I got nothing in return from Clare. So much for talking when I woke up.

My attacker wasn’t a beast per se. Only my sudden introduction into danger had classified it as such. And my apparent nakedness.

It was hard to tell what kind of creature it was. I had never seen its kind when I was alive. Not in person or in movies, series and all the images I viewed online. They weren’t that many though. I barely had enough to feed myself, I couldn’t afford to purchase data for internet access. That was a luxury for the rich, a.k.a. other people that weren’t me.

From what I could see, it had more than four legs. A long cylindrical brown body with what looked like short black spikes shooting out to all sides but down. Those appeared sharp to my eyes, and had large black circular spots at where they joined the body. It had two completely black eyes that made it hard to tell exactly where it was staring at.

And then it hit me, I was staring at an over grown hairy caterpillar.

In my defense, it rarely rained in my region. So seeing caterpillars was a once in several years kind of occasion. Yes, it had been a dry arid area. Very, very arid.

A sharp pain in my ankle brought me to my senses. I was in another world with a giant hairy caterpillar creature feasting on my own leg. I tried jerking my leg from the caterpillar’s mouth but it was no good. The caterpillar was strong.

I brought my right leg up and kicked it right between the eyes. Pain shot through my leg, up to my hip and dissipated into my torso the moment my foot made contact. It was like I had hit a concrete wall and not the soft squishy flesh of a caterpillar. The caterpillar was busy gnawing at my leg. Nothing had changed for it. In fact, that looked like it hurt me more than it had hurt the caterpillar. If it hurt it at all.

Looking at where the caterpillar was gnawing at, I was surprised to find no blood. I would have expected that from all that pain and the time it had been at it, there would be blood to show for its efforts.

‘It’s sucking your blood.’

“Grrrt?” I had made the first sound in this new world. And I immediately regretted it. Pain was razing through my throat, it felt like I had swallowed a mouthful of razor blades and pins. I decided to stick with sub-vocalization until that issue was resolved.

‘What is it?’ I asked Clare.

‘You need the Skill [Identify] for me to answer that.’

I couldn’t believe what I had just heard, or learnt. Insert the proper term for when something directly imparts the information into your brain. But I decided to stick with heard. We were talking after all.

‘In other words, you are not going to tell me what it is,’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘Even though you know what it is.’

‘Yes.’

‘Glad we cleared that up.’

I returned to the issue at hand. At least I had learnt that it wasn’t trying to eat me. Just drain me dry. It could have been worse. Way worse. I had also learnt that hitting it between the eyes wasn’t the way to go. If it had a skull in its head, then that had been a bad idea from the get go. For my second attempt at my freedom, I decided to go for the eyes since they appeared to be bulging out of its head.

I used all the strength I could master and forcibly drove the heel of my right foot to its right eye. No, it was the left eye since it was staring at me. It tried to evade, but with its sucking mouth still stuck on my left leg, there wasn’t room for evasion.

I felt the eye give in and then my right foot was enveloped in a warm clear liquid. It screeched as it let go of my left leg. I quickly took the chance to scurry back before quickly getting on my feet. That proved to be the wrong thing to do.

A wave of lightheadedness and dizziness immediately struck me, sending me right back to the ground. And the caterpillar made to approach me again. Since standing was out of the question for the time being, I got on my hands and knees, and crawled away from the caterpillar.

If it weren’t for those sharp looking spikes, we would have been of a height with me on my hands and knees. But I was faster. In what felt like a minute, but was probably less than half that, I had put meters between us. The multitude of leaves, dry and wet, on the ground made the crawl forgiving to my knees.

I found myself at the base of a tree, and decided to climb it. It was always safe on the trees. Most of the nature documentaries I had watched said so.

When I straightened up enough to begin my climb, I felt the lightheadedness begin to set in again. The damn caterpillar had drained too much from me. But the feeling had lessened. It wasn’t as severe as it had been before. I still decided to climb rather than try to run away. I didn’t think I had enough in me for that.

The tree wasn’t that large. I could easily encircle it completely with my arms. I hugged it close and began my slow climb to safety. In the middle of the climb, I remembered another fact the nature documentaries always stated. Caterpillars could climb trees.

I hastened my climb as much as I could through my already straining muscles. I could see a branch above me and if I set myself there, I knew could keep the caterpillar from getting to me. A higher position was always advantageous.

I pulled myself up at the branch and straddled it staring into the forest, if it could be called that, with the bark of the tree to my back. I took a few calming breathes before staring down the tree.

I was a considerable distance from the ground. I was bad at approximating distances so it was hard to tell but I didn’t think more than three of me stacked up together would fit. Now, if only I could remember how tall I was.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

‘Clare, how tall am I?’ I asked my resident interloper.

‘You need the Skill [Identify] for me to answer that.’

‘You have got to be kidding me. You can’t even tell me something about myself?’ Then I had a scary thought. ‘Clare, did I forget my height, or are you withholding that information from me?’

‘Those questions all have the same answer.’

‘Which is?’ I asked in indignation.

‘The creature you are trying to get away from is closing in on you.’

‘That is not it, and we both know it.’

‘That’s what’s relevant right now.’

I went to give Clare a retort but something brushing on one of my feet reminded me that I had more important things to take care of first. I kicked it away but the pain that rose up my leg reminded me why I had yet to do away with a measly caterpillar.

Looking down, I saw that the caterpillar had indeed made it to where I was. I couldn’t understand how it held itself with those legs on the tree. With how much shock I was receiving from my kicks, it had to weigh at least three times my weight. And my weight was another goner. Damn you, Clare.

The eye I had kicked was still oozing the clear liquid. I decided to do the other one in too. If I blinded it, I could possibly finish it up in a more time friendly manner. Aiming with my right leg again, I thrust down towards the eye. This time, it successfully evaded. And I was nearly skewed by the spikes on its neck.

