The snake lunged at me with an incredible speed. I snapped out of it and tried to jump to the side, but I did it too late and the snake’s teeth cut open a small but long wound on my back leg. I immediately could sense pain spreading from the wound and a burning sensation inside my flesh itself, meaning the snake’s teeth were probably secreting venom and I was poisoned by it. I ignored it for the moment, as if I got distracted by the fact that there was poison on the wound, I would be killed by the snake that was now turning back to me and preparing another attack.

This time I was mostly ready and the moment the snake began its jump, I moved to the side and raised my arm, exposing my claws right in the snake’s path. As the snake was in the middle of the air, it couldn’t dodge easily, but it tried anyway, turning its head around as it moved its body in a strange way to avoid my claws but it wasn’t enough. The moment I felt something touching my hand, I pushed my hand forwards, finding it somewhat difficult as the snake’s skin resisted being torn. In the end, I didn’t inflict much damage to the snake as I would have liked. It had a medium gouge in the middle of its body and it was not bleeding much. It hissed at me and liquid began dripping from its mouth, melting the grass it fell into and burning the dirt with how acidic it was.

My eyes opened wide as I saw it was going to spray acid over me, but before I could do anything a pair of claws grabbed the snake and took off flying away, I managed to take a quick look at it and saw a massive eagle-like creature except it had two arms underneath its wings that looked like a praying mantis scythe. I just looked at it, somewhat dumbfounded, until a sharp pain on my leg brought me back to my senses and I immediately decided to hide underneath one of the trees that had a bigger bush in its shade.

I looked at my leg and saw the blood leaking from the wound. It had a yellowish coloration mixed in the red, it was probably the poison the snake had infected me with.

“Man…How fucked am I?” I asked internally, knowing that being bit by a snake could be very serious if left untreated. The bright side is that I wasn’t bitten, but scratched… Except it still managed to leave some of its poison inside the wound and it was now hurting like a million hot needles were being inserted into my leg. I only managed to not scream because I knew that if I began making loud sounds it'd attract the attention of the creatures in the forest, including that eagle-like thing that grabbed the snake.

[Answer: The poison’s composition of a Forastid Snake is mainly based on hydrochloric acid that can be lethal if injected directly into the bloodstream of a living creature]

My heart sank when I heard it was lethal, but then I noticed something in the words used to describe the venom. It had said it was lethal if injected into the bloodstream, but I don’t think my wound counts as being injected.

“Is this wound lethal?” I asked mentally.

[Answer: A scratch wound from a Forastid Snake can cause serious pain and cause the area around it to dissolve as the acid burns through the flesh of the victim and can lead to infection if left untreated]

That made me sigh in relief. Even though it said it could lead to infection if I don’t treat it, at least it said this wound wasn’t lethal. But I have to agree, it’s hurting like hell. I can’t even put my own weight on my leg without flinching. I needed to wash this wound before it became infected, but I couldn’t see anything besides more trees and bushes with small spherical purple berries. An idea came to mind and I grabbed some of the berries on the bush that was closest to me, walking without putting much weight on my leg, which was easier to do with four limbs on the ground than only two as I could compensate using my hands instead of just limping around.

With a few berries on hand, I placed one on the ground and observed where it rolled down to. The terrain looked flat, but that’s just with my vision, as the spherical berry began rolling in a particular direction after being put in the ground. I began walking in the direction the berry rolled as I knew that the tendency of water to always flow down to the lowest point in the ground, and that’s where I was walking towards. As I walked, I kept my senses on high alert. The last thing I wanted was to meet another snake to finish what the first had started.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

After walking for a few minutes I had finally found a small stream of water , with each second feeling like an eternity as the pain on my leg kept growing, fortunately it stopped growing after a while, or else I would have dropped to the ground, unable to continue walking. As it was now I could continue walking, but the pain was making me have tears streaming down my face while I walked.

After reaching the water, I used the tip of my tail to measure how deep it was. Considering that my tail was a bit longer than I was tall I could measure how deep it was using myself as a measurement unit. I couldn’t exactly tell how large I was because I didn’t know if the things around me seemed the size they were, and I needed to consider that a meter for me a day ago was one thing and a meter for me now could be two totally different things as I my perception of size was out the window at the moment. My tail touched the bottom of the water while half of it was submerged, meaning that I could stand on the river without having to swim on it.

I entered the water and when the water touched my wound, it sent a spike of pain through my body that seemed like someone had hammered a steel bar through my leg, making me groan in pain. The water seemingly made the acid stronger for a moment, before the sheer quantity of water in the small river diluted the acid that was still eating through my leg. After the worse passed, I turned to look at my leg and saw a small stream of blood that was bleeding from the wound and being carried away by the water.

I knew I couldn’t be here much longer as the smell of blood would attract more creatures to my position, but I couldn’t let the wound out in the open like that or else I risked it becoming infected. I looked around, trying to find something that would help me to at least cover the wound, but nothing I saw would help as the only things I saw were rocks, leaves, berries, some fruit on the trees and flowers spread around the area.

“I think I’ll need to improvise,” I said whispering. I knew that if I had clothes, I could torn some of it into a makeshift bandage and wrap it around my leg, but I didn’t have any, I was completely naked… A fact that I noticed just now, but I couldn’t afford to become embarrassed at the moment, even though I still felt it. I needed to at least get things somewhat under control before I thought about whether walking around naked as a dragon could be considered being naked.

I got out of the water stream and looked around once more, this time I focused on the leaves of the trees, trying to find something that would help. Eventually I managed to find one that looked good enough. It was from a low tree that was half the size of the other trees around it, but had long leaves that arched upwards, almost defying gravity. I approached it and grabbed one branch that was low enough for me to touch it, tearing it from the tree using my claws to pull it off.

I looked at the leaf that I managed to get out of it, scanning to see if there wasn’t anything like tiny needles that some plants on Earth had. I was sure I wasn’t on Earth anymore after seeing that bird. I concentrated so hard on the leaf that a small information window popped up in my mind.

[Crying Suntree leaf] appeared in my mind as I looked at the leaf in my hands.

“what? I didn’t ask a question. Why did this appear?” I asked. I somehow knew that it was different from the [Knowledge Library] skill that I learned before, but it felt somehow connected and similar.

[Answer: The skill [Appraisal] can provide information about specific objects, creatures or observable phenomena based on the level of the skill and the knowledge the user has]

“Ok. This looks more like a world from a video game than real life, but who am I to discuss how things work in a different world?” I thought as I shook my head to the absurdity of thinking of a world exactly like those RPGs one can play on a computer. But, if it worked even remotely like them, the [Appraisal] skill could help me identify a lot of things that will be useful if I want to survive or escape this forest.

I pulled the leaf out of the stem and placed it around the wound on my leg. The leaf was so big I had to wrap it twice around the wound before tying it up carefully as my claws could easily rip the leaf in half if I wasn’t careful enough. After I had it firmly tied around my leg, a thought crossed my mind.

“Do I have a status screen?” I thought. The RPG game world idea still on my mind.