In the eyes of Infinity

by ZathromX

(This is not a minecraft fanfic, this is an original fic, that I as a writer want to give back to the site after a long time for helping me start out my days as a writer. The story utilizes many other genres than the two listed. VR and litrpg included, so if u don't like them, u don't need to read them. To those who are interested, please enjoy.)

5. Chapter 5

UPDATE 5: The City

We had just stepped out of the forest and were continually walking towards the village Alice mentioned. To tell you it wasn't only us going to the City there were many carriages that could be seen going in and out of the village to who knows where as well as people. They all wore different clothing, some dressed like knights others like warriors and ones with robes and they were heading to the forest that we had just come out off.

After we had cleared the distance of the pasture, we approached a wall almost similar to cement, with a large wooden door opened at the mouth of the entrance. It looked like it can defend against large scale attacks. To be specific on its durability, if someone had a catapult it won't go down with firing a few shots. On the top of the wall a few guards patrolling it from the other side looking down at us as well as in front of the gate.

We arrived at the city quite faster than I thought. Well, I'm not sure since I don't have a watch right now, I wonder if I can find one though... Well let's put that aside for later. We then approached the wall's gates, at the top of the gate's entrance there was a sign with strange symbols on it.

Wait, what are those characters? Well as I suspected the language was of course different, in the game's lore it mentioned that each race had its own language, though it was never actually seen. I guess I'm going to have to learn a new language now that I'm here.

Wait if that's the case then...how exactly am I speaking with them if I don't know the language?

I was thinking the soldiers to be cautious, but their expression changed when they saw Alice and Terra.

The soldiers wore a simple attire, a full set of metal armor, others with pieces of leather armor wielding a broad sword or spear with a shield or a bow fit for their stature. They wore welcoming expressions and smiles towards Alice and Terra to me however it was more of questionable, suspicious or just puzzled in general. Probably because of the blood and tears on my clothes.

Then one of the men came from the front gate to greet us. Wielding a sword and a buckler on his side, he was a young man probably in his early 20's with green eyes and with brown hair. He was wearing some brown looking padding on his body from the top down except his head. He had a delighted and a kind of happy go lucky expression on his face.

"Alice, Terra. Nice to see you."

Alice and Terra responded in kind tones, it seems they are acquainted to this person.

"You too Sam."

"Hi."

The man then turned to me. He became bug-eyed upon looking at the state of my clothing and gave a his response in a frightened tone.

"Whoa! What happened to you? You got blood everywhere!"

Why are you overreacting? My HP was already at full, the scratches and wounds had already made blood clots that stopped the bleeding. I'm a bit blue in some areas, but it should come of after sometime.

"Uh. Yeah, I had a bit of trouble catching a meal."

He then saw the brown boar hide I was carrying and expressed relief. He went close to Alice and placed his hand at the side of his face before whispering.

"Oh I see. Alice who's this?"

Hey you know I can still hear you even if you do that right?

Alice calmly answered him

"His name is Zach. We found him in the woods not long ago. He wanted to know where he can find a village so we took him here."

"Ah, so that's how it is."

He then directed his voice to me.

"Are you an adventurer? By any chance Zach?"

Adventurer? In some games players are dubbed adventurer when they spawn or is a job that must be applied to be one like how any job would be. Adventurers are what the name means people who go on adventures, what that adventure may be differs for everyone. From my knowledge they are people who are hired by the guild to do quests and help others if ever, in some sources they name them as lawless bound to nothing and do what they want from the get go.

In Infinitus Online, everyone would just do what they wants and plays the game as an RPG as anyone else would. We were never called adventurers nor has the name ever appeared in it before. We were just regular people who fought against monsters and the NPC's would call us by the name we tell them or if the system has something already planned out, say whatever the system programmed them say, so this is something I am unknown to. I want to gain the trust of these people if ever and I sure as hell don't want to make people get the wrong idea so I should just tell the truth.

"No, I'm not. I'm just your regular guy."

His eyes looked at me just like the way Alice looked at me at our first meeting moments ago. He responded in a way that I was totally unprepared for.

