Fuck.
The only thought running through my head was wildly unhelpful as I snatched my shoes and slowly moved away from the fire I had worked so hard to create in hopes neither the wolf nor I would accidentally fall into it. I forced my head to clear instead of repeatedly chanting panicked curses and slowed down to think.
An idea popped into my head.
I didn’t necessarily need to brute force my way through this. If falling into the ice water would kill me, there was a decent chance it would at least slow the wolf. However, there was the obvious risk that I might fall in instead.
I knew there was about four inches of ice where I had broken through earlier, but there was no guarantee the ice was the same thickness everywhere. If I got unlucky, I would probably die.
My options were to definitely die facing the wolf or potentially not die stepping onto the ice. If I was smart enough about this, there was a decent chance of survival.
I yanked my still-wet sneakers on haphazardly without bothering with my socks, then stepped carefully onto the ice.
“Uh, come and get me, you…dumb mutt.” My taunt came out as more of a question than an insult. I wasn’t sure if the wolf would even understand me, but had its intended effect anyway. The wolf sprang at me with its claws out, the low growl crescendoing into a snarl.
This time, I dove to the side once again, yelping in slight panic and pain as I heard the ice crack beneath my shoulder and the wounds on my arm hit the ice. Its claws had left shallow scratches across my right tricep.
[HP: 10/20]
Oh, come on. The wound hadn’t even been deep. It was barely even bleeding.
A louder crack followed the first, and my head whipped around just in time to watch the ice beneath the wolf shatter, plunging it beneath the surface.
I scooted away from the growing cracks, watching in a mix of horror and relief as the wolf sank into the freezing water. Its paws scrambled for purchase on the ice and found none, and every time it tried using its claws for traction, the ice snapped away. Its howls and yelps grew increasingly desperate. It was pitiful.
I stood shakily and stepped off the ice. The wolf’s desperate attempts to claw itself out of the ice slowed as the cold set in until it stopped.
[Wolf Lv.5 has been hunted.
Reward: 160p]
That was…significantly easier than expected. I hadn’t even needed my dagger. I couldn’t exactly eat it now, but I could retrieve one of the other corpses. Fresh snow wasn’t falling, so my tracks were probably still there. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to drag the Lv.4 wolf back to my fire with my arm in the shape it was, but I might be able to get the Lv.2 one.
Sadly, my shoulder was throbbing. Perhaps throwing my entire body onto it from a standing position wasn’t the best idea. The health point that had ticked away was probably from my shoulder and not the scratches.
I stripped my shoes off again and placed my feet in the dry area where the fire had already melted the surrounding snow.
“Balance…”
[Balance: 260p]
I could buy new shoes and not have to walk around in my current ones at risk of frostbite.
“Open Shop.”
[Skills Shop]
[Items Shop]
“Items Shop,” I sighed, impatiently. This System was a bit of a pain to navigate.
[Winter Shoes
Lv.2
Price: 145p
Effects: Temperature Regulation Lv.1. Can turn from ice skates to boots at will.]
“Buy Winter Shoes.”
[Cost: 145p
Are you sure you would like to buy ‘Winter Shoes’?
Remaining Balance: 115p]
I thought about the wound in my hand from the dagger, currently conveniently numbed by the snow, and carefully angled my body away from the fire.
“Yes, buy.”
The boots dropped into my left hand, and I carefully tugged them on.
They were so soft, and I could feel warmth magically seeping into my bones. That must be the temperature regulation effect. They even gave my sprained ankle some fairly decent support.
There was just one problem with the warmth, and it was that I could feel my wounds now. The pain more than doubled as the cold no longer numbed the bite in my arm and the stab in my palm. I should be grateful that my only issue was pain. I was lucky enough to still have full mobility of my arm and hand. If either wound had hit any major tendons or arteries, I would currently be in deep shit. Or just dead.
I shrugged off my coat and yanked off my shirt before very quickly pulling my coat back on, the cold stabbing at me even with the boots. I used my dagger to carefully slice strips of fabric off of the shirt, my injured hand trembling from the effort of holding the shirt still. The other end was held in place by my knee.
