Limits? Limits! (OC Multicross/Original)

[messageboy]

Part 1:


Shatter piece of memory among many twirls to the front of my view, street of some city with sounds of every day life filling my senses. Metal containers speeding along some of the street, cars and various other vehicles yet my focus is on the faceless person facing towards me in this memory shard. I don't remember the name or face of the stranger?

He isn't a stranger, I could understand due to some vague fact inside of me. It is like I am aware of the relations and experiences with the person but not their name or face, I can't help but confirm that something has messed with me to remove such parts of my shattered memories. My memories are intact but shattered at same time, I am aware of the general details of things before my current situtation. I have knowledge of cars, cities, school, soda, KFC, computers and other details that one would have to live in a concrete modern world.

It is instead the people that seem to have been shattered like a broken spider web, I am aware that I had a family, friends, casual meetings and interactions with other people like myself. What is missing from my shattered memories are the more fine details of those people such as names, faces and even certain events with those people. Whatever has caused my damaged memories seem to target the things that would form connections with others, that is the only thing I can think of since how can you grow close to someone if you never had a name, face or impacting event to form that unforgetable connection. Maybe that is the biggest reason why I am not so emotionally overloaded about my current situation, there is the panic and fear of the unknown, uncertainly of my future but not the despair or sadness of lost.

The situation I have found myself in is standing in a wide grassy plain with nothing modern in view, being kidnapped would have been my first conclusion. In a way, it was a kidnapping but not of what I would expected of men in masks and a van. The kidnapper happens to be some voice without a body within blank space, it wasn't like some empty room or spaceness of universe instead it was more like an empty void. No light, color, sound or anything but the voice. I still not sure if I even had a physical body during the brief moment that I was in that void space, I was so confused and lost that I didn't check or notice my own state, only the surrondings and the voice.

"Error found, cause of abnomably is the individual evolvement of material species Root-X20, self named Humans. Individual human evolved from current set stage into higher stage, abnormably gaining aspect of access connection to Origin as labeled The Root." Clearly still being confused of my current situation I only reacted now with dumbly trying to question the voice that still haven't stopped it's reporting? "What is going on?" My voice didn't seem to be noticed by the voice that hasn't stopped since it started. "Individual newfound ability is marked down with the new label Law Core Soul, normal procedure is to contain abnormablies for future research. Revise, individual abilities are marked as dangerous to project. Increased threat if normal procedures are used, in the event that current recorded procedures are unsuitable to current situation then overseer is given permission to create new procedure for current situation. Considering factors suggest the release of abnormably to a foreign domain with removal of selective memories that would prevent possible return of abnormably into project testing domains."

The damn voice didn't even wait around for my response at the time instead finding myself being ejected from that void place and now in this grassy plains of wildness. I doubt that I would have said anything worthwhile now that I thought back on the memory, since I wasn't silent during the whole period that the voice was reporting. I still remember my confused and scared questions of where I was, what is going on, who the voice was and other things. It is quite clear to me now that the voice didn't care about my thoughts or words, I am really stumped about how I am suppose to feel about my current state.

Simply dumbfounded might be the right state.

My fight and flight instincts kicked in with the sudden change of situation, getting into an alert posture ready to defend myself against the unknown threats nearby and thinking quickly of the next steps to improve my chances of survival within this new wilderness... Nah, I wish. I actually spent some unknown amount of time just standing, sitting or lying there for... Maybe a few hours? That was how mentally unprepared due to everything that has happened to me, now here I am now finally have gathered myself and trying to understand everything.

 

[messageboy]

Part 2:

Not knowing what to do next, he could only take some careful glances of the surroundings around himself. Wild is the first thing that he could think of when it came to the location that he has found himself in, grassy plainsland that hasn't been touched by mankind that he remembers in his jumbled memories. 'Wait, what is my name?', there is only the empty blankness in the information that should contain his name, something else to add into the pile that has been stolen from him. Anger and sorrow fills him after being aware that he is lacking a name for himself. 'Should I pick a new one for myself?', repulsion rapidly overtakes his mind at the idea of just so easily picking up a new name to the point that he foolishly decides to forget about the problem of lacking a name and focus on other matters.

"So... I need to figure out where I am. It looks so wild and untouched so could it be some free land in Africa, Russia or Europe?" Considering the possibilities since only those places could have more land than population and contain grass plainlands. "Would I have to walk hundreds of miles just to reach the outskirts of civilization?" Deciding to get moving along now instead of spending more time standing around lost within his thoughts. "I will just head in some random direction, it not like I have the experience to just taste the air to tell which direction the ocean is or do some crazy maths to know what way is north. There is that thing about the sun but is it east or west it rises?" Shaking his head to get rid of such thoughts so that he doesn't waste even more time on them, taking his first steps off towards random direction.

Blaring heat of the sun beams down upon him in the length of time he takes travelling through the grassy plainsland, some hills in the distance with a rare tree of some kind every now and then. Looking off at the unknown far distance of a few mountains and clear skies at the edge of the land bounderies. He doesn't know how much time has passed by since his mind has become slightly numb due to the lack of encountering anything new, forcing himself to focus on walking and not lose himself back into his thoughts. Eventually at some point he could see the appearance of edge of forest in the distance, 'That should be good? forest is nature's food and water pits. There will certainly be food either in fruits or animals and water will be there but finding it will depend on my luck.' hope filling his mind along with life returning back to his eyes at such thoughts to himself.

"The forest is much bigger once up close to it." He thought it would be a big forest from what he saw in the far distance but now that he is right at the outskirts of the forest, it is massive compared to the forests in his memories. It is actually quite intimidating towards him, it feels like the forest is going to just surround and bury him within it's depth. "I could end up getting lost if I enter it right?" His hope of surviving with the help of the forest becomes uncertain until he looks behind him at the endless plains. 'I already lost anyway, so I will just be lost in a place that would have food and water.' Easily gaining back his courage at the thoughts of his situation improving with entering the forest then staying in the past situation.

It only take some minutes entering the forest for the sounds of forest to come alive around him, one of the noises being linked to animals in his mind from his jumbled knowledge. "Excellent, animals means for certainly that there is food and water. I am atleast not cursed enough to find a rare dead forest. I going to need a weapon to defend myself? There might be bears which I will need to run but wolves will be too quick for me and fighting or climbing is the only method." It took him some moments for him to find a strong enough branch that might not break easily, gripping the rough texture of one end of the branch like a club. 'Me cave man.' Chuckling at himself at his inner joke then start exploring the forest for any fruits or water source.

Digging his fingers deeper into the branch in his hands, nervous and scared from within the bush that he is hiding within for good reason. Staring at the parts of the large animal that he could see from his hiding spot, being quick witted enough or cowardly enough to dive quickly into a big enough bush nearby at the sounds of animal growls and movement approaching. 'Fuck me, bear already?' Trying his best to prevent himself from shitting in fear at seeing parts of what look like a giant black bear, wanting so much to wipe away the annoying irritating sweat on his face but his body is frozen out of fear. 'It isn't too close, so hopefully it will just wander off.' Praying with all of his hope that his thoughts become true, watching the bear silently as if to notice the smallest hint that the bear will notice him and come turn him into a ragdoll. 'Horn? What?' Confusion fills him at finally catching the sight of the bear's head where there is large horn on it forehead, that can't be right since bears from his messed up memories don't have such things. 'Is it freak mutation bear?' Did he get lucky enough to encounter some genetic mistake of one of the only rare bears in the wild that grew with a mutation of some kind?

Luckily enough the freaky bear happen to wander off after some time, allowing him to drop out of the bush to rest on the forest floor. He is mentally worn out at his close brush of death in his thoughts, he is certain that nothing like this has happened to him in his memories. He doesn't remember being in any military or survival groups in his memories, there was some movies and game relating to it but it would be stupid to act based on that knowledge. 'I am going to head in the direct opposite direction of that freaky bear.' Using such thoughts to give him the courage to get back up onto his dirty shoes, heading off away from the giant threat to his lost wandering life.

Is this luck or just fact of life? I been wondering which one it is, reason for that is the sight of the clear sparkling river that I have wandered upon running away from that freaky ass bear. "Good, good. I have water to survive, I need to find a place to rest that isn't too close but far from here now." I might not have military or survival experience but it is common logic that water source will be visited by animals daily such as the bear, so setting up too close will threaten my life.

Leading to me now staring up a rather tall tree that contains an enlarged branch that looks like it could easily handle me sleeping on it. 'How am I going to get up there? Climb it? I can't possibly climb a tree so easily, I wasn't some climber or athlete, it is a miracle that I have made it all the way h... Wait, how long have I been walking and why aren't I exhausted?' He is confused at noticing that he is still able to act after having walk for who knows how long but it wasn't something that he could do before. He feels like he been doing a light work out of a casual jog then a heavy full out marathon which he should be feeling, in fact how did he walk non-stop all the way to the forest without stopping to recover from exhaustion?

Even more questions to add to his pile of questions, still should he really question something so positive? Of course, it better that he understands why and how then just accepting it. Still now isn't the time, he needs to secure his daily survival before trying to work out some answers.

'Should I try?' Were the only thoughts required for him to grip onto the rough bark of the tree to dig his fingers in, some of his attempts worked out with his hold staying firm while other times part of the tree would snap off or lose his grip. Ever so slowly leading to him climbing up the truck of the tree, it was more like crawling due to how slow his actions until he eventually encounter some branches that gain him better holds to speed up his climbing. Finally pulling himself onto the abnormal firm branch that he has selected for himself, feeling quite proud of himself in his out of breath state of suceeding in his first climb of the tree.

"This is so strange, I seem to have more energy to do stuff then I used to. Why is this happening to me?"

Last couple of questions to himself out of depression that suddenly overwhelms him upon finding a safe place for himself finally since all of this has happened, allowing his mind to finally relax from the build up of his stress and worries leading to him falling asleep in the branch that is wide enough for him to lie down upon in the tree.

 

[messageboy]

Part 3:

It is dark, he would think that he is still asleep if it wasn't for the faint blend of the moon light providing slight outline of things closeby instead of the complete darkness. "I slept long enough for the sun to go down." Being more of a statement to himself than a question, he feels slightly thirsty and hungry at the moment yet the thought that he should be much more thirsty and hungry than this runs through his thoughts. 'Did my body get upgraded to be more efficent?' Such thinking is enough for him to quickly check himself out in the dark, he couldn't see too well but he does look the same from his memories on what he could make out in the dark.

"More and more questions, I will give a penny for an answer." This prompts him to start digging in his few pockets to find a mobile phone and wallet. "How could I forget about these, well I wasn't in a good state of mind before my sleep." Pressing down the button on the phone to wake it, no response comes from the plastic brick in his hand so he holds another button to turn it on since it could be shut down. "Fuck you too." Cursing at the dimly lit screen that display that it has run out of power to start up but enough power to mock him of the fact. Choosing to bury the dead brick back into his pocket since he could charge it back up once he finds cilivization once again, this time opening up the wallet to find some clues within it. There is some coins and money notes, so that should be helpful later but more important is the plastic cards.

Blank, blank and blank. All the cards that should contain personnal information of himself are blank exactly at the spots where his name or other important words should be etched on them. "What... It also affected the items I held on me? Does that also mean that my phone..." Doubt filling him at the same time of staring at his pocket that contains his phone, depressed sigh follows his action of tucking the plastic cards back into his wallet then back into one of his pockets. 'So I have got nearby water source and resting place for now. I can't just live here but it is foolish to try to leave right now. Need to make myself some kind of water container to store drinkable water, collect enough food to last for a while before I can consider leaving the forest otherwise it would become a gamble. Would I find civilization soon after leaving the forest or keep wandering for days without food and water.'

Having a plan or goal is enough for most people to gain hope and confidence, same applies to himself with smiling in victory of finally having some direction in his life... "Wait... How would I make a water container? I think wood wouldn't work, no way in hell that I can make plastic or metal. So I will need to use the hide of some animal? Their stomach?" He felt sick at the idea of his drinking flask being the stomach of some animal. 'Why didn't I join the military or took part in some survival group in my life! I don't know how to turn hide or stomach into a water container. Hell, this might not be possible since this is only knowledge from some survival games or movies.' Anger growing at himself for not preparing himself for when getting lost like this but how could he know that this was going to happen.

Hugging the sturdy stick club in his arms as some kind of spiritual support, lying in the silent tree and trying not to think or do anything, having lost his confidence and will to do anything at the moment in his revelation. 'I can't keep being like this, I give myself some hope then take it away from myself. I know that I am in a bad situation and my chances aren't that good, I need to not hold myself back and become stubborn with my actions to improve my chances. So what if it might fail, so what if it might not help, I will do it anyway and deal with it afterwards.' Pulling himself from his lying posture on the branch into a sitting one during his mental speech to himself, ending it by striking once the tree branch he is resting on with the stick club in his hand as if to declare something to the world.

It didn't look so dark with his vision anymore but that most likely his eyes getting used to the darkness during his self loathing and rant, he thought he couldn't be slower when climbing up the tree but going down it turned out to be even slower due to how dark it is. Turning a blind eye to his cowardly performance a moment ago to consider his options, 'I should drink from the river then search near this tree for any fruits. Is my memory good enough to find this tree again?' pondering over what he could remember in the past day to test out his memory, he found it to be very good infact it seems much better than before he was dumped here but still he couldn't just trust on his memories. Leading to him searching around the forest floor for a jagged rock, it took him longer than he would like in the dark to find one that fits the requirements.

So starts his short trip from his safe place after marking the tree with a big sigil, leading to him marking various trees on the way to the river with smaller sigils to allow him to be able to find his way back after quenching his growing thirst. Uneventful of finding the river once again to drink from then heading back, just as he wanted.

Too bad that didn't happen for him, being in the middle of drinking happily from the river until being interrupted by sudden pain from his leg. Painful scream coming out of him at feeling what feels like teeth, looking backwards to the sight of seeing some super sized rat digging into his flesh with it's sharp teeth. "Fucking get off!" Panickly shouting at the dangerous animal with trying to kick it away with his other foot while swinging his bleeding leg that is latched on by the rat to throw it off. The overgrown rat is either thrown off or decides to let go so it could aim for more damaging location on the human it has found. Picking up the stick that he has put down to drink from the river, leading into wildly swinging it at the overgrown rat out of pain and fear. "Why the fuck is there a drugged up rat." Shouting out loud with no purpose but to vent himself of the panic that he is drowing inside into something better such as anger. It doesn't help with his wild swings that doesn't even come close to hitting the rat who is much more composed instead of the bleeding human.

Things didn't improve for him with every movement done by the rat sending him panicking and reacting with wild swings just to keep the rat away from him, there would have to be a change at some point and the one to pull that off is the rat that avoid the swing enough to chomp down on his foot. He isn't used to pain, it is something that is rare to happen to him and so now that it happens he can't control himself as he falls backwards onto the ground in reaction to the sudden sharp pain. Leading to massive opening for the rat to start biting and clawing upon his legs, opening even more bleeding wounds until he ends up luckily swinging the stick into the head of the rat. Relief filling his mind at the lack of new painful wounds being opened on his legs, the wider distance between them and sight of him batting that rat away like a home run.

