There was a series of loud shouts. Clay awoke, bleary eyed, being poked in the face by a stick. He tried to talk, but nothing but hoarse croaks came out. Standing above him was Erica, laughing heartily and pointing at him. Soon she was looking at his wrist. Then she hoisted him over her shoulder and carried him back to camp despite blood dripping slowly out of his new gaping wound. Clay tried to ask her a few things during the short walk, but went quiet when he couldn't understand her replies.

After they returned, she found a clear patch of dirt, and started writing in it. Her handwriting was unusually pristine, unlike her words. Clay could make out a few words from his limited knowledge, such as 'you' and 'read' and the question symbol at the end. He took the stick that was offered, and tried to write his only reply, which received another hearty laugh. His confidence in not writing absolute random garbage was rock bottom.

It was hard for Clay to move his head around and look at the ground, letting his head fall forward sent it into a weird jerking motion. He kept trying to breath, but no air passed through his mouth or nose, and instead came directly through his dry and irritated throat. He didn't dare reach up to touch his neck, for the pain from the air moving through the open wound told him what he already knew.

Erica had devolved into drawing pictures as communication broke down. On the ground now was a stick figure with spiky hair, an open book, and a clock surrounded by spikes. Soon he realized he was in for a tough session of language learning. She at least had the decency to bandage up his nick before they began.

Erica was a terrible teacher, the only way that he had began to learn anything was when he got tired of her mistakes and had to learn the material from others to correct her. She constantly slurred her speech and called things by different names and was never consistent even with herself. She at least bandaged up his neck after the third person vomited in front of him, and then tried to tell him that vomit was called, quite clearly, 'mouth shit'. Unfortunately, making Clay angry enough to learn the language himself from other people was more effective than Katrina's proper teaching, so he had to give Erica some credit.

More so than Erica, he had to give credit to the kind people of the small village that patiently taught him words and phrases. He had scribbled hundreds of words into the dirt with his now trusty stick. He wanted to think he was learning the pronunciations as well, but all he had to go on was what he heard, he couldn't repeat it back to them in any capacity.

Erica would try to feed him occasionally, but after everything fell through his bandages one time, he gave up on it. There didn't seem to be any risk to not eating, he had done so successfully for quite a while already.

'What's the worst that could happen? I die again?'

He didn't really think about these concerns while he had the option to eat, but he was glad he had the experience beforehand so he could now brush it off. He hadn't even truly had the urge to eat or drink. So he tried asking Erica about it, who just laughed and wrote 'Lucky you' and some unknown word next to it. Everything was so carefree to her that it was rather disorienting.

Clay spent an entire week like this. He got to know the people of the village, sat through meals with them, played with the children. It was fulfilling, but he still had a proverbial hole in his stomach, aside from the literal one. He wanted to get stronger still. He had just begun and had only reached Level 2.

He took his concerns to Erica, who cheered him up a bit. She wrote something about going slow and gave him a hug. She drew an angry face, laughed a lot, and then erased it with her foot. He got the message, take it slow and don't get ahead of yourself. He spent the next two days with a dark expression.

After she was finally comfortable with their level of communication, she wrote Level 3 on the ground and pointed to the gate. She had decided to give Clay the chance to prove himself and advance.

Though Clay had adjusted to rolling his neck to the side to look up and down, this didn't change the fact that he was heavily injured. Not just his neck, but the still gaping hole in his chest were going to make this a terrible challenge to overcome. He was overjoyed to face it.

This time, he started hunting immediately, it was still daylight and he wanted to be home before the nightly dinner.

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It had been three hours or so since Clay first started wandering around looking for any sign of life, yet he didn't see anything. Eventually he came across a the river. There were odd drag marks on the shore, and a square hole was deep in the middle of the river. This must have been the spot he was pulled out from. It was unnerving to be staring at the place he was buried, hoping he would never again see the light of day. If Erica hadn't been there for him, he'd still be at the bottom of the river. 

'I need to get stronger, smarter, everything. I can't just let this life go to waste. I have people to repay now.'

It was the mantra he repeated to himself as he searched high and low for even a trace of life. The forest was too quiet despite it being the middle of the day. His knowledge from biology told him that dozens of herbivores should be wandering around through the forest right now, but he had only seen the jackalopes at night. The closest he had was the tonguesnout he saw when he first got here.

He tried to focus on his senses, primarily his eyes. There wasn't much underbrush to speak of, and most branches only started at about nine feet in height, so he could see quite far already. He just couldn't sense anything he saw as living. 

