by Pegaz
This is only temporary, he told himself. It's for my survival.
Once he got the map skill he could get the quest completed and buy the right equipment for survival in the woods. He could even afford to live in the inn for a few days too.
With that thought in mind, he made his way back to the carcass, steeling his nerves. He picked up the skull, which was still missing its left half, and went to the river to wash it out. Time passed, and soon enough he held the clean rabbit skull in his left hand. With a new resolve alighting within, he punched down with his right hand, breaking off small pieces that fell on the ground.
He started picking the bits of bone up, dipping them in the water before placing them into his mouth and swallowing. He didn’t even chew. His fists were strong enough to break the bone, but he knew that his teeth weren't.
When it came down to it, he'd rather eat tasteless bone than fur with blood stains on it.
Chapter 13
The Desperation
After eating all the bones, John felt full. He ran to the river and plunged his head in, trying to wash out the taste of raw meat as well as any pieces of bone that remained in his mouth.
Once he’d had his fill of water, John came up for air. The river didn't move very fast here. Looking down, he could make out a vague reflection. It suddenly hit him. From the beginning, he had wondered what he looked like, but when getting into town he’d completely forgotten about his appearance. He never encountered any coincidentally place mirrors or glass, so it never struck him.
John couldn't see any details in the reflection, just a blurry figure. He gave up and made a mental note to check once he got back. This time he must NOT forget!
The meat, bones, and water left him feeling very full at least. Now he just had to wait until tomorrow afternoon for his map to complete. For the time being he figured he could find and hunt some things and add to the Time Pool. He had nothing better to do, and even if it only rewarded him with a few seconds per kill, it would eventually add up. With that thought in mind as well as his recent experience in discovering that the rabbits were carnivores, he didn’t need to hide any more. He followed the river downstream. Just as he started down his way, however, a thought hit him like a bolt of lightning.
Waterfall = cliff = rocks = flower?
It was worth a shot. He hurried upstream to the waterfall, reaching the fall in about twenty minutes. There were loads of rocks behind the waterfall as far as he could see, but it was all grey. There was no cave behind it either, which was a bit disappointing.
He looked up and saw nothing black. He couldn't climb and couldn’t cross the river either. Still, he walked along the bottom of the cliff looking up to see if he could find anything.
Still nothing.
He eventually got to the edge where the slope began. It was where he first came down. It felt like it was forever ago.
John turned around and started to backtrack to where the rabbit died. From there, he could go further downstream to hunt. When he got close to place where he killed the rabbit, he spotted a big, round, black ass about a hundred feet away. It had a small tail and was eating the carcass that he’d abandoned.
Realising what the creature was, he dove into the bushes on his left to hide before it turned around.
SAFE! How the fuck is my luck so bad?! Already survived one Continuous Bear attack with another party, and now that I'm on my own I meet another one?! My attack might be ranked higher than it, but I've got no defence against it either. If I can kill the bear with one blow then he can kill me in one attack, too! Aargh, it's too risky. Which way is the wind going? I need to go downwind, so he doesn't smell me out.
John picked up some grass and tossed it in the air. The wind blew it the same direction as the river.
SHIT-- upwind! The bear can sniff me out anytime it wants, I need to leave NOW!
"GROOOOAAAAR!!!"
The bit of grass that John so carelessly offered to the wind had made it way down to where the bear was. Without a moment’s hesitation, the creature had picked up his scent, and was now looking directly at his hiding spot.
RUN!
John bolted as fast as he could, away from the river, trying to stay out of sight from the bear. He went around trees and through any bushes he could find, anything to obscure the monster’s vision. The only thing he had to hope for was that maybe the bear was too preoccupied with feeding to deal with a running target.
After what seemed like an age of running, John was overcome by a wave of tiredness all of a sudden, almost as if he could fall asleep while standing. His vision darted into the system and he checked his stamina-- it was currently at 1/100.
Shit, I forgot about the stamina! I don't even know how long it takes to regenerate. Here I am with a monster bear hunting me down, and my mind wants to sleep! I can't fall asleep here!
PAP!
John slapped himself as hard as he could, actually drawing blood. He had to wake up!
Should not have done that, John’s panic rose. Now, I've got the smell of fresh blood on me. If the bear is tracking me down, that slap helped the bear more than it helped me.
"GROOOAAARRR!"
Sweat beading on his forehead, John turned around to face the monster. He couldn't run any more. He didn't even know if the system would let him throw a punch without any stamina, but if he did nothing then it was game over.
The bear ran around the trees in the distance, and John could see it now. He activated his Senses skill ‘Sight’ to see further. With the skill in use, he could make out the blood dripping from the mouth full of big, lethally sharp teeth.
The bear's eyes locked onto him.
Continuous Bear
HP: ***
Attack: **
Defence: **
The system’s words popped up, surprising John. He quickly skimmed over it and closed it. That must have been the Analyser Basic skill, so basic it couldn't do anything at all. John bit back his complaint with a twinge of annoyance.
