Alex calmed down after the monster didn’t get up, but it continued to jerk slightly every few seconds. His brain was still working itself out of the fog that had settled over him due to not a small amount of blood loss. It finally occurred to him that every time the lizard would move, he would also feel a tingling feeling in his head. Alex would have slapped his face if either of his arms were up to the task. He allowed the other Orb to stop trying to return to him and the twitching stopped. Feeling extremely stupid and embarrassed, he began his slow walk over to the creature and bent down to flip it over.
“I think my brain is scrambled… I was sure zombies were about to rise up and turn this whole experience into a completely different genre.” Alex shook his head, chuckled to himself and started looking for where the Orb had made its way inside the monsters body.
“I see, your reaction makes more sense now. Beings like zombies do exist; you were not wrong to be cautious of the dead rising once more.” V.V. said casually.
Alex stopped his prodding of the dead and hopefully staying dead beast. Zombies were also a thing that he needed to be wary of as well now. Great, he thought as he forced himself to dig into the wound that he finally found in the side of the lizard where he assumed his Orb was stuck. He slowly drew the Orb towards him several times before it finally came into contact with his hand. Alex grabbed hold of it and withdrew his hand and his surprisingly powerful weapon from the corpse.
“This is… incredibly gross. Actually, I’m surprised at myself for just reaching in there and pulling my Orb out. I’m more messed up than I thought…” Alex said, both disturbed and slightly disgusted by what he had done.
“You are merely doing what needs to be done, Alex.” V.V.’s reply was the same flat matter-of-fact tone as usual.
While he pondered over the thoughts of losing his grip on reality or maybe the new world warping his mind to conform to the new trials he was facing; Alex grabbed the miniature dinosaur and dragged it back to the pile of corpses. Dragging something that probably weighed a good sixty pounds was not helping his arms feel any better, but he really wanted to loot everything and have this all over with. He rested for a moment and then began the trudge towards the other lizards.
“Ok, I’ve got everything together now. If I loot everything at once, is there a chance something good or possibly bad can happen?” Alex said after he’d dragged the final lizard into the pile.
“Other than having everything that is lootable appear all at once, nothing that I am aware of will change the probability of good or bad loot.”
“So… why did I drag everything into a pile again?” Alex said, feeling that he had just done something completely unnecessary.
“I am unsure of why you decided to make so much extra work for yourself, Alex. You could have looted the squirrels and then walked to each lizard to loot them individually.” V.V.’s emotionless voice irked Alex a bit this time around.
“You could have told me I was wasting my time, V.V. Why didn’t you stop me before I killed myself dragging the stupid things together?”
“Why would I stop you from completing a task that you had set out to accomplish?”
“I… I don’t even have the words to describe how frustrating you are sometimes… You were piling them together and I remember you even tried to move one of them earlier as well.” Alex said, trying to keep himself from yelling, firstly because he knew V.V. didn’t deserve to be yelled at and secondly, his head was pounding from a headache that was stubbornly lingering.
“I was attempting to move the prey close enough to you so that you could loot them without moving. As you were capable of moving more quickly than I anticipated, there was no further need for my attempts.”
“Uh… Oh… Right. Yeah, that makes sense. Sorry, my brain is still trying to catch up I think.” Alex said, embarrassed again in the span of only a few minutes and also feeling like a jerk. V.V. wasn’t the best at communicating everything that Alex felt he needed to hear but the little cueball was definitely on his side.
After putting his foot firmly in his mouth, yet again, Alex decided that it was time for more looting and less talking. He put his hand out over the pile of corpses and spoke the magic words. He knew somewhere in his scrambled egg of a brain that he didn’t need to hold his hand out or even speak out loud but he did It anyway.
Mana Crazed Grey Squirrel Level 4.
Mana Crazed Grey Squirrel Level 3.
Mana Crazed Grey Squirrel Level 5.
Mana Crazed Red Squirrel Level 2.
Mana Crazed Brown Squirrel Level 4.
