With a dull thud, the girl's body collapsed to the ground.

As he listened to the women cry and scream, Zach fought his urge to vomit.

This was his first time witnessing someone die, he had seen blood before, but it was always his.

Luckily, Thomas quickly recovered from his shock.

"Kill it before it escapes Rob!"

The dazed fire mage pointed both his palms towards the scurrying creature and started casting a spell.

An orb of fire began to rapidly form in front of his hands.

About 5 seconds later, a melon-sized ball of fire shot towards the creature like a meteor.

After the fireball was about halfway to it, the furry creature finally began to sense danger and attempted to run.

However, it was too late, the fireball hit the ground about 2 feet from the creature and exploded.

Once the dust had settled, all that was left was a five-foot wide pit.

Shocked by the power of the spell, and still mourning, the people fell into silence.

After a few moments, David began to speak.

"I am deeply sorry for your loss. We must take this tragedy as a warning, though this world might be beautiful, even the smallest creatures pose a danger..."

"We need to secure our position, along with shelter and water. I suggest we stay in groups and secure this hill. Shout if you see another creature, and do not attempt to fight it alone!"

Though they were still scared, having a task gave the group something else to think about.

As Zach left with the group, he sighed; the girl's family was standing around the pit crying.

The sight of the girl's father letting her ashes sift through his hands would forever be burned in his memory.

Though her death was tragic, it had taught Zach one valuable thing.

When people surrounded him, it was hard for him to sense approaching monsters. Even with his high perception, spotting a small creature near a group of people was not easy.

This led Zach to the conclusion that he could not hunker down surrounded by people. Though he would risk having to face any dangers alone, it was far better than being surprised.

Zach was also confident he could survive on his own; he had spent many years as a boy scout.

However, taking care of others and providing for them, was something different entirely.

After they had walked around the hill, the group once again gathered.

"Okay, it seems like this hill is relatively safe. We have water, from the various ponds scattered around this location. So, we are now lacking only food and shelter."

"Food we can go a few days without, but we need shelter for protection. I suggest we gather some volunteers and get wood from the forest," David said.

"Sounds good to me, we will need wood for fires anyway. However, we should leave some people to protect those who want to stay here," replied Thomas.

"Whatever, but no one from my group is staying on guard duty," Andrei grumbled in agreement.

Before they left Zach told Thomas's group that he would be going off on his own. After wishing the other's good luck, Zach began to walk in the opposite direction they did.

Soon Zach reached the edge of the forest, he paused and took in his surroundings.

The trees had dark purple-green leaves, and the trunks were brown, similar to trees on earth. Amongst the dense trees were variously scattered dark-green bushes.

Zach noticed that some of the bushes were covered in yellow berries. His interest piqued, Zach drew his sword and walked towards a cluster of three bushes.

Right as Zach was about to lower his weapon and pick a berry, he felt something off.

A green and yellow streak suddenly shot towards his chest, Zach barely had time to react!

He slashed downward, at an angle, hitting the streak before it managed to reach him.

Zach looked at the snake's head, which had landed near his feet. Its four-inch fangs dripped venom, as its mouth opened and closed after death.

The snake was about six feet long and as wide as an arm. Its dark-green skin was dotted yellow, which enabled it to blend in perfectly with the berry-bushes.

The snake was much faster than the rabbit had been. If not for his perception, and the length of his sword, Zach doubted he could have killed it before it bit him.

After he had killed the snake several message bubbles had appeared, once he had calmed down, Zach began to read.

Congratulations on your first kill!

An Experience Bar will now be visible on your condition screen!

Experience messages will not be visible during combat.

Uncommon Enemy Slain: +125 Experience

Level Gap Multiplier: 1.6

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Net Experience gained: 200!

 Upon seeing the words "level gap" Zach inspected the snake's corpse.

 Zinviper (Uncommon): Level 3

The font was yellow, Zach assumed this meant it was dangerous to him.

Opening his condition tab, Zach viewed his experience.

Current Condition: Healthy

EXP: 200/1000

"Great, I only need to nearly die four more times to level up," Zach mumbled to himself.

Upon walking to the snake's corpse, Zach found a small red vial next to it.

Health vial (Poor Quality):

Restores 50 HP.

Ecstatic, Zach stored it in his pants pocket, this small vial could certainly get him out of a pinch.

Since the snake was guarding the bushes, Zach figured the berries were fine to eat and inspected them.

Zinberries (common):

Restore 5 Stamina.

After filling his pockets with Zinberries, Zach picked up the snake corpse, gathered a bundle of branches from a nearby tree, and began his trek back up the hill.

Zach stopped walking when he reached a small valley.

The valley was located about a quarter-mile from the forest, giving him a sufficient safety buffer.

It had a large pond and several boulders. Best of all, the surrounding hills made it impossible to spot him from the forest.

Satisfied with his location, Zach began building.

Using Colossal Blow Zach shattered a few boulders and arranged the smaller rocks into a fire pit.

Zach started a fire by using his strength to create friction between two branches.

Once the fire had been made, Zach skinned and sliced the snake meat, skewered it, and started to spit roast it over the fire.

After a few minutes, a delicious smell had spread. Ravenous, Zach rapidly consumed the entire snake, being forced to eat large quantities of jerky had increased his appetite greatly.

The meat tasted rather gamey but was still delicious. It provided him with a similar energetic effect to the jerky, though it was a less intense one.

While letting the snake skin sun on a rock, Zach walked back to the forest.

