Overconfidence is a cancer upon capability. You rarely know its poison is seeping through your marrow until it’s too late to do anything about it. I pondered this as I dashed through the forest with every fibre of my being screaming in either pain or fear. My shoulder was ragged, an increasingly common occurrence. Not a fan. I had grown heady about my attributes after a single successful fight.

The source of the damage was a throwing knife, though the weapon itself was no longer there. I wasn’t sure whether that was a bad thing anymore. The bleeding had mostly stopped, though sprinting through the woods wasn’t helping. The creature chasing me, another Adolescent Amphibian Attack Animal, was whooping like a strangled gibbon as it lobbed the pair of knives it wielded over and over. After a few seconds, they returned to its hands. It would have been one of the coolest things I had ever seen if it wasn’t deadly and aimed my way.

Showing that I still had a lot to learn, I had burned through my mana in panicked flailing when the ambush was sprung. I couldn’t retaliate with Mana Bolt, as my reservoir was feeling dry. If I overdid it, I would faint again and then I would be dead. The world may have collected some new video game-like rules but I doubted they extended to a “Retry” or “Continue”. For this reason, I was frantically trying to think of a way out of this situation. Often, these things are best solved if you start from the beginning.

My first mistake, as I saw it, was entering the forest surrounding my safe haven. A mistake I would have had to make at some point. The café was far from where I would choose to be, but the alternative was apparently a monster-infested woodland. I was doing my best to rectify this mistake by retreating, but my hopes that the monstrous, shelled frog man would leave me alone after a certain distance were flagging. It wasn’t defending a location, it was just waiting to be an offensive ass.

My second mistake was thinking my Mana Bolts would be enough to defeat the creature without landing every hit. They were powerful, sure, but the impact didn’t matter if I missed. The turtle man had dodged my first two attacks and I had been on the back foot since then. Another bolt skittered uselessly off of its shell and left me worried. Ten mana was the full power I could shove into a Mana Bolt and the minutes of running had only given me back enough for a few more chances.

I had been lucky by overwhelming the first as I did, but the cost of my half-measured approach was that I now couldn’t muster enough strength to perform the same feat. With my health down over a quarter, I wasn’t excited to take any more chances, but I didn’t have the luxury of options. As another throwing knife whistled past me, almost clipping my ear, I snarled and turned. I’d created some distance, which is why the attack had missed. Another came flying my way and I threw myself to the side, narrowly dodging it.

The Mana Bolt formed in my palm to be thrown and I dodged once more. There was a moment where the knives reformed in the murderous turtle-frog-man’s hands. I closed one eye and with more hope than anything else, I hurled the projectile forward. This was my least favourite part of the plan. By stopping, I had given the turtle man a free shot. Except, I also knew that to throw its knives caused it to lean just enough to expose a weak point.

I just needed to aim properly.

The Mana Bolt flew true, and was passed in the air by the throwing knife. I braced, not even watching to see if the attack struck. The scream of pain was all I needed to know I had succeeded at exploding the Attack Animal’s knee. I was already rolling on the floor, gasping. My breath had been punched out of me as the ethereal knife stabbed into my gut and then vanished a second later. Thrown to the floor, I cursed and ripped at the ground to throw myself forward. The pain was indescribable, and I could only thank my attributes for giving me the strength to push myself to my feet and start running.

I hadn’t defeated the knife thrower, but I had stopped its pursuit. Hand pressed hard against the wound in my belly, it was all I could do to keep my feet underneath me and the path home in my head. I vaguely rebelled against the idea that anywhere here was my home, but it was hard to have an argument with myself right now. The poor guy, me, was stabbed, after all.

Thankfully, no more attacks were waiting for me, though this was another issue. A single enemy was enough to nearly kill me. If I met two… The manicured lawn surrounding the café was enough to bring me to tears. I was already crying with pain, so it would have been less impactful, but I was grateful nonetheless. The bleeding had again stopped, and my health was no longer slowly ticking down. The knife to my gut had brought me to twelve, and the ongoing bleeding had me down to seven.

My stomach still felt like it was being eaten from the inside, but I pushed the door to Clive’s open all the same and stepped in. I fell into a waiting chair before I realised something was wrong. Wait… the door? I blinked, stopping for a moment despite the agony. It was… clean?

