After the realization hit him, Arthur was left speechless, but after a minute he tried to pray to Celestial Worthy; he did it very obviously disgusted by the act to him.
Celestial Worthy was only seen as a creepy grandpa trying to parasite him! His prayers, devoid of any semblance of devotion, got no response.
He angrily thought, '… This doesn't answer any of my questions! How did I get here?! Is anyone controlling the Grey Fog trying to revive within me?' He sighed and thought, 'At least I have a true name.'
Arthur then realized he was thinking too much about the LoTM side of things since the Grey Fog had seemingly brought him here, but this is obviously the World of Shadow Slave!
Arthur sighed as he tried summoning his runes. If he was in the dream realm, then surely he had to have passed the first nightmare, but no matter how hard he tried, the Runes didn't appear, which meant he was not a carrier of the nightmare spell.
It was then that he realized why he had been sighing so much and why he was so tired despite feeling like he had been sleeping for ages moments before!
He was infected by the nightmare spell since he was out and about in the dream realm without the protection of a domain for who knows how long! Arthur grimly thought,
'My physical body is definitely dead. This should be my spiritual body; it can't just return to my physical body in the real world while I face my trial, and If it dies, I die even worse while I'm facing my trial; my body will be completely defenseless here. Even if I get lucky and my body is fine while I pass the trial, I will have probably starved to death for days before I even wake up.
Arthur was tired. All he wanted was to sleep, but he knew if he did, it would not end well. After finishing his trial, he would need food; otherwise, he would be too tired to hunt. All Arthur could do was try to unlock his aspect naturally
like Rain by sheer luck while waiting for The Sun to Rise and hoping he could get some meat from a corpse the other scavengers left alone for when he awoke from his trial since he felt like he had been infected by the Nightmare Spell for a few days. He was feeling too tired to hunt now.
He smiled self-deprecatingly and thought, 'Scavenging from scavengers? Eating the leftovers of those ugly things?' Arthur sighed again, then continued his thoughts, this time his eyes shining with defiance.
'Is this why I transmigrated?' His expression turned resolute. 'No, I won't accept it! I'm better than that! Better than mere awakened beasts! After all, I… I am the protagonist of this era!'
Instantly after finishing that thought, he felt a little embarrassed for daring to copy The Plagiarizer himself, but he quickly composed himself; he was still unwilling to accept his place on the food chain.
So Arthur decided tomorrow he would hunt a scavenger while waiting for the sun to rise. He started planning on how to do that while trying to find a way to discover his aspect; he transmigrated after all he had to have had a superpower!
Closing his eyes with his full focus, Arthur tried to sense his aspect. He could feel and even see the grey fog in his mind; he could almost touch it. He almost felt like he was lucidly dreaming. Furthermore, he thought, 'Where am I?' and the grey fog from within his mind stirred,
He then had a vision. He saw his own body on the hand of a headless statue almost completely submerged by the Dark Sea, as black as ink. The vision ended.
Given the ease with which he discovered his aspect, he suspected that his aspect had already been uncovered since he woke up!
'Must be one of the perks of being a transmigrator,' Arthur mused
He realized he had just made a divination, and although he would have preferred a combat aspect, it was at least better than his cryptic visions.
Arthur thought, 'Even if some of the Divinations I make are vague, at least I know what they are generally about since they are in response to my questions.'
He felt a bit more tired after having made the divination; it must consume soul essence, he mused, but he knew he shouldn't be stingy with his divination ability in his situation, so he made more
The first divination he made was about where the least dangerous carapace scavenger near him would be once it was noon.
The scavenger was hiding in a hole filled with mud; it looked like a completely normal mud puddle.
The scavenger only had one arm that looked like it could break if it was hit hard enough. He was also missing half his legs, only having one left on both sides.
He looked terribly damaged and tired, still bleeding from various places, as if he had just been fighting recently.
He was satisfied with the result since he could scout out the Scavenger, so he started with his second divination; it was about where the Scavenger near him who was the easiest for him to run away from would be at noon.
In his vision, he saw a carapace scavenger who only had 1 leg. It was hiding underneath the sand, right near a huge coral, away from the least dangerous scavenger's hiding spot by 20 meters north.
Arthur planned to lure the injured scavenger to the one who couldn't move and attack when one of them dies to the other. The immobile Scavenger seemed like the most likely victor; he had both claws undamaged and was not nearly as wounded as the other.
His third Divination was about the location of any suitable weapon he could use capable of killing a Carapace Scavenger nearby
This time he saw a Carapace Scavenger with only one arm and all of its legs shoot out from under the sand near a Mud Puddle. It was dangerously close to night;
perhaps that's why the Carapace Scavenger, who had three legs but both of his arms, was in a rush as he tried to hide near the Mud Puddle under the sand as well, only to end up ambushed.
Taken by surprise, the ambushed Carapace Scavenger lost an arm, but he did not cry out in pain; instead, his reaction was to face his adversary and swing his remaining claw at the ambushing Scavenger's head, but his opponent, the Carapace Scavenger that ambushed him, didn't die from a single strike and fought back fiercely.
After a gruesome one-on-one battle, the ambushed scavenger, with its one remaining claw terribly damaged and only having two legs left,
let out a cry of victory and started eating the defeated scavenger. After a while, a sharp broken bone from the corpse of the defeated scavenger was thrown away by the victorious scavenger; his vision followed it.
As the night came and the Scavenger regretfully retreated to his hiding place, not having finished its meal, Arthur's point of view shifted. He saw the Dark Sea swallowing the land at great speeds from the east, taking the bone with it towards the west with great force,
And in the distance he saw the headless statue of a woman; he was currently on the palm of about 60 meters away from the Dark Sea. He realized this was the location of the very Scavenger his Divination deemed to be the least dangerous.
