Nathan woke up the next morning and stretched out. He bent his neck and a loud crack echoed out.
“My back,” he said. “God, I need a chiropractor.”
He stared at his reflection in the water for a bit before he sucked in a breath. He looked good. His cheeks were filled out and healthy-looking for the first time in a while.
He felt like he could run for several miles. All of the weakness had disappeared. He stood to his feet.
“Looks like the water isn’t going to kill me,” he said. “Neither will the raw fish. That’s good because I don’t know how I would’ve started a fire.”
The most experience he had with those things was watching videos on the web.
Behind him, the sword and rifle caught his attention. He looked at the water and gave himself a little nod.
“I’m going to try to find some loot,” he said. “And then I’m going to go to the surface.”
He knew it had to happen. Fishing seemed to grant EXP, but deleting that skeleton monster had given him nine levels in one fell swoop.
He had to fight. At least a little.
I just need to get out of the tutorial and sell my services to other people, then I’ll never be in danger again.
Nathan opened up his phone and navigated to the photos app. His last picture had been a selfie taken by his sister. He had to find his way out of this hell hole, meet up with her, and then they’d lay low while all of this craziness happened.
But first, fishing.
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He’d ended up catching and releasing several fish, but nothing else had happened. No more special loot. It may have been that there was nothing else in the lake. At the very least, he managed to get enough fish to finish the [Reel] skill quest.
[Upgrade REEL to Diamond+] (10/10 fish caught)
Apparently, [Reel] now had a 15% decrease in catching difficulty, which was good. Nathan was sure that it would be helpful if the object was particularly big or rare. Nathan spent the next hour doing nothing but casting his line repeatedly to upgrade [Cast]. He’d tried cheating the System by just dipping his hook into the water, then taking it out. Unfortunately, the System saw through his attempts and didn’t count them.
Even so, it wouldn’t take long. Assuming 21 casts per minute, Nathan could probably get the Diamond+ upgrade in about 8 days if he spent an hour every day.
By the end of the hour, he’d gotten the [Reel] quest up to (1123/10000).
Afterward, he picked up a piece of algae and tried feeding that to the snail. It didn’t respond.
He finally used [Basic Inspect] on his weapons.
[Modified AK-47] (F+-tier)
The AK-47, a powerful rifle designed by the Soviet Union. Boasting a scary amount of reliability, this particular unit has been modified to be waterproof.
[Jeweled Sword] (F+-tier)
An ornate, jeweled sword. Though it possesses no apparent specialties, it’s reliably made and sturdy.
He picked the sword up and looked forward.
“Inventory.”
A moment later, the inventory menu appeared in front of Nathan. He sucked in a breath and pushed the sword into the inventory. The box rippled, then absorbed it.
“Wait, how do I get it out?”
After some experimentation, he learned to reach into the inventory and then think of the object in question. He also figured out that he had 10 slots available—he confirmed this by using different types of fish. He didn’t know much else, such as the size cap or stack cap. He didn’t have enough objects to test that information with.
He looked up toward the entrance of the cave.
The excuses melted away soon enough. He’d done everything he could do in the cave. It was time to head above ground.
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Nathan climbed out of the cave. It was early in the morning, the sun poking over the horizon. Despite this, his breath came out in steamy puffs.
Before he’d left, he’d inspected his stats and invested some of his points in his Strength and Constitution, with a little thrown into Dexterity as well. He didn’t have a strong rationale for his decision—he just knew that being strong was generally a good thing in combat situations. He’d also decided to leave 9 points in reserve, thinking that he might want to invest them into Luck. He could only hope he’d made the right decisions.
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Stats:
Strength: 10 (+27) = 37
Dexterity: 10 (+3) = 13
Constitution: 15 (+5) = 20
Magic: 3 (+5) = 8
Luck: 12 (+15) = 27
Available Stats: 9
“It gets cold out here,” he said. “If I’d known, I would’ve packed some winter clothes.”
He stuck to the ground, his clothes rubbing against the black dirt. His ears were alert, listening for any sign of a monster.
“This suit is a rental. I wonder if I’ll have to pay for it when we get back to earth.”
When. It was a funny word—why use it? He didn’t know if he’d make it back, after all.
He pushed the thoughts away. There was no point in being depressed.
“Stay positive, Nathan. Will that shit into existence. Call upon the universe to materialize goodness—“
He shut up and sucked in a breath.
In the distance, there was a sheep with boar tusks growing from its mouth. Its eyes were red and seemed to have flames growing off it, while its entire body was more muscular than a Bulgarian weightlifter
“Inventory,” Nathan whispered.
He reached into the box, pulling out his rifle. He pointed toward its center of mass and sucked in a breath.
It leaned its head down and chewed on the dirt.
Nathan’s hands shook before he gripped his rifle tighter.
“Sorry, little buddy. It’s you or me, and I already missed my sister’s wedding. I’m not missing out on the baby shower.”
