Armored tusk-rat defeated—3 experience awarded.

  I groaned as I slumped further down the wall I was leaning against. The animal, apparently called an armored tusk-rat, had snuck up on me by hiding in a pile of refuse as I walked past it. It had been significantly harder to kill than the dire rats, due mainly to its armored hide. My fists and kicks did little to its armor, but thankfully it was slow enough for me to eventually kill.

  I hadn’t received any cuts from the creature, but it had a long, flat tail that had gotten in a few good hits here and there, adding several nasty bruises to my already injured body.

  Before I had been so rudely ambushed, I had been carefully exploring the city. I was afraid of finding something more dangerous than the rats, so I had been moving quietly and scanning every street, building, and alley diligently as I traveled. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see through piles of broken wood and bricks, and the creature must have heard me as I passed.

  While exploring, I still hadn’t encountered another person in the vast metropolis. I was aiming for one of the taller buildings in the area, a large tenement that stretched five stories into the sky, when I passed the hiding place of the monster. I was hoping to get high enough that I could check the city for lights during the night, hopefully discovering if people still lived anywhere around here.

  I stood up, brushing myself off from the frantic fight with the armored tusk-rat, and then continued slowly toward the tenement as quietly as I could.

  I was starting to realize I had bitten off more than I could chew by coming to this world, and had passed up a number of ways I could have enhanced myself further before I left my old world, or at least given myself more advantages. Like heavier armor, for one, or possibly bringing actual weapons. Maybe taking longer to get used to my body, or practicing various routines and martial arts to make myself more coordinated.

  Such thoughts were difficult for me to focus on, though, because... I think part of me wasn't really planning to survive once I got here.

  Was that... normal? Why would I feel that way? Was I being reckless... on purpose? Had I even wanted to survive what I found on this world? Or had I assumed the teleportation would probably kill me in the first place, and I just... threw myself in anyway? Uncaring if I lived or died?

  I understood on an intellectual level what it meant to be depressed, and grieving, but to feel it myself made me deeply uncomfortable.

  And so, with no way to truly understand the implications of such things, my mind kept shifting away from the topic. Instead, I turned my focus once again on the the city around me, bringing an immediate sense of relief to my mind.

  The city itself was definitely Roman in origin. I had found several mosaics and writing in a mix of Greek and Latin that hinted at the Roman nature of the city. It was also very clear that the technology level of the city had never advanced beyond pseudo-medieval. There were no signs of electricity, railroads, cars, or the industrial revolution at all. The roads had ruts in them consistent with wheeled carts, and if the city wasn’t already covered with dirt and filth, it would be easy to imagine horses pulling the carts throughout the city, making messes everywhere they went.

  None of the buildings I had briefly searched had indoor plumbing, although many of the richer buildings had a central courtyard similar to the one I had fought the rats in. Most of them had wells or cisterns for water. The rich and the poor seemed intertwined in the city, richly adorned buildings and courtyard homes built next to apartment buildings or cheap wooden homes. The remnants of businesses, eateries, and other commercial enterprises were here and there throughout the city, seemingly placed without any sense of organization or planning.

  I approached the large tenement I had marked before because it was higher than almost everything else nearby. The front entrance was a large open archway with no doors. The archway led into a paved courtyard in the center of the tenement. The apartments stretched up all around me on each side of the courtyard. There wasn’t any sign of damage, other than the wear and tear of time. Behind me, two stairways on each side of the archway led upward through the middle of the building to the different floors above.

  I listened carefully but couldn’t hear anything moving around me, the eerie silence of the city extending inside this courtyard as well. The lack of birds or normal-sized scavengers was especially concerning in a city as large as this. Without humans, this place should be crawling with nature. The only thing that would keep them away was something equally dangerous—or more dangerous—that had stepped in and replaced the humans that once lived here.

  I carefully crept up the rickety stairs to the top floor of the tenement. There was very little light in the stairway; all the windows were closed and shuttered. My body was on edge, my reflexes firing every time my step caused a board to creak underneath me. Sweat was plastered to my forehead and my ears strained to hear anything that might be nearby.

