Nathan reached up and rubbed his forehead. How did he manage to accidentally get a sword and a rifle within ten seconds of each other?
Water dripped in the background. He stared over at the sword. It was a heavy sword. He could see that when it fell, bits of the rock floor had chipped off from the sheer weight of the crash.
Nathan reached down and picked it up.
It was as light as a feather in his hand.
Why was there a rifle and a sword down there at all?
Fine, the sword he could accept. But a rifle!?
…
Did it still work?
He picked it up and clicked some of the buttons. After a moment, he aimed it up at the wall of the cave and fired.
The muzzle of the gun flashed and Nathan’s eardrum erupted in pain. He dropped the gun to the ground and brought his hands to his ears.
“Agh, bad idea,” he muttered. “Don’t fire off a gun without hearing protection.”
After the pain passed away, he looked down at the gun.
A flicker of hope lit up inside him. With a gun, maybe he had a chance against the more dangerous monsters.
But how had he gotten them in the first place? Was it like his farming games, where you had a chance to get items from fishing?
He had a strong suspicion that his skills had something to do with all this.
“Skills,” he said.
Nothing.
“System.”
Nope.
“Menu.”
At that, a window popped up in front of Nathan.
Nathan Lee - Lv. 10
Age: 22
Race: Human (Copper)
Class: N/A
Stats:
Strength: 3 (+27) = 30
Dexterity: 4 (+3) = 7
Constitution: 1 (+5) = 6
Magic: 3 (+5) = 8
Luck: 12 (+15) = 27
Available Stats: 36
Skill List:
[Reel] (Diamond)
[Bait] (Diamond)
[Cast] (Diamond)
[Basic Inspect] (Copper)
Achievements:
[Monster Catch], [Fish Out of Water], [Against All Odds], [First Blood], [Do you have any idea how long it’ll take to patch this?]
Nathan’s heart quickened. His stats were through the roof from those pluses. Where were those even coming from? He clicked through them to check each of the descriptions.
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Each of them was as expected. Strength governed his ability to lift big things, Constitution helped with healing and bodily toughness, et cetera, et cetera. What stuck out to him was his high luck.
“I sure as hell don’t feel lucky,” he said. “If I was lucky, I wouldn’t be in this mess.”
He clicked on the stat description.
[Luck determines several abstract, difficult to define things. The most noticeable change will be increased chest loot rarity and increased catch rate and catch rarity.]
Increased catch rate and catch rarity.
He looked over at the rifle. Could it be that he was just… that lucky?
If he could keep getting strong weapons, could he have a chance, even against crazy monsters like the skeleton titan? Maybe, in the long run, he might even be able to avoid fighting. Maybe fishing wasn’t as weak as everyone thought, at least if you had a build optimized for it.
If I got something strong enough, I might be able to blow away the monsters in one easy blow. I’d be safe, I’d never get hurt again.
Nathan felt goosebumps rush up his skin. Earlier, he felt that he had zero chance of survival, but with this…
He clicked on his skills to see what bonuses they were giving him at the moment. [Reel] decreased his catch difficulty by 35%. [Bait] increased catch rarity and catch rate by 20%. [Cast] allowed him to cast his fishing rod with higher accuracy and speed. It also increased… fishing pole damage by 15%.
He clicked on the last skill, [Basic Inspect] (Copper).
[Basic Inspect]
Allows you to get a basic description of an object or lifeform.
His eyes wandered down to the last section. Achievements. He clicked on the first one.
[Monster Catch]
Description: Not only did you catch something, but it also tried to kill you. And you won.
Reward: +12 Strength, +5 Constitution
His eyes widened. So that was where the extra stat points were coming from. Achievements…
[Fish Out of Water]
Description: You’ve done the impossible—killed a monster using a fishing rod. Might want to keep that hook handy.
Reward: +5 Luck, +3 Dexterity
[Against All Odds]
Description: Killing something 20 levels higher than you? Either you’re a genius, or you’re just lucky.