"What? A regular guy without any combat training isn't someone who can kill a boar and get away with so much as those wounds."

Everyone at the gate looked at me with a suspicious look and even Alice and Terra looked at me with questionable expressions. Cold sweat began to pour down from my own nervousness.

Shit... I forgot. Four years of VR has really trained me in combat, though I never showed it in real life because I don't have my stats in the game or the skills I had and the fact that my lack of self confidence in my untrained body could have gotten me beat up even more by the bullies at school than prevent them so I didn't. But in here, that's a different story. I didn't think he'd counter with that though...what the hell am I going to do now.

I still have the flint knife, it's in my pocket. Though I don't think me attacking would do a thing and would only end with me dead. Great, first day and I already messed up with getting the trust of people. Well if anything goes down I'm making a hasty retreat as fast as possible, but first let's try and clear things up.

I was about to start talking to him, but then he gave of a merry laugh.

"Haha! You should have seen the look on your face!"

I was unsure of what to do, I stared at him with complete and honest question marks over my head saying "Why is he laughing all of a sudden?" After a few seconds of laughing over my worried expression.

I looked over to Alice and Terra, it didn't seem like they were unknown to his behavior and kept most of their composure. I looked over the guards behind him with hands over their faces and others sighing as if they have seen this before.

When he stopped and gave me an honest smile to dismiss my thoughts of worry.

"Sorry, about that. I was curious to see what kind of expression you'd make if I said that. From the look you just gave it tells me your not a bad guy judging from how you reacted when I asked.

I sighed in relief upon hearing his statement.

"It's fine, I understand. You are one of the guards after all."

"I'm Sam by the way. Your name was Zach right? It's nice to meet you, welcome to Lorin City."

So this village is called Nara, I'll make it a point to ask sometime to learn how the language is read.

"Yeah. Same here."

"Well since you're new I'll take you on a tour of of Lorin City!"

Upon him saying one of the guards from behind shouted as well as others with frustrated and agitated looks.

"SAM NO SLACKING!"

Sam responded with a cheerful and mischievous tone of response with a smile on his face.

"It'll only take a few minutes I'll be back before you know it!"

Alice gave Sam a look as if she has seen this before.

"How many times is it now Sam? Your hundredth?"

"Hey I'm not getting caught this time. ninety-sixth for your information."

Alice sighed then gave of a smile.

"Ok, Take us on one of your famous tours then."

"Alright then follow me!"

Yeah, I was right. This guy really is a happy go lucky kind of person. Oh well. He doesn't seem like the kind of guy I should be wary about, and what he said a while ago was just his job so I don't think he'll cause me any trouble, plus he's giving me a free tour of the village.

"The first stop is the residential area. This is only one part of the large space dedicated to the townspeople living here, here there are different houses that you can either rent or buy and also different specialty shops. You could probably find an inn somewhere around here to stay the night."

"Thanks."

Well, not that it would matter. I don't actually sleep in inns to be honest. After I raised enough building skills like carpentry, I leave my inn and make a settlement near a place I can maximize farming for drops and grinding. I didn't want to waste money on inns since there was practically no use when you have house of your own, sure it gets attack by whatever there was in the area, but what point of this being a survival MMORPG if there is no survival?

The streets were buzzing with all sorts of chatter. Children playing on the streets, horse drawn carriages carrying bags going down the middle of the street, youth's happily walking side by side with their partners and all of the sort. Practically everyone was living their everyday lives here.

Nothing too out of the ordinary, seems like a regular street to me wherever there is a village, though this seems a bit more busy and populated from most of the ones I've seen when this was a game.

We followed Sam through the gate to give me a tour, as we walked through the streets people were casually greeting and saying "Hi" to Alice and Terra.

"Hi, Alice!" said a passerby

"Hello" she replied back in a smile

"G'mornin Terra" said another passerby.

"Good morning" she replied back

"Terra come play with us!" One of the children on the street called out.

"Maybe another time, I need to go somewhere now." Terra replied back.

"Hello Alice, beautiful as always. How has it been?" A woman on the street greeted.

