He’d only arrived on this world minutes ago, but he had already almost died once, and he was already well on his way to a second time. The environment was not suited for long-term outdoor survival, let alone long-term outdoor survival in clothing that amounted to little more than rags. As for how long he had until his body began failing him, there was no telling.
For most Campaigners, this would not be an issue. Virtually any mundane Item could be bought from the Store with a simple command, and this included dry, warm clothing. For more Points, Magical Items that regulated body temperature in any climate were available. Grant didn’t have either of these options available, as he confirmed with an unnecessary glance at his Points. He reluctantly checked his Status to confirm what he already suspected.
[Displaying Status…]
[Health Points: 78/91]
[Mana Points: 36/36]
[Buffs: N/A]
[Debuffs: Hypothermia (Stage I)]
Early-stage hypothermia was just another problem to be added to the growing list. On top of the cold, he didn't have the slightest inkling where the nearest civilization was—it could be hundreds of miles away or just beyond the edge of the forest for all he knew. He didn’t have a cave to take shelter in, and even if he found one, he didn’t know what might be lurking in its shadows.
And if all of that weren’t enough, he was actively being hunted.
He inspected his fingertips, which had begun to turn an alarming shade of blue, shook his head, and dug deep for everything he had learned in Survival Skills.
First, he stuffed his hands in his armpits. He had already begun shivering, but dizziness, sleepiness, and confusion had yet to set in. The old professor in Athemore had warned the class that their onset could be as unpredictable as a rockslide, though, and once they took hold, the end was near.
Building a fire wasn’t an attractive option because of the smoke, but he reluctantly put his reservations aside, as it was the only way he had to stave off the cold. He wasn't sure how long he'd run, but he reckoned there were at least two or three miles of thick forest between him and the prisoners now. He still had some time left on Invisibility, and if he heard anything, he'd slip away.
Luckily, the old professor's lessons had been surprisingly thorough, at least between the coughing fits, and he'd taught them how to build a fire in a variety of environments. The first step to any good fire was constructing a proper pit. Under the largest tree he could find, Grant kicked away as much snow as possible, revealing wet dirt underneath, and then kicked more until he found dry ground.
Fuel was next. There were only a few twigs on the ground, most soaked completely through. They'd burn about as well as a wet rag. He looked up at the tree above. There was no shortage of wood there from the almost completely bare branches. The lowest was about three yards high, which was well within his jumping range with his new Agility, but it was thick and covered in ice.
Grant licked his dry lips as he considered his next move, and he settled on a plan. He would leap, grab the branch, pull himself up, wrap his leg over to straddle it like a horse, then saw off the branch. He repeated the steps to himself. “Just leap, pull, wrap, straddle and saw. Easy.”
After stretching his legs and rolling his shoulders, he took a deep breath and set his jaw. He crouched, gathering all the power his legs could generate, then leaped straight up. His trajectory was flawless, and a triumphant smile crossed his face as he approached his target. With both hands stretched out, he reached, and the moment his fingers wrapped around the thickest part, began pulling.
His hands immediately slipped off of it.
Time froze as Grant hung suspended in the air, flailing and grasping for anything he could use to stop his fall. All he managed to catch hold of were a few dried leaves, which he pulled off their twigs as he plummeted to the ground, legs kicking wildly. The second before he landed, he activated Perfect Invisibility.
With a loud wheeze, he crashed into the spot he had cleared for his fire pit back-first, knocking air out of his lungs and spittle from his mouth. The Skill did nothing to blunt the impact or the pain. He groaned as he rolled on his side, where he found a pile of white, fluffy, soft snow sitting there, mocking him.
Grant checked his Status. He had lost a few points of Health, but he did not have a concussion, any broken bones, or a deflated lung.
Out of curiosity, he also checked his Attributes again. His Intelligence remained at a well over-average 17, which meant the blow to the back of his head had not scrambled his brain. As he writhed in the dirt, he pondered how a Campaigner with an Intelligence Attribute as high as his would come up with the bright idea of using numb, nearly frostbitten fingers to find purchase on a branch encrusted with slick ice. In his drunken tirades, Mr. Fletcher had often said some of the smartest people he knew were dumb enough to piss on their own boots, and Grant finally got what he meant.
The only conclusion he could draw was that he was extremely fortunate there was no such thing as a Sense Attribute.
Canceling Invisibility, Grant clambered to his feet and knuckled his lower back. The fall had hurt more than just his pride. Aside from the new bruise growing across tailbone, he was rapidly running out of time. Hypothermia wouldn’t wait for him to catch his breath.
He gazed up for a few more moments, then slapped himself on the forehead.
I’m an idiot. I don’t need to climb the tree and saw it off. I have an Epic weapon.
With a quick Resummon command, the dagger sat in his palm. He'd never used it to cut anything, although it'd carved the man in the baths up on its own. It looked sharp enough, but it was short and nearly weightless. Could it cut through a thick, wet branch so easily?
