Endless Insanity

The steady rumble of a train on tracks wakes me from my sleep, and as I blearily examined my surroundings I found I had fallen asleep leaning against a window. The view was honestly not much to right home about, a large expanse of green fields dotted by hills that took on a grey hue due to the cloudy sky. 'All this is well and good' I thought 'but I don't remember going to sleep on a train'.

I bolt upright and take a closer look at my surroundings, the train cars completely empty save for a few suitcases strewn about, I take another look out the window and discover a heavy layer of fog obscuring my view outside the window. Getting up I walk over to the door closest to me and take a look inside the cabin before mine, unfortunately there must have been a black covering because all I could see was darkness through the doors window, along with the door being locked I decided to give up looking any further and instead try the other side of the cabin.

Unlike the other door this one I could see through into the next cabin so I tried the door and found it was unlocked. A cursory glance of the cabin revealed to me that it was almost identical to the cabin I woke up in. That was until I noticed a man in a suit and hat muttering something, I walk up to him "excuse me sir do you know where we are right now?" I ask, but all I'm met with is more muttering, all I can catch from him is being late for some meeting. That's all I needed to have a clue on where I was, and if it was as I thought then I was supremely screwed. I rush outside the train, hoping, praying that I wasn't where I thought I was.

"The sleepy one is up" said a voice as I exited the train, I fall to my knees on the grass as my eyes catch sight of the group around the train, a girl with pigtails, a man in yellow, a man in checkered pants, a blonde man, a girl with glasses, a curly haired man, a women with a brown jacket, an older gentleman, and finally, a women in overalls working on the train. 'I guess this is it' I chuckle internally, a bit of insanity creeping in 'I've really been transported to the Fear and Hunger world'.

"Sir are you ok?" I hear from the girl with glasses, Olivia, her name is Olivia. Looking up I notice she was looking at me with a concerned expression, taking a better look around I notice that the group had formed a sort of circle around me, each one looking at me with either concern or curiosity.

My eyes lock onto one person in particular, Karin, desperation fills my body as I lunge at her taking everybody by surprise, managing to bring her to the ground I scramble for her pockets and find what I'm looking for. My hands shakily grip the pistol as I put it to my head and pull the trigger, 'better death than this fucked up world' my last thoughts echo into the void.

The rumbling of a train on tracks wakes me up, but this time I refuse to open my eyes. I don't want to acknowledge the situation I'm in, being stuck in a world like Fear and Hunger, with even death not being a freedom. 'I don't remember ticking the Re:Zero box on my Isekai package' I joke, trying to avoid what lay in front of me. Unfortunately, the train had already stopped and I realized that I had to open my eyes. With a sigh I open my eyes and stand up, "welp!" I exclaim "if I'm stuck here than I should figure out how to survive with most of my sanity, I'm thinking around, 40 to 30% sanity is optimistic, heck maybe if I beat the game I can leave"

And so as I walk over to the front train car I start brainstorming a plan, I do stop as I'm about to leave, putting an arm on the shoulder of Tanaka (the man in the suit and hat) I impart with him a few words "your father isn't disappointed in you, he would be pretty proud of what you've become" before I can wait for a response I walk out of the train, I've always felt bad about Tanakas ending, he never got a good one, be it locking a friend gone crazy in a mystery dimension and slowly going crazy yourself, or experiencing horrible torture and just toughing it out and never stopping the grind.

'Truly if there was anyone deserving the title of Chad it would be Tanaka, after Marcoh of course' I think as I once again interrupt the conversation going on outside the train. "The sleepy one is up" I'm met again with the same voice, Marina, that's the name of the speaker. 'Now that I think about it, I never had the dream they had, I wonder why that is? Oh well, I'll just pretend like I had it, but in that case, how would I level up, if I even can? Seeing as how normally the character would be leveled up by Per'kele in the dream the only other option is the table in Donovan's house, but that's pretty late into the game, how would I survive up to that point' "in that case staying put is the best course of action now" I hear Daan, the man in checkered pants, say as he continues the conversation the group was having.

Karin, the women in a brown coat, stands up and prepares to leave "Well I'm leaving, that dream must have been the work of those Bremen pigs, my sources have told me that they have used hallucinogenic gasses on prisoners of war before" she declares. Daan takes a slow drag from his cigar and sighs "As much as I'd like to believe in your sources, I've seen my fair share of hallucinogens as a doctor and can tell from experience that there are no known chemicals that create visions that vivid, especially visions that are identical with so many people". Marina looks at me curiously "You must have seen the dream too right? Everyone aboard the train has had the exact same experience" she asks, I nod my head and respond "yeah, I thought I was the only one." "Well think again buddy!" Henryk, the blonde man, tells me "we all had the exact same dream with the weird girl, and that guy…" he shivers "that was one weird dude, if I had a choice I'd never want to see him and his blue face again, isn't that right Osaa" he gestures to the man in yellow sitting next to him in some kind of meditation position. Met with silence Henryk continues, "anyways, I'm Henryk, as you've heard this is Osaa, and these people are, Karin, Daan, August, Marcoh, Olivia, and the fine lady working on the train over there is Abella" he points out to the older gentlemen, the curly haired man, the girl in glasses, and the women in overalls respectively.

