Day 40

I made bone tools. An ax in particular… sort of anyway. I grinded the bunny’s horn flat on a rock then wedged it into a leftover wolf femur and wrapped it up with dried vine. Going to try to figure out how to chop some bushes or trees down for wood. If I can make a raised bed of some sort maybe I won’t have to move from the cave…. I liked its safety, and I didn’t want to have to abandon it.

Day 51

I uh… chewed on some bone… don’t ask why. I was hungry….. I heard bone marrow is nutritious. It’s been a rough week, I couldn't catch any bunnies or jerboa…. so I chewed on a rib and found out something I can do.

It seems I can shapeshift. It was thoroughly startling. I bit down on the bone, and a skill activated…. It hurt a lot honestly. It felt like my skin was boiling before it melted off with fresh fur beneath… I was terrified. I checked the system, and apparently it was the skill [Right of Conquest]. That was the one that [Copycat] and [Shapeshifting] had combined into. Its description read: “A beast fallen, a corpse of a legend once past, consume the remnants of the strong to become strong. Such is the way of those who conquer, such is their right. To take the skills and strengths of those time left behind, and make them yours. That is what it means to conquer. But in consuming, there is always the risk of being consumed yourself.”

Thanks, system. That was fucking helpful. What I did know is that I grow claws, sharp teeth, fur, and some rock hard plates like the beast I consumed.

Day 60

Almost two months now… The walls are covered in tally marks, and my dagger is dull. No one is coming for me, are they? Everyone is dead after all. Why would anyone come to this hellscape? Why would anyone care about some mute child? I’m alone. I’m going to die alone out here. Fucking goddess… fucking world… fucking truck accident… I hate it here. I want to go home… I want a warm bed but have only a stone floor, I want a good meal but have only my mediocre cooking skill, I want a blanket but have only some shitty wolf pelt, I want to cry but I’m too dehydrated. I want my family but I fucking died.

Every day, I felt closer to doing so again.

Day 68

It’s been raining for a week straight. Everything is wet. My raised bed idea did not work. I woke up to being waterboarded. I am cold. I am wet. Maybe this is monsoon season? I don’t fucking know. The animals are mostly hiding - scarier monsters came out instead - so I have little food. It ruined what jerky I had going. I need to dry out my feathers as well… they are the only things that have looked out for me here…

Day 70

I had no choice but to leave the cave. It was filled with too much water. I don’t like the idea of being in the open or something but it’s better than drowning. I heard sounds of beasts fighting in the distance and that terrifying whistle again… it was far away so I couldn't gather the feathers. I need to avoid whatever they are. I haven’t seen another wyvern yet but I don’t plan to look for one either. The feathers kept a small patrol of wolves away as I left the cave. They’d probably investigate once I was far enough away. I used to think wolves were so cute… same for bunnies as well… I wonder if I’ll ever be able to look at a squirrel without feeling guilty again…

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Day 71

I had been traveling through the rock formations for most of the day…. these feathers, they had been my lifeline so far. The wolves seem to avoid any trace of the feathers. I was left idly wondering just what was the owner of them. But my thoughts wouldn't be allowed to linger long.

As soon as I had tried to rest in the shade of a rocky overhang, a sharp pain struck my left shoulder. It took a second to even register the pain. I felt the heat of blood dripping down my shoulder first and saw that now embedded in it was a large serrated spine attached to the end of a tail. This tail was leading up to a lizard the size of a German shepherd clinging to the overhang.

This bastard… it was waiting for something to rest in the shade! It let out a hiss before it ripped its tail blade out of my shoulder, tearing flesh with it, and swung that blade again. Narrowly ducking out of the way I grabbed my dagger and launched it into the back of the lizard, but even though it hit, it only stabbed a few inches deep. That was enough to cause it to squirm in pain.

Unfortunately for it, that was all the time I needed to grab its long tail and pull it to the ground, the lizard landing on its back shoving the dagger deeper in. Thankfully due to its squirming it wasn’t clinging to the overhang as much as it would be normally. With its tail still in my hand struggling to break free I jumped onto the lizard and forcibly pushed it into the lizard's skull. Its skin was thick, and I struggled to dig the tailblade deeper, especially with only a single arm. I don't know how long it took wrestling with the damn lizard, but it had eventually stopped struggling. All I knew is that its struggles grew weaker faster than mine did. This left me to slit its throat with its own tailblade. A wave of relief fell over me as I heard the system in my head.

[Hatchling Blade Lizak Lvl 16 defeated.]

Ha… that damn thing was a hatchling? Like… a baby right? What the hell did they look like fully grown? As those thoughts wandered in my mind, the wound in my arm healed from the level up.

From all the bunnies and jerboa I had been killing, I had managed to get to level 14… and that scaly bastard bumped me up to 15. Now it was mine… I rolled it over and ripped my dagger out of its back. It had been getting pretty dull, so perhaps this was the perfect chance.

This blade lizak as it was called presented an opportunity. Its tail ended in a calcified curved blade. Honestly it looked like it came right out of a certain hunting game. If I could just cut it off, I was sure I'd be able to just use it as a new dagger. The only problem was… well, actually cutting it off. This lizak's skin was annoyingly tough, so much so I was half tempted to skin it right then and there and wear it for defense. My ax, my dagger, both of them were struggling to make it through the flesh. I even tried triggering that [Right of Conquest] skill by chewing on the body to see if I’d get any traits that would help. It worked, but after a painful molt, all I wound up with was weird vision, a tail that threw off my balance, and a scaly hide.

Eventually I settled for gambling my dagger by beating it with a rock to force it through the lizaks tail. It worked… but I ended up chipping the dagger. Now I could only hope the tailblade would be worth it. After all, I essentially just traded my dagger for it.