Having taken another life for the first time, he wanted to throw up. And it wasn't even like he felt bad. No, with the goblins trying to kill him he felt like he was more than justified in his self defense. Still, the feeling of taking away the life of an actual living being... he didn't know if he could ever get used to it.

At least it wasn't a human... no, wait that wasn't a nice way to think about it. For all he knew goblins could be a respectable species same as humans were. It didn't seem likely, but he didn't want to become speciesist.

Then of course came the system pop-up. It notified him of another level up and he quickly checked his status to see what had changed. If anything, it helped take his mind off what he'd done.

Name - Kiel

Level - 3

Titles - Traveler

Body - 3

Mind - 13

Spirit - 10

Skills - Body Adaptation (Lvl 4), Climbing (Lvl 1)

He leveled up twice! He didn't feel much different, but then again he hadn't tried to see if anything had changed. His body attribute had gone up by one, which likely didn't mean much but considering how low it already was, any increase had to have a huge effect. He supposed he would see if the level up had changed anything about his body soon enough.

Aside from that, his mind had gone up by two points and his spirit went up by three. He still didn't exactly understand what the spirit was supposed to be and what mind was supposed to do. He guessed he could think faster, but whether that was from the attribute increases or anything else, he couldn't tell.

He also really wanted to know how the system allocated his attribute increases. His stats increased by three for every level up, which seemed to make sense as there were three stats all-in-all. It certainly didn't take into account his feelings as he would much rather have increases in his body rather than the two stats he had absolutely no idea about.

The level up took his mind off the murder he'd committed and into something more productive. Considering how the world seemed to actively encourage killing each other he was certain he would have to get used to it, but that was going to have to be a problem for future him to deal with. For now he wanted to see how much stronger he was.

The answer? Not that much.

Giving it his all in the next sprint, he could tell he was faster, though not by much. It certainly wasn't an increase of 50% like his stats would indicate. He couldn't tell exactly how much stronger he was, but he certainly felt like he could run for longer without getting tired. That was a positive if he wanted to outrun the next set of enemies gunning for his life.

Looking at the fading sun, he couldn't help but sigh, which was an odd sight for a cat. He'd lost his way... again. To add to that, while food wasn't a concern for now, water was, and he'd a sneaking suspicion that the goblin-occupied source of water wouldn't be so easy to access now.

He was tired, hungry and thirsty. He at least knew how to solve one of these ailments. Climbing up a tree was much easier than last time he attempted it. He didn't know whether to attribute that to the adaptation skill increasing in level or the increased stats, but frankly he didn't really care at this moment. Not like he had a lot of information to make any sort of reasonable deductions regardless.

Finding a reasonably thick branch, he fell asleep in minutes.

When he woke up early in the morning, the sun was barely up in the sky. He wouldn't say he felt great. He was a little stiff from sleeping on top of hard wood, but that wasn't a serious issue. He was still hungry and thirsty, however, which meant he had to make a choice.

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Did he risk searching for another source of water, or did he risk going back to the one the goblins guarded? Worse yet, could he find his way back to the river? While he was running he hadn't exactly been paying attention as to the path he was taking.

Jumping down from the tree hurt a lot less this time, even though the ground wasn't as soft. He wasn't going to complain about stat increases ever again.

In the end he decided it wasn't worth the risk going directly back to the goblin's camp for water, but he remembered the direction the river was flowing at, and he remembered the general direction the river was in. His best bet was still that river, especially now that he had gone a second day without water.

He knew there had to be a lot of sources of clean water in a forest as large as this, but considering how amazingly lost he was, trying to find them was gambling with his life in his humble opinion.

On the other hand, the river was huge! The goblins only occupied a small portion of it where he first found it.

His choice made, he headed towards the direction of the river, hoping he wouldn't meet any goblins on the way. The level up was nice and all, but he had no faith in himself coming out on top again. Still, if it came down to it, there was a reason a cat was the most dangerous when cornered, and he'd proven that once already.

He made his way a lot slower this time, making sure not to create loud sounds. At the same time he was paying a lot more attention to his surroundings, which was why he couldn't help but notice all the various small critters that made up the ambiance of the forest. Maybe it was because he was hungry, but they didn't seem all that disgusting of a food.

He knew that an army of cats was what kept his neighborhood free of cockroaches, and while those were too disgusting to even consider, that spider a few steps away wasn't. Though taking down a spider could be dangerous as they were likely to be venomous. Still, there were a lot of options.

He'd even noticed a couple of snakes while walking towards the river, though they seemed content to wait for other prey it seemed.

When a cricket jumped in front of him, he had to hold himself back. Soon he would be at the river, he couldn't have run far after only a few minutes of running, and inside the river was a cat's favorite food; fish.

If fishing failed, he would have a go at the insects and any small animal he thought he could kill.

Finally, after almost an hour and a half of careful walking, he started hearing the sound of running water again. It seemed like his sense of direction wasn't great because that should in no way have been a trip of one and a half hours, it got him far away from the goblins camp though, so he wasn't complaining.

When his snout first touched the cold, refreshing water, he felt like he would pass out from bliss. They say cats hate water, but there was no way those cats had gone an entire day without water in their lives. It was a little annoying when his whiskers got wet, but after drinking his fill he felt like the entire world could collapse the next second and he would be content.

Which was of course when the earth started rumbling.

Without preamble he got up and started running for the trees furthest away from the sound. He quickly climbed up and flattened himself against the branches as much as possible. Finally, almost an entire minute later, the lumbering form of a giant presented itself. It was equal in height with the shortest trees, and as it knelt down to drink water, Kiel couldn't stop staring.

If it wasn't the rippling muscles, the intricate armor it wore spoke leagues about its intelligence and strength. It also made him aware that there was actual civilization in this world, and not only that, but there were likely more than just humans, because he doubted it was humans that made that armor. He hoped there were humans at least, but he could settle for anything really. Except giants, it was one thing to be a tenth the height of an average human, and another to be a thirtieth.

As he watched it leave, he considered if he should follow it. At the end of the day, however, he was a monster and the giant was sooner going to step on him than point him towards the nearest civilization.

And besides, if he grew strong enough, getting out of the forest would be easy. He had an urge to go hunting to increase his level, but the moment passed and he came back to his senses.

He had no idea what was venomous, what was poisonous and what looked weak but could instead kill him with a glance. He needed to be careful about this if he was going to make it.

But first, he had promised himself fish, and he would be damned if he switched goals for something that would probably make him lose his appetite.