Hopefully that is enough to deal with the rat, such hopeful thoughts are broken from his mind at the sight of the rat starting to move from it's crumbled pile from the fall. "Shit shit shit." He couldn't stop himself from cursing in fear but he struggles to get up on his bleeding legs. Raising up his stick like club that gave him some confidence from it's performance in the last hit, "Calm, don't swing unless you hit. Shit calm down." trying to calm down his fear that has been instill inside of him from what the rat has done to him so far. It didn't seem like the rat was going to wait around anymore as it looks enraged by the damage done to it unlike the cowardly fear from himself. "I need to be faster, faster!" Willing himself to be faster than the leaping rat quick from the ground, only to feel something strange outside of the pain wrecking his nerves and looking at the rat that somehow slowed down to a crawl float towards him in it's leap. He didn't have the time to try to figure out what is going on, choosing to just take the gift that is given to him by swinging the poor club in his hand which clearly moves quickly in his vision against the center of the rat's head.

Loud crunch fills his ears at the same time of seeing the sight of the rat's head bending inwards of itself, blood bursting out of the dented head that has been bashed in by his stick. The body of the dead rat impacting the ground as he stands there in stunned silence, his mind still lagging behind his victory against the overgrown rat. His body reacted first with everything seem to speed back up in his vision, dropping down on the ground out of true exhaustion for the first time since he found himself here. His body feels so heavy and sore, he couldn't understand why it felt like he had used up more energy in that short dangerous encounter then everything that he has done before the fight.

Just the movement of trying to check out his bleeding legs of the wounds on them feels like his entire body is weighted down. "Why?"

 

[messageboy]

Part 4:

Breath of relief for the first time since the deadly encounter with the drugged up rat, lying down next to the tree that he has labeled as his resting spot. It took so long to get back here after the fight that the darkness is already gone with the light of the rising sun filling the forest, thinking back to everything it took to get him back to some place that he felt safe causes him to break out in nervous fright. The fact that he didn't encounter any other dangerous animals during the period of time it took for him to recover from his strange lack of energy and tiredness, he isn't sure how long it took but maybe it was close to half a hour to be able to recover enough to start checking out his wounds. Spending around the same amount of time cleaning up the wounds with the water of the river, ripping apart most of his pants into the ripped shorts that they are now since the pants already had holes on the majority of his legs. So he decided to rip up the rest of the leggings of his pants to turn into makeshift bandages for his wounds, looking down at his dried dark red soaked bandages that look like rags than poor dressings, clearly displays the lack of experience or knowledge he had on it but certainly is better than just leaving his wounds alone.

The return trip from the river ended up being both horrible yet better due to so many different factors from his trip to the river, for one the sigil markings on the tree along with the morning arriving closer made it confident of his path back. On the other hand there were his wounds that seem to want to remind him of how he got pushed around by some druggie rat, pain causing him to slow down his movements in his cowardice to hide from any future or increased hurt. Another factor is the dead rat that he has sling over his shoulder, trying to use the majority of his back and shoulder to carry the dead bastard since he doubts he be able to just carry it by hand in his current condition. All of those factors added to his beaten down mentality lead to him taking around three times the length on the way back then it took to arrive at the river.

"Bastard, hope you burning in rat hell due to your over drugging."

So badly wanting to just pound on the rat corpse with his red tip stick, thinking the only way that there could be such a large rat is due to experimental drugs being consume by it, maybe it escaped from some russian blacklist lab or got into the waste dump of one. "Shit. Does that mean, I am infected and going to turn into some mutant or die from disease." Panic eyes checking over his poorly bandaged wounds until just resting his head against the tree in defeat, "There nothing I could do anyway if that was true in the middle of nowhere." choosing to act like a naive child and selectively forget about such possible results.

It took him some moments to check out the corpse next to him, 'Should I butcher it? I do need to eat but who knows what drugs could be in such a drugged up rat. I could try to make water container out of the hide. Wait, wouldn't the water from the river be good for cleaning the hide?' bangs his head against the tree in annoyance at himself. "Why the fuck, did I not do it at the river. Stupid fucking idiot." Why must he have such stupid moments, even if he was coming out of an exhausted panic state but still.

"Can I just give up already?"

Wasn't easy for him to recover from the impacts and depression of his recent experiences, sitting there against the tree foolishly for god knows how long before he fully regain the will to actually do anything. The hungry growl might be the only thing that actually pulled him out of his despair, digging around inside one of his pocket for his jagged rock to inspect. The rock is jagged enough to allow him to mark the trees but it wasn't enough to allow him to butcher the rat, 'Do I need to find another rock to sharpen this one up? That going to take a while.' being quite reluctant to do such even if he knows that he had to. "Bastard rat, still causing me trouble. First with your." Suddenly thinking of something during his rant at his dead nemesis, he pulls the corpse closer to allow him to pull open the damaged face of the rat and inspecting it's teeth. Good amount of them were still quite good while few were damaged in some way, tugging on a few of the good ones to find any that happen to be loose, he didn't even notice the oddity of the rat having sharp row of teeth more suitable for a wolf then teeth that smaller rats from his memories.

So it was with the clever checking of the rat's teeth, brutal use of anger filled rock to the mouth and mocking jeers of insults to the corpse of his nemesis. He ends up with one rather sharp long dirty tooth that he has ripped some of his jumper to tie around the base of the tooth as a handle. Staring down silently at the rough looking tooth dagger brings tears to his eyes, literally he ends up starting to cry at his success of gaining a decent tool that would improve his chances of surviving in this hell that he been forced into.

Now begins the next difficult task of skinning the corpse, he has no clue of how best to skin something so decides to make the less amount of cuts as possible, abandoning the damage head leads to him using the tooth dagger to roughly rip apart the hide around the neck of the rat. Next up is digging into the rough hide from the neck position down it's chest and stomach to it's tail, just this alone took him a lot of effort and time before he decides to cut around the tail. Handling the gore and blood coming out of the new openings like a man, that part is a lie. He actually felt slightly sick from the sight of the blood but even wanted to thrown up when the gore insides show up in his view, stopping at times to try to handle how ill he felt from opening up the corpse.

The end result eventually is a pile of bloody gore and remains that he has discarded some distance away from his tree to the best of his efforts in his wounded state, returning back to the tree to look at the bloody remains of select amount of hide he is keeping along with bloody meat of the rat that he choosing to cook for food. Building of a small camp fire along with cutting suitable stick to make kebab out of the meat ended up as child's play compared to the butchering.

So there he sits next to a bloody hide in front of the flickering orange flames of the contained fire, having few sticks inserted in the ground to hang over the fire where the slow cooking meat of the rat is impaled upon the ends. "My nemesis will be the foundation to make me stronger." Not having anything else to do during his eyeing of his outdoors cooking, he still not sure if he going to head back to the river to clean and work on the hide or rest up for his wounds to recover more first. This leads to his mind wandering between speaking various things to keep his sanity and mulling over various thoughts too.

"Still what happen during the fight? I really should have died, would have if the rat didn't suddenly slow down. I don't have the experience or was even calm enough to react normally, only reason I manage to kill the bastard is due to it suddenly slowing down so much that I had enough time to carefully think, aim and hit it. Then there is the mystery of why I was so exhausted from that fight, the two must be linked."

Trying to rack his mind through multiple thoughts to figure out the mystery as he pokes some of the burning wood with a stick, being careful not to catch his stick on fire during his pondering. "Well let do like the scientist then, repeat the situation and record the results... Fuck finding another nemesis, let just decide to not do that." Chucking aside the stick in anger at the thought of trying to find another dangerous animal, he isn't that stupid.

"Well first, I doubt it was the rat that slow down but that I speed up? I am not completely sure but I remember other things behind the rat slowing down too. So did I control time and slow down the world?" Ponders over that for some moments before denying it. "I doubt it but who knows." Lifting up a hand to the sky as he tries to strongly believe, 'Slow, slow, slow. Slow down the world... Please world slow down for me?' his thoughts slowly losing his confidence as he didn't see anything different after doing this for some minutes. Drops his hand with some embarassment, "Yeah, figures." checking out the fire to hide away from his shameful act.

"I can't slow down time, still the rat was slower for sure... Maybe it more the fact that I was faster, I do remember wanting so badly to be faster in the moment. Faster, faster, I want to be faster." Choosing not to do a pose this time instead just willing for himself to be faster while staring at the fire. Strange feeling from that time reappears as if something inside of himself is becoming empty over time, almost ignoring the feeling over the wonders of watching the standard flicking fire suddenly slowed down where he could carefully study the changes within the flames. The slight drops of fat that he used to have trouble following, turns into sparkingly gems of fatty oil that slowly float from the meat into the flames. It felt like he sat there for minutes staring in suprise wonder of the whole new view in front of himself, snapping out of his daze from the exhaustion that fills his mind along with everything speeding back up again, misunderstanding that he was only like that for a second or two at most instead of the minutes that he felt.

"How can I do that?"

He not sure if he actively thought back to it or his words just trigger his own mind to remind him but he suddenly replay the memories of his short interaction with the 'Overseer' leading to him mumbling out to himself.

"Law Core Soul?"

 

[messageboy]

Part 5:

Sitting there in silence from the daze look in his eyes that is lost within his thoughts before the cooking rat kebabs, it took him a while to snap out of his deep thinking to take notice of the meat that been overcooking for a while from the charcoal that is forming from the cooked meat. "Crap!" Quickly pulling the sticks out of the ground to take the meat out of the fire until his hands ended up full of the cooked meat sticks, forcing all of them except one back into the ground to allow himself to eat the remaining one in his hand.

He couldn't prevent himself from frowning and heaving during his first bite of the meat, tough, gamey with some kind of horrible taste that reminds him of blood. His taste buds loudly complains to him about encountering such horrible food, thinking back over his memories to discover that he almost never ate anything gamey, no longer surprise at his body reaction poorly to his horrible cooking. Anyone would have violent reaction if they only ate things that could be consider food for kings then having their first taste of what slaves would be given, possibly worst than that due to his terrible skills of butchering and cooking.

"This sucks, still got to eat... Do I? ...Sadly yes." Thinking if he could get away with no eating this meat, being wise enough to endure his disgust to eat down as much of the meat that he could stomach in both the amount and his will to not throw up. "Even after death, my nemesis is still trying to kill me." Staring at the remaining few cooked meat with a death glare, sounds of nearby movement causes his mind to jump in fright and panic as he looks towards the direction of the noise. His blood seem to come to a halt in his body at the sight of another damn overgrown rat peering out towards him from close bush, 'Did my nemesis revive?!?!' he didn't even think of fighting the new rat but how to flee since he still haunted from the recent experience and know his body is still injured.

First thing that he did was throw the two sticks of remaining cooked meat right at the giant rat, not sure if he did it on purpose or he was lucky that he automatically just threw something at the evil rat with the food being the closest stuff. Either way it was good for him since the rat was first aggressive at his offensive actions until it smell the cooked meat and decide to devour the meat first before the human. This gave him enough time to pull himself against the tree, enduring the pain of his sore legs being used to fanatically climb up the tree the quickest that he has done so far until reaching his goal of the safety of the very high branch from the rat.

"Why the hell is there another drugged up rat, it is understandable for there be one accidental rat mutation but two? Could it be some kind of genetic mutation from first drugger rat?"

Peering over the wide branch that he is resting his sore complaining legs that most likely have a few lightly bleeding again due to his careless movements, he doesn't care about his injuries at the moment with wondering if the rat will climb up the tree to his safety nest. Damn rat is clearly exploring his campsite with eyeing the fire that hasn't been feed any new wood for while, it didn't seem like the horrible villian is going to climb up the tree to get at him either he isn't interesting to the rat or maybe it couldn't climb the tree. Starting to calm down that he felt safe from the source of his new found trauma caused by his first close death encounter, once calming mind quickly is filled with anger at the sight of the damn rat starting to sniff and chew on the rat hide that he plan to work on.

"Stop that, you fucking rat. Don't mess with my trophy, are you trying to fuck with me because you related to my nemesis! If you don't leave me and my stuff alone, I will hunt down your entire bloodline!"

Only response from the rat at the human yelling at it is to look up at him for some moments before going back to chewing on the hide for some unknown reason, ignoring the loud noise coming from the out of reach prey.

Getting bored of cursing the stupid rat leads to him resting on the branch that he believes will protect him from any danger, not having the courage to kill the rat even with his new found powers, fact that he still feels slightly exhausted helping to convince him not to attempt using his power. He isn't sure about the exhaustion other than the vague idea that he might have limited resource to use his power like mana points for spell from games that he can remember in his memories. It would be stupid of him to depend on a power that he doesn't understand enough to know the limits and usage of, he might not even be able to use his powers again until even the hints of exhaustion is completely gone. Trying not to openly admit that his cowardice is a major factor of hiding from the rat unlike the last time when he was cornered, his mentality has been built up in the safety of society and leading him to leaning more on flight rather than fight.

He is very disappointed at his own cowardly mentality that has been formed by what he can gathered from his memories, not having anything else he could really do while the devil rat is lurking about underneath him, so he might as well go over his own memories and face his current issue. "Am I a coward by nature?" Looking through his memories that come to him much more easily and clear now, he could see that during childhood he was much more aggressive and would get into lots of childish fights. The fact that society frowns down on such acts, leading to him receiving negatitive actions and results in return from society. He had eventually learnt that he would be get less hassles and problems from rest of society if he adopted more peaceful, avoidance and fleeing mindset which help mixed into society instead of standing out like a odd puzzle piece.

"So I just got brainwashed, not that I am naturally a coward. I need to fix my mindset if I want to survive long enough to reach cilivization." Not being blind to such a clear fault that is currently risking his survival rate, he wants to curse his own horrible luck of being dump in the part of the world that happen to have wilderness and mutated animals. "God, hope it isn't near chernobyl. That would explain so many mutated animals."

"Hey uncle nemesis, you still there?" Peeking over the branch for some moments until he notice the rat still lingering around the tree, causing him to sigh in annoyance of the pest still hanging around. "I hope a cat comes by and eat you."

Resting upon his back once again on the branch to do the only thing he could think of doing at the moment which is pondering over his thoughts. 'Law Core Soul? That seem to be the name of my power, it is able to speed myself up and uses some kind of energy resource inside of myself. I don't know a lot of my power but it is better than nothing. Surprising that I didn't notice the additional energy inside of myself, didn't notice it until the first time I used it even then it is only now that I have a better grasp of it's existence.' Closing his eyes to block off his sense of vision to better focus on the pool of energy he could grasp inside of himself, he can't clearly figure out how big the pool is but he can feel how full it is. Currently feeling that his energy pool is still recovering from last usage in front of the fire, being no where near full since it hasn't been that long from being emptied.

'I feel weaker when the energy is empty and there also the fact that I hardly felt tired before the fight, so could the energy be providing some kind of passive benefit to my body when it isn't low or empty? So after using it up in the fight, I became too exhausted to even move due to injuries and build up from activities before the fight? It wasn't too long between using it at the fire to the arrival of the rat yet I still was able to climb the tree. So I would only become disable by using up all my energy when injuried enough or carrying negative influences before hand.'

Rolls over slightly to look down from the branch once again, "Hey devil rat, you are polite enough to make your own grave." choosing to mock the devil upon discovering it once again after carefully looking around since it is digging among some bushes instead of being in the open under him, hiding upon the branch once again into his self study of his powers.

