Aldrich's head shot up and violently hit the roof of the hollow log he was in. The impact rocked the log on the river.

'Shit!'

Aldrich looked around for a moment and became certain that not much time passed since he had initially fallen asleep. The sun had just risen.

From his past experiences he came to the conclusion that time stopped in the real world when he was in the nightmare realm or perhaps it slowed down significantly.

By all accounts, he spent several hours at the least in the nightmare realm. However despite everything for now this was only conjecture and had to be tested for clear answers.

He wanted to think more on this matter but his drowsiness overpowered him. He could only hope that he wouldn't be going back there anytime soon.

——————————————

Aldrich woke up and found himself, gratefully, still in the real world. But what surprised him this time was the time, the sun was about to set for the day.

He fell asleep at sunrise and awoke at sunset. If he was a bard he might've made a song about it. He had traveled on the river for such a long time he didn't even know where he was anymore.

Uleq was half a day's walk from Wakefield but he took the river, even if the river was slow on this day he still must've left Uleq in the dust.

Uleq was the farthest Aldrich had ever traveled and today he went even beyond that, all while asleep in a log.

Aldrich decided that he was far enough, it was probably safe to get off here. Aldrich took the chance when the river was partially calm and maneuvered the log to the river's shore.

Aldrich took the leather bag from the bottom of the log and crossed the rocks that lined the shore, he promptly rested his back on one of the trees behind.

His body ached as he stayed too long in that position in the log. Aldrich opened the leather bag and a fluffy green monkey popped out. Aldrich had forgotten about it.

The monkey started playing around and Aldrich stretched his body for a bit, before he started collecting dry wood for fire.

The sun set slowly giving Aldrich enough time to collect enough wood. Then he took out two flint stones from the bag and lit the fire easily. A soldier's bag had quite a few useful things.

For example abundant water and dried meat that could last him days. Most importantly it had twelve silver coins, more money than he had ever seen in his life.

His mother's debt was about fifteen silver and although Aldrich worked for years to pay it off, last time he checked he still had eight coins left to pay.

Of course the fact that his mother kept increasing the debt as he tried to pay it off was a factor in that. Well, it's not like he had to pay anything anymore to Tomard, he was dead with all the rest of them.

He noticed that the monkey was trying to attract his attention. It was waving its hand.

'Ah, right Krynt gave it a letter or something to deliver, well I guess this is far enough.'

Aldrich waved to the monkey and watch as it unfurled its white wings and flew into the air.

'So lucky, if only I could fly too'

Aldrich ate his food in silence and warmed himself by the fire. Then he thought about what happened in the nightmare realm especially the last bit. It was so mysterious.

Suddenly the same chart appeared before him, it was almost transparent but not quite. Aldrich looked away and noticed that it followed his eyes accurately. There was a change in the chart.

Name: Aldrich

Age: 15.5

Strength: 2

Agility: 1

Endurance: 1

Vitality: 1

Intelligence: 1

Spirit (black): 2

Essence: 0

Abilities: eyes of insight Lv.1

Condition: blood of ######

His strength changed from one to two and his essence turned from four to zero. Curious. Ah, there was also that ability that he didn't pay much attention to last time. He sank into deep thought as he looked at the panel.

Aldrich tried to piece the events like a puzzle not everything fit perfectly but at least he had a decent guess.

The essence orbs were the red orbs that he absorbed from the corpses of of the slayed monster after he came into physical contact with them.

The last time when he had four essence orbs there was plus sings after all the attributes other than spirit but after strength increased to two the essence changed to zero meaning that essence was like money, with it he could increase his attributes.

To increase the attribute from one to two he needed four essence orbs. Meaning he needed to kill two more monsters, he decided to call these monsters Husks.

And to increase it to two or three, he wasn't sure.

The husks weren't undead as far as he guessed. The undead weren't interested in human flesh or any flesh at all for that matter. The undead had no such concern but the husk was clearly the opposite of that.

The ability... the eyes of insight. When he thought of it he remembered crushing that stone that the old madman gave him before he passed out for the hundredth time in one day.

Aldrich had a conjecture he thought that the reason he could see this panel was related if not directly caused by this ability.

The spirit... Harvick said that the reason the crest will appear later on is because his spirit was still growing. What if he used essence to increase his spirit like he did with strength wouldn't that mean that he could become a Crestmaster faster?

The condition, the blood of—

Abruptly, his line of thought was cut off by the hit he got at the back of the head. By all rights the hit should have knocked him out, but it didn't.

'Fuck, I was too focused on-'

Before he could complete his thoughts a second and a third strikes landed on his head and his last thought before losing consciousness was:

'Fuck I'm tired of passing out!'

————————————

"Oh, horseshit!" Aldrich hissed angrily as he got up. He was back in the nightmare realm because why the fuck not?

'I swear in the name of the almighty god, I will kill whoever knocked me out'

Aldrich was fuming at his attacker and at himself too for letting his guard down in a wild and unknown place. He had a great many things on his mind but that was a poor excuse.

Aldrich looked around the huge house and found some dirty rags to cloth himself at least until he found something decent.

Aldrich slapped himself out of his pathetic regrets now that he came here again he had a purpose. Different from any other time he was here.

He had a plan, if he needed essence to increase his attributes then he will hunt the monsters here and make himself stronger faster. Isger only had two years left.

Aldrich remembered that one more room remained here uncleared, he wanted clear it now. The problem with the last room is also why Aldrich left it for last.

In the rooms before each had only one husk in there, however the moaning noises coming out of the last room told him a different story. There was more than one husk in there.historical

How many? The only way to be sure is to open the door and see for himself. And he was going to do exactly that.

Aldrich picked up his weapons, the short rusted sword he got from the first husk and the meat hammer and the bone cleaver. He also got a short sword from the second husk that he brought downstairs and kept close by.

Aldrich climbed the stairs and then he came about three corps two husks and one human. Aldrich to make use of them again, it worked last time so why not.

This time he placed them in different but strategic locations along the hallway. To make use of the husks clumsiness. He also prepared another plan.

As he held the iron rod that imprisoned the husks in the last room he prepared himself mentally and after a deep breath he pulled the iron rod but not completely, he looked inside.

The closest husk to the door lunged at him like a beast, Aldrich ducked and payed no heed to the husk that missed him by a hair's breath. Another one came running after the first.

Aldrich hurriedly returned the iron rod back in place. Two were more than he bargained for but he still had a plan for such a mistake.

Aldrich was in time to block the slash aimed at his neck, he barely managed to block the second and third attack.

'Indeed the difference in swordsmanship still matters, anyway I'm not here to duel you, monster'

Aldrich tackled the husk into the open door of one of the rooms to the right. Without giving the husk time to collect itself he sealed this room too.

Aldrich fell back in retreat as he dodged the corpses that he spread on the floor. The husk that first lunged at him followed Aldrich closely and stumbled but didn't fall.

But that was fine that was more than enough for Aldrich as he aimed for that moment and struck the husk's leg causing it to fall on the ground.

Aldrich then impaled the husk to the floor with his sword and went to work on that skull.

Aldrich didn't rest for long as he opened the door of the room. The husk was actually walking about the room. He reckoned the husk must be pleased to have a whole room to itself after sharing a room with many others for who-knows how long.

Aldrich was here to kill and took his chance to ambush the husk and stabbed his sword through the stomach of the husk and ran the sword upward until his sword got stuck in a bone and wouldn't budge.

Fortunately the husk was already dead. Aldrich happily collecting four red orbs for his efforts.

But he wasn't done yet there was still two more to go. And one of them looked like trouble.