TravelingDreamer

Chapter 32: On Second Thought, Maybe I Didn’t Buy Enough Stuff

Mining was hard work!

I didn’t have a pick or anything, so I had to improvise with a medical bone chisel and the hammer I received as payment for healing. The bone chisel was small, and I broke two until I figured out how to use them without damaging them. I also broke a few emeralds until I learned how to maneuver around the stone to dislodge them. The dust was choking me, so I donned a surgical mask. After about an hour, my eyes stung—the oil lamp light was insufficient. After ano...

Chapter 31: Let Luck Lead You to Fortune

We spent the entire day by the river—relaxing, swimming, playing, and eating. My body, still too thin, showed every bone and muscle. The only pants that stayed on me were sweatpants with a string.

Once again, I attempted to teach Stretch the art of fetching. After a considerable amount of effort, he reluctantly brought back the stick—once.

“You’re supposed to be a dog. Dogs adore playing fetch.” He shot me a disdainful look and trotted off to relieve himself on a nearby ...

Side Story 4: The Danger of Very High Mana Worlds

Lis fell through the Gate and just lay there, wheezing. He made it out! He got out of that awful, awful place. Thank you, great beings of the cosmos. He will find a temple and light incense in gratitude.

After he got his breathing under control, he looked around. He was in a circle of standing stones, two of which were the Gate anchors, with more standing stones branching in a few directions. There were many people around, and they were holding strange apparatuses to their faces. He che...

Chapter 30: Free

Needing a day to recuperate from my “shit storm,” I moved the camp to a nice clearing at the foot of a mountain. I spent the entire day swinging between annoyance at the lack of data and acceptance that I needed to figure out everything myself. I also emptied my garbage barrel.

Walking about a kilometer from camp, I dug a hole and emptied my barrel. I had a lot of takeaway boxes. Initially, I planned to burn all of them, but on second thought, I cleaned the good plastic ones and sav...

Side Story 5 – The Beauty of Space

Mahya stood and looked out of the space station window. Some people who saw her standing there daily gave her strange looks, but she didn’t care; as a Traveler, she was used to it.

She was the daughter of two Travelers who met on the road, traveled together for some time, and decided to settle down in a low-mana world to raise a family.

They told her many stories about their travels and adventures, alone and together.

They told about medium-mana worlds with their dungeons ...

Chapter 29: What Doesn’t Kill You Kills the Bushes

Today, I had seven people I moved from yesterday and an additional patient. All of them had minor issues; I took care of them in less than an hour and earned another gold, two silver, and a small basket of apples. They even looked like regular apples. The innkeeper asked me what to do with the poultry and grains, and I told him to keep them; I had no use for them. In exchange, he told me I had two free days, including a room, board, and bath. That was very nice of him. I expected a meal or tw...

Side Story 3: Working Hard for The Levels

Alfonsen Holerand Mirbit VII was deeply dissatisfied. It was unbecoming for an Eldaray prince to show emotions stronger than dissatisfaction, so he was merely dissatisfied, but very strongly so.

As tradition dictated, since his family established the Kingdom of Mirbit, every heir to the throne had to travel through the Gates to elevate the Gate Traveler Class and its sub-classes to a respectable level. At least his Profession, [Monarch (in training)], would shed the (in training) addend...

Chapter 28: Full Circle

When I came down for breakfast the following day, I had two surprises waiting for me in the common room. The first was Domenica and Aurustine eating breakfast in the inn, with the baby in a basket on a chair beside them. The innkeeper served them breakfast in the glassware I sold, and for some reason, it made me feel very pleased.

The second surprise was that the common room was packed—I didn’t think the town had that many people—and the innkeeper told me they were all waiting for...

Chapter 27: Taking Care of Small Business in Town

When we reached the town again, I went straight to the inn. It was the middle of the night, so I wasn’t sure if an inn receptionist would work, but the innkeeper’s son was there, reading something. He was delighted to see me and greeted me like a friend. That was nice. I paid for the room and went straight to bed.

The following two days, I lazed about in town, read, took long walks through town with Stretch, and tried to teach him to fetch a stick, but he wasn’t interested, and mo...

Chapter 26: Luck Stat and its Intricacies

I decided to stay for two days to regenerate my mana fully. The first night we spent near the former jurber nest, but the next day, I relocated us to the nearby rest stop. I liked the stump-chairs and the log tables. It resembled the first rest stop we visited with the caravan, but was further off the road and hidden by some trees. I spent the first day breathing in mana with total concentration to regenerate faster, and noticed that there was much more mana in the air. I didn't know if it wa...

