008

I’ve been moving around for more than two hours now, and all I can say is that this place is a lot more dangerous than the one I was in before.

In just the last two hours that I’ve been moving around in here, I’ve already encountered many different creatures. Most of them were herbivores, but there were still a few that looked very dangerous.

For example, I saw a small creature clinging to a tree, similar to a sloth, but what wasn’t similar to a sloth was its speed.

When I first saw it, it was hanging upside down on a branch just above a small black dog-like creature. The dog-like creature was the only creature that looked anything like an animal that I would see back home. Granted it had a very ferocious looking expression, but still.

While the dog was passing from below, the sloth just jumped, pushing itself down by kicking the very branch it was hanging down from.

The dog let out a wail, but it didn’t last long as the sloth used it sharp claws to pierce the neck of the dog so quickly and cleanly that it lost the ability to make any sound.

Its body was then carried away just as quickly.

I was thankfully watching all of this from a distance. Because of the increased stats, I can see and hear much better now, so I don’t need to be that close.

After that spectacle, let’s just say that I’ve been watching every single tree that I’ve passed under. Just the thought that something can come down that fast to stab me in the neck, is terrifying.

It was close to evening now. A few more hours and the sun would set. I want to say that I was lucky enough to find a cave or opening where I could rest but that wasn’t true.

I guess I wasn’t as lucky this time. The clothes that I was wearing were also clinging to my body now, thankfully with [Cold Resistance] being this high, it only feels uncomfortable and nothing else.

I was starting to feel a lot hungry now. The new skill had drained all the strength and energy that I had in my body.

And while I’ve been watching, my HP has been very slow to recover. Only the Qi is recovering at a normal rate.

My body wasn’t in the best condition either, my right shoulder that slammed into the tree took the worse hit.

I need to rest if I want it to recover completely. I’m afraid if I also don’t find something to eat, soon my HP that is slowly recovering will start to fall, making things way worse than they already were.

It was then that I noticed it, out of the corner of my eye, in the far distance.

It had white furry skin, looked very similar to a deer, also muscular, because why wouldn’t it be. It had antlers twice the size of a normal deer also being twice as sharp. They resembled blades more than anything else. Those things look like they can stab through a human like butter.

Even though it looked that majestic and dangerous, in my desperate eyes, it was nothing more than food.

I slowly walked towards the creature, trying very hard to not make any sound.

When I was about 100m away from it, I stopped.

Thankfully there are many trees here and I can hide behind them quite easily. I mostly hid out of fear that if it ran, I would not be able to catch up with it even with my [Sprint].

That also brings up another problem, even though I’m this close, I’ve yet to figure out how I’m going to hunt this thing…

If I try to get close to it some more, it will either run away or worse, run towards me. Both of which are a big no-no for me.

The only way I can take it down is if I take it down in one shot, which is a lot easier said than done.

If I fight it, I’ll definitely lose. But how do I take out an animal that size in one shot?

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I was scratching my head over this for a while when it clicked for me. I immediately put myself in action.

I grabbed the sturdiest looking branch I could find, and carefully broke it off without alerting the deer.

I moved from my original hiding location and found one where I got a straight view towards my prey with nothing in between. It was kind of a tricky location, but it will do, I only need it for a second anyway.

I held the branch in a stabbing position and held my breath as I didn’t know if this reckless idea was going to work or not.

Keeping my eyes on the deer, I calmed my breath, tightened my grip around the branch and with everything to lose on this gamble, activated my skill.

[Quick Dash]!

My vision blurred as the surrounding melted into one and I was propelled forwards like a tensed up rubber band being suddenly released.

The branch I was holding jammed itself into the body of the deer but as my aim was totally off, it hit the deer in the stomach rather than the head.

The deer started flailing around, but as I was still in the momentum of the skill, I carried the body of the deer with such force that the whiplash effect of the speed snapped the deer’s neck but not before the blade-like antlers almost stabbed me in the eye.

It missed my eye by a hair’s length. But it did get my face a little.

Both of us slammed right into the tree in the back. The impact this time was even worse as I had slammed myself with the intention of hurting the deer, of course I wasn’t spared the pain.

HP 23/96

I can’t believe I lost almost 70% of my health doing that. I can’t even imagine the scenario of me missing my attack. I would’ve definitely died, for sure.

I’ll have to be careful with this skill going forwards.

While making sure that the thing was really dead, I tried to jam the already-half-way-into-its-body branch even more.

[200 EXP gained.]

Lv.4 [244/600]

The skin on my hand had torn off due to the rough surface of the branch aided by the speed and power my hands rubbed against it.

I let go of the branch which had both my blood as well as the deer’s. I also take that moment to remove all the visible splinters from my skin.

It hurt like hell when I first let go of the branch, but now it’s like I’ve lost feeling in my hand.

Looking at them, the injuries might be bad, but at least I can still use my hands somewhat. I just hope when my HP recovers, my hands do as well.

I can’t imagine having to survive with injuries like these.

I take off my shirt and tear it in two. I wrap them around my hands and using the leftover I make a makeshift rope to carry the deer with me.

The reason I confidently removed my clothing is because of the [Cold Resistance] skill. Now that it is level 3, I no longer feel cold here.

Even when I’m touching ice, it feels like cotton to me.

My clothes are only here to cover my dignity at this point.

Speaking of dignity, I just noticed something.

“Are these my muscles…?”

My body feels very sturdy, even though I was in pain, I still felt like my body was in the best condition ever.

I knew I was getting stronger looking at my stats, but with my situation being like this, I never bothered to check what it was doing to my body.

I hauled over the body of the deer which was obviously heavier than my own body, but with my HP being more than double of my original, I didn’t have much difficulty in carrying it, it was still heavy though, I just mean that it’s possible to carry now.

I didn’t go far, I just looked for a place where there was little less snow around because I wanted to start a fire. I found such a place after a few minutes.

Of course, I checked the trees above before setting down.

First I began by removing the antlers. Since they were this strong and durable, I was thinking of making them into knives.

The antlers have a very blade-like shape to them, the base from where they are coming out of is very similar to normal antlers and are round, but as they go further out, they get thinner and sharper.

I used a rock and then used another slightly pointed rock to properly shape the first one like a knife. The shape ended up being similar to a drop shaped tablet.

The top was thin and sharp, with the base being more round and blunt.

“The longer I stay here the more caveman like I feel…sigh…”

But it was still better than nothing.

I then used the blunt part of the rock to break off the antlers at the base. I then very carefully used the same rock to cut and shape them into being more knife-sized.

I got about four of these out of the deer and I placed all of them into my pocket as they were small enough to fit.

I’ll just have to remember that I need to use this if I want to attack something in the future and not some stupid branch that will leave your hand filled with splinters.

I then proceeded to gut the deer as best as I could without gagging. As someone who had never even gutted a fish before coming here, I find such activity too much to handle no matter how many times I do it. I can only say that it is getting easier with time. I couldn’t afford to be comfortable.

I left the pieces to bleed out as I prepared the fire.

Using the antler knives, I attached a few pieces of meat around the fire and watched as it slowly cooked.

I stopped myself from drooling too much and putting out the fire. Maybe I was too engrossed in watching the food that I didn’t notice the new visitor that wanted to join me for dinner.