Chapter 18 - Routine fights to the death

The second time a Bear charged us, we were lucky. It did so in plain sight. From the front. That was when I realised why we didn’t notice the last one until it was almost too late. These things can apparently project an area of silence around themselves. That’s why we couldn’t hear the last one’s charge. Since we could brace for this bear, the fight went a lot differently. Skadi and I rolled out of the bear's way and proceeded to hit-and-run it to death. Skadi would feint an attack, prompting the bear to defend. Then I would try to get in one good slash or stab with my venom coated blades. When we weren’t actively attacking we would keep our distance and use the uneven terrain to our advantage, to stay out of the bear’s reach. In hindsight it was very dumb of me to try and have a strength contest with a literal bear.

Anyway we dispatched of this specimen with minimal losses, just a few scrapes and near-misses, really. My venom is quite potent, when we actually give it time to work. Although I sadly couldn’t really get a grip on the bears internal Mana, until it was almost dead from the Venom anyways.

From then on we knew to keep our heads on a swivel the moment we noticed a lack of sound. A forest isn’t ever quiet, usually.

Skadi and I killed and devoured ten bears over the next seven days. It was hard work, but the rewards were pretty great.

[Athletics]+4=>

39

[Gymnastics]+3=>

35

[Infectious Mana Manipulation]+2=>

27

[Perception]+4=>

29

[Natural Weapons]+3=>

43

[Ursine Anatomy]+22=>

22

[Hunger of the Apex] seemed to scale with mass, or maybe ‘vital energy’. I needed a lot more than ten snakes to get my [Serpentine Anatomy] to the 15 it currently stands.

Congratulations! For repeatedly fending off challengers to your supremacy you have gained a level in [Aspiring Apex](lvl 15). You have gained the class Perk [Challenge of the Apex]. Error … Perk already present. Searching for replacement … searching … searching … no replacement found. Unprecedented problem. Forwarding to Administrator.

“You little shit!” I heard a familiar voice yell. As expected, the next time I blinked I found myself in the white void with the Ken-doll in front of me.

“Hi, there!” I gave him a little wave.

“Oh, shove it up your ass.” He took a deep breath “I am sorry. That was uncalled for, I don’t even know if this was your fault. Just try to understand that I am under a lot of stress right now. You making contact with an elder god was not PART OF MY PLAN, GODDAMMIT.” He was shouting the last bit. He took another deep breath. And another. And then three more, until with something approaching calm, he told me “Please, in your own words, tell me how and why you are here. I make a point out of hearing every case, before I go through the logs.” I had no Idea what trees had to do with anything, but I told him my story.

“I reached level 15 in [Aspiring Apex] and it tried to give me the Perk [Challenge of the Apex], but I already had that Perk. Then it said something about searching for a replacement but it didn’t find one. Something about an ‘Unprecedented Problem’. Then it said ‘Forwarding to administrator’ I guess that’s you?”

“Yes, that is me. How did you already have the Perk exactly?”

“Oh, it used to be called [Unappetizing] a personal Perk. It evolved when I chose my new class.”

“Alright, thank you. Now wait a minute.” He looked as If he were reading a book, but his hands were empty. He even turned an imaginary page every now and then.

After a minute or two he closed the ‘Book’ with one hand and looked at me. “OK, I have the facts now. [Challenge of the Apex] is what we call a Milestone-Perk. It is awarded to every [Aspiring Apex] at level 15. Unlike other class Perks it isn’t dependent on how you reached that level, so there wasn’t an easy candidate for replacement. It shouldn’t be possible for you to gain a milestone-Perk from a personal one, but that would be the influence of that eldritch cunt. Anyway we need a solution here.” He looked me up and down, before he said: “You know what? Even though you are a pain in my side, I can respect the fact that you have in no way intended to be this annoying. Also you accepted my deal without being a major annoyance before, so I am willing to cut you some slack. What would you like to have for a perk? Be reasonable though.” I thought about that for a second. The one thing I really needed was some way to heal myself in a fight. I was pretty hardy by this point, but I couldn’t spare the mental energy to restore an arm, for example, when it gets ripped off. That almost killed me during my first encounter with a bear.

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I told the administrator as much. He stroked his chin for a few seconds, then he said “How about this?”

You have been offered the personal Perk [Regeneration]. Do you accept?

[Regeneration]

You may spend stored up Biomass to undo injuries and wounds upon your body.

“Yes, that would be perfect, thank you!” the administrator gave me a surprisingly honest smile at my exclamation.

Then that smile started to sour as we stared at each other.

Finally the administrator said: “Hey buddy, are you going to accept or what?”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that.” I tried to pass it off with a laugh, but he seemed unamused.

