Chapter 103 - Waking Up

The wind blew against One's body. It crawled and found itself over the metal surfaces and the pale skin of each half. 

There was silence in the forest. The looming clouds above provided the shade thaf encompassed the undergrowth below. 

One opened his eyes. Seemingly confused, he staggered to his feet and looked around.

"Where am I?" He said.

He remembered everything. He fought a goddess with his imagination and basically won. 

He looked around to see what else was with him besides the roots that were exposed from the soil and the trees whose trunks stood at every direction.

There was a body. A girl's body. It was sat motionless against one of the trees. One walked towards the corpse and leaned on it.

The woman was dead. She had pale blue skin and blue hair that shimmered no more. It was the goddess, whom One fought. She was no longer a threat. Her eyes lacked the pupils they once had, her mouth wide open, welcoming the insects who wish to call it their home.

"You're now one with your creations," One said. 

But now he had another problem in his hands. 

He was in the middle of nowhere. Most of his systems had been fried leaving only his enhanced senses and brain intact. He no longer was connected to the rest of his machines but was also reeling from the mental shock of his encounter with the goddess.

There was only one logical thing to do.

Walk.

But before he could take a walk, he first needed to know where to go. 

His personal radar was busted and so, needed to find another means of mapping his location.

I could use my thrusters, he thought.

And so he tried. 

His thrusters could bȧrėly lift him off the ground anymore. Crossing that off the list, he now needed something new. 

He lowered his hip and his legs and jumped as high as he could.

He burst through the treeline and off he was into the sky. He might have overshot it though. 

He peaked at exactly a kilometer in the air before realizing his mistake.

"Too high," He said nonchalantly. As if he wasn't about to fall 1 kilometer from the sky. 

He crashed into the forest floor several meters away from where he originally jumped. He couldn't really control his legs as well as he could. 

His physical state was bleak. His mind was not able to coordinate his body to it's optimal capacity and thus had these issues.

The battle with the goddess was not without a cost.

He managed to take a glimpse of the surrounding area though. It was an unfamiliar forested area where there was nothing of note on any horizon. 

He was indeed stuck in the middle of nowhere.

"Well, it could have been worse. A desert or a tundra," He told himself as he picked himself up from the ground.

One then decided to just randomly pick whether to go north, south, west, or east.

He picked North.

He started travelling to the north in the Hope's of finding any sort of civilization. Be it a human village or a beastman settlement. He needed information first and foremost. 

Before deciding to leave, however, One searched the Goddess' body for anything of value. Other than leaking a tremendous amount of magic, she was basically useless. Her blue dress was the only thing that held any kind of value due to its immense concentration of magic.

He stripped the dress from the goddess' body and began his journey north. 

It was very uneventful in the first few hours of his journey. His body clock told him it was just an hour past noon and night time was still a couple hours away. 

As he navigated through the forest, dark clouds began to form over the east and rain soon after began to fall. 

It was a heavy downpour. Lightning struck while thunder rumbled after it. The dark clouds unleashed their watery cargo and flooded the forest.

"This is a god damn rainforest," One said as his feet periodically would get stuck in the mud that kept getting deeper the longer and harder the rain poured. 

It was a sign. Using the streams as a sort of marker, there was bound to be a river if he followed it or maybe even a lake. Where there was a body of water, there very likely would be civilization. 

He followed the stream that only got bigger as time progressed and the rain showed no signs of stopping. He had no choice but to use his energy sabres to cut down the pesky tree trunks that got in his way. 

Due to this, he left behind a trail of cut trees whose logs would forever be wasted, never to be exploited. 

He found the body of water he had predicted and, it was a lake. 

A darn huge lake, to be precise. 

He walked along the bank and tried to find any trace of intelligent life. A small house, a boat, a settlement, anything. 

"You seem to be lost, kiddo," A voice came from behind him. He turned to see who it was and found a small, bearded man holding a fishing rod. 

One found himself completely off-guard. He didn't even sense the man sneaking up behind him. He needed to fix himself up if he were to be as invincible as he was.

"Oi, can you speak?" He asked.

"Yes," One replied. 

The dwarf smiled. He was also soaked. His leather armor and tunic weren't any better at keeping him dry, in fact, they were holding the little man down. 

"The name's Wog. I'm a dwarf who owns this piece of land and this lake over here," He explained before laughing proudly. 

"Greetings, Wog. I am One. I seem to be lost, I woke up by myself in the forest and found myself on your land, I beg your pardon for the intrusion," One said. He immediately resorted to diplomacy in the hope of gaining the trust of the dwarf.

The dwarf smiled.

"Ah, that explains it then. I'm well known I'm these here parts. Why? Because I am these land's lord!" Wog explained with a chuckle. 

"But there is no need for any formalities. I welcome you here as a traveler. Come, I will lead you to my estate," Wog proposed.

One accepted. Well, there was no reason to decline.