Warm sunshine flickered through the swaying branches, heralding the start of a new day.

Laira moved to the spot where the sunlight was least obstructed by the trees, shaking off leaves and dirt from her clothes while doing so.

Cooold…

She rubbed her arms while bathing in the early morning sun, the chill of the night only slowly leaving her limbs.

Next time I’ll make a fire for sure.

Sleeping on the forest floor proved to be much more uncomfortable than expected. Apart from the occasional insects that crawled all over her, making her feel like jumping up and running away, it was also much colder than she had imagined.

She did cover her sleeping spot and herself with moss, branches and leaves once she had finally regained enough strength to move again, but even with that it was way too chilly.

I feel like I didn’t sleep at all.

She yawned heartily, her eyes getting teary from her drowsiness.

After a few more minutes of enjoying the sunbath and a few jumping-jacks for the extra warmup, she decided to look around the area. Although she had already decided to go to the camp next, she was still curious about what happened last night.

Maybe the surroundings, now clearly visible in daylight, would offer some clues.

She could still see the boar, though she had moved away from it a little at night. She was uncomfortable sleeping so close to a cadaver.

Walking in circles around where she had woken up, it didn’t take her overly long to come across something horrible.

She froze in place and covered her mouth in shock.

Alex… no…

He was lying on his side, partially leaning against a tree, a feathered bolt lodged in his forehead.

She turned her head away, the sight of the murdered man too much for her.

That was when a small gust of wind brought over the smell of blood.

She vomited.

After emptying whatever had been in her stomach, she leaned against a tree, breathing heavily. It was now that she also remembered what Alex and Jack had been talking about when they had first met.

How they were chasing someone with a crossbow. How they had been attacked before.

For some reason, the thought that they could get attacked by them as well, had never even entered her mind.

Cleo… oh my god, please be alright.

Her previous confidence in her sister’s safety wavered. What if she also got hurt? Or worse, killed?

The rising anxiety made Laira start frantically running around the area, in search of more bodies.

She almost vomited again when she spotted Jack’s mutilated corpse.

Deciding she didn’t want to see the gore from close up, she kept her distance from Jack’s body and kept on searching.

Her stress fueled search lasted for at least half an hour, when she finally stopped.

I’ve been running around everywhere here and I can’t find any traces of Cleo.

There were some footprints here and there, near Alex and Jack, that could have been Cleo’s size, but Laira wasn’t sure what to do with them.

Cleo had probably been trying to help them but ran away once they were killed. That was the only thing Laira could think of.

Anxious, but slightly relieved that she couldn’t find her sister’s body anywhere, she decided it was time to leave and make her way north, in the direction of the camp.

When she had woken up today, she initially thought she would take a more careful approach, walking slowly towards her destination. That was when she had still believed that her sister should be perfectly fine.

But now she was hastily making her way north, in a mixture of jogging and running, the feeling of panic that had gripped her upon seeing the dead bodies urging her to go as fast as possible.

It wasn’t until she heard the sounds of steel clashing that she realized she should have picked up one of her former teammates’ weapons.

****

Thin, crimson tendrils crawled and wiggled their way across her face, slowly painting it in a red hue, until even her glaring blue eyes were covered.

The image shattered when Cleo moved and continued to wash the blood off her hands. After cleaning them to a satisfactory degree, she looked down on herself, observing the rest of her ragged and blood caked clothes.

She sighed.

Might as well.

Laying her spear to the ground, she slowly waded into the lake until the water reached to her neck.

Ahh… this feels nice.

The water was cool, bordering on cold, but the grime, dirt and blood washing off her felt refreshing.

After getting the worst off her and wading to a clearer spot, she also took a few greedy sips of the water. It probably wasn’t the best idea to drink it directly, if she were smart she would have boiled it first, but she was really thirsty.

It probably wouldn’t kill her, right? There was no way the new world would kill her via something mundane like a waterborne disease. That would be too ironic.

Surrounded by the forest and looking over the glittering water surface, with just the chirping of birds as background, she couldn’t help but want to relax in this peaceful atmosphere.

It should be alright for a bit… right?

She hesitantly looked back at the treeline not far off the shore.

What are the chances that something or someone comes barreling out of the woods in the next few minutes, attacking me? Not that high, right?

Making up her mind, she let her head get submerged by the water, all sounds getting drowned out. Slowly turning around underwater, she spread her arms and drew herself forward.

She glided through the clear lake, sun rays flickering and dancing around her.

When her chest started to hurt and she couldn’t hold it in anymore, she broke through the surface, drawing one long breath.

Taking slow and deep breaths, she floated on her back, looking up at the sky.

Only occasionally clouds dotted the otherwise clear, blue tapestry.

So peaceful…

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It was nice to finally be able to relax a little. Her muscles were sore from the constant fighting and killing. Her mind burnt out from… using that skill.

If only those two didn’t show up and her sister was still alive, she could have chosen something else. But that bastard, that fucking bastard, didn’t giver her any choice. She wished he was still alive so she could kill him again, ram her spear through his head again, rip him apart, hurt him-

The rising heat inside of her cooled off when she submerged herself again in the cool lake water. Floating underwater with her eyes closed, she slowly calmed her mind, until she was sure the unnatural anger was suppressed again.

That skill is gonna make me go insane eventually…

Ever since the first time she used it against Jack it had been influencing her emotions, amplifying every tiny bit of anger that she felt. It started out very small, unnoticeable even, but after using it a few more times it had become more and more obvious.

