The hum of a transport’s propellers woke Nate from his slumber. For a second, he had thought that the crash in the wilderness had been a nightmare. But then he realized he was still inside the tree hollow and the humming of the transport was moving. As he sat up, Nate listened to the sounds that could be heard off in the distance.

It seemed that someone had come to investigate the crash.

Realizing this might be his only chance at getting rescued from this dangerous place, Nate grabbed onto the insides of the tree and struggled to pull himself onto his feet. When he finally stood up, all he could do was wince at the throbbing pain in his leg. His body aches were not as bad as they were before he lay down, but he was still quite sore. Walking over to the opening in the tree, he realized that he would have to use some effort to get back out of the hole.

Nate decided that it was worth the effort and moved back to pack up his few belongings. Having no chance of climbing up with his backpack, he threw the small pack through the tree opening onto the ground outside. Then, he mustered up his strength and began to pull himself up to the opening.

After some struggle, Nate made it out of the tree hollow. He had taken quite a while to climb out of the tree, so he could only worry about getting to the rescue group before they left. Picking up his backpack off the ground, he made his way toward the sound of the transport.

Despite his rush, Nate couldn’t bring himself to just full outrun to the sound of the transport. He was hurt badly and still had to be cautious of beasts. With an extra vigilant effort, Nate began to move away from the tree slowly.

Someone watching would have found comedy in his half walking and half crawling movements through the forest. Nate was trying his best to take advantage of his [Silent Crawl] skill to reduce his chances of being spotted by a wild beast. The large beast attacking the transport had made him very cautious of these monsters in the wild.

The movement was painfully tiring as he traversed the rugged terrain. With the physical effort and injured body, Nate had to stop to rest quite frequently. He could still hear the transport running off in the distance, so he knew that the rescue crew must still be investigating the crash. From his estimate, he was about halfway between the tree hollow and the transport crash site. The distance wasn’t far for a healthy person, but for someone in Nate’s condition, the route was an epic journey.

After climbing up on top of a higher tree root, Nate found a comfortable spot and sat down to recover from the hike. Staring out into the forest while he caught his breath, Nate couldn’t keep from being drawn to the forest scenery. The terrain was a mixture of massive trees with diameters larger than most of the buildings in Grey Sector. The tangle of tree roots on the forest floor overturned boulders and rocks from the earth. The areas not taken over by tree roots or hardened earth were covered in varying degrees of vegetation and fallen leaves and branches from the large trees. Some forest areas were too thick to walk through without considerable effort. Some places were too open to feel safe from beasts.

Looking out over the forest, Nate smiled at the sight. He had always dreamed of seeing the wilderness when he was younger. Now, he had finally been given the chance. Over the last couple of days, he had seen trees and grass for the first time. He actually touched them. But with the commotion of trying to survive, he hadn’t had a chance to sit and enjoy the new experiences. As he sat on the tree root, the surreal feeling was quite enjoyable.

With his breath returning, he stood up to continue moving towards the transport vehicle. But after a few steps, Nate paused in his tracks. His eyes still roving over the landscape in front of him, questions started to pop into his head.

Where was he going? Was he really going to get saved to just be sent to work in the mines for the rest of his life? If sent to the mines, would he only see the sky, the trees or the sun again?

Did he really want to be rescued?

His mind went back to what the guard had said the day the transport crashed. Although the guard had abandoned him, Nate still respected the decision to try to survive in the wild instead of being told what to do by the city. He would never live well while forced to work in a production job to support the City’s activities for his entire life. Now, his future was even worse than the factory life in the Grey Sector. Now, he was getting sent off to work in the mines.

With a spontaneous decision, Nate turned around and began to move backward to try to find the tree hollow he was inside a few minutes before. He decided that he wasn’t going to work in the mine. His chances of death working in the mines were probably just as high as they were in the wilderness. Why not try to survive out here? Everything that happened to him would be up to his own effort and luck. No one else was controlling the outcome.

[Will Stat has increased by 3]

[Wisdom Stat has increased by 2]

The ding of the system notifications was like a confirmation to Nate that he had made the right decision. A smile crept onto Nate’s face at the thought. This decision was the first decision that he had ever made that was really 100 percent his own. Everything about his life had been basically controlled while living in Newcomb City. But now, he was free and it felt wonderful despite the potential dangers.

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After spending some time moving back through the forest, Nate began to recognize the familiarity of the path in front of him. Looking ahead through the open forest floor, Nate could finally see the hole that led to the tree hollow up ahead. Since he made his decision to stay, he had already started to consider this place as his new home. Walking and crawling his way towards the tree, he felt wonderful despite feeling the pain of his body.