"Only one way to find out," he mumbled. He crouched low, then leaped again, easily reaching the same branch. He clenched his teeth and hacked, expecting the blade to bounce off, jolting his arm and shoulder.
Siphoning Fang went clean through. For a moment, he stared wordlessly, wondering if he'd missed. But with a groan, the branch came off the trunk, then crashed into the forest ground. He landed, crouching and running his fingers over the wood, staring at his dagger with his mouth hanging open. The spot he'd cut was smoother than it'd be if it had been sanded and oiled. The outer bark itself was soaked, but this was hardly a problem, as Grant could split it and its twigs lengthwise to expose dry white-beige wood inside.
It only took him a few more minutes to gather everything he needed for a fire in front of him: steel from his knife, flint from the quartz abundant in the area, split branches, and a bundle of relatively dry leaves he had found hiding under the branch.
“Al—alright,” he said through clattering teeth. His hands had progressed past painful numbness, into excruciating numbness, and finally sat at painless numbness, a sure sign that the cold was on the verge of taking his fingers.
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Either the materials he had would ignite, or his hands would succumb to frostbite in hours.
Grant shakily dragged the flat of his blade across the stone, and sparks flew. They missed the bundle of wood, sinking into the dirt around it. But there were sparks.
He pulled it across again, this time closer.
Glowing orange specks sank into the pile slowly with a sharp crackling sound. Smoke rose from the wood—initially only a few light wisps, and seconds later a thick stream that burned his eyes. Grant watched, perplexed by how a few sparks had created so much of it. Building a fire without charcoal or oil was supposed to take far more effort.
He fanned the wood and blew onto it what little breath he could produce from his exhausted lungs. The embers spread, fizzling and crackling, and the wood glowed orange.
“What? It couldn’t be that easy, could—”
Before he could finish his thought, a fireball the size of a man’s head burst from the branches. Grant jumped back with a cut-off yelp and stared at the roaring fire from his back, heaving breaths.
He gave a sharp laugh and rushed to the flames to warm himself.
“What are the trees here made of? Oil?”
As his hands thawed and body warmed, his Health gradually ticked up, and soon, the Hypothermia Debuff disappeared from his Debuffs list. The fire would stay lit as long as he sated its hunger with shrubs and branches, and there was literally a forest of fuel around him. With a breath of relief, he mentally checked hypothermia off his official ‘Things Trying to Kill Me’ list, and began to properly analyze his surroundings and situation.
Now that he had warmth, he needed information. He looked back up at the tree he had slipped from. The view from the top would give him a decent idea of his surroundings, which seemed a fine place to start.
When his hands regained their sensation and function, he scaled the tree, more carefully this time, to scout his surroundings. Southward—that is, if the sun rose in the east and set in the west on this world as it did Lyria, the direction that would be southward—were colossal cliffs. It only took a glance to know they would be impossible to climb, even with his superhuman Agility. As far as he could tell, they blocked all passage south as well. To the north, he saw nothing but seas.
Toward the east he could see only forest that darkened over the horizon, but toward the west, he found its edge. Beyond it lay large fields and, if Grant’s eyes were not deceiving him, a town.
Over the next few minutes, Grant stayed perched atop his tree, considering a range of possibilities. Going north would lead him to nowhere but the sea, south toward impassable, unscalable cliffs. In the end, he settled on the only option that made sense: west, toward possible civilization. How the native race of this world would react to him was a mystery, but they would have food, water, and shelter. In a pinch, he could always use Perfect Invisibility to get out. It was a plan, at least, which was more than he had just minutes ago. He began to slide down the tree slowly.
Something crunched and crackled, interrupting his descent. Grant froze in place atop a lower branch and turned his head as slowly as he could toward its source.
An elk the size of a warhorse wandered toward his fire pit, staring into its flames. Glowing light-blue lines adorned its hulking body, starting at the creases of its eyes and extending over its head and down its torso. Its antlers had long white spikes branching from thick bases.
For the first time in days, Grant cast Identify.
[Identifying…]
[Name: Rune Elk]
[Age: 9 years]
[Level: 9]
[Buffs: N/A]
[Debuffs: Fiend Infection (Stage II)]
[Rune Elks reside primarily in the northern territories of Celand. Exposure to World Magics infuses them with enhanced Strength, Agility, and Intelligence.]
Information flooded his mind. Whatever Celand was—whether it be the region, continent, or the world on which he was currently located—he determined he was currently in its northern area. The Fiend Infection Debuff was off-putting, and the beast was a full eight levels higher than Grant. There was no way he could fight it head on. The only course of action was to remain hidden and pray the elk would eventually lose interest.