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Not for the first time today, my grasp on reality threatened to shiver away, but I denied the possibility that I had made a mistake. This was definitely where I had planned to be, and where I had expected to find a gory scene. Instead, it was clean. The chairs were in order, not a spot of blood to be seen anywhere. I reaffirmed my sanity. Something had occurred to change things. While I was exceedingly happy that I had decided not to be crazy, the fact was that all of the bodies had disappeared, along with the damage to the room. The door was fixed. Even the window I had been thrown through was repaired. A quick, aching check outside showed that the Attack Animal which I had killed was also gone.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked. I glanced around somewhat hopefully. It wasn’t impossible that the System would just answer my question, but I gave up hope after a few seconds. A search of the premises revealed no further clues. The only real proof I had been there at all was the food which had not been restocked. Thinking of food made me hungry, so I removed a snack bar from the pouch at my side. Stroking the soft fabric thoughtfully while I chewed and waited for my health to return, I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched.

It took around half an hour for my health to fully recover, and while I didn’t spend the whole time watching my wounds, I still marvelled at the fresh, sore pink skin. Minutes ago, it had been a life-threatening injury. At least, it would have been in the old world. I was lucky for that, but it was taking some getting used to. The implications were staggering just from that alone. Had humanity overcome disease with a few Attribute points?

“Wait…” I tried to stop the horrifying idea that bacteria could level up before it planted itself in my head but it didn’t go away. My bloody clothes suddenly felt even more disgusting. I grimaced at the once-white shirt, now black, crimson and pink with dried blood. In a burst of inspiration that came up lucky, I decided to check the office. I hadn’t had a reason to enter the small room until now, but I found the box which I was looking for. Waiting to be worn was a box of bright green “Clive’s Café” t-shirts. Shoving three spares into my Xaverweave Pouch, I literally tore the flimsy shirt from my back.

There was little I could do about the grime on my body, but I could at least look a bit more presentable. Maybe I would find a lake or something to wash in, if I ever got passed the Attack Animals. It seemed they were the common enemy in the area, though that was still just an assumption. Maybe I was unlucky and they were the toughest guys around. I doubted it, but the thought comforted me as I made my way back into the trees. There was nothing else for it, after all. Returning to the spot I had left the hopefully crippled Attack Animal, I found it disappointingly empty.

The entire forested area was eerily similar to itself, with almost no variation between the trees and wildflowers around. So when I found the fairly obvious, round groove in the floor, I knew the Attack Animal was likely nearby. I went into high alert. I had enough time to heal up, so it stood to reason the Attack Animal was probably alright. I had no training in being stealthy beyond sneaking through a creaky old wooden house as a teenager, so I doubted my approach was as hidden as I would like. A twig snapped to my right.

Adolescent Amphibian Attack Animal (Level 09)

I threw myself out of the way - to the right. Whatever snapped, it wasn’t the enemy, but it was the starting pistol for round two. The creature’s nameplate had appeared in my peripheral vision for a split second. Combined with the sharp noise, it had been enough to save my life, the sharp blades whizzing through the air less than an inch from my throat. “C’mon then!” I shouted.

While true that most of my attributes were in magic, I wasn’t weak. I launched myself straight into the hard body of my assailant, causing it to stumble. Spinning with the momentum, I gathered a Mana Bolt and didn’t bother to throw it. Clenching my fist as tight as I could, I just punched the everloving fuck out of the shell. Not the smartest idea, as my theory that I would explode my fist if I tried something like this was spot on. Holding a magical firecracker made it even more painful, but effective too. I definitely lost a good chunk of my own health for that and I howled in defiant anger. I didn’t have time or inclination to check though, pouncing forward to press the advantage.

The first Mana Bolt strengthened punch had crushed the creature’s shell on its right side. It had managed to half turn, lessening the damage, but that didn’t matter now. Squealing in fear, the Attack Animal turned to run. I snorted, feeling powerful with our situations reversed. It wasn’t impossible to fight from behind, but it wasn’t nearly as enjoyable. With an obvious weak spot now targetable, the Attack Animal would much prefer to try again later. I wouldn’t give it that chance.

Focused on the task in front of me, I didn’t even have a chance to dodge the attack from the second Attack Animal, laying in wait. My arms were sore as I barely managed to get them in the way of the large hammer which nearly took my head off. As the first one, its shell still cracked, turned around with a gnarly imitation of a grin, my blood froze. The two creatures “hyucked” back and forth, and I realised they were laughing at me.

Adolescent Amphibian Attack Animal (Level 10)

A flame ignited inside of me. The draconic mana which I had felt the touch of since half-binding to the Aspect rippled in my pathways at the insult. I cracked my neck, suddenly much more okay with the short lull in combat. For a time, not long enough at all, the three of us stared at each other. Then, the world burst into action once more as the battle began anew.