The berry of the galebush is sweet and nutritious, attracting fauna and Adventurers alike. However, unless thoroughly cooked, the seed will spontaneously sprout within a few hours, causing an almost certain and gruesome death. This is likely a mechanism to provide the new seedling with fertilizer for the next part of its life cycle.

  If the being somehow survives the “sprouting,” they will slowly turn into a votile and strange chimera of pnt and animal. One such creature was the infamous sun bear of the Duskdown Forest, which terrorized the local territories for many years before a group of Knights Penitent brought it down.

  — Monsters of the Mortal Realms by K. D. Fidditch.

  My twin weapons in hand, I crept down the hill towards the pond with a furtiveness I never knew I possessed. Walking along the edges of my feet, heel to toe, I mused that the newly acquired Stealth skill was already bearing fruit; I instinctively knew how to bend my knees just enough to absorb as much sound as possible.

  I slunk along the shore of the pond on my belly. Taking cover behind some shallow rushes, I observed the scene before me.

  Across the opposite shore, the amphibious bibsi basked under the te-afternoon sky, occasionally making musical gurgling noises. The school of monsters consisted of creatures the size of an enormous breed of dog, along with smaller juvenile specimens.

  I forced each drawn breath to be slow and even while I formuted a pn. Some of the juveniles were pying in the shallows near the shore. I needed to surprise one of them, kill it, then retreat back to the retive safety of the shrine.

  Waiting in position, I trusted my Stealth skill to hide me from the monsters. After an indeterminable length of time, I grew impatient and picked up a scattering of fine sand and threw it a short distance from my hiding pce, towards the water’s surface.

  Two adult bibsi broke away from the main school, swimming zily to investigate where I had thrown the sand. They gurgle-chirped to each other before diving below the surface, swimming to look for the source of the disturbance.

  After a minute or two, one of the creatures swam back to the main school, babbling to the others. The remaining monster, about the size of a rge hound, beached itself on the shore, rolling onto its side and closing its googly eyes in contented rexation. Perfect, I thought. Time to use one of my combat skills.

  I rushed out of my position to attack the monster. Instead of shouting out Power Strike, I invoked it using my mental voice, and targeted the lone basking bibsis. With my left hand holding the half-spear, I thrust it through the creature’s fpping gills.

  There was a moment of resistance, and my Stamina drained by ten points. Then a driving sensation, different from a spell reaction, traveled through my body and along my arm, guiding my weapon to its fated target.

  The stone spearhead passed cleanly through the gills and into the bibsis’ brain matter, bypassing the cartige of its skull with a squelching noise. I followed up by striking the creature’s stilling body along its length with the other half of the spear, using it like a wooden club. To my savage satisfaction, the forceful blows scattered wet, muddy brown scales across the shore.

  Quickly, I pulled the half-spear from the bibsis’ cranium and scanned my surroundings for any oncoming monsters, but none approached. Taking a deep breath, I was gratified to receive a notification of the creature’s death, which granted me another ten experience points. I assumed my initial attack had been a critical hit, given the powerful impact.

  A dark liquid rapidly congealed on the shore underneath the fish monster’s head, with blood—thick like tar—staining the sand. I tried to drag the creature away from the edge of the pond, but soon realized the impossibility of such a task, as the monster was too heavy to move.

  Hunger was upon me, and I needed to eat as soon as possible. With the spear’s edge serving as a makeshift butchery tool, I began cutting near the tail end of the fish. Piercing first and then sawing across, I deftly avoided bone and cartige to carve out rge chunks of meat from the corpse. With a chunk in each hand and the spear halves tucked under my armpits, I hastily made my way up the hill to the altar.

  Upon arriving, I dropped my weapons, then tore into the chunks of flesh like a wild animal. At first I barely registered the taste, due to my intense hunger and the flesh’s toughness, but as I ate a second piece, my stomach finally began to settle.

  It was then that I noticed the slightly slimy texture, but the meat had a rich fvor. It reminded me of what it might be like to eat a raw frog, and the thought almost made me vomit in disgust. Nonetheless, I continued to devour the rest of my barbaric meal.

  Finishing off the st piece, blood congealing down the front of my robe, I crept down again to the rest of the carcass with more practiced ease. I crouched over the remains of the creature and began to clumsily butcher a few more chunks, then ran back up the hill to pce the fresh meat upon the altar. On my third run, I stopped to drink some of the cool water from the pond, and washed as best as I could the slimy blood from my hands.