I remembered the procedure from last time, so I started with that. I shaped my Internal mana to spell out ‘YES’.

And then nothing happened.

“Are you going to do it or not?” He asked, barley constraining the anger in his voice

“I am doing it! I don’t know why it doesn’t work.” I shuffled the mana around, to imitate different fonts, but still nothing.

The administrator pinched the bridge of his nose with his fingers. “Last time was a shortcut that worked because you already gave verbal acknowledgement.” He breathed deeply “Say that you accept out loud, then do the mana thing!”

“I accept the perk.”

I was suddenly back in the forest.

Now I could finally finish my notifications.

Statistics:

Strength+5=>

86

Agility+5=>

94

Constitution+6=>

99

Endurance+5=>

95

Intelligence+3=>

58

Willpower+6=>

89

Wisdom+4=>

71

Charisma+3=>

58

Free Points+4=>

4

[Regeneration] has been absorbed by [Touched by the Eldritch]. New Perk is being created. You have gained the personal Perk [The Flesh obeys]

[The Flesh obeys]

Your flesh yearns for its form. Biomass will be continuously consumed towards regaining your chosen form, while your Body does not match it.

I had no idea what the difference was. Also I was somewhat distracted at the time, because the administrator was continuously screaming obscenities in my ear.

30 minutes later:

I learned a few interesting things. For one the word for Cunt in sixteen different languages. And for two that my new perk is very passionate about the whole “chosen Form” thing. I start to think about a Form and I immediately have to stop myself, as my flesh and bones start to shift. This does not hurt any less than the usual method by the way.

At my prompting Val cut off an arm, and sure enough my flesh started to fill out the silhouette until it was complete. Including my blades, claws and venom interestingly enough. All of that took like five seconds at most. I would like to have experimented a bit more with that, but after a very brief excitement my flesh started to grow my ears shut. Sadly this did not silence the administrator.

I decided not to give him the satisfaction, so I started eating the bear while humming a happy tune. I am not even sure whether he is really mad at me. The expletives cycled through at least a dozen languages and the one I understood included pretty much every living thing in the forest in his vitriol.

According to Val, he took exactly 31 minutes and 52 seconds until he finally stopped. For fucks sake, I couldn’t be much more annoying to him, then he was to me. But that didn’t matter, I finally had some peace and quiet.

Wait!

Too quiet!

And like that, I was thrown by a bear paw, just like Skadi had been the first time, only she hadn’t been impaled on a tree branch.

I don’t mean a twig, I am talking about a 30 centimetre diameter hole in my abdomen. I was severely pissed off, until I thought about Skadi.

I had to help her. I had to get off this tree branch and onto the floor.

Oh shit! I was like 5 metres in the air.

Nothing about this was going to be pleasant. First and foremost I started to fall right after looking down. [The Flesh obeys] had tried to heal through the tree, while [Internal Immunity] dissolved the wood as it was ‘inside me’. Great, I had that covered. Now I was in freefall. I needed to think about recovering from the imminent impact and … fuck! The rest of the tree branch was right above me! I tried to change my trajectory mid-fall, but only succeeded in landing on my shoulder, rather than my back. The damage was moderate, but the falling branch would not be. At least I managed to push off the ground enough to where the branch wouldn’t immediately flatten me. Instead it just flattened my legs. I think at this point I don’t have to tell you that this hurts like a bitch and a half.

However the Flesh does indeed obey. I was up and running inside ten seconds. Oh and I was also furious. In retrospect I almost feel bad for the bear, since it had really come at a bad time for me.

Or I would feel bad for it, if it weren’t dead already. How the hell was it dead already?

“Surprise!” I heard Val yell, accompanied by a low howl from Skadi

“What the fuck is happening right now? I am so goddamn confused.” I asked with an exasperated sigh.

Val had a goofy grin on her face “I have been coaching Skadi on the side. Your bond makes it easier for her to learn stuff, you already know. So this” she pointed at the dead bear, lying in a pool of its own blood “is her first major kill using [Infectious Mana Manipulation].”

I stared at the girl for a second before asking: “How did she manage that? I can barely affect them after like half a litre of venom.”

“Yes, that actually is a teachable moment. You should really go for the weak points more. Those offer the most damage potential. In some cases even emotional damage.”

“What do you mean like the throat? The Eyes?” I was puzzled by this.

Val shook her head no, and pointed down with her finger “Lower.” she said.

It took me a few seconds until it clicked. And sure enough the pool of blood seemed to be centred around the bear’s hind legs. Ok, Skadi was getting extra cuddles for the foreseeable future. One could never be reminded often enough to NEVER DO THAT TO MY BITS. I am pretty sure they shrank in fear, because of [The Flesh obeys]. I really needed to get a grip on that Perk.