Why are you so damn happy?
I grinned, tying off the strip of cloth around my knee with a flourish to annoy the surly voice in my head. Ever since I’d returned to the real world, Thrun had been whispering dourly in my ear about all the things I’d missed. I would have thought that it would have annoyed me. Or grown old fast. Instead, I found myself entirely unable to wipe the stupid grin off my face.
Who would have thought hearing voices would have cheered me up so much?
“What’s not to be happy about?” I replied to voices in my head as I took a huge bite out of a perfectly spherical red fruit. My teeth punctured the crisp flesh with a satisfying crunch. Juices burst across my taste buds with an explosion of sugary sweetness with just an underlying hint of tartness that amplified the flavor. “Honeycrisps are the best candy ever. We’ve got a solid plan and no headache! I feel good. Better than good, honestly. I feel like a new person.”
Hmpff, Thrun’s voice groused, then changed subjects. Your naming scheme sucks. Unless you are planning on explaining who Arko is?
“I told you,” I said, turning to a black and red tuber, which was the result of harvesting the level 25 plant. I picked it up and cracked the tough root like a glowstick while holding it over a maple log. The root ends ignited like a sparkler, lighting the wood instantly and even granting firemaking experience. “An arko ember isn’t named after anyone. I made it up because it rolls off the tongue.”
Whatever. Stop wasting the food. You are going to need those to handle Fang, Thrun grumbled.
I started putting on my armor, giving each strap a second look to ensure it was securely attached. I tucked half a dozen honeycrisps on each side of my belt in easy reach for the coming battle. For all of Thrun’s grumbling, I was as prepared as possible for the battle. I had the best gear and food with sufficiently high stats. Also, Fang wasn’t...the most intelligent foe at the moment.
“Are you sure there isn’t another way?” I asked softly, my mood dampened.
Are we going to go over this again? The choices are to deal with the beast every fifteen minutes, throw Fang off the edge of the chunk and let him suffer for a week or longer as he starves to death, or kill him permanently. Put down the wolf, Skylar. The other options cause needless suffering and only delay the decision.
“I know,” I murmured. Heading over to the swirling dungeon portal with a fresh duffel bag of dungeon loot. “I just wish you’d thought of another way.”
You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Skylar, Thrun said. He paused, inducing an eerie silence in my head. For what it is worth, I am sorry.
“Thanks,” I said, stepping through the portal and returning to the overworld. The windswept foothills were a stark reminder of my goal, but I didn’t waste time admiring them. When my vision resolved, I yanked my bag containing the trap through the portal and raced to set it up.
The iron knives slid smoothly into the soft dirt, and I raced to tension the handmade rope from the fibrous tendrils of the braeburn root. I’d chopped off the thorns and washed it several times, but my hands were still black with oily sap by the time I’d tensioned the last line.
A wolf howl echoed in the distance. I spared a quick glance up as I quadruple-checked everything was in order.
Loop slipped on the second line from the right.
“Thanks,” I huffed, fixing the error, then unsheathing my weapons as Fang burst from the woods.
The red letters hung crimson over Fang’s head as the same red tint glittered in his eyes. He glared at me hungrily, fixated to the point where he didn’t notice the intricate trap between us.
“Come on, big boy,” I called, and Fang responded. He snarled as he raced to close the distance, causing the ground to shake with each of his thunderous steps. He leaped the last few feet, clearing the trap, but I was ready. Instead of stepping back, I pushed forward the second before Fang landed, fouling his balance. He tore into me, but I ignored it in favor of shoving the huge monster into the mess of ropes.
Perfect.
Iron knives popped from the ground as the snare triggered. Tensioned ropes coiled around Fang, tightening further with every movement.
Fang was enormous, though, and with almost comical ease, he flexed his huge shoulders and snapped the main harness. He hopped to his feet but staggered as one of the secondary lines cinched tight around his hind leg.
Within parameters. Proceed to phase two.
I struck Fang twice to enrage him, then spun and raced into the forest. Fang let out a heartrending howl and barreled after me.
