Just like with the sky’s other transitions, the dark purple receded “north” in a matter of seconds, giving no warning to the poor girl who now held within her hands the only source of light she knew of.
“Well, it’s n-not like it’s THAT dark…” Kaltyr reassured herself, trying to calm the tremoring in her limbs with rationality. “Looks like there’s enough moonlight to see the clearing, somewhat. But the trees…”
More frightful than the sudden darkness of the world was the veil that seemed to have been tossed over the surrounding trees, whose canopies blocked most of the little moonlight available from reaching the forest floor. Looking into the trees sent chills down the girl’s back as her primal instincts warned her to flee, or at least, to prepare to fight for her life.
And for a brief moment, she thought she might just do that. No danger made itself apparent, and she knew of nowhere she could retreat to, but her frayed nerves compelled her to do something.
Crackles resounded as Kaltyr dropped the lit match onto the pile of kindling she had prepared, allowing her little flame to reach new heights as it spread over and devoured its new food source.
“I-I shouldn’t waste time being frightened. These fish won’t c-cook themselves, after all…”
Forcing herself to keep calm and move on, Kaltyr spent a few minutes stoking the flame in front of her, blowing at it and adjusting the kindling so as to help it grow. Then, when Kaltyr judged the fire to be blazing enough, she set out to cook her fishies. She had left them lying atop her guidebook somewhere in the grass while she pondered over the mysterious vial and built the campfire, not wanting them to be dirtied by the ground or attract ants.
After relocating the fish, she carefully split them by their bellies so that their surface area increased, then ran then through with sticks she sharpened the ends of. Like that, she had acquired two raw fish on sticks, the sight of which stimulated her appetite and caused her stomach to rumble.
“I’m with you there…” The girl laughed, responding to her belly.
For the last step, Kaltyr stuck the fish on sticks into the ground with the fish hanging close to the campfire.
“Now, I wait.”
Kaltyr hugged her knees as she sat close to the flame, disliking the fact that no matter where or how she sat, the forest would be to her back. Turning away from the darkness, leaving her back open to its scary depths…it felt like entering a sketchy alleyway within a dangerous city and relaxing on a hammock, leaving her trust in the police force she’d only ever heard of—never seen—to keep her safe. More “new” concepts popping up out of nowhere.
As she monitored the progress of her meal, the various sounds of the forest kept her very alert, unable to relax in the slightest.
Every shake of a tree’s branches by the wind could have been a demon landing nearby to watch her from above.
The countless chirps and tweets by avians and bugs might have just been made from ambush predators lulling her into a false sense of security.
Her conscious mind constantly tried assuring itself that because the guidebook promised she’d be temporarily safe, everything would be fine, but…what if her time had already run out? Was she only protected from danger for that short day? Or, worse…did the book lie? Of course, she had no proof of any of those things, but that fact did nothing to stop those frightening thoughts from swimming about in her head.
Those shaking bushes might very well have been a tasty rabbit passing by, but what if-
Kaltyr gulped, then held in a whimper. Something was reflecting moonlight towards her from the edge of the opposite side of the clearing…where the shaking bushes resided.
Panic set in once more as Kaltyr could no longer hear the forest’s ambient sounds—her heartbeat thrumming in her chest and head with abandon.
“T-That could be…” Kaltyr raised from the ground and shakily unfolded her pocketknife. “Maybe those two dots are, uh, berries that only glow at night.”
But she knew they weren’t. To begin with, berries—glowing or not—didn’t often have the ability to move around in a three-dimensional plane. The two in question floated less than half a meter above the ground, seemingly fixed onto something as they stayed the same distance apart no matter the angle at which they turned.
They were definitely eyes, and along with flooding Kaltyr’s system with fight-or-flight responses, they made her skin crawl. Those eyes…she had never thought that eyes could appear to be made from thousands of tiny beads, all reflecting little bits of moonlight at the same time. The sight disgusted her…though, not enough to overpower the terror in her heart.
It was then that the campfire seemed to be just a little too bright. Kaltyr, with a bit of effort, managed to pull her gaze off of the creature lurking in the forest shrubbery long enough to peek at the fire at her feet.
“F***!” She cursed.
For what might have been the first time, Kaltyr made a snap decision and stomped on the grass around the campfire, smothering the little flames that tried to escape their birthplace in favor of exploring the unknown. The girl spent a good minute keeping one eye on the two eyes in the shadows while doing her best to forever end the explorative journey her campfire was making.
When the ordeal ended—surprisingly faster than she expected—Kaltyr panted hard from the exertion produced by putting out small fires, but…no longer shook. The adrenaline pumping through her, caused by her campfire’s surprise event, had assisted her in reclaiming control over her body.
Somewhat.
With only a bit of apprehension—and the knife in hand—Kaltyr faced the glowing eyes once more, now positive that The System Wishes You Good F****** Luck was not bullshitting her when it said that the clearing she first awoke within was safe…for now. If it hadn’t been truthful to her, then what was stopping the malicious monster in the bushes from attacking her?
“Could it be…friendly? Nah…”
Kaltyr began doubting herself again.
“It could just be that it’s friendly…”
The idea that the mysterious creature could possibly be an ally grew until the girl found herself taking steps toward the eyes.
“H-hey little guy. Are you fr-“
“HHIIIIIIESSH”
Kaltyr shot backwards, retreating to her campfire.
“Nevermind. That was definitely an aggressive hiss…and pretty gross, too.”