The effect improved dramatically. His focus and clarity of sense seemed to be twice the bonus he had from before. He had the eyes of an eagle, and the nose of a hound. Billions of shuffling sounds came from around him from insects moving just out of his sight. A strange beetle flew between two trees about a dozen yards away. Nothing of much note, but there was an odd scent that startled coming from nearby. He scanned his surroundings, moving his head back and forth to see past the trees.

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He picked up on a white spot moving far in the distance. It was unusual. He hadn't seen anything up till now, neither a jackalope or whatever that scaled cat was, but now something white was in the distance. It came back into view ever so slightly. Whatever it was, it was tall, it was tall enough for its shoulder height to reach the branches of the trees. He edged closer and closer to it with his mind set on hitting it with a sneak attack. The bed of leaves crinkled softly beneath his feet as he walked closer, but the thing didn't move.

It wasn't just large, it was massive. Its jaws were dyed red, and between its claws was the tattered remains of whoever was unfortunate enough to have crossed it before. A Velona guard's legs were all that was still intact, equipped with proper chainmail and the familiar yellow, and now also red, cloth. The rest was of the body was just splotches of red scattered over the beast, and the grisly intestines draping down from the corpse like some fleshy ropes. It was a terrifying sight, but it was an opportunity.

He reassured himself that there wasn't any risk, since he couldn't die. As he kept closer, sickening noises from bones being torn from their flesh, and bits of skin ripping away kept hitting him, over and over again. There were no crunches of the bones being broken up, they were just gone. The beast swallowed everything directly. It was right there behind a tree, not even ten feet from him.

Clay gripped tightly on his sword and went to plunge it into the back of the white creature. It turned slightly toward him. It's face was like a skull, incredibly bony. It's skin seemed to have receded away from its face, and sharp jagged teeth extended downard. It seemed it's face functioned like some sort of beak, with its black eyes hidden inside the sockets. It's head was shaped like a deer skull, with a long slender snout, that instead of having a mouth on the end, was the mouth in its entirety. Tendrils of its own flesh hung down from its lower jaw, scraped off by how violently it used its mouth to feast.

Clay would have vomited if he had anything to throw up. This was his first time seeing something so gruesome, and its own deformed face was the final straw. He was not spared from the nausea. He slid to the side, trying to escape its view before it realized he was there. His only hope was that it would rather continue to eat its secured meal than risk going after another.

He frantically braced himself behind a tree, and readied his sword. The thing shuffled loudly behind him, mere feet away. It let out a loud anguished roar, nearly shattering his eardrums with its howl. Clay could see its broad figure past the sides of the tree, even as its face was hidden down the center. The arms were thicker than he was, and disproportionally long for the rest of its body. It had incredibly long fingers, with dagger like claws pulling back up into the air.

It lifted its claw above its head, and brought it down with a tremendous force. Terrified, he didn't even make an attempt to run. The tree splintered where it was struck, and fell with a thunderous crash to the side. While it sauntered past the remaining stump, it stared him down, even as it set its weight onto his legs, pinning him in place. Clay could only curse his stupidity for thinking he was invincible in the moment. He knew he could be torn apart and boxed up. He should fear being eaten.

There was no time to regret, he had to take action.

'Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What do I- How can I get- Think damn it Clay think!'

His head racing, he came to only one conclusion. He had to make it so uncomfortable that it would leave, there was only one story he had heard of a situation like this. A boy in Montana had shoved his arm down a bear's throat, driving the creature off and saving his life. He couldn't trust just that, but the idea was enough.

He pulled the skinning knife from his left pocket, and as the beast went for his throat, he shoved his arm into its mouth. It was a wet, disgusting feeling. The tongue felt like sandpaper and the teeth were already digging into his arm. He pushed past the pain and stabbed as hard as he could at the back of its mouth. It scraped against what felt like bone.

After trying to jump back in surprise and failing, the monster doubled down, twisted, swiftly rotated its head from side to side, severing his arm. Then it started to regurgitate the arm that had been forcefully shoved in its mouth with a heavy coughing motion. Clay was in shock, the only chance he had seen to make it out of here with his life was taken from him. He slumped back, watching as the bulge in its throat moved slowly outward.

He didn't care about living this much, it was only because it would be a waste originally. Would Katrina or Erica fault him for failing here? He felt something, he felt the handle still, and the slimy feeling around the arm, and without thinking more deeply about it, kicked as hard as he could at the beast's throat. It stopped, then slowly fell down, covering the lower half of Clay's body with its massive head.