"Nice to meet you all, my name is Samual"

I wave to the group in greeting, "that's all fine and dandy, but I'm wasting too much time here, I have to go interview the locals about the Bremen army" Karin says as she walks into the forest, clearly in a hurry. Marina goes inside and starts drawing a ritual circle on the ground, 'wait a minute, in the game we were only able to use circles that were already drawn, but if I can create circles that gives me a significant advantage'

Taking a seat in the cabin I close my eyes for a moment and think about my plan, 'now in the game there are fourteen contestants, all the ones on the train, along with some who left earlier, like Caligura a man who works for a mafia family in the Vatican, and Pav, the Bremen pig Karin was talking about, there's also Samarie, a very dangerous girl that houses a sliver of an old god, with it she is akin to a ticking timebomb, but those should be all the Contestants in the festival, along those lines I should think on which ending I plan on getting, there were three endings when I played the game, they were Ending A: The Machine God, Ending B: Day 4, and Ending C: The Sulfur God, now the best ending would be B where I get to leave the festival after the third day, but in that case all the contestants would have to die, Ending A involves joining the Machine God in its creation and becoming one with it, while Ending C is something I don't want to touch with a 10 foot pole, seeing as in that ending I will have to do everything in B but instead of escape I'll become the Sulfur Gods avatar and endure horrible torture. For the current situation I only have a few paths ahead of me, stay behind or head into the forest, and while staying behind would be the safest it wouldn't benefit me in the long run seeing as how I wouldn't get any stronger just staying in the train, of course I could ask Marcoh to teach me how to box but I don't see him opening up to me anytime soon. I guess that settles in then, I'll head into the forest and see if I can get into Prehevil from there'

Walking off the train I turn my head and catch Henryk staring up at Abella working on the train, "well would you look at that behind" I hear him say, "are you serious right now!?" I hear her shoot back as they argue for a bit, the fight ends with Abella telling Henryk to make himself useful and Henryk going silent and mumbling something I couldn't catch. Noticing the awkwardness in the air I quickly make my way into the forest, along the way I pick up a green herb that can be used to heal me of poison or infection.

I come to a stop as I reach a few dilapidated houses, 'these houses have barely anything in them, but there's something nearby that would provide a lot of insight into how the world around me works now that it's no longer a game' I think as I walk past the houses and stop at a lone grass patch, getting on my knees I start digging, 'in the game there was a debug tile that would give players six bullets, a rifle to shoot them, ten matches, and bolt cutters that could be used to get through the early game quickly' my hands hit something solid as I unearth the soil and slowly they reveal a wooden box. Opening the box shows me that all the items I had mentioned were in it, 'interesting, so some glitches in the game were brought her as well, I'm gonna need to test this more' pocketing the matches and attaching the bolt cutters to a loop in my pants I take a firm grip on the rifle as I chamber all 6 rounds into the gun. Picking up a blue herb nearby that could be used to heal me or be combined with another of its kind to make a potion with increased healing effect I head into the broken down house and check it just in case there was anything of value, luckily for me I find a meat pie, a pipe for smoking, and a red herb that could be combined with other herbs to enhance their effect drastically.

Searching the barrels yeilded two tomatoes and a moldy bread, slightly disappointing but it's what I expected. Heading up above the houses I come across a broken brick path and follow it, after a while I notice a fork in the road, on the left side the path ended and had little puddles of blood leading away and on the right side the path continued on, 'the left leads me to the remains of a shack with a dead man pinned to a wall and another at his feet, the right side will lead me to the Woodsman's house and a very unhappy Woodsman' seeing the obvious choice before me I turn left. And immediately throw up on the grass, the sight before me was… so much worse than what the game showed, blood was dripping down the impaled man's body slowly onto the man leaning on the wall, the pinned man was slowly being torn in half due to gravity forcing him down without care for the nail peircing his spine.

"W-what is that, what on earth? Their dead" I hear from my left as I see Tanaka walk up "No shit Sherlock" was all I could get out through gritted teeth, trying to hold down the bile in my throat, 'come one Sam, you've gotta get through this, your gonna face much worse in this game' I take a shaky breath and straighten up walking past the wall avoiding looking at the bodies once more I see a Asymmetric Circle engraved in the wood, ritual circles were separated into three parts, the Asymmetric Circle for the Old Gods, the Imperfect Circle for the New Gods, and the Perfection circle for the Ascended Gods, the Old Gods I'm aware of are Gro-Goroth, the god of destruction and human sacrifices, Sylvian, the goddess of love, lust, and creation, Vinushka, the god of nature and the offspring of Sylvian and Gro-Goroth, and finally Rher, the trickster moon god, he's the one who started this whole Festival of Termina.

Engraving the incorrect gods sigil on a circle will result in nothing, but if it's the correct god it will change the world around the user depending on which god is used, engraving any of the old gods sigils will give affinity for that god, while also doing different things depending on the environment, Rher will take you to a different dimension, Vinushka will unlock shortcuts and access to areas previously unavaliable, Sylvian will fully heal the players party and regrow all lost limbs, weirdly enough Gro-Goroth doesn't do anything besides give affinity to him, affinity is what allows learning of spells that are specific to that god.

'Now if I remember correctly, Rhers sigil takes me to a place surrounded by endless darkness, with only a few large lumps of clay that can be used later on in the game to learn lore, but other than that their kinda useless, the only other special sigil I can use here is Vinushkas, which will create a tree I can climb that will allow me to skip the majority of the early game and lead me right into the city. While the shortcut is indeed useful it's dangerous to use now as anything in the city could take me out pretty easily, still it is useful so I might as well see if I can remember the sigil, I should get a journal to write the sigils in so I don't forget, either way I don't have any chalk on me so I won't be able to do anything with it right now, hopefully I can find a journal and some chalk in the town' seeing as I can't do anything I turn around and ignoring Tanaka, go back to the fork in the road. Readying my gun I slowly follow the right path.