After a certain point of time, I started to think that it might take years before I'd be able to find a human settlement, or the settlement of some other race. Luckily, after about one week of wandering, I found what looked like remnants of an abandoned cobblestone road covered by grass, so I traced it to see where it would lead. I thought it would take another week to arrive at the end of the cobblestone road, but I managed to reach the end of the road in about two days of meandering towards the horizon of the grassy plains.

  Within those two days of travel, whatever was following me the whole time decided to show itself– a ball of light barely the size of a tennis ball. He or she seemed to be a shy feller, it would run away whenever I got too close to it. How unfortunate, I was curious about what it would taste like.

  Oops. Should have been more considerate. In any case, it's good to have a companion.

  After a long walk, I found a small village at the end of the cobblestone road. It was overrun by nature, green growing out from everywhere, trees growing out of the wooden houses that looked old and brittle yet elegant, the entire place somehow looked eerie and beautiful at the same time.

  It's a human settlement…? It's a human settlement! A village!

  It took a while for my brain to register what I was seeing. I ran through the small village like a little boy who couldn't contain his excitement. I looked here, there and everywhere, too excited to decide what to do first. Then I turned towards a house from which I heard chattering.

  There!

  I ran to the house door, grabbed the door handle and swung it open like a maniac. The door broke from its frame from the violent way I opened it– but I didn't even realize it, being too eager to know what's on the other side. What are the humans of this world like? What other races exist other than humans? I had to get to the bottom of it, just who and what were behind this door?

  There was nothing.

  The house was dusty and empty, plants growing out from the gaps in the wooden floor, it was its own ecosystem. Didn't I just hear voices of people coming from behind this door? I didn't spare any thought, instead I went looking for other houses to check. Panting and sweating, I ran around looking for another house to open. The houses were abundant, I could still hear the chattering and laughter from everywhere. The noises could be heard through the wooden walls: A child giggled somewhere to my right. A woman's voice followed, warm and ordinary. The low murmur of a man answering her and a small dog barking after what he said, as if agreeing with the man. Dishes clinked. Chairs scraped. I ran towards that house like a hungry hyena that caught the scent of meat.

  "There!" I exclaimed, kicking down the decorated wooden door.

  Nothing but silence. All that chattering– gone.

  I was greeted by the thick curtain of dust that hung in front of me. Just like the other house, the wooden planks on the floor were split, veins creeping in and out of the windows of the house that hadn't been touched for a long time.

  There was nothing.

  No Family.

  No Pet.

  Not a sight of life other than those green things that I've already had enough of.

  I just stood there. Not long after, the sound of chattering erupted again from somewhere behind me, and I ran for it without giving it a second thought.

  This time, it was louder and more cheerful. A crowd this time. Conversation, laughter and the hum of a gathering. The sound led me to a big wooden structure nearby- it was a salon.

  The noise is coming from inside this building! Finally! I thought, as I threw the doors open to find a hall that stretched wide. Benches were overturned and the ceiling had a gaping hole through which sunlight shone, spotlighting decades of neglect, and spotlighting the harsh truth that no life resides here.

  Laughter echoed again. This time, it was my own laughter. I finally understood. The entire time I had been here, I couldn't see a single living thing on the streets, the houses were abandoned, even the road that led me here was abandoned. It was obvious from the beginning. How delusional of me, so delusional in fact, that my own mind started making up false sensory information. I was hallucinating those voices.

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  The truth was hard to accept, but I was glad that I came to find it instead of choosing to delude myself. I muffled my own laughter, even though me laughing or not laughing wouldn't change anything, I felt that I would truly lose something important if I continued laughing.

  I stumbled backward out of the building, there really was nothing left in this place. The streets were empty, the windows were hollow and the broken doors sagged open, barely hanging onto their doorframe.

  My chest burned as my thoughts untangled. My legs gave out, dropping on wet mud and grass. I tilted my head back and looked at the clear morning sky.