Mana Crazed Brown Squirrel Level 2.
Mana Crazed Wall Lizard Level 4.
Mana Crazed Wall Lizard Level 3.
Mana Crazed Wall Lizard Level 3.
Sharp Tooth x 21
Damaged Red Squirrel Fur x 1
Damaged Grey Squirrel Fur x 3
Damaged Brown Squirrel Fur x 2
Tiny Mana Core x 6
Lucky Squirrel Paw x 1
Jagged Fang x 5
Weathered Wall Lizard Scales x 33
Small Mana Core x 3
Razor Sharp Fang x 1
“Wow, that’s actually more than I thought I’d get. Nice!” Alex said, excitedly.
He started moving over items to his inventory and watched as it quickly filled up. The Repair Powder that he received for defeating the rabbit was in the first slot. The Sharp Teeth, Damaged Red Squirrel Fur and Small Mana Core took up slots two through four. He moved over the like items and was left with a dilemma. He only had six slots left and seven things to move over, he felt like he was going to start carrying things again like a mere mortal. Alex smiled to himself; he’d already decided if he never had to carry another backpack for the rest of his life, he’d be happy. But here he was having to choose what he’d be lugging around in his nearly destroyed backpack for at least the foreseeable future.
“Looks like I have to make a choice on what to carry around with me since I don’t have enough room in my inventory. By the way, why are some of these items italicized?” Alex said, noticing that two of the lootables were displayed differently. None of the items had any color differences that he could see so he wasn’t sure if there was a scaling system like he’d seen in certain games before.
“They are standing out as special drops from the defeated enemies. Anything that is italicized is not commonly dropped by whatever you have defeated and has been modified by the System. As you become stronger, the System will be able to modify more items, more frequently.” V.V. told Alex.
“So it’s choosing to modify certain items that can be more helpful to me? Alex said, hoping that the System was actually on his side in some way.
“Incorrect. The System isn’t choosing to give you anything, it makes alterations to items as they become available to modify and attempts to produce the highest quality it can with the given material and power at its disposal.” V.V. said, as if plucked straight from a thesaurus.
“Ah, gotcha… I guess. Anyway, should I just fill up my inventory as much as possible and keep going? Alex said, while having both the Razor Sharp Fang and Lucky Squirrel Paw appear in front of him instead of pushing them into his inventory with the rest of the items. As the items appeared and promptly fell to the ground, Alex was greeted by two new windows appearing in the space the items had occupied moments before.
Lucky Squirrel Paw
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Slot: Accessory (Wrist, Neck, Ankle)
Durability: 67
Stat Boost: 2 Cha, 2 Wis, 2 Int
Effect: Hearing Up 1, Keen Sight 1
Razor Sharp Fang (Guardless)
Slot: Primary or Secondary Weapon
Attack Physical: 9
Durability: 54
Effect: Bleed 1, Gore 1
Restrictions: This blade has no handle or guard. Using it as is may cause injury to the User.
“A weapon! Finally! It sucks that it’s not very usable, but I should be able to work something out. The paw is gross, but it looks useful… I guess.” Alex said as he picked the fang up and turned it over in his hands a few times. He put the fang down and hesitantly picked up the paw. He may have shoved his full fist into a giant lizards not ten minutes prior but he couldn’t help what grossed him out. As he came into contact with the paw a new window appeared.
Lucky Squirrel Paw
Designate Accessory Destination
Looking at the paws information window, Alex could see that it had neck, wrist and ankle listed. Assuming that was what the System was prompting him towards, Alex spoke, Wrist out loud and the paw immediately was gone from his hand and attached securely to his wrist with several snug leather looking straps. He was only a little startled by this new development and he could once again feel things were becoming too normal, too quickly.
Alex turned his arm over a few times to admire his new accessory and then turned his attention back to the would-be weapon. The blade was very sharp on one end and still somewhat sharp on the other end. He dragged his muddy and tattered backpack into his lap and started sifting through it for something to wrap around the less sharp end of the blade. He’d kept the backpack with him even though he would gladly have thrown it away if he’d had more inventory space available. After rummaging around a bit, he found a pair of previously clean socks that were now anything but. Alex used the blade to carefully cut the socks into strips and crudely wrapped them around the end in order to form a workable grip.
