Status
Name
Allen
Race
Human
Level
0
Id
0
Health
225/225
Mana
225/225
Vitality
25
Endurance
28
Strength
22
Agility
24
Dexterity
24
Perception
1
Intelligence
24
Wisdom
25
Condition
Well rested
Health regeneration
0.0025 - (100%)
Mana regeneration
0
Inventory
0/10
Wealth
0 - (22.26€)
Okay it’s been ten minutes since we set of and we already came across a river, at least we are safe regarding water. I just hope that nobody has needs for specific stuff. I’m talking about vital needs.
During this hour, nothing much happened. At least not with me. They are following me and talking between themselves. Only … this girl did not take part in their discussion. Not taking part in their discussion allowed me to think about several things.
First, my mindset isn’t adapted to group survival. I mean, yes finding a shelter is important and should be priority when taking care of yourself but with 30 to 40 people that needs to drink and eat, food and water should have been the first things I thought of. Well water at least since we don’t know what’s edible here. Hell, even water could be poisonous.
Anyway, it’s good Al had actually thought about it. Yup, I remembered his name.
After several minutes, we finally encounter our first monster, I think that beast are actively avoiding us. It the iconic blue slime! The emblem of the weak monsters. Well not really since it’s around a meter high and seems to have awareness. It way different from the small jelly you can step on. If that thing is impervious to physical damage we’re f…inished.
Lackey 1 starts to laugh maniacally and, taking his improvised weapon (a slightly thinner branch than mine) he starts to walk toward the slime. I guess that two death isn’t enough for most people to understand it’s anything but a game. The slime is quite slow and Lackey is walking towards it. That means I have around 10 seconds to avoid another disaster.
First I use observe on the slime.
Race
Blue slime
Level
8
[Observe] has reached beginner mastery
Cool. That means I should probably use it again, right?
Race
Blue slime
Level
8
Health
10/10
Mana
540/540
Huh, I only got health and mana. Is that the level difference? It’s probably because I’m level 0. Now what would be smart would be to first test its resistance to physical damage and second its possible corrosive properties.
“…” Shit, I don’t know his name.
“Get back here man, I’m sure you don’t want to turn into a slime snack, right? Did you even observe it?”
The moment I say those words I want to slap myself. Now, he will use [Observe] it and when he sees the single digit level he will be overconfident and go right at it.
“Pfff it’s only a single digit, I’m sure I can take care of it easily!”
See, what did I say. Anyway, while he is showing off how brave he is, I try to get as much information about it as I can. The grass where he passed isn’t dissolved or anything so, at least, it shouldn’t be corrosive.
Lackey is already in front of the slime and swings his branch at it. The result is the slime completely absorb the blow and the branch without losing a single HP. The branch starts to dissolve inside it which makes me think that it can dissolve matter but only dead organic matter. Startled by the physical immunity, he freezes in place and get absorbed by the slime, he is now floating inside it while he immediately brings a hand to his mouth and nose.
I think that it’s trying to drown him. To save him we need to kill that thing. I just hope that it has a core and that it’s not only killable by magic. Otherwise we won’t be able to save him
Observing the slime carefully, I finally spot the tiny gem floating around Lackey. Readying myself, I signal to everyone else to stay still. I then leap at the slime and while scooping with my hand through its body I send him a [Mind shock]. The core that was trying to get away stop for a second, just enough for me to grab it and pull it out.
As soon as it loses its core, the body flatten and Lackey slide off of it. Great, although it saved him, that wasn’t my main purpose, what I wanted was its core.
You reached level 1. You are now fully recognized by MaGI.
You reached level 2.
And I finally leveled up. Opening my status, I can now add points to my stats, ten to be exact. I guess that it is 5 per level. Anyway, I close my status window and open my inventory. There’s only a bottle of water and a second branch in case the current one break. We took one bottle per two people but seeing as there is a river next to the river, we could have taken more.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Anyway, I open it but before emptying it on the ground I turn toward the girl who stuck with me since the wolf incident.
“Do you want to drink some? I’m going to empty it.”
Seeing as she doesn’t understand, I point toward the slime. She thinks for a moment and finally understanding, she holds her hand out to get the bottle. She drinks half of it before giving it back to me. I guess that it’s better than wasting it by throwing it. After emptying it, I look at the puddle of slime.
Slime remains - F
The corpse a dead slime left behind. It contains large amount of mana. As it is, it will quickly lose its properties. Can be used as crafting material.
I then look at the slime core.
Slime core - E
The core of a dead slime. It contains small amounts of mana and life force. Can be used as crafting materials.
I guess I will be experimenting with this latter.
I then proceed to fill the bottle to the brim with the slimy substance. I would like to try and consume it but I could be dangerous, so it will need to wait until we’re safe. Once done, I put the bottle back in my inventory and continue to walk toward the mountain. I hear the sound of one person, probably the girl but I soon stop as the others don’t follow my lead.
I turn back to look at them. Lackey is already back on his feet but he is looking at me ready to explode at any moment.
“What?”
“You!”
“What?”
“I almost died fucker!”
“Yeah, I warned you and even saved you despite you ignoring my orders, so what’s the problem? You’re alive, aren’t you?”
“Orders? Why should I take orders from someone like you!”
