Taking a deep breath, I look around me. Ah, it sure is nice to be on a planet of questionable survivability.

Mostly, there’s just grass with a couple of trees. A couple dozen meters in all directions is a forest. And above that, in the far distance, loom the eldritch horrors. Yeah, I’m not going in that direction.

…

Or should I?

The info the System so generously gave me does imply that that may actually be the safest place to be right now. Seems strange, I know, but hear me out.

The usual ‘hunting’ pattern, if you can call it that, of these monstrosities is quite peculiar. They go around the planet in sort of waves, each time stripping it of something else. So, if I head to a place that they just passed I should be safe for however long it takes them to come back around again. Ah, sure, might as well.

And so, I triumphantly take my first step in this brave new world. Heading towards the monstrosities that threaten it.

Level Up!

Silent step – level 0 -> 1

Ok, fuck. I need to stop that. That’s going to become so annoying, so fast. Hey, System! Can you turn that off? It’d be much better if I can just look at it when I want to, with bigger number increases.

Let’s see if that’s better. I take a couple of more steps forward and…

Level Up!

Silent step – level 1 -> 2

Fuuuuuck! System, you piece of shit. Turn this thing off before I turn you off. I put the full strength of my apparently enhanced mind behind my statement, hoping that it’s reach whoever is responsible for my suffering and infuse it with my meaning.

Taking even more steps towards my doom I luckily don’t see another notification and happily tread onwards.

Strolling through the forest, which may or may not actually be a jungle, I ponder some of the big questions. For example, what am I going to eat tonight? Or drink? Or, for that matter, where am I even going to spend tonight? Will I be able to sleep? All very interesting questions, I’m sure.

And all of which I will lay to the side to answer later. Firstly, because I’m sure most of my problems can be fixed with the help of the System. And besides, it’s exploration time!

But first, let me shed some more light on the familiar alienness of this forest.

The trees, as the main feature of most forest, shall be described first. Naturally, they have the general tree shape. Long trunk upon which rests the crown of leaves. The trunk is thicker near the ground and slowly thins as it reaches higher and higher.

That’s all fine and dandy, and pretty standard for a tree, as far as I know. I’m sure there are some weird ass trees back on Earth that don’t follow this at all, but don’t care and that’s all that matters. But I digress.

The strange thing about these trees is not the shape, but the colour. And texture. Oh, let me tell you about the texture. Just a minute ago I brushed my hand against the bark of one, you know, as one does in a forest, and my whole being froze. From disgust that is, they aren’t magical.

The bark was, covered in a cold, wet, slimy substance! What kind of tree secretes mucus!? Like, what’s the evolutionary advantage in that? Oh, yeah and they’re not really brown but a really dark green. But that’s beside the point. They! Have! Fucking! Mucus!

From that, you’d probably guess that, since the trunk is green, then the leaves must have obviously switched colour with it and are brown. Wrong again!

The leaves are, and get ready for this, completely ordinary. Like, who came up with that? You make one half of the plant the weirdest crap in all of existence and then think: “Oh, no. I can’t do anything with the leaves! It’d be too weird then.” As if leaving the leaves be would balance the utter atrocity of your actions with the rest of the poor tree.

Okay, I’m getting too worked up about this. I should probably stop describing stuff for now and get a move on. There’ll be enough time to do all that later anyway.

Right-o, food. I need to find some food. And water, can’t forget water. But how does one do that? I’m going to have to rule out anything meat based. Not because I’m vegetarian or anything! No, just because the scroonusi, that’s what the eldritch horrors are called by the way (the singular in scroonus), generally go after the fauna first. So, anything that did survive them would be impossible to find for little old me.

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

That leave me with plants, and mushrooms. But I don’t have much room in my heart for them, so mostly plants. Fruits, berries, vegetable, nuts and roots are all on the dinner table baby! Yummy!

Ah, I suppose, then, if I’m scavenging for that, I shouldn’t be wandering while wondering inside my own head, but actually pay attention to my surroundings. Which is what I soon do. As soon as I manage to convince myself that yes, I do actually need to put in effort to survive.

And let me tell, it’s hard as heck. Being constantly alert and paying attention to my surroundings drains your energy so fast. And I can’t even sit down and lean again a tree because they’re so slimy!

Truly, life is unfair.

As such, after maybe half an hour of intense searching for food, I decided to give myself a break, you know, as a treat. What would this break consist of? The stuff I did before this, of course. Wondering and wandering.

Which brings me to my current dilemma. After all the supernatural stuff that I’ve seen so far, I’ve come to the conclusion that there simply has to also be magic.

So why don’t I have some?!