I tried two more times but when one of those spikes nicked me, I stopped trying. Looking about, I noticed a branch right above me. It was slender than the one I was straddling, barely thicker than my wrist at the base. It didn’t look like it could hold my weight at all but as a weapon, it would do. I grabbed it with both hands and pulled down as hard as I could.

I suddenly found myself falling down from the tree. The good news was that I was getting away from the caterpillar. And the bad news, I was falling down to what could possibly be my death. Clare couldn’t even be bothered to send me a farewell. Hey, Clare. At least show a little bit of concern here.

My breath was knocked out of me as I hit the ground hard. Even the generous cushion of leaves couldn’t mitigate the shock that went through me. I lay there for a few seconds, clutching my prize of a branch to my chest, as I watched the clouds slowly cross the blue sky above. I ignored the wetness I could feel on my back. it wasn’t blood, it was most definitely not blood.

Movement from my peripheral vision brought my attention to the caterpillar. It looked like it was preparing to get down. I wondered how it would go about that. A backward descend perhaps? Or would it make a full turn and descend head first? My musings were cut short when it just let go. And dear old me was directly below it.

It took precious moments for me to realize where those sharp spikes would land. Then I quickly rolled away from the falling caterpillar. When it made contact, a shock wave travelled through the forest floor to where I was, about a me length away from the caterpillar. The branch I was holding had prevented me from moving any farther. Forget the spikes, that crash would have surely crashed me just like the ninety-kg bag did.

I slowly got up, remembering what had happened the last time I had tried to do it quickly, bringing my branch with me. It was longer than I was tall with three minor branches of its own. I quickly removed those as the caterpillar rose and righted itself. Then I broke the remaining branch to a length of my height. The staffs I had seen on movies were usually as long as the user was tall. Wait, maybe longer? Yeah, definitely longer. I looked at my already broken branch and resigned myself. It wasn’t like I had ever used a staff before, the length wouldn’t matter that much. So I told myself.

I faced the finally righted caterpillar, thinking that I should have attacked it while it was trying to get its bearing. There was nothing that could be done about that.

Of the few stories I had ready on this kind of genre, the first dangerous encounter was either with a wolf or a slime. Maybe both? I wasn’t sure. Another thing I wasn’t sure about was whether I was glad that it was neither of those two.

For a while, neither us moved. Only staring at each other. Me with my two perfectly normal eyes, and the caterpillar with its two caterpillar eyes. One destroyed, one still functional. It had a lot of leaves stuck in its spikes. But it started writhing in itself making the spikes intertwine and interlock with each, slowly shedding the leaves until it was leave free again. Getting near those spikes was a definite no. I just hoped it couldn’t shoot them like spears. I would be done for then.

I held my makeshift staff pointed to the caterpillar. Waiting for anything to happen. I didn’t know why the caterpillar wasn’t leaving me alone. I had already hurt it badly enough. If it were me, I would have hightailed it out of here the first chance I got. For that matter, why wasn’t I running?

I had my reasons. One, the area was new to me. If I started running, where would I go? It was very likely that I would run from the caterpillar and find myself in the crosshairs of a much deadlier creature. Two, I was running low on energy. Running would consume too much, and reason one was still a possibility. Plus, where to get food. But the most important reason of all was that I wanted the caterpillar dead. Simple as that. First because it had attacked me. And second, because I was in a level system. The caterpillar felt like it was above me in terms of levels. Killing it would help me level up. And maybe I would finally get that [Identify] Skill Clare had talked about.

I slowly tried circling the caterpillar. Edging ever closer to it in its blindsided side. It kept trying to keep me in its view. Always repositioning its body to keep its one good eye on me. We did a full circle of that, and I ended up where I had begun. Somehow, I had started moving back during the circling.

I decided to risk it and thrusted my staff towards the caterpillar. It landed, with the staff sending a slight shock back to my body. I had seen it writhe that body like it was made of skin and fresh like mine, but when I hit it, it always felt like I was hitting something much harder.

I tried again, but aiming for the remaining eye. It evaded by stepping back, bulging up its body in the process. I saw that I was making progress and advanced a step while still thrusting for the eye. It pulled back again. I thrust for the mouth, then the eye and mouth again. Back and back it bulged.

And it shot forward so fast there was nothing I could do other than brace for the hit. It hit hard, knocking me breathless and pushing me back to where I had begun. It advanced on me while I was supine on the ground. I tried reaching for my branch that had been knocked off my hands, but the caterpillar made it before I could get a proper hold on the branch.

I thrashed wildly on the damp ground with my legs to keep it from getting a hold on me. It raised its front body when its attempts bore no fruits. I tried rolling away when I saw this, but it just bent with me and brought it down on me. I felt the bones in my lower body complain as it landed. Thankfully, there was no bone breaking sounds. If I had broken a bone, it would have been game over for me.

All the rolling had brought me close to the branch. As it tried to get a proper hold to suck my blood from me, I snatched the branch with my left hand and swung it to the creature’s head. I quickly took hold of the branch with both hands and continued swinging on its head as hard as I could. After the fourth, fifth hit, I saw green liquid start to ooze out of its head.

That was all the motivation I needed. That, and the fact that it had stopped trying to drink my blood. It started screeching as it tried to get off my legs but I gave it no chance. I brought down the branch faster and harder, enjoying each shock I got in return as I saw more green liquid ooze out of the caterpillar.

I didn’t stop until I felt the branch grow heavy in my hands. Too heavy to even swing fully. I let it fall behind me and my hands lay behind my head. I could feel the caterpillar wiggle but I knew it was in the throes of death. I let myself relax on the ground and soon enough, the exhaustion took me.