My life on the grassy plains had kicked off, and my first task was to work out my list of priorities. I knew that at the top of that list were securing water and food, and finding a place to live. No matter what I planned to do from here on out, the first order of business was to survive.
There was only one way to do that: find fresh water, find a source of food, and then find a suitable place to live, like...a cave, or the shade of a tree or something.
In any case, with my immediate goals set, I picked a direction and took off walking. It seemed that luck was on my side, because it wasn’t long before I found a stream. It was so clear and clean that I could see straight through to the riverbed. I was so happy that I couldn’t stifle a cry of joy. After years of drinking muddy water in the midst of battle, clean water was, in and of itself, something to be grateful for.
Clean water also usually meant wildlife, so I was hopeful that I might have found a source of food too. I drank some of the water and stared into the stream. I was looking for a fish or something I might be able to eat, but unfortunately, I came up empty.
I knew I could have just hung around and kept looking for wildlife to hunt, but I decided that securing a place to live was just as important, so once again I was off.
I wanted somewhere I could sleep, perhaps not too far from edible plants. To that end, I walked and walked and...well, I just kept walking. I trudged on for a good long time, all over the place, using my own footsteps in the crushed grass as markers so I didn’t get lost.
I walked and I walked, and I came to understand something on a very deep level.
My domain was nothing but grass.
No matter where I walked, grassy plains stretched out as far as the eye could see. In every direction, I saw grass, grass, and more grass. I knew that hoping for a cave of some sort was always going to come down to a matter of luck, but I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t even a single tree around. With trees, you could make houses, and even when you couldn’t build a whole house, you could at least make yourself a cover from the rain.
Before I knew it, it was already late afternoon. Since I didn’t have anywhere else to go, I headed back to the river. Once there, I drank my fill of water to replenish myself after all the walking, then sat down to rest and stared out at the grass rustling in the breeze.
The more I stared at the grass, the more I became aware of the sheer amount of it. I couldn’t help wondering if it would come in handy for something. As an experiment, I tore some of it from the ground and ate it.
Yep, tastes awful.
The grass went up to about my knees, and it was so soft that it was easy to tear up—certainly too fragile for making handicrafts. I let out a long, deep sigh.
All I’ve got is an ocean of useless grass that I don’t even know what to do with.
I sat there so long that the sun set and darkness began to envelop the plains. It got so dark I could barely see a few steps in front of me, which meant that any further exploration was out of the question. I took off my armor—it was too clunky to sleep in—threw it by my side, and lay down on the grass.
Tomorrow I’d get back to my plan of action, but for now, I decided to sleep. I didn’t know what I’d be doing when the sun came up, but I’d do the best I could, and if the situation didn’t get any brighter, then I’d have to consider fleeing the domain. I’d probably make a lot of people mad, but I wasn’t going to just die out here to keep those people happy.
Okay, two more days. I’ll stick with it for two more days. If I can’t find anything out here by then, I’ll follow the carriage tracks back to the nearest village and look for some kind of work that’s useful to people.
Thinking about it like that made me feel better about the whole thing. At least I’d still be living up to my parents’ words. My heart felt lighter, and my eyelids grew heavier. I shifted on the grass a few times to get comfortable and then, wrapped in the scent of the plains, I drifted off to the land of dreams.
I felt like I heard a voice. It was saying the same thing over and over again, like a shrill ringing by my side. A part of me wondered if whoever was talking was trying to tell me something.
Wake up!
Who are you?
The voice was loud. At first I couldn’t stop thinking about how annoyingly loud it was, but then I thought about the words themselves, and...my still-slumbering brain realized that someone was actually telling me to wake up.
I could tell it was morning by the feel of the sunlight against my eyelids. I guessed that the voice was telling me to wake up because it was already morning, but I was still sleepy, and I didn’t really want to get up. I turned away and settled myself in for another journey to the land of dreams.
But just as I was wondering what kind of dream I would have as I drifted away, I felt a shock through my back. It was like someone had kicked me. The impact ran through my body with a jolt, and it hit me so hard that I leaped to my feet.
Startled, I spun around, ready to swing at the person who had kicked me. I tried to wake myself up as I searched for the culprit through my hazy vision. As the world came into focus, I found them and started to take in exactly who they were. However, I was so surprised by the sight of them that I couldn’t say a word.