Akira left the village at dawn the next morning, getting up along with the farmers who went out into the fields to begin their daily work.
Even though they had more work to do now that the fields were free of the Blood bunnies, They moved about with more energy and high spirits as they worked.
The people cheered and waved him goodbye wishing him a safe journey as he passed them.
He picked up his walking speed as he left the fields and could no longer see the small village.
He hoped that they would like the surprise he had left them. Looking at his nearly empty inventory the large amount of food he had packed had dwindled down to only a weeks worth of food. The rest had gone to a good cause.
Akira opened the stat window and looked at the new title he had been given the day before.
“I wonder how this thing works and why it gives out these weird titles. Maybe there’s someone watching me and using some sort of magic,” said Akira while trying to stealthily look around to see if anyone was near him or looking at him. He failed at being stealthy and ended up looking like he had a bad twitch.
Nothing there just an empty road and wide plains.
Ding!
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Would you like to add the Paranoia stat?
Paranoia: affects the users’ mind. The higher the stat is the more they see and hear things that are not there.
“What the #$%^! No, I do not want that stat. How does it know what I am doing all the time? You could at least come up with better titles,” shouted Akira to no one but the air, and continued to quietly grumble about the subject.
If anyone had been walking near him they would have tried to get as far away from the guy who had lost his marbles, shouting crazily into the air and arguing with himself.
Akira traveled north staying the night at the small villages he passed, always asking for and receiving the most up to date news sometimes hearing the whereabouts of Brutus and Rodger.
Nighttime.
Akira sat at his campfire watching the meat of a land bird he had caught slowly cook.
He could still smell the blood of the bird coming from a small hole he made to toss the innards, unused material, and other trash.
The bush behind Akira began to shake causing Akira to turn around take a cautious look to see what was causing the bush to move. Two small glowing red eyes stared back at him. A little above the red eyes a name appeared.
[Lvl 8: Tricky Red Fox]
Akira slowly stood and garbed his shield and sword that had been resting beside him.
Seeing his movement four more sets of eyes appeared in the bush. Five [Tricky Red Foxes] leaped out of the bush heading straight for Akira two flanked him on his left and two on his right they continued to lunge at him. While the fifth fox ran past him not attacking.
The foxes nimbly evaded his attacks, jumped at him and then quickly retreating out of his reach. One of the foxes slipped up and jumped too far forward, Akira taking this chance to land an attack was able to lop off its head with a swift swing of the sword using [Sword Slash].
After seeing this one of the foxes out of his reach let out a loud scream multiple times, then turned around running into the bushes with the other two that had been attacking and escaped.
Akira whipped around quickly scanning the area to see where the fifth fox was, but he was unable to find it.
Akira cautiously checked his surroundings for a few more minutes making sure the foxes had really left for good, before picking up the dead [Tricky Red Fox’s] body and returning to the campfire.
When he sat back down he looked at the campfire to see the bird that had been cooking over the fire was missing.
“Those damn Fox stole my food!” said Akira to amazed at what had happened to be too mad. Four of them had distracted him while the fifth stole the cooking bird.
Looking around to see if anything else was missing he discovered that his bag had been opened, but after a quick look at his inventory, it seemed nothing had been taken.
Akira stomach grumbled. He looked at the dead fox that was laying next to him.
“I don’t know if you can eat monsters, I’ve never heard any stories saying you can’t. I guess I could see if I can cook it. This will be a new experience I wonder how it will taste,” said Akira mouth drooling at the thought of eating a new type of roasted meat.
Akira dismantled the red fox, separating the fur from its body and then processed the meat. After placing the waste into the trash hole he buried it. He quickly placed the meat on the stick hanging over the fire. Every few minutes he turned the meat to evenly cook it.
As it was slowly cooking the aroma escaped the meat and filled the surrounding air with a scent that could make anyone’s mouth water. The meat was almost done turning a dark gold. The fire was creating sizzling sounds as the juices of the meat dripped down from above.