Side Story 2: A Chance Meeting on The Road

Sonak was sitting in a big, bustling bar, sipping on a delightful fermented fruit juice and charming a local lady; he had never entertained a lady with a tail and was feeling very adventurous. Suddenly, he felt a presence, another Traveler.

Run? Stay?

He listened to his Perception, but it was quiet, with no warning signs, so he stayed.

The Traveler entered the bar. Although he was human, his azure blue skin, long blond hair, and extra-large black eyes with almost no...

Chapter 25: Surprises Will Never Cease

After a long soak in the bath, Sami's words about my apparent age came back to me, so I took out a mirror and stared. By this point, surprises should have lost their edge, but they hadn’t. The face looking back was even younger than it had been when I left Earth—mid-twenties at most. And with how much younger I’d always looked compared to my peers, I could easily pass for twenty or even younger.

My eyes and hair were changing too. I’d always had a unique eye color—a light gray...

Chapter 24: Sometimes Slow is Nice

I took out my bike and attached the trailer. Stretch bounced in before I finished locking the frame, his tail wagging so hard it smacked the side. We set off under a pale blue sky streaked with morning clouds. The road stretched ahead in long, dusty curves, flanked by low hills and patches of golden grass. Birds circled overhead, and once, Stretch barked at a pair of rabbit-analogs that hopped across the road.

After six hours of riding, my thighs burned, and my calves trembled. A cool b...

Chapter 23: Deep Dive into the Archive

After we left the caravan, we traveled for half an hour and found a nice secluded clearing. I set up camp, and we went to sleep.

In the morning, after breakfast, I opened the Archive to figure out this awakening business.

THE ARCHIVE WAS A MESS!

When I first learned about it, everything was new and exciting, so I read everything. If something was irrelevant, I skipped it. Now, searching for specific info was a nightmare.

There was no table of contents, no index, no sea...

Side Story 1: The [Very] Difficult Childhood of Guar Shum

Age 14

"Dad, I can't run anymore!"

"Yes, you can. When I was traveling the demon realm Jehenam, I had to run for …"

Yeah, yeah, I've heard it all before—me and every other person who knows about the Gates and would listen to you for more than five minutes.

I tuned him out and continued running. After some time, my lungs were on fire, and my legs wouldn't carry me anymore.

"… and I entered the cave, and there were those giant lizard...

Chapter 22: I Really Don't Know Enough

The caravan creaked back into motion, wheels crunching over the packed dirt road as I fell into step behind the last cart. Still a bit woozy and unsteady, with most of my mana depleted, I focused on drawing it in with each breath. It wasn’t as efficient as meditating while sitting or lying down, but it beat passively waiting for it to refill on its own. Step after step, breath after breath, the flow steadied. A subtle warmth returned to my limbs.

Not that I had to push myself. The car...

Chapter 21: A Legal Alien in a Magical Land

We returned to the wilderness and, after an hour of walking, found a quiet clearing to set up camp. As I erected the tent, my hands began to shake while tying one of the poles.

I killed somebody today.

All my life, I’d worked to save people—not end their lives. And now… I didn’t know how to deal with that.

I killed somebody today. And helped the guard kill the other two.

I sat down hard, trembling, as I tried to process. Stretch came over and ...

Chapter 20: The Archive Needs a Warning About Nobles

We traveled for another two days and passed the other herd of mini-bison, but I didn’t conduct any new experiments. It didn’t feel right to kill just for practice, not when I already had more bison meat than I knew what to do with.

I tried giving Stretch some raw minced beef. He sniffed it, looked at me like I’d offended him, and sat down with a dramatic huff.

“Really?” I asked.

He wagged his tail and looked at me expectantly.

I made him patties. He wolfed th...

Chapter 19: Gangnam Style of the Looter

In the morning, I breathed in deep through my nose, letting the air fill my lungs. It smelled of nature—not a single specific scent, but that clean, crisp aroma you only find in the wild. Fresh air, damp earth, morning dew on the grass, and open skies. I sat with my coffee, savoring the aromas from my cup and the world around me, letting the serenity infuse my being. Waking up like that, in the middle of nowhere, with views that belonged on a postcard and the air cleaner than anything I had...

Chapter 18: Looting for Dummies (Step One: Don’t Blow It Up)

A loud boom in the middle of the night startled me awake. A couple of seconds later, there was a flash, and then the rain started pouring down in earnest. Stretch lifted his head, looked around, and let out a contented sigh before going right back to sleep.

It took me longer. The rain was loud, drumming nonstop on the tent roof, turning the night into a symphony of nature’s chaos.