  After an unknown amount of time, I finally reached the top of the tenement. The stairway opened out to a long hallway that ran the length of the building, turning to the right in the distance. On each side of the hallway were doors, most of them closed, but a few were broken or left open by whoever had left here so long ago. Very little light trickled into the hallway. I had no idea how normal humans could have seen in here, and I could only see thanks to my enhanced vision picking up the diffuse light coming through the occasional open apartment door.

  I paused and listened but still heard nothing nearby, so I walked slowly down the hallway. I looked in each of the open doorways, seeing ruined apartments that had been abandoned for an untold amount of time. Halfway down the hallway, I found a door that was open but undamaged, and I decided to enter that apartment.

  Inside was covered in dust, and much of the rough furniture was destroyed. The smell was disgusting, worse than even the streets outside. The apartment smelled like rot, mold, and something that had once been living but had clearly died a long time ago. I tried to force the smell out of my mind, regretting for a moment that I had given myself such a sensitive nose.

  I stepped into the center of the apartment and looked around. Wooden shelving had once adorned one of the walls but was now slumped down and partially rotted. A cheap mattress of cloth and stuffing had been left to rot under a set of windows on the far side of the apartment. A few broken pots, the remnants of a chair, and some other unknown debris covered the floor. The windows were both shuttered, letting in just a small amount of light. There was no second room.

  I approached the windows and opened them both fully. A welcome gust of fresh air struck me as I pushed the shutters aside, dispelling the stench of the apartment from my nostrils. This high up, I could smell the tang of salt in the air; wherever I found myself was likely close to a sea or ocean of some kind. I carefully leaned out of the open windows, eager to see more of my surroundings.

  As I took in the sight of the city, I couldn’t help but marvel at what I saw. The city stretched for miles all around me. Cutting through the city were two large bodies of water, one narrow and one wide. From where I was now, I could look across the largest body of water to the east and see an entire landmass. That side of the water seemed even more ruined; barely a single building remained standing. To my right, the city stretched out into the water to form a peninsula. Large cathedrals and temples dominated the tip of the peninsula, and that entire area seemed to shimmer to my eyes, as if hidden behind some kind of barrier. What I could see through the shimmering barrier seemed better maintained than the rest of the city. Possibly a sign of people, I hoped.

  To my left, the north of the city stretched out until it hit the second, smaller body of water. Across the water was a separate part of the city, hugging the edge of the water and spreading just a couple of miles north. It appeared to be in even better condition than the temples, and even from here I could see people walking the streets. I felt a surge of relief. I came to this world in part for adventure, but I had been starting to worry I might be the only person left.

  The northern part of the city must have once been a thriving port, because docks and warehouses surrounded the waterfront. Still, I couldn’t see any boats larger than some small fishing boats moored at the docks. What had clearly once held large merchant ships now held nothing but a few ragtag fishing boats.

  Two bridges spanned the water between the main city where I was and the more northern, intact area. The more distant bridge to the northwest looked intact, but I could see that the nearest bridge was shattered two-thirds of the way across. Built upon the bridge was a patchwork of buildings stretching several stories above the bridge and even below it down to the level of the water. It looked like a post-apocalyptic slum had been built on every available inch of the bridge. The many buildings were of all different sizes and shapes and the only thing they had in common was that they all leaned precariously against each other to form one large, dangerous-looking collection of interconnected buildings.

  Most fascinating of all, though, was that the bridge appeared heavily populated.

  The broken bridge was further away than the northern part of the city, but with my enhanced vision, I could see thousands of people walking, climbing, talking, selling, fishing, arguing, and doing any number of things all over the bridge and its many buildings. I watched them, fascinated to see so many people crammed into such a small space and navigating the dangerous structures that covered the bridge. It was like every person was an acrobat, deftly maneuvering around each other, climbing up and down the sides of the buildings, and scuttling side to side across the many precariously constructed walkways. The bridge was a living nest, in many ways, one made from salvaged wood and stone, and people packed the bridge from the water line to the tallest building.

  A fleet of small boats was returning to the bridge. Most of the boats docked on the far side of the bridge, but several passed under it and began to dock where I could watch them. The buildings at the waterline were populated by people waiting for the boats to return. I watched as the fishermen unloaded their catch to the people waiting, who in turn loaded the fish into containers hanging from above. Once a container was full of fish, people pulled it up and unloaded it quickly. Given the emptiness of the city around me, fishing must be one of the primary food sources for the people living on the broken bridge. I didn’t see gardens or open spaces that could be used to grow anything nearby.