Thinking about his chances of just taking on the rat for some moments until shaking his head, looking down at his legs that will clearly give him trouble. 'My legs need to recover, heal back to before the fight. Be great to heal completely right now.' Wishful thinking on his part until he could feel his new found energy disappearing within the pool inside of himself, widening his eyes in shock and confusion since he didn't will himself to be faster, quickly looking around to see if he has speed up but not noticing any difference.

"...Could it be?" Possible thought enter his mind at remembering what he last wanted, looking down at his legs that he is rapidly unwrapping one of the makeshift bandages. Pulling away the blood crusted rag off one of his bite wounds show that the wound is still there, taking him some moments to notice that the wound look smaller than the one in his memories and possiblity even cleaner. Choosing to tie the dirty bandage back over the lessen wound then changing to one of the scratches that wasn't too bad, opening up the rag for that one to reveal that the scratch wound is now missing from his leg. It didn't take him long to inspect each of his wounds to work out which ones are now completely recovered and which are just slightly better.

"It actually worked, it didn't completely recover my wounds. Could it be that my power is too weak or that I am lacking enough energy? What is my power, it isn't just making me faster but seems more like a wish granting power." Thinking back to the multiple times he has used or tried to use his powers to try to gain a better understanding. "It didn't work when I try to slow the world, fact that I remember my energy not responding should mean that was invalid usage of my power... Law Core Soul... Could the name actually hint to what my power does, is it related to actual laws like law of gravity? Once again is the issue of that failure of slowing the world, that would be law of time... Maybe it isn't about the subject but the target?"

Flash backs of the memories of speeding himself up to kill the first rat, "First time my body and senses seem to have been boosted or speed up." next time was the same with the speeding up of himself and now there is the recovery of his wounds. "Every time the target was only myself, either I need a certain target to lock onto or can only affect myself." Fully pleased smile spreads on his face for the first time since finding himself in the plains, he couldn't prevent the surge of happiness that fills his entire body. He still doesn't know enough about his power but what he has worked out already is enough to give him a foundation of hope that won't ever go away unless he lost his power, he now finally felt like he could survive no matter what.

So the first thing he is going to do now with his new found confidence, is to use the energy that will recover every roughly half a hour to a hour to completely recover his body... Then...

He rolls over to look down from the branch until his eyes firmly lock onto the lurking rat on the forest ground with excited smile on his face, not even his cowardly mindset can overpower his newfound confidence against his new nemesis.

 

[messageboy]

Part 6:

Sensation of the unique energy in his core disappearing like a mist leaking out of a bottle is becoming very familiar to him now, he has been spending the last few hours reusing his power to cure his injuries, during the entire time he could only lie there pondering over his thoughts and yelling insults down at the rat for his energy to recharge. Last dark coloured crusted rag is taken off the final bite wound on his leg, remembering how nasty that single wound was out of all of them due to being the first bite that he received when he was distracted at the river, shivering in fright from the clear memory of his old wound being deep enough to show the bone deep inside. Understanding that if it wasn't for his power then that wound out of the others would have never fully recovered naturally, brushing his legs to convince himself of his recovery outside of the dried blood that he will have to clean off later.

"I won't be held back by my injuries anymore, the question now is to wait for the energy to refresh or take on the rat without my ace card." He is certain of facing the rat but to do so without his power ready just in case makes him reluctant that feeds into his cowardice mindset, struggling to himself mentality for some moments til he finally came to a firm decision.

Been some time since he last seen sight of the rat, not being surprised that it wouldn't stay in clear sight after the few hours he spent recovering but expect it to be lurking somewhere close by, most likely will show up once again when he gets onto the ground. 'I need to fix my mindset, last fight started with being sneak attacked and going into it panicking and injuried.' Carefully climbing down the side of the tree towards the ground, fact that his legs felt strong and painless leads to good boost to his confidence.

First choice of actions at the moment of touching the forest floor is to head over to his abandoned club stick that has experience of killing his first nemesis, securing a firm grip of it in his hand then quickly twisting around his head to check the environment all around himself for any movements. No evidence of movement nearby, he couldn't just do nothing and stay alert the entire time yet isn't going to let down his guard either. Stepping over slowly to check out the discard rat hide of his first kill, using the stick in his hand to shift it around enough to notice all the holes and damage done to it by his hidden foe. "Bastard will become my new trophy. Oh, where my dagger?"

Reminder of his proud tooth dagger causes him to quickly discard the damaged old hide, looking around for some moments until finding the makeshift dagger near the dead campfire, slipping it into one of his pockets so that he doesn't lose it so easily this time. "Did it actually leave?" Doing another check of the surroundings for the overgrown rat, eyes locking onto the sight of the rat slowly approaching him when he was distracted by recovery of his dagger, being caught by surprise causes him to react by jumping backwards away from the rat in cowardice.

'Damnit, taken by surprise made me react first with my cowardly mindset.' Gritting his teeth in annoyance at himself, having decided right away to not follow that old mindset and force himself to grow into a better one. "Lets go!" Yelling out at the rat that is confidently moving closer, trying to pump himself up as he takes a few steps towards the rat to close the distance between them. Quickly using the decision to get close enough to the rat to quick jab it with the stick, plan didn't work out since the rat decides to make sure of it's strong leaping capabilities to dart at him with a burst of speed. Forcing him to act second against the rat by placing his stick in the path between himself and the leaping rat, leading to the events of the rat clomping down on the stick that shoves away from him to sling the rat. Sounds of the impact of the rat tumbling on the ground few steps away, quick glance down at the new damage done to his stick by the sharp teeth of the rat before moving close to the disrupted rat.

'Quick, I need to take advantage before it gets into better position.' Swinging his arm through the air that pulls along the stick down at the shuffling rat, screech of pain from the animal makes his blood boil even more in his veins in joy, not being sure where he hit the rat since he just wanted to land the hit anywhere then to target a certain part. Careless starts to celebrate his victory that is cut short by the still living rat that quickly lung at him, panic and shock filling his mind as he automatically tries to flee which actually prove to be helpful this time. Roughly landing on the ground a few steps away from the rat that almost clomp part of his body, tumbling onto his ass would have provided a good chance for the rat if it wasn't for the luck of his last hit injurying the hind leg of the rat. Current situation of two foes staring at each other with one trying to get closer with a lame leg and the other needing to recover by the unexpected results. He wasn't stupid, so quickly understanding his advantage leads to him getting back up with his club stick before repeatly bashing it against the skull of the rat that has lost big part of it's mobility.

Few minutes past for him to pause his swinging of the stick that is even more bloodied from it's recent kill, he could easily tell that he went a bit overkill with the number of hits, having killed it certainly by the third hit to the head. "That was too close, I thought the first hit would have kill it like the first fight. Did I get weaker somehow?" Running through his memories of his first fight with his body slowly calming down from it's blood boiling high. "In that fight, I hit the rat while using my power. So I was faster than now, of course. That means my swing had more speed which is additional force behind my hit." Sigh leaks out of him at figuring out why he didn't kill the rat with single hit and reminds himself to not let down his guard until after his victory.

Checking himself over for any unexpected wounds or surprises, finding nothing with the fact that he didn't even feel tired from that fight allow him to easily decide his next course of action. Making use of the tail of the rat corpse to lift it up over his shoulder, heading off towards the river to finally try to make his first water container. Only taking a few steps into a slow stop, 'Isn't there some kind of bleeding that you need to do after a hunt?' not being sure about his thoughts since it was just something from games or movies instead of any solid source in his memories. 'What is the harm?' Taking the time during his stop to make use of his tooth dagger to rip open a big enough wound into the neck of the dead rat, making use of carrying it upside down over his back to allow the blood to bleed out on his way to the river.

His arrival at the river is quite peaceful, there isn't any animals near it at the moment and didn't encounter anything on the way. Dumping the corpse on the bank that stop bleeding recently during the trip, enjoying the fresh water to rid away his slight thirst then deciding to give himself a bath to clean up. Not wasting much time since he didn't have any soap or anything to make the bath enjoyable, so just focusing on doing a quick clean up. Feeling slight disgust at having to put on the same clothes that is at this point look closer to rags by how dirty and damage that been done to his clothes, even after doing a quick wash in the river. "I can't do anything about it really." Trying to comfort himself with the reality of his situation, ignoring his condition next to start work on the hide of the rat corpse.

Most haunting sound that he has ever heard fills his ears, 'No, no, no, no.' eyes spread wide in fear even when his head is turning to allow him to get a view on the thing that made that sound. What comes into his sight is the mutated bear that is slowly walking between the trees towards the river, sniffing the air casually and releasing the deep growl that only large animal like a bear would make.

'Why?!?!'

 

[messageboy]

Part 7:

Panic, panic and panic! Those were the only words to describe his state of mind at the moment, he couldn't even think of facing the massive bear at this moment that is getting closer and eventually will lock onto him. His memories where bears were one of the feared creatures made him afraid, his past experience with having life and dead fights with just a rat made that fear multiple.

'Flee! Must flee!' Such thoughts dominated his mind with not allowing for any thing else, if it wasn't the fear and surprise of seeing the bear then he would already be running by now. It is only now after wasting so much time being frozen in fear that he started to move, directly abandoning the rat corpse that he was in the middle of butchering yet having enough sense of mind to grip his poor club in his hand.

His movement became the trigger for the monsterous bear to finally take notice of the human, halting it sniffing of the bloody scent in the air to take in the prey not far away. 'Bear is still quite many steps away, bears aren't suppose to be fast. I should be able to get away with the distance.' Tighten body loosen slightly from the calming thought of his deduction of his chances, smoothly turning into a dash down the river to escape the bear.

Heat, intense powering heat flash through his mind at the same time that something red past by him, narrowly missing him to impact against the ground in front of himself. Object bursting apart into a wider area, his mind catching up enough to understood that he saw a ball of fire exploding in front of him into a field of flames. That fact only leads to more confusion and locking up his mind, let alone his body that tumbles backwards into falling onto the dirt. 'What? Where did the fire come from?' Being blindsided enough to forget about the great threat of the bear to question reality itself, light seem to slip away from around him with the approach of a large shadow in his sight. Difference in his daze sight causing his mind to focus enough to look behind him to see the massive bear rearing it's giant arm back to bring down upon him.

"No!" Only thing he could cry out along with his body roughly rolling over out of the range of the paw, loud impacting sound filling his ears along with the trembling of the ground that he desperately rolled upon. Fixing his sights on the bear enough to notice the paw that is sunken into the ground from the amount of strenght used by the beast, fear mixed heavily with the desire to live hounds his mind. Getting up from his lying position to find his hand still gripping the bloody stick club. 'I can't escape anymore, there is the unknown fire but now the bear is right next to me. I need to kill it.' Coming to his decision quickly in his horrible situation but with grim desire to live then the hopeful confidence of victory that he had against the rat.

Small action of the bear simply turning it's head to roar at him, made his legs shake and heart to beat fast enough to drown out his ears. 'First get behind it, it should be slow to turn.' He might have a cowardice mindset that lead to his poor performances in the past but his thoughts show that he wasn't an idiot and had the flair for combat. Moving to circle around the massive bear that is easily three times his size or more, being cornered leaving him no choice other than to go all in. Response of the bear is to keep it's prey within sight while being slower in turning but not enough to lose sight of him, only enough to make it difficult for the bear to launch an attack with their current positions.

Confidence slowly building up within himself from the lack of life threatening attacks from the bear that seems to be dancing with him at the moment. Feeling safe enough to try to attack the creature during his circling leads to him raising his club to swing it down at the rear side. Thud, sound coming from the impact of the wooden stick against the bear's hide wasn't impressive neither was the effect against the bear, it didn't react in pain or show any reactions at all as if his hit was same as a fly. 'How can the bear be so tough, it didn't even react to my attack. Then what can I do? It can't easily attack me but I can't attack it right now.' Fear filling his once confident heart since he knew it was more likely that he would slip up or get tired before the bear if they just keep this situation going. 'I need to do a decisive hit to a weak point.' Trying his best to notice weak point from the massive animal that he is avoiding around like a fly to a giant, locking on to the head of the bear which seem to be keeping lock on himself during the entire positioning.

'I have to aim for the eyes, try to pierce into the brain.' Working out a possible victory move in this fight yet being reluctant to jump right into it, understanding for him to make a solid attack at the bear's eye then he would have to face possible attack from the immerse strength of the animal. Precious seconds being used by him to build up the courage to follow with his plan, finally breaking off from the equal balance that the fight has been struck in by distancing himself a few steps back into a stable posture.

His arm is raised up above his shoulder that has the club bloody end pointing towards the animal, using his hand to realign the tip to line up to left big eye of the bear who is now facing towards him and releasing another challenging roar. Not allowing the bear to get first action in this new phase of the fight, making use of his power to speed himself up for the second or two that he could use it for. His hand pushing forward under the additional influence of his power that is forcing his club turned stick spear towards the target of the bear eye, he will succeed at this and kill the bear with one strike at it most vulnerable spot... 'Huh? Why is the horn shiny, was it always red?' Couldn't help his eyes noticing the strange horn on the forehead of the bear, vision being speed up catching the odd thing becoming a denser color of red with his spear getting closer to the bear.

Red! Fire! Danger!

Out of nowhere in his speed up sight is the creation of a round ball of flames at the point of the horn of the bear, it physical creation wasn't slow in his vision so that meant it was even faster outside of his boost. Trade of attacks seem to be the outcome in this fight with his most likely being the killing strike except for the flaw of his cowardice mindset. Initinal appearance of the fire that prevented his escape should have made him wary and prepared for second one, sadly he still unable to consider the possibility of the horned bear being the one to create the fire since no bears from his world can do such a thing. His plan to deliever a killing blow was completely depended on his views and memories of normal bears from his world. Even so he could still just accept the trade of attacks but his cowardice of danger and pain forces his body to react, he didn't do anything foolish such as stopping his strike yet his aim that correctly aimed at the eye drifts off course.

Sound of wood breaking fills his sense of hearing over the loud beating of his heart and the roaring of the fire ball coming in front of him. Eyes widening in disbelief and despair of the tip of his wooden stick impacting the edge of the eye on the bear hide instead of the weak eyeball itself. Power of his becoming more like torture at having to watch all the fine lines forming on his weapon, strength between his boosted stab against the tough hide of the bear leading to conflict within his weapon and causing it to shatter into bits of wood. Sight of the ever growing size of the fireball that slowly fills his vision with his power halting from lack of energy, then there is only intense heat and pain within the red firely world of his senses.

Painful screams using the entirely of his lungs fill the forest at the sensation of his flesh burning and more delicate parts of his face experiencing horroric damage, just the fact that he could close his eyes in time help to save him some grace from the hell that he is in. The fire itself didn't seem to last long after impacting on his body, most of the damage being done at the initial impact rather than continuous like normal fire, parts of him still have small flames that were slowly dying off.

His mind at the careless thought that his hell is finally over and done with, loud painful crunch echoes in his senses that was once blinded by flames, opening his painful burnt eyelids along with his neverending screams to find his right arm that stood out after the fail attack. Currently being trapped between the powerful jaws of the bear that he is in the mercy of.

