It feels cold. I thought to myself, for some reason I was lying down on the edge of a pond.

“Where am I?” Looking around as I got up, there were a lot of glowing moss lighting up the area a little, tall trees stretched so high that they block any light from coming through from above. The only source of light I have was the moss and a few other glowing flowers.

The pond ends on a rocky wall, it’s peak hidden by the trees. Broken branches and leaves scattered on it’s surface.

“Ugh…!” Intense pain stabs my head.

I crouched down, cradling my head, then it hit me. The memories from before rushed in, I quickly checked my left arm, and it was there.

It made me question if everything was just a bad dream and I just fell asleep in the forest… but, the memory of what happened to our village was so vivid.

I started remembering what happened to my mother and tears slowly blurs my vision, as anger, fear and disgust for what have happened and for what I couldn’t do rushes in me.

I cried for a few minutes until…

[Experience accumulated]

[Mental preservation Lv.2 -> Lv.3]

The mechanical voice snapped me back to my senses. I wiped the tears and snot off my face and took another look around.

The branches might have been what broke my fall. Then I stared at my left hand flexing it, it didn’t feel odd in the least and no scars from where it was torn is visible.

“So it wasn’t a dream” the lady in black, the hell hounds.

She kept her promise, I’m still alive and she even healed me… but… why am I naked?

Searching around the pond I… haven’t found my clothes. Then I noticed it, the forest was supposed to be pitch black since no light can enter it and yet when I looked out, I can see everything just fine, even better actually.

Hmmm… let’s check what my stats are like.

“Status”

< Name: Xyrus (Son of Ilim) Age: 12 Race: Abyss dweller Lv. 01 (Exp. 0/300)

Hp: 100/100 Mp: 30/30 Sp: 200/200

Str: 12 End: 10+1 Int: 7 Wis: 7 Dex: 32 Agi: 34 Vit: 10 Luck: 13

Status points: 0

SKILLS

[Mental preservation Lv. 3] [Sneak Lv. 5] [Analysis Lv. 1] [Sword wielding Lv. 1] [Green thumb Lv. 1] [Aim Lv.1] [Accuracy Lv. 1] [Endurance Lv. 1] [Pain mitigation Lv. 1] [Presence detection Lv.1] [Trap setting Lv. 4] [Trap detection Lv. 3] [Trap disarming Lv. 2] [Hearing enhancement Lv. 4] [Will to live Lv. 1] [Abyss vision] [Cook Lv. 4] [Grudge Lv. 1]

TITLE

[Avenger] [Child of Ilim] [Apprentice hunter] [Cook]

Condition: normal >

My eyes nearly popped out. This isn’t me, is it?

First off my name is Ciro not Xyrus, what’s with the ‘child of Ilim'? My race was even changed and my level reset! I was finally level 3 before.

As I was thinking about it, the memory before I fell imposed itself.

“I will save you, but you shall be my child and I your mother.”

The lady in black… her words came back to me, I feel calmer and relaxed for some reason.

Does this mean that I’m her child now and that’s the reason for the change in my status?

Just who was she?

What was she?

I continued checking my status aaaaand the skills [Abyss vision] [Grudge] [Will to live] [Mental preservation] [Endurance] and [Pain mitigation] were all new to me, well maybe not all, I saw the last 3 back when I was still in the cage.

[Endurance] is a buff skill which passively increase my total endurance by 10%

[Pain mitigation] well mitigates the pain I receive and the pain I would continuously feel.

Now [Mental preservation] is scary, it helps preserve ones mentality, it says it gives great resistance to anything that concerns my mental state, like fear, anger, guilt, charms the whole shebang. This was probably the skill that helped me calm down earlier.

The new skills were nothing to be scoffed at either.