There was probably a smarter way to do this, but my hand hurt, and I had spent way too long with both wounds unbandaged.
I wrapped a strip of fabric around my hand as best I could with one hand and used my teeth to help me tie a knot. It was a struggle. It did not help that my left hand was horribly uncoordinated.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
In any case, I now had enough coins to improve my stats. This time, I would be smart and level up my durability. Maybe my health would go up.
“Status Window.”
[Challenger Yule
HP: 10/20
MP: 20/20
Title: LOCKED
Skills: LOCKED
Strength: Lv. 2
Stamina: Lv. 2
Agility: Lv.2
Durability: Lv.0
Magic: Lv.0
Perception: Lv.1]
“Level up durability, magic, and perception.” I experimented.
[Cost: 20p
Are you sure you would like to level up your durability, magic, and perception stats?
Remaining Balance: 95p]
That was certainly much easier than leveling up everything one step at a time.
I evened out all of my stats to Lv.2, leaving me with 75p. Disappointingly, my health remained the same even after increasing my durability, but the pain decreased. That was good for now, but might have its own downfalls. Pain was the body declaring something wasn’t right. Take away the pain, and I might not notice anything was wrong in time.
On the other hand, my MP had increased to 40 with the improvement of my magic stat. If only I had any spells or skills to use it with, like a healing spell. Being a healer sounded nice. It was very rare that a healer was the main character of the story, and thus they were in danger less and did not find themselves in troublesome situations.
Finally, the perception stat enhanced my senses significantly. Surprisingly, the cold was not worse, but I could hear much better and see much farther than I normally could. It would be useful if a wolf chose to sneak up on me.
Now I had to do more math, and I had to organize my priorities once again. At this point, each skill cost 20p each to level up, so I could pick three skills to level up, leaving me with a good 15p.
Durability was now obviously a must-have since I could move around more with it higher.
Agility was the only thing keeping me alive at this point. My strength had been helpful with the Lv.2 Wolf— I was certain I wouldn’t have been able to stab that far in without the increased strength stat— but agility had kept me alive long enough to stab it.
I didn’t need stamina as much as strength, and perception wasn’t needed so far. I didn’t have anything to use magic on, so those were my priorities this time.
[Challenger Yule
HP: 10/20
MP: 20/20
Title: LOCKED
Skills: LOCKED
Strength: Lv.3
Stamina: Lv.2
Agility: Lv.3
Durability: Lv.3
Magic: Lv.2
Perception: Lv.2]
My head hurt even from basic arithmetic. It was honestly a miracle I had passed high school with my level of motivation. Then again, the headache might also be from the campfire smoke I’d inhaled.
Speaking of the campfire smoke, I needed more wood than the few pieces currently left over in my Inventory, and food would be ideal.
I stored the remains of my shirt and my dagger in the Inventory and debated whether or not to save my socks and shoes.
They were both already starting to smell. Perhaps not.
I tossed both of them into the water so they wouldn’t stink up my campsite. I scooped the rock out of the fire once again and dropped it into the water bowl, waiting for it to cool. Once it was done, I downed the bowl quickly. It had an interestingly woodsy taste, and it was nice to drink something warm.
I tossed what wood I had left onto the fire to keep it burning while I was gone and began to retrace my steps once again. It would be nice if I could find a large enough log to prop myself against while I slept. The fire had melted the snow within a good radius, but I didn’t have enough ground to comfortably curl up on.
I retraced my steps to find the wolf’s corpse, finding a few sizable branches I could toss into the fire. The Lv.2 wolf was exactly where I’d left it, completely unchanged. There weren’t even any maggots or anything on it. It was probably too cold for maggots, but I at least expected it to be eaten a little bit by scavengers. The cold had also slowed the rigor mortis. Sadly, it did seem as though the bowels and bladder had relaxed and consequently, the snow around the wolf’s lower half was dirty.