 

[messageboy]

Part 8:

Blurry vision resulting from his tears and burn injuries, causing him trouble within the crisis of having the jaws of a massive fire shooting bear crushing his active arm into meat mush. His voice painfully raw and sore from the screams that he is releasing in response to his dying body at the mercy of the bear. Mind trying to go numb in a defense mechanism against the overlord of pain being sent to his brain, pool of energy within his core is empty from the failure of his last strike.

Miracle, luck or last struggle of life brings about the event of his free hand that been hitting weakly against the bear face, trying to free himself til finally finding it gripped around the tooth dagger handle barely hanging on the wreck remains of his burnt clothing. Rapidly ending up into one of the eyes of the bear, taking away the sight from that single eye but only that either due to lack of strength due to his condition or short length of the dagger. He only wishes that the dagger to the eye would be enough for the bear to let go of his mauled disabled arm in it's jaw, response to the damage to it's eye just lead to the bear to bat at the human with one of it giant paws.

Wet bloody sounds of crunch and rip could be heard from the shoulder being rip apart, his arm being kept within the hungry jaws of the one eyed bear and rest of his body being swatted away against the ground. Finding himself on his back with his daze eyes staring up at the blue sky helplessly, not having the energy or will to do anything against the bear that devours his arm like a piece of candy. 'There no chance, I can't escape.'

Ever so approach of the predator that will end his life once and for all, ends up being interrupted by the roar of another predator. Really wanting to ask what now yet unable to do so with his lost voice from the raw screaming moments ago, turning his head that has burnt skin and lacking good amount of hair to allow his eyes to see the arrival of another creature. Appearance of the second creature is like a rhino but different enough to notice, it hide look like stone rather than leather and it teeth is sharp for meat rather than greens.

'Bastards, trying to fight over the half dead meat. Screw you both, neither will get the prize.' Childish anger filling his mind at the thought of him being treated like a drumstick being fought over, turning his head to other side to notice the river being closeby. He would rather drown then to be eating alive, using what is left in his abused body to roll and crawl across the trembling ground under the distraction of the two beasts.

Silence covering him like a blanket of safety, clean cold water soothing to his cooked flesh and bleeding injuries as the river accepts his disposal of his body.

------Time skip------

Silence, peace, cold, dark.... Death.... End....

------Time skip------

Birth of pair of light orbs in the blue, rebirth of life leading to the explosion of the river surface. Single hand ripping out towards the sky in refusal, to grip the ground. Survive, live, endure. Dig and pull, dig and pull, leaving the accepting grace of cold embrace of the river into the wild harsh nature of the forest.

------Time skip------

Pair of cunning fanatic eyes tilted with madness, peers out from the stealthy cover of enviroment belonging to the forest. Unexpecting prey that is unable to flee from the drilling focus that thirst for the life of the rat, patiently waiting from it ambush position. Rustling sound of leaves moving is the only evidence, the one arm man dropping out of the tree above into a fall that unnaturally speeds up. Bloody gore mess is the only remains of the head of the rat under the feet of the man, weight of his drop being unnatural enough to imprint into the very ground itself under the meat and bone remains of the animal's head.

There is only silence from the roughly burnt one armed man after the kill, simply picking up some intact sharp teeth and headless corpse then disappearing among the forest once again.

------Time skip------

Clearing contains the burning of a small fire that is being used to cook some raw bloody meat, sitting nearby is dirty rugged man that is wearing poorly crafted hides. Working on a tooth spear with his knee holding on the handle and one hand using a tooth dagger to sharpen up the spear, remaining arm is simply just a shoulder that is stumpy but regrown since the entire shoulder been lost to the bear.

Arriving into the clearing like a curse to the man is some kind of hog with sharpen tusks, sharp light appears in the dull eyes of the man at the arrival of the beast. Smoothly leaving his seat on the forest floor onto his feet then rapid dash towards the hog like animal that responds with it own charge. The two approaching each other like charging lancers, the sharp dangerous tusks look like they would cleanly slice through his bone. No panic, fear or uncertainly hinders his movements except more wild blind disregard for his life, firm grip of his only hand aiming the spear.

All of sudden the movements of the man almost doubles or triples in burst speed, sharp tip of the spear impaling into the eye of the hog that bursts open with bloody foundation at the force behind it. The man being lifted up by the spear from the ground, by the now dead hog, strength and force behind the charge being great enough to push the victor backwards.

Still he is the victor this time, the last one standing for now.

------Time skip------

How long has it been since that life changing moment, on the edge of death in the icy cold river. His mind wandering slightly in the chase that he is in, fact that he is the predator chasing a prey instead of the prey is the reason he lost his focus into his thoughts. Each step firmly allowing him to closely chase the strange speedy fox, keeping enough awareness on the fox to catch it's sudden spinning leap in the air, rapidly self growing icle forming in the middle of it jump that shoots back at him. Speed of his pursuit not even slowing down as he comfortably side steps the magical icle during his foward motion, being calm enough to pull it off but also thanks to his much stronger body that has improved during his harsh survival over the weeks that he has spent to reach this point.

'I won't allow my fear to cause my death, death without fear. To flee is to meet my end.'

Such is the base of his new mentality, accept death without regard of living, only fearing fear itself. If advancing will lead to my death, then so be it. I rather die then be held back by my fear ever again. Still fear isn't something you can completely abandon but he will try with the life he has held onto.

Glancing down for brief moment at his half grown arm then back up to the fox, not wanting to be caught by surprise out.

------Time skip------

Fresh relief of the cool water flowing down his throat gives him comfort in his current task, looking down at the hide water flask that he now carries on him, pitifully remembering how much trouble he first had trying to get the hide to even try to make it in the first place back before that dreadful day. Recovering himself from his emotional mood to focus back on his goal at the moment, he has been dreaming of this day for weeks or possibly months, it is hard to keep track of time in the forest. Crouching near the base of tree as cover from the view of the cave that he has found to contain his target, one eyed horned bear. The thought of the bastard is enough to cause his entire right arm to twitch in phantom pain, deciding it is time to get his revenge on the one that drove him to hell with having regrown the entirely of his lost arm.

Strange to have lost your active arm, he had to learn how to use his off hand to do everything. Effort he had to sweat and bleed to train his left arm to perform as well as his lost right arm, so many close calls and accidents. It didn't take as much effort to warm up his right arm that finally fully recovered, now he is capable of using either arm at the same standard but he is not going to thank the bastard bear for causing this.

Calming down his breathing that hasten along with his boiling blood at the sight of the massive bear popping into view, heading into the cave that clearly is it home in the forest. There is no way he is going to directly face the bastard, he going to stack the deck into his favour. Confirming his grip on the sharp tooth spear that is only one of the two tied on his back, even having a few tooth daggers as back up weapons in ragged hide belt that he made, it isn't anything to write home about but it does the job. Slowly approaching the cave by making use of stealthy steps to avoid any debris under his feet, pausing in the middle of the short travel to the cave to light up the roughly made torch in the hand not holding the spear.

Without uncertainly, without doubt. Smoothly following each step of the plan that starts by chucking the burning torch into the cave to alarm and force the bear out of the cave, rapidly moving himself off to the left side of the enterance. His free hand fishing into his hide clothing for the stone that he has stashed away, large threatening roar of the bear warning of the impending slaughter that awaits those who disturbed it. Sight of the furious bear is the trigger for him to use his strength to throw the stone across the cave enterance, loud sound of the stone strongly making contact with the ground on the right side of the bear causes it to turn it head to check the noise.

This is where his advantage shows clearly, one that he has earned from the first fight that force him into the lowest pits of despair and death. The damaged right eye of the bear means that it has to turn even more than usual to see with the shorter view angle of it's left eye, giving him the time to safetly charge from his hidden location into spear range before the bear could face him again. He has never forgotten about the fire ball that the bear can produce from it's horn, lesson that he would never forget and biggest reason why he wouldn't charge directly in front of the bear.

By the time the bear head has turned around to see him, already too late for the bear that is facing the incoming sharp tip of the spear towards it's remaining left eye. Current moment brings mad gleam to his eyes at the similar situation from so long ago, his core of energy already being drain at his speed boosted senses and body. Increased reaction of his nerves allowing him to precisely align his spear into the center of the remaining eye of the bear, once again the growing denseness of the red horn catches his enhanced senses. Clever bastard must have learnt many things during the period of time since one of it's eye been taken away, he couldn't have been the only thing around here that would have tried to take advantage of the creature's narrow vision.

'Not this time!' He doesn't even flinch at the sight of the warning of the impending fire ball, deciding firmly on his actions during the brief mere seconds between the spear aiming to impale and the forming heat releasing ball of fire at the end of the horn.

His most important fight comes to an end, good amount of his much solid spear having buried itself through the bloody remains of the bear's eye and directly into the bleeding mess of brain gore. On the other side is his brutally black burnt hand, that he raised during the period of his power speed usage to directly take the blunt of the fire ball. Not even taking a moment to look at his over cooked hand, doesn't matter to him if his entire hand itself is missing.

He is alive and standing, his foe isn't. That is good enough for him.

------Time skip------

Today is different from normal, reason is due to what he can see from where he is hiding in the trees. Group of men have appearanced in the forest, walking around with weapons and armor. I am both happy and concern, finally encountering another human but it been who knows how long in this forest, he have gained a lot of doubts about the world he is in after having experienced so many magical and strange things. He is quite certain that he is no longer on his own world, meaning that the group in front of him is more likely to be adventurers instead of a group of cosplayers going camping.

If he still believed that he was still in his world then he would have carelessly approached the group, belief in a friendly modern society. That isn't the case anymore, he is more wise and have better understanding of his situation. Another factor is that he can't understand the language that they are speaking.

What is he suppose to do about that shit?!?


====================
This part has a lot of time skips over a period of few months, it will go back into previous style from next part on until another suitable moment for time skip.

Each ------ is period of time passing, the amount varies for each.

Any comments will be encouraging. ^^

 

[messageboy]

Part 9:

Keeping his grip on the tree trunk within his reach of the branch that is supporting his body way above the eye height of the group of adventurers, carefully scanning the three men of various differences in appearance to work out their perceivable strengths and weaknesses.

Why is he treating them as a threat? He isn't as naive back when he first showed up in this unknown world, understanding and accepting that he isn't on earth anymore. This helps to form a distance between his old mindset that was influenced by modern society and his new mindset born out of desperation to rules of the wild, strength above unity where it is survival of the strongest instead of survival of the most acceptance. Violence over diplomacy, this is more correct mindset to have in this world based on most information he can gather in his shattered knowledge. Sure the knowledge is of written fiction based on sword and magic media, still even with some of the coating and lip service of friendship and following the rules that are added due to make the media more accepting in modern society, there is still the underlying dog eat dog nature in most of those media works. Hell, personal strength still applies in the modern world that he was born in within the hidden shadows of the society system, usually more noticeable in third world countries like Africa or such.

So it would be foolish to just expect a group of strangers to be friendly to another stranger that just shows up to them, it most likely be normal for them to rob then kill the stranger for loot and amusement. The large razor teeth rats and fire throwing bears are clearly monsters, they are clearly stronger than any regular normal person so life in this world most likely has a shorter and lower survival rate than his own world. Leading to encouragement to become stronger, do what you can to survive and fight for what you have or want, just like peer pressure of society and he clearly knows how brainwashing that can be.

Oh, there also the factor that he can't understand their language and most likely they can't understand his widely spoken English language, lot of good it does now in his current situation and now he has a better understanding of those in his world that only knew more minor languages. Sure, lets just wander up to the most probable dangerous adventurers that doesn't even care about value of life of other people that modern society would brainwash daily in my own world. Trying to explain to them in his language about his situation, only for them to either treat him as an insane person with the language barrier which makes him possible danger which must be dealt with. Dismissed out of confusion and lack of patience that could have them deciding to use him as bait for some wild monster or amusement.

...Maybe they will know magic or have a magic item that would allow them to understand him, even possible that they might just guide him back to civilization out of the goodness of their hearts. Shit, thinking of depending on such low possibility at the cost of his life that he fought from door of death just angers him. Fuck that, this isn't some fiction of modern society where values of friendship, of society and goodness of humanity leads to complete strangers to help other strangers yet alone the damn language barrier.

'Damnit, need to calm down. Settle, Settle. I am not some Isekai main character. Need to face reality here. Logically, reasonably and survival of the fittest.'

First is the language barrier, clearing that will solve one of the three major issues at the moment. Being language, strength and common knowledge. Language is simple to understand why it is an issue, strength is to ensure my safety if they try violence against him. Common knowledge of this world is actually important since it will help prevent them from being clever to take advantage of him. Still first is the language.

Hmm... He tries to will or use his power to gain himself the knowledge of their spoken language, few seconds with his pool of energy not reacting at all to his naive attempt of solving it with his power. Well, He can't seem to just hope for his power to give him just anything, there is clearly set limits or system to how his power functions. Where is his damn manual! What is the difference from regeneration, enhanced perception and speed to understanding an unknown language? It should relate to laws maybe if the name given by that voice actually means anything. Argh! This isn't time to ponder more of his power.

First he should capture these adventurers to help him experiment with his powers in hopes of understanding their language. He isn't foolish enough to believe he can just let them be and hope everything will work out on it own for him to learn their language for any future encounters of other people or chance of entering civilization. What, he is suppose to just be content with staying in the wild without human contact for rest of his life because he can't understand the world's language or put his life on the line for the low low chance that some stranger will help him out of pity without having a reliable means of communication.

Stuff that! Throw that modern society mindset into the deepest of pits, I am going to be proactive with solving this issue even if it means capturing and torturing these strangers for the safe and possible means of acquiring their language. Still capturing all three together would be unlikely and quite dangerous, it would be better if he kills off two of them then capture the remaining one. 'Thankfully the almost dead experience and suffering spent inside this forest, along with suspecting this isn't a world that follows modern society standards has allow me to accept killing another human being. Sure, it might affect me later when I am in an idle moment or give me nightmares afterwards about my first murders but that is something that I can deal with and try to solve later then now.'

Each one of the three adventurers clearly meet the minimum requirements of fitness, not really surprising since you need to be fit enough to fight or run from monsters and other adventurers to survive longer than a few weeks or months as one. One of them look more muscle built than the other two, based on the visual view that he can see from above. So it is likely that one is much stronger in pure strength than the other two which is highly supported by the large double handed axe that the man is carrying around as if it is a mere stick.

The other two are smaller built in terms of muscle but there is some kind of magic that exist in this world based on what some of the monsters in this forest could do, not sure if it a natural trait that one is born with or something that can be learnt. It is quite possible that only monsters are capable of the magical feats yet wiser to expect everything else is just as capable then not. So the remaining two might look like they are more agile and quick capable then the axe dude with their weapons of one wielding a dagger and the other wielding a wooden bow but has holstered in his belt a dagger too.

Looks like a party of a strong axe wielding frontal fighter, quick dagger rogue or assassin to take advantage of any openings that is created by the axe wielder or bow user that would support from the distance. Seems balance and well thought out, wonder if the party formed intentionally or was just a matter of pure luck. Then there is the damn threat and misleading unknown magical capabilities or enhancements, that could lead the axe wielder to be the quickest in the party, the dagger adventurer being able to teleport through shadows or the bow user hitting harder than the suppose strongest axe wielder with his arrows. What about magical items and equipment? Healing potions? Magical bonds that sends information about the attacker to some backer if they get killed?