  I watched as night started to fall around me. Before the sun fully set, several of the fishermen began to gesture and yell, pointing up the waterway toward the other bridge. I watched as several people rushed to the edge of the bridge above the fishermen, looking at where the others had pointed. I followed their gaze and saw a large fin break the water, rushing toward the fishermen who were still unloading the catch under the bridge. The fin was big enough to belong to a whale, but I had a feeling the creature it belonged to was a lot more dangerous.

  As I was staring at the fin, a streak of fire flew from the bridge. The fire arced through the air and crashed into the water near the creature, exploding into a ring of fire that set even the water on fire for several moments. I turned my attention back to the bridge and saw several other people launching what had to be spells at the creature. Several others had also drawn bows and began to launch projectiles in its direction.

  Several of the spells impacted on top of the fish, and an arrow pierced the fin, even when fired from such a great distance. The creature, whatever it was, responded swiftly and turned away from the bridge, diving deeper into the water. The fishermen hadn’t stopped working the entire time, frantically unloading their boats even as the creature turned away from them.

  I watched the people on the bridge until the sun set. Not many lights appeared on the bridge, probably due to the fact that it was one small fire away from burning to the ground. Where the bridge met the land on this side of the water, though, a number of torches lit up as the sun set. There, a large ramshackle wall had been built to protect the bridge, and a number of armed guards stood on top of the wall, facing out toward the dark city.

  I also saw more lights appearing on the second, intact bridge to the northwest, in the temple area, and in the part of the city across the water to the north. I leaned out of the window slightly and saw that the northwestern bridge ended on this side of the water in a large palace surrounded by a thick stone wall. The lights on the distant bridge and the walls of the palace glowed blue instead of the red of natural flame, and I noticed that they didn’t flicker in the wind like natural fire would either. To the east, across the larger body of water, not a single light could be seen. The devastation I had briefly glimpsed on that side of the water was completely hidden, shrouded in darkness that seemed subtly unnatural to my eyes.

  Having had a chance to see more of the city, I realized I was in the same place where I had left my old world: Istanbul, or ancient Constantinople. I couldn’t explain why the technology level was so different, but based on the layout of the city and the waterways, it was easy to pinpoint where I was.

  What was clear was that this was some ancient, fallen version of that city. Was time different here? Was I back in the time of ancient Constantinople? Or had something happened to stop the progress of technology in this world? Did the existence of magic make technological advancement unnecessary? That still didn’t explain what had happened to the city, but at least I had spotted a few survivors. Hopefully I could make contact with them and get a few answers to my many questions.

  Around me, the shadows of the city began to lengthen as the sun set in the west. I began to hear strange sounds from below as the city began to darken. As I looked down, I was shocked by a sudden roar from the street below. I scanned the area to see what could have made the sound and saw movement all over the streets and buildings where just moments before there had been nothing but the movement of a slow, lazy wind blowing through the empty streets. What had been a dead city was suddenly boiling with life and movement. I tried to count how many things I saw but could barely keep track of the shadows as they slipped, climbed, and fought below me. I slowly backed away from the windows, not wanting to draw any attention to myself. It appeared the city had awoken as night fell, but I didn’t think I wanted to meet the new occupants.

  I crouched and approached the window from a lower angle, peering just over the windowsill to hide from anything that might look up toward me. I watched the city go insane below me. After hours of total silence, the cacophony was so overwhelming I could barely focus on any individual sound enough to isolate where it was coming from. Animalistic sounds dominated the night. Roars, screeches, and cries of fighting and pain echoed up to me from every street. I saw several creatures take to the skies around the city, and I ducked further in case they could spot me in the window. I couldn’t help but notice that many of the things flying in the air were as big as a human or bigger.

  I watched, wide-eyed, until the very last rays of the sun disappeared and the faint moonlight cast the city into a barely lit nightmare. Thousands of creatures roamed the streets, fighting, killing, and eating each other. I couldn’t see more than flashes of the creatures; they moved so rapidly in the dim moonlight. I had all of the best engineering and stolen technology from a very advanced Earth, but looking down at the mass of monsters rampaging through the city, I suddenly felt very humbled.

