I run till I'm out of breath and the villagers become stick figures in the distance.

 

In my sprint I come across the river Anselm spoke of. There's a bridge over it, large, wide and made of cobbled stone. It's so wide I can guess its purpose; to carry an army. However, the squabbles of the village weren't my concern. The river is.

 

It's filthy. All sorts of debris float in it, sandals, clothes, wooden plates and bags of what I guess is shit. I've never seen anything like it and I've lived in a cave for the better part of my time here. I doubt it can be filtered.

 

Again, I seek a means to survival and as it turns the only humans around can't help me. In fact, it's the opposite. I've seen enough alien invasions movies to know when something wants to absorb my consciousness. I intend to keep my distance.

 

But how? How do I survive?

 

I don't know how far away the nearest village or town is, preferably one without a populace seeking to absorb me into their hive mind. But I doubt it's an hour away.

 

I walked and ran all the way here with hopes of food, water, shelter and even companionship- One can only speak to ghosts for so long.

 

"And now I'm stuck fearing for my life." I pant out, exhausted. "Summon spirit." I lift up my hand and carelessly shoot the green ball of mana. I've discovered Anselm is always at the ready to be summoned. No need to expend my mana on two spells to summon him.

 

"You've got shit luck." Is his first comment.

 

I groan and sit up, shifting away; the stench of the river becoming unbearable.

 

"Are all the villages in this place like this?"

 

He gives me a strange look and I recall I haven't confessed to not being an indigene of the fucked up shattered lands.

 

"You say that like you're not from here." He shrugs, "Well, you might not be. I don't know how strange things are on the other continents either."

 

"Whatever, I can't remember anything about anything Okay? Let's leave it at that." I shoot him the I won't summon you again glare and he is quick to nod.

 

"To answer your question…I don't know. From my time at the cave I heard of Cults that practice foul magic in service of a demon or something. But a whole village belonging to the Cult?"

 

I bite my cheek; he's almost as ignorant about the world as I am, chances are I would receive no helpful counsel from him.

 

"Do you still see no animals in the fields?" I ask, moving on to pressing matters of food.

 

He floats, circling about in the air, poking his head towards all corners before floating down with a sour look. "What are you going to do? The only animals out here are the ones in the village, and you don't seem keen on moving close to those guys."

 

No. No, I'm not. But what other choices do I have? Keep marching and hope to encounter a village not infested with cultists? Or turn back to the cave where there's a tribe of angry goblins guarding the only water source?

 

My stomach growls in protest and my throat itches at the thought of having a sip of water.

 

I get on my feet and dust off my torn-up warlock robes. I see only one viable option, frightening as it is to think of it as the only viable option, alas it's the truth.

 

"I'm gonna steal a sheep or two."

 

***

 

I am quick to forgive my ignorance. I have never stolen sheep or cattle before. Luckily, I have someone to bounce off ideas, someone with a lot more experience with farm life.

 

With Anselm's exemplary aid we manage to conceive a plan that hopefully wouldn't get us killed. Get me killed. It often skips my mind that Anselm isn't alive.

 

Either way, his bit of knowledge tells me that when I grab at the sheep, I should hold its hind legs together like I'm squeezing dough.

 

This, of course, is so I don't get my family jewels turned to paste. He tells me I should try my very best to make a quick run for it. The moment the rest of the herd catches a glimpse of me, a stranger, in their pen, making away with one of their own, it won't end well.

 

Though a lot of this conflicts with my base knowledge of sheep as the human loving fluffy dream-inducing animals, I won't doubt nor test his words. I've already seen goblins and a village full of brain-dead people, I'm going to be in a believe the impossible mood for the foreseeable future.

 

With a instructions in hand, I head out to capture a sheep. I don't have to tiptoe against the gravel ground, I'm barefoot and I've gone numb to pains on my feet with all I've been through.

 

However, I do have to swerve under a few stashes of hay and houses but with Anselm acting as my eye in the sky, I don't find it too difficult to get to the pen.

 

There are three pens, one had a lot of sheep, about six or seven, another houses cattle with the same number. The last is a mix, it has two cattle and two sheep, this isn't the pen I'm going in.

 

The last pen was full of the male of each species, I guess a breeding practice in animal husbandry, either way, the bull in said pen isn't looking friendly.

 

I hop over the fence into the sheep pen, it stands around my chest so I have to do a bit of climbing. The sheep didn't take much note of my presence in the pen, some look like they want to approach but stop halfway as they sniff the air then return to their grazing.

 

Either they didn't recognize my smell or they can't smell any treats.

 

This is good.

 

I unlock the pen from the inside and out- tight security- and let the fence gate swing open before going ahead to stalk my next meal.

