Quest Completed!

Quest: Survive Infancy.

Reward: System unlock.

I stared at the small blue box in open-mouthed amazement, my siblings squeaking around me. I turned my head and the box followed my vision, slightly transparent to my weak eyes, the backdrop of green growth turning the blue to cyan. But before I could give it the full examination it deserved, the squeaking of my siblings intensified as my mom ushered us back into the dark of the burrow.

As my focus shifted to her not-exactly-gentle shoves, the blue box disappeared. But I knew it was still there — nothing visual, but a feeling of the box only being ‘minimized’, that a thought was all it would take to bring it back up. So, as I allowed my siblings and mother to push me along, I turned my focus back to the box — and then mentally accepted the option I could feel it offering me.

The box disappeared, only to be immediately replaced by a much larger box.

Name: Carly

Race: Northern Ground Chipmunk (youth)

Level: 0

EXP: 0/10

Stats:

Strength — 10

Dexterity — 10

Constitution — 10

Mind — 10

Perception — 10

GP: 0

Skills:

Traits:

Quests:*

Even distracted, it didn’t take me long to realize what was going on. I had been studying to be a librarian, after all; litRPG wasn’t my go-to, but I had read a few books in the genre.

If this had happened six months earlier, I might have been left frozen and speechless, stunned into a stupor by the revelation. But as it was, after ‘dying’ and then being reborn in another world as a chipmunk of all things, what might have previously been world-shattering now only registered as mildly surprising.

So, I was able to examine the status menu relatively objectively.

Name and race were self-explanatory, though I supposed it was interesting to learn my exact subspecies of chipmunk. Level and experience? Standard to a status menu, although their implications were interesting. The stats, as well, were fairly standard. They didn’t have the exact same names that I might have expected, but the concepts they represented were easy to understand. Though the values of my stats were somewhat intriguing.

It wasn’t unusual for a video game character to start with perfectly balanced stats, often around ten or some other whole-seeming number. But that was a video game where the developers had an interest in keeping things balanced and each player started from the same baseline. Real life was rarely so fair.

It would bear more investigation, but for another time. My focus drifted down to traits and skills — both currently empty. That part was exciting in that it implied the existence of ‘magic’, or at least the ability to act beyond my normal physical limitations — which, to me, was functionally magic.

Finally, I focused on the last line of my status, the line that was currently slowly pulsing red: quests.

With a thought, I ‘selected’ the option, and another menu popped up.

New Quest!

Quest: Survive adolecense.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Quest Description: Survive until adulthood (~7 months remaining).

That description was less helpful than I’d hoped, but better than nothing. Seven months until adulthood? I wasn’t sure if that was typical of chipmunks on Earth, but it seemed reasonable from my limited knowledge of the lifecycle of dogs and cats. Though it was interesting that the menu listed it as only approximately seven months, rather than an exact number. Did the menu not know exactly when I would qualify for adulthood and that was just its best guess? Or were its descriptions just not very precise? I’d have to keep an eye on the quest in the coming weeks and months to find out.

I was reminded of my current surroundings by an extra-hard push to my rump.

“Hey! Watch it!” I chirped, glaring back at Alphonse, who squeaked back at me unrepentantly. I turned my focus away from my status with an internal grumble.

I’d have plenty of time to examine my status further in the coming weeks. For now, I gave one final annoyed squeak and continued my crawl into the burrow.

The subsequent days passed faster than the ones before. My fur grew longer and thicker and I was able to move quicker on my own. Each nursing session was shorter than the previous, replaced with assorted nuts and roots from the stash in the corner of the burrow. Three days later, we were weaned completely.

Our mother continued to lead us on short expeditions out of the burrow, each one increasing in distance and duration. She demonstrated foraging and survival techniques by example, and I learned to appreciate the taste and textures of different foods.

It was strange — with a human mind, I would have expected the diet of a chipmunk to taste disgusting or at least bland. Yet something about my new physiology opened up my palette to entirely new experiences in the natural world.

