Mikal stomach growled loudly; in the silent, dark shack, the sound startled him, tearing him away from his research into the interface. He had learned a lot of new information, and he had gotten some clues to what was happening with his memories, but for now, all of that could wait. He had to find food.

He slowly sat up straight in the utter darkness, his body ached from the odd positions he had had to sleep in to not put pressure on any of his wounds. As he sat up, he noted that his wounds felt much better than yesterday. They still hurt. A lot. But it was much less piercing than it had been just the evening before. His skin also felt taught in the areas, like there was less skin somehow. He prodded the area around the wound in his shoulder with his finger. Besides it hurting less, he couldn't feel any notable difference. He would have to open the door and let in some light to inspect the wound properly.

He gingerly got to his feet and started shoving the desk away from the door. The desk scraped loudly against the floor and he was careful not to get it caught on the divot that marked the hidden space beneath the floorboards.

Opening the door, he was hit with a rush of fresh, cold morning air. The forest canopy had a slight tinge of orange from the sky above, the forest quiet and peaceful. It was a sharp contrast to the cacophony of sounds he had heard during the night. He wondered where all the creatures he had heard went. "Do they live underground? Maybe the sunlight hurts them somehow."

Pushing aside the speculations, he just stood there for a while, taking in the serene feeling of the forest. Although this world was brutal, it was also beautiful. It felt like the world constantly oscillated between terrifyingly violent to peacefully serene.

Shaking his head to get out of his reverie, he glanced down at himself. If he had thought he was dirty yesterday, it was nothing compared to today. His jeans had changed color from light blue to a dark, almost black red. His hoodie was covered in blood and dirt. The impromptu bandages around his thighs had come loose during the night and were now holding onto his jeans just from the coagulated blood, hanging down in tatters.

He had not cleaned himself of yesterday as he had planned to, so he would have to do that now. Right after he ate something. The prompt from earlier had said he gained a new trait, poison resistance, which he hoped would mean that he could now eat the rowaberries without the unfortunate side effects.

Checking the trait in his status, which he found he could open by just willing it to appear. He re-read the traits' description. It said his companion would help neutralize toxins as they entered his being. He was unsure if a laxative counted as toxic, but he hoped it would. But that also raised the question of how the trait would treat his rowaberries. Would it simply neutralize the entire berries, or just the component in them that made them harmful? Either way, it didn't matter; he had planned to eat them anyway, as he found no other food source in the forest.

He stuck his hand in the bag of holding and pulled out a handful of berries. He showed them in his mouth and went for another handful, the berries sweet with a bitter aftertaste. Once he had started, it was difficult to stop, his body craving food. When he managed to get a hold of himself, he had eaten almost 200 of his 300 berries. Well, this would be a good test of the trait at least.

He then set about the task of cleaning himself. It took him some time to figure out how to get the water out of the bag of holding, but after some experimentation, he found if he held the bag upside down and willed water to appear, it flowed out. He could also control the amount of water by adjusting the opening in the bag, creating a sort of faucet.

He stripped down, and using as little water as he could manage, he gave himself a good clean. Not being covered in dried blood, he got a good look at his wounds. They seemed to be healing well, a little too well, in fact. The centimeter-wide holes had shrunk and there had already formed scabs covering the wounds. He didn't know, but he got the feeling that wounds hadn't healed this fast before, not that he was complaining.

He was about to go fetch his clothes when he heard a branch snapping to his left. He whirled around, his breath catching as he was met with the sight of a giant humanoid creature standing at the edge of the little clearing in front of his shack. The creature was tall, around 3 meters, its skin dark gray and leathery with lighter stripes crisscrossing its bare arms. Its broad face held a grin, showing a row of sharp teeth with incisors longer than the rest. It wore a fur, sleeveless vest, and a loin cloth. Its hand gripping an enormous bow, slightly drawn and pointed at him.

Hrazak Hunter, Level 6-10

Mikal froze; his first instinct had been to flee back into the shed, but the drawn bow had stopped him. He was afraid that any sudden movement would send an arrow through his chest. He stared dumbfounded at the creature who had seemingly appeared from thin air.

The Hrazak hunter spoke. Its voice is deep and throaty. It spoke on both in-breath and out-breath, creating a staggered speech pattern.

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Its words were punctuated by snorts and hawks. As the creature said the last syllable, it pointed with the bow at Mikal.

Hearing the creature speak in its baritone voice, Mikal felt sweat gathering on his brow and his pulse quickening. He interpreted the creature's gesture as it asking him who he was, so he tried to respond, hoping the creature could understand him.

"Umm, my name is... is Mikal. Nice to meet you." He was surprised at how meek and scared, but also excited his own voice sounded.

