Chương 165: Chapter 163: Pursuit of divinity

Over the next few days, Vincent starts to put some of the weight back on. There's a weird thing that happens when you go into starvation mode, even for just a little while. Your stomach shrinks, meaning you simply can't eat as much food as you used to. You have to slowly stretch it back out, and that means starting with smaller meals and only gradually adding more and more food as you go. Vincent doesn't put all the weight back on, but he does fill out a little.

During those few days, we do very little actual fighting. There's some hunting, but the experience from hunting down animals is negligible. I think I got like 530 points from all of it. But we're not in a rush to level up. We're not really in a rush to do much of anything. Which is the problem, really. Life is a story. Whether you like it or not, life is a series of events that happen one after another. And a story needs a purpose. You need something to do, some goal to reach, or you just flounder.

And when you flounder too long, you end up stuck in your head, in thought processes that are maybe not the most healthy things for you to be thinking about. At least, that's how my brain works. When I don't have something that is driving me forward, I start diving deeper into my mind, and that is almost never a good thing. There's this whole saying about having main character energy, where someone acts as if the world revolves around them, as if they are the only important one in their story.

And while that isn't healthy when you use it to ignore the plight of others or to feel entitled to things going your way, there is something to be said for being a main character. Because you are. We all are. We're the main characters in our own stories. We are our own narrators, our own perspective characters. We can't escape our own perspective. So yeah, I'm the main character in my story. El is the main character in hers. In Vincent's story, I'm a side character. In Ash's story, I'm a supporting character.

But in my story, I'm the lead. I'm the one in charge. But I need to lead that charge somewhere. I need something to do, something to focus on. Getting to the city isn't enough of a goal. What are we going to do when we get there? What is the plan? What's the overarching goal? Without having something like that, we're just going through the paces. And then depression rears its ugly head. Which is weird. The world we're moving through is absolutely gorgeous.

Once we get away from the maester's town, the world gives way to grasslands, rolling green pastures full of life. The sky is blue and beautiful, the sun is shining, and there are very few clouds. Even when the clouds do gather, even when it rains on us, the rain isn't all that cold. The temperature of the air is pretty much ideal, and I'm neither sweating nor shivering. The world is pleasant.

But sometimes being surrounded by things that are supposed to bring you joy end up just being a juxtaposition to what's going on in your mind. And if I let my mind run rampant, I know that sooner or later I'm going to end up closing in on myself, withdrawing from my friends, and no amount of color in the world is going to survive. The world will become gray, or at least muted, and then what am I supposed to do?

Rather than let my mind get the best of me, I decide to bring up the subject to the others, see what they want to do.

"If we're not going to chase down Amanda, if we're not going to try to become gods, then what are we doing?" I ask. Vincent is slowly chewing his food, trying to teach his body to absorb more nutrients so he can get back to his healthy weight. Ash is standing guard, but El and Gigi are both sitting next to me around the fire.

"I don't see why adventure isn't enough of a goal," El says.

"I mean, can't we just do that? Can't we just focus on getting more levels, on seeing more of the world?"

"But to what end?" I ask.

"There has to be a purpose, doesn't there?"

"Does there?" Gigi asks.

"Do we want to get enough money to settle down somewhere? Do we want to get our own castle? Or each have our own castle? We could shift our focus to a castle sim kind of game and just rule over our own parcels of land." El makes a face like she just ate something sour.

"That sounds boring as hell," she says. I have to agree, but the idea still has merit. I mean, so far we've always been playing the same game. We've been playing the adventurer game ever since the tutorial started. Well, we started with just a survival game, but it's expanded into an adventure game. Maybe there are other types of game we can play.

"Is life just a game?" I ask. It's a weird question to ask when you're living in a gamified world, but I think it needs to be asked.

"Wasn't it always?" El asks.

"I mean, we used to have to play the game of capitalism, because it was the only game in town. But life has always been about learning the rules and playing the game. Leveling up even before we had character sheets."

"But we were always trying to escape that game," Gigi points out.

"Whether we knew it or not. I hated capitalism. I still do. We have a ton of money, but money isn't everything. And money isn't capitalism. Money just gives us a bit more control over what we do in life."

"Money doesn't matter," I say.

"We can always get more if we want it, but we don't need it. We can all survive in the wilderness indefinitely, right? We don't need to play that game at all."

"Then what game do you want to play?" Ash asks, looking over her shoulder.

"If you don't want to play the game of coin, and you don't want to play the game of thrones or the game of adventure, what do you want to play? Do you want to be a crafter?" This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. I think about that for a few seconds. Do I want to be a craftsman? Do I want to make things for others to use? Do I want to live vicariously through customers who go out on adventures?

Seems like if that's what I want, I can skip the vicarious part and just keep adventuring. But that alone isn't enough. So what do I want?

"We could become dragon slayers," I say.

"Find a dragon and try to kill it. Hopefully one that is harming a town or threatening innocents or something like that. But maybe just a dragon who wants to become a minor god and needs a good death to get there."

"To what end?" El asks, mocking my earlier point.

"Isn't that just being an adventurer? Or do you want the dragon hoard?"

"I wonder if having the hoard is enough to turn you into a dragon," Gigi says. I look over at her.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, how do we know that we can't turn into dragons? Just because a dragon told us that we can't? If Amanda is right, if Root is right by proxy, then we can become gods. But minor gods become dragons, and dragons become minor gods. Whose to say that we can't do the step in between and join that cycle? Maybe we can be dragons."