I would’ve thought that the whole being transported across worlds through, I presume, magic would rub off on me a little bit. And I didn’t do it just once but twice! That has to count for something, right?

Then again, my traits do say pretty clearly that what actually rubbed off on me isn’t magic but the Void, which is just… Eh. I barely got any benefit from that.

Sure, I can look at the scroonusi without going insane, which I guess is nice, but other than that I haven’t seen much benefit from it. Then again, the Void did only ‘brush’ again me apparently. Maybe if I somehow manage to upgrade that trait, I’ll get something more. Then again, something tells me that messing with the Void isn’t such a great idea.

Right, so magic. How do I go about obtaining it? There are the classic ways of meditating or exposing yourself to a huge amount of it, but I don’t think either of those are an option for me just yet. I’ll at least have to get some shelter before trying the meditation technique and I don’t even know where to start when it comes to quantity.

But there’s gotta have to be another way. Hey System, do you have some kind of way for me to unlock skills? Some kind of skill points or something?

Nothing. Damn, I really should have asked it more questions when I had the chance to talk with it in the Void.

Maybe seeing some progress will cheer me up?

Level Up!

Silent step – level 2 -> 8

Fortified mind – level 5 -> 7

General knowledge – level 5 -> 6

Ooh, goodie!

A bit slow, I’d say, but then again, I don’t know anything about this System. It’s completely out of the norm of the usual stuff in popular fiction. Or maybe I just haven’t read enough. I have the weird feeling that there was something on Earth very similar to this one. Oh well.

Now then, let’s see if I can make a short analysis of this.

I’ve been walking for some time now, so it makes sense that silent step levelled the most. And yet, it feels like it could have gone higher. It did say that the skill has a focus on being quiet and stealthy. Which I, admittedly, haven’t been focusing on doing that much. Then on the other hand, it is how I normally walk, trying to minimise sound. Ok, new tactic. I’ll try to focus on that and we’ll see if it levels faster.

Fortified mind and general knowledge. Well, I guess the first one advanced just because I’ve been thinking? Or did it progress because it ‘protected’ me against the scroonusi, even though I’m immune? And the knowledge one, I suppose that’s just because I’m experiencing a new world and learning about it. Mostly about how slimy and disgusting the trees are.

Ok, analysis complete. Conclusion: I don’t have to focus too much on my skills and I’ll make some good progress anyways.

Anyway, entering super stealthy mode.

Crouching a bit and slowing down, I take extra care to make as little sound as possible. That sounds like embodying the skill, right? Because trying is as much as I can do right now. I’m after all still in a forest and the underbrush likes crunch a lot.

Speaking of underbrush, I haven’t even seen any insects yet. Which is nice and all, but it also means that he environment here is royally fucked. Even if the world destroyers decide not to destroy this world, without insects and other annoying shit the plants won’t survive. Or at least won’t be able to reproduce, and therefore eventually die out.

Very well, it’s decided. I’m not saving this planet. As soon as I’m able, I’m out of here.

*crunch**crunch*

Damn it! The forest is really loud! But that’s mostly me, most of the other animals are dead or hiding by now.

There’s surely a method for me to step even quieter. I look around, seeking inspiration and my gaze falls on a tree.

No. No, that’s disgusting. Surely, I wouldn’t do that?

And yet, even as I’m saying that to myself, I can see myself reaching out and scraping a good handful of the slime from the tree trunk. Then, I meticulously apply it to my feet, hopefully making my future steps make less noise.

Which I think is a good time to mention that this whole time I’ve been naked. Yeah, turns out when you’re isekaid, you don’t get to keep your clothes. Which is fair enough, but at the same time massively inconvenient. Sure, so far, it’s been warm enough and the trees don’t have any low branches to give me scratches. And yet it feels so wrong.

And there isn’t even a chance of me finding any clothes by magically stumbling onto civilization! If there even used to be one, with the eldritch menace wandering the earth they are surely long dead.

Sigh, I guess I’ll just have to be happy with my birthday suit.

Oh. Oh no. I just realized. No civilization not only means no clothes, but also no tools or any convenience of society. No toilets, no showers, shit not even cooked food! Or at least, no cooked food that’s been cooked properly and not above a chaotic campfire. And no seasoning. Life is suffering.

Then again, I good enough cooking skill could theoretically make even the blandest meal taste heavenly. But would that be worth it? So far, I haven’t seen a limit on how many skills I can take or even a penalty for taking too many, but who can really know. The System hasn’t been very forthcoming with information about itself, so there may be a trap somewhere that could spring at the worst time. Maybe I’ll hold off on taking any skills unless I’m sure that it would be really useful.

Aha! What is this I appear to be arriving at now. Better check it out, though there shouldn’t be any creature left to hurt me.