The hike south was fairly easy. Most of the smoke and ash had cleared from the area as most of the fires had died down throughout the night. Only sporadic billows of smoke could be seen. Some fields were still smoldering, and the occasional house still had remnants of fire. If I was forced to make a guess, approximately fifty percent of the houses we passed or saw in the distance had been affected by fires. I didn’t even want to speculate on the amount of damage that a congested city would suffer.

We crossed another river about five miles south of Dan’s house. Again we had to find a road that crossed the river and chose this time to go east along the river. We didn’t want to head west because that would bring us closer to the main highway and any unknown threats traveling along it. Fortunately we didn’t have to look long. Instead of finding a road that bridged the river, we found an area that widened quite a bit. The river’s water level was only a foot deep at this wider point. We took off our boots and socks and rolled our pant legs up and crossed. On the other side of the river, we dried off our feet as best we could with the canvas tarp and put our footwear back on and headed out again.

At this point in the journey, we crossed into the grasslands. This time of year, there is little water in the grasslands except for lower level areas. There is also a canal that runs north and south along the highway. During duck season, grasslands are flooded. Walking a few miles into the grasslands, we found one such low level area. The flooded area wasn’t that large and wouldn't take a lot of time to get around. However, traversing the grasslands seriously slowed our movement rate. I guessed it was getting closer to evening time, and from what my stomach was telling me, it was definitely around dinner time.

Around the flooded area, there was a large flock of geese. And just like the squirrel, these birds seemed larger than they should be. “What do you think about shooting some dinner?" I asked. We’re probably closer to home than we expected, and I’m not really keen on sleeping out here. I believe if we rest a bit and cook us some dinner, we can be back on the road just before dark. That means we’d have to travel the rest of the way at night. What do you think?” “Honestly, Frank replied, I’m okay with that. There are not very many houses between the grasslands and the town, so it should be pretty easy. Plus I need to make more of that dandelion tea and eat something before I crash."

“What’s your constitution at right now?" I asked.

“It’s at eight right now,” Frank replied.

“You know, I said, I think if your constitution was a lot higher, you probably wouldn’t have that many problems with diabetes. Constitution is basically your vitality. It deals with how you take damage, react to poisons and handle the elements. Isn’t that essentially what your body is doing, being poisoned by an overabundance of sugar in your bloodstream since your body can’t get rid of the sugar on its own?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“That’s not a terrible idea, but I guess only time will tell as we level up,” Frank said. “What about you?" Frank asked. What’s yours? And how come it took you half a day to check your stats after we fought those men?"

"I'm at fifteen right now, I said. I brought it up after I leveled and to tell you the truth, I feel great. As far as not checking my stats, I guess I ignored the notification light at the bottom of my vision. It's like having a migraine for me, when I get visual auras. I’ve had them for so long, I guess I just tune them out. I wish there was a way they’d show me what I needed to know without me always having to check.”

“Have you tried changing your notification settings?" Frank asked. By the lack of response and the blank look Frank got back from me, it was easy to tell that I had absolutely no clue what Frank was talking about.

“Haven’t you even gone over your stats screen for more than a minute?" Frank asked. I looked over mine while on watch last night. There wasn't much else to do. I figured you, being a gamer of sorts, would’ve already discovered that fact.”

“I guess with all that’s happened, I just didn’t really think about it. I replied. I’ll have to look at everything while we're taking a break and eating dinner. In the meantime, how about I go see about dinner?" With that, I dropped my ruck where we stood, grabbed up the bow and nocked an arrow. For the first time, I crouched low and activated my sneak ability. I didn’t turn invisible, as often happens in some games. One, my sneak ability was low level and two, there weren't very many shadowed areas in the grasslands. What did happen was still amazing by my standards. My footsteps were far less audible, especially the crunching of the tall grass under my feet. And my body blended in a bit more with the surrounding topography. I could only imagine what this skill could do at higher levels, and I vowed I’d definitely find out.

I crept up to about fifty meters away from the flock. I figured that was well within the bow's range to take one down. At this close distance, I observed that the geese were definitely larger than they reasonably should be. I wondered if this would be the new norm, making all animals larger. And how many of those now larger beasts would become deadly? I pulled a slow draw, not wanting to scare the geese away with more sound and movement. I brought the nocked arrow up to my cheek and hooked my index finger to the corner of my mouth. This was how I was trained to always keep the same body positioning and sight alignment with every shot. I controlled my breathing in deliberate slow breaths. When I was ready to fire, I breathed halfway in and held it. In that brief moment when my heart slowed and the tip of the arrow stopped bouncing with the beat, I let the arrow fly.

The arrow struck the target perfectly in the breast. Even though there was a target tip on the arrow, it was still sharp enough to do the job. Between the twang of the bow string and the squawking honk of the struck bird, the entire flock of geese took flight. There must have been a couple of hundred birds. I stayed where I was and let the birds fly out of the area. When they were gone, I walked up and recovered our dinner. Returning to Frank, I stated “Well we got dinner." I think we should move around to the other side of the water closer to that copse of trees and get a fire going.” I recovered my pack and set out to find an adequate spot to take a break and eat some dinner.”