"Do you want to be a dragon?" Vincent asks her. Gigi shrugs.

"It doesn't sound like a bad option," she says.

"I mean, we'd be able to fly around at incredible speeds. We could see the whole world. We could fly across the ocean in hours rather than days. We could amass treasures. We could help adventurers if we wanted to. We could do pretty much anything we wanted."

"We can already do anything we want," El says.

"Except fly."

"I can fly," Vincent points out.

"Not fast," El says.

"Maybe being a dragon would be a good thing," Ash says.

"It might give us an endless loop of goals. Become a dragon so that you can become a minor god, become a minor god so that you can become a dragon, on and on until the end of time." That makes me make a face like I ate something rotten.

"I don't want to live forever," I say. I don't know if I've ever said that out loud. I'm not sure I've ever really allowed myself to think about that. When I was younger, all I wanted was immortality. I wanted to live to see the stars burn out. There was so much out there that I could still see, that I could still do. So many places to go, so many books to read, so many stories to tell and to live through and to learn. I didn't think I would ever run out of things to do.

I didn't think life would ever get boring or tedious. But I'm older now, and when I think about it, I don't want to be around forever. I'm not saying I want to die any time soon, not for good, but I definitely don't want to be immortal. I want there to be an ending. Some people say that the fact life has an ending is what makes it precious. We have limited time to experience things, so everything we experience matters. There is no wasted time, just spent time. But that's only true because time is a finite resource.

And maybe it's supposed to be. Maybe that's what I want. That's really morbid.

"I do," Ash says.

"I want to shape the universe to my will. I want to watch other people live their lives. I want to influence things over thousands of years. I want to make little adjustments and see the butterfly effect happen in real time."

"So you want to be a god," El says. Ash nods.

"Then maybe we should seek that possibility out."

"But you don't want to be a god," Gigi says.

"You said so the other day."

"And I'll keep saying it," El says, nodding firmly.

"But this isn't just about what I want. This is about what we all want. Caleb wants a goal. Ash wants to be a god. Why not both? Why not have making Ash a god our goal? We don't all have to do it, we don't all have to want it. The fact that at least one of us does makes it a worthwhile endeavor, doesn't it? So let's stop wandering aimlessly and start looking for a way to become gods." I think that counts as a passionate speech for El. She doesn't usually go on all that much.

"In Greek mythology," Vincent says, "there is a fruit at the top of mount Olympus. It's called Ambrosia. It's the food of the gods. When a mortal eats ambrosia, they become gods themselves. Or at least immortal. I can't really remember if you have to keep eating the fruit to remain a god or not."

"It would almost be better if you did," Gigi says.

"Then we could try out being gods, and if we don't like it we could go back to being mortal."

"Do you think there's something like that in this world?" I ask.

"If there is, maybe we just need to find the tallest mountain and climb to the top."

"That would be an adventure," El says.

"And better than climbing it just because it's there." We'd gain a lot of levels of climbing, that's for sure. I currently have 5. I don't know if that's the highest in the group, but it might be. Then again, El might be higher after having climbed out of the dungeon. She's right; it would be an adventure. And a good goal. So we decide that godhood is going to be our quest. We really are seeking out divinity. Not to stop Amanda, not even to help her.

We might help her if we run into her again, we might end up hindering her by accident. But she isn't our goal. I like that the goal is to make Ash a god. I like that we're doing something for us. It makes it feel more real. No more chasing someone else with the vague notion of doing what she is doing. Now we are looking for ourselves. We're working for ourselves. Of course, finding a mountain is easier said than done.

The best we can do is have Vincent fly straight up for as far as he can manage before the air gets too cold and too thin for him. Once up there, he gets a bird's eye view of the land around us, like looking down at a giant relief map in a one to one scale. But even that only gives him so much of the world that he can see. He can't go up high enough to get the whole world in his view. And even when he does get a view, it's hard to measure distances.

He comes down, still shivering from how cold it was as high up as he went.

"There are definitely mountains," he says. He points towards the west.

"That way, maybe a few hundred miles. It's hard to say. But there are mountains in that direction."

"Could you see the ocean from how high up you were?" I ask. He nods.

"Were the mountains about as far away from us as the ocean, or were they farther?"

"Farther," he says.

"But not by all that much." That gives me at least a basic idea of how far we are. I figure we're about two or three hundred miles from the coast at this point. He must have been really high to be able to see that far. If the mountains are another four hundred miles west, then that means he could see a span of probably close to a thousand miles. How high up was that?

"Do we keep going to the city, or do we just turn to the west now?" I ask. Ash thinks about it for a few seconds. She's really stepping into her role as leader now that we're basically on a quest for her. I don't know if Gigi or Vincent want to be gods or not. I'm still not entirely sure if I want to be. I think I'm with El on staying mortal, but that might change over time. The only one I know who really wants divinity is Ash. So she gets to be the one to make these decisions.

"Let's head west," she says.

"We might veer off to a city at some point, if we see one in the distance. But we don't really need a city, do we?"

"Cities always have more magic in them," Vincent says.

"But I don't have the funds to purchase much. So I'm all for adventuring and gathering more treasure before we hit another city." That settles it, then. We turn ourselves a bit to the west, and we start making time in that direction.