Gadget trotted only a few inches behind him, panting hard. Ethan glanced back at him, frowning worriedly at how dry his nose and tongue seemed to be. ‘We need food and water, urgently. He’s still tired from yesterday due to the lack of both, I’d bet.’ Ethan thought.

He wasn’t doing much better than Gadget, he felt. His brain felt a bit sluggish and he kept stumbling as they tried to move through the horrible-to-navigate forest. ‘More than usual,’ He added.

With the incoming storm, they’d probably be able to get something to drink, but food was a persistent problem. There seemed to only be trees and dirt in this ‘Verdant Gauntlet’ so far, with the only living thing they’d encountered being the Wyrdfur.

They’d need to encounter another, more edible, animal or find something to eat off the land. Even if they did, though… would they be willing to eat something possibly poisonous?

“I could use the goblins as guinea pigs,” Ethan muttered to himself, drawing a strange gaze from Alyssa, who was walking in front of him. He scrambled to explain himself.

“I meant that if we encounter berries or something, we can have Fred eat them to see if they’re safe, maybe.” Ethan said, and Alyssa nodded.

“That’s a good idea,” She said simply.

Ethan let out a heavy sigh at her response. He’d been worried she’d find it inhumane or something.

Really, he didn’t know almost anything about Alyssa. She was a bit taller than he was- by three inches, maybe? That’d put her at an even six feet tall. She didn’t look very strong until she flexed her muscles, in which she looked like she could crush his hands during a handshake. She seemed like she was having more mental struggles with the absurdity of everything, and also seemed to not function very well without being told to do- perhaps due to abusive parents? She definitely wasn’t assertive, by any means.

Ethan almost wanted to try to get to know her better, but he was too nervous. Besides, they were a bit busy- Ethan reckoned that the storm would be upon them in a half-hour or so.

After a few minutes of aimless trekking, Ethan spotted something weaving between the roots, right towards them. Ethan barely had the time to shout out “Incoming!” and point at it before it slammed into Gadget’s flank.

­‘What the fuck’s with everything going after Gadget?’ The thought was distant and in the back of his mind; he was more intent on trying to save his dog.

He dropped all of the crap he was holding and blindly kicked at the whatever-it-was, but it scrambled over Gadget’s side, resulting in his foot only connecting with Gadget’s flank. The dog yelped, and Ethan felt impossibly bad. It was probably better than what the whatever-it-was had in store for it, though, judging by the flash of pearl-white teeth he’d seen.

Gadget wasn’t incompetent; he slammed the flank with the whatever-it-was on it onto the ground and tried his best to snap at it as it moved onto its other side, where Ethan finally got a good look at the little blur.

The best description that Ethan could think of for it was that it looked like a really ferocious weasel, ferret or stoat. It was probably two feet long, with thick, dark-brown fur and bright red eyes. It had tusks, and beneath those, it had very sharp teeth. Ethan was still trying to recover from his mishap when it bit into Gadget’s leg, tearing through the dog’s thick coat and skin with ease.

Ethan felt a strange fluctuation of sorts through his sixth mana sense where they were, and Gadget suddenly burst with power. He was suddenly just as fast as the ferret-thing, and his jaws snapped forward and closed right where it was… or had been. Unfortunately, the ferret managed to wriggle away by the narrowest of margins, but it did force it to leap off of Gadget and onto the ground.

Everything had happened in only a second or two, and Alyssa was still scrambling to react. Ethan was closer, though, and had finally recovered from being off-balance enough to kick at the ferret-thing again.

It easily dodged, arching its back and allowing his foot to simply pass underneath where its body had been a moment before. Gadget lunged after the ferret, which hadn’t moved an inch yet, but it had clearly anticipated exactly that- it leaped over the dog’s snapping jaw and over its head before biting down hard on Gadget’s back.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Gadget twisted again, arching his body to bring the ferret-thing closer to his snapping jaw even as it shot forward in an attempt to end its life. Unfortunately, the ferret-thing simple crawled onto its other flank, narrowly dodging its attack once more, before biting Gadget once more.

Ethan lunged downwards, an inch or two away from where Gadget actually was. His hands reached that way regardless and managed to grab onto the thing’s tail just barely, but it twisted and tried to maul his face. Just before it could, Gadget’s jaws snapped closed on the thing’s head, and his teeth passed through effortlessly.

