The two men had seen me.

The little wolf’s yipping must have alerted them, and its glowing body must have illuminated me in the darkness.

But even if they hadn’t seen me at first, they could hardly have missed the way that I had almost tumbled to the ground as I had tried to scramble for cover in the darkened woods.

I had been too afraid to keep my balance right then – and my horrible ‘Luck’ stat probably hadn’t helped much either.

Even still…

... they hadn't run after me. They had simply continued to walk at a leisurely pace, slowly, easily, their boots trampling the ground below.

Crunch, crunch, crunch. I could hear the slow, steady sound of snapping twigs and branches.

Crunch, crunch.

I felt my breath becoming shallower and more rapid with every step. I had managed to conceal myself behind a trunk that was about twice as wide as I was for the moment… but, I knew that I couldn’t stay there for long.

Because even if they were moving slowly, they were still moving towards me.

Right towards me, in fact.

… as if they knew exactly where I was hiding.

And then, I heard one of them stop, and begin to speak.

To my amazement, I could understand every word that he was saying.

"You saw him too, didn't you,” the man said.

"Of course,” his friend replied.

My heart skipped a beat.

"Do you think he was one of the runaways?”

"Not a chance," his friend said. "A slave would know better than to try to hide from us… wouldn’t they?”

As the man spoke, I heard the sound of large hands rummaging through some sort of bag, or container.

Then, there was a kind of humming sound.

A few moments later, there was a flash of bright, blue light, as a wave of magical energy radiated out from a device in the man’s hands in a large, expanding sphere. 

And when that wave of energy touched me, a bright, radiant blue aura surrounded my body.

So bright, in fact, that anyone could have seen me from at least a mile away.

Then, I heard laughter coming from the two men, as they quickened their pace in my direction… and I felt myself becoming more afraid, and more panicked, than I had ever felt before in my life.

It was obvious that hiding wasn't going to save me. So, I stood up, spun around…

… and started to run as fast as I possibly could.

I heard their footsteps clanging after me as I struggled to get away.

They were fast.

Very, very fast.

And as the three of us continued to run ahead, I began to realize just how little of a chance I had to escape.

I tried to zig and to zag behind the cover of the trees, in order to lose their tracks. But that didn’t help at all. Right then, I must have been like a moving flashlight in the middle of a pitch dark field. I could weave, and duck, and hide. But the men behind me weren’t thrown off of my trail for an instant. They just kept coming, and they just kept chasing after me.

And they were getting closer by the second.

That was bad enough of course.

That would probably be my end just by itself.

But at the same time that I was being chased by these two armored men, something else was happening.

For the last few seconds, I had been hearing… something. Something that was crashing down against the ground some ways off in the distance.

Something huge...

… and something that was drawing closer to the three of us by the second.

No, no, no, no, no -

"Congratulations! You have learned the 'Athletics' skill! Your 'Athletics' skill is level 1! You can now run, sprint, leap, climb and swim more effectively!"

Deal with that later, deal with that later -

I felt my stamina beginning to run out. My chest burned, and I could barely draw a single breath. I knew that at any moment I was going to run out of oxygen, and that that would be the end for me.

But even if I had all of the air in the world, it hardly would have mattered. This whole time, I had been running as fast as I had ever run before in my life. Hell, honestly, this was faster than I had ever run before – that extra point of Agility had really been worth it, and that Athletics skill seemed to be helping, too. I could hardly believe how quickly I was cutting through the cool, damp air, as my feet dashed against the ground.

But unfortunately, none of that seemed to matter. Because even as I had been running as fast as I had ever run before in my life, the men had still been gaining on me… and right now, my legs were just about to give out from sheer exhaustion, and I doubted that I could maintain even half of that pace for that much longer.

And besides, even if I could keep up that speed – and even if I could outrun these men…

Something huge was still approaching.

Something that was so close now, that it would probably appear in front of us at any second.

Something that was much, much faster than we were.

And something that was letting out a horrible, and a piercing cry.

When I heard it, I just wanted to fall to the ground, and to scream for help.

The men behind me must have been feeling just about the same sort of way. Because for the last few seconds, I hadn’t heard the sounds of their boots crashing against the ground.