I attempted to drag the wolf by one paw, and quickly discovered it was heavier than I was. I supposed this shouldn’t come as a surprise. I wasn’t exactly light, but I wasn’t particularly strong.
Although distasteful, my best option at this point was to dismember it and store the pieces in my Inventory. I summoned my dagger, letting it drop to the floor in front of me this time.
I wasn’t sure where to start, but the best meat was probably in its legs and potentially its back. I felt around the wolf’s body to identify where the joint attaching its hind leg to its body was and began slicing as close to the meat as I could, using my right hand to wield the dagger this time. The hand holding the leg would probably be covered in quite a bit of gore.
Once I had sliced through the ligaments connecting the bones, the leg came free. I made a neat slice down the leg and peeled away what fur I could, using my dagger to detach more stubborn bits, then sliced off the paw. It wasn’t worth it to pick meat off the little parts.
How did I even know how to do this?
Must be beginner’s luck. Perhaps the System was assisting me once again.
I repeated the process with the other three legs, then removed some of the meat from its back as well. The process went remarkably well, and I now had enough meat to last more than the three days I had here. I stored the meat and my dagger in my Inventory and used clean-looking snow to rinse my dirtied hand off.
A wave of nausea hit me as soon as I stood.
I staggered away from the remains of the wolf and vomited.
Now I really needed to eat.
Weirdly, I hadn’t even felt disgusted while butchering, even though I probably should have. I shouldn’t have vomited for any reason.
I retched a bit more before finally continuing, making it back to my (thankfully) still-alive fire. It even seemed to have grown a bit. I grabbed one leg from my inventory, sliced off half of it since I most likely wasn’t going to finish an entire leg, and held it over the flame, rotating slowly. The meat smelled amazing, at the very least.
Once it looked done, I waited for it to cool before taking a bite. The meat was tough, but otherwise, it was fine, with a gamey, strong taste. I hadn’t expected different.
The sunset that day was beautiful.
The bold colors of the sky reflected off the crystalline ice and the sparkling snow, bathing the world in hues of gold, amber, and crimson. Under different circumstances, I might have enjoyed my time here.
Rounin really would love it here.
Even after that, the sky was not done.
Stars were set in the night sky, pure white against a vast black expanse, like brilliant diamonds set in the vault of the heavens. The moon formed a picturesque crescent, paling even the stars in its beauty.
I had never seen more stars in my life.
And yet, it was more chilling than comforting.
I could not pick out a single constellation, and I did not recognize any of them. Although a good mimicry, this was not quite the world I knew. Wherever I was, I was far from home.
The next two days progressed similarly.
The humans in the forest seemed content to leave me alone, and the only wolves that bothered me were low-level. I had no issue either pushing them into the water or stabbing them myself. It had snowed once, but it had been light enough that the fire was fine.
With an hour left, I cooked half the meat I had and kept the rest just in case. I still had logs. My health had dropped a few more points but had gone up again as my wounds had healed more. Strangely, I had kept vomiting, but it didn’t seem to have any correlation with the meat.
I let the fire smolder out as I watched the final seconds tick down to zero.
[1st Challenge
Challenge Objective: Survive for 72 hours.
Time left: 0h, 0m, 0s]
The moment of truth. Would it teleport me home, or would I have to move to a different location on the ‘map’?
[Congratulations on completing the 1st Challenge!
Reward: Title]
A title?
[Challenger Yule
HP: 10/50
MP: 40/40
Title: The Child of Winter
Skills: Ice Manipulation Lv.0
Strength: Lv.3
Stamina: Lv.3
Agility: Lv.3
Durability: Lv.4
Magic: Lv.3
Perception: Lv.3]
I dropped my head into my uninjured hand.
‘The Child of Winter’?
What a cheesy title. I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell it to anyone.
And really, I hadn’t even been healed with a level-up. This System really was stingy.
[More rewards will be distributed momentarily.
Transporting Challenger to the assigned Dungeon…]
Another Dungeon.
I wasn’t going home, then.
I was being sent to another Challenge.
