Fishing turned out to be a lot harder than he thought.

For starters, the river was a lot deeper than his legs, and swimming while also trying to catch a fish was impossible. Waiting on the edge of the river for fish to approach also didn't seem to have an effect, and he didn't have anything he could use as bait without the river taking it with it.

After wasting most of his morning and almost drowning once at the beginning, he gave up.

He wasn't hungry enough that he would eat any insect he found lying close to him, but he was getting close. After resting for half an hour on top of a tree, he decided that fish wasn't on the menu just yet.

At least he was getting better at getting down from the trees. Taking a short stroll away from the river, he found dinner shortly after. A small lizard was minding its business on the trunk of a small tree, low enough that he could reach by jumping.

Taking care not to be noticed, he approached slowly, mindful of his surroundings at all times. Stopping a short distance away, he considered how to approach his first victim.

Standing still didn't help, nor did any hidden away instincts kick in to help him. Decision paralysis caught him fully, and before he'd noticed it, the lizard was gone.

He chased it before it was fully squirreled away in a small hole, but having taken him by surprise, it managed to get away.

"Ah, what am I doing... it was right there, standing still, and I still managed to fail," he admonished himself. While the forest wasn't exactly brimming with life, dead leaves and all, it still had more than enough small animals. He just needed to be smart about this.

Sure enough, he found his next lizard three minutes later circling the area near the river. It was standing on top of some tree vines low to the ground, camouflaged, but not exactly well hidden.

This time he didn't wait or hesitate, jumping at it before his brain had the time to talk him into indecision. He reached the lizard with a large leap, swiping his claws at it and throwing it towards the ground. Immediately after he ran at it and before it could get away, his teeth found its neck.

It struggled with all of its strength, trying ineffectively to escape his jaws. He didn't let go, even long after it stopped struggling. His tongue could taste blood, and it made him dry heave a bit, but he still didn't let go.

Carrying the lizard back to the river, he finally let go after tearing its throat with his claws, for good measure. Now most certainly dead, he had food. He would give just about everything for a nice, warm, homemade meal at this moment. Not that he'd ever had a homemade meal, but he could just imagine how it would taste.

All in all, for a first hunt, he didn't think he'd done half bad. He was still hesitant about eating the lizard, but it wasn't like he had a lot of options. Besides, it wasn't like lizards weren't in the diet of cats, he could think of this as an experiment. How bad can it taste anyway?

Using his sharp teeth and claws, he tore the skin from the lizard and tentatively took a small bite. It felt grimy, definitely uncooked, but... he'd eaten worse. When the university cafeteria food is cheaper than making it yourself, and money is very much an issue, you aren't exactly used to fine cuisine.

Picking apart the lizard for whatever meat he could find in its small body, he ended up craving for more. He also ended up with a snout covered in blood, something that he could thankfully fix with the river next to him.

He dreaded to think what he would have done if his fur was white, but thankfully after a few minutes of washing up, the blood was mostly gone from his face.

He hunted three more lizards before he started feeling full, and by the end of it he got pretty good at catching them. No lizard would escape him! Content, his belly full and his thirst quenched, he climbed up a tree and was lulled to sleep by the warm rays of the sun.

When he next woke up, stretching his body out of his lingering sleepiness, it was night time. He looked at the sky in shock, "There is no way I could have slept for this long!"

It was his first time seeing the night sky, and he couldn't help but stare in wonder. He could see celestial bodies and galaxies with his bare eyes adorn the sky. He felt miniscule... insignificant.

Looking up at the starry sky, he thought about his future here. "It's beautiful..." He had never seen the sky so clear before. He could see the shape of a celestial body adorn the stars, much like the photos of the Milky Way galaxy he never got to see on Earth

"Today was fun," he said to himself, though what came from his mouth was a low meow.

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The terror of survival had eased with his success today, although he noticed he hadn't leveled up once.

He didn't want to grow old and live inside the forest for the rest of his life, which meant he had to take risks.

He had to take risks, to level up and escape the forest. Because even if he managed to leave the forest low leveled, he couldn't be certain he would be able to survive in the outside world.

He saw the giant, and he couldn't stop thinking, Why would such a creature need armor?

He didn't want to be strong, he just wanted to live a long, quiet, fulfilling life. Unfortunately, whether that was here or Earth, that wasn't handed to you on a silver platter.

But where he felt trapped in an endless cycle back on Earth, here... it felt like he'd broken away from that cycle.

He wasn't going to hunt the goblins right away of course, but it was now in the plans.