'God damnit! I am driving my mind wild at all this possible situations based on magic that might or might not exist!'

'Calm! Settle, Settle.' It can't be helped, he has no way of finding out other than just following them for who knows how long in hopes of these strangers revealing all their means to him. That is just stupid and lead to forcing him into a horrible situation instead of advantage that he currently has on these adventurers. He is aware of them, they are not aware of him. That is actually a very powerful factor to have. He will lead them towards his feeding grounds.

Carefully slipping his hand into his hide made pouch that he has made during his survival in the forest, trying his best to keep any possible noise or sounds to the minimal in his actions of pulling out a rather hefty rock that he has collected a few to use as distractions or range attacks. Motion of his arm results in the rock to fly from the tree into the ground in the direction towards his feeding grounds, heavy blow of the rock impacting a random bush and the dirt ground causing loud enough noise to grab the attention of the three adventurer's in alert to that direction. It wasn't much of a challenge unlike the first time he tried to throw a rock at a monster, since then he had done it enough times to gained decent experience to have reliable aim within certain distances. Height he is currently at did help matters.

That strange language is spoken again between the three armed men that are alert to their surroundings with mostly on the ground with them then high above in the trees, slowly advancing to the bush that he hit with the rock. That axe wielder being in front of the rest of the group. That just leaves me standing in the tree to follow the group to his intended location, the method is the question. Usually he would jump between close enough tree branches that look strong enough, making use of his power to enhance his strength to make longer leaps but he isn't some kind of ninja or know how to muffle the actions of his landing. Weight and force of his jumps causing the strong tree branch to wobble from absorbing the impact, with monsters the noise of the impact and movement of the leaves of the shaking branch wouldn't be as dangerous but actual devious adventurers with clear range weapons.

'Nope!'

Down the tree he climbs down from with being much less noisy even if the time taken allows for distance to form between the predator and prey. Following the group on the ground from behind, making use of the experience that he has gain hunting more alert monsters like foxes to hide his stalking of the armed men in the forest. Luckily wasn't far from his feeding grounds, he doesn't tend to target far from his area of operations except for few times to explore and find a challenge like bears or that one overgrown lizard that he happen to find. Man, that was a deadly encounter. So the adventurers happen to wander into his area then him finding them. If he had to somehow guide them to this location with multiple attempts then that would have made it more likely to be discovered.

Slipping one of the rat tooth spears from his back hide made holsters into his hands, watching the three men approaching closer to one of the many traps that he prepares in this location since it is often traveled by the monsters for the nearby river. It took a lot of time, trial and error to set this place up, traps breaking easily and quickly for such nonsense reasons, why the hell would just few drops of rain trigger some of the traps made him almost go crazy to figure out. Making use of the hides into leather stripes to craft animal cordage, tendons and sinew of the monsters took a lot of experimenting to make into rubber like cordage. Then there was the deadpan producing moments of watching the monsters come up to your traps and just stare at them for a while, avoiding them because of how obvious they were. He remember how much of an idiot he felt like when the monsters easily found the traps, as if mocking him for being less clever than natural inhabit of the forest.

God how tiring and shameful that entire period of time took until he gain more experience with it all, now his traps usually isn't found by most monsters in this forest except for some rare moments of luck or abnormally alert monsters. He just need to hope that his traps are hidden just as good against adventurers than to monsters then again he did learn some tricks.

Oh look, they have notice the hidden pit trap that he made with using the large teeth and horns from his hunts. Those from the bears and boars that he has faced, being a stronger and larger sharp tool then the ones from smaller rats, foxes and other smaller monsters in this forest. He didn't make too many of those pits due to amount of effort that had to be done to dig up the pit in the first place compared to his other traps but the pits tend to every now and then reward higher with larger animals.

I shouldn't give them too much time to discuss about the pit trap with foolish hopes that they might just suddenly go blind and willfully jump in on their own. One of the tricks he has learnt from monsters involving the traps is that he should always prepare backup traps hidden better around the more obvious ones. Throwing another rock from one of his hands to a weight trigger he has set up next to the pit trap, he tried using a rope trigger before but too much of a risk to be discovered. So he decide to set up traps that aren't triggered by the intended victim but by himself as the hunter when nearby.

The only warnings given to the trio of alert yet discussing adventurers is the soundly impact of the rock then of some windy noise. Really isn't much of a surprise but disappointment of two more agile threats dodging the incoming log that is swinging towards the three from behind, the one with the dagger ducking completely on the dirt ground while the bow user being more agile to move to the side of the log. Not sure if the axe wielder was either too slow to react or gain the habit of tanking any incoming threats, end results either way is the weight and force of the log hitting the poor sod into the pit trap.

Deathly last moments of the largest member of the group could be heard, easily being a slight distraction to the living two. Answering this calmly with heighten senses of his power speeding up his reaction, already arching back one of his arms behind him with the spear held firmly. Using the slow motion of the moment to aim his spear throw to the upper chest of the bow user who is looking around for the danger half distracted by the fate of his friend. It is with much luck that the tip of the spear ended up ripping into the throat of the target, intending more on the larger surface of the upper chest since he has become decent with his spear throwing but not that good to depend on intently hitting the target's much smaller neck.

Halting the usage of his power to preserve his remaining amount of energy in that brief opportunity that he took to take out the range threat, everything speeding back to normal as he watch the bow dropping to the ground from the man that look so frighten, shock and painful in his death woes. Fall of the body causing the increase panic of the dagger rogue, who is now looking in his direction due to the appearance of the spear. Deciding not to give the adventurer any moment to calm down or recover, running up to the dagger wielding man who is shouting that strange language.

'Need to keep aware for any possible magic, need to quickly end this while the man is in shock and panic. Can't let him recover and use any experience or advantage against me in a calmer mindset. Aim to disable, not kill.' These are his thoughts as he wields one of the tooth daggers from his belt. He is not going to test himself or take any chances here, go all out! Using his power to increase his reaction speed and personal agility, adrenaline kicking in with higher amount as he subconsciously increase the intensity of the energy consumption, unknowingly producing a higher degree of strength that his power produce to himself. Causing his reaction to increase by factor of 5 or more instead of the normal 2 or 3, increase of his agility and mere speed improving by same amount. He doesn't know exactly how much the original enhancement is, doesn't even notice the difference right now in his focus on the dagger wielding threat. Striking into the snail crawling shifting wrist of the man from around the iron dagger, sharp rat tooth dagger of his own easily piercing into the flesh of the adventurer.

Now aim for the knee to limit his movement, tugging out his dagger from the damaged wrist then forcing it down into the knee to damage it from functioning. His strikes extremely fast to the wounded remaining foe while having the time in his enhance perceptions to check out the ever so slow leaking blood from the wounds he is confident is damaged enough to lost function. Roughly pulling out his rat dagger to do the same to the opposite wrist, only to suddenly find everything back to normal speed and his own movements slowing down to normal.

'What?' He thinks to himself in confusion at his power ending so soon and finding his pool of energy to be completely empty, this is no where near the time he usually has when using the power like this before. Now isn't the time! I still need to wound the remaining wrist and knee, luckily the power didn't run out of energy sooner. Being able to cause the extra wounds with more effort due to his enemy having trouble resisting with the lost of his main hand and one of his knees.

Breathing hastily from exhaustion now that his unique energy isn't passively boosting him and had to use his normal strength to lead to this result. Standing over the down body of the broken adventurer that is crying and pleading something to him in that strange language. Having physically broken the bones of the shoulders and knees of the man with stomps of his feet even if it took quite a couple to do so. He can't be naive enough to not go to this degree just based on the wounds he done already with the dagger, don't know how long it would take to figure out his language and he might recover quickly from flesh wounds but broken bones would take much longer.

'Damn, still so much to do and I am beat tired from all this.'

Taking some moments to dig around the clothes of the broken crying man and his dead friend to collect up any items, finding some bandages as was expecting for any kind of adventurer to have on them. 'Don't see any kind of health potions, maybe doesn't exist in this world or they are too poor to afford one. Hmm, the axe dude might have one since he is the front liner.' Thinking to himself at the same time of bandaging up the bleeding wounds of the man, can't have him bleeding to death yet.

Climbing down into the pit didn't take too long due to making sure there is easy handles to climb up and down, looting of the dead body of the axe man leads to the discovery of a bottle that once most likely held liquid but now only tiny amount that remains from the broken bottle from the pit fall. "Well, that sucks." He mutters in some disappointment, not too much due to his powers but having a full possible healing potion would be a safety net. Still he doesn't know it is a healing potion for certain, could be poison or some cooking ingredient.

"Well... Lets wait for my energy to recover before trying it, just in case it is poison." Spilling the tiny amount into a spare water skin that he has empty just in case of finding some kind of magical spring or such. Who knows, it doesn't weight too much to be an issue to carry around. Once back out of the pit fall leads to him dumping the other dead body into the pit as good bait for monsters then spending the few minutes to cover up the pit once again, past experience has lead to him shortening the time it took to do that.

"Well then, I invite you mister adventurer to be my guest." He says to the man who has gone silent while he were busy, lost in some kind of thoughts until spoken to. Choosing to ignore the babble of the disabled man that he is dragging with him back to his home base with his ill gain loot of weapons and items.

 

[messageboy]

Part 10:

'Why did my power run out so much quicker than any other time?' Thinking to himself in the cave that he has taken after evicting a bear from it with a spear to the eye. Chewing on some of the meat that he had stockpiled away in his thoughts. 'Didn't things seem different during that moment then when I speared the bow user?' Trying to look over his memories yet having trouble due to the whining coming from the bond broken adventurer nearby, "Shut up!" kicking the noisy man to threaten him in a way that is hard to misunderstand even with the damn language barrier.

"Damnit, where was I?" He mutters to himself then try to dissect his memories of those blood pumping moments, it took him a few moments of looking over his memories between the ones of taking out the bow user and then facing his current victim. 'I was way faster and perceived things much faster against the dagger man, did I somehow improve the effects of my power?' Looking down to his hand with using what amount of energy that he has recovered to speed up his perception and not his agility, a bit disappointed that the speed of motion of his hand is what he usually experience. 'Hmm, power didn't permanently upgrade. There are clearly different degrees of levels in my power, is it something that I need to actively do?' He tries to will more strength into him, only to have his power just add on increasing his physical strength and draining his energy quicker with the additional effect. 'No that isn't it, power just added another effect and increase the drain of energy... The energy did run out very quickly before, is it something to do with amount of energy that is constantly drain when active? Maybe more base cost applied to the individual effect, gives it a multiplier factor?'

Staring at his hand like some kind of loony as he wills his power to consume more energy on his enhanced perception, feeling the drainage of his energy slowly increase in amount at the same time that the movement of his hand gets ever so slower. Ah... So I can affect the degree of effectiveness based on how much base cost of energy that I want to use up, something like base cost plus duration equals to how strong and how long it lasts. I don't think there any kind of additional cost from the type of effect but certainly from the number of active effects.

"Well that is handy to know and be aware of, I feel like I hardly know my power and just using it in a dumb and brute manner. Like using a crowbar to bash open a door then bending it open, both ends up with the door open but takes more effort and ends up tiring you up more than the other." Turning off his power to conserve the remaining small amount that he has left from his testing, there still so much to learn about his powers but he needs to recover his energy pool to full first for safety in chance of anymore strangers or monsters. When his energy has fully recovered then he can start trying to figure out more such as trying to learn the strange language of the native of the world he had captured, the limits of his power, ways to increase his pool of energy and so damn much more.

Looking over to the looted bow and quilt of arrows, pondering to spend the time training his aim with the bow then just sitting around for his energy to recover, glancing over to the bound sobbing man with enough confidence to leave him alone temporary. 'Wait, what about suicide? Can't have him bite off his tongue.' Spending the effort to craft a durable gag out of monster leather then forcing it onto the man yelling his strange language to prevent any suicide attempts there.

Picking up the bow and arrows on his way out of the cave to a suitable location a few minutes away, raising up the wooden bow towards the tree that he has selected for his target, hooking one of the iron tip arrows onto the string of the bow then pulling it back with his fingers. Only to have it plop down into the dirt ground from his poor handling... I should have expected that, really... sadly didn't to my shame. Sighing to himself as he proceeds to the next arrow to spend the time for his energy to fill up.

It was quite a happy moment to come back to his cave after ten or twenty so minutes it took for his energy pool to become full, feeling like he has gain quite a bit from his limited training of the bow. No way enough to use it with confidence over his spears but he can shoot arrows longer than a few steps at least, aim and speed is now the issues. That not really what made him happy when returning but the sight of his capture still lying bound in the spot that he left the man at, strange to feel happy about that but it was a slight worry of something happening to his test subject when away.

Settling away the bow and arrows away from his victim before approaching to sit down next to the bound man who looks to be sleeping.

'Damn, now I feel like a prick to wake him up. Sure I am going to experiment on him and kill the man when I am done but I don't have to be cruel when I don't have to be. Not like I am doing this for kicks and giggles, just doing what I need to for survival. I like to think of myself capable of doing anything if wanted or needed but not without reason. If I need to kill half the population to ensure my survival then yup, lets go! Doing it just for mere amusement or without any purpose isn't something that I want myself to be. Sure the purpose doesn't need to be anything, so long as it is a purpose that I accept for myself even if it isn't for a good cause or gain anything. Could decide one day to conquest the world, most likely end up personally killing hundreds or thousands of innocents and indirectly killing even more from that purpose but I believe that I can handle it, might be some doubts at first and mental scars at some point for a while until I deal with them. Still I believe I got no hard high limits of good acts I could possibly do nor any hard low limits of bad acts, only need a reason and purpose for myself to accept to do such acts. Not what others would accept but only myself.

The only thing that matters when it comes to my decisions and choices is if I, myself can continue to live with those decisions, not if anyone rest accepts them.'

There is still things that he could do to idle around such as training with the bow more, checking out the traps or stocking up on some supplies that he doesn't need but could be nice to have ready. Still part of him want to start trying to use his power to understand the language of this world, it is quite possible that the group of adventurers going missing might be noticed and more being sent at any time after today. Both of those reasons is why he nudge the man awake to start his experiments, listening to the startle man trying to say something to him which reminds him to remove the gag.

Some words that he can't understand is spoken to him, distracting him for a moment before he tries to think of how to use his power to understand. He did try to gain the knowledge of the native language which didn't work. 'Since I can't just gain the knowledge then what about learning the knowledge? There are geniuses that suppose to be able to easily and quickly learn new languages. So more intelligence? Don't think so, intelligence is really the sum of gained knowledge, not this. Intuition sounds kinda right, would help to pick out which word the man is saying linked to anything I show him. Better capacity to absorb knowledge and imprint it firmly would be good to prevent having to relearn past words.'

Trying to will his power to provide him with stronger intuition actually proves successful at feeling the draining of his energy, right away he could feel the nagging feeling of ways he could make better use of certain things in his cave. For example he has enough large hides of bears and boars that he hasn't made any use of yet that he could attach together with the supplies of rope to craft a makeshift curtain large enough to hook up to the entry of the cave with some teeth, it would help block the wind, reduce the noise coming from inside and so much more. 'No idea why I didn't think of it before, does intuition help with creativity? Helping to connect the dots of random facts without some third party result to force the connection like usual?'