[Will to live Lv. 1] the proof of the perseverance and great will to live by one who have suffered hardship and have faced death and escaped him or actively defying him, skill effect: increase all resistances by 10-50% (dependent on ones will). Second effect: increase all resistances by 40-80% once hp drops below 30% and dmg reduction increase by 100-150% (dependent on one’s will)

[Grudge Lv. 1] a skill which aids the user to satisfy one’s feelings for revenge against his enemy. Skill effect: Increase all attack magic or physical dmg by 10-50% and increase all healing efficacies by 500-700% when targeting one’s enemy (dependent on one’s animosity)

Side effect: affects one’s mental state to deteriorate proportional to one’s lust for revenge.

It was messed up, and I understood immediately why the healing was better than the damage increase. A grin slowly creeped up. I was thankful for it, no joy or justice will come from giving them a quick death.

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Last was [Abyss vision] as a dweller of the abyss one can see those who walks it’s plane. Skill effect: can see through the abyss and creatures hidden from mortal sight.

If it can see through the abyss I can see why the forest seems bright to me now. Still an abyss dweller huh…

*Grrrrwl

A chill wind made me shiver, forgot I was still naked, and my stomach growled.

“Let’s stop thinking hard about it for now. I need food, guess I have to hunt or gather?”

I am in a forest and that was a little assuring. I was in a way an apprentice to the head hunter and I’m pretty good if I say so myself. I usually just hunt with Papo and when alone use traps.

I drank from the pond before leaving.

The forest is big! I've been walking for a while now and I still haven’t found any prey. Mushrooms were a gamble since none of what I have found so far resembles any that I was used to and the head hunter have strongly advice us never to experiment with it on our own, it was a matter of life or death, or so he said.

As I was resting the tree branch I took as a club, I picked up on the rustling sound not so far away to my left. I activated [Sneak], growing closer [Presence detection] finally picked up on it.

A giant rat was feasting on a fruit, I unconsciously took a step back.

Crushing a twig beneath my foot.

The giant rat stopped eating and searched for where the sound came from, it spotted me in no time. It was as big as a hunter’s hound back at the village. It crouched low and puffed out it’s fur and launched at me.

“SQUUUUEEE!!”

I instinctively brought my club up blocking the rat's attack. Its momentum pushed me down to the ground, teeth dug deep on my club threatening to snap it in half. I didn’t want to imagine what would have happened if I failed to block it.

It started gnawing on my club as it stretched its arms to scratch my chest, blood flowed, then…

*Snap…

The sound of my club breaking drained the blood from my face but I had no time to dwell on that as I leaned my head to the right as the rats maw closed to where it was a moment ago.

I dodge and dodged, the rat’s whole body on top of me pinning me down. I cursed my lack of strength, and me being on the short side even for a 12 year old.

“Gaaaah..”

A scream escaped when I blocked one of its attack with my left arm, I just got this back! I thought to myself.

It shook its head violently to tear off my arm, I struggled as intense pain assaulted my arm. I kept slamming my right hand still holding on the club’s broken handle on its head, then as a last ditch effort I aimed for its eyes, the sharp point from the handle where it broke pierced seamlessly through its eyes breaking bone behind it and straight to the rats brain a critical strike. The rat died instantly.

[Experience accumulated]

[Pain mitigation Lv. 1-> Lv. 2]

“Huff… hufff… and all I wanted… was some… food huff.” I wiggled out under the rat.

I've never seen one this large before, at most they would grow a little bit bigger than a house cat.

“I need a rest.” I said as I look at my left arm bent at a wrong angle. I straightened it out by pulling at it.

I wish I know some healing spells… this hurts so much. Looking at the rat corpse I decided to drain it’s blood first which was hard to do with one hand.

Using its sharp claws to cut off its head, it was really tedious specially when I reached its spine, that’s where my broken club came in handy.

After lifting its hind legs up, blood just gushed out of the neck. That done I started skinning and cutting up the parts, Kind of ironic how this work was made a little easier thanks to the rats claws. The very same that scratched my chest.

I wonder when I'll get my [Butcher] skill? The head hunter once told me that it was a skill that anyone can learn regardless of affinity, all you need was to satisfy the required conditions.