He stayed perfectly still, waiting for it to wander on. Every muscle in his body tingled, and his skin began to prickle from the cold again. Its eyes were as glassy and unfocused as a corpse’s, and the side of its neck was riddled with small white pustules that gently pulsed. It exuded an aura of dullness, as if it were in a deep trance, and its decision to approach the flame had been given no more thought than a moth’s instinct to flutter around a lantern. It may have had something to do with the mysterious Fiend Infection Debuff it held, or perhaps elk here were all that way.
Come on, he thought. Move along. It’s just fire. There’s no food here.
Grant pleaded with the elk, but it seemed perfectly content to stare blankly into the fire he had built. He hoped he wouldn’t have to wait for the fire to go out for the beast to lose interest.
Minutes later, it grunted, then started to lumber off toward the east. Grant breathed a quiet sigh of relief. His fingertips had started to turn blue again, his head started to ache.
Before the elk could take three steps, the twigs and leaves on a lower branch rustled, and the next moment, a small bird burst from them and into the sky.
The elk’s right iris swiveled up at him, and the animal snapped its face up.
“Oh you can’t be—”
It screeched in a way that sounded more like a high-pitched gurgle, and Grant clutched the trunk of the tree as hard as he could. “No!” he shouted, but it was already charging.
It rushed the trunk and crashed its antlers into the base directly, shaking it down to its roots. Grant ducked his head as sleet, snow, dirt and acorns rained down on him. He let out a high squeal, throat closing with terror, and all he could do was hug the swaying trunk tighter, wincing every time his face brushed against its freezing surface. The tree gave out a creaking groan, and when the elk pulled away, thick plates of bark stuck to its antlers.
“No! Go! Leave!” he shouted, putting every effort into not sounding nearly as terrified as he actually was. Grant once heard that some wild animals could be spooked away by loud noises—that running or hiding were the worst things you could do when they attacked.
The elk was undeterred. It backed up for another charge, then sprang forward.
Its second strike shook the tree even more violently. This time, the impact was accompanied by a thunderous cracking sound. The elk backed up again, taking an enormous chunk of bark with it.
The tree threatened to topple over at any time, and Grant didn’t want to be in it when it did. Knees shaking, he steeled his shoulders and jumped from the branch, activating Perfect Invisibility midair. He landed on soft snow with a helpless squeak, quickly retreating to a better spot, checking the time he had left on the Skill.
[0:39]
“Fuck.”
Whether he could get far enough away in 39 seconds was impossible to tell. If the elk saw him, he would never outrun it. If he climbed a tree, it could be collapsed in seconds.
The elk stood bewildered, eyes swiveling rapidly as its head remained locked in place, searching for where the man who encroached on its territory had fled. Grant shuddered and set his jaw. He might not be able to run away, but he had one more option.
His heart tightened as he Resummoned his dagger. His knuckles grew white under his grip, and he set his jaw. There was no time for indecision. He was seconds away from losing Invisibility.
“I’m sorry.”
Grant sprang forward, his clothes flapping behind him, his heart thumping in his throat. He ducked under the oblivious elk’s head and pressed his left hand into the bottom of the hilt, dragging the hooked edge of the blade across the beast’s neck. It sank in and ran clean through to the other side. Grant felt every string of muscle, sinew, vein and artery slit open with almost no resistance, as though he was cutting through a boiled potato, and he dove forward into a roll. A Notification flashed.
[Critical Strike! (400% Increased Damage)]
[Inflicted Status: Bleeding (Stage V)!]
[Perfect Invisibility has been removed!]
The elk went berserk. Its glassy eyes bulged, its hooves kicked aimlessly, and it thrashed in wild circles. Buckets of blood gushed from the wound every second, and Grant had to hold a hand over his mouth as he dodged away, swallowing back the wave of nausea. Cursed or not, the once majestic animal had been reduced to a slaughterhouse pig. It had only wanted to defend its territory.
He pushed himself against a tree, fighting the bile rising in his throat. The elk continued attacking the air, its blood spurting, soaking the snow and splattering against surrounding brushes. As it flailed, some squirts reached the lowest branches on trees, which then dripped crimson globs back down. Every jerk pumped more out from its grievous wound, with no sign of the beast tiring.
It turned suddenly, its front and back hooves flailing as it jumped sideways. Panic stabbed at Grant as the lumbering beast bucked straight toward him. The creature approached rapidly—too rapidly for him to react—and he had to choose between squeezing behind its back hooves and risk being kicked, jumping toward its head and risk being impaled by its antlers, or allowing it to crush him against the tree. He activated Perfect Invisibility and sprang forward, ducking under its hindquarters to avoid a high kick.
The kick didn’t fly high. Perhaps it was because the animal was nearly out of blood, or perhaps it was just terrible luck, but its hoof flew low, and with a sickening crack, collided with Grant’s forehead. Branches and trees whipped above, and the next second, he was on his back, his head pounding, legs wobbly, arms and legs sprawled in different directions.
Grant lay on the snow, watching the world go dark.
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