  Hoping to farm experience and gain new skills, I repeatedly employed my ambush tactic throughout the night. I lost count of the times I had clumsily attracted too many of the creatures and was forced to rush back up to the altar, dodging and weaving in a crazy zigzag pattern. Despite my efforts, I was occasionally hit by an errant solid water ball, and I had to pause to heal myself to restore the damage of bruised flesh and broken bones.

  Occasionally, after nding a solid hit, I would cast Identify to gauge the amount of damage I was dealing. It seemed my half-spear was doing between four and six damage, while my impromptu club was rather weak, dealing only one to two damage. Perhaps I was taking penalties for dual wielding or not being proficient with my equipped weapons?

  Still pondering the mechanics of my new world, I climbed back up to the hill and succumbed to sleep just as the rosy-fingered dawn broke through the sky.

  ***

  Upon waking up, I rubbed my weary eyes and hastily devoured a few bites of bibsis flesh. Cautiously, I made my way down to the pond to quench my thirst. After checking that my Health and Stamina were fully restored, I repeated the tactics of the previous day. All was fine until, in the warm early afternoon, I was hit by two water balls in quick succession.

  Strangely, the first one didn’t hurt at all, while the second one hit me with excruciating pain. A pattern began to emerge in my mind as I tried to decipher some of the game’s rules. After resting and healing myself to full Health, I deliberately endured two more water ball attacks without trying to dodge. It would almost be my downfall.

  The first shot hit me in the stomach, knocking out more than half my Health. Then the next struck, rattling my brain. Concussed and disoriented, I somehow made it back up to the altar, where I cast another Heal spell, hoping to clear my head and prevent a potential brain injury.

  My dangerous experiment did, however, prove one thing: I would feel no pain with the first hit if I was at maximum Health. Finally, I had an expnation for my mysterious skill, “Pain Nullification.” I had to remind myself this was not some form of invulnerability, as I could still take damage from attacks. Nonetheless, anything that reduced the pain from this horrible world was sorely welcome.

  Leaning against the comforting security of the tree, I took stock of the situation and reviewed my current gains.

  STATUS

  Calling: %^& Level 2 Acolyte of Avaria

  Strength: 9

  Dexterity: 10

  Constitution: 12

  Intelligence: 10

  Wisdom: 9

  Charisma: 8

  Luck: 11

  SKILLS & PROFICIENCIES

  Pain Nullification (lvl.1)

  Power Strike (lvl.1)

  Endure (lvl.1)

  Stealth (lvl.1)

  Rest (lvl.1)

  Backstab (lvl.1)

  Dodge (lvl.1)

  Polearms (lvl.1)

  SPELLS & MAGIC

  Heal (lvl.1)

  Rust (lvl.1)

  Identify (lvl.1)

  GIFTS

  Curse of Entropy: -20% all starting attributes.

  Experience to next level 170/220

  Health: 16/16

  Stamina: 21/21

  Mana: 7/7

  A day and a half of a consistent loop of receiving damage and healing myself had increased my Constitution by another two points, raising both my maximum Stamina and Health. I also discovered that my Dexterity had climbed to ten somewhere along the line. Additionally, I noticed that the average damage I inflicted with my half-spear had increased by one point after using Identify before a solid hit on one of the monsters. Unfortunately, I had not gained any Wisdom or Intelligence, likely due to my exclusive use of physical attacks.

  Interestingly, I had also acquired three new skills. Two of the more enigmatic ones, “Dodge” and “Backstab,” were at level one, simir to my beginner skills. I assumed that I had obtained the Dodge skill by avoiding the countless water balls that had been spat at me. Backstab could have resulted from my success in unching surprise attacks against the bibsi. I specuted that this skill was responsible for the occasional spikes of one or two damage points I had inflicted on the oversized fish when I managed to catch them off guard. It was logical to assume that my third new skill, “Polearms,” was acquired from my extensive and exclusive use of the scavenged spear.

  Thank goodness I had been an avid gamer in the old world. Without that skill set, I would have had little frame of reference for this bizarre experience. Shaking my head in disbelief, I noticed I had also inexplicably gained an extra point of Luck. I had only a vague idea of how that attribute would affect my current predicament.

  Circumstances were certainly not perfect—far from it—but they were definitely improving. I felt a glimmer of consotion that I was beginning to understand the world I was in. It was satisfying to work out some of the rules I had to py by. There was no internet or wiki here with easy answers. Yet despite all of this, I was enthusiastic about the future.

  For in this world, self-improvement was a more tangible notion compared to my old life. Experiences and skills were broken down into numbers, and I was given solid feedback showing when I had gained abilities. Huddling against the tree, I decided to rest despite being at full Health, Stamina, and Mana, as I was at the limit of my mental endurance.

  Tomorrow was another day, and I had five more monsters to sy to attain level three.