Kaltyr sighed before returning her attention to her fish, choosing to ignore the creature.
“Wow. It’s only been a few minutes and they look ready to eat!” She exclaimed, lifting one of the sticks out of the ground. “I don’t see any parasites or blood, so…”
Kaltyr brought the cooked fish to her face and nibbled on it for a moment before her expression soured.
“Yeah, seems edible enough, but it’s so tasteless.” She sighed. “Not that I should have expected anything else. I don’t have any seasonings or side dishes.”
The girl glanced at the pair of eyes that still stared at her from the veil of the forest.
“Or maybe…” She licked her lips, newfound determination rising from within. “Maybe it’s just that the fish from that river just don’t taste very good and that I need to try other creatures.”
As though sensing her intentions, the mysterious entity in the bushes hissed again.
“But I don’t think I can take on anything stronger than the simple animals I saw around the forest. Is it worth attacking?”
The persistent rumbling of her stomach was the only answer Kaltyr needed.
“That settles it—this thing is going to die for the sake of my hunger and sanity, because I need to eat and I can’t continue being afraid of every possible danger to my life.”
Her plans decided, Kaltyr removed the second stick from where it stood and laid both down on her guidebook…which mysteriously showed no sign of being dirty from previously acting as the plate for two raw fish. Then, she sat down beside the campfire, letting its heat waves wash over her body, warming it.
First things first, Kaltyr needed to assess her available power, which came in the forms of her physical strength, weapons, and skills.
“To start off…I’m not that big.”
The girl looked over herself, disappointed to see the short, frail figure which she possessed. Although Kaltyr knew she was an adult—though not the standards by which she decided as much—her body could probably fool most into thinking she were a relatively young girl between fourteen and eighteen years old. Her arms were thin, and her frame petite. The only possible advantages she would have in a melee fight would be against small non-humans, like the rabbits she previously chased. All around not a good thing.
“Though, I lost that fight…”
Hanging her head low in shame, Kaltyr moved on to the next category: weapons. Granted, she didn’t have anything super powerful like firearms or even large, medieval blades—more ideas that surfaced from the recesses of her memory—but she was doing fairly well for someone stuck in a forest with limited tools. Firstly, she had fire, something which she knew contained endless potential for destruction in the right circumstances. However, that would be tricky to use in such a dense forest as the one she found herself within, because negligence could very possibly be the end of the entire biome.
“Which reminds me of how I didn’t clear away the grass around the campfire!”
She quickly smothered more curious flames and pulled out all the grass surrounding the mother blaze.
“Anyway…weapons.”
Besides the very dangerous, possibly self-destructive fire she had in her arsenal, Kaltyr had the short utility pocketknife at her disposal. She was confident that nothing near her level could possibly resist the steel blade’s sharp tip if she stabbed them with all her strength, because if something could…that’d be monstrous.
Gulping at the thought of a “beast” she couldn’t stab into with her knife, Kaltyr’s thoughts turned to her last combative tools available—her skills.
|
-General Skills- |
-Class Specific Skills- |
??? |
|
Magic Sense Lvl: 1 |
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Small Projectile Throwing Arts Lvl: 2 |
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Fishing Lvl: 1 |
“Unless my enemy is a land-dwelling fish, I doubt that last skill will be effective against it.”
She imagined a cartoonish reverse merman—a giant fish with a pair of human legs—skulking in the bushes.
“And despite its name, Small Projectile Throwing Arts isn’t that straightforward of a skill. Does it provide me with higher accuracy? Will it add special effects to the stuff I throw? Or does it just increase damage dealt by small projectiles? Why don’t these damn skills have descriptions?!”
She cursed The System for its ambiguity.
“Regardless, no matter what the skill changes when I throw small projectiles, it definitely does something beneficial for me. Otherwise, what would be the point?”
Kaltyr rubbed her chin in thought.
“But, besides rocks, I don’t have any projectiles…unless I want to lose my only melee weapon, which I don’t.”
She pictured having a holster attached to her arm full of throwing knives or throwable explosives, and the damage she could do with them.
“But all I’ve got are rocks. Will these even do any harm to that thing in the bushes?”
Sighing in the direction of the malevolent creature, Kaltyr resigned herself to staying hungry that night.
“Wait a minute…”
Until she remembered her first skill.
“MAGIC SENSE!” The girl shouted in realization, prompting the entity in the bushes to hiss for the third time. “The guidebook mentioned magic, but I completely forgot about it even after being able to see the magical stuff!”
The eighth facepalm was followed by the fourth hiss.
Her will firm, Kaltyr closed her eyes, moved into the lotus position, and extended her senses. She might have leveled her Magic Sense and was capable of seeing the ambient magical essence everywhere, but the sense was still very, very weak. She could not sense magical essence beyond a certain distance, nor could she see much depth in it. Everything was just vaguely full or covered in the essence to her, as she was unable to distinguish whether one spot had more or less than any other place. Even the creature lurking in the darkness was just a blurry blob of…
“Mana. I can tell that it has mana inside of it rather than magical essence.” Kaltyr opened her eyes to see that the mysterious creature still stared at her with its own. “Which begs the question: how do I make mana? Since, it seems that mana, along with one’s level, is the foundation for power in this world. Though, I don’t know exactly how the two are related besides how the guidebook said I’ll be able to hold more mana with a higher level.”
Kaltyr closed her eyes once more.
