The vertigo faded quickly turning to a mild discomfort and that I could live with. Pushing myself up from the sand into a sitting position I was able to see a small burlap sack sitting in front of me. Immediately I could tell this was supposed to be my starter gear but I was confused about it being a sack the size of an apple with a mouth just wide enough to fit my hand into. I picked it up and a system prompt pulled up in front of me.

Would you like to bind this dimensional bag (small) Yes/No

I selected yes and a list popped up in front of me telling me the bag contained three days of rations, a change of clothes, a survival knife, a bow, 30 arrows in a quiver, a basic fishing rod to replace the one that didn’t survive the transition to system space, and finally a single upgrade stone to advance one item from basic grade to standard grade.

I stood up to get a look around after closing out of the menu and was honestly blown away by the sight that greeted me. I’d seen plenty of beautiful private islands on jobs but none of them could quite stand up to the jungled cliffs rising into the distance about a kilometer away separated from me by the clearest water I had ever seen. Waves lapped calmly at the beach I was on. Spinning I got to see the island I was standing on was much smaller than the one with the cliffs relatively flat covered in sea grasses and trees that looked similar to mangroves but had a purplish leaves and pale green flowers. The trees had salt lines about my eye level telling me that it was low tide and I was not in a good position when the tides decided to switch. My best be would probably be to swim to the island opposite me but swinging to the cliffs directly could quickly turn incredibly dangerous. I could see where the cliffs came down a turned to beach but it would double the length of the swim and as of yet I didn’t know what lived in the waters. I began to walk towards the edge of the water but as I got within about two meters of where the waves met the sand a slight movement of the sand caught my eye. I jumped back and pulled the knife from my bag which was an odd sensation. My hand went into the bag and at first I felt nothing but I knew I was fishing for the knife and then I felt the handle in my hand. I pulled it out still sheathed. I grabbed the sheath with one hand, pulled the knife out, and held the wooded sheath against the forearm of the hand holding it for extra protection. Standing still waiting to see what the shift in the sand was led to the crab thankfully not getting the drop on me. The problem was the thing was massive at least for a crab and its claws looked as sharp if not sharper than the survival knife I brandished before me. It easily dwarfed me but it seemed to be a lumbering thing with large easy to target joints. We stood there in a standoff to see who would make the first move for a moment each looking for an opening now that it had missed it’s surprise attack and in that moment I was startled by a system notification but it was more transparent than normal not blocking my vision as normal.

Target identified – Unklio Crab – Level 3 – Crabs found in the Unklio island chain ambush predators and scavengers.

Seeing my small jump as provocation the crab swung towards me with its large left claw almost as if in slow motion. I jumped forward and under the claw and lodged the knife into the joint and quickly pulled it out.

Backstab triggered by hitting weak point x2 damage

The notification appeared small in the corner of my vison almost unnoticed. Nevertheless I did notice it and smiled. I juked to the side under its body between the legs and jammed the knife up into the line running down the center of its body and yanked. I was greeted by another notification but realized by hubris immediately as it simply tried to slam its body down on me. I was just quick enough to jump out from under it landing on my ass. Quickly rolling back to my feet knife in hand the crab began to spin around towards me but I pushed back under it and stabbed quickly into another joint where a leg met the body on the same side. This time the crab collapsed to that side but I was already out from under it. With a quick spin I lodge the knife into the base of an eye stalk and received a new notification.

Enemy defeated. For defeating an enemy above your own level a small amount of bonus experience is awarded 350 experience gained.

Shade Stalker level up 1 free stat gained 1 Dexterity gained 1 Celerity gained

Backstab ranks up to rank 3 – Backstab 2 now has 10% chance to inflict bleed – Backstab 3 damage multiplier from x2 to x2.5

Dodge ranks up to rank 2 – Dodge 2 dodging 1% more effective

Small Blades ranks up to rank 4 – Small Blades 2 and 4 increases effect of celerity on handling speed by 5% each to 10% total Small Blades 3 Now have 10% chance to inflict bleed with small blades (additive)

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

I added the free stat point to strength to bring it to an even ten because while the blade didn’t get lodged in the chitinous joints of the crab this time I knew it easily could have and that could’ve quickly changed how that fight went. I wasn’t winded by the fight but it felt like something was missing after the fight so I said aloud,

“System can I view an in depth combat log?”

