After a while Asher eventually gave up on flipping off the system, it did little to make him feel better about the situation he was in. Not only was he stuck on some planet he assumed wasn’t Earth, but worse he didn’t know if he was even in his own dimension anymore. Flipping off the thing that had caused all this might have done nothing in the grand scheme of things, but for the moment it gave Asher a sense of control.

“Well, I guess I might as well put this on,” Asher grumbled to himself as he removed his makeshift clothes, red splotches already all over his chest. As Asher put on the shirt finally feeling slightly more human, he couldn’t help but look back in the box, that's when realization dawned on him.

“You shitty system! You didn’t give me pants!” Asher was once again yelling at the sky; he knew the shirt had nonsense written on it, but he didn’t expect the system to leave him naked from the waist down. What kind of cruel humor did this system have?

After another long spew of insanity, Asher managed to reclaim himself and began wandering through the forest again, turning his toga into a leafy skirt of sorts as he walked. The skirt was completed considerably faster than the toga, not only was it smaller but the knife that he had been given proved quite handy in creating it. Once Asher had a sense of coverage, he began searching for anything that could help him level up in earnest. That's when he noticed a small pair of gray ears sticking up from out of a bush. Asher quickly squatted down; he could only assume this was a much smaller version of the rabbit of deforestation, one that ate bushes rather than trees.

Slowly Asher made his way towards the bush, then right as he was about to strike a muffled growl could be heard coming from the bush. Before Asher could launch back in surprise a mouth full of sharp canine teeth was in his face. Asher barely had time to move his dagger and elbow into the neck of the beast. The dagger made a small cut as it passed the neck but didn't cause any real damage.

The only thing that stopped the beast from chomping Asher's face clean off was his lucky elbow strike. His elbow embedded itself into the small cut, causing the beast to wince in pain. Asher was full of adrenaline at this point and noticed the beast slightly back off from the pain. Asher didn't know what to do, he was never a fighter back home, he had expected to search around to find some defenseless rabbits and to feel bad as he butchered them for experience.

With a random wave of his arm, Asher managed to embed the dagger into the neck of the beast, causing blood to gush all over his face and only clean shirt. After a last scream and attempt to take Asher with it to the after life, the beast finally went limp and fell onto Asher. The only thing letting Asher know that he had killed the beast was a system box appearing in the middle of his vision.

[Killed: Mimic Wolf]

[Level: 5]

[Reward: +1 Level]

Asher could feel himself growing stronger, his exhaustion and fatigue quickly getting replaced with vitality. Asher pushed the beast off him with strength unknown to him, he felt like he could climb Mount Everest and still have energy left over. Quickly though that feeling vanished leaving Asher with the realization of how close to death he actually was. Fear and panic finally began to take hold as he dropped to the ground just a few feet away from the beast. With a swipe of his hand Asher made an attempt to remove the blood from his face, his shirt on the other hand was ruined, not that he really cared.

After taking about an hour to collect himself Asher pushed himself up and walked over the corpse, the blood had already begun to dry as he peered over it.

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“Ugg what am I supposed to do with this now?” Asher thought to himself before squatting down to examine if there was anything he could find useful from it. He then remembered what the system had called it, a Mimic Wolf. No wonder he had mistaken the ears for that of a rabbit, this thing must have either evolved or been created with the intent of tricking prey into thinking that they were safe.

“Loot,” Asher said, feeling fairly confident in himself, that was until nothing happened. “Maybe it just takes a second,” Asher said to himself as the seconds passed on, after a minute all he could do was sigh and frown as he looked down, his eyes locking on to his knife.

“Fucking system,” he said stabbing the knife into the dead beast, causing fresh blood to spew out. Asher was not the definition of a manly man, in fact, the last time he had gone camping was with his father when he was just a child. Dismantling an animal was not on his list of skills, nor did he want it to be. But after a lot of work and a lot of wasted meat, he finally had something he thought he could cook over a fire and not make himself deathly ill.

“Inventory,” Asher said through somewhat gritted teeth, then with a flash the system-based inventory appeared before him once again. With a grunt, he tossed the cubes of meat he had managed to cut up into the space. When he tried to grab an item out, he wasn't able to, but when he tried to put the meat in the system happily took it.

“Bipolar ass system” Asher muttered to himself after finishing up the task. Then with the help of his knees, he pushed himself into a standing position and surveyed his surroundings. The sun in the sky was starting to go down and it wasn't looking good for Asher. He needed to find some sort of shelter sooner rather than later. This might be a safe zone, but he had nearly died, and he didn't want to find out what might be lurking in the night.

While surveying the land earlier Asher had noticed what appeared to be a massive hill, he hoped that by climbing it there might be a cave that he could camp in through the night. With a slight jog, Asher began his way towards and up the hill, searching for any opening there might be. Every now and again he would notice some rabbits rushing away from him, if you could call them rabbits, some were the size of a German Shepherd.

After running for a little over half an hour Asher finally spotted what looked like a cave from afar. Looking around Asher could barely see any light over the horizon, a purple hue was all that was left. This was as good a time as any Asher assumed, he put all the power he could into his legs and pushed off into a sprint. Asher had never been a fast runner, in fact when he was a child most of the other children had made fun of him for his speed. But now he rocketed up the hill and arrived at the cave in record time.

Asher bent forward dry heaving as he entered the cave and took out some of the twigs and branches, he had left over from making his toga. With little effort he had them arranged in a teepee, then the most basic thought entered Asher’s mind.

“How the fuck am I going to light a fire?” Asher said realization finally coming through, he had never started a fire in his life, excluding a gas-burning stove. He had read about using two flint rocks at one point or at least he thought that's how it was done, but he didn't know if the rocks in this cave were flint or other kinds, nor did he know how to check.

“Fuck it, might as well try,” Asher said grabbing two of the closest rocks and began smashing them together repeatedly, hoping that they might just start sparking. That's when he heard and saw the familiar system notification.

[New Quest: Survive Against the Black Bear]

[Reward: +1 Level]

[Extra Quest: Kill the Black Bear]

[Reward: +1 Level, Title: Bear Slayer, Flint and Steel]

“The fuck? What bear?” That was all Asher could get out before a familiar growling sound echoed through the cave from behind him. Instincts from the last time something started growling at him took over and Asher launched forward into a roll over his non lit campfire. All Asher could hear was the sound of air rushing through the place he had just been. Behind him as he turned around was a massive black bear, it was probably over 400 pounds and had a scar going over its right eye, yet the beast's eyes seemed perfectly usable as they shined black with murderous intent.

“That bear, fucking system!” Asher said, fear taking over and the ever-so-familiar feeling of adrenaline rushing through him again.