“Whelp, that’s gonna have to be good enough.” Alex said, holding his new weapon into the air to show it off to V.V.
“It does appear to be a usable weapon in addition to your Orbs, Alex.” V.V. responded after floating over to the blade and inspecting it.
“As for your storage limitations; I am also capable of storing ten unique items within my storage. Anything you do not need to use immediately may be better kept with me until needed.” V.V. followed up with a response to Alex’s previous question.
“Oh, thanks. I guess we’re Ok for right now but I really want to get a class so I can start leveling up.”
“That would be a wise course of action. There are more Mana Warped creatures in the area for us to eliminate, are you fit to travel?”
“I’m honestly feeling a lot better than I think I should… I’m not really bleeding anymore and even though where I was bitten hurts, it’s not unmanageable. Why am I even able to move right now?” Alex said this with confusion and awe In his voice.
“The short answer would be stats. A longer explanation would be that all things whether living or inanimate have stats and had them even before the System came to your world, Alex. The System allows you to quantify them more easily and with the return of mana to your world; it allows you to utilize your stats more effectively. You have more than triple the stats you started with yesterday in most categories. You are effectively healing at least three times as fast, feel pain three times less, have three times the amount of stamina, etcetera. Shall I explain by using more technical terminology?” V.V. said all this in their usual voice but sped up just a bit faster.
“No! No, it’s fine. I think I get it. So my stats are the reason, got it. Ok, so we need to hunt some squirrels and get me a class. Ready?” Alex said urgently at first, definitely not wanting to hear V.V. dive into technical nonsense that would only clutter his already stressed mind to the limit. He was curious about the interweaving’s of this new reality but he couldn’t afford to listen to anything that wasn’t actively going to push him to being more safe and secure in the immediate future.
“If you’re ready, I’m ready. I detected movement in this direction.” V.V. said and began moving a few feet ahead of Alex, towards the edge of the clearing further away from trucks location. Alex wasn’t sure what direction he was going as he didn’t have a compass, didn’t know if a compass would even be useful anymore and definitely wasn’t going to try to use the sky to find his orientation.
Alex followed closely behind V.V. as they headed back into the thicker brush of the forest. It wasn’t long before he could hear the chittering of what he assumed must be the little demon squirrels. He hadn’t actually heard them make any noise other than the first beast he faced making high pitched screams as it tried to claw its way into his truck. Alex tried to move as quietly as he could but there was a snap, an immediate hush where there was once chittering and then came the screams. Several things happened then; V.V. immediately floated higher into the air and a brown blur flew towards Alex’s face from his right.
“Shit!” Alex exclaimed and swung his newly completed blade at the living missile.
SKPLATT!
A squelching noise emanated from the ground where the squirrel landed. Alex spun to defend himself from another lunge from the creature but it didn’t move. Where he expected a crazed tree hopping rodent to be, now laid a bisected mess of fur and guts. He didn’t have long to marvel or be disgusted by what he'd done as more chittering screams came from all around him. One lunging squirrel after another came for him and he dispatched them with far more precision than he could have ever imagined before the System arrived.
Several minutes later Alex was breathing only a little harder than when they had walked into what he was now sure was a squirrels den. Looking into the trees he could see what could only be nests made from all manner of forest debris. There were nine nests that he could see and he could still hear faint chirping noises coming from above him. He waited for another attack but nothing came and the chirping slowly died away. Alex noticed an alert box pop up in front of him but it didn’t immediately expand, something he felt was useful but didn’t dwell on it. He was still on high alert when V.V. appeared beside him once more and something dropped to the ground below them. He only slightly jumped this time as he was getting used to the marble making itself known much later than it should.
