“Go home to your village and stop stalking me. I’ve told you twenty times already; I’m not gay, sorry… Also, I might have a girlfriend? Well, maybe not, I don’t fucking know; ugh, I’ve never been in a situation like this before!” Michael was going around to the different stores and buying necessities, such as: Spices, soaps, dried tea-leaves, rice, pasta, and even an acoustic guitar. He was amazed to discover how cheap everything was, and was able to buy everything for only two gold coins.

Gabriel had been following him the entire time and complained “You keep telling me to go away, and then you start ranting about your relationship problems… Besides that, I never said I was interested in you! Wait, before that, I’m married! I have three children and one of them is probably forty years older than you!”

Hearing that, Michael started laughing hysterically and asked “Did you adopt them? Or did you guys use surrogates? Actually, do Elves reproduce sexually, or can they just like… I don’t know, condense mana into an egg and create babies that way?”

The High-Elf sighed and muttered “Goddess, why do I need to put up with this jerk?” while gazing up at the darkening sky.

As the two of them were walking along the main-street, Michael snickered and said “So that’s how it is, huh? Let me guess… You received some kinda ‘divine’ oracle and were told to come here and find me, right? Hehe~, I wonder if they told you to look for me specifically, or if it was a bit more vague?”

Gabriel glared at him with his bright-green eyes and asked “You… How did you know that? Has Aeris spoken to you as well?” He had been given a Quest to investigate the Temple of Asura, and search for an ‘Immortal’ Human, but he had received it several days before his target had even entered ‘Raphael’s Jungle.’

Michael sighed and replied “I played Checkers with Arcana last night, but I’ve never spoken with any of the other ‘Goddesses’ before. Hmmm~, I wonder if this means that Windy is trying to recruit me? Well, I still haven’t decided what my next Affinity will be… Anyway, if it’s for a quest, then I can kinda understand your dilemma. I’m going ‘home’ now, so if you wanna tag along, then go ahead.”

There was a huge difference between insulting a person’s sexuality and disrespecting their religion. The High-Elf couldn’t help but cringe as he heard his own Goddess being addressed in such a way, but given that he had never once, in the three hundred years of his life, been forced to kill another humanoid… he somehow managed to restrain his anger.

As the two of them left the town’s gates, they began to somewhat silently tread southward. Eventually they managed to escape the chaotic noises of the Temple of Asura and only the sounds of animals and distant thunder could be heard.

At that time, Gabriel pulled out a small, animal-bone flute from the satchel on his left hip and started playing. It was an unfamiliar song to Michael, but not very complicated either, so he unconsciously began singing a harmony: no words, simply notes.

However, within moments, the two of them were surrounded by a dozen elves, whom were all wearing similar attire to the Marksman. All of the bowmen and women were aiming their weapons at the suspicious Human, as Gabriel immediately stopped playing the flute.

Michael sighed loudly, then made a horrible whistling noise, which was infused with mana, and nearly deafened most of the archers. Obviously, he was unable to kill all of the nearly level-twenty and rank-F or higher enemies, so to avoid capture… Several of the startled rangers accidentally loosed their arrows, and a series of numbers popped up above his head: ‘-17,’ ‘-30,’ ‘-26,’ ‘-12.’

The instant his chest was riddled with arrows, the relatively short Human’s health had been reduced to zero. Gabriel shouted “Why did you do that?!” both to the corpse that was laying next to him, and the four ‘rookie’ Marksmen, whom had each just killed a person for the first time.

Suddenly a familiar voice appeared in the High-Elf’s mind: “Hehehe~, ya know, you coulda just invited me to go with you somewhere… but oh well, shit happens. Anyway~, I’ve got things to do. I’m serious though; go back to your village, because if you stay near me or that town, you’re gonna wind up getting yourself killed. If Aeris wants me to go visit you guys, she’ll give me a Quest sooner or later. Hasta luego~.”