 

Following Anselm's instruction, I launch my hands at the hid legs of the closet sheep, pulling them together and in the process making the animal squeal to a fall.

 

It bleats and kicks for escape, I struggle a bit at its push but I have no time to admire its desire to live. I let one hand hold onto its legs and my other grab its neck as I begin to stand and make my way out through the fence gate I left open.

 

As I make my escape the sheep in the pen are quick to follow behind, at first, I am nervous at their charge but they move right past me and to freedom. The bull and male sheep moo and bleat at me, likely begging to be set free as well but…that's not my intent.

 

With Anselm in the air he guides me away from walking hive villagers on the streets and without any fanfare, I make it out safe and unnoticed.

 

"Swe-!" He starts to cheer before fading out of existence.

 

I let the sheep down and cast Summon Spirit again.

 

"Sweet!" he grins, "Mission accomplished!" I ignore his cheers and point at the sheep making a break for it and he complies, jumping into its body and putting a halt to the furry creature's escape.

 

He walks it back to me before jumping out of its body, leaving the animal looking shaken. "Now if only you had water."

 

"If only I had a lot of things." I frown, I'm getting tired of having nothing.

 

"You could rob them." Anselm says, a raised brow and an urging look.

 

I bite my cheek and stare at the still paralysed sheep at my feet. Scurrying through the village I was privy to many windows, and in those windows were many things I could do with and the cult of whatever evil spirit could do without.

 

I need resources, not only mana and HP. Even though this world plays like an RPG it's an RTS at heart and resources are the priority.

 

"Fuck it. What do you have in mind?"

***

The plan is simple; we don't have one.

 

Although Anselm has humble beginnings as a petty street thief before serving as a knight's squire in a war, he is, unfortunately, no criminal mastermind and nor is he a man capable of thinking in the long term.

 

Steal even more sheep? Fine, how do we transport them and secure their safety from predators as we move through the fields, we can't cook them all at once now, can we?

 

Oh, we can? Oh, we should cook them all at once? Well, we'll need some salt to cure the meat at least, I'm the only one with a working digestive system and I can only eat so much even though I've been starving.

 

We'll also need some way to transport all that food, my pockets surely won't suffice; that's where I keep my rats.

 

Steal a satchel from one of the houses? Oh, and new clothes too? No, can't forget gold of course. From each house, can't only be one house.

 

It's a plan, as soon as you tell me how to get past all the drones walking about, and what to do if we get caught; we don't know what kind of attacks they have but needless to say, it's going to be powerful.

 

Nothing.

 

And so we're back to square one. Willing but unable to help ourselves. I sit in the grass plucking at the roots and chucking it over the grazing face of the sheep. It'd gotten over its long shock of its possessesion and is now back to basic functions; eating, sleeping and shitting.

 

While I and Anselm argued over what to do, arriving at one dead end after another, the sun begins to set. Right now, it hangs low in the twilight, staining a portion of the sky with an orange hue.

 

My stomach growls and I wonder whether I should cut my losses and leave with the single sheep Ive managed to capture. Even without water, it's better than nothing, better than getting integrated into some hive mind, demon worshipping Cult.

 

Speaking of, they are terrifying. Not because of what they are but because of how it affects everything they do.

 

After I bolted from the hive in the morning, they lingered at the totem a bit before going about their regular looking villager activities. Tending to crops, feeding the animals, sweeping their half-cobbled ground of dirt, pointless as it was.

 

Point is, from afar they look normal. And then I stole the sheep and let the others out in the process.

 

I didn't get to see the beginning of it but from what Anselm tells me and what little I caught after getting away, it only took one person sighting a loose sheep for everyone else to drop whatever villager activity they were doing and pounce on the running sheep.

 

They didn't even run after the sheep, they just walked fast into various positions and caught them all without one- save from the one I stole- leaving the village.

 

Cool as it is to be part of a collective and perform wondrous acts of organisation, I'd much rather it be the product of individual ability than some sort of devilish influence.

 

"If you're going to strike this might be the best chance we'll get today," Anselm mutters, staring at the setting sun. "The day is gone, soon they'll all settle in bed and we'll have to wait until tomorrow if they do."

 

I shake my head, "But we don't even have a solid plan."

 

"We didn't have a solid plan when we went in on the goblins." He argues.

 

"Yeah, and look how well that turned out. Barely got a sip of water out of that pond."

 

"If you stick to the empty houses I show you and if you're fast, you can get away with a lot."

 

"You can turn invisible," I mutter.

 

"Yeah at the cost of the mana, you only give me so much with each cast."

 

"So? If you're fast you can get away with a lot."

 

"I'm only fast if I fly! And that costs more mana, I'll burn through it and it'll be coins all over the floor."

 

"Aren't you flying right now?"