I didn’t receive an answer but a log did appear and I immediately saw why I felt less whole than a few moments ago each activation of backstab took 10 mana from me. I knew I would have to be careful with that. I didn’t think running out of mana would be as well deadly as running out of health but I couldn’t be sure. Turning back to the crab wasn’t sure what to do with this massive creatures body but I knew I didn’t want to deal with any scavengers. I did have an idea though. Walking over I took my knife and first severed the joints and set the legs and claws to the side. The using one of the legs as a lever managed to flip the crab over onto its back. With the knife I opened its belly and carved the plating back throwing them to the side. I pulled the insides out and threw them out onto the sand for whatever wanted them it looked more or less water tight. I loaded up the claws to hopefully cook later or to use as bait for something and grabbed one of the longer middle legs to use as a paddle. I then pushed the body out into the calmly lapping waves and began to slowly but surely paddle over to the beach I knew wouldn’t be under water soon. I wasn’t sure how long the days on this planet were going to be but at this point the sun was nearing where noon would be for earth so I hoped I would have at least another couple hours to get established. After about 100 meters of slowly paddling I began to be able to see fairly active sea life. There were fish of all kinds darting back and forth hunting and avoiding being hunted but there seemed to be one unequivocal king of these shallows at about two meters long and with a sandy gray coloring with bold crimson striping something looking like a mix between a sturgeon and a betta fish prowled darting after one fish or another but nothing ever went after it. I kept my eye on it and tried to actively use identify this time.

Target identified – Young Unklio Sea Hunter – Level 3 – Barely into adolescence Unklio Sea Hunters rule the shallows during low tide but often find themselves prey if the venture into deeper waters.

This was young!? The adults must be truly massive I know the system had called this a super planet rules by oceans so I expected big fish but this blew any expectations I had out of the water. The fish I was seeing that were fairly large when compared to normal earth fish were the small fry here. I didn’t feel confident in pulling these sorts of fish in with my current fishing pole but I knew that if my vacation was to continue here on this planet I would have to grow and for that I needed somewhere to lay my head at night. I continued to paddle but now that I was most of the way to the new island I felt as though I was being watched but couldn’t quite place it. It wasn’t the feeling when a person is watching you more like when you are being hunted by something. I continued to search the island I was heading towards for whatever it was but I couldn’t spot anything. I could however finally hear the noises coming from the islands almost jungle like foliage. I could hear something like monkeys but it wasn’t quite right as well as the loud caws and chirps of birds. As I reached the beach I watched a small cat like creature dart out of the foliage and sprint towards the water but before it could get four meters from the tree line a bird slammed into it from above and carried it off into the jungle. With that I knew I would have everything I needed here to survive. If there were land based mammals here on this island, then there would be fresh water, the birds would provide feathers for fletching and wood would be in no short supply. I was beginning to put together a plan for how I would not only survive here but thrive all on my own at least for now. I wanted plenty of time to build myself up before I had to interact with the other sentient beings who were already within this system and hopefully achieve a new title that wouldn’t mark me as on outsider because if these people were anything like humans outsiders were often not trusted, welcome, or taken advantage of.

Now that I had made landfall on this island my first order of business was tracking down that fresh water. I was already becoming thirsty and that would only grow worse and exasperate any other problems I found later. With that thought in mind I trekked along the jungle searching for an oft used path some sort of game trail that would make my life easier. After ten or so minutes I was able to find what I was looking for a small game trail that looked to be travelled by some small hooved creature with the number of tracks there was likely more than one. Instead of having my weapons in the dimensional bag I figured now would be a good time as any to bring them out and carry them for ease of access which was such an odd feeling. Being an assassin on earth I always had to hide my weapons but here against nature itself that would be a detriment with no gains. I attached the sheath of my survival knife to my belt and after some fiddling with the quiver to make it into a waist quiver instead of a should quiver attached it to the belt as well. Keeping an arrow in the same hand that held the bow as well as keeping one knocked but not drawn put me more at ease but not totally as the feeling of being hunted was still not gone. I pushed that feeling to the back of my mind but not out altogether it would be an important reminder and one I wouldn’t forget as I had seen more than one of my colleagues get cocky and lose their life thinking they were above being hunted themselves. The line between hunter and hunted was often blurred at best.