> Dave

>

> Fallen Jungle

>

> 58th of Cycle 2, 1015

“We’re starting the training right now? But I’m still tired from the fight with the horse…”

“Kii!” Grey yelled as he threw a stone at my head.

“What was that-” I was cut off by another rock flying toward me, which I dodged using fleet-footed. Grey closed the distance between us and swiped his staff at my feet, knocking me onto my back. He wagged his finger in disapproval as I stood back up.

“What? Did I do something wrong?” He nodded, then waved his staff around, creating an illusion of the orange system with a red X on it.

“... No skills?”

“Kii, Kii,” Grey said in approval as he pulled another stone out of his pouch. I gulped as I prepared myself for his throw.

I ended up bruised and battered after a few hours of ‘dodging,’ if you could even call it that. I felt like a child learning to take his first steps, and the lesson helped me realize how dependent I’d become on my skills.

Grey shook his head and waved his staff, creating an illusory version of myself. Every time he threw a rock, the illusion would move in an optimal way to dodge, so I mimicked its movement patterns. After a few hours of actual dodging and a few swipes of Grey’s staff at my legs, I felt a lot more coordinated.

“Kii,” Grey pointed back toward the cave, and I interpreted his sound as the closing bell for today’s training.

As we approached, the wonderful smell of cooked meat filled my nostrils. I ran to the source and found a group of gremlins dancing ritually around a fire as they threw strange spices onto a horse carcass. After a few minutes of waiting, I was presented with a large slab of roasted horse.

I had to admit that my appetite went down after seeing the cooking process, but I was starving, and I hadn’t had grilled meat in a long time, so I quickly took the first bite. To my surprise, it was so delicious that before I noticed it, I had eaten the entire piece. The gremlin cooks crossed their arms with pride as I reached for seconds.

I looked around and noticed that, even in their dire circumstances, the gremlins were smiling, eating, and drinking around a campfire. I went to sleep that night with a newfound sense of motivation and prepared myself for the tough days of training to come.

> 88th of Cycle 2, 1015

A month of training passed by. During that time, I focused solely on movement and combat without the use of skills. While I did get better, I was getting tired of the daily grind and wondered when Grey would decide to move on.

“When are we going to start training skills?”

A grin swept across Grey’s face, and I felt like he had been waiting for me to ask that very question for a long time. He led me away from the cave on a hunt without so much as a peep. The tracks we followed looked like the hoofprints of a demon-horse, and sure enough, we found one bathing in the sun at the end of the trail.

To my horror, Grey turned to me and weaved the ‘no skills allowed’ illusion.

“What? There’s no way I cant take on-”

“Kiiiiiiiiiii!” Grey screeched.

The horse jumped up from its resting position, and Grey disappeared into the trees before I could protest.

This time I’m really going to beat the living shit out of you when this is over, you fucking gremlin.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Some demonic neighing brought me out of my thoughts as the terrifying figure of the horse charged at me with reckless abandon. Its jaws snapped a few inches away from my shoulder as I unsheathed my dagger and slashed at its hip, drawing first blood.

During my month of training, I learned that dodging with less movement secured more opportunities for counterattacks. That strike was the perfect affirmation of my hard work.

The horse let out a cry of pain as it turned to face me. For some reason, it gave up on trying to charge at me and instead opted to walk at me menacingly.

That won’t work, either. I drew my bow and loosed two arrows at it. While neither of them did any real damage, they forced the horse to close the distance again. I swapped back to my dagger, moved to the side, and slashed at its open wound.

Switching between weapons was a core point of my new fighting style. The bow was meant to lure melee combatants into unfavorable close combat situations, where my speed advantage would put the nail in their coffin.

Finally, the horse decided to use its special move, and it ran circles around me until black fog obscured my vision of it. I was ready this time, so when three horses galloped out of the smokescreen, I immediately ran towards the one that was bleeding. With a quick step and a violent stab, I knocked the horse off balance.

I stepped back and drew my bow. Firing at a helpless animal didn’t sit well with me, but its death was already inevitable. Hesitation at this point would only make its suffering worse, so I loosed arrow after arrow at it. I felt its life slowly being dragged away with every shot until, finally, its eyes glazed over.

Grey returned shortly after.

“Did I pass your test, you little shit?”

He tilted his head from side to side as if he was thinking about it, so I nocked an arrow and drew my bow at him. He flailed his arms around and nodded his head wildly in surrender, so I just smiled and sheathed my weapons.

“Let’s go home, Grey. We’re gonna have a feast tonight, right?” I pointed at the horse, which now looked like a pinata with all the arrows sticking out of it.

“Kii!” He said in approval and gave me the enchanted glove to carry the horse with.

> 10th of Cycle 3, 1015

Another two weeks of training passed. This time the focus was on combining everything I had learned with skills, and it was a lot harder than I expected. The boost given by skills made it hard to maintain the control I had come to expect from my body, but fourteen days was just about enough to get adjusted.

Name: Dave

Race: Human?

Class: Scout(rare)

Class Skills: Sneak(Int) Lv8, Fleet-footed(Adv) Lv2, Archery(Int) Lv8, Hyper-Accelerated vision(Int) Lv 9

Class Skill Slots 1

Skills: Hypnosis resistance Lv1, Survivalist(unique), Poison Resistance Lv3, Dangersense(basic) Lv9, Knife-Combat(Int) Lv 6, Pain Resistance Lv 1, Kicking(basic) Lv 5, Finisher(basic) Lv 1

New Skill(s): Focus(basic) Lv1

Active quests: The Silver Panther, Cursed

The highlight of the two weeks was my fleet-footed making it to advanced rank. Extra speed/agility would always be helpful.

Focus(basic)

The focused mind can pierce through stone.

Draw on the power of your mind, increasing concentration on the task at hand.

Increased reaction time at intermediate rank.

The concentration aspect sounded like a scam to me, but increased reaction time could prove useful. Still better than survivalist, I guess.

As I was looking through the rest of my skills, Grey approached me with a grim look on his face. “What’s wrong?”

He waved his staff, and the illusion of a near-empty hourglass appeared. The gears in my head started turning as my eyes opened wide. “You have a time limit… What happens when it ends?” He shook his head, and he didn’t need to say anything for me to understand what he meant. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner? We could’ve trained harder. We could’ve… Damn it all, there’s no point thinking about what could’ve been. How long do we have?”

He raised three fingers. “Three days?”

He nodded, and my heart sank. “How do you expect me to fight whatever you lost against in three days? I’m nowhere near the level your group was, so how? I’m not planning on running to my death if you don’t have a solid plan.” I paused and waited for a response. “Well? Do you have a plan or not?”

He made a so-so motion with his hand.

“What is that supposed to mean, Grey?”

With another wave of his staff, a disturbing series of illusions appeared in front of me. When they faded away, I slowly brought my hand up to my face in disappointment. “Grey, I’ve made some stupid plans before, but this, this is something else. You don’t seriously expect this to work, do you?”

He repeated the so-so motion from before, and I let out a long-winded sigh.

“Fuck.”