“Because it would have prevented you to almost drown in a slime and be digested?”
“I…”
First I need to thank him as everyone seems to have forgotten that I may have earned something from killing the slime. That will also allow me to make something clear. That is, I’m in charge of this group.
“I think you misunderstood something. If you followed me that means you are ready to listen to my orders. If not, it’s the entire group you’re putting in danger. So, if you’re unable to listen to my instruction, go back to the clearing.”
“Who said you were in charge? I could be the leader of this group!”
“Says the one who almost died.”
That comment wasn’t from me but from one of the other guy. I guess that completely consolidated my position as a leader.
“Thanks, could you accompany him back to the camp? It is at 20 min from here when walking. When running you should be back in 20 minutes or so.”
“What are you deciding by yourself? What about the opinion of the group?”
I sigh mentally as he is already bound to leave. After all I proved that I had the ability to protect them. It would be stupid of them to side with him. While Lackey starts to understand that everyone is siding with me, I take a piece of paper from my bag and start to write several information on it. First the river next to the clearing, then the existence of low level monster, the fact that most beast seems to avoid us. I also put the way I killed the slime and my ideas to kill it more efficiently. I also talk about the full recognition of the system and the bonus stats and advise them to try to make everyone level one as soon as possible but to refrain from spending the points. I then give the sheet of paper to the guy who supported me.
“While you are back there, give this to Al and take two more bottle. We will wait for you here.”
He nods and then look at Lackey. After a few second of mumbling from him, they finally start to move toward the clearing. While they are gone, I think about the way I was going to distribute my stats. One way would be to make a class like build and team up with other people. The problem is, I don’t work well in group and if I’m separated from my team I won’t be able to deal with certain situation. The best way would be to make a Jack-of-all-trades. Well I still need to know how each stat effect people.
As of now, I can add points to each stat except perception. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s a special stat. Anyway, I will play with the stats once I’m safe.
While I was thinking about my build, Lackey’s guard finally got back. Everyone get up to continue walking toward the mountain but I signal them to sit back.
“I think we should introduce ourselves and make the basic strategy against monsters.”
“Okay, my name is Josh Bale, I’m 18 and I guess that it’s all that matters right now.”
The names are: Josh, Ahmed, Niko with a k, Marc, Baptiste, Eleanore and Shiro. Shiro is the girl who’s sticking with me. The ages are either 18 or 19.
“Okay, my name is Allen and I’m 18. Regarding monster, each of you need to kill one of them as soon as possible. When levelling up, you will earn points for your stats but I advise you to keep them for now. Regarding the monster, I can’t help you with the slimes but at least when confronting other monster or beast, recognized people will help unrecognized people to level up. I’ll take the front. Make sure to keep an eye on the surrounding.”
After the encounter with the slime we got back on our way to the mountain. We encountered several more slime and I took them out using the [Mind shock] to stop their core long enough to grab it. We also filled several bottles with slime remains. The water wasn’t a real problem as the river we encountered wound through the forest from the mountain. As we were nearing the mountain, we already crossed it three time.
I reached level 4 but it started to get hard to level up just from the low-level monster. By the way, the level 8 slime was a single time encounter, most of the monster were around level 4. And counter to games, you need way more of the same level monster to level up and lower level are almost useless.
The observe skill also only shows species, level, health, and mana. Now that I am not level 0 anymore I also get a small description of the monster I observe.
We encountered 2 other types of monsters, some kind of serpent and some kind of crow. The serpents were the easiest way to make people reach level 1. One of the recognized immobilizes it at the base of the head while the non-recognized kills it one way or another.
The crows were a problem, they attacked in crowd and stayed out of reach most of the time. We also found traces of a big monster or a big beast. Maybe a bear, well its equivalent in this world. Anyway, in the end the levels now ranges from 2 to 4. There were only two level 4, me who was around 60% of it and Shiro who just reached it a few moments ago. It’s because she found a way to take out slimes by herself, they were the higher leveled one.
Anyway, we finally reached the mountain and started to search for a cave or a group of caves big enough for everyone. As we search through it I finally notice something. The sun is way lower than it should be. It looks like days here are longer. I think it’s a good thing since we won’t have to face the monsters of the night. It’s only a guess but I think that they are more dangerous.
After several minutes of searching we listed six caves. Three of them seemed to be inhabited and I didn’t want to know by what. One of them was too narrow for all of us to fit in but the last two were next to each other. There was a giant cave mainly occupied by a crystal-clear lake. I guess that this solves our problems of water.
The second one was a problem. It was big enough for all of us to fit in but it was made of rooms and tunnels. It wouldn’t be a stretch to consider this cave as a dungeon. The only element that didn’t match was the lack of monster. Well the lack of alive monster. There were traces of fight everywhere along the paths and from time to time a corpse could be found. There were spiders, there were lizard-like monsters. All the cores were already taken out so there was no benefit.
My conclusion was that this dungeon had died recently and that it left its shell behind it.
“Okay everyone, I think we found our shelter. The first few rooms are sufficient for us to live. And we have a huge supply of water nearby. However, we will need to verify that this dungeon is really dead. Anyway, we’re going back to the clearing to get everyone here.”
Everyone nodded. Looking a last time toward the dungeon we set off to the clearing.