“I think it’s done, it at least looks and smells good enough to eat,” said Akira as he carefully pulled the piping hot meat off the stick and onto his plate to let it cool down, licking his hands that had a bit of grease on it.
After waiting a few seconds he sliced a piece of meat off and stabbed it with his fork bringing the steaming meat to his mouth, after blowing on it a twice he shoved it in his mouth and chewed it.
“Hmm, it’s an interesting taste. Don’t know what it is, but it has a bit of a spicy flavor to it, even with nothing special added.”
He was able to finish eating the meat in no time, licking his fingers and rubbing his stomach in satisfaction.
He cleaned his tools and utensils before putting them away.
Burrrp!
“Ugghhh my stomach feels a bit upset. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to eat that me…”
Bleagh!!
After his stomach stopped heaving Akira weakly crawled to his tent with the last bit of strength he had and passed out falling onto his bedroll.
***
Akira woke up with his head pounding and body aching. The fading sunlight was shining through the open tent flap, agitating his eyes. The sound of a nearby chirping bird was torture to his ears.
His empty stomach growled as if to demand that it be fed.
“Note to self, don’t eat [Tricky Red Fox],” grumbled Akira as he sat up holding his aching head in his hands.
When his blurry eyes cleared he noticed a few message windows had popped up.
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New skill created:
Exotic cooking (Beginner: Lvl 1 | 0.00%):
Allows the unique cooking of parts of monsters and other plants to make various foods that may give stat buffs.
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Warning!
Eating food and drinks created with this skill may be dangerous unless you have the proper poison resistance.
What do you expect when eating the meat from monsters
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Lesser poison resistance gained:
Able to withstand lesser poison the effects of stronger minor poison are lessened by 10%.
“That explains it all. Stupid thing for me to do! I could have died. Looking on the bright side of things, if the description is right it should be safe to eat things like the [Tricky Red Fox] now. Well, let’s leave it as a last resort.”
Reaching for his bag he pulled out a small loaf of bread and some water to fill his stomach and quench his thirst.
“Ah.. that feels better,” said Akira as he stood up with a full belly and began to exercise and stretch his sore body.
Looking outside the tent the sun was setting indicating he had slept through the night and most of the day.
‘Might as well travel a bit tonight,’ thought Akira. He put his belongings into his bag and took down the tent also storing it inside.
While getting ready an idea popped into his head.
‘I haven’t used my werewolf form since the last time I was forced to fight against those scouts. The main reason is due to the restriction of only being able to use it at night and being around other people. There is also the problem with it using a lot of stamina to fast. I want to try transforming again, but I’m not too sure on how to do it. The last two times it just happened. Like an instinct, a gut feeling,’ thought Akira while trying to remember the sensation and pleading with himself to transform.
It happened immediately his body quickly began to change growing taller. The muscles on his body, legs, and arms began expanding and growing thicker, stretching his leather armor. Black fur covered his body the moonlight shined down on it giving off a dark luster. His teeth and fingernails became sharp tools useful for slicing and tearing.
The transformation only took a few seconds to complete. He felt no pain as his body grew, unlike during his first two transformations.
Akira could feel his body was now quickly clearing the lingering aftereffects of the poison, causing all his discomfort to go away.
‘I must have a higher regeneration while in this form,’ thought Akira.
The strength running through his body made him feel like he could jump to the moon.
Akira arched his back and left out a loud howl of pleasure into the night. Any person passing by would have been scared stiff by the sound.
Just to test his strength he crouched down and jumped into the air launching himself 50ft into the air. He clumsily crashed landed face first on the ground, quickly standing up as if nothing happened.
“Yeah I might want to work on the landings, can’t look stupid in front of other people,” said Akira.
Akira began checking his body looking at everything and feeling his fur. It was extremely soft. He noticed the fur was protected him from nights chilly air. Turning his upper body and head to look behind him he was able to see a bushy black tail.
‘Sweet! I have a cool tail!’
He tried to grab his tail but ended up turning I circles chasing after it. After a short time of chasing and realizing what he was doing, he gave a short cough and acted like he had not just been chasing after his tail. All the while glaring at his tail if it was all the tails fault.