Mostly butchering at least a hundred worth of boars to earn level 1. Pheasants were valued as four of them equals one boar. Mom was always the one to prepare the ones I hunted.

I heard from Beron that [Butcher] is one of the most essential skill to learn for any chefs along with [Cook] or [Chef] in the capital, not to mention hunters who sold pelts to clothes makers. High quality pelts were the product of master butchers after all.

“All done”

The crudely butchered rat was now in front of me. I separated the organs from the meat. I placed the meat on the skin to carry home and chose to leave the organs behind, I brought the head with me as well.

I was hungry but I know how dangerous it would be to eat here, so I decided to go back to the pond. Oddly enough there were no animals to be seen as I reached the pond.

The gentle glow from the pond reaches me. Maybe dark dwelling creatures don’t like the light? Nah, couldn’t be, could it?

After drinking water I collected a lot of firewood, dry leaves, long sticks and a couple long straight wood to try making a spear.

Then I realized as I was going to clean my chest wound that it was already closed, I checked my left arm and it was slowly healing itself. What in the world?

As I was about to check my status my stomach growled it’s loudest yet. So I decided to follow its orders and just check later.

I set up the fire first, by making a circle out of rocks and placing the firewood at the center. Rubbing a stick to a small piece of wood until I got an ember which I placed to the pile of dry leaves, blowing on it softly to start up the fire.

Skewering the meat and letting it cook on the fire. My [Cook] skill actually helped me to know when it would be done, so as I wait I decided to make my weapon.

Skinning the bark out I was able to get a few long fibers, braided them and now they were as good as any strings. I took out the rat’s skull, I took its skin, meat and brain away. Split its lower jaw in two and tied it to a short handle to make a small scythe, this reminded me of when I got to help out with harvesting in the farm.

Making another one with the other half, I was able to create a pair. Using my [Trap setting] skill and tying technique I learned from the head hunter, the jaws seem to have a nice fit for the handle.

The meat was done! Finally I can eat.

Ughh… the meat has a weird aftertaste and even if I had bled it a strong nasty smell still persisted.

Sad to say I was only able to eat two skewers. Then stored the others for tomorrow.

There was no sun here so I just placed the rat’s skin near the fire to dry it. I am still naked and would really want to at least cover up.

Though I find it weird that even buck naked I still don’t feel cold. Guess my body itself changed.

I decided to try out my new scythes after making my short spears with rat bones and wood.

Using the sword swinging practice my brother taught me it felt off and odd. It didn’t match with my scythe. Remembering that he also mentioned before to imagine an enemy in front of you to help with learning how to swing it and where to aim.

Closing my eyes and focused on the face of the bald bandit.

“fwooosh” my scythe traced the air where I imagined his neck would be, I’m feeling a new thrill with this, never before have I felt it. Just the image of his head being cut off as a fountain of blood showers out.

I swung again, this time with my left arm. Pain surges but I was in a trance, that swing cut off his legs, and then another to his arm. The image I had of him was long dead after the first strike cutting his head off.

“tsk” clicking my tongue. Fragile piece of shit.

I started over again, he was wearing his armor and the smug look on his face. I swung my scythes again only to kill him on the second swing after bashing his face in.

[Experience accumulated]

[Grudge Lv. 1-> Lv. 2]

I ignored the message as I reset again and started.

A cycle of kill, reset, kill, reset and kill again continued until I lost track. Just kidding, I have killed him fifty seven times, died to him thirty-four times.

Not knowing how he fought was a problem, but the only person I ever saw fight was Beron. So mid way through I made the bandit move like Beron, this got me killed multiple times.

Killing a bandit with Beron moves was hard, I learned how to dodge his attacks more efficiently through trial and error. The drive to keep doing this was getting stronger and stronger, what stopped me was when my body refused to move any more. The fire I used for cooking was long gone by this time.

When the trance was over my body felt like lead so heavy that I dropped on the spot, it was aching and sore all over. I couldn’t move at all, then I passed out.