Then, I came to a stop, and looked behind me.

The two men were just standing there, frozen, as they gripped their weapons tightly in their hands. They were each looking out towards the source of the sound, and they were both just as terrified as I was.

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After that, the three of us stood in silence for about a second and a half, as a sound like crashing thunder threatened to burst out from behind the cover of the trees at any moment.

And then...

The thing leapt directly in between me and them. As it fell, it hit the ground so hard that I was knocked backwards onto the earth, as I scrambled to get back onto my feet.

And then, I finally saw what had been chasing the three of us through these woods.

In front of me was a silver wolf, with golden runes running across the sides of its body, and bright, blue magical energy dancing around its head like a crown of flames.

Except this wolf was about five meters tall.

And this wolf was staring directly at the three of us with a look of pure savagery, and of rage.

Then, before any of us had time to scream, the wolf turned towards the man with the sword and shield, leapt towards him, wrapped its mouth around his torso, then slammed down against his flesh with its powerful jaws.

With a sickening crunch, the man was split into two, not even able to let out a scream of terror before his intestines and his stomach spilled out onto the ground below.

The man’s friend ran screaming at the wolf, desperately swinging his mace in a hopeless charge. But the wolf leapt out of his way with all of the grace of a dancer, then brought its huge, clawed paws down on top of the man, ripping and shredding him to bits as he screamed in agony.

Then, the creature leaned back up, turned around…

… and looked me in the eye.

To my surprise, I didn’t feel scared, or sad, or angry. I just felt deeply tranquil, and calm. I knew that these were probably going to be the last few seconds of my life, and I simply wanted to enjoy them right then. In that instant, everything seemed truly beautiful to me, somehow, and truly still, and peaceful. I let that feeling wash over me, and I let myself really taste it, as the almost hypnotically beautiful beast walked slowly towards me, its blue magical energy dancing around its entire body now.

Then, the creature was right in front of me. It seemed to realize that I wasn’t a threat, so it was taking its time in finishing me off. And so, I merely stood my ground, and prepared to die with as much dignity as I was capable of.

Afterwards, the beast lowered down its powerful head, as human blood dripped slowly from its jaws…

Then, it placed its head and its front legs down upon the ground. 

The pose that it was making was very strange, right then.

If I hadn’t known any better, I would have said that the creature was…

… bowing?

Afterwards, the wolf raised its head back into the air, and gave me a look of tremendous gratitude, and respect.

And then, it let out its enormous tongue, and gave me a single, affectionate lick along my cheek.

For just a moment, I stood there in a kind of stunned silence.

And then, I understood what had really taken place. And after that, I burst out into laughter, as tears of joy began to run down my face.

The wolf almost seemed to smile. Then, it turned to the right, as it tensed up its body, and extended itself forward.

It's... pointing, I thought.

It was pointing the way out of the forest – and on towards safety.

"Thank you," I said, with as much gratitude as I could muster. "Thank you!"

I didn't know if the creature could understand me. But after it had finished pointing, it began to slowly walk off towards the distance… and with only a few strides of its long, enormous legs, it had managed to vanish just about completely from my sight.

I paused, and tried to catch my breath. My mind and body were still completely overwhelmed by what I had just experienced… but even still, I just sat down, and tried to regain my composure.

There was a lot to think about after everything that had just happened.

Those men had spoken English. Or, even if they hadn't spoken English, I had still been able to understand them. Perhaps that was the work of the system?

At any rate, it seemed that I would be able to talk to at least some of the people in this world, which meant that I would probably be able to find out at least some of what was going on here. For that matter, there were people here – which I hadn’t been quite certain of before – which honestly came as a relief to me right then, after having been left to myself in the middle of these dark, and lonely woods.

But…

… those two men had each been extremely dangerous… and they had spoken about runaways, and slaves. That meant that this world had slavery in it… and if the slave-owners were anything like those two men, then the cities here might not actually be any safer than the outside world.

Although, if this forest had creatures like that wolf lurking deep inside of it…

And I didn’t even know how powerful that wolf had been, all things being considered. Maybe that was a lower-level creature! After all, these were the largest trees that I had ever seen before in my life, and those armored men had been enormous. I really had no way of knowing just how much danger might be waiting out there, or in the outside world as a whole.

