"It is important to note that while there are certain classes that have a minimum rarity, such as [Swordmaster] always being at least rare, there is no maximum rarity for a class, so there could be someone who has the [Swordsman] class at rare, even though it is generally a common class. As such, when recruiting make sure to ask for the rarity of their classes as opposed to actual class names."
-Tel'Thas talking to his guild recruiters.
----------------------------------------
While we had decided the hunting groups already, since Leo's sister hadn't tamed anything yet, and apparently her level five skill was a buff that only worked on tamed creatures, it was decided that she would go out with Leo, Jason, and myself to get something to tame, as we were the only ones really capable of restraining something without killing or seriously injuring it. Once that was decided, we set out for the nearby forest, only taking five to ten minutes before we crossed the clearing and went into the treeline, which almost felt like stepping into a different world, as the treeline was far thicker at the border for some reason, completely blocking our view of the ruins, instead, we only saw vibrant greens and browns as trees as thick as my waist were dotted every few meters with the forest floor covered in various mosses, shrubs, and the occasional mushroom.
Pausing to take a deep breath of the vibrant and crisp air, the others and I set out to try and find something suitable for Evelynn to tame, all the while trying to stay close to the thick wall of trees that marked the border of the forest in order to avoid getting lost. Even though we did see some animals, it seemed that in the real world things weren't quite as aggressive as in the tutorial, or at the very least had more self-preservation, as the few animals we did see ran away after seeing us, sometimes before we even saw them, only noticing them due to the noise they made by running. It took us around two hours before we finally managed to sneak up on a lone level 10 deer, which judging by the maw of teeth that it was currently using to eat the corps of what seemed to be a giant rat, had abandoned it's herbivorous ways, and once we all got a good look at it, Leo turned to whisper to his sister.
"Well, that looks like it could be strong, you want us to try and catch it?"(Leo)
"N-no, I don't think I could handle being near that, and its too high level for me."(Evelynn)
Saying so with a pale face and a rapid shake of her head, we nodded, but decided to still fight it since it was quite large and would likely feed us for a day or two before it goes bad, though I was no expert on meat safety and I doubted the anti spoiling whatever that the tutorial had was still in effect. With another whispered conversation to make sure everyone knew what to do, mostly Leo being overprotective of his sister and making sure she would stay behind him, we initiated the fight with an attack from all of us except Leo, me with a crystal spike worth 50 mana, Jason with a card charged with lighting, and Evelynn with a rock fired from the slingshot she got as a starting weapon, since the gauntlet that shoots crystals was left with the others just in case.
*THUNK ZAP SQUELCH*
All of our attacks landed on the body of the deer, but they weren't enough to take it out, and with a visible rage in its unnervingly front-facing eyes, it rapidly charged at us, only to be intercepted by Leo who sank his blade into its ribcage while it was stunned from the abrupt end to its charge. With Leo actively sawing at its guts plus the injuries from our initial volley, it didn't take long before it fell, the system notification confirming its death and letting us know that its full species was predator deer, and apparently giving Evelynn 250 EXP. Quickly slitting its throat to drain the blood, an action that we expected to make Evelynn squeamish, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, had no effect due to the fact that she had likely seen worse in the tutorial, we decided to take it back to our shelter and have some lunch before coming back and continuing to search for something for her to tame, as hauling the deer around the whole day was both difficult and dangerous due to its size and stench of blood. Luckily, our walk back was fairly uneventful, though we did see a few other people that eyed us and the deer we carried, but ultimately kept their distance as we went to our new home and dropped off the carcass.
Unfortunately nobody in our group had a way to refrigerate it or otherwise keep it from spoiling, but the store did have a small backroom with no windows that we could store it in to keep it out of the heat, and Jackson's dad had a [Tanner] class that apparently gave him a skinning skill, so we were able to butcher the deer much better than we thought we would, and since Jackson's mom had a [Cook] class, she was able to use the meat alongside some berries we had gathered, and that my mom used her [Botanist] class to confirm the edibility of, to make a much more satisfying meal than any of us had had in a while. After eating, I made some new tools for 100 mana, since I had forgotten to make some before we left, and we gathered the organs and refuse from the carcass using Leo's expanded shield as a tray in order do dump it in the forest.
Once we were back in the forest, and had used an abundance of water to wash off Leo's shield, we once again started looking for a suitable creature, this time paying more attention to stealth and trying to be as quiet as possible. Similarly to last time, we only saw monsters as they ran away from us, but this time Jason was ready, throwing out glowing blue cards whenever we heard a noise, missing most of them, but eventually managing to hit a brown blur and managing to leverage the first brief stun to hit it with more cards until Leo got to it and held it down. Examining it now that it was held down, it was revealed to be a level four flying squirrel, and while I was no wilderness expert, I was pretty sure it was much larger than usual as it was as large enough to cover Leo's whole torso when it was fully extended. After a quick glance to Evelynn, where she nodded her confirmation in wanting to tame this one, me and Jason moved to help Leo in holding it down, me grabbing its left arm while Jason took its right and Leo moved to hold down its legs.