Reward: +10 Luck, +5 Magic
[Primal Blood]
Description: In a dark, dangerous, bloodthirsty world, you’re the most bloodthirsty of them all. You’re the first player to kill in the entire apocalypse.
Reward: +15 Strength
Nathan whistled. He was strong. It was also pretty surprising that he was apparently the first one to kill something… well, not really. He bet that everyone else got to start somewhere safe.
Lucky bastards. I’m out here fighting skeleton titans while they’re dealing with… I don’t know, zombies or something.
…
Well, I guess it wasn’t really a fight.
He clicked on the last achievement.
[Do you have any idea how long it’ll take to patch this?]
Description: Jackass. It’ll be refreshing to see your cooling corpse when I check back in on you at the end of two weeks.
Reward: -50 Relation with System-B32
Nathan got the feeling that the System didn’t like him. Luckily, it looked like it wouldn’t be paying much attention to him, going off the ‘two weeks’ comment.
A noise caught his attention. A deep groan from within the cave. He stood up and gave a gulp. After a moment he breathed in deep and picked up the rifle. If something was sleeping around in his cave, they’d get another thing coming.
----------------------------------------
Nathan crept forward, his phone acting as a flashlight while his other hand gripped his rifle. Strips of fabric were pushed into his ears to prevent them from getting damaged if he had to fire the gun. The roaring noise rumbled out again and he winced instinctively.
“Be brave,” he whispered. “I’ve got a gun. What will that thing have? Teeth? Claws? I gotta believe in the power of Soviet engineering—“
The roar came back and he nearly dropped his gun onto the floor.
He looked from left to right before breathing out a sigh.
The stone floor masked his footsteps well. He continued walking, then stopped.
It was a massive snail seated on top of a stone rock. Its eyes swayed in odd directions until it honed in on Nathan.
Nathan sucked in a breath and pointed his gun at the giant snail. He wouldn’t let himself get killed—!
A pop-up appeared in front of him.
[Feed the Snail!]
Description: The snail is extremely hangry! If it doesn’t receive food, it’ll become sad. Find something for the snail to eat!
Rewards: [Shell of Protection] (Copper), A small amount of EXP
Accept/Deny
Nathan blinked and lowered his gun. For a moment, Nathan thought it over before turning around.
As much as he wanted to mess around with side quests, there were only 14 days left until he would be ‘recycled’ along with the rest of the circle.
He walked away.
Then he turned around and smashed the Accept button.
Nathan wouldn’t spend too much time on it, so it was fine. He rushed back to his place and grabbed a fish for the snail.
The snail did not accept or even seem to notice the fish. After trying a few different fish variants, Nathan gave up for the day.
He wandered back to the glowing lake and sat down.
“Oh shit, I’m starving,” he said.
He still hadn’t eaten a thing since he woke up. But how the hell was he supposed to cook anything? He’d have to head back up top and collect wood…
Well, sushi was raw fish, and the Japanese ate that regularly, right?
He grabbed the Jeweled Sword and awkwardly maneuvered the fish, cutting it open and spilling the guts everywhere. After that, he fileted the meat. The slices were jagged and random—it looked like a serial killer was brutalizing the meat for fun.
By the end of it, he grabbed the meat and put it on a relatively clean-looking stone off to the side.
Nathan picked one up and gulped.
“If I die, I die not because of my own ignorance, but because sushi is fake,” he said.
He put the fish in his mouth and chewed slowly. After a few seconds, he increased his speed and ate the whole thing.
It was tasty.
He picked up another slab of meat and scarfed it down. Then he did another. Once he was done chewing, he lapped up the water from the river until his thirst went away. He had two more cuts of meat before he found a sense of drowsiness attacking him.
Nathan tried to keep his eyes open. He still had to inspect his items, after all, but his body couldn’t be controlled. He slumped over and fell asleep.