"I should do the curtain first, don't know how long it would take to learn the language if even possible even with the intuition and better absorption of knowledge. Man, now I really feel like a prick. The adventurer must feel like I am toying with him by forcing him awake for few moments then ignoring him all of a sudden."

Getting up from the cave floor to head over to the section that contains his supplies, knowing better than to place them anywhere near his captive in case it is used to escape or ruined by the captive just to annoy him. It took take a bit longer than he expected to craft together two hide curtains then setting it up at the entry of the cave, he had to use his power to enhance his physical strength quite highly to dig the large curve horns into the cave roof to hang the curtains from like hooks. That left him some time like 5 or 10 minutes to recover the used up energy in a wordless staring contest with the man that he killed the friends of, brutally broken the limbs of and keeping captured in his dark dark cave... How awkward.

 

[messageboy]

Decide to change the view tenses to see if it flows better. Just having issue trying to write it in a certain view that a blend of first and third person that doesn't have me trying to influence the OC with myself when writing from using to much I and me instead of he and him. If you know what I mean.

Part 11:

He knew what his intentions were with not being bothered what so ever by the panicking bound man that might have thought of... something in this strange situation... Yeah, it didn't take long for me silently staring at the panicking man staring back in the dark cave for me to crack and open up the curtains to let more light in to help break the damn awkward mood that made me feel so creepy. Stepping outside to entrance of the cave to wait out the remaining minutes of the energy recovering away from that. Sorting out his mind to forget and head back in to experiment once his energy pool has filled back up. Finding himself sitting down near the man with a pile of random stuff next to him, taking notice of the man having calmed down too during the wait, willing his power to enhance his intuition and absorption of knowledge with starting at the base cost first to see how effective that is and also not wanting to run out of energy within seconds or a single minute. He should be able to last for 2 minutes and a half with both effects active like this, then he will have to recover in 20 to 30 minutes then back again. 'God this is going to take me so damn long to even find out if it works, then there is how long it would take to even gain enough understanding of the language for at least basic conversation.' Thinking to himself with muttering in slight depression. "Please work." Then picking up a ration that he has looted from the adventurer and saying to him. "Food?"

------Time skip------

High up on one of the thick branches of the many trees in the forest, he stands firmly with a stable foot hold allowing him to carefully aim the wooden bow that is shifting around to improve his precision towards his target, keeping his fingers locked around the feather end of the iron tip arrow already tugged back on the string of the bow. Using his eye sight based on past few weeks he spent training with the bow on stationary targets when not spending his time bashing his head against the cave wall trying to understand the native language from his captive, his method of learning is indeed working but with so much damn trial and error that he really wish that he could figure out an more effective method. By this time he has learnt some of the common words based on what he had lying around in his cave, even learnt the name of his captive Tyneo. Strange name that the bastard told him with starting a connection that the adventurer might have done to make it harder for him to kill Tyneo later after learning the language and whatever knowledge he needs from the man. Damn, it going to suck even more than before and I doubt it will become easier when I actually have to do it but there is just too much risk to allow him to go on good faith alone. Bastard.

Releasing his hold on the arrow and bow string, launching it from the bow in the air slowly under his enhanced reaction speeds to increase his chances to land on his intended target. He isn't fooling himself to believe that he could hit a precise location on a moving target without cheating with his powers. Smile easily slipping onto his face at the sight of the arrow head piercing into one of the eyes of the large horned bear that he is hunting down for food and challenge his bow skills, he believes he is at least good enough to hit the moving bear without slowing everything down if he didn't care about where it hit the bear but he doubts the arrow would either pierce and even if it did, wouldn't cause any damage other than minimal that isn't selective spots of the bear's head. He seriously doubts that the arrow would pierce the hard bone of most of the bear's head. Turning off his power to watch his prey drop to the ground head from a single strike through the eye and into the brain, that seems to be quite common attack for him but it not like he has much other options against the bullshit fire throwing bears of limb ripping. Yup, doubt he will forget or forgive about that any time soon. Putting the bow away on his back that only has one of his spears instead of multiple to fit the bow in a holster back there, climbing down the tree that he used to his advantage. Climbing trees has become second nature to him, kinda hard not to use them since they give a lot of advantages in this forest. Recently experimented with his powers to some how enhance his physical durability that allows him to jump off of the high trees onto the ground safely, still that consumes energy which just takes so long to recover for so little. He is seriously considering that he is dumbly using his power in a way that is making the consumption much higher than it should be or maybe he just being wishful about that hope.

He had already tried that tiny amount of suspected healing potion that he looted from the axe man, prepared with energy to counter any possible poison before cutting his palm then drinking the mystery liquid. Yay there was healing, barely but that most likely due to the amount of liquid. So that helps to confirm that there is healing potions in this world that in some kind of manner enables healing, still must be quite expensive for the party to only have one bottle of it.

'I need to finish learning the language enough to get to some village or town, get a room at an Inn with stable enough income. Then I would be able to free up a lot more of my time each day to go full shut in researcher on my powers.' Once again telling himself his plans that he has repeated quite a few times since starting to learn the native language. Using one of his looted iron daggers to slit open certain locations of the bear like the throat to allow the blood to flow out from gravity, damn bear is too big to just hook it upside down to fully drain the blood but this will do enough before butchering and bring back only what he need. 'Then it back to mind numbing learning... Yay.'

------Time skip------

'You know it actually took me by surprise when the adventurer ask for my name during this lesson of learning, it not that my captive was asking for it since I sure it is part of his clever plan to make it difficult for me to kill Tyneo off later. Surprise came from the fact that after who knows how long, maybe half a year or more since I have arrived in this world, I have not once decided on a name for myself, remember that I am lacking a name and that I have been forced to forget my original name. I guess it time to choose a name for myself... god that going to be bad. Whatever, what would I like? Wild, survival and been hunting monsters, don't have some legendary name from my world. Animal name? Leo? Nah, doesn't feel right, Rex? God no. Liger? Well I like that for some reason from the slight acceptance that I can feel, no idea why. Maybe I just like the strange hybrid animal. Sure lets go with Liger and I will just come up with some random last name when I need it, just need the first really for now.' Pondering to himself about the mild identify crisis that the bastard Tyneo brought to my attention, finally breaking out of my thoughts of deciding my first name but not giving it to the adventurer. 'Nope' Not giving him any ammo to enforce the connection that he is trying to strengthen. You sire, are going to die when I am done with you. Sounds so evil, even if I just call it reasonable.

"Ask Food." Proceeding with the language learning by prompting the captive man to start asking for food in his language for me to learn under the effects of my power, one of many, many annoying steps to complete the task.

------Time skip------

It has been a few months since I have had my first encounter with the group of adventurers, finally there is another group scouting around in the forest which is most likely looking for the last group and my current captive. Such a hassle. The ones in the pit has been decaying well, a few more months should just leave some clothes and bones. Should look like a trap accident even if it slightly strange for there to be lack of weapons and items but it is possible that those finding the remains would think it was looted after the accidental deaths. 'The missing member of the group held within my cave home would cause issues with that, still I am almost ready to kill off Tyneo the bastard since I am more often able to hold conversation with him without losing track or not understanding what had been said. There still is quite often that I don't understand some of the context of the words but do understand the word itself, like I figured out most likely with my power that a certain word is a food or ingredient like beef is food to eat but context being beef could be part of a ingredient in a burger and they might be talking about the burger beef instead of just raw lump of beef. Language is strange but I have almost got a handle of it.'

He needs to clear his mind of the distracting side thoughts and focus on what he should do about this new party of adventurers, deciding if he should either kill the adventurers or head back to his cave and kill off Tyneo to remove that part of the danger to himself. He is almost done with the man, just need him to improve his understanding of the language to a more finer state but what he has already is enough to head into a town and finish the rest through casual practice. Sure there might be more common and uncommon knowledge that he could squeeze out of Tyneo from what he has already learnt while studying the language. Captive has become more of a negative then a positive at this point due to the new party of adventurers. 'Well, knew this was coming. Can I do it?' Pondering over his feelings of killing Tyneo with there being slight uncertainly that is smothered by reasoning it due to the devious plot of the man trying to form a friendship or connection with him during the months of talking. 'Yup, no longer an issue.'

Looking down to the alert party of adventurers that luckily heading away from his home base and more towards his feeding grounds, will take a while for them to reach it with how careful they are being and attentive to clues. Letting the group wander away then waiting even more to allow enough distance for him to safely tree leap back to his cave, not wanting to leave any recent foot prints back to his home which he going to leave today. Pondering how he going to deal with Tyneo on his way, simply offing the man himself might leave too many suspicious which his cave will cause some but he can't really do much about that. The most likely two years of living in the cave has left deep evidence of someone making it into a wild home to be easily clean up without extreme or time consuming methods, so hopefully it will just get treated as a hunter campsite or some hermit's home. 'Wait, am I a hermit? I need to stop getting sidetracked by my thoughts, back to the planning of the man that I had captured, exploited then disposing once done with the man... That sounds so much worst then it actually is... Right?'

Stepping back into the cave past the hide curtains to look at the bound man that has made himself comfortable over the months on some fur with being tied to a nailed horn in the cave floor, after noticing the man starting to be able to move from his location slowly in the past months. Might be the need to find a spot to relieve himself being more powerful then his desire to escape allowing him to move through the pain, surprising that his shame is stronger than his hope of escaping in his broken state. Anyway Tyneo greets me at my arrival that he been doing for few months, making me wonder if the man had Stockholm or it was part of his plan to guilt trip me. Well no point thinking about it now, Liger heading over to Tyneo and cutting the rope to the horn then proceeding to pick the disabled man up and ignoring his questions of what is going on. 'Best not to talk to the dead man, focus on the purpose.' Distracting himself into his thoughts to drown out the man's words.

He took some time to carry Tyneo all the way to a distant lair that he knew had a living horn bear, kinda his own fault that he had to go so far since he had killed all of the closer ones. Might have been due to the arm... Certainly. It actually wasn't too difficult to throw the man with his enhanced strength into the bear lair, slightly uncomfortable due to hearing his final words before his grizzly death by bear. Ironic considering that almost being his own death, still he most likely would have been more scarred with killing directly by his hand instead of via fire throwing horn bear of limb ripping... Really need to get over that at some point.

Without the dead weight it was much quicker for him to get back to the cave and collect up whatever supplies he wanted to take with him for his departure from his first home in this world and towards the nearest town that he have learnt from the departed Tyneo, pouch containing some currently from his well earned loot that could last for the next few days.

"Being an adventurer wouldn't be so bad, I have gotten good at killing bears."

 

[messageboy]

Part 12:

The sight of the town coming into closer view leads him to solve a few questions that he had wondered and didn't get around to asking good ole Tyneo, humor is quite a good copping method for both possible guilt and depression. He doubts that he has a healthy conscious or mind for a long while, never having the time or full safety to fully relax and allow his mind to really wander. He really couldn't afford to have a mental break down, not force himself out of any depression that happen or completely release his emotions. being aware that he needed to somehow take off some of the edge, good old humor regardless of how dark or horrible it became is his method of coping. Some of those questions he was pondering about were of the technological level of the world, he really didn't want to keep crapping in some hole while using leaves or excess hides to clean himself. Lack of any kind of soap really made him feel even more horrible each day, it really isn't easy to suddenly end up without the common benefits that most people took for granted in modern society. The buildings that he could make out were closer to medieval standards yet there were enough large buildings that wouldn't have been possible to have so many in the medieval age unless it was a capital city or important city of massive trading, he learnt enough from Tyneo to know that this town is neither of those. So most likely the answer is that magic allow for so many large buildings to be made even in a regular town, suggesting that the technology is a mix of medieval and magical.

That is really good but also bad, good for the fact that they might have some commodity and luxuries that is similar or same as back in my own world, highly doubt something like a computer but something like a modern toilet would make him so damn giddy with joy. Bad trade off is the fact that for there to be able to have so many large buildings in regular towns like this, proves that the number of magic users are either really common or average instead of rare. Magic is really the most dangerous thing to his continued existence at this time, his power giving him advantage to mundane fighting if used right and calmly. It might be possible for magic in this world to be unsuitable for combat but the odds of that isn't likely, which removes his advantage and he is not arrogant enough to believe his survival experience in the forest to equal to experience of someone born and raised in this much more dangerous world. Society likes to say everything is equal and fair but clearly where you are born and situation of your birth will largely impact how much you grow then others, only those who waste that advantage would negate that impact but in this world where being lazy or wasteful would lead to your death more likely then in his own world. He doubts he will run into too many of those fools.

Lining up among the rest of the people trying to enter the town that has a few guards to pay the toll to enter, checking for any known criminals or suspicious characters. He is quite sure that they will take a double look over himself due to wearing strange mix of animal hide and what remains of his old tattered modern clothes, not going to be hard to answer as a hunter from a small village since the modern clothes are too worn out and damaged to be mistaken as normal poor quality that would fit something from the poorer villages. His current grasp over the native language not being strange from such a village instead of claiming to be from the capital where the education would be better among the peasants.

"Halt, adventurer or trader?" Voice of one of the guards speaking to him tugs his focus from his thoughts to quickly check out the male guard that is wearing mostly leather armor with slight metal in certain places, most likely to lower the weight of the whole armor set to allow faster movement through the town and less time training the guards in them. All of the guards have iron swords which is most likely the core training for every guard while some have a second weapon of either a spear, dagger or bow, only one of the five that he can see is using a bow as most likely bows are kept on top of the walls. He doesn't allow himself to be distracted for too long in checking out the guards as he responds back. "Neither, hunter from the nearby village Soku coming to sell some monster parts and looking to sign up as an adventurer."

The guards didn't look suspicious of his claims most likely from the hide bag that he is carrying with horns of bears and boars that he had killed. His friendly chats with Tyneo allow him to learn that the horns were always in demand but didn't understand why at the time due to not having enough grasp on the language then. He didn't have enough time to ask too much common knowledge since it took most of the duration of learning to even be able to have full sentence discussions instead of word to word. Never again! Still he did make sure to find out if the guards had any methods of detecting lies like a magical lie detector or spell. Took a bit of effort to learn that there were magical lie detectors and spells but the spells were high level which made it rarer and the magical lie detectors used up some kind of power source that were called magical stones, might have a more official name. He remember searching extra hard for the magical stones in the monsters he killed and around the forest but never found any, he tried learning why from Tyneo but didn't understand why from what words that I could understand since he kept saying that they came from monsters but I never found a single one. He had to just choose to forget finding that out at the time due to how much it frustrated himself.

So I felt comfortable with lying to the guards as they couldn't really afford or more willing to use the lie detector for every single visitor in regular town like this unlike the bigger ones like capital or very important towns, even then they might only pull it out when they have the slightest suspicion or some important affair is happening at the time in those towns due to just the number of visitors would massively slow down the line. These guards in front of him would most likely need more than slight suspicion to get the magical device since it would likely cost them heavily if they use it and got nothing out of it.

"That would be 2 copper." Inform the guard with him most likely getting the peasant toll rate due to not having large amount of goods or permits as a trader to be charged 20 copper nor the 10 copper as an adventurer. If those two are more expensive then why shouldn't he always claim as a peasant for entry, obvious answer to that is the benefits you get of those tolls. Traders and adventurers are able to jump the line for instant entry, are treated with less suspicion with their permits and most likely won't be taken advantage of by certain guards. Some towns will give free entry at times to adventurers to allow more of them to stay around to help deal with larger than normal monster population nearby or other issues, same as lowering the toll for traders to encourage more of them to come.