"Oh, everything is fine thank you." Alice replied back with a kind smile.

A few more "Hi's and Hello's coming from almost everyone who past by us. They seem to really trust her to be able to talk to them like that, same for Alice and Terra, though I don't think they know Terra's a Gnome.

"They really seem to know you."

"We try to act normal around here so that we wouldn't be suspected. Due to some circumstances we were able to make some connections here, also the people here are quite favorable. Everyone is nice once you get to know them, we have have a safe place to relax and Terra gets to be a kid."

"I am not a kid! I just like playing with them every once in awhile..."

Alice giggled at Terra's flustered expression.

"Fufufu..."

Terra began to slightly blush and showed an annoyed expression.

"Muu...Stop laughing at me!"

I quietly watched from the sidelines as Terra and Alice talked.

Terra really does uphold that little sister type, Alice is a dependable and smart person, I wonder who else is with them. Though I probably shouldn't ask that up front. Well it's a good thing they have a safe place for them to settle down and blow of steam.

We continued to chat along the way, then something caught my attention in front of us.

I was then hearing the loud noises headed in the direction we're going to, it seems to that there is a lot of people there. We approached an arched like entrance and on the other side were stands and too many people to count walking through the street.

"Here is the market place, where you can trade and sell your items. There are stalls and shops that sell things like food to stalls that sell high grade potions. You could find almost anything here, you can also find some rare products here, but I sure you everything is of decent quality."

I looked around me, there were signs everywhere on each of the stands and stalls with similar looking symbols not native to the ones back on the old world, well not any that I have seen. If this is the language humans speak then what about the other races? I'm really going to make some life changes to adapt to this world.

I should probably ask if there's a school where I can borrow some books from so I can learn the language in my spare time.

"There's so much people here just in this one marketplace"

"Believe it or not this is the only city in the vast region of Korath so it's only typical that people will come here to trade."

Well this is a city after all.

Wait he said region then that means that this is a country, I'll probably need to look into this another time if I'm going to go anywhere. Other than that it seems the state of civilization in this world is close to the middle ages, however they do have their own advancements mostly to do with magic, machinery, and alchemy especially in this sort of world which make them much more advanced, but still far from 20th century technology.

I can probably sell this boar hide if I find a leather working stand right? Or probably any other stand for that matter. If anyone of them buys it. I should probably think about asking some of the people to teach me some skills while I'm here, hopefully they'll accept.

There were all sorts of people going through the streets from simple vendors selling vegetables to men clad in metal armor assumingly adventurers buying potions and unknown materials. This market is booming with business, I don't think I'll have any problems financially, once I start selling stuff that is...

As we pass by different stalls I saw one giving what looked to be coins in my eyes, so that hit me with a question. Since everything is new did they change the system of currency as well? I was about to ask until an idea came to my mind and I immediately held back my tongue.

"Um, Sam-"

"Yeah, Zach?"

I can't just be asking about stuff like this out in the open it would make me look suspicious if I didn't know. What would people think if an eighteen year old man didn't know about a probably world wide known currency. Also, I can't just be announcing to people "Hey, I'm from a different world so can you please enlighten me-" No! of course no one would believe me. I gotta think of a believable story for him to buy.

Sam looked at me with a question mark over his head.

"What's wrong Zach you look as if you're in deep thought."

"Ah, sorry. I wanted to tell you that I don't know much about what has been going on in this world from the time I was born since I was raised in a secluded village away from society. The Chiefs and elders always say that I shouldn't make any interaction to anything outside our village, it was an ancient tradition that may bring suffering to our people."

Upon hearing this Alice, Terra and Sam gave me a surprised look.

"Then why are you out here?"

"I wanted to see what it was like outside of the village, can't be as bad as what they said right? So I escaped recently and have been on a journey ever since."

Sam gave me a peculiar look while analyzing my story for a few seconds before giving a response. I tried to keep myself from acting strangely as so that they would buy my story.

Crap... Please buy it...

"Ok, I understand. Ask me anything you want to know."