Continuous Bear
HP: **0
Attack: **
Defence: **
Fuck this system! It’s just toying with me! I'm sure of it now! Someone somewhere is watching me and enjoying the hell out of this show. Well, he can personally fuck right off for thinking he can screw around with me right here and now, of all times!!!
Anger. John felt pure hatred for whoever or whatever was at the other side of the system at this point, but could do nothing about it. At the very least, he figured he could vent his anger out on the bear before he died.
"GROOOAARRR!"
This time, it was John that let out a roar and charged forward, mustering whatever energy he could get out of his tired body. His shout was much louder than that bear's, but the bear didn't care and carried on charging. Once he was within arm range, the bear stood up and swiped his right claws at John's head.
John moved his head to the left, followed by his body ducking in the same direction and thrusting forward towards the bear. The claw had missed for the most part, but it's furthest outer nail had nicked John just above his right eyebrow. The flesh tore apart all the way to his right earlobe.
Ignoring the pain and ducking forward to dodge the claws, John turned at an angle so that the bear was in the centre of his vision. He put his right foot forward, knee bent, right arm tucked into his hip, and pushed up with his knee with all of his might, his fist at a forty-five-degree angle. Vaguely, in the back of his mind, John recalled seeing the move somewhere before in a game he used to play.
The punch drilled into the bear's weakest part, the underside, and then continued its way upward. Arm now fully sunken into the flesh, blood gushed out like a waterfall, completely painting John red. He felt the bear's heartbeat getting weaker and weaker. John opened and clenched his fist onto whatever organs he could get his hands from inside of the bear. This was one of the motions the skills strengthened called Crush Grip.
The dying bear kept clawing at John's back, trying to g
et him off. However, John was too close for it to use its full strength. As its final act, the bear started to fall forward as if trying to take John down with it. Two tons of muscle, flesh, and bones began to fall on top of John.
John felt the bear tilting forward, and guessed that it's about to collapse. In retaliation, he tried to pull his arm out the bear’s innards. He shifted his left shoulder down and tilted to the left, so his head and chest were away from the bear. He got his hand halfway out, but the speed of the fall eventually caught up to him and his hand was pulled back in.
BANG!
John had no time to move. The two-ton carcass fell directly on top of him. His only saving grace was that his head wasn't crushed underneath the mound of flesh. The corpse landed on John’s chest and torso, where it now lay in a puddle of its own warm blood.
Trying to free himself, John found his left arm pulled out quick and easily, but his right arm was numb. It might have even been broken from punching the bear open. His body was still at an angle when the bear fell onto him, so he could no longer feel anything below his chest for that matter.
It's a lucky thing that his head and shoulders had landed inside a small bush. To any observers, it would just look like the bear was sleeping, John's head would not be visible. The only giveaway was the pool of blood oozing from the bear’s underside. Just a minor detail.
The bear's right arm lay languidly across John's chest with the bear's head to his right. John used his left hand, gripped the bear's arm and pulled at an angle to his left. With a bit of effort, the limb’s flesh tore from the rest of the body, despite the naturally protective fur. Blood started leaking out of the wound, but John paid it no heed.
He was too busy greedily consuming as much of the limb as he could, desperate to regain his stamina. Once he’d completely devoured the piece he ripped off, he then reached out again to tear off some more of the flesh. After a minute, the one side of the entire bear's arm was gone.
John was full and couldn't move. Maybe he was even paralysed. John had no way of knowing, but at least he was still alive. He could eat whatever he needed to survive now. He had no other option.
‘Ding!’
John was coming to terms with the situation when the chime broke his concentration. Recalling how pissed the system made him, he opened up the display.
Congratulations on facing your first true life-and-death fight head-on with courage and determination! For killing your enemy in a single strike, we have awarded you with a onetime gift of 5 Skill Points. The Continuous Bear's 1-hour worth of Time Pool has been increased by ten times. In addition, the Idlers Speed skill bonus for Level 9 has been remastered to reduce all time needed for any skill by half.
What is this, a make-up gift? Fine, I'll forgive you. John rolled his eyes at the system as he scanned the screen.
Name: John
Age: 15
Idlers: 0/16
Time Pool: 10h 1s
Skill Points: 5
Options:
Continue - On
Filter - On
HP: 17/65
Attack: G (220 Points)
Defence: N/A
Stamina: N/A
Looks like I lost quite a bit of HP. But the only thing the bear managed to do to me while we fought was cut me above my eyebrow, and that’s already stopped bleeding. Hopefully, it won't leave a scar since I haven't got Immunity Level 1 yet. The only real damage is from the bear falling on me. I still can't tell what's broken or not.
Idlers Speed - Idlers 0/99, -1 Second Per Idler - 6/9
The first thing John did was put three of his skill points into the Idlers Speed skill slot. The indicator then flashed to the letter C before proceeding to disappear. Without any of his skill modifiers, it would have taken 1,641 years for this level to complete—a number John calculated on the way to the forest. These three Skill Points had an excellent use.
He thought about his current situation, and he found the perfect skill.