  Protected by the walls, the few pockets of humanity left in the city were busy fighting off the swarm of monsters. Nobody seemed to be panicking on the walls, so this must be a nightly occurrence. That would explain why most of the city was abandoned as well—humanity must have had to retreat to the most defensible places to survive.

  I watched the city for a bit longer before turning and very quietly crawling toward the door that led out of the apartment I was in. I didn’t hear anything in the apartments near me, but I had no clue how perceptive the monsters were, so I didn’t want to risk being found out.

  One thing was for sure: I would need to get a weapon of some kind soon and try to find out more about the magic of this world if I wanted to survive. I managed to survive the first few monsters I encountered during the day, but whatever insanity was going on below at night was too much for me. I was lucky to just survive the daytime. It was a strange feeling, realizing I was so vulnerable and mortal. I didn’t exactly regret my choice, but it was with a complex mix of worry and excitement that I turned away and snuck out of the apartment I was hiding in. Knowing I was so vulnerable made me more alert, more on edge, more alive than I had felt in my past life. At the same time, I couldn’t ignore the mental image of the city boiling with monsters as the sun began to set. The fear of such overwhelming otherness set me on edge and kept my biological body in a near-constant state of fight or flight.

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  Once I was back in the hallway, I made my way around the corner to my right, moving as quietly as my enhanced body would allow. My ears were straining to hear anything nearby, but thankfully, nothing bothered me. I carefully made my way down another stretch of empty, ruined hallway and then turned to my right again in order to find an apartment with windows that were placed on the other side of the building so I could see more of the city.

  Once I found an appropriate apartment, I carefully approached the window and looked out. I was looking back at what would be Europe in my world. Rolling hills stretched into the distance, and a few large roads cut through the countryside, leading away from the city. Massive walls stretched across the western part of the city. I must be looking at the famous Theodosian Walls, except unlike in the time I had come from, they were still functional. The wall was lit with the same blue lights that surrounded the palace I had seen earlier. There was also a smaller wall that cut through the city itself, connecting to the Theodosian Walls at the far north and south of the city to form a large section that was cut off from the ruined part I was in. The smaller wall was also lit with the glowing blue lights. It was hard to see what was inside the large part of land that was protected by the walls, since no lights were glowing inside the protected area. Towers were interspersed evenly on the two walls, and a large castle anchored the wall at the southernmost point where it connected with the sea.

  In the glow of the blue lights, people on the wall were fighting what looked like large animals or monsters, but I couldn’t make out the details. I watched for over an hour as the defenders repelled attack after attack from the creatures swarming up the walls from the ruined part of the city.

  I wasn’t feeling tired—and I wasn’t sure if I could even sleep since I had never experienced such a thing as sleep before—so after I stopped watching the people on the walls, I left the room and began to explore the rest of the apartments more thoroughly. After searching almost every room on multiple floors, I had no luck finding a weapon. The majority of the apartments were ruined beyond repair and contained only the barest of furniture. It was clear that the previous residents weren’t the kind of people who could afford weapons, and if they could have, they probably took them when they fled.

  As the sun started to rise, I made my way back to the first apartment I had visited and watched as the monsters began to retreat from the coming light. I tried to see where the monsters were disappearing to, but they were all gone before enough light appeared in the sky for me to see the details.

  In my search of the apartments, I had managed to find a few things that would be useful. It was clear that the people who had lived here had not been wealthy by any means, but even still, when the city had flourished, even the poorest individuals seemed to have a few luxuries. I found and collected several small knives, a few ornaments, and some clasps made from decent iron. I also found plenty of old but still salvageable leather from various chairs and bits of furniture.

  I settled into the window to watch the city come back to life and sent my nano-bots to begin the process of reshaping the iron in front of me. I didn’t find any steel in the apartment building, which wasn’t surprising given the fact that steel was relatively rare and primarily used for weapons in this era.

