302. Tales about the Outside

Tyler's Growing Curiosity

Tyler had been in the Village of Vale for a week now. It didn't take him long to realize that leaving the village was almost impossible.

The village teachings were strict—the outside world was dangerous. Only hunters were permitted to leave.

According to the village elders, the land beyond was teeming with monsters, creatures that no ordinary human could defeat.

Long ago, their ancestors tried to escape, hoping to find another village, another civilization. But no one had ever made it past the massive riverbed to the east or the gloomy dark horizon to the north.

The Gloomy Dark Horizon was especially terrifying.

It was a land with no sun, no moon, no stars—just endless darkness.

Anyone who entered it came back broken.

Their eyes hollow. Their minds shattered.

They murmured strange things—that everything was an illusion. That nothing was real.