  The sky… weirdly soothing to look at. Was it always this beautiful?

  Tug!

  My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of something woody hitting the ground. I turned around to see that the source of that sound came from the falling of a hollow wooden barrel, and that something was behind.

  …A rabbit? I asked myself with a tilted head. I pulled a barbarian dagger out of my bag. Nothing personal, I'm running out of food anyway I lied to myself. I just wanted to vent my anger with violence.

  I lifted the empty barrel not to find a rabbit, but a small ball of light– the one that had been following me around. It backed into the corner of the barrel out of fear. I had no grudge against that little creature so I decided to let it go. There was nothing I could do with it anyway.

  "Sigh. What do you want, little thing?" I asked rhetorically.

  The idea that this thing could be some kind of a magic tracker had crossed my mind several times, but after watching it push itself against the walls of the barrel out of fear, There was no way that thing could be a magic spell. I kept my dagger bag in the bag.

  After letting out another loud sigh, I thought What am I going to accomplish by killing my only companion in this long journey? Besides, I don't think a ball of light would even taste good(?)-- though I was tempted to see for myself what a ball of light would taste like.

  The little creature suddenly jumped out of the barrel and took off towards the west at a great speed. Its speed caught me off-guard, I didn't know it could travel that fast. I looked at the direction in which it was heading and spotted a patch where the trees stood close together. It was the only place in the entire plain where the land wasn't breathing wide and open– as far as I could see at least.

  Looks like I might be able to find some fruits and herbs over there, and even water if I'm lucky.

  And so I headed west, following the creature that I could only describe as 'a small ball of light'. I should give him a name already.

  ***

  Not far from the abandoned village, a group of three rugged and devious looking men took cover behind a convex curve of the grassy plain. From the look of them, they were obviously just a bunch of lowly bandits.

  "Boss, why are we even waiting right now!?" a bandit cried. "How can we let such a precious opportunity escape, to think a barbarian itself would walk out of its own domain like this– we can't waste another second, Boss!"

  The bandit trio referred to the wandering barbarian as 'it' as they didn't perceive him as anything more than something that could be sold for profit– but 'it' was also something that held more value than anything on the planet: a prepubescent barbarian.

  "I'm still suspicious about this one, boss!" another bandit said. "Why would a barbarian cross the Dead Green Jungle's border? No such thing has ever happened before, not to mention that many rumors say that barbarians have chestnut colored hair– this one has black hair."

  "You believe in that rumor!?" the first bandit replied. "Boss, don't listen to that guy, he's making decisions based on a rumor!"

  "Keep quiet!" the head of the bandit trio shouted. "Barbarian or not, we're still going to catch that one– better safe than sorry. Besides, I know for a fact that those clothes are barbarian clothes, and even if he ain't a barbarian, I'm still gonna profit from selling barbarian clothes 'n all that."

  "But, Boss, what do we do if that barbarian has passed puberty? We'll need at least a hundred men or so if we want to catch a young adult barbarian."

  The bandits were concerned about the age of the barbarian they were following because it's a verified fact to the people of shady businesses that barbarians grow exponentially stronger after puberty.

  "I heard from Aldoso that tattoos are the sign of an adult barbarian. Aldoso took part in the barbarian smuggling project four years ago, that's enough for me to believe in what he says" the bandit leader said. "I don't see any tattoos on that one, so it must be prepubescent."

  The other two barbarians looked at each other with a disgustingly satisfied expression after getting to know that the barbarian they were tailing wouldn't be that difficult to deal with.

  Then they saw the wandering barbarian heading west from the village.

  Their boss continued. "We're gonna wait for him to stop by some place again, then we'll ambush him."

  They wanted to seize this miraculous opportunity as soon as possible, but they understood that it is because this opportunity is miraculous, they had to wait for the right moment.

  "Alright boys, we're going after that thing. Remember to capture it alive."