The Liberomancer [Isekai Progression LitRPG]

Several Thousand Miles Away From Chipker…

Felix Yershov yawned as he turned around lazily in his bed. He had the oddest feeling, like he had overslept.

Ah, not that it would matter much anyway. It wasn't like there was much for him to do.

It wasn't like he was in a rush today.

But, if he slept in for too long, he knew that he would end up with a headache for the rest of the day - like he had a milder version of a hangover.

As he groggily forced himself to get up, he looked out the window and noticed that yes, the sun was rather high up in the sky, at least, far higher up than it should have been when he woke up.

But then again, it was not like it mattered much.

His room was simple - as a matter of fact, the house he lived in could be most generously described as a an overgrown wooden box with only two rooms - his bedroom and an adjoining kitchen. It was nothing too fancy, though that was how Felix preferred it to be.

He couldn't help but wonder yet again, that if someone were to visit him, he'd be deathly embarrassed at the way his room was cluttered. Were his mother still alive, he would've been given quite the scolding for being so careless.

Then again, no one was going to visit him.

Not here, not when he lived nearly as far from civilization as he could.

That was not to say that there had not been a settlement in this area where he lived - long ago, this had been a thriving place. But anything that had survived the ruin that befell it was inside his house.

The things that littered his house - some of which were quite valuable - elicited no true attachment from him. Yes, he kept them for the memories attached to them, but these 'treasures' were also a dark reminder of his past. Perhaps it would have been better for him to have thrown them all out? After all, it did him little good to continue dwelling upon them. They brought back unpleasant memories, though, every time he had thought that he had found the courage to toss them away, he found that he couldn't.

Perhaps, those memories of that time, long ago, were an integral part of them. He could not throw them away any easier than he could throw away a part of who he was.

But, that was all in the past. More than twenty years had gone by since then…

And yet, those memories were so fresh he could have sworn they had taken place only yesterday.

Once he finished making breakfast, a simple ordeal - the task now fell on him as to what he would do with the rest of the day.

He exited his house, which was built under the alcove of an adjoining cliff. A large tree thrived near its entrance, meaning that it was quite well hidden. If anyone had happened to wander near the place for whatever reason, they would probably have difficulty finding it unless their face was right in front of his house, or had some magical ability to help them discover it.

He gazed across the landscape, which was a landscape completely barren of any other form of intelligent life. It was as he liked it - him, all alone. He was near the middle of a range of hills, surrounded by dense forests on all sides. The place where his old home had once stood had long since been reclaimed by the wilderness, a testament to Mother Nature's power which humanity could resist against, but could not deny.

Still, he felt no sorrow as he thought of that.

Because this made things so much simpler for him.

What did he want to eat for lunch? That would determine a good portion of what he would do with the rest of his time that day.

If he wanted fish, he would need to visit that nearby stream his uncle had once shown him.

If he wanted mushrooms, he had been told where the best ones - the ones that wouldn't make you sick - grew, by his father.

And if he wanted deer meat, or the meat of some other prey animal, he would follow the hunting instinct that he had gained after years and years of living like this.

"Ah… if only life had always been like this…" Felix said to himself.

This was what life should have been from the get-go. He had no worries - and no problems. He would wake up everyday, make breakfast, hunt or gather something for lunch and dinner, and save the leftovers for breakfast.

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No worries - none of the concerns that came with civilization! No taxes to pay, no lord to obey, and no one to nag him.

He had not known this when he had been younger - but this was what real freedom was like.

That said, he couldn't deny that it got boring at times. Usually, the monotony would break only when he was called upon to fulfill his obligations.

Yet, that had not happened in several years. How long has it been since he received a call to duty? Seven, no, maybe ten years?

He used to mark time to keep track, though, after a while, he realized how futile that was and had given up on it.

Almost instinctively, he turned his head to a trail that was all too familiar to him. He and his younger brother had gone down that trail countless times - and he knew that if he decided to take a walk in that area, he would end up going back to that place once again. Is that what he wanted?

He would probably end up wasting an even larger portion of the day if he decided to do something like that.

No, today, he would not give in to that instinct.