  As the sun rose fully, the city quieted down to absolute silence once again. An hour or so after dawn broke, I was distracted from working with the iron as I saw people leaving the bridge community. A handful of people left the security of the bridge and began to spread out through the city. I watched, amazed, as the people seemed to leap unnaturally from roof to roof; the grace and speed of their movements were well beyond that of normal humans back on Earth. They each wore large gray cloaks that covered them from head to toe, blending into the dirty city remarkably well. They began to spread out when they got away from the bridge, and several began to disappear into buildings here or there. They seemed like scavengers or hunters of some kind, possibly looking for the bodies of the creatures that had taken over the city during the night.

  As I watched the city come to life below me, the fleet of fishing boats also launched from the bridge. A few boats joined the fleet from the northern, intact portion of the city as well. They spread out through the larger waterway that separated this part of the city from the eastern landmass where almost nothing was left standing.

  Finally, several caravans also left different parts of the city. I watched as armored knights escorted several large wagons, pulled by horses, from the temple district. A smaller caravan of people on foot left the bridge community, surrounded by people in more ramshackle-looking armor. I also saw several wagons crossing the large, intact bridge between the northern part of the city and the palace.

  It was clear the city was still alive, but barely. Overwhelmed by whatever it was that came out at night, the people of the city seemed to have retreated to a few pockets of safety. I had the bad luck of entering the city in one of the abandoned parts, but it could have been worse; I could have entered this world in the empty lands across the water to the east.

  As the morning sun began to rise toward noon, my nanobots had finished constructing a large steel knife from the smaller iron ones I had scavenged. I held it up in front of me and admired the craftsmanship. The blade was as long as my hand from palm to fingertips, and the hilt was wrapped tightly with leather I had found to ensure a safe grip in my hand. My nanobots had taken the forged iron I had scavenged and turned it into modern steel by reforging the metal and introducing carbon, thereby forming a significantly stronger alloy. I also set the nanobots to sharpen the blade to an edge and reinforce even the fine steel with nanofibers. That way, if I came across more armored beasts, it should penetrate effectively without being so weak as to break. If a blacksmith from this era were to carefully inspect this knife, it would likely be one of the finest knives they had ever seen.

  I set the knife down and set to work crafting a belt, a sheath for the knife, and a small satchel that would attach to my belt. Once that was done, the sun was well past noon and getting close to evening. I was impressed by the ability of my nanobots to modify things on a molecular level, but they weren’t exactly quick at doing so. To go any faster, they would need more fuel than my body alone could provide.

  More scavengers had spread throughout the city as the sun rose. Several of them met up with a caravan here or there to exchange goods. The caravans seemed to run essential goods throughout the city, but it was clearly dangerous work; I saw them come under attack from the daytime monsters several times. The buildings made it hard to see what was going on, but the yells that carried through the silent city and the occasional explosions that followed made it clear something was going on.

  As the day went by, I moved apartments occasionally to get a better view of the entire city. To the west, where the two walls spanned the length of the city, I could finally see what the walls were protecting. I had expected more devastation or ruined city, but instead I saw large farms with fields of wheat, orchards of fruit, and pastures of livestock. Whoever was protecting the area must have converted the interior into a safe place to grow food. Other than the fishing boats, the farms seemed like the only place that was producing food in the city. Many of the caravans entered one of the gates surrounding the farms, likely to trade for food.

  By the time my belt and other goods were finished, I was feeling hungry and thirsty. My body would normally be able to go days without needing sustenance, but the nanobots drew on my own energy reserves to power themselves, so I was feeling the effect of using them so much. The apartments had no running water, so I made my way back downstairs and out to the street until I found another courtyard home that had a well.

  As I was hauling up water to quench my thirst, my enhanced hearing picked up the sound of several creatures approaching from the rooms around me. I had listened carefully and not heard a sound as I entered the courtyard, but now that I knew the city was overrun by creatures, I wasn’t caught by surprise like last time. The sounds were coming from several of the rooms around me, where doors had been broken off the hinges. The sun filtering into the courtyard didn’t penetrate into the rooms, so I couldn’t see what was coming, but I made out the very soft sound of shuffling feet. It was similar to what I’d heard from the rats, indicating smaller creatures.