By morning, I was once again awakened by the "tongue alarm"—Stretch’s charming way of making su...

Chapter 17: I Will Not Break!

I dreamed of Sophie. Then, all of a sudden, she licked my face. It took a few seconds for my sleep-fogged brain to register that the sensation wasn’t part of the dream. I jolted awake to find a wolf’s head hovering inches from mine, breath hot and damp on my skin.

Reality clicked back into place with a groan. I pushed the wolf’s snout away. "Stop that," I mumbled, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

The blinking red light was still there. It had started last night, probably some...

Chapter 16: Making A New Friend?

The next morning, I took my time packing up my camp. My gaze kept drifting to the surrounding view, trying to drink it all in. The lake shimmered in the early light like someone had scattered crushed diamonds over its surface. A waterfall tumbled down the distant cliffside, mist curling at its base and giving it an ethereal look. Everything was vibrant and alive—lushness that looked almost unreal after so many years of living in cities.

For a moment, I just stood there, wishing I coul...

Chapter 15: Whispers of a New Foundation

It was twilight in Shimoor. Purples and deep blues painted the sky, stretching long shadows across the ground. It was still late morning for me—my body on the clock of a different world—so sleep was out of the question. But traveling in the dark didn’t appeal either. A chill in the air hinted at a deeper cold at night, and I wasn’t in the mood to stumble through unfamiliar paths with only an oil lamp.

I sat down, hugged my knees to my chest, rested my forehead on them, and let o...

Chapter 14: New York Is Not a City, It’s a World

New York had no shortage of places to find hidden or not-so-hidden treasures. A quick online search netted me an unbelievable number of pawnshops, over thirty flea markets, and endless thrift stores packed with everything from antique furniture to last season’s designer castoffs. My Storage wasn’t full yet, but just in case, I expanded it to 4,096 cubic meters—big enough to park a fleet of trucks inside.

Then came the workshops. Scrolling through listings, I found classes for ever...

Chapter 13: Last Farewell and First Plunder

I was still pissed at my in-laws. Not the all-consuming, white-hot rage like before, but a steady, simmering resentment that refused to die down. The need to make them pay still burned inside me, something I couldn’t shake even if I wanted to. I didn’t. I’d made a promise, a vow, and I had no intention of breaking it. Maybe it made me the bad guy, but I didn’t care. The thought of them walking away scot-free—especially after everything they put Sophie through—made me grind my teet...

Chapter 12: Her Last Will, My First Steps

The silence in the courtroom shattered the moment my father-in-law saw me. His face, already flushed with anger, darkened further when his eyes landed on me. He surged to his feet, his chair screeching against the polished floor.

“You gold-digging bastard!” he spat, jabbing a finger at me. “You robbed us! Stole what was rightfully ours—Sophie’s money, our money!” His voice boomed through the courtroom. Contempt twisted his features. “And you killed her!”

A murmur s...

Chapter 11: Preparing for the Unknown

A quick call to the photography store revealed that they held a three-day workshop on film development and photo printing—both black-and-white and color. Excited, I signed up for the earliest available session and continued my preparations.

A quick online search yielded five pawnshops, two gaming stores, and a flea market. Over the next five days, I made it my mission to visit every single one, starting with a pawnshop that finally lived up to the image I had in my head.

It was ...

Chapter 10: In the Shadow of Towers and Time

After my breakdown, though it brought a sense of calm and release, my emotions remained tumultuous. I needed to step back, breathe, and find my footing. Frankfurt turned out to be the ideal place to regain my balance. As I roamed the city and took in its sights, the blend of the new and the old slowly drew me out of myself. The jarring contrasts mirrored my inner turmoil, forging a sense of connection—or maybe solidarity—with the city.

In the Bankenviertel district, sleek modern sky...

Chapter 9: Reflections on Youth and Loss

Frankfurt’s skyline drew closer as I drove. I checked into a hotel, then slumped into a soft armchair, my notebook open, ready to organize the chaos in my head—time for a plan.

                    1. Raise my Gate Traveler level.

There were a lot of Gates on the Map:

•         17 Gates in Europe

•    &nb...

Chapter 8: My Second Gate—Destination: Perfect Boredom

The Frankfurt Gate was only thirty minutes from the city. The second I drove past, a tingling awareness prickled at the edges of my senses. I didn’t stop. Instead, I drove for two minutes, pulled into a gas station, and walked toward the Gate.

The location wasn’t much to look at. Fifty meters off the road, five unremarkable boulders lay scattered in a cluster. Two of those stones were the Gate’s anchors. Just past them, dense trees and a thick line of underbrush blocked the field ...