It took him a while, but Bernard eventually got over the fact that his armor had decided to crawl partway inside his skin. Mostly because, once the pain faded, he realized that he could feel things that touched the armor's exterior. It had connected to his nerves, and while he was a bit worried that he would also feel pain if the armor was damaged he couldn't deny the benefits it brought.

Not only was it somehow linked into his senses, he could feel a steady stream of… something, flowing into him. Making a guess based on the fact that it first made him aware of how hungry he was, then slowly took the edge off the hunger, he figured it was nutrients. Pulled from the soil before he put it on, or possibly from the mangled remnants of his clothing and various substances he was coated in. That particular possibility didn't appeal to him in the slightest, but neither did being coated in them to begin with.

Ultimately, he was having trouble caring. He was hungry, thirsty, and so far absolutely nothing had gone his way since the world went insane. He assumed. It was entirely possible he had a mental break of some sort and just lost it. He doubted it since recent events weren't exactly the sort of thing he would expect his brain to come up with, but he also doubted most insane people were aware they were nuts either so the ball was still in the air regarding his sanity.

If he ever met another person, preferably one that wasn't being eaten at the time, he would have to see if they were also hearing voices and seeing monsters.

If they spoke the same language. It only just then occurred to him, but if he was really in the Amazon he didn't have any idea how he would actually talk to anyone. He wasn't even sure what language they spoke, let alone know how to speak it. Spanish? All he knew of Spanish was how to order food and ask where the bathroom was. He sincerely doubted anyone he met in the middle of a god-forsaken, demon-monkey infested forest would care where he did his business or what kind of burrito he liked.

That wasn't even accounting for the fact that chunks of buildings were being tossed around willy-nilly and if he could be moved to a different continent so could just about anyone else.

He shook his head in an attempt to focus his mind back on the important things. Hungry. Thirsty. Need for shelter. He certainly wasn't going to climb back up the Nasty Tree, so he would need to find somewhere else to rest. Preferably on the ground. Away from the murder-monkeys and their diabolically evil sidekick, gravity. Pig-ape monsters? Razor cats? He could deal with them. Or at least he could deal with them significantly better on the ground than he would be able to while sixty feet up a tree being pelted by literal feces.

Not that he liked his odds either way. 'Significantly better' was only in regards to the fact he might at least get a swing or two in with his new weapon before being mauled. It wasn't like his track record was great so far. Both of his kills relied on a combination of sheer dumb luck paired with horrible falls. First the monster onto him, then him onto the monster. He briefly considered viewing gravity as his ally, but after factoring in the multiple concussions, brutal impacts, scrapes, cuts, and bruises he concluded that it just hated those monsters a bit more than him.

He picked a direction that could possibly be north and set out. Luckily whatever was connecting him to the armor didn't rip and tear at his flesh as he moved around, although the tugging sensation and ability to feel the ground beneath his wooden boots would take some getting used to. His focus on getting home was shifting to a focus on finding water. It didn't help much that he questioned why he wanted to go home more and more with every passing moment.

There wasn't really anything about his old life that he cared about enough to merit trudging across entire continents on foot to get back to. It had initially helped to have a goal keeping him motivated, but despite the horrors he faced so far the forest was beautiful. If he found something resembling civilization he could see himself settling in here.

He noticed an increasing amount of noise as he walked, and only then realized how unnaturally quiet it had been before his… nap. Perhaps the changes had spooked most of the wildlife and they had simply gone quiet for a while? Either way the sound of birdsong and various insect noises filled the air. It was as though he was walking through one of those ambient sound tapes people used to get to help them sleep.

At least until the howler monkeys started in. How anyone could sleep through that racket was a mystery to him. "Isn't a rainforest supposed to be wet? Where is all the water?" He grumbled. "All it is is loud and kind of gloomy. This armor is chafing a bit too. I bet I'm going to have all kinds of blisters by the end of the day." He froze for a moment as a different sound cut through the noise.

A distinctive dull roar he had definitely heard before. The sound of a waterfall. Water. He broke into a jog, knowing all too well that actually running would only result in him tripping and falling again.

The happiest moment of his life was the moment he stumbled out of the suddenly dense underbrush and onto a narrow strip of shoreline at the base of a large waterfall. The air was filled with mist and rainbows, and he couldn't care less about how clean the water was once he saw it. He immediately splashed partway out into the water and began scooping cupped handfuls to drink.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

At the same time he noticed that his armor and weapon were also drinking in the precious nectar, and that the thistle had remained attached to his wrist when he let it go. It was good to know that it would do that, as he hadn't even realized he had let go of it. The thing he didn't notice right away was the log floating in his direction.

More accurately, he noticed it as it got closer and promptly ignored it. He didn't care about driftwood after all. If it continued coming straight at him all he needed to do was move aside or give it a push. He only realized it wasn't actually a log when it got close enough for him to see its eyes. Unfortunately, that was also close enough for it to decide to see how he tasted.