“Very well executed Alex. All of the bodies on the ground are within looting distance. I’ll have to retrieve the other bodies unless you would prefer to climb up and retrieve them yourself.” V.V. said and Alex’s view panned down to what had made the small thud below where V.V. floated.
“Aww, you killed a baby, V.V…” Alex said, saddened by what he saw laying at his feet. He bent down and examined the corpse of the almost normal sized squirrel. It looked almost unharmed with the exception of blood that ran from its closed eyes.
“It was indeed a juvenile, Alex. Do keep in mind though that it would not have the same affection for you that you seem to have for it. In fact, you surely would have been dinner for it and its siblings if you had not been so proficient in dispatching the more mature squirrels” After saying this, V.V. floated back up into the trees and began bringing one dead juvenile squirrel after another down for Alex to loot. Alex couldn’t fault V.V. for their words but it still didn’t feel right to kill something that just a few days ago would have been the epitome of adorableness to him. After everything was said and done though, he viewed the message that was waiting for him, looted all the corpses and distributed the items between himself and V.V.
System Alert.
Combat initiated with Mana Crazed Grey Squirrel Level 3 x 2
Mana Crazed Grey Squirrel Level 4.
Mana Crazed Red Squirrel Level 4.
Mana Crazed Red Squirrel Level 5.
Mana Crazed Brown Squirrel Level 3. x 3
Mana Crazed Brown Squirrel Level 4.
Combat finished. User defeated 3 Mana Crazed Grey Squirrels Levels 3-4, 2 Mana Crazed Red Squirrels Levels 4-5, 4 Mana Crazed Brown Squirrels Levels 3-4.
System experience has been acquired.
Companion Combat initiated with Mana Crazed Juvenile Squirrel Level 1 x 13.
Companion Combat finished. User defeated 13 Mana Crazed Juvenile Squirrels Level 1.
System experience has been acquired.
“I really need to find time to fix how the System alerts me to combat but at least it didn’t pop up with a full window when I thought I was still in combat.” Alex said, looking over the combat log and then turning his attention to the loot.
Mana Crazed Grey Squirrel Level 3. x 2
Mana Crazed Grey Squirrel Level 4.
Mana Crazed Red Squirrel Level 4.
Mana Crazed Red Squirrel Level 5.
Mana Crazed Brown Squirrel Level 3. x 3
Mana Crazed Brown Squirrel Level 4.
Mana Crazed Juvenile Squirrel Level 1. x 13
Sharp Tooth x 36
Damaged Red Squirrel Fur x 2
Damaged Grey Squirrel Fur x 3
Damaged Brown Squirrel Fur x 4
Damaged Squirrel Fur x 9
Pristine Squirrel Fur x 4
Tiny Mana Core x 9
“Looks like the little ones didn’t have mana cores yet… is there a way to make the Mana Crazed stuff go away or is that just their species or something?” Alex asked, not really expecting much of an answer but musing over what he had done and if he could have maybe done it differently.
“Mana Warped creatures are not a species themselves but quite literally driven mad by too much mana overloading their minds and bodies. The mana available in this area is much higher than I would imagine most areas to have this early during Mana Integration.” V.V. said as they stored any items that Alex was unable to store.
“There are many ways to restore a Mana Crazed creature to its normal state but none that would be available to you at this time. High level spells, abilities, skills, potions, pills, scrolls, and more are all available for treating mana sicknesses. I will also say that even if these creatures were not Mana Crazed; they would still be wild animals and seek out sustenance in any form that presents itself to them.”
“So what you’re saying is; they’d still want to eat me even if they weren’t crazy.” Alex said, just to make sure he was hearing V.V. right.
“Correct.”
“Gotcha. So, kill more squirrels is what I’m hearing you say.”
“Correct.”
SIGH
“Let’s go kill more squirrels then.” Alex said, lifting his backpack where he had dropped it, slinging it over his shoulder and stepping around what remained of the corpses. He shuddered at the sight of the pile of dead baby squirrels as he trudged after V.V. towards what was surely going to be more nightmare fuel for many nights to come.