As the invisible pitch-black wisp soared towards the south, Gabriel grimaced and reprimanded “The Grand-Matriarch commanded us to capture, not kill! Why were any of you even pointing your weapons at him in the first place?! He wasn’t even level-ten! Grrr~, now that it’s come to this, Talia! You fired one of those arrows, so it’s your turn next… I trust that you should be able to use, any means necessary, to capture him.”

The moment that she heard that, the two-meter tall, incredibly lithe, elven girl trembled and hesitantly replied “I don’t understand Father, isn’t he already dead?” She had large green eyes, and blonde-hair that was pulled back into a ponytail.

He sighed and answered “Of course not! He’s immortal, so obviously he can’t be killed! He kept warning me to stay away from the Temple of Asura, so it’s likely that he’s planning on returning there. I need you to enter the town; I’ll send you a ‘Wind-Whisper’ when he enters the gates. If you’re unable to ‘convince’ him to come with us willingly, then we’ll capture him as he leaves.”
Nearly a mile to the south of them, a tiger-fur wearing man materialized in front of a two-story log-cabin. Michael snickered and muttered “Finally… it took an entire day of gambling, but I’ve finally earned enough gold to buy my first house! Actually, now that I think about it, wasn’t that way too easy? Well, whatever; yes, I would like to purchase this property!”

The moment that he touched the silver doorknob, it suddenly unlocked and five-hundred gold was removed from his currency-tab. Then the whole ground began rumbling underneath his feet, as the entire building instantly vanished, leaving an empty plot of land behind.

A message popped-up: “You have acquired a Rank-G Player-Home. Please find a suitable location to place your house. The Player-Home can only be moved once every week, and all items, furniture and NPCs inside, can be stored along with it. Cost to upgrade: Two-thousand gold coins and one-hundred Level-10 or higher, Rank-F mana-cores.”

Michael snickered as he started walking towards the west, muttering “I really hope there won’t be any bills…” Perhaps if he decided to place it in a city or town, that might have been the case, but the Goddesses weren’t so petty that they would demand a property tax from him.

After arriving at the base of the waterfall, he looked around at the winding river and searched for a space of relatively flat land. Unfortunately, there was only a few meters of stones and boulders between the lush jungle, and the raging rapids.

However, when he gazed at the top of the orangish-brown, eighty-meter high, sheer-cliff, Michael muttered “This definitely won’t end well.” In his original world, he was deathly afraid of heights, but it wasn’t a phobia; he simply didn’t want to fall to his death.

When free-climbing the cliff, he didn’t actually feel any fear at all. In fact, compared to fighting for his life against a gigantic white-tiger or running from hordes of undead, he didn’t even have an adrenaline rush.

With six Strength and seven Agility, he was able to scale the side of the waterfall in under ten minutes. When he made it to the top, he noticed that there was a huge area of flat-land on each side of the twenty-meter wide river.

There was even an orchard of apple, orange, pomegranate, and avocado trees on the opposite side of the river from him. He could see another cliff, less than three hundred meters away and there were a decent amount of relatively large cave-mouths.

Michael glanced around and without investigating further, he impatiently activated the ‘Place House’ feature. Suddenly watching a top-down view of the whole area, he could see an illusory version of the twenty by fifteen meter, two-story log-cabin.

As he moved the building subconsciously, it changed from red to green depending on if the ground was stable, or there was enough room. He quickly chose a spot that was thirty meters from the cliff and ten from the riverbank, then decided to have the ‘front’ of the house facing the the east, or towards the cliff.

There was a loud rumbling as a huge structure materialized in less than three seconds. The roofing was black and slanted at various steep angles, with several windows on the sides, and both the front and back had a small balcony on the second floor.

He couldn’t help but smirk as he gazed upon the first ‘real’ house that he had ever bought in his entire life. It wasn’t the largest or the nicest place that he had ever lived in, but for three people and a fox, it was a little overkill.

When he walked over to the door and opened it, he wasn’t even slightly surprised to find a completely empty room. There were no lights, so he needed to use his wisp-form to see properly.

Next!