The path to the exit felt much more shorter, even though it was probably longer than what Aylen had already walked. He was considerably interest on his now accessible interface, checking around every information available. The first thing he learned was that he didn’t need any voice commands, everything could be done through thinking, which was probably the better design as it made accessing your menus less awkward when in the middle of people, specially NPCs.

After checking out how to navigate everything, he went for the thing he was most interested in: his Status. When choosing the option, the window quickly expanded, covering almost all of his vision. The following information was displayed:

Name: Aylen

Class: Reaper (Rank I)

Alignment: True Neutral

Experience: 75%

Profession: N/A

Health: (Lightly Bruised, Tired)

Spell Circles: 2/2

Stamina: 99%

Natural Defense: Fragile

Additional Defense: Cloth I

Natural Offensive: Lightweight/Trained II

Additional Offensive: Scythe (Steel I)/Class Trained

Strength: 72

Agility: 112

Dexterity: 118

Constitution: 60

Intelligence: 54

Perception: 92

Aylen expected more numbers and less descriptive words. Apparently, your attributes and more specific status were defined by the quality of the material, training received and class specifics, only his base stats were number-based. It might appear confusing for an experienced player, but it was actually more straight-forward for someone who doesn’t know system formulas or what every thing specifically does.

He was also finally able to identify his class: a Reaper. Now the statue of Death and his style of weapon made sense, although he wasn’t exactly sure of what the class did overall. Maybe there was a command for getting information on the class, and so he tried:

“Reaper. The ones who belong to this class are in charge of a very important task on this Nightmarish land, reaping the Undead and sending them to where they belong: a Void without a single spark of life. Their main weapon is their iconic Scythe, able to directly damage cursed souls, but they are also proficient with greatswords and poleaxes.

Preferred Attributes: Dexterity, Agility

Preferred Armor: Cloth, Leather”

After the female voice halted, Aylen closed the status screen, going back to the menu. Now that he had a grasp of his class, going to the Skills screen would probably be more fruitful and understandable. A window of similar size to the Status one opened and showed a good amount of stuff:

Class: Reaper

Rank: 1/20

Equipment Proficiency:

Cloth, Leather, Ethereal

Weapon Proficiency:

Scythes, Greatswords, Poleaxes

Class Skills:

RANK 0

Blood Rush: Killing enemies splash their blood around your body, giving an Offensive bonus based on the amount of blood absorbed.

Undead Hunter: Receives bonus damage against Undead creatures, with extra 25% if wielding a scythe.

RANK 1

Weapon Morph: Transforms your class object in a scythe whose power scales with your level.

General Skills:

Tracking I

Survival I

Investigation I

At last, he finally had an idea of everything he could possibly do while still being Level 1. Maybe he could’ve gotten a better path before if he utilized his Survival and Investigation skills, but as everything ended up, there was no need to worry with the past.

While Aylen walked forward carelessly, distracted by his self explorations, Wantria kept looking around for anything harmful, never advancing a single step if she wasn’t sure of what awaited right in front of them. She could only count on her soft thumb flame for providing light, the moon was too new to give her any aid. Since the mysterious being crossed that path, most wildlife went back to the deeper parts of the forest, hiding from the grim presence, terrifying without needing people to know who he was. Wantria thought that Aylen would ask her about it right after everything calmed down, but he was taking a long time just observing his status – good, as she prioritized silence above everything.

When finally ended his analysis of information, the girl noticed his lack of comfort – he probably wanted to ask something, most likely about the strange apparition as she predicted. After he spent a good time without saying anything, she said:

“It’s fine, you can ask me about it.”

He seemed surprised by his attitude. From his observations, she wasn’t the kind of person that just calmly explained everything to an ignorant person, preferring to let him experience stuff by himself.

“Ok… What was that thing which passed in front of us and why were you so afraid of it?”

Just as she expected.

“That was a Raiser, a special kind of Undead that specializes in finding corpses of any kind of creature, including humans, to resurrect them as servants to their Master, usually a Necromancer or a Lich. Basically, one of the things you’re supposed to hunt, Reaper boy.”

“Huh? How do you know I’m a Reaper? I couldn’t identify it without looking at my status...”

“Your starting gear. Every one of you starts with the same clothing. Seeing a Reaper around is not exactly common, but I’ve seen enough.”

“My class is rare? Really?”

“Kind of. This game has a pretty good class variety and their distribution rate is not very discrepant, so there are a lot of somewhat rare classes like Reaper, Stalker, Druid… Only a few basic ones are really common.”

“Cool, I guess. But why are the Raisers such a cause for fear? If they only go around picking up corpses, I don’t see the issue.”

“Well, when the Raisers don’t find enough corpses, they usually produce it themselves. And trust me when I say they can kill anything in front of them.”

“Oh, so that’s why the sounds of creatures inside the forest went much lower when the Raiser approached… Makes sense.”

Stolen novel; please report.

“What didn’t make sense was you walking around with a huge torch...”

“I already justified it, ok? I had no idea of what to do and the monsters honestly didn’t appear to be very hard to beat.”

