

  Then someone tapped on my shoulder, and I turned to glare at a nervous woman carrying a strangely fancy scroll. It was black with gold embellishments curved around it, really old empire style. There was a wax seal with a mark I couldn't see from this angle.

  I raised a brow.

  "Um—you're the elf hunter right?" the woman squeaked.

  I huffed. "The fuck do you want?"

  "There's—I was told to deliver this to you, so...here you go?"

  She extended the scroll to me and looked confused when I didn't go to grab it. "Who sent it?" I said, suddenly very weary of the wealth displayed on the scroll.

  "They said it doesn't matter?"

  "Why do you make everything sound like a question?" I grumbled, and she flinched. "And what the fuck is this suspicious bullshit? Do you really think I'm gonna read that?"

  "I can do it!" Xae said.

  "Shut up, idiot."

  Xae giggled and went back to her meal, the woman that interrupted us seeming confused about by my blatant refusal.

  "You can leave now," I said with more than a little contempt.

  "Um...they said it was important for you to see this...and that I won't get paid if you don't?"

  I scowled at her, which almost scared her off, but her face lit up when I extended a hand to take the suspicious as fuck scroll.