Dismantler - Idlers 0/99, Master 0/1
He put a skill point into that and watched it turn to C and then disappear, too. When he looked at the bear with his left eye's vision, he could see thin black lines appearing all around the carcass. He noted the lines also decorated the bone on the bear's arm from where he tore the skin off.
His last remaining point he put into the Map skill.
Directions - Idlers 1/99, Map 0/1, Transparent 0/1, Icons 0/1
The Map indicator quickly converted to the letter C and, like the skills before it, the text faded into the screen. When John looked up, there was a third tab to the right of the Completed tab. He double-checked the Completed list in the second tab before investigating the new addition. He had to make sure the skills went onto the list and hadn’t randomly disappeared. This system made enough mistakes that he somehow didn’t quite trust it.
Completed List:
Organ's Strength - Stomach Acid.
Continuous - Continue Option.
Impurity Filter - Filter Option.
Analyser Eye - Basic.
Senses - Time and Sight.
Idlers Speed.
Dismantler - Master Option.
Directions - Map
All good. Now, let's check the map.
He opened the third tab, and a green square showed up with a plus symbol in the middle. That must have been his current position, John figured. The rest must be coloured green because it was a forest. The area southwest of where he was had a dull yellow exclamation mark. That must be the quest location symbol, which meant the flower was roughly four miles southwest of here. If John didn't have the map, then searching even four miles could have taken hours. This skill was going to come in handy.
The first thing he had to do was get out from under this bear. The second thing was to heal up as much as possible in a short amount of time, just in case another bear decided to attack. Then, he just needed to grab the flower and get the hell out of here. So long as his defence sat below Rank G, John didn’t want to encounter another bear.
The bear was ranked H by the guild, but the system didn't even recognise anything below 100 points. The system's H Rank went up to 199 points too.
It just goes to show... John settled on the wording of his thoughts with a quiet satisfaction. The system's standards for ranking is much higher than the adventurer's guild.
Chapter 14
Healing the Wounds
Now then, the best way to get out is to push the bear off of me. But there aren’t any skills that increase my strength. It's all attack and defence and a ton of body functions. Is this another mistake, or is it intentional? Either way, I can't push this bear off now. Luckily my left hand’s free, so at least I've got the strength to start me off.
John grabbed the bone that was peeking out from the bear's right arm and pushed it over his head to his right. Managing it on his first try, he was now in the right position to see the bear's side. He grabbed the skin and tore it, tossing it to his left. Like a madman, he kept tearing at it—ripping the flesh into pieces and discarding it. As time went along, he somehow managed to rip open a path to his right arm, which had been trapped inside of the fleshy hill.
The larger bones of his arm were alright from what he could see, but his wrist was bent all the way back. It had taken the brunt of the two-ton force. John grabbed his right arm with his left hand and yanked it out, screaming in pain.
He gritted his teeth, willing the pain away. He could see the damage now. The knuckles were bent back so far that they were touching his arm. The veins on the other side of the wrist were stretched and popping out, pale white with no hint of any colour whatsoever.
His wrist needed to be fixed as soon as possible to restore blood flow. Could the system even heal the wrist at this point? Was it too far gone? John hoped for the best.
Its been maybe three minutes since blood stopped going to my hand. Screw it, can't wait any longer.
John grabbed his wrist with his left hand and twisted it back into i
ts natural position.
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
A pause to catch his tattered breath.
"I'M GOING TO KILL EVERY FUCKING BEAR IN THIS GODDAMN FOREST!!!"
Screaming until his lungs stung with strain, hot tears streamed down the sides of John’s face. His head thrown back, he couldn’t tell what was greater: the pain or his anger. He glanced down at his wrist. It started turning rosy.
Good, blood flows back. I need it to heal correctly now.
‘Ding!’
Congratulations for finding a mistake in the Skills settings! The Muscle Elasticity’s Skeletal skill has been remastered.
Congratulations for thinking up a valid add-on skill! We have included the add-on.
John opened the system to take a look.
Name: John
Age: 15
Idlers: 0/16
Time Pool: 10h 1s
Skill Points: 0
Options:
Continue - On
Filter - On
Dismantler - Off
HP: 24/65
Attack: G (220 Points)
Defence: N/A
Stamina: N/A
He turned the Dismantler option on. Any living enemy he faced from now would have their weaknesses painted out for his use, which included the best way to cut them up alive. John wasn’t a sadist, but the thought of testing this out by chopping the rest of these bears apart, bit by bit, was a satisfying thought indeed.
Looking at this HP, he saw that it restored by seven whole points, now sitting at 24/65 HP. So fixing the wrist and restoring blood flow helped.
First, he looked at the Muscle Elasticity skill to see the change.
Skeletal: Increases the strength you can output from the body's musculoskeletal system.
Wow, that's good. I don't know all the muscles it means, but that's the forearms, chest, and thigh muscles from what I can remember. Also the shin, and maybe neck and back? Either way, it's the whole body as long as it's connected to the bone. That's a huge improvement.