Phew. Almost thought I was going to break for a second there, didn't think it would have worked, but I guess I lucked out. I swear if he asked how I know how to speak the human language if my village was secluded I would have been done for.

"If that's the case then I might as well give a lecture on the way."

"Thank you for your consideration. By the way, um what year is it?"

"Oh c'mon? Even if you are from a far away village you guys have to at least know the year."

"We don't!"

"If I'm correct it's 25920 AAW."

25920?! Well I mean, I shouldn't be surprised by this, it's a fantasy world after all. Well at least I know, but since that is the year, why does human civilization look like it's in the middle ages? Besides the whole fantasy aspect, they should be more technologically advanced than modern day by now. It's a trivial matter, I'll just let it be I guess.

We continued to walk. Suddenly Alice's voice came to my ear.

"I've been through that kind of phase before, being curious of the outside."

Wha?! Alice? That shocked me for a moment. I regained my composure and calmly answered her.

"Really? What happened to you?"

"I grew up in one of the capital cities, my life was quite nice, I could have been one of those people not having a care in the world of what happened outside, but that wasn't what happened. They always preached that there was only danger on the outside and that I would be safe inside the walls, but I knew that wasn't true. One day I decided to go on an adventure and left the city. There were some ups and downs and after some time it landed me here. In the end it all worked out."

She then gently rubbed Terra's head, Terra reacted by giving of a kind smile.

"I see. That's good."

I do think that she's telling the truth, but that's is not the whole story is it? I can feel a touch of sadness and regret, but behind it a strong determination to do something. I don't know what it is, but I not going to force out something she's not comfortable with sharing, guess I'm not the only one who's been through a rough time through life, she probably has it worse.

Wait... since when did NPC's have feelings? I've heard of Astral, VR companies and even the most advanced science divisions researching for self-aware AI to be used for our daily lives and could probably result into a fully connected world. However, I or anybody else have never heard or seen any progress that has been made concerning this project in the last few years.

So did they finally figure it out or what? I'll have to think about this another time though, right now I've got a little history to learn.

"Alright so what do you want to know?"

"What is the current currency this world is using?"

"The standard currency of Tellus are by three types of coin pieces. Copper, Silver and Gold, Copper being the lowest form and Gold being the highest. One silver coin is equivalent to a hundred copper pieces same goes for gold pieces. That's it."

Ah, the standard RPG currency I see. This is the most common form of currency that almost every MMORPG inherits on its own, there have been some that have tweaked it to form some originality, but this was its origin.

Wait he also mentioned something else, he called this world Tellus right? Again I've never heard of that before.

"Tellus?"

This time Alice spoke up and yet again she displayed her vast knowledge on the subject.

"Tellus is what we call our world, well this world. There are only four known realms that have been discovered. One is ours Tellus, the next is the Inferna. The best description to describe it, is Hell a chaotic world where Demons reign. Opposing it is the Heavenly Aether, a proclaimed paradise home to the Angels. And all together they make up our world Infinitus"

Well, their names are different, but the concept is still the same, Earth, Heaven and Hell. These were considered places of great danger when this was a game and should only be explored by high level players who had thorough experience of the game. Well mostly Hell, though even Heaven had its dangers, as a one of the high level players I've been through and back multiple times and have gotten much stronger since the first time I played, but the difficulty of fighting in either of the two realms was about a hundred times more harder than fighting on earth.

Also I don't know what basis of language their names come from, buts its not english, something close though. I still need to check if the lore is still the same as how I know it.

"Is that all?"

"To be honest I don't know a lot about either of the two ancient races, heck no one does entirely maybe in the capitals, but surely not here."

I turned to Sam and Terra for a short moment, and they shook their head implying they don't know much either.

"Though if anyone does know anything about them it would be the Ancient war."

"The Ancient War?"

I was prepared to be bombarded by a mountain of lore, but...

"But! That's a history lesson for another time! Let's not ruin the mood we have with something boring."

"It's not boring! I in fact find that lesson interesting when I first learned it. Though there isn't much information about it presented in schools even of the highest standard, it's intriguing to find out more about it."