I was faster. Fang couldn’t keep pace with my long strides with the ropes inhibiting him, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t fast on my heels. In seconds, we’d burst from the forest and raced toward the hemogris fort.
He killed the Biters. Good. Phase three. Ladder.
I rammed a honeycrisps down my throat as I raced up the ladder to the second floor, but didn’t go all the way. I barely had time to turn my back to the crude rungs before Fang pounced. The force shook the entire structure, and the ladder creaked desperately under our combined weight. My head cracked against the hard wood of the ladder, mere inches from the lethally sharp edge of the ground on the second floor.
The moment Fang landed, I heaved with all my might. He bounced, and I directed his motion up and through the trapdoor. Fang reared back, aiding me and pushing the back of his head into and through the ground.
A geyser of shredded fur and blood drenched the area as Fang’s lower half fell to the ground. On the second floor, his head twitched as it rolled slightly, then went still.
How quickly giants fall, Thrun whispered as I ascended to the second floor to gather the decapitated head.
“Goodbye, old buddy,” I gently closed Fang’s amber eyes, glad the red rage had finally been snuffed out. A gentle sadness welled in my chest. It wasn’t overbearing, and no tears fell from my eyes. Instead, I was content. Fang had been my first friend, and what had happened to him was downright unfair. This world wasn’t perfect. It had bugs, and flaws, and the system didn’t have perfect control over everything. It wasn’t a paradise, but it was my home.
It was time I continued living in it.
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I note there is no kill notification.
“There shouldn’t be,” I said, collecting Fang’s head and gently placing it over his body. “The ground doesn’t deal damage, so we didn’t technically reduce Fang’s health to zero.”
I reached down to the little cut on the back of my knee that had started this all. Wounds inflicted by the ground didn’t heal. Not from food. Not naturally. Not across resets. Fang would forevermore be dead.
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We spent a couple hours building a cairn for Fang. The memorial was quiet. I didn’t have much to say. The mere act of building the grave served as my goodbye.
You should kill him, Thrun said once it was finished. It should be a good, safe form of experience.
“Bloody hell, man,” I chuckled at the unreal callousness of my new companion. “Come on, let’s finish this chunk.”
I popped open the chunk objectives as I walked. There were two entries: Acquire tier-4 leather equipment and all unique drops from Iroth Grimskull. Power farming the boss would be easier with tier-4 leather gear, which led me to the windswept foothills.
The first foe was the giant scorpion. At level 38, the system colored its tag a pearl white, and it wasn’t aggressive to me. Walking through the chunk beside the scorpions was rather peaceful. The cerulean swifts gliding on the wind currents added a charm that didn't exist in the previous chunks.
Clearly, I needed to kill these two monsters, so I set about it. The scorpions fell easily, barely giving me any trouble with my massive level advantage. It took 17 kills before a thin sheet of ultra-hard chitin plate dropped. I set it aside and then turned my attention to the cerulean swifts.
The ranged spell attacks were perfect for shooting the birds from the sky. It only took a few hits each with how high my skill was, and Thrun taught me the intricacies between the spells as I did so. I settled into a rhythm of shooting an ice strike first to lower their defense by three, then spammed smoke strike since that was the most damaging skill available to me. The birds never reached me before dying, so shadow strike wasn’t necessary.
Not that this level of optimization was necessary against such low-level enemies, but it appealed to my inner perfectionist.
The birds dropped tier-4 meat, which I called Swift Meat and cooked. My stack of meat rose with each additional kill, but I’d not gained a different drop after an hour.
Taking a break, I headed to the mining camp to try and craft the scorpion chitin. The chitin refused all attempts to create armor out of it. It was only through extensive trial and error that I discovered that I could combine the chitin with my steel shield. Doing so, required 39 crafting, however, so I spent a few hours hunting spotted snufflers and spined silverbacks for their hide.
My existing crafting methods were abysmally slow. Instead, I returned to the windswept foothills to see if I could speed things up somehow. The first thing I settled on was trying to hunt the cerulean swifts, rather than kill them outright.