Rabbit - yes, that was what he felt like eating today! It would take him a while to find a group large enough to satiate him, but in all of his time of living like this, he had only gone hungry thrice. One of them had been because of a nasty storm that had made going outside borderline impossible for three days, and on that third day, he had run out of stored food. The other two were simply due to a lack of experience during his earlier years.

He stretched his arms and stifled a yawn as he headed out.

Within two hours, he had found a burrow and with childish ease finished off the tiny family, retrieving their bodies and he began skinning them in the field.

Should he go back to his house to finish his meal? He could, but then again, there was just something exciting about doing it all out here in the open.

After all, this was what a real hunter did, wasn't it?

He made a quick fire as he started to cook them, watching the clouds gently glide over the azure sky. Much like he and his father had once done when there had been time in-between their other duties.

"Remember, you have to take care of your younger brother," Felix's father had said to him during one of these reprieves. "That is the duty of the eldest - to look after the younger."

Felix's brother was only younger than him by a few minutes, but, Felix had always been the responsible one. And in their culture, great reverence was to be given to those older than you - even if it was as negligible as the age difference between twins which was barely even a few minutes at most.

Felix remembered nodding excitedly during those times. "Of course father! I would never let anything hurt him," he had replied at the time.

"Attaboy," his father would say as he ruffled Felix's hair. "That's just what I would expect from a son of mine."

And like that, they would exchange stories and tales, and other things, until they would eventually just lie there, in the fields, together, saying nothing. And yet, there had been such a peace between the two of them during those precious minutes, that although nothing was said, it was as if the father-son duo understood each other perfectly.

Eventually, of course, his father would realize how late it was, and that they had to hurry up and head back home. After all, there were places to be! His mother would chastise the two of them - though sometimes his younger brother would tag along and it would be all three of them who incurred her wrath.

As these memories swirled around him, and he gazed off into the distance, the memories of buildings and streets now long gone superimposing themselves upon the terrain, he lost track of time, sitting there until the sun was about to set.

In other words, he had stayed out too late just like he had initially feared he might end up doing.

Ah well, it was not like he was doing anything important tomorrow either. He got up and headed home.

Perhaps, one of these days, he would go back to that place. But he didn't like to go to that place - for all the… discomfort it brought him. Yet much like moths to a flame, he couldn't help but feel as if something was calling for him there. He would visit it every few months or so, despite how it pained his heart and soul.

Felix stopped for a while on his journey back home. Peering over a nearby ridge, a good portion of the surrounding area was visible to him. He could see the way the sun painted the sea of trees in a golden hue just as it was about to depart from the sky. The trails of multicolored lights that it left behind in the sky, painting the world in all the hues of twilight, were visible without a single obstructing cloud. A lone group of birds was flying away in the distance, flying as freely and unbound as he wished that he could one day.

The scent of wildflowers flowed gently towards him with the breeze, washing away the stench of the meat that lingered to him much like his old memories, an unwanted reminder of something that had happened in the past.

The sounds of birds could be heard somewhere beneath him - and as he strained his ears further he heard the gentle rumble of water from a stream he was familiar with. The sound of some beast pierced through the tranquility for but a flash - but he was not perturbed in the slightest, as that sound soon vanished and was replaced with the chirping of cicadas and crickets.

In this solitude, in this wilderness, he was home. The ghosts that haunted his past seem to hold no power over him in this instant, being as ephemeral as sandcastles in the sand. It felt as if time had frozen in that instant, as if this moment would last forever - he certainly wished that it could be so. It was just Felix, and the boundless treasures of the earth, covered by the firmament above like a warm blanket. Nothing that had existed before this moment seemed to matter, and nothing that would come after would either. It was just this - the here and now that was important, as if the past and future had never existed and would never exist.

Felix's heart had been filled with many regrets, but, in that moment, it felt as if all of his worries had been lifted from his shoulders. The world was rendered to him in an unreal clarity, as if he was dreaming rather than standing there on that ridge.

Felix was one with the scenery, and the scenery was one with him.

He had no desire to hasten his return back to his shack, no, he was content to stand here until daybreak arrived if it came to that.

Right now, for now, in this moment, he was completely at peace.