"You're such a buzz kill to learning Sam, I assume you didn't get any good grades when you were in school."

"Ouch! I'm not that dumb! I at least passed"

They had a small argument and stopped after a short while.

"I-It's fine. I'm interested, though I think it would be better for me to learn about that some other time, right now I just want to get to know the city that I'm probably going to be staying in for a while."

"Yeah, that's true. Well there is a public library here anyway if you really wanted to know what it's about later on. I just want to say that it is not boring!"

Library huh? I should probably pay it a visit, once… I learn… how to speak their language… A silent sigh echoed in my head as I sat in dark room with a lonely light shining upon me.

It's going to be a while for me to visit...

"Anyway! Let's get a move on! Don't want to be wasting too much time around this!"

Moving on, we approached a uniquely built structure with much decor on it along with tons of people in and out, the noise was probably comparable to the marketplace.

"Here, we have a bank they will store all your items and money, all you need to do is make an account and have a license and you can withdraw your money where ever there is a bank, but items can only be stored at a specific bank."

So they have banks here too, maybe I should get a bank account while I'm here, it isn't good to be carrying too many assets. The only problem is that if the bank gets robbed. Believe me, I've seen enough banks get robbed and enough death squads released to stop them from doing anymore.

Even I would sometimes join the PK if it got personal, because keep in mind that it was an interactive system so not only were they stealing from the players, but from NPC's as well and would at some point if not taken care of would affect the economy of the game lessening the value of the currency piece by piece resulting in inflation. If this ever happened every player all over the server assemble to the size of an army of a few hundred. Once it reached a thousand resulting in total war for a few weeks, though I would stay out of it if these kinds of events ever happened. However this has mostly been avoided, thanks to the active community we would resolve it in just a matter of days or weeks. I just hope the same problem never gets too out of hand in this world.

He then brought us to a fairly large stone brick building with a good design to it. There was a sign with a sword and shield picture on it with the words barracks under it. At the entrance there were two men with full plated armor guarding the entrance to the building.

"Here we have the barracks this is where we train and stay as soldiers of course. You can come here if you have any problems or if you spot anything fishy going on in town."

"Soldiers? I thought you were just typical guards."

"Sam's Father, the Governor of this City is a retired knight captain, he trains the soldiers and the guards of this City. Sam has been training under him ever since. Once he passes his test in about a year from now he'll be a full fledged knight."

"That's right! My dream is to head to the capital once I become one, there I'll be able to protect others and do my father proud."

"Yeah, that's if you don't slack off during training and duty."

"Hey! Those times were weeks apart from each other and started about a few years ago!

The two idly chatted while me and Terra watched on the sidelines.

Dreams huh? Come to think of it... I don't have one. I've to be honest never thought about it. Well nevermind that, it doesn't matter now the only goal I have is to survive. Though are NPC's supposed to have this much of a conscience? I mean it could just be another form of dialogue the system auto generated, but are these really just NPC's...

I was in deep thought until a soft voice broke through...

"Zach, is there something wrong?"

It was Terra, she must've noticed.

"Ah, no it's fine. C'mon we should catch up a bit."

We continued to follow Sam and showed me two more building beside the barracks...

"Near it we have our doctor quarters and our weapon storage."

The doctor quarters mainly looked like a large clinic made with the same material as the barracks. Doesn't seem like there was a lot going on though judging from how there were few people going in and out. Thats a good sign. On the other side the weapon storage seemed to be positioned connecting to the barracks and basically looked like a small barn. Each of those two had two guards in full plated armor guarding their entrances, they seem like the mean business. That's another good sign though showing that this city in terms of security is quite adequate.

He then led me to another large building that had a simple but sturdy design. It seemed to be quite popular since there were a lot of people going in and out of the building. I can also hear the flow of water and large amounts of steam pumping out of it.

"This is the town's bath house. Everyone in the village uses this regularly on a daily basis. There is a small fee, but it's only a few copper also keep in mind that they close at eight o'clock sharp and open at five in the morning."

Ah, so this is the bath house. Hm... Well it accurately fits its name. I'll probably visit this later. Again I've never had an issue regarding smell before in this world so this is a first time for me to be doing this.