  I quickly moved away from the center of the courtyard and pulled my knife from its sheath on my belt. I heard tiny feet shuffling inside one of the nearby rooms, so I moved closer. As I settled next to the broken door that led into the room, two antennae began to carefully poke past the doorway, twitching as if scenting the air in the courtyard. They swiveled back and forth, and when they turned in my direction, they jerked backward in surprise, clearly detecting my presence.

  Reacting swiftly, I ducked around the doorway and slammed my knife between the two antennae, puncturing the head of a large insect-like creature. I pulled my knife out smoothly and pierced the creature several more times in the head. It didn’t have time to react to my swift attack, collapsing to the ground in front of me after the second strike from my knife. I followed it down, making sure it was truly dead before I stopped attacking it.

  Before I could step away from its corpse, a foul musk erupted from its body, engulfing me in a vile stench. I gagged, stepping back to avoid breathing in too much of it. The smell rapidly permeated the air around me, and I once again cursed the enhanced sense of smell I had given this body. As the air of the courtyard stirred the musk around me, I heard loud clicking sounds and saw several more of the creatures running toward me, caution thrown to the wind by the smell of their dead brethren.

  The first to reach me gave me a better look at what I was facing. The creatures appeared to be a mix of a beetle, a cockroach, and a praying mantis, and they came up to about mid-thigh on me. Two large mandibles like a praying mantis’s claws hung down from their faces and looked dangerously strong. The creatures scuttled across the ground on many little legs like a cockroach but had thick, armored exoskeletons covering their backs and sides like a beetle. It was an intimidating combination. The armor and speed of the creature combined with the large, dangerous-looking mandibles made my heart begin to pound in fear.

  I stepped forward, refusing to let my body make me hesitate out of fear, and met the one charging toward me. I met it further into the courtyard so I would have room to maneuver since the rest of the monsters were rapidly approaching as well. With a quick sidestep, I dodged the creature’s mandibles and swiped my knife through the base of its antennae, cutting them both off with a single strike. The creature let out several loud clicks, clearly in distress. I hadn’t seen any eyes on the monsters, so I reasoned the antennae were their only way to see the environment around them—which made them a perfect weakness to exploit. I dodged the now-clumsy attacks from the creature closest to me, easily able to avoid its blind bites in my direction. I turned my back on the blinded monster, leaving it to suffer blindly, and wove my way between the pillars that held up the second-floor balcony. The other creatures had closed in, but I surprised them with my speed, catching one off guard as I swung around a pillar and slashed off one of its antennae with my knife. It tried to turn toward me, clicking in distress at losing one of its sensory organs, but I kicked it in the side as hard as I could before it could face me.

  The one I kicked flew away from me, flipping over and crashing into the lightly grassed courtyard in front of me. I sensed two more of the creatures trying to get to me around the nearest pillar. I looked up to see three more of the insects running toward me from other parts of the house. I dodged back around the pillar, narrowly missing a pair of mandibles that clacked violently where I had been standing. I dodged around the other side of the pillar and caught the other insect by surprise, cutting off both its antennae with a single swipe of my knife.

  It was clear these creatures were dangerous, but they were also vulnerable. They were slower than me, and they seemed to have trouble perceiving things behind solid objects as if their vision relied on echolocation of some kind. It made it easy for me to avoid them by dodging around the pillars, dropping out of their sight momentarily, and then striking their vulnerable antennae with my knife, crippling them.

  As the other three got near me, I was a bit more hard-pressed to keep the pillar between us. I blinded several more as I dodged between different pillars, dancing away from the deadly mandibles like a whirling dervish, impressed once again by the agility and speed of my new body—and happy that my mind and body were able to work as one whenever danger reared its head. One of them got a lucky bite on my thigh as I failed to dodge its mandibles completely. I grunted at the sudden shock of pain, but my mind was able to keep focused despite the pain. I sliced down, severing one of the mandibles and escaping before any of the other creatures caught me.

  After that, I couldn’t dodge as effectively, but thankfully, most of them were maimed enough that I could finish them off with no further problems. It felt a bit coldhearted to kill them as they blindly stumbled around the courtyard, still trying to find me even without the ability to see, but I had no mercy for the insects that had attacked me first. I killed them all quickly with a stab or two through the head, easily penetrating the thick chitin that protected them. After the last of them died, my mind was filled with the announcements I had come to expect after defeating the creatures that inhabited this city.