Paying the guard two copper pieces from his pouch that contains 84 coppers and 5 silvers, peasants usually handle coppers while most adventurers and lower traders handling silvers more often. Gold pieces are usually for the rich then there is the currency gold plate that is used by kingdoms and top forces. 100 copper to 1 silver, 100 silver to 1 gold and 1000 gold to 1 gold plate. Yeah, gold plate is ridiculously rich but that most likely why they don't have anything above the gold plates in their currency system. Average inn tends to cost anywhere from 80 copper to 1 silver each night, poorer and more dangerous inns would be closer to 30 or 40 copper and lets not talk about the rich ones.

Once past the gate of the town allows him time to take a closer notice of his first experience of a town in this world, looking at some of the wandering folks and not catching any race other than humans. So it is likely that there are only humans and monsters in this world unless other races are extremely oppressed but even if that was the case then there would at least be some slaves of those races around. Kind of a disappointment but at the same time less of a hassle for him really, the less differences and new things he has to deal with for a while then the better. The streets look more clean then he expected but not to the standards of his world, don't notice any kind of public toilets so most likely they have the streets clean often enough most likely by some magical means, maybe as an adventurer task. The degree of order is acceptable with there not being anyone just hawking wares anywhere in the streets, most likely there is a more wider location that been set up as a market area of the town for pop up stalls. He cringes visibly at the sight of the distant large clearly religious church, he doesn't have anything against religion but how extreme it can cause the devoted to become, act and how horrible it could be used. Not to mention the possible actual gods that might be able to influence or act upon this world, there is magic and monsters so it is possible.

Finally moving his steps to wander through the street, carefully looking around at each of buildings to remember any that would be important to take note of like that alchemist store, among a few others he found until reaching the end of the street that split off into two more streets but coming to a stop at finding what he was primary looking for. The large building that contain the symbol on the sign post that he learn from Tyneo to belong to the adventurer guild, it might be the often go to in most isekai fiction but that doesn't make it unreasonable. The guild is obviously most helpful place for learning more of the world, to gain possible beginner help and easiest legal identify outside of religious churches but... Yeah, I won't be going there unless I really need to. Guild isn't doing all that for the good of their hearts, nah there might be a few at local management and counters like that but core management of the guild would set it like that to ensure higher steady income of hopeful beginners, providing the basic training and supplies to raise their chances of survival on their bumbling road to become at least decent enough to last for few years and even then there most likely a lost then profit each year but likely the higher rank adventurers would output as much as hundreds of beginners... That make it sound like the guild are raising cattle or doing stock trading. Well at least I don't have to wear a damn bell.

It took a few moments for him to take notice of something else on the sign post which cause his face to become deadpan at what he has just figured out which he really really should have seen coming far sooner... I don't know how to read the damn language!

"God damn it!"

 

[messageboy]

Part 13:

First few steps into the guild building lead to him feeling so damn many eyes locking onto him, christ! What is with so many of the damn adventurers all checking him out together in the mere moments that he went inside, He is not a piece of fried chicken nor female! Is there some reason that he is not aware of for most of the adventurers to be so alert to everyone that enters this building, the only ones not checking him out are most likely the damn beginners that haven't notice him yet to even start checking me out... He would most likely be doing the same himself. Yes, he is anxious and nervous from all of the damn focus on him. He wasn't someone who stood out back in his own world to be the focus and he has been living in the damn forest for the past two-ish years with only ever having one other person staring at him and that moment was just so damn awkward!

'Ignore, don't react. Calm steps.' Trying his best to calmly walk over to the long counter that has what looks to be receptionists seated behind them with a pile of stuff that they most likely need for their job, it isn't surprising that most of them are females with at least decent appearances. Marketing 101, doubt the ratio of adventurers are more females then males, possible mind you but just the odds itself. Not that he doubts any females would make it as adventurers, seriously it is almost certain from just the magic alone in this world and then there just the tomboys or odd ones. It doesn't bother him either way, he might have actually gotten more advantages if it was a female dominated adventurer world, got no issues having a sugar momma or getting free gifts when it is his life on the line. I like living quite frankly. Sure there needs to be at least a minimal standard to that living, being chained up in a room for rest of his life even if it safe and looked after isn't enough to reach that standard but useless pride or shame can be thrown away.

"Hello, what is your business at the adventurer guild?" The attractive voice of the girl behind the counter force him out of his thoughts to give her his attention trying not to wonder if her voice was trained like that or natural. "Hello. Looking to sell monster horns and sign up as an adventurer, some information too." His reply back to the guild girl that he haven't asked the name of, more important matters to deal with. "Sure, lets first sign you up then the information. Selling the monster horns is at another counter." The girl showing her experience dealing with customers, it is rather nice and calming to deal with then some nervous new worker that would make this longer, cause mistakes or forget important things from dragging it out longer then it really needs to be. It would be strange if receptionists changes regularly due to death, some kind of adventurer curse that just jinks anything relating to the profession. It is possible they might fall for one of the adventurers but even then they could still work in this kind of job, it is common in medieval times for bunch of neighbors children to be looked after by a trusted elderly or home focused wife. Allowing for most of the other wives to work on the farm, craft or in jobs. It like some kind of unpaid daycare system that is based on local networking. So it would be rare or extremely lucky to run into a new inexperienced guild receptionist.

"I need to inform you that adventurers are legally recognize by the kingdom under the guild system much like the trader guild. This means that the kingdom accepts any valid identify from the guild as proof of yourself for any legal means yet doesn't have any extra rights over you then they do over peasants." I had to hold my comments back, not being naive enough to believe the kingdom doesn't think they have all rights and control over peasants so of course there wouldn't be any extra 'rights'. Damn lip service. It basically mean they can't legally and publicly demand adventurers to do anything other then follow the laws, that doesn't mean the damn kingdoms, those in power can't place false charges or just wack you off in the dark. "You will be required by the guild itself to complete minimal number of tasks each year based on your rank to keep your adventurer status except for the first year of new adventurers that just need to complete 3 tasks within the first month, there no minimum rank requirements of those tasks unlike the yearly ones. Other than the initial fee cost there is no future yearly cost due to the tasks themselves covering the costs." 'That is a handy system to have set up, would make record keeping less of a hassle too then having two separate yearly requirements to check for each adventurer.'

"The adventurer ranks go from copper, silver, gold, platinum and hero. From lowest to highest, there is an unofficial lower, mid and higher of each rank among the community and is recorded in the tasks to help understand the dangers of the tasks better yet since the guild doesn't officially use that ranking to allow adventurers to judge for themselves within their ranks." 'Well it isn't the F to S ranks that tend to be used often but why would that even happen realistically, copper to platinum fits the currency which supports concept along with the hero as peak rank. Not like there is F to S currency or other wide spread common knowledge that make use of strange F to S, hell I am sure the native language doesn't even follow the same alphabetical order than his own world. Odds of that happening in other worlds that doesn't have same english alphabetical listing is frankly impossible without some influence from a world that uses that certain english listing. Wait... What about damn japanese isekai stories, wouldn't the japanese character that influence those fantasy worlds be using japanese alphabetical which I am quite sure is Hiragana aiueo and not english abcde. What about the damn S! Enough! I have lost track of what the guild lady was trying to explain to me.' "Sorry, I got a bit distracted when you explain the adventurer's ranks. Could you please repeat from there." Politely apologizing to the lady trying to do her work, no reason to piss off someone that you don't need or want to.

"Listen carefully please. You can accept tasks officially accepted by the guild in your own rank or lower, you could accept personal tasks not approved by the guild but the guild won't supply any support, back up or try to protect you from any legal issues caused by those tasks." 'Simple, no comment.' "Being in a party with other valid adventurers will allow you to take tasks that match the highest ranking member of your party. Tasks will have requirements of returning with certain monster parts, items or written note signed or stamped as proof of task completion for the guild to keep in record." 'Sure, no scamming the guild via false claiming. Smart.' He decides to interrupt with a question. "What if you done the task but they refuse to give you proof for whatever reason?" She answers that easily without a pause, must be a common enough question. "In that case, you can try to bring back other proof to help your case and either way we will send someone to check out the situation ourselves. If need be then with a magical device." 'Oh yeah, forgot about those.' Nodding his head to confirm he accepts her answer and to proceed with her introduction. "There might be times when the guild will release crisis tasks or personal tasks to individuals, you can decline these tasks but the guild does offer much higher rewards for completing them." 'Sure can reject but most likely get in the guild's bad books.' "Finally the guild offers basic training and starter equipment for the cost of reduce of task rewards until the debt is completely paid back." 'Hmm, don't really need the equipment as I doubt they would set the debt to a lost. It would be either equal to the market price or even higher. Training might be helpful.' He asks her to explain what the basic training would cover. "Survival in the wild, basic sword wielding and adventurer commonsense." 'Survival I am quite sure to be more experienced with then basic knowledge, basic sword wielding could be handy but I could try to find an actual mentor that would teach more uncommon and most likely better fighting skills. Problem with common sword skills like one offered is being made as simple as possible to be quickly and easily taught to majority and being so common means it is most experienced against and likely to be countered. Adventurer commonsense would be handy.' Asking the guild lady if it is possible to get a cost reduction of the training to just take the adventurer commonsense.

"Sure, that would be 20 coppers. The entire training is 1 silver with the survival and sword wielding taking up most of the time. First let finish the paperwork now that I have finished the introduction. Would you like to fill it out?" Being asked by the guild lady if he wanted to fill out the sheet of paper that isn't bad for medieval tier, leaves him looking at the damn words he can't read for a moment before saying back to her without showing any of his annoyance that he is feeling. "Nope, can't read or write. I should take some time to learn." Well, I will happily give the guild lady a nice card or pro card for not showing any negative reactions to his words but kindly smiling. "That is fine, it isn't uncommon for adventurers to be unable to read or write. It is best to learn for when picking tasks, some do make some extra coppers by reading the tasks for others. Guild does offer training to learn reading and writing at 2 silvers due to the supplies, church does too with cheaper cost if you want to learn there." 'Nope!' Thought to himself with rather paying the 2 silvers to learn from the guild, a bit unreasonable but he still don't know how much he will earn from the horns that he has yet sell. "That sounds great but I better do my first month tasks before getting into that." Liger informs her who agrees with his plan.

"So what is your name?" She asks him with the reply being "Liger", she writes it down and asking once more. "Got a last name?"

'I need one?' He quickly thinking before saying some random name as if it was a question. "Xue?" This confuses the guild lady if that is his last name or if he was asking her. "What?"

"Well... I am not completely sure if I still retain the family name. It was something I remember hearing from my grand father that we used to live under the Xue family name but ended up failing to up held it at some point." Silence for a moment before nervous chuckle comes from Liger as he tries to spin a story for his actions. It looks like the guild lady accepts his lies which she writes down the last name before proceeding to fill out the question of birth home which he told her Soku and current kingdom they are in before she asks for the registration fee. "Well the fee is 1 silver plus 20 coppers for the training. You can pay it up front or put it in your guild debt." He decides to pay the lady the single silver and 20 coppers that leaves him with 64 coppers and 4 silvers. 'There is so much encouragement to go into debt, does the guild not have to worry about all that debt dying with the adventurers. They go hunting for the dead bodies or tax their souls?'

"Alright then, place your hand on this." She tells him as she takes out a large device that he doubts isn't magical and asking for him to touch it. "Are you aiming for my soul?" He couldn't help saying when looking at the magical device, watching the guild lady look at him in confusion and dumbfounded. 'Huh, guess that isn't a common question.' "No why would I?" Breaking out of her professional attitude at the very odd question from Liger, "This device is used to register you to your adventurer identify and sent to all of the guild branches." trying her best to get back into her professional attitude. 'Oh, it is to make my ID.' Working it out from her words as he place his hand on the device which responds to his touch, taking a few moments until a clang of a metal disc pops out of it. "That is your adventurer identify proof, it contains your adventurer information that can be read by certain magical devices." She informs him as he picks up the disc and check out the adventurer guild symbol on it.

"Thanks for the help, do you know of a decent inn nearby with the nighty cost within 1 silver and where the counter to sell the monster parts is." He asks her with getting the information of a nearby inn that is recommended by the guild and cost only 70 coppers a night with single meal, it is only a single meal so it would most likely cost closer to 80 or 90 coppers for a second meal maybe even 1 silver with access to bathing. Within my pricing but kinda deceiving, either guild is getting some kick back or it normal for adventurers to have only one meal at inns and don't bath daily. 'Parties are really looking less appealing even with the trust issues.' He heads over to the counter deeper into the guild building that has a brawny man set up to buy the parts, most likely the guild butcher as he is confident it is not uncommon for entire monsters to be brought back. "Alright, what do you have." Listening to the guild butcher getting straight to the point, no chit chat. Great! So he just dumps the 18 bear horns and 3 pairs of boar horns, he found more usage out of the curve boar horns then the straighter bear ones. Might have killed three times the amount of bears than boars, might have been my most killed monster if the rats just wasn't so numerous in the forest... Soooo wasn't about the arm.

"Magical horns, good. Always in demand to be made into magical stones let alone the other uses. Boar ones are 5 coppers each pair with having less magic but the bear horns are 30 coppers a piece. If you had proper butchered bear hides and meat then you could get up to 85 coppers from a single horn bear, sometimes can sell the bones to alchemist for up to 15 coppers. So bears are deadly for copper adventurers so usually hunted by silver ranks, since they pay quite well. Boars at most are 25 coppers for every part." The guild butcher starts explaining in good faith to Liger but he really wants to just beat his head against the wall right now.

'Tyneo wasn't lying! Magical stones do come from the monsters. Not physically from the damn bodies but crafted from the damn magical parts of the monsters themselves somehow. Why didn't I consider that! Wasted so much coins!'

Collecting the 5 silvers and 55 coppers that he has sold the horns to the guild for into his hide pouch, he really need to buy a quality pouch... bag too... clothes... equipment. He really needs to earn much more funds for sure, just learning to read and write is going to cost him 2 silvers alone. Currently having 9 silvers and 119 coppers Moving on, no time to wander in the world of depression yet. Heading to where he is told the instructor for the basic training usually waits around when on the clock, showing the proof of purchasing the training of adventurer commonsense for 20 coppers.

"Alright, first is that you should always have your weapon out and ready after leaving a town or village, don't wait until you encounter the enemy or get attacked to ready your weapon."
'Sure, that is commonsense. Already knew that but is that really a common issue?'
"When taking on a task with a party, try to place yourself behind your party member with back to back if surrounded or protecting the range attackers and healers."
'...Correct, why wouldn't anyone do that yet alone consider it.'
"Always prepare sources of light, always multiple for tasks expecting to go into dark areas, caves or underground."
'Really?!?'
"Make sure you have more than enough food and water supplies for you and your party when doing tasks even nearby, you could end up getting trapped for a while or other reasons to prevent you from returning."
'...I really paid 20 coppers for this! How damn useless is the average adventurer!'

...
'Wonder what the name of that guild lady actually was...'