I crafted several snares from some leftover rope and baited some with meat, some with fruit and some with miscellaneous junk. Turned out the birds were carnivores and absolutely loved meat of all kinds. They dove down in droves to collect the free food and my traps easily held them in place long enough for me to get the kill.
The best part was hunting them made it so that they dropped cerulean feathers on every kill. The feathers — like fur and hide — could be crafted into armor. This massively sped up the crafting grind because the birds dropped feathers on every kill and respawned once a minute instead of every half hour or longer.
The result was 180 kills after a single hour and enough experience to level my health in addition to several hunter and crafting levels.
With my crafting level well above the requirement, I easily made myself a feathered hood, boots, gloves and cloak. Visually, tier-4 feathered equipment was a huge departure from the spined equipment I’d used until now. It puffed off my shoulders and sides, making me appear larger than I was.
The stat gains were also significant.
Combat level:59 Health:53/53 Attack:80/60 Defense:79/59 Recovery:68/59 Magic:56/56 Woodcutting:61/52 Firemaking:48/48 Crafting:42/42 Mining:58/49 Smithing:49/49 Cooking:51/51 Hunter:59/50 Farming:68/68
I was now gaining 20 attack and defense from my gear, or around 350% stronger according to Thrun. The effect was immense, and I couldn’t wait to try it on Iroth Grimskull.
I then combined a steel shield with the scorpion chitin to form the chitin ward. It had an open gem slot, which I instantly populated with a moonstone. Normally, that would have been it, but with Thrun in my head, we spent another hour fighting to determine the effect of the moonstone. I pulled out my old adze and went to town while Thrun muttered incoherently in my head.
The sun passed high overhead and then began to set as level-up notifications blurred by. Giant scorpions alone weren’t such great experience per hour because of their limited spawns. The cerulean swifts, on the other hand, provided over 10,000 xp per hour and were by far the most efficient monster I'd encountered so far. Most of that went to magic by necessity, but I managed to distribute a good chunk into melee stats with my throwing knives.
Level 59 magic unlocked the final strike skill in the ancient spellbook. Blood strike was interesting, though mostly useless at the moment. Thrun assured me that it would come in handy later.
When the sun fell beneath the horizon, I headed to the plains surrounding the ancient dungeon and made camp.
“So,” I asked Thrun as the crackling campfire cast its flickering light over the rolling plains. “Have you figured out what moonstones do?”
The limited data makes answering such a question immensely difficult.
I smiled slightly as I set a hot stone on the fire. I pulled out some arko embers and minced them onto some snuffler meat. I’d found, almost accidentally, that the flammable roots ignited in the mouth when chewed and tasted almost like spicy peppers.
But, yes. I have deduced the most likely effect of the moonstone is a temporary five-point boost to the associated stat.
“Huh, cool,” I said. “Worth using then.”
The real question is what happens when you charge a shield with an agate. I don’t believe that has been explored yet.
I paused, realizing he was right, but then I resumed cooking. It was certainly an interesting question, but dinner came first. The snuffler meat finished cooking, and I sliced it into strips before placing it onto a salad I’d prepared. Knives were system assisted, but forks and other cutlery weren’t. Making some out of steel could be an option, but I chose to whittle a set of chopsticks out of maple instead. They were just as effective and easier to make.
Full dark arrived as I ate, and the sounds of chunk changed slightly. The wind still rustled the stalks of grass, but the gentle rustling of the spotted snufflers and spined silverbacks was absent as the monsters lay down to sleep for the night.
I, myself, wasn’t tired. I was growing more familiar with the limits of my body in this world, and I could go several days without sleep to no detriment. I also wasn’t hungry, but I still finished and enjoyed the meal I’d prepared. For dessert, I munched cheerfully on a honeycrisp, reveling in the sweet flavors that, more than anything, reminded me of everything that had happened.
Then I lay down and looked up at the starless sky.
Tomorrow, I’d figure out what agates did when used with armor. Then I’d fight Iroth Grimskull until I got all of his drops. Then the system would reset, and I’d get a whole new series of challenges. I smiled. I hoped Iroth Grimskull had gotten buffed since last time.
I closed my eyes, and sleep took me.