“Of course, do you think the system would make the stronger ones attack you right at the beginning? They would act only if you took too much faith in your luck, which you did.”

“Haha, good thing I found you, then.”

Wantria didn’t answer. Aylen wasn’t a bad person but she had little patience for anyone. She was thinking about ditching him right at the woods’ exit, but it would be too mean as she had already told him to follow her until the next town, Iglivia.

They continued moving in complete silence, only listening to the occasional bestial sounds coming from beyond the dead trees. As they were becoming more constant, the creatures must’ve realized that the Raiser was far away, giving them another chance to harass the two wandering humans. The silent walking made Aylen a bit uncomfortable and he tried to spark another conversation.

“Hey, Wantria. What’s your class?”

“Me? I’m a Stalker.”

“And what Stalkers do?”

“We look around for people and specific items. Always hidden in the shadows or using our stealth skills. I was here to obtain a certain object, actually.”

“Really? What was it?”

“The ring of a Hunter in specific. A baroness gave it to him after he proved his love, but wanted it back when she realized the love only existed when he wanted money. An informant of mine told me he came here to hunt and I found his corpse nearby, full of darkwolf bites. Fortunately, the ring was untouched.”

“Interesting… I wonder if the Reaper missions are cool like that, I was just thrown into the class without knowing anything.”

“Eh, the missions you get depend solely on you. The game auto-generates quests and their interesting factor will mostly be based on the kind of people that gives you missions. Don’t expect to get anything too exciting from a villager or a traveling salesman, look for the landlords and men of the high clergy, they usually have good stuff regarding Undeads.”

Wantria felt strange as she gave useful tips to someone else.

“Thanks… now I know who to bother to get rewarding tasks.”

“There are also class quests, by the way. When you get to a big city, try looking for a Reaper guild. Class guilds usually offer some pretty good training and highly-rewarding jobs for those associated with them. And mind that you shouldn’t refrain from just acting by yourself. There are no idleness moments, you are supposed to be hunting Undead even on your ‘free time’.”

Work inside the leisure, thought Aylen, it must be really fun if people praise this game so much.

A rare period of alertness was substituted by brainstorming of what he could do when he reached the nearby town. As Wantria had said, holy men probably have the most quests related to his line of work, although go right into questing may not be his best choice as he didn’t know if he was properly equipped for any challenge beyond his starting area (he probably wasn’t even for some creatures that lurked the shadows around him). A good idea right at the moment would be asking the Stalker about the quality of his starter equipment, but after the face she started making during his last questions, he judged it was better not to.

The pale moonlight shined so faintly that the exit to the open was indistinguishable from the surroundings. Both forced their vision, trying to get any detail from what was ahead of them. Aylen said nothing but his silence was enough, Wantria constantly reaffirmed that she knew where the exit was, it was only a matter of time until they found it. The creatures around them were fully back, doing as much noise as before and threatening to attack at any time. Their sounds only became scarce again at the same time that a cold breeze hit the players’ face, although it wasn’t a frightening one like the anterior.

“The exit is probably right ahead, I’ll see if I can make this flame a bit more potent so we can see it clearly.”

Aylen nodded and the girl stopped walking, focusing her eyes in the faint fire, tilting around while trying to grow more powerful. She wasted a few seconds before the flame finally exploded, revealing a large amount of area around them but only for the blink of an eye.

“Damn, I should’ve trained this skill a bit more.”

The young man thought that she would only do the weak one again and keep their path forward, however, she kept trying to strengthen it beyond the normal size. This time, Aylen stepped back.

“Urgh, no need to be so pessimistic, I’ll get this right, m’kay?”

Her voice didn’t communicate a lot of confidence but just for the lack of other options, Aylen maintained himself around, still afraid of what could jump out of the woods at any moment.

Suddenly, the fire popped again – this time it went back to a smaller size, still bigger than the original. Now they could see a bit farther and clearer, also causing a number of surprise screeches coming from the depths of the dead trees. Wantria clearly didn’t like that and hurried her companion to go back to moving.

“Hey, you’re the one who decided to stop.”

In response to the petulant answer, Wantria gave him the “I can still leave you behind if I want to” look, silencing any more manifestations.

Luckily, a good minute of walking covered enough distance for them to finally find the nightscape, decorated with more starts than Aylen would ever see during his entire real life. Happy about reaching the exit, both accelerated their steps in anticipation. A few sleeping beasts wakened up due to the sounds of heavy steps, trying to claw their running feet and barely missing. The trees were clearly getting sparser until there were almost none left and Aylen finally reached the open, not suffocated by the atmosphere anymore.

While he stared at the starlit sky, Wantria carefully observed their new ambient, afraid of the things that could reach them even there. As the moon was young, their probable road of choice was a mystery for them, enveloped in shadow. Actual living trees could be seen descending through the small hill that gave access to the grim woods, but their agglomeration wasn’t nearly as dense as the dead trees’. Due to the uncommon darkness and a few other factors, Wantria concluded that setting camp somewhere near was the best option for her, and maybe for him.