 

[messageboy]

Part 14:

"Am I actually a genius at commonsense?" Muttering to himself after stepping out of the guild building in slight confusion at what he had just gone through, trying to think if he actually learnt something that he either didn't know or could easily figure out for himself. Forgetting about his idea to find out the name of that guild lady in his daze exit, caring more about how he felt like he had been scammed out of 20 coppers but it not like he could ask for a refund. "It actually was all commonsense as an adventurer and life in general, even if I don't think I gained anything from it."

'Alright snap out of it. What should I do next? let see what I got on me.' Making a mental list of what assets that he currently own, two iron daggers looted from the adventurers that he had kept instead of his crafted rat tooth daggers. The iron sword and axe that he doesn't know how to use at all, unnecessary weight and burden, better to sell them to a blacksmith and keep with the daggers, spear and bow for now. Later he might learn the sword and axe but for now the bow is obvious for long range, since he doesn't know if he can even learn magic... Really need to remember to learn more about magic eventually and not put it off too long, clearly important but got other more important stuff to deal with. Anyway back to topic, keeping the spear due to his spear throwing being his best weapon skill at the moment and decent reach melee weapon, the daggers for close range combat and they tend to be much easier to learn then other weapons. Part of the reason why they are so commonly used and due to the cheap pricing too. Cheap enough to buy three or four daggers for an equal quality sword, risking more danger from the short range but there is the spear to help cover that.

There is the two hide water skins with one filled with drinkable water and another one empty, isn't able to hold much liquids due to his poor craftsman skills which were non-existent before being drop kicked into this world. So he should look at better quality water skins from the stores, along with some more arrows since there is only about 9 arrows left in the quiver due to the rest had broken or been lost in the forest. Should look at getting a quality loot bag along with a good spear but could still use his current monster spear for now depending on his funds. Then there is a bedroll along with finally quite important armor, don't need to go for anything heavy like plate. 'I would like to say non-lethal injuries shouldn't be an issue with my healing but I just don't trust myself to not panic or mess up from pain. Not enough experience with pain or fights in general to try to tough out certain hits without armor. I think the only time was when I block the fireball from that one eyed bear that took my arm with my hand, don't actually think I was in a sane mindset at that time and can't always bet that I would always do that without more experience first.' So mix armor set like what the guards are wearing would be best for him, mostly being monster hide with metal covering important areas like the heart.

"Right! Open market first." Looking down each of the street to find one of them having more people using it then the other one, most likely that way since most open markets should have a higher foot flow to and from. Heading along the street as it turns into another street, 'Is it another street or considered the same street since it doesn't end even if it a sharp 90 degree bend and isn't connecting to any other streets yet.' idle thoughts distracting his focus on how long he is walking for until noticing the rather increasing noise of many people gathered in a limited area. 'Market!' Looking up ahead to see the street joining with what looks like a open square filled with stalls. 'Damn that looks busy and this is suppose to be a regular town, strange.'

First the damn currency pouch goes around his neck and under his shirt, not giving any damn pick pockets an easy chance in such a crowded location. It would no doubt have an active thief hanging around for easy marks. Joining into the crowd of people lingering or wandering by the many stalls set up by foreign small or mid traders, the large and important ones wouldn't bother to set up in the open market due to foolish pride and rent a building to sell their goods. There is likely to be some local peasants that sometimes set up to sell to travelers.

He slowly takes his time to check each of the stalls in the open market, noticing the stalls that is run by the local peasants due to having only a handful of goods being hawked or containing fresh goods that would perish already if they were brought in from another town. There might be two or three villages close enough to reach this town by horse within a day but towns would usually be more space out by at least 3 days but usually by a week or two of horse travel. The only reason for the towns to be closer would be if the humans in this world breed like rabbits and population has hardly been reduced by dying from so many reasons. This world isn't like his own world where the standard living has advanced enough to prolong the average life span to around 100 years, lucky to survive to 60 in this world if you aren't from the extreme wealthy. Then there is the issues of medicine in general, there is healing potions and magic but has that improved the standard of medicine or have such convenient things slow the advancement of medical knowledge to a death crawl. There is more to medicine then just wounds and common illness, what about cancers, plagues, genetic issues, diabetics and what about STD. 'Right, I will remember to find out about that that before I decide to follow my second head.' Anyway it is likely that they would just build wider the existing towns to handle more population then just build a new one close by.

Ignoring the stalls that he pass by containing local goods, food and random junk. Did see a few stalls selling second hand weapons and armor, didn't find any spears among the weapons which suggest to him that spears are uncommonly used except maybe by guards and he doubts the second hand weapons from these stalls are from any guard, most likely looted from dead adventurers. Adventurers seem to play a rather large part of this kingdom's economy, the cycle might be something like general pop pays guild for tasks which reduce the amount held by poor but most likely from the rich for the really high rank tasks. Adventurers complete the task with taking at least half or more of the funds paid to the guild, adventurers make use of this fund to buy equipment and daily living like inns which help spread the fund to various businesses in different towns and villages because adventurers are likely to travel around early in their careers where they are more active and spending more. Bet most of the beginners sign up due to the idealistic freedom that it publicly appears, able to do what they like and go where ever they want. Even more so with monsters around due to the kingdoms and lords of the towns that are likely to be storing large amount of funds instead of flowing into the economy, funding high paying tasks to get the adventurers to lower the nearby threats, defending the towns instead of a large size militant force that would only spend the funds within the town to either slowly flow to limited area of the kingdom economy or back to the coffers of the town lord. Add on to that with the monster parts that contain either low rank ingredients like meat to sell to peasants or the high rank magical ingredients that would be brought by the more wealthy to be spread by adventurers.

The second hand weapons and equipment looks to be mostly worn out, there are a few that looks quite good quality and even a mixed hide metal armor set that he would have wanted to buy. The only reason why he didn't buy the armor set from the stall is because it had uncommon design marks on the metals, which helps prove that it isn't like the common mass produced goods like most of the other weapons and armor among these stalls. Choosing to avoid the armor set with disappointment of not buying it. He didn't forget that these are most likely from dead adventurers in open markets, if it was a mass produced equipment then it wouldn't be too much of an issue. That quality design armor set on the other hand is clearly uncommon and remarkable enough to recognize, so it is possible to be wearing it and encounter adventurers that notice it. It isn't something that would originally be cheap to purchase in the first place and not knowing if the dead adventurer was one of those popular guys that have a lot of friends, just makes it too much of a threat to own without proof that it wasn't him that killed the last owner.

Leaving the market back on the street he came from to look for the actual stores for his purchases, he should have claim to be surprised to not have found anything to buy from the open market but not really. He would have found it more surprising if he walked away with anything. He doesn't own a residence in the town to consider any of the crafted and second hand furniture, isn't a trader to consider any of the local ingredients, crafted goods or resources to buy for a bargain to sell elsewhere. He isn't foolish enough to buy any cheap rations or dry food from an open market, he already intended to stock up directly from the guild due to being less likely to be poisoned, mixed with dirt or grass to scam buyers and much more reliable. No point looking at the magical ingredients or tools, got no idea why he would want any right now or understand anything much about magic to even consider getting any magical devices. He wasn't expecting to some how find some ancient hidden powerful item of magic and power, that no one else has discovered nor been able to use. For no reason at all seem to activate with him because of being some outsider, such a situation should be impossible due to him not being born in this world. Why the hell would any ancient artifact researched and made in this world history be only usable by someone not connected to this world in any way.

He didn't look around the market for just the odd chance of finding something, that was really secondary. His primary purpose to head to the open market first, allowed him to study the local prices of the market due to how reliable it is to figure out the average market price. Open markets, street vendors along with the stores on the less traveled streets tend to be reliable when it comes to figuring out the local market pricing, it is best to avoid popular stores, stores on the main streets and ones with expensive layouts. Those stores are the ones that tend to have a reputation, brand and location to allow them raising the prices of their goods above the competitive market price. Open markets and street vendors are always changing to prevent any kind of reputation to be built. Any brand items reduced in the eyes of buyers due to the environment, viewing it as second hand regardless and concerns of it being fake would prevent most from buying brands at high prices. So most sellers at open markets and street vendors have to sell at the competitive market price or usually 10% to 20% cheaper. There are sellers that would foolishly believe they can overprice some fools or sell at dirt cheap prices just to get rid of their goods out of desperation but the majority tend to stick around similar prices.

He is now pretty confident of the prices of the more common goods and common equipment, he will be able to use this new knowledge to prevent himself from being largely ripped off in the actual stores by working out the difference of quality and pricing from what he now knows. He wouldn't be able to prevent himself from paying few more coins every now and then, since it really is just a guideline that he has formed but he shouldn't end up paying double or more the actual price of anything. Anyone expecting to just be able to walk into a store in another world and get given fair prices or somehow know they are being ripped off without any market research is just idiotic.

It didn't take long for him to find the main general goods store to purchase two good quality water skins for 20 copper, quality durable loot bag for 30 copper and comfortable fur bedroll for 50 copper, quite sure those are close to the market price since he didn't go for the more cheaper ones and they look to be adventurer focus goods which are more expensive then the cheaper goods aimed more towards peasants. He did already ponder about how much currency flow into the adventurer profession, so goods relating to them would increase in price to match the average income along with supply and demand. Going for the higher quality items is rather obvious then to try to save money on the cheaper options due to being more durable and better, he is going to be in various rough terrains, facing dangerous monsters and humans.

Thankfully the workers of the main street stores are more focus to get a sale and move onto the next customer then to try to get into a discussion, he still has much to do with the night approaching ever closer. Can't really spend any time chatting and relaxing yet. Soon, so so soon...

It didn't take long for him to find the building with the anvil symbol to highlight as a blacksmith, heading up to the counter as he notice the brawny guy sitting behind it. Most likely is an apprentice then the actual owner for being on the main street, doubt a popular store location like here would allow the blacksmith owner to tend to the counter instead of working away in the back. "Hey, what do you need?" The apprentice asks him when reaching the counter itself. Liger proceeds to untie the sword holster from his waist to place it on the counter then untying the axe that he had tied onto his back, luckily the passive energy made carrying so many weapons all the way to town and then here without any issues but he also had his bow and spear trapped under the axe on his back and most likely had a very silly appearance the whole time in his mix of monster hides and tattered clothes.

"Looking to sell this sword and axe. Then maybe buying a quality spear and armor set that is a mix of monster hide and metal." Informing the apprentice of the blacksmith store of what he came in here to do, the guy look down at the items checking them out to decide how much their values were to sell then deciding on how much the store would pay to buy them from Liger, having long been taught how much he can offer based on the value. "Can give you 1 silver for the sword and 1 silver and 60 coppers for the axe." Decides the apprentice after checking out the sword and axe. Liger consider the pricing to be acceptable based on the pricing he saw at the open market being around 1 silver and 50 coppers for second hand sword so the store most likely will sell it for around 2 silvers and open market axes were around 2 silvers and 90 coppers so maybe about 3 silvers and 30 coppers. He might be only getting 40% or 50% of the market price selling it to this store but he doesn't have the time to wait around in the open market to sell it for higher.

"Sure, that is fine. Now lets start with the armor set, what do you have in stock that is mix of hide and metal?" He asks the apprentice to introduce some armor to him while pocketing the 2 silvers and 60 coppers into his money pouch. Being lead over to a section of the store where he shows a few of the armor sets to him, being smart enough to not try to advertise any of the plate armor, pure hide armors or any other then the type that he already told him. It looks like the blacksmith doesn't try to be too creative and make more than three different sets of each armor type, understandable that he can't really afford to have 20 different armor styles for each armor type like some food places in his own world that had a menu of 50 or 60 items so they had to keep stock of so many ingredients that they might not even sell. It even looks like they design the armors to be able to alter or replace the chest area, most likely for chest parts made for the more gifted female adventurers. Otherwise it seems that the sizes are roughly in three presets of child, medium and large. Most likely would have to spend more as an extra cost to get it altered to closely fit or placing a custom order. Still they are designed to be able to be easily tighten or loosen to a certain degree, so a medium size would be good for him. His time spent in the forest having help giving him more of an athletic build then muscle or meaty one.

He did end up buying a certain armor set that had bear hide on the waist and legs with thin metal caps at the knees, using less durable but more flexible fox hide at certain places to prevent the armor from limiting any agility or speed. The same done for the chest plus arms pieces with thin metal cover on the front of the chest, would be nice to have metal on the back to prevent any back stabs to the heart but that would interfere with bending his upper body. He would rather try to avoid then to tank any attacks, having the armor for those moments when he does get hit. Part of the armor set was also nice thin fox hide gloves that help protect his wrists and hands, along with hide ankle protecting boots with thin metal covering the tips. Finally the bear hide helmet with very thin metal protecting top along with back and part of sides of his head, isn't a full head helmet like the ones for plate armors but this should be good enough. He isn't going to be stupid of forsaking a helmet of any kind just for appearances, who cares if most of my hair is hidden and that I look more like a guard then some attractive dashing hero. I would like to preserve my brain cells by softening any blows to my noggin.

Oh the price, the damn price of such a good quality armor set. His money pouch is bleeding from how much damage it just took from that armor set alone, whole set having cost 6 silvers and 80 coppers. Most likely due to the damn bear hide, god damn bears trying to rip apart my money pouch just like they do to limbs. The bears are only consider safe to hunt by silver rank adventurers, sure copper ranks could pull it off but each time would be a dance with death unlike silver ranks who would be rarely threaten, so there most likely more demand for bear hide then something like boar hide.

Couldn't even think about buying a good spear to replace my self crafted bear tooth spear, didn't have much money remaining for the inn tonight and need to buy some durable clothes tomorrow to replace my worn out and tattered ones under my new armor. Need some coppers to pay someone to read the tasks for me to pick between them tomorrow, the 2 silvers needed for the read and writing training. He did buy 21 iron arrows for 42 coppers to fill his quiver back up to 30 arrows. Checking his almost empty money pouch shows a pitiful 4 silvers and 57 coppers remaining...

Looks like he is going bear hunting sometime in next few days. Oh joy.


=========================================================================
Status:
Name: Liger Xue
Age: Unknown
Gender: Male
Power: Law Core Soul

Current Currency:
4 silvers 57 coppers

Gear:
Two iron daggers.
Bear tooth self crafted spear.
Wooden bow and quiver of 30 iron arrows.
Two good quality water skins.
Quality fur bedroll.
Quality loot bag.
Money pouch.
Bear/fox hide mix metal full armor set.
Adventurer identity disc.


Decided to keep a small status list below each post to make it easy to keep track.

Currently it is slow going and quite a bit of info dumping due to it being original world setting mixed with the MC being the type to think and ponder more then act. Eventually the info dumping will reduce and pace will pick up, story will have moments where it switch between slow planning and pondering moments by the MC to fast decisions and actions parts. Trying to write him as OC that is careful and certain level of clever as a person that considers what he wants to do or aim for then fully commit to that decision without being wishy washy afterwards or pulled around by others into action. He will ponder, worry have doubts about his actions, goals and future that he will reasonably try to deal with before committing instead of someone that always get dragged into things and hoping he comes out of it happy with his actions or good results every time.

It would also be helpful if some readers could inform me of what they think of the story so far, so that I can understand if I am correctly writing the story in a manner that displays or provides the mood that I trying to show to readers. It would be embarrassing if I trying to write something like a serious dark fic but it comes out reading like a silly romance fic.