It was a very useful skill, it made hunting boars laughably easy. She was already on her third quest, which she would also soon finish. However the side effects were too strong. She almost never remembered what happened in the fights, only very vaguely.

And she now had to be very careful with her emotions, tiptoeing around certain thoughts that would trigger unwanted negative responses, which the skill then would latch onto.

She had the feeling it wanted to get activated more and more, every time it amplified her anger she got the instinct to fight something with the skill. But she knew it was a double edged sword. She had guessed it the moment she chose it, but now she knew for certain.

I’m pretty sure it’s not even supposed to be in the System, with how corrupted the whole text looks… Who is that Säon guy anyway, never heard of him before. But probably for the best, I have an inkling he isn't the most chill dude around...

In any case, she had resolved to not use it anymore until absolutely necessary. She had already gotten another skill from the second quest, which she relied on heavily, and her third quest was also under way. Maybe she would never have to use it again.

And hopefully she wouldn’t have to control her emotions like that forever either.

She once again broke the surface to gasp for air. The coolness of the water and the light breeze made her shiver.

Alright, enough relaxing, time to get to work again.

With quick strokes she made her way over to the shore again. Picking up her spear, she strode towards the trees, only to stop after a few seconds.

Okay, slight additional break.

She moved over to a nearby rock, bathing in the sun to dry herself and her clothes off. The cold wind and her wet clothes clinging to her, after getting out of the water, had made her reconsider going directly back into the forest.

Having nothing much to do, she stared at the far end of the lake, where she could see faint smoke rising up and the occasional group of people moving to and from the camp.

The camp actually looked quite nicely made for one day of work. It had rudimentary shelters made of sticks and leaves and whatnot and even a few sharp branches stuck around the perimeter, kind of like a rudimentary spike wall.

Still, she didn’t want to go there.

When she had arrived there yesterday, during the last rays of the evening sun, she had given the camp a wide berth, not wanting to run into anyone (or anything), not after what had happened. She had wanted to do everything alone from the beginning, and the moment her sister convinced her to try and seek out a group, she got killed. She wouldn’t make that mistake again.

She had, however, observed it for a while to scout it and also to count how many people were in the camp. She couldn't really make those details out from where she currently was after all.

But scouting it had turned out to be harder than expected with the quick onset of night, even with their many fireplaces illuminating large portions of the camp. However in the end she had been quite certain that there were around five or six dozen people. Which was quite insane in her opinion.

The heightened aggro due to the group size, as Alex had told her, meant they had had to fight many more beasts than everyone else so far, which also meant…

They must have progressed much faster than most people. Just one more reason to avoid them.

After she had scouted the camp to her satisfaction, she had decided to spend the night in a tree and make her way around the lake, to the other side, in the morning.

This had turned out to take longer than expected. Not only because the lake proved to be much larger than she initially thought, but also because she got sidetracked by some boars and… her skill. It did make her finish her second Walking your Path quest (which she had gotten after killing Jack) and net her a new skill, but it was well into the day when she had finally made it to the lake again.

She had also gotten another one of those essences during one of her hunts, which she had only noticed after opening her status. She had already noticed that she had 5 of them after killing Jack, and she remembered getting some when she had killed Alex, but she still didn’t know what exactly they were for. Nor what decided how much one received for a kill. But her new quest demanded them, so the more the better, especially if future quests wanted even more.

With a quick thought, she summoned both her status and her quest, to look at them again.

STATUS

Name Cleo Harper Race

Human Grade

Ungraded Alignment Spear Quests Walking your Path III Essence

Copper I 6

Skills [2/5]:

S̵̩̋ͅäon’s Wrath̸̫̳͆ - ? - Copper I Spearmanship - Passive - Copper I

Quest: Walking your Path III

Be a major contributor to the death of 9 opponents of equal or higher grade, using your aligned weapon [3/9].

Collect at least 3 Copper I essence [6/3].

Reward: Choose 1 from 3 aligned Copper I skills.

It hopefully wouldn’t take too long to get the additional few kills for her next skill, the essence requirements were already satisfied. She really couldn’t wait to finally get a useful active. And no, her first mania inducing skill didn’t count.

She actually did like her second skill, Spearmanship, even if it sounded a little unimpressive. It had felt like the most reasonable choice when she had gotten her second skill selection. The other two, Empowered Throw and Weapon Storage, had felt a little ill-suited for her current situation (who, apart from sneaky assholes like Jack, would choose a convenience skill like Weapon Storage over a combat skill?). Spearmanship was something that would provide a solid baseline for her combat potential. It would always help her, in every single moment of a fight, so it definitely was worthwhile.

Especially against people, whom Cleo was certain she would have to fight against in the future. The skill did give much more knowledge for weapon combat than for fighting against beasts, but that also kind of made sense. A beast didn’t really try to parry or faint or do other crazy things.

It was still useful though, the fights she had so far only relying on Spearmanship went much better than if she didn’t have it.

But still, she craved something that was truly special. Maybe something magical. Perhaps something that shot a fireball. Okay, she probably wouldn’t get something like that, but anything that actually used mana.

If Empowered Throw is the only mana combat skill in the next selection, I’m gonna cry…

After making sure that her clothes were sufficiently dry, she closed all the system screens again and made her way towards the forest, in search for new prey for her quest.

She didn’t walk for too long, when sounds coming from every direction made her freeze.

The hairs on her neck stood on end.

Are those… howls?

She had a very bad feeling about this.