Ethan’s face was sprayed with blood, and he quickly tossed the thing’s body to the ground.

You have slain a Ferrow.

You have gained a level.

It is recommended that you open your Panel.

‘Fucking stop that,’ Ethan thought. The recommendation to open his Panel was annoying; it cluttered his mind with meaningless text.

Subject’s objection to recommendation #12 noted.

Ethan clenched his eyes closed and grimaced. Some of the blood had gotten into them, and it stung.

“What the fuck happened? Are you okay? Is Gadget okay?” Alyssa asked, kneeling right next to him. Ethan couldn’t answer for a few seconds, his lungs desperately fighting for air. For some reason, despite the Ferrow being far, far less dangerous than the Wyrdfur, the encounter scared him far, far more- due to all the blood, if he had to guess.

“I’m… fine. Some of the blood got into my eyes,” Ethan eventually managed to get out, trying to rub the blood out of his eyes with his hands. He eventually got them to open and walked over to Gadget, who was standing over the Ferrow’s corpse, clearly on guard, as though it might come back to life. Speaking of the Ferrow’s body, Ethan had to very deliberately avoid gazing at its head, which lay a few feet away from its body. At least Gadget hadn’t swallowed it.

Small trails of blood streamed down from each of the Ferrow’s bite wounds, although Ethan was very glad that it hadn’t torn out any flesh. They had luckily not given it time to do so.

“Calm down,” Ethan told Gadget, wrapping his arms around the dog and pressing him into his chest. Gadget was panting hard, and Ethan tried hard not to cry. The encounter scared him much more than the Wyrdfur had, but after a few seconds, Ethan realized that Gadget’s panting seemed more out of exhaustion, thirst and hunger than fear, luckily.

He reached into the many pockets all over the cargo pants and tried to soak up some of the blood using the bits and pieces of his shirt that he’d cut away, but there weren’t many of the tiny pieces of cloth and there was a good amount of blood.

“So what happened?” Alyssa asked after a few seconds. Ethan glanced over and saw her staring at the Ferrow on the ground; she probably knew the basics, but wanted the details.

“That thing lunged out of nowhere- it was running around under the roots- and attacked Gadget. The System called it a Ferrow.” Ethan told her. “I don’t know anything more. It would’ve fucked up my face if Gadget hadn’t gotten it, though.”

“…Do you think it’s possible to eat it?” Alyssa asked, and Ethan simply shrugged. “If we cook it, probably,” He said after a few seconds.

Ethan did his best to soak up as much of the blood as possible, keeping only one or two of the shirt scraps in his pocket for later. The bites weren’t as bad as the gashes he’d gotten from the Wyrdfur, at least.

Ethan felt a strange pang running through his ethereal connection to Fred, who was thirty or so yards to the west. He paused for a few seconds, trying to interpret the strange sensation.

He’d always been able to detect roughly where Fred was in relation to him, and what the goblin was feeling whenever the emotion was particularly intense. This strange pang was similar to the latter, but far more complex. It took him a few seconds to realize that it was some means of non-verbal communication from long distances.

The moment he made the realization and tried to interpret the weird sensations as words, they were easily translated.

“Found shelter from storm,” Was roughly what Fred had sent back, with a bit of confusion at the end on what he was meant to do next. Ethan tried to send back a response, but he couldn’t seem to truly ‘touch’ the connection.

‘I’ll figure it out later,’ Ethan thought, shaking his head.

“Fred found a shelter; thirty yards that way,” Ethan pointed to the west, where Fred was. “He didn’t elaborate much on what it was, but I got the impression that it was underground, I think?”

“Let’s get going, then.” Alyssa said quickly; she very urgently wanted to get out of the way of the storm, for some reason. It wasn’t like a little bit of water was going to hurt them, but Ethan didn’t mention it.

“Grab the Ferrow’s body, so that we can cook and eat it later.” Ethan said while he picked up their pitiful quantity of supplies. As Alyssa tried to grab its body without getting any blood on her, Ethan continued.

“We’ll need to get to the shelter fast and then grab some dry firewood if we want to cook it.” Ethan said. He’d never been camping before, but even he was aware that wet wood wouldn’t light.

A few seconds after that, Ethan realized that he had no clue how to make a fire. He just shook his head and put it off till later.

‘If worst comes to worst, we might be forced to eat it raw.’ Ethan thought, shivering at the thought.