Wait, didn’t she something about living one of those hip, ‘childless’ lifestyles? Or was that a random internet video he saw? He forced his thoughts back to the rifle.
“Oh, wait, I should check to see its level.”
That was important, right?
“[Basic Inspect].”
[Mutant Sheep] - Lv. 7
Rank: Copper
Once a cute, docile farm animal, now a slightly radioactive, permanently angry ball of fluff. Known for chewing on fencing, headbutting anything that moves, and giving you that look.
It turned and looked at him, even from the distance. It let out a bleat and ran forward.
Nathan sucked in a breath.
How did it know I was here?
He pulled the trigger twice. Shots fired out at the mutant sheep, the first one grazing it with the other getting it in the shoulder.
It didn’t stop and barreled forward, even as its wounds dripped blood to the ground.
Nathan let out a screech and jumped clear, barely avoiding its extremely sharp teeth. It turned and glared at him, then bleated again.
“Isn’t level seven supposed to be, like, tutorial mode for most monsters!?” Nathan said. “That’s how I remember it from the RPGs!”
The sheep bleated as if in response, then jumped at him.
Nathan pulled around his rifle and clicked the trigger two more times. Each shot flew out and slammed into its chest. The sheep continued forward before crashing into the ground.
Nathan blinked.
“Wait, that’s it?”
[You have leveled up!]
He breathed a sigh of relief and ignored the twist in his stomach over the fact that he’d killed a creature. Maybe he could handle this combat thing after all.
A loud bleat caught his attention.
Nathan reached out and clicked the x button on the corner of the level-up window. In front of him was another one of the Mutant Sheep. He looked to the left. The same thing greeted him. He was surrounded by Mutant Sheep.
Nathan’s mouth opened, then shut.
“Believe it or not,” he said. “I’m innocent. Yeah, this guy? He died on his own. Crazy.”
The Mutant Sheep seemed to stare at his gun. Nathan grimaced.
It dived toward him, its mouth wide open.
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Nathan screamed and ducked. This time, one of the other sheep took the opportunity to gently smash his thigh.
It was not a gentle smash, Nathan was just lying to himself to feel better.
Tears sprang to Nathan’s eyes and he kicked at the Mutant Sheep with his other leg. As soon as his foot made contact with the wool of the Mutant Sheep, the force sent it flying away in an arc.
[You have leveled up!]
Nathan blinked. Looked like 37 Strength was a hell of a lot better than he thought.
One of the other Mutant Sheep rushed toward him, its jaw unhinged and widened. Nathan shielded himself with his arm. The teeth of the Mutant Sheep dug into his flesh and Nathan braced himself for the pain.
…
Nothing happened? It felt more like a tight grab. Painful, but not nearly as unbearable as the last attack. He pressed the barrel of his rifle against the sheep’s head and pulled the trigger. It fell to the ground with a thump.
Nathan glanced around. There were still three more, and he didn’t feel like playing the odds. He aimed his rifle and fired into the air twice. The third time, he heard a click. This seemed to break whatever spell the Sheep were under and caused them to run away.
He looked at his rifle and pointed forward. He clicked the trigger again. Nothing. Out of ammo.
Nathan looked at his arm. It was a little worse than he thought. The skin wasn’t mangled, but blood was dripping from his arm in rivulets. He needed to get himself bandaged and disinfected.
While he ran back, his mind wandered back to his usage of [Basic Inspect].
As soon as I used that skill, it noticed me.
He needed to be more careful with his usage of that skill.
A distant sheep bleated.
Nathan ran back to his cavern, stumbling and tripping his way back to the lake. Once he arrived here, he washed out the wounds as best he could using the water.
He was fairly certain the water was safe, but it was hard for his heart not to drop at the way the water soaked into his wound. On the off-chance that it was carrying some kind of bacteria that attacked open wounds, then he was screwed.
Once he was done cleaning the wound, he looked around for some kind of bandage.
He checked his pockets and pulled out a handkerchief, then wrapped his arm with it.
After a moment of thought, he used the Jeweled Sword and sliced off parts of his sleeve. He washed them in the water, then set them out to dry at the front of the cavern where the sun would hit it. He’d use those for bandages in the future.
Once he arrived at the lake, he looked into the reflection.
…
When had he gotten more muscle?
At that thought, he received a pop-up.
Achievement get!
[Dirty Coward]
They were right there. You could’ve killed them with ease, they were so low level oh my gosh. You loser.
+1 Luck
Nathan felt the wind deflate out of his sails. He wasn’t aware that the level difference was so huge. What did it matter if he had all of this power, but he wasn’t brave enough to use it?
He looked back up toward the entrance to the cavern. Somewhere out there, a [Gliding Eel] was waiting for their battle. He had to be ready for it, and he had to put aside his fear.
That night, he went to sleep, his heart pounding at the memory of the gun blowing the brains out of the sheep.