That was enough for me to make up my mind. I had to get out of these woods, and to find my way towards some sort of town or settlement. From there, I could figure out what I wanted to do, and what the best way to survive would be.

First, though, I wanted to ask the system about something that had happened just a little while before.

And so, I asked -

System, what is a ‘”skill,” exactly? And how do I acquire them, and level them up?

"A ‘skill’ is a power that makes you better at performing a certain kind of action.”

“By performing the actions of a skill, you will eventually acquire that skill, and gain a level in it.”

"Practice makes perfect. The more that you use a skill, the stronger it becomes."

"Fear is the mother of wisdom. When you use a skill in a state of primal fear, that skill is more likely to improve.”

That all seemed intuitive enough, even if the last message had seemed just a little bit unsettling. At any rate, it explained why I had picked up that “Athletics” skill so quickly It probably must have had something to do with how much danger I had been in, and on how focused I had been in my movements.

Of course, right now, I didn’t want to spend any more time in these woods than I had to, so there was no point in trying to practice each of my skills right then. But, I made a note to myself that I should try to investigate them a bit more once I had made it out of the forest, in order to start to discover just what sort of abilities I might possess.

For now, however, there was only one more thing to consider.

I walked forward, and examined the corpses of the two men. It took me a bit to be able to stomach the sight of their maimed and disfigured bodies. But after a little while, I was able to bring myself to reach down, and to dig my hands through their belongings. I had hoped to find something of value, like money that I could use in town, or maybe some sort of a magical item. But unfortunately, they didn’t seem to be carrying anything on them, and whatever item they’d used to illuminate me must have been destroyed, or else dropped onto the ground somewhere further back. They weren’t even carrying any sort of food or rations either, so I couldn’t take anything to eat for the journey yet to come.

However, the two large men did at least have something of value.

I looked down at the blood-stained weapons that the men had been carrying. The club was way too large for me to even hope to be able to wield. But the long sword looked at least a little more manageable. I picked it up, and tried swinging it through the air.

“You have equipped: ‘Long Sword (Large).’”

The sword was certainly too large for me to wield with a single hand, so I wasn’t going to be able to use it along with the shield. But once I gripped the hilt with both hands and tried to swing, I had just enough strength to be able to wield it like some sort of a greatsword, cleaving the blade through the air. I didn’t have the swordsmanship or the strength to use it with any real effectiveness just yet. But I was still glad to have found it, and I resolved to take it with me. If nothing else, it might at least be able to intimidate any sort of creature or enemy who came along my way, and it might help me to be able to scare them off.

But the more useful discovery was probably the armor that the men had been wearing. If it had been heavy, plate armor, I doubted that I would have had the strength to wear it. But it was actually just a hard leather with some metal on the outside to provide a little bit of extra protection, and perhaps to make the men appear a bit more intimidating than they really were.

Each of the two men had been wearing an identical set of thick leather leggings, rugged leather chest armor, and leather helmets that covered up the back, top, and sides of their heads. Each set of armor was dyed red and brown, and each of them were decorated with the same set of emblems, which seemed to suggest that this was the armor of a band of soldiers, or else the armor of the members of some sort of a group or clan.

I couldn’t make any use of the armor that the man who had been bitten clean in half had been wearing But the other fellow’s armor still seemed to be pretty much intact, albeit rather heavily coated with his blood.

At any rate, it was better than what I had been wearing up until now. So, with some considerable disgust at what I was about to dip my body into, I stripped out of my orange jumpsuit, and slipped into the rugged leather armor. It was way too big for me, and it did hinder my movements to some degree. But there were plenty of straps and buckles to help me to tighten the gear around my body, and I was thankful to have found something that could provide me with some protection for the moment.

Anyway, after a few minutes of fiddling around with all of the different adjustable pieces on the armor, I at last felt comfortable enough that I was able to start walking forward. I’d need to replace this gear as soon as I possibly could, of course, or at least to clean it up. But for now, leather armor and a giant long sword sounded a whole lot better than walking around half-naked with a wooden stick.

And then, with my preparations complete for now, I turned towards the direction that the wolf had pointed to, and simply continued to make my way further on ahead.