His thistle seemed to read his mind and slipped back into his hand as though it had never left it just in time for him to bop the murder log on the head. He wished he could call it a smash, or bash, or whomp, or any other word that implied he dealt serious damage to the beast, but he literally heard a 'bop' sound right before its front end split open and latched onto him.

Horrifyingly large teeth ground into the wooden plates adorning his upper arm and chest, the thistle now uselessly sticking out the far side of the monster's mouth with his hand and forearm. To his utter surprise, it didn't hurt much. The teeth didn't make it through the armor, and while the whiplash he got when the thing began rolling and shaking him around like a ragdoll was unpleasant it didn't do much beyond make him dizzy.

The link he had with his armor was strange. He could feel it taking damage, but it didn't hurt. More importantly, he could feel thorns sprouting on the areas it was being damaged and digging into the beast's palate. That must be my Thorns feat. He thought, feeling rather detached. It was almost as though he was watching someone else be attacked by a giant river monster.

The downside to the Thorns became immediately apparent when the creature decided he wasn't food after all and tried to let go. It was thoroughly stuck to him, large wooden thorns piercing the soft tissues on the inside of its mouth and acting like nails. Its movements were growing sluggish though, and after a few more twists and jerks Bernard was able to get his feet back under him. He trudged his way back to shore with a wary eye out for any more murder logs that might be heading his direction.

The beast got heavier and heavier as the water got shallower, and it hadn't started out all that light, but he managed to get to ankle deep water before the weight pulled it free of the surprisingly strong thorns. All it did as he scrambled away from it and onto the shore was twitch a few times and lie there. "Is it dead?" He asked cautiously, despite there not being anyone there to answer. "How?"

Congratulations! You have slain a level five Black Caiman! Defeat two additional higher leveled monsters in a single blow to upgrade your Title!

Congratulations! You have earned enough energy to advance to level three! Would you like to advance now?

"Wait, what title? Also, how could that possibly have counted as a single blow?" A screen popped up at his first question displaying the David title and the explanation of how he earned it. "That's kind of a stupid sounding title. I'm guessing it's referring to the David versus Goliath story?" He shrugged. Nothing told him how he had managed to kill a VLL, or Very Large Lizard, in a single blow. Unless it only counted the actual hits he made on it and not the damage it took from attacking him?

He looked at his thistle and saw a number of damaged spines on one side of it, with some juice from the berries smeared all over them. A slightly sweet smell wafted from it, and he finally made the connection the name implied. Nightshade. As in deadly nightshade? "Huh, poisonous weapon. So I hit the caiman, poisoned it, and got the credit for killing it with a single blow. Is the poison really that strong though?"

His stomach rumbled as he pondered and a new question rose to the forefront of his mind. "I wonder if that poison cooks out?" That particular train of thought led him to a couple of issues he hadn't anticipated. Assuming the poison would cook out, how was he going to get a corpse that probably weighed nearly four hundred pounds out of the water? After that, how was he going to butcher it with nothing but a big thistle and wooden armor? The third and final conundrum was how he could start a fire to cook it in the first place.

For some reason the very idea of starting a fire troubled him. He couldn't quite figure out why, only that he didn't care for the thought of starting one. It wasn't enough to stop him from trying though, as the signals his brain was getting from his stomach were far stronger than whatever instinct kept telling him fire is bad. First things first, he rooted around along the shore to find a relatively sharp rock.

Once that mission was successful, he proceeded to horribly mangle the corpse in his attempt to get edible flesh from it. The hide was thick, and he was in a hurry, since the last thing he wanted was for more murder logs to come along and steal his meat. "Thank god for armor." He muttered when he finally managed to remove a sizable portion of the tail to try and cook. His reasoning was simple. The tail was the farthest point from where he had hit it and thus the spot most likely to be poison free.

The next step was fire, and he picked a relatively clear spot near the bank and away from the treeline. Ground zero of a forest fire wasn't a place he wanted to be. He gathered up a bunch of dead branches and leaves, and attempted to piece together half-remembered boy scouts lessons and survival show 'tips' and actually make fire.

"If I had known I was going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere trying to light something on fire I would have never given up smoking." He grouched as he spun a stick against a slab of tree bark.

It took far longer than he would ever admit, but he eventually managed to start a fire. It crackled away cheerfully once started, entirely unconcerned with how uncomfortable he was with its presence. Still, with fire and meat he had everything he needed to make a meal. He grabbed his caiman tail and… realized he forgot to figure out how he was going to cook it. He couldn't very well toss the thing in the fire, that would at best just char the outside and leave the inside raw.

He had no problem eating beef or other similar animals' flesh a bit on the rare side, but he didn't really want to risk it with a random super lizard he killed with poison. He was forced to tromp back into the forest to find a relatively straight stick he could impale the tail on. "This stupid lizard had better be damned delicious, if not I want my money back."