The creature jerkily shook its head with a palatal snort. It drew its bowstring back further. Mikal dived. Rolling towards the door as he hit the ground. He heard a thud, the large arrow piercing the dirt right where he had been. Mikal scurried into the shack, slamming the door closed behind him. Without really thinking, he jumped over the desk and showed it as hard as he could between the door and bed. The desk got caught on the divot in the floor. Not having time to lift it, he pushed. With a yell, he pushed with all his might. The desk flipped over and landed with a corner between the bed and the door. Mikal followed with it, landing with his hips on the edge of the desk. He gripped it and shoved the last little bit, pinning it against the door.

He heard what he assumed was the creature cursing outside before a BANG shook the entire shack. His breath caught in his throat, but the door held.

Bracing for the next impact, Mikals' mind raced. This creature had been out in the light. Which meant that it could wait him out indefinitely. Unlike the Ayoga which had only been out when it was night. Had he trapped himself? Should he have ran away instead of hiding in the shack?

BANG

The door held again, but this time, Mikal and the desk had been shoved back a little, before he pushed it back into place. "What do I do? This won't hold forever." he thought frantically. His palms clammed up, making it harder to hold onto the desk. He felt the fear well up into a crescendo inside him and he tried to focus his mind on finding a solution. "How do I survive this?"

"I am sorry! I will give you whatever you want!" Mikal shouted, hoping to placate the creature.

BANG

He heard a crack, and the middle of the door splintered, letting in a stream of light. A large splinter blocked the hole made in the door, filtering the light out to the sides. "Could I cast through that?" Would his sparrow fit through the gap? Would it just explode against the door, making the hole larger?

BANG

Half the head of a gray-white axe came through the door. Mikal stared as the axe was retracted from the door, leaving an axe-shaped slit. The creature's broad face appeared in the slit, its grin translating across species. I've got you now, it said. Mikal lifted his arm and flung it out, imbibing a sparrow with the momentum. For a split second, the shack was filled with a soft blue light before a bright blue flash illuminated the entire shack. Mikal heard a roar, and as the blue tendrils faded, he saw the slit in the door was now a hole large enough for him to fit his head through.

The creature's face appeared through the hole again, before disappearing. Mikal saw that one of the creature's eyes was shut, and black lines marred its face. A second later, an arrow thudded into the bed next to him, the sound of the arrow vibrating where it stood loud. He felt an icy chill go down his spine as he realized how fucked he was. The creature could just stay out there and fire in arrows until one eventually killed him.

Rolling to the side as another arrow thudded into the floor, he stood up. His spell was too unpredictable to fire from inside the shack; he would most likely just hit the door again. His heart galloped in his chest as an idea formed in his mind, he walked to the back of the shack, slowly peeking out the hole. His eyes found the creature standing a couple of meters back from the door, its bow aimed and drawn. Mikal extended his arm and jerked his arm towards himself, like grabbing an invisible rope. He willed the momentum from his fist into the spell. A second later, he saw a flash of blue and heard another roar and a dull thud as an arrow hit the door.

The sparrow had struck the creature in its back. Mikal peered out and saw the creature standing with its back to the shack, scanning the surrounding forest. He saw a black hole burnt in the creature's fur vest, still smoking. He repeated the earlier maneuver, but the creature saw the sparrow coming and dodged.

This would not be as simple as the venomspike. He focused his mind and fell into a boxing stance, and like he was shadowboxing, he started throwing punches from different directions. He visualized the creature standing right in front of him, summoning a sparrow with each strike. When the creature outside the shack dodged, Mikal's shadow opponent dodged. He fought the creature by proxy, reacting to its movements. The visualization was so clear that Mikal dodged aside when the creature would have hit him even though he was meters away from his actual opponent. He felt his will being drained with each strike but didn't have a good measure of how many he could cast before he was drained.

The creature dodged many of the sparrows, but a few landed. Leaving smoking marks on its body. The creature had realized the attacks was coming from him, and while dodging, it moved around the shack, away from Mikal's line of sight.

When Mikal lost sight of the creature, he was panting, his breaths raspy in his throat. All he could hear was the rasping of his own breaths and his pulse drumming in his ears. He stood utterly still, prepared for what the creature was going to do next. But nothing happened.

He lowered his hands, thinking the creature had fled. He slowly approached the door to get a broader viewing angle out of the hole. Suddenly, he saw a rush of movement approaching the door, and faster than he could react, the door blasted inwards. The hrazak hunter came following after, the creature had rushed the door down. But it had not calculated for the desk on the floor, and both the door and the creature got tripped by it. The door cracked and folded over the desk, the creature continuing forwards, crashing headlong into the back wall.

Mikal was blasted aside, striking the side wall, the back of his head bouncing off the wood. Head spinning, he slumped against the wall. The creature groaned, and Mikal came to. On the floor right in front of him lay the creature's axe. With blurry vision, he looked over at the creature, seeing it was coming out of its daze, too. He saw the creature trying to push itself off the floor. "If that thing attacks in here, I'm dead." Before he could think any further, he grabbed the axe and, with a primal roar, planted it in the creature's head.