Dug-up roots did taste a little bit ‘earthly’, yet the earthiness was subtle and enjoyable rather than gross and gritty. Mushrooms were savory and slightly salty. And the one time we found a thicket of berries the flavors practically exploded in my mouth and I had to rush to claim a section of the easily accessible branches before Peter cleaned them out.

A bigger surprise than the taste, however, was the system message accompanying my foraging attempts.

New skill available for purchase!

Skill: Forage

Cooldown: 1 day

Description: Increases your chance of finding food by a minuscule amount for the next ten minutes.

It…was less impressive than I had hoped. Even worse, I didn’t seem to have actually acquired the skill, just acquired the option to purchase it. Which I had no idea how to do.

Even after hours fiddling with my system screens, I found no indication of how to purchase [Forage]. My best guess was that ‘GP’ was the required currency for purchase, but my status showed a big fat goose egg on the line for that value. Which meant the ‘skills’ section of my status remained stubbornly empty. Hopefully, I’d figure out how to gain GP after I completed my quest for adulthood or leveled up, but adulthood was still months away and I had yet to acquire a single point of experience. So, for the present, I was forced to ignore the offered notification and focus on more immediate pursuits — such as my family.

My siblings never displayed any more intelligence than a normal chipmunk, though I was learning that was more than what I might have originally expected. I learned to distinguish between the many chirps and squeaks of my mother and siblings, memorizing the calls for danger, food, annoyance, and so much more. It was not a full-on language but it was much closer than I would have guessed. My chipmunk ears were more sensitive to the nuances conveyed with squeaks than my old human ears ever could have noticed, and I began to discover more of my animal family’s personality.

Alphonse was the brave one of the group, the first to follow our mother out of the burrow and always eager to explore further before she’d call him back with an annoyed chirp. Jacob was the social one, always climbing on or around the rest of us, nipping at the rest of our tails to bait us into a game of tag. Miriam was the most shy — if it weren’t for my intervention, she’d have been left behind at the burrow on multiple occasions, always hesitant to move unless someone else made her. And Fat Peter…well, he lived up to his name.

He wasn’t lazy, but he was an absolute wizard when it came to finding food, discovering berries and seeds in places I could’ve sworn were void of nourishment a few seconds prior. Miriam took to following a few paces behind Peter to scavenge whatever he left behind, which wasn’t as successful as one might expect — he didn’t tend to leave much behind.

Finally there was our mother, who was…distant.

It was crazy for me to think of this small group of chipmunks as my family. I’d lived a full(ish) human life, and had been with these chipmunks for only a few months. Yet somehow, I’d grown attached to my siblings, had come to appreciate them as the siblings I’d never had in my last life.

My mother though…less so.

I wouldn’t say she was a bad mother by chipmunk standards, not that I had much experience with that. But there just wasn’t the same bond with her as what I shared with my siblings. She taught us how to forage and survive, how to always keep our heads up and alert for predators as we ate, how to dig for roots and worms, and how to climb, run, and communicate. Yet all those things seemed accidental and perfunctory — she demonstrated to us how to live, and that was it. Whether or not we learned and put it into practice was on us.

I may have been humanizing the chipmunk more than I should’ve, but it felt as if she was counting down the days until she would kick us out of the burrow and resume her life without us. But just in case, I made sure to learn all I could, eating every chance I got and growing stronger and more agile by the day.

Until, two weeks later, my fears were proven correct.

The stash of stored food in the burrow was almost empty, which wasn’t a huge deal since we were mostly feeding ourselves in our group foraging sessions. Miriam and Fat Peter ate from the stash the most, Miriam because she often didn’t forage enough for herself during our expeditions and Peter because he was a glutton. Our mother rose and shook herself in the way I recognized meant she was preparing to leave the burrow. I squeaked at Miriam and Alphonse to wake up and follow.

But rather than wait for her children like usual, our mother ran up the tunnel immediately. I squeaked in surprise before shoving Miriam to get a move on, afraid we’d be left behind. Alphonse, Peter, and Jacob were quick to follow, and I managed to get Miriam out of the burrow a few seconds later.

But by the time we emerged into the early morning light, our mother was already gone. My three siblings stared at the surrounding forest and squeaked in consternation.

We were alone.