The bone carried by the Wave of Dark Sea was stabbed into a coral, and the vision ended.
Arthur was too tired to make any more Divinations, he would have wanted to make another to gouge the level of danger for his plan.
But he feared falling asleep due to exhaustion, so he laid down and waited for the sun to rise, trying to stay awake. After a few hours, the run rose and the dark sea retreated.
Arthur slowly climbed down the statue, trying to make himself less visible to the scavengers below by staying near the shadows of the statue, intent on hunting for scavenger meat.
Arthur managed to get down without being spotted with some difficulty. When he did, he carefully walked silently, trying to avoid the attention of other scavengers; if even one of them found him, he knew he was dead.
As he slowly walked, he didn't even try to go towards the Scavenger hidden under the Mud Puddle. He walked around it at a safe distance and passed it. He continued walking until he noticed a puddle of water.
'Jackpot!' Arthur thought he was dying of thirst! If he attempted to run away or fight like this, he was dead ten times over! Now he needed to find something to start a fire with; he needed to boil the water after all.
He started searching nearby and easily found some coral. After drying it for a bit, it would turn flammable. He was pretty sure, so he planned on using it as a replacement for firewood.
He placed it near the puddle of water and searched for a container to boil the water in and something to ignite the coral with.
Eventually, after looking for hours, he almost completely lost hope he would find anything useful, but before he did, he spotted the huge bones of a huge aquatic beast; it must have been at least of the corrupted rank he thought
The bones seemed to shine like they were made out of aluminum; they seemed extremely durable; there was no flesh to the huge skeleton, just bones.
As he picked up a smaller tooth, about half a meter in width and almost a meter in length, he briefly inspected it and found it was thin and extremely light.
Arthur thought, 'The bigger teeth are bigger than my own body, and there are so many of them too; it must have hated going to the dentist to have this many replacements.' He lampooned and searched for what might be a better weapon,
but unfortunately, the bones on the thing were too big and heavy for him to use with any efficiency, so he hit another tooth with the one he had grabbed.
With the sound of metal hitting metal, a spark was produced. Arthur sighed in relief, "Finally! Something I can use to start a fire."
Arthur quickly left the area to avoid any scavengers that might have heard the sound. He retraced his steps, leaving the two teeth he picked up near the corrals as he went to find a container to boil water.
After even more hours of looking, he found something he could use as a container to boil water with. What he found was a skull; to be more precise, it was the skull of a human half buried under the sand.
At this point, Arthur didn't know if he was lucky or unlucky to end up in this situation. He was definitely very unlucky.
But to not have encountered a scavenger in his current state and finding a "water container" in this almost empty desert-like place, he was certainly lucky, but… Did it really have to be a human Skull?!
Arthur picked up the skull, shaking the sand out of it. Looking at the skull, Arthur felt as if he were being judged by it. He whispered, "It's nothing personal; there's just nothing but sand and bones here, oh! Corals too, I guess, but I need to use something as a container to boil water, or I will die of thirst, so I really have no choice, ok?"
The skull said nothing; it was dead, after all.
Arthur, realizing he was already talking to himself, chose to end his "conversation" with the Skull and went back to boil water near the shallow puddle of water.
After filling the skull with water and holding it over the fire he started, he waited for it to boil. It felt like it would take forever, and a Carapace scavenger might spot him if he stayed too long.
Eventually he decided it was boiled enough, and so from a human skull he drank greedily, finishing all the water in it as he did. A tear fell down his face.
He was so happy just to drink water, even if it was from a human skull and probably not completely safe even after he boiled it.
But he didn't spend much time to enjoy it; searching for the things he needed to boil water took him hours; it was already noon by now if the sun still rose at 5 a.m. like back on Earth, then he spent about 7 hours searching for things to boil water with!
The reason it took so long was probably the exhaustion and hallucinations he would sometimes have due to his lack of sleep;
he felt as if by the end of the day he would definitely fall asleep without even realizing it.
And so Arthur, following his vision, searched for the weapon he had divined last night.
The bone was the forearm of the defeated scavenger. It was about one meter wide; it's length enough for him to hold with only one hand.
It was sharp on both ends at the end of the width, but its whole length was flat; he could grab it without hurting himself. This was the weapon capable of killing a carapace scavenger from his vision.
It was stabbed into a coral about 5 meters high since there were some scavengers nearby seemingly grouped up eating together. He waited for them to go away; if he didn't, he would be spotted by the scavengers.
Arthur did not completely lack a survival instinct, and so he waited and used this chance to rest. He had moved a lot for someone who was starving and lacking sleep.
While waiting for them to leave, he cursed them under his breath, "I'm starving out here; eat faster; you show off third-rate thugs! Tsk! Just Who do you mere Crab wannabes think you are to brag in front of me?"
After a few minutes of cursing them, the crabs left. Waiting a minute to make sure they weren't coming back, he climbed the coral and took the sharp bone.
After climbing down, he slowly walked to the Mud Puddle he saw in his vision, where the severely injured Carapace Scavenger was hiding.
Partly to conserve his energy; he would need it to outrun the thing, and partly because he would still not fight it yet so he wasn't in a rush.
He needs to make sure he won't run into another scavenger while luring the injured one to the immobile scavenger, so he will scout the path in advance.
After doing just that, he rushed back to the Mud Puddle. He needed to be fast so that another scavenger wouldn't show up while he would be chased by the half-dead scavenger!
And so Arthur, more exhausted than afraid, went to poke the metaphorical bear with his stick. As he did, he thought, 'This is it; if I succeed, I can survive after finishing my nightmare'!