[‘Mental Calm’ has increased to Level 8]

[‘Silent Crawl‘ has increased to Level 3]

[‘Pain Resistance’ has increased to Level 2]

Nate smiled at the continued notifications. He felt he really had made the right decision. His progression was making him very happy and confirming his ideas. But just as he was about ten paces away from the tree, an explosion sounded throughout the forest. The massive percussion that followed the explosion reverberated through Nate’s body as he dove to the ground in terror.

After the explosion shook the forest, Nate scrambled back to the tree hollow for safety. His mind was in disarray over the incident, but he eventually calmed down enough to think. By his best guess, the rescue and salvage crew that landed at the crash site must have decided to destroy the scene of the transport crash for some reason. With his ears still ringing from the explosion, he could barely hear the transport moving back off into the distance.

What reason would there have been to completely destroy the crash site? Nate considered himself lucky that he didn’t move closer to the wreck. With his slow pace, he would have most likely missed the salvage crew and gotten himself caught up in the explosion.

As he sat recovering, Nate mentally came to grips with the big life changes that had just occurred. The explosion had added some sort of finality to the situation. Nate was going to have to live in the wilderness by himself from now on. He had no other choice but to survive on his own.

Nate just spent a few minutes just staring around the inside of the tree hollow until a stomach growl disrupted the silence.

Opening up his backpack, Nate pulled out one of the nutrition bars and started to eat. These meal bars weren’t the best, but Nate had eaten them quite frequently at work. The bars gave enough calories to keep you going all day, so they were handed out regularly in the factories to keep employees productive. Shortly after chowing down on the nourishment bar, Nate began to feel like he had a bit more energy. Luckily, he had thrown a few of these meal bars into his bag when he was packing his belongings. And he even had enough left to last him a week.

As he sat munching on his food, Nate decided to pull up his system interface to check on his progress.

—————————————————-

Name: Nathaniel Redsun

Level: 0 (Exp. 40/50)

Health: 39/100

Energy: 1/0

Primary Class: None

Secondary Class: None

Stats:

Speed: 1 Agility: 1

Stamina: 2 Strength: 1

Intelligence: 5 Perception: 2

Wisdom: 4 Will: 8

Stat Points Available: 0

General Skills:

Mental Calm (Passive)(Level 8)

Silent Crawl (Passive) (Level 3)

Pain Resistance (Passive)(Level 2)

Dark Vision (Passive)(Level 1)

————————————————-

Looking over his stats and skills, Nate was really pleased with his progress. He had never heard of someone getting so many skills at such a quick pace.

After finishing up his meal, Nate began to feel extremely thirsty. It had been a while since he had something to drink and his thirst started to get the better of him. The only way he could get water would be to venture outside to search for some sort of water source.

Nate took the healing ointment from his bag and put some on the worse of his wounds. He then sat in semi-comfort as he tried to formulate some sort of plan for the future. As he thought over his situation, Nate took the chance to fully investigate everything inside the tree. The light of day was just right to let him see most of the features inside the tree.

Maybe because its size was similar to his old home in the City, Nate really felt at ease in this place. With his immediate survival no longer in question, Nate still decided to try to make his tree home a bit more secure. He needed some protection at the entrance to his new home inside the tree.

“Maybe I can make something to protect the entrance,” Nate planned as he looked around the tree hollow to see what he could do to improve. The space inside the tree was practically empty, so he had a blank slate at what he could do. He did remember crawling past as few piles of fallen tree branches when going out earlier, so he knew that some materials were available nearby.

After making the decision to go out, Nate gathered up his things in his backpack and cautiously left the safety of his hideout to gather up some branches and search for water.

Nate crawled around the small area around his tree for about an hour with no luck finding any source of water. The lack of success didn’t surprise him since he didn’t travel far at all. He was still somewhat hesitant to go far from the safety of the tree. He did manage to find some pretty sturdy sticks though.

Looking around the inside of his tree cubby, Nate began to feel good about his situation. The small space now held a makeshift bed in the dirt, Nate’s pack and a pile of sticks. He felt like he was really making some progress in his new abode. Going through the sticks, Nate found a few of the sturdier branches and began fastening them together with some cloth strips he had pulled free from one of his extra shirts.

The completed door to the tree hollow wasn’t spectacular, but it might deter some beast from trying to climb inside while he was sleeping. Nate felt a little more at ease with the makeshift door leaning on the entrance. However after the makeshift protection was completed, Nate found himself starting to get bored just sitting around. Despite going out twice and moving around a good bit, Nate estimated that the day still had four or five more hours of sunlight.

Trying to think of safe things to do inside the tree, Nate remembered the book that the Sector Administrator had given him. He reached into his bag and pulled out his copy of the “Divine Light of the Singularity.” The light falling inside the tree was just enough to make out the words to the text, so Nate decided to read.