While I was thinking, he grabbed me by my arm and locked me in his elbow pressing me downwards

"But, you want to know what's the best part about this is?"

"What?"

"The women of course!"

He said ever so proudly.

"EH?!"

Upon him saying those words, I felt anger rushing through my whole body and honestly I wanted to punch him, but I struggled to restrained myself instead.

"You get to watch and see women bathe with their splendid figures and continually savor the view! To men this is one of the greatest steps to manhood!"

Jesus Christ... Of course being perverted is still a thing even in a new world how could I have forgotten. This kind of reminds me of my classmates back at my high school who try to peep at girls in the shower after gym class, practically every guy took the chance when they saw one. If one was caught they would be subjected to be interrogated by the girls and come out black and blue, though that never stopped them. I didn't do stuff like this because in my mind there wasn't any point to doing it in the first place and after the incident when I was young I never had any thoughts of it, plus they wouldn't even let me join them anyway.

I just continued to be the boring normal guy at school and the badass I felt I was in the VR world.

Also I didn't want to be called and looked at the same way people looked at garbage and to be honest whenever I would hear one person talk about porn or about how they are going to have sex with their girlfriends just annoys me completely since they only think about the body and nothing else.

Anyway back to reality...

I looked at him with a disappointed expression and said in an annoyed tone, though it seems like he didn't notice and continued to casually talk.

"You don't need to tell me this kind of stuff."

"Oh, so you understand as well. When the time is right I shall call upon you my comrade."

That is not what I meant you pervert! Why would I want to be your comrade in terms of this?!

"By the way, What's your preference?"

"Preference?"

"Breasts, Feet, Legs, Butts... That kind of preference."

Oh... no. You are really crossing the line. My strength stat may be low, but I'm not going to regret punching your face when it comes to stuff like this. I have to relax stay calm...

"Would you really believe I would tell you that kind of stuff easily?"

"Oh, c'mon just answer."

Persistent bastard. I've never really thought about it... but I guess I'll go with the norm. Just the typical breasts, but you don't see me staring at a girl's chest the second I see one.

"Breasts."

"Big or small?"

Grr... my fist is aching...

"Can't it be both?"

"Fair enough. I should introduce you to some of my friends they'd love to meet you, and I've got an eye for a few girls out there that you might have an interest. But I believe you've already met one of them."

Who's she? Oh...

"Alice?"

"Yeah have you seen Alice's chest?! Their huge! I'd love to watch her bathe if I can."

I took a small peek, and I guess I can agree on that, her bust is monstrous! Wait! Why am I thinking of stuff like this?!

Out of the blue breaking my train of thought Alice's came through.

"What did you two talk about just now?"

"N-Nothing!"

I can't explicitly say to a girl that I was talking about that kind of stuff! Even in this world where relationships matter, I mean what kind of person would they see in me if I said that. I'll damn myself to hell before I do!

I kept my mouth shut on the topic, but of course Sam being an idiot I expected he was, has no restraint over his actions...

"Oh we were just talking about brea-"

I immediately grabbed him and covered his mouth.

"Bread! We were talking about bread!

"Oh, Ok."

Alice and Terra gave us peculiar looks as to my response. Avoiding their gazes I went back to Sam.

"Thank you comrade. I didn't know the danger I placed myself in."

Shut up. Would you? I did it so I wouldn't be labelled the same perverted trash as you! I swear one of these days this guy is going to get beat up and punched in the face before he gets to manhood.

I let go of him with an agitated look. I wanted to hit him so bad... but hitting the son of a governor and knight captain isn't something I wanted to do on my first meeting so I let him go.

"Alright everyone let's get on with the tour! We have a few more shortstops to go!"

Still lively, it annoys me, but I'll leave it for now...

He showed me a bunch of other places as well, some I'm familiar with others not. Then we stopped in front of this big structure pretty much the size of a mansion. I turned to the sign with yet more symbols I couldn't comprehend. Above it was a picture of a sword and a staff crossed with one another.

END OF UPDATE