  Weak devourer defeated—1 experience awarded. Weak devourer defeated—1 experience awarded.

  The experience announcements continued five more times, notifying me of the measly one experience each I earned for killing the “weak devourers.”

  No class detected. Experience pooled for future use.

  I hastily moved away from the dead creatures and their musky scent. The pain in my leg slowed me down, but I couldn’t afford to stick around too long; the smell of the dead creatures might attract more of their kind. None of the bugs I had killed glowed, and the announcement of their names did not list any of them as a sub-boss, so I knew there could be a stronger version of the creature somewhere nearby. Even though I had been quickly able to understand the weaknesses of the creatures, with my slight injury, I was in no mood to tackle a larger, more dangerous version of these things.

  I left the building, abandoning the well for now, and hobbled as quietly as I could down the road until I found another building that had a closed wooden door under a deep-set archway. I settled down in the archway and checked my thigh where I had been bitten.

  The insect hadn’t broken the skin, thankfully, but deep bruises were already forming where its mandibles had attempted to crush my leg. If I had been a normal human, I suspected the creature would have crippled me with its bite, despite my protective clothing; it did little to stop crushing force.

  My knife had proved helpful. I wasn’t sure if I could have been able to kill the insects nearly as easily without it, but it was clear that to survive here, I would need more than just a knife. I also needed to secure food and a more reliable source of water. Even though my body could ignore such needs for a long time, it couldn’t do so forever. I was still feeling the hunger and thirst from crafting my knife and belt, so I couldn’t wait too long before finding some sustenance.

  Despite my hunger, I set my nanobots to heal my thigh as rapidly as they could and waited patiently for almost an hour as they worked. I listened carefully as I waited but heard nothing approaching the archway. It was already afternoon when I had left earlier, so I nervously watched the shadows cast by the sun as they moved across the cobblestones in front of me. It was getting a little too close to dark for my comfort, but I didn’t want to risk moving through the city with an injured leg.

  When I felt the nanobots finish, I stood and shook out my leg. I took several careful steps to test my leg and had no problem moving it. I felt a very slight pain deep in my leg, but it didn’t slow me down. Hopefully it would fade soon.

  I was slightly frustrated that I hadn’t made much progress in exploring the city or making contact with the humans that inhabited it. Still, I had learned a lot from watching them from the apartment window, and I reminded myself that I wasn’t in that much of a rush, except for my need for food and water. I didn’t want to bungle my first contact with people that had access to magic or abilities I didn’t understand. They could be dangerous in unpredictable ways and I needed to make a good impression if I wanted to learn more about this world and what had happened here in the city.

  I decided I didn’t want to risk being anywhere near the ground floor when it became dark, so I hastily explored the nearby streets and buildings until I found another source of water. In the center of a small square between several one-story businesses, I found a ground cistern that had sat covered for a long time but still held mostly clear water. After drinking my fill, I made my way back to the apartment building I had hidden in last night before the shadows got too long around me. I knew the building was empty of monsters, so I figured it was the safest place to hide for now—at least until I had a better idea of what was going on around me.

  As I perched in one of the windows facing west, I watched the sun begin to sink behind the horizon. It was a beautiful sight, marred only by the sounds of stirring below me as the shadows began to overtake the city streets. I watched as the scavengers that hadn’t already retreated toward their various fortified locations jumped from rooftop to rooftop, racing toward the protective walls they had come from. It seemed nobody wanted to be caught out after dark.

  I had no experience with sleeping, but I knew it would help conserve resources for my body and finish healing my leg, so I forced myself to lie down on the dusty ground of the apartment and close my eyes. I felt strange lying there. My mind focused on memories of Michael, of my time in the old world. I even imagined what it would be like to meet the people of this world. I felt my mind begin to slowly dissociate from reality, my thoughts slipping slowly toward a precipice I had never crossed before. The first few times it happened, I jerked awake, my mind panicking at the loss of control. Eventually, I forced myself to relax, trying to find that melding of mind and body I had experienced when fighting for my life. I needed to trust my new body, not fight it every step of the way. Otherwise, I would end up dead in this dangerous new world. I wasn’t consciously aware when it happened, but I eventually managed to fall asleep for the first time in my life.