Once he arrived, Zach chopped down several smaller trees with his sword and cut them into a collection of logs.

After carrying a batch of logs to the valley Zach would repeat the process until a large pile of logs had gathered.

Zach debarked the logs and then left them to sit in the sun for about an hour, while he meditated.

After the logs were sufficiently dried, Zach began driving rocks into the ground, to increase its firmness.

Once a foundation had been built, Zach began to cut notches in the logs and wedge them together.

After a few hours, he had built a sealed rectangular cabin near his outdoor fire pit.

The cabin was roughly six by eight feet, it had to be large to fit his sword, and was windowless to preserve heat.

Its walls were made of stacked log, and its roof was built in a pyramid like fashion.

Its roof was covered in a collection of large-leaves and branches, with dirt in between the logs, to aid in making it waterproof.

The cabin even had a small door made of interwoven branches, that was tied on with fibrous vines.

Its interior was fairly bare, the floor was covered in slabs of rock, which had come from the boulders, and there was a small fire pit in the center of the cabin.

On the floor, there were several boxes made of woven twigs and branches, one of them contained the dried snakeskin.

Zach was rather satisfied with his work. The combination of his strength and the stamina from the tangy-Zinberries had enabled him to finish the cabin before nightfall.

In the process of building the cabin, Zach had also secured clean water.

He had hollowed several foot-long logs out, filled them with water from the ponds, and moved them to his cabin.

Zach then used his hands to directly pick up hot rocks and drop them into the logs, purifying the water.

Though the burns hurt, Pain Resistance made it bearable, and they healed after a minute or two. Having the water, made the pain entirely worth it.

As he watched the suns set, Zach shut the door to his cabin.

After drinking some water, Zach sat on a bed made of branches and began to meditate on his fight with the snake.

The short fight had been deeply burned into Zach's memory. Though he had managed to decapitate the snake, if his timing had been off by even a little he would have been poisoned.

Zach concluded that he should have used Earthen Barrier on his chest while counter-attacking the snake.

The snake's speed was great, but it likely was not powerful enough to bite through his Earthen Barrier; its deadliness came from its sneak attacks and venom.

Unfortunately, he had not yet reached a level of control where he could instantly use Earthen Barrier on part of his body.

He decided that learning to further control Earthen Barrier would become his number one priority.

Zach began meditating while attempting to control Earthen Barrier, this went on for several hours before he decided to sleep...

******************************************************************

After a few hours of sleep, Zach got out of bed, His back felt incredibly stiff from sleeping on a bed made of branches.

Stretching, Zach figured he would need to find some sort of animal fur to make his bed softer.

He was hungry, but before going hunting, he wanted to see how the others were doing.

After hanging his sword on his back, Zach made his way over to their campsite...

As he arrived, he noticed a few teepees surrounding what looked like the ashes of a bonfire.

Mostly everyone was still asleep, he supposed he hadn't realized how little sleep he had gotten used to.

After looking around, Zach walked over to Thomas, who appeared to have just woken up.

"Hey Thomas, I wanted to see how people were doing before I went hunting for breakfast."

Thomas's expression showed clear surprise, Zach figured he was not expecting to see him again.

"Shitty man, very very shitty. The children were hungry, so we went hunting multiple times yesterday, but there were only small creatures at the outskirts of the woods."

"Luckily, Rob made making a fire simple, and there is plenty of water in surrounding ponds. But I don't think anyone slept well, the ground isn't exactly soft."

"You guys should probably build more sturdy shelters then," Zach replied.

"We planned on doing that today. Oh, I forgot to mention, avoid Andrei, he's a ticking time bomb at the moment," Thomas said seriously.

"Why, what happened?"

"After his group killed a few level 0 creatures, being the moron he is, he thought going deeper into the woods would be a good idea. Apparently seconds later a green and yellow snake bit one of their mages and managed to escape into the bushes"

Thomas's expression warped into a mask of distaste and sadness.

"Apparently, even with their healer treating her the venom was simply too powerful..."

Zach's heart started to race, though he had only talked to her once Alice was rather nice, he did not want her to die due to Andrei's incompetence.

"Do you know if it was their spacial mage or their darkness mage?"

"It was their darkness mage, I think her name was Jenny. After their group got back they were all arguing, that's why I'd advise avoiding them."

Zach let out an inward sigh, he figured that if people were going to be stupid he should keep the others closer. If they were near him he could potentially save a few lives.

However, he did not want them to become reliant on him, that would only be a nuisance, and bad for them in the long-run.

"Thanks for the tip. By the way, I found some berry bushes on the side of the forest near me. I built my shelter in a small valley with a pond; If you want, you could move the group to the same valley."

"Hmm, we will probably do that then. It is a bit of a pain in the ass being this far from the woods anyway," Thomas replied, clearly excited by the discovery of a new food source.

"Cool, if you do move, my only request is that I don't want any shelters within fifty feet of mine."

Thomas was a bit startled by Zach's odd request; he clearly still held the view that there was strength in numbers.

"Okay, I will try to make sure no one build's anything too close to your area."

"Thanks, anyway see you later," Zach replied.

"See ya, and be careful."

As he watched Zach walk away, Thomas scratched his chin and sighed.

He could not wrap his head around why Zach was hunting alone.

It made sense that there was more EXP gained from solo-kills; however, fighting most creatures alone was tantamount to suicide in Thomas's eyes.

As he made his way to the forest, Zach's eyes shone with determination, no matter what, by sundown, he would be level two...