While we held it down, which was thankfully not particularly difficult with the three of us, Evelynn went to the squirrels head and looked into its eyes, which snapped to her a second after she crouched down. There was no visible effect that would indicate that she was using her taming skill, but there was a clear strain on her face as she and the squirrel maintained eye contact, which she broke after around a minute with a tired but happy smile. Seeing her smile and feeling the squirrel stop resisting we slowly got off of it, only to flinch as it darted towards Evelynn, barely managing to stop our attacks when she signalled us as the squirrel climbed her back and rested on her shoulder, somewhere between the size of a cat and a ferret when it wasn't splayed out.
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
After taking a few seconds to pet and nuzzle with her new companion, Evelynn turned towards us and shared its stat screen along with the information that she gained 100 EXP for succeeding in her taming.
Name:
N/A Race: Flying Squirrel(+2 END +2 STR +4 DEX per level) Level: 4 SP: 4 Subspecies: Giant Flying Squirrel(Common, +2 END, +2 STR per level) Titles: N/A EXP 640 EXP to next Level 800 Mana 40/40 Stamina 50/180 STR: 19 INT: 2 DEX: 22 WILL: 4 END: 21 WIS: 2 Skills: [Scratch 1/10] Traits: N/A
[Scratch 1/10] Increase strength and sharpness of claw attacks.(+2% per level)
Seeing a monsters stat sheet for the first time was interesting, as the only difference that I could see, besides the racial stat bonuses which were greater than what human gave, was that instead of classes they had subspecies. It made me wonder if the basic system analyze gave the general species while the kill message gave the subspecies, and if that meant that killing people would tell you their class, though I hoped that that particular question would remain unanswered. It also made me wonder if they would get a second subspecies at level 10, or if they unlocked classes or some other third thing, since I had a gut feeling that the system wouldn't limit them to just race and subspecies.
Those questions could wait however, as we all congratulated Evelynn and took turns petting her squirrel, which seemed happy with the attention and ear scritches. With both objectives for the day done, having gathered food and tamed a monster, but still a solid few hours before it started getting dark, we decided to spend the rest of the day helping Evelynn get used to fighting with her new friend and possibly getting a level for one or both of them, since neither were too far off from their next level. Just like that, we spent the next few hours searching for, and only occasionally fighting, various forest creatures. We tried to only target lower levelled ones and staying out of the fight as much as possible to let Evelynn get as much experience as possible, both practical and system, and in the process we learned that whatever it is that reduced EXP gain for groups seemed to count her and her squirrel, which she ended up naming Sir Lora after one of her favorite video games, as one entity, so for the fights she was able to do without any help she got far more EXP, managing to level both of them and get them a solid chunk of the way to the next level before we started heading back to the city, though it helped that everything seemed to be at least level five and while we didn't hunt any big game, we dig get a few squirrels, rabbits, and a single fox to bring back alongside some more berries.
Once again, we ran across some people as we crossed the clearing to get to the city, but this time they actually approached us, intercepting our group once we got close to the city, they didn't seem hostile, approaching slowly and seeming more tense than what you'd expect from aggressors, but we all drew our weapons and put up our guards just in case. They were a group of five, wearing more than their starting gear but not fully equipped, all right around level five with the exception of the man who stepped forward to talk, who was level 10, he was a rather large man with sun-weathered skin that made it so he wouldn't be out of place at a construction site were it not for the armor he wore and the cutlass hung on his waist.
"Hey there, we don't want any trouble, just wanted to ask a few questions if that was alright."(Guy)
He spoke with a steady voice and had both hands displayed to show his lack of aggression, and while the group behind him was guarded none of them actually had their weapons pointed at us, though they were drawn.
"What kind of questions?"(Leo)
Leo responded with a steady voice, and while he put his sword down, I saw him tighten his grip on his shield just in case. Once Leo put his weapon down, the rest of us followed suit, none of us wanting to start an unnecessary conflict, especially one with other humans. Seeing us lower our weapons made a smile appear on his face as those behind him became visibly less tense.
"Just wanted to ask what kinds of things you encountered in there, and let you know that there is something of a group forming amongst some of us to re-establish some kind of society, if you're interested."(Guy)
"That so. I won't give an answer about joining any groups right now, but as for the forest, most of what we encountered was somewhere between levels five and ten and were a lot more skittish than in the tutorial, but that could be due to our levels so I wouldn't trust that too much, none of what we saw had any special traits, just bigger and stronger versions of regular animals."(Leo)
The information seemed to make the other party slightly more relieved, though I did notice a flash of disappointment from the man who was talking, but it only lasted a second before he responded with a smile.
"Well, thank you for the information and if you decide to you want to check out our group, there's a somewhat intact fountain over that way and we have been using the buildings around it as housing, be careful out there I heard that we aren't the only group forming and some of them don't seem too friendly."(Guy)
After pointing to an eastern part of the city and giving us a final warning, he rejoined his group and they all set off in the direction that he had pointed to. Once they were out of earshot we once again started walking back to our home, this time entering the city from a bit farther away and winding our way through some alleys and broken buildings before getting back, all the while talking about how factions of survivors had already started forming and what it would mean for us going forwards.