 

He pouts but his feet touch the grass. "Even if by some miracle I make it out with a bucket of water with coins at the bottom and clothes slung over my shoulder, what if they make chase? With them chasing after me there's no safe area for me to land unless I lose them, which means I burn through mana and we get nothing."

 

True. If they made chase that wouldn't do me any good. Not sure how well I can run with a sheep in my hands and a hive on my tail.

 

Wait…

 

"That's it!" I snap my fingers in excitement.

 

"What? What's it?"

 

"I'm a genius that's what."

 

***

 

I hang back now; watching the hive on a different side of the village, they've started lighting lanterns as the sun disappears.

 

I am close to the pen; they'd stuffed all the sheep I let out back in. Incidentally, I'm here with the missing number. My soon to be dinner kept close to me, I can't leave it behind, not now that Anselm is gone anyway. No one to look after it.

 

The sound of its bleating drowned by the bleating of its peers so I have no fear of getting caught, noisy as it is.

 

"Hey, you!"

 

Finally. Anselm shows up, stepping close to one of the hive and snatching away their lantern. The hive says something I can't make out but I'm pretty sure it's another weird greeting.

 

As swift as I'd witnessed with the loose sheep, several other hive begin to crawl out and surround Anselm in a tight circle.

 

They begin chanting, speaking in unison as they encroach, tightening the circle further despite Anselm swinging the lit lantern. He breaks it over a few in fact but still, they press on even as one catches fire and begins to burn.

 

Letting out a gasp at the burning yet still chanting villager, I struggle against every instinct to run.

 

Still, I wait. They get into hugging quarters with Anselm, his kicks and flails proving useless, especially against the one on fire. Eventually, they touch him, or so they think. He phases through them and begins to fly off.

 

"Come get me you freaks!" he jeers, flying away.

 

Fortunately, the hive follows, every single one of them limber and quick on their feet as they parkour through over the narrow space and onto the buildings, taking chase at Anselm's retreating hide.

 

Quickly I jump at my opening, pulling my sheep by the furs it begins to trot beside me as I make my way over to the nearest house.

 

Pushing the sheep in I find it's a small house with only two rooms.

 

On the left immediately after the door, there's a fireplace with a table close to the ground. In the corners there are several leaves and flowers piled up against the wall, it looks to be the living room and dining room because on the right lay several mats and animal skin bedrolls.

 

A living area. I head in and I'm greeted by the largest thing in the house.

 

A wardrobe.

 

I let out an enthused but quiet cheer and dive in. Pulling the doors open I find several brown clothes stacked on each other.

 

Brown must be the only colour available which is weird given the sheep have white coats. Maybe they didn't sew their clothes with the wool and sold it instead? Probably not given they're a hive mind, do they trade? I don't know.

 

I pull out trousers and a coat from the stacks, it falls over but I don't bother with it. I line the trousers up with my leg and waist, hoping it's a good match. Although it's a bit on the long side, I'm not in a position to be picky.

 

I don't bother checking out the coat, having faith that it was cosy and long enough to cover me. I hung the trouser and coat over me and start my getaway. Only something catches my eye as I start.

 

Sitting at the end of the wardrobe, behind the fallen clothes sits a heavy-looking leather pouch. I grab at it and push back the string that knotted it shut to have a look inside, but I already know what it is. It jingles.

 

I stuff it whole in my pocket and pull on the sheep. Time to get out of here.

 

Peering out the door, left, right and left again. And good thing I do. There stood a man, his back turned and his hands crossed behind him. He stands still, looking up at the totem.

 

My palms sweat and I gulp, praying the man doesn't look back as I step out onto the street.

 

"You have not been touched by the Lord Phien. Will you come into his fold?"

 

Fuck.

 

I don't answer. I keep moving with the sheep, nearly bursting into a sprint and then…

 

"Why do you flee?" His breath is on my neck.

 

I push back against him and fall on my butt. The sheep bleats and cries, trotting over to me.

 

"Stay away from me!" I jump to my feet and take several steps back. He doesn't chase.

 

"You are invited to the fold." The smile on his face widens into a grin as he stretches his arm towards me.

 

The air shifts and the hairs on my neck stand. Magic.

 

A blue piercing light forms around his outstretched arm and I can tell he's about to blast me with something.

 

"Come to the fold."

 

The light shoots forward, coming for my head but as it does, I cast a spell on my sheep.

 

"Death Grip!"

 

The spell takes hold and within a split second, I pull the poor bleating sheep to shield my face. The sheep, however, is a poor shield. The beam pierces through my dinner and grazes my head, knocking me on my butt and pulling the consciousness out of me.

 

I can't help but feel a familiarity with how I entered this world. Perhaps this is how I leave it.