Having made up his mind, he spent the rest of his time looking at the sky and letting his mind wander.

When morning came, surprisingly he wasn't all too tired. He felt a little sleepy, sure, but nothing the cool water of the river couldn't fix. He stepped over broken leaves, the earthly smell filling his nose as he took a deep breath. He was ready.

He ran further inside the forest, searching for suitable prey to take on. This time he didn't stop for the lizards. Instead, he found the biggest, meanest spider he could. That took surprisingly less time than he thought. That also didn't seem like a very bright idea as the spider he came across was almost the same height as him.

Now logic dictates spiders are ambush predators, and with its dark brown color and hairy legs, the enormous spider definitely blended in, but for some reason he had his doubts whether this one ambushed. Well, he wasn't going to be fighting fair regardless, but he still considered if he should do this. Each time doubts surfaced on his mind he came back to what he'd decided in the middle of the night. He needed to do this. He needed to grow stronger.

With his mind made up for the final time, he prepared to ambush the ambusher. He took a wide circle around it to find his way to its back where it was least likely to notice him. After making sure it hadn't, he approached stealthily.

As he crept closer, he wiggled his butt in preparation for the pounce. One wiggle, the spider didn't move. Second wiggle, the wind was blowing lightly against his fur. Third wiggle, he jumped.

He landed with all the grace of an apex predator on top of the spider, clawing at it with all of his strength. The spider reacted surprisingly fast, however, and jumped with incredible speed to the side, dislodging him from its back.

It didn't seem to have gotten hurt much as instead of running away it turned towards him. The standoff didn't last for long and both the spider and he jumped at the same time.

The spider with its longer legs reached him first and he had to bail to the side before the rest of its body could follow. Not letting it get the upper hand again, he jumped at it, slamming against the spider's body.

He pushed his claws where its abdomen connected the lower and upper parts of its body. That seemed to have done something as it was more frantic in trying to throw him off.

He was definitely heavier than the spider and that was the only reason he hadn't lost yet as the spider was a lot stronger than he expected.

This time instead of claws, he went to bite off its head. He jumped off the spider before it could throw him off, then jumped back on top of it again. He didn't manage to reach it, however, as despite its injuries, the spider managed to jump higher than him.

The spider's legs found purchase on the bark of a tree next to where their fight was taking place and from there it jumped on top of him. Despite how light the spider was, he felt that.

For the first time in this fight he felt fear for his life as he couldn't throw off the spider with his measly strength, but where it was trying to bite the flesh off his skin, two could play that game.

The same instant he felt the jaws of spider, he aimed towards its long legs, biting at the nearest segment he could reach. With his fangs as sharp as they were, he tore its limb with relative ease. Surprised by the sudden injury, the spider paused for a moment, enough for him to struggle his way out of its grip and jaws.

This time, panting heavily, he didn't hold back, he went directly for its head.

Against its hard exoskeleton he hadn't managed to do much, and the spider was quick in trying to throw him off. He wanted to see if it could do the same thing when he was tearing apart at its head.

He ran at it, feigning he was about to jump and waiting for it to make a mistake. He didn't need to wait long, and when the spider jumped away, this time he was ready for it. When it jumped back down, he evaded its descent with ease, jumping at it for real before it had time to jump again. With one short stride he reached its head and opened his jaws.

His claws gouged deep at its body, but they were there only to help him hold on as his fangs made short work of the softer body part. It was disgusting, tasted disgusting, but he only needed a few seconds to tear its head to pieces. It struggled mightily for a few seconds, but this time it didn't manage to dislodge him.

The spider fell shortly after, and he had to take a breath.

As he stared at the fallen spider, he couldn't help but notice that its abdomen had a few deep gouges. How it had managed to fight him off to this degree with those injuries was simply terrifying. Even when he was tearing its face apart, it had too much endurance for a normal spider. Not to mention that his back hurt like hell where it bit him. Thankfully neither the pain nor the injury were debilitating. He would recover.

They are supposed to be ambush predators for the love of all that is holy! They need a nerf, someone needs to nerf them to oblivion.

Waiting for a system message that he realized wouldn't be coming, his eyes twitched a little in incredulity. After all of this...

"Doesn't matter, I can do this all day." He lied to himself.

There was no way the spider wasn't a higher level than him with how well it had fought him off, and yet there was no message indicating a level up. Nevertheless, he decided to find a lizard to snack on by the river while he recovered. The day wasn't over yet, it had only just begun.

Funnily enough it was killing the lizard on his way back that granted him the level up he so desperately craved. If the system had a complaints department, he would be filing one right about now.