The first thing Sarah did upon standing up was fall over. To be fair, she hadn’t realized just how much pain would come from putting weight on her injured left leg. Then, to make matters worse, she’d tried to regain her balance by grabbing one of the thicker of the remaining branches on the dead tree…but she’d instinctively done so with her left hand, since her spear was in her right hand, but her left arm was still mostly numb and…well…things went predictably from there.
This time, Sarah didn’t feel any need to immediately rise from the ground. She did shimmy over and put her back against the nearest living tree, but that was mostly for comfort’s sake.
The reason for her suddenly relaxed state of mind was simple: she’d finally spotted the [Horned Fox]. The unmoving creature was sprawled across the trunk of the fallen tree, its neck at an angle that Sarah was quite certain should not naturally occur.
Congratulations! You have gained combat experience. You have also taken the first step to earning the skill [Combat Proficiency: Unarmed]. Interact with a town monument or speak with a combat instructor to learn more.
Somehow, as improbable as it seemed, the fox had taken Sarah’s feet from under her in just such a way that she then landed directly on top of the unfortunate animal. So, unintentional body slamming counted as unarmed combat? Sarah grimaced and fought down a swell of nausea as she remembered the feeling of things breaking beneath her and realized not all of them had been branches.
With an effort of will, she pushed the thought aside. She was injured and alone, and out of sight of any village or other potential source of aid; now was not the time to get hysterical.
Sarah paused at that thought and examined her emotions. Nope, no hints of hysteria. Huh. That was probably good; a sign that she’d be able to adapt to her new reality without too much trouble. Excellent. But first, she was bleeding. That should probably be addressed.
She pulled out her single roll of bandages, along with her water skin, and started cleaning and treating her various wounds. The white fabric felt like thin cloth as she pulled it off the roll but it adhered directly to her skin when applied to a wound, allowing her to trim off small lengths for each injury with her belt knife, instead of trying to wrap the stuff around her entire body like some low-budget The Mummy knock-off. (This unexpected feature in the System-provided bandages was especially fortunate and convenient since the single small roll was nowhere near long enough to cover her entire body, though she did derive a certain amount of satisfaction from imagining how the as-yet-unknown aliens might react to her shuffling into their village, arms extended, bandages trailing, theatrical moaning interspersed with helpless giggles...yeah, probably wouldn't be the best first impression...might be worth it though...probably a good thing she didn't have enough bandages to follow through...drat.)
As she worked, hissing with pain each time she extracted a larger-than-preferred splinter (although zero splinters would have been an even more preferable state of things) or carefully sluiced bits of powdery old bark from bloody abrasions, Sarah reflected on the frantic few minutes just past.
It had been the first time, she realized, that she had faced something that represented an immediate and physical threat to her life. She paused her medical ministrations for a few seconds as she marveled at what a safe and sheltered life she had lived. Sure, she’d always known that death was a possibility, something that was eventually present in every life, whether experienced or merely witnessed, but for Sarah, death had remained a relatively abstract thing, something to be avoided as a matter of principle as much as anything else. It was why she’d never given in to her roommate’s urgings to take up smoking, for she disliked the thought of dying from lung or throat cancer. (She also thought the smell of nicotine was nasty but that was, admittedly, a matter of preference.)
In short, (unless one counted such things as rude cyclists zipping down pedestrian walkways or bees annoyed at a disturbance to their daily duties for the hive) she had never before been faced with an urgent and violent threat to her life and physical well-being…until today and the [Horned Fox]…and she was not proud of how she’d handled it.
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“I definitely did not keep my cool,” she muttered to herself, before indulging in a weak chuckle. “I can’t believe I got so worked up over horned rabbits! I mean, yeah, I always thought they were a little unrealistic, but, wow! At least no one heard that little rant.”
Her eyes went to the limp form nearby and her mouth turned down sadly.
“Well, no one who can gossip about it, anyway.”
She sighed and put away the last scraps of unused bandages. She’d have to find someone with medical skills to properly clean and treat her injuries but at least she wasn’t going to leave a trail of blood through the forest. (That would have attracted very much the wrong kind of notice from the local wildlife and she wasn’t eager to know what else wandered these woods.)
Her left arm had by now mostly recovered, though the muscles still felt a bit weak and tingly and a massive bruise was already forming on her elbow. Her left leg was also turning nasty colours, but she’d examined it as well as she could and had come to the conclusion that none of the bones were completely broken, though she couldn’t entirely rule out fractures.
The muscles, at least, were massively bruised, possibly the bones as well, and she would have very much liked to whip out a cell phone, dial the local emergency number, and wait for that wonderful thing called an ambulance to come along and carry her off to a hospital, where she would be examined, and treated, and given that even more wonderful thing called pain medication.
Alas, the world in which such things existed, as she had known them anyways, was no more, and she did not have the luxury of waiting for rescue. Well, she could try it, she thought, before adding (with a good dose of mental snark) that such a course of action would be, quite possibly, the most idiotic choice she could make in her present circumstance. Therefore, being the completely non-idiotic person that she was (no matter how often she occasionally told herself otherwise), Sarah made the eminently intelligent and logical choice to get off her ass and help herself.
Using her [Crude Wooden Spear] as a crude wooden cane, Sarah hoisted herself to her feet and hobbled painfully over to the dead [Horned Fox]. As she looked down at the orange eyes, once bright and alert, now dull and empty, Sarah realized every bit of terror she’d felt before had vanished, leaving only sadness and sombre regret.
For whatever reason, the fox had decided she was prey. She felt not a scrap of shame for prioritizing her own life over that of an animal, but the creature hadn’t attacked her out of any malicious intent; it had simply been following its nature. That such resulted in the animal’s death saddened her, for the [Horned Fox] had been a beautiful and vibrant creature, and now it was a limp and empty thing of flesh and bone and hide.
Sarah braced herself on her good leg, leaned her spear against some partially intact branches, and gently, respectfully, lifted the fox’s body (though not without a grunt of effort, for the thing was much heavier than it looked). [Keen Eye] was telling her that something about the fox was valuable, probably the horns and the pelt, but she was in no mood to investigate. She lowered the corpse into [Dimensional Storage], once again marveling at the way things much larger than her belt pouch could nonetheless vanish within.
She could sense that the animal’s body took up most of the remaining space in her [Dimensional Storage], at least at her current level of the skill, but she wasn’t worried. She had no intention of wandering off the road again before she found the promised community she was supposed to join. She didn’t care how many treasures she passed by, they weren’t worth the risk, especially now that she was injured.
With a deep breath of crisp forest air, Sarah closed her belt pouch, took up her spear, and began the painful process of crawling back over the fallen tree to the road.
There had been some good lessons in that incident, she decided. The first was that she said stupid things when she was scared. She might want to be careful about that when around people of alien cultures; one never knew what might cause offence.
The second was more of a good reminder than a lesson; a reminder that death was real, and final. A reminder that killing, while sometimes unavoidable and sometimes even necessary ought never to be taken lightly.
Sarah resolved to never again think of this tutorial as “not real”. She would treat every part of it with due respect for potential danger, and learn how to survive anything that might be thrown at her. She would not allow herself to develop careless habits. It was the best way to make sure she didn’t end up like the fox when the human race eventually got dropped back into the real world.
Heaving a sigh of relief, Sarah finally set foot back onto the road. She stood for a moment, simply enjoying the smell of the air and the warmth of the sun, before setting out once more towards wherever it was the road was taking her.
A thought suddenly popped into her head and she couldn’t help but snort out a laugh in morbid humour: if this was Easy mode, she pitied the poor, arrogant fools who’d chosen Suicide.