Aylen too tried to make some analysis of the newgrouds he was in, only reaching obvious conclusions and taking no decision on his close future actions. He looked at the Stalker, sure that she had something in mind.

“Er, Wantria, are we going to keep walking through the night? How far is the city?”

“Far enough to make the travel not worth it. Camping for the night is the most rational action to be taken next.”

A certain connotation in Wantria’s voice hinted Aylen that he may not be welcome to her fireside. An awkward silence had set in, broken by the loud reflection of the girl.

“Uh, maybe you can stay around if you wish. You’re too low level to represent any threat to me, anyways. And it’s always good to have someone on your back when you’re traveling through open field.”

Aylen almost sighed in relief, holding himself back.

“Thanks… Uh, I hope I’m not too much of a hassle.”

“Until now I didn’t need to get too much out of my way to help you, so be thankful for your luck. But be wary that, if your needs divert too much from what I’m doing, I’ll just follow the road to where I need to go, not caring at all about you.”

He knew that she was a harsh person, but all that talk about how he didn’t matter wasn’t really necessary, he felt. He started articulating something else to say, but she turned her back and went back to looking around.

“We should go down and set camp among the trees. Probably the most hidden spot possible on these parts, unless you count the woods.”

A chill went through Aylen’s spine, just a moment ago he was inside it – and it was still laying right behind his back, full of mysteries and servants of the darkness. When his reluctant companion started walking in slow steps toward the bottom of the hill, he happily followed, grateful for finding a good soul around, even if she wasn’t satisfied by being one.

They stepped down while carefully minding their own steps, avoiding all the sharp rocks and other rubbish that they could trip on. Wantria’s moves were much more light and fluid, almost like she was walking naturally while Aylen’s were rough and hard-hitting, doing a thump noise whenever his boots touched the ground. The hill became straighter as they approached the plain ground, requiring less stamina for the walk. They could now see the trees around a bit better, making it easier to identify a good spot for setting the campfire.

Wantria moved forward trying to get a better look at possible shelters, while Aylen kept paying attention to their surroundings, afraid of the trees that weren’t even dead. He gasped after seeing what he thought was a wolf, but Wantria violently hit him and made him remain quite for the search’s duration.

When the nervousness mostly ceased, the non-stop walking took its toll from Aylen’s legs, which started hurting out of nowhere, when in reality it was only his body calming down with the situation. Sitting down was his priority, but he couldn’t just stop while Wantria kept going forward – her leaving him behind was a realistic possibility. The newcomer decided to endure it as long as he could, praying for her to find a good place very fast, or his legs wouldn’t be able to maintain their poise.

“Right here. It’s a fine spot.”

She then gave way for him to see the clearance she had picked: smaller than his starting place, great for setting a stealthy camp, as long as there weren’t a lot of people. The trees organized themselves in a manner that the ways out weren’t clearly defined, but highly visible for those who stayed inside the circle. Bushes with suspicious berries mixed themselves with the grass and made company to one or two large stones laying around. They served as a fine seat when Aylen realized they were settled down for the night.

“What the fuck are you doing? It’s courtesy to at least offer help to the kind lady so understanding of your newbie needs...”

“Uh, ok… My legs hurt but what do you want me to do?”

“Do you hear the current water sound?”

Aylen tried paying close attention to the environment’s sound, looking for the water noise she referred to and only noticing a little bit of it, enough to acknowledge its existence.

“Kind of. Do you have anything to put it on?”

“Here.”

She then proceeded to throw him an empty flask, decorated with some strange symbols belonging to that world.

“Before coming back, try drinking a good amount of water. Although you don’t feel so much thirst, it really helps your character.”

“OK.”

It was difficult to stand up again, but he managed it, partially motivated by the reproving sounds Wantria did while trying to get some kindling for the bonfire, like she didn’t believe him at all. He was starting to hear the water sound a bit more clearer and could identify its source, moving through the trees into that direction. There was no marked trail or anything, so he just endured everything that existed in the small space between trees – bugs, rocks, poisonous bushes, etc.

Following the sound ended up with him right in front of a moderate-sized pond, fortunately filled with clear water and without a lot of wildlife around. He first smelled the water and then tasted it a bit. While the taste was different than what he was used to drink in his house, it didn’t feel suspicious enough to result in not getting anything. He dove the flask underwater and waited for it to fill while the bubbles popped out of the liquid surface. The common wildlife sounds were much more relaxing there and felt actually natural, with one or two stranger noises. He saw some kind of canine running around but didn’t worry too much about it.

What made him nervous, though, was something else. When the bottle was filled and he started drinking some to hydrate himself, he was able to hear some rustling from the forest and his poor dark vision made him unable to see whatever it was. The noise hadn’t stopped even when the flask was filled for a second time and it’s source, out of nowhere, revealed itself.

Aylen gasped and lost equilibrium, spilling the water on the grass. A man was standing up on the other side of the pond, completely covered with blood and harnessing shining eyes that could be seen even during the deep darkness. He tried saying something, but his throat started clogging with blood – he coughed, and Aylen kept frozen on his place, with no idea on what to do.