‘Good thing no one saw that, if Grand had seen me do that I would for sure get scolded for acting like a pup.’
Akira tried experimented on how to move his tail. It was hard to do at first as he did not normally have a tail which required him to use muscles he did not have while in his human form. After a short time practicing he was able to move it in multiple directions.
‘It feels odd to have a tail, and it’s not that easy to use. I’m not that sure how useful it is to have.’
A new information window had been waiting for him to read while he was joyfully prancing around and feeling himself.
-
Werewolf novice:
+5% buff to stamina and strength when transformed
-Able to maintain transformation for 30 minutes.
Werewolf Basic Skills to use while transformed:
-Able to speak to dogs, wolves, and werewolves.
-Increased senses(eyesight, hearing, smell, taste, touch)
– Bite – able to tear through things with more force than normal
– Swipe – slash at the enemy using the paws, dagger-like nails
– Jump -using the muscles of your legs allows you to jump higher than normal.
– Pounce– launch your self at the enemy with extreme speed knocking enemy/s to the ground and stunning them if same or lower level.
He was still able to use his sword and shield along with his skills such as [Shield Bash], and [Sword Slash]. But these new skills required him to be transformed in order to be used.
Looking around Akira decided to leave the road. It would be bad if he was seen by other humans, as it might cause problems and they might get crazy ideas like trying to kill him. He needed to keep a low profile especially with Brutus and Rodger still searching for him.
With his heightened senses, he picked up traces of monsters in the area.
‘Let’s follow one of these and see if I can earn some XP along with testing skills. It should also help me gain more experience with combat and how to properly control my transformed body.’
Akira ran off chasing after the multiple smells of monsters. After picking one his nose sniffing the air and then running off following the faint scent. With each step, he took the scent grew stronger.
The speed of his running was as fast as a horse running. After a few minutes of following the scent of a familiar monster, his ears twitched as heard the movement of monsters between a few hills in the distance.
“I will have my revenge for you stealing my food and poisoning me with your meat,” said Akira.
Not that far ahead of him was a group of four [Tricky Red Fox].
Using the skill [Pounce], Akira launched forward with his sword out in front of him, slicing through and killing one of the red foxes before they could react.
While he was regaining his balance the three remaining [Tricky Red Fox] growled at him. Slamming their bodies into his they tried to bite through his leather armor, and steel like fur.
Akira ignored them long enough to let out a ferocious howl. Which caused the three to pause their attacks only for a moment, allowing Akira to shake them off.
[Sword Slash!] A fox on his left was cut in two. His strength while transformed was really something.
The remaining two fox both gave yelps of fright and tried to run away. Akira dove after one managing to grab its tail. He stood back up holding the red fox while brushing the dirt off chest armor.
“What did you guys expect when you stole my food! I’m not easy prey. I was hungry and really looking forward to eating the bird,” growled Akira in his deep werewolf voice.
The captured fox continued squirming in his hands trying to bight through the fur on his arms.
Quickly breaking its neck he looked in the direction the last fox had escaped. As he was about to chase after it he felt a tingling all over his body. It didn’t take long before his body shrunk and his black fur disappeared.
“Its already been 30 minutes? That time limit is to so short. Man, I’m so hungry, I don’t think bread will be able to get rid of this hunger. Guess I have no choice but to cook these guys,” said Akira as he sat down and immediately started creating a fire. When he finished dismantled the Foxes, he placed them over the fire and started to slowly roast them.
As soon as he deemed them to be somewhat cooked he tore into the meat and devoured it like a starving carnivore tasting meat for the first time.
Although the meat still had a spiciness that he now knew was the lesser poison in the meat, he didn’t care and continued eating. Luckily he did not throw up and was able to eat every bit of the three foxes.
Akira finished his meal by drinking some water to wash it all down.
“Ah! That was good! I feel better now. Now all I need to do is rest for a bit and then I can try transforming again. Maybe I can hunt some more monsters tonight. Who knows I might even be able to get another level or two if I’m lucky.”
