Mike continued flying down the giant sand dune at the front of the sand-alanche, a term he had made up during his downward path and which he thought was quite clever, until he reached the valley floor and continued up the side of the next dune. When he finally came to a stop, he turned around and squinted into the twilight, just barely making out the massive wurm’s destroyed figure. He had a decision to make.
Do I turn around and collect me some wurm flank-steak or do I keep going and trust that I’ll be able to hunt another monster way above my own level? Laughing at the idea of flank-steak from a creature with no flanks, he began the trek back up the large sand dune. It really wasn’t a hard decision. His spatial storage would preserve the meat as long as he needed it to, and leaving the meat would just be a waste.
Increasing his pace, he was able to reach the dune’s summit, and Quicksilver clever in hand, he approached the wurm’s remains. A large chunk of the body had been blown to pieces, which would normally be unusable except that a piece of this wurm was generally larger than the average bicycle before the System. Approaching one such piece, he began scraping the skin off, a task which he decided would have been impossible for him if he wasn’t working his way from the inside out. The skin was almost a foot thick, and while it felt like leather, it was tougher than rock. It was far too sturdy to be usable in its current state, but he packed it away in his storage bag along with the meat he had scraped off, a few ideas already churning in his head about how he could use it down the line.
Thankfully, though the skin was hard as rock, the meat was still palatable. It lacked the marbling of a good cut of beef, but with a little salt and pepper and maybe a day of stewing, he anticipated that he would quite enjoy it.
After the first chunk was fully processed, he realized that it wouldn’t be safe to keep butchering in his current location. The explosion and large amount of available meat would definitely attract other scavengers and he needed to be long gone before they arrived. With that in mind, he ran from one piece of the remains to the next, shoving it into his spatial storage bag as quickly as he could. After grabbing the 20 largest chunks in his general vicinity, he came across what remained of the creature’s jaw. The large, rotary teeth were still set firmly to the bone, and he instinctively shuddered, remembering how close he had come to being crushed by them only a few days earlier. Shaking himself out of it, he stuffed that piece into his bag as well.
With the majority of the pieces stowed away, he approached the back half of the creature, which had been blown out of the mountainside by the explosion. A good 20 feet of it still remained intact. He tried storing it, but found that for the first time, his storage bag wouldn’t let him. It wasn’t full yet, so he came to the forced conclusion that there was a limit to how big of an item he could put into it. He briefly considered chopping it up, but knew that the skin would be impervious to his blows from the outside and would take far too long to simply carve out the meat. So with some regret, he left it where it was.
Sprinting across the now flattened dune and diving headfirst down the side, he did his best to match the speed that had been provided by the explosion and subsequent avalanche. He wasn’t quite able to do so, but he still made good time, and with several hours still remaining before morning, he came to the top of a dune that overlooked the oasis, if a fetid pool of water could be called such. It was plenty big, around the size of a small lake, but even from his current position, he could hear the buzzing of insects. He was grateful to note that the insects were still almost as small as they had always been, only around the size of a large dinner plate instead of a school bus like the wurms had been. Their presence only increased his reticence to approach the fetid waters, and he decided that simply watching the area would be in his best interest for the night. Finding a good vantage point, he dug a small burrow in the ground, and began to meticulously cover himself until only his two eyes were visible.
Throughout his nighttime vigil, he saw a few wild foxes, cats, and other quadrupeds that generally inhabited the deserts on pre-System earth. Unfortunately, the System hadn’t lied in its notification about the elite zone: even the desert cottontail which came within a few hundred yards of his location was Level 80. Sadly, he wasn’t having cooked rabbit anytime soon.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
In addition to the animals he was familiar with, he saw some new species. One was an amorphous blob of sand that rolled across the valley’s floor without any concern for what lay in front of it. Creatures both big and small leaped to get out of its path. Another creature was more humanoid looking, but stood almost 10 feet tall and appeared to be made completely of stone–it came close enough that Mike was able to use Analyze it and learn it was a Stone Troll. Still another new species was a creature that had the lower body of a reptile, but had long, grass-like growths along its back. Positioned in the shallows, it was immaculately camouflaged and Mike only managed to notice it because he saw as it pounced on an unsuspecting fox, devouring it instantly before blending back into the surroundings, causing Mike to make a mental note to never go near the grasses.
The nighttime ecosystem ground to a complete stop an hour before sunrise, all at once, the creatures vanished into the surrounding hillsides. After five minutes of quiet, Mike emerged and began making his shelter. He had little time, and he wanted to build quietly so as not to alert any predators. However, this was the first real source of water he had seen, and he planned on being here for at least a few days. With all of this in mind, he silently dug down into the sand, working to a depth that he could stand up in. Thanks to his improved physicality, the 6 foot deep hole with an approximate 4 foot radius was completed within an hour, and he was just finishing putting a grate-like cover over the top of it when the sun began to rise. After another 10 minutes of reinforcing the pit’s edges with Quicksilver, squatted down and began digging at an angle.
The process started off slow, with his body stopped in an awkward position and him being forced to bail out sand through the shelter’s entrance, but as more space was created and he could move more freely, it became easier. When he had created another chamber in which he could easily lay down in, he received a notification:
[Congratulations! You have learned the skill Burrow.
+2 to Strength
Many of the plant’s least intelligent lifeforms dig their homes into the ground.
Now you do too.]
The air around him seemed to hum as he read the notification, and he felt his body begin sucking in energy from all around. Flashbacks to the excruciating pain he had endured the night before caused him to break out in a cold sweat, but rather than overwhelming him, his body sucked up only a fraction of what it had previously, before it forced the energy into his arms and hands, where it shaped itself into incomprehensible runes. After a few moments, where he looked on in silent wonder, the energy vanished, just like it always did.
“As if snarky comments and getting a skill way after I deserved it isn’t annoying enough, now I am forced to watch the System change my own body without any say in the matter.” he grumbled aloud.
After lining the den with Quicksilver, he slowly crawled backward til he had reached the entrance shaft, and stood up to look outside. The sun was shining down in earnest, and not a creature was in sight. It was likely the best opportunity he would get to retrieve water.
Sliding from the hole, Mike held a piece of sand wurm skin above his head for camouflage and carefully made his way down to the water. The mile-long distance felt more like 20 and his nerves frayed both from the heat and the knowledge that at any moment he could come across the burrow of a creature that was far stronger than himself. Breathing deeply and focusing on his body, the one thing he could control, he was able to push through the stress and safely make it to the water’s edge. Filling up his water jugs as fast as he could, he retraced his steps back to his burrow, where he collapsed into a humid heap of unwashed flesh. The last week had changed his perspective on reality. He was no longer the apex predator, but found himself at the bottom of the food chain, and he would need all of his training if he was going to survive.
After a few minutes, he arranged himself more comfortably and began looking through his Character Sheet while he waited for sleep to come. As he saw the requirement for leveling up Burrow, he cursed aloud: Dig a burrow for two. It wasn’t enough for the System to be sarcastic, it had to also make fun of his relationship status and loneliness too.