A nestling chirped pathetically in the distance.
Red blinked cluelessly at the surrounding forest. His hand nervously clutched at his briefcase as his leather dress shoes displaced a few wilted ferns struggling to grow beneath the towering trees. His wrist ached from being ripped off of the bus handle by the doorway as it had taken him...here. An ancient forest that filled his nostrils with the crisp scent of pine needles. A forest that was notably missing a certain glowing door.
A deep guttural growl snapped Red’s attention to the side.
A massive bear with bared teeth stood between two of the titanic pines. It was taller than Red at the shoulder and must have weighed more than an SUV at minimum. Coarse brown fur so dark it appeared black covered the giant beast, though it failed to hide the rippling muscles that casually flexed to propel the huge beast forward.
Red’s eyes bugged out, and his voice locked up as his vision was consumed by the attacking bear. The last thing he noticed was a faint sheen of green before the darkness consumed him.
A nestling chirped pathetically in the distance.
Red gasped and staggered as the brilliant rays of sunlight filtered peacefully through the canopy. He fell to the ground, clutching his suitcase to his chest as the memory of being mauled hit him like a truck.
A wash of green colored his vision, and suddenly all was well. The remembered pain didn’t seem all that bad. Sure, it had hurt. But right now, he was healthy. In fact, his clothes weren’t even torn from the bear attack. It was almost as if Red had dreamed the whole encounter.
A deep guttural growl sounded from behind him.
“Oh,” Red turned, eerily calm, as he looked into the amber eyes of the massive, aggressive bear. “Hello there.”
[New Skill → Stab Resistance 1]
A nestling chirped pathetically in the distance.
Red let out a shuddering breath as the green forest was presented to him for the third time. He pressed his eyes closed, confusion bearing down on him. Before his fear, panic or any other negative emotion could spiral out of control, another green wave flickered calmly under his eyelids.
This wasn’t so bad. Everything was ok. At least for now.
Red opened his eyes. A small part of him realized that his calm was forced. It irked him that his mind was being affected by...something. His mind was his own, but perhaps the green calm was necessary. It allowed him to think through the situation analytically without panicking.
So what did he know?
He was in a forest, and he kept dying to a bear. Was this a simulation? Or some kind of time loop? How did he get here? What had happened to...Earth?
It didn’t really matter at the end of the day, Red decided. He was here. He was immortal...sorta, and he had to deal with the situation.
Which meant. Bear.
A deep guttural growl sounded from behind him.
Their eyes met, and Red narrowed his.
He fought as the bear bore down on him, but he was torn to pieces all the same. The green light flared behind his eyelids as the pain mounted. He tried to punch the beast, pull at its hair, and scratch its nose, but all to no avail. The creature felt like it was made of corded steel. Hard and unyielding to the point that it felt unnatural.
A fact belied by the heady warmth radiating off the beast in waves.
Throughout it all, his mind continued its cold analysis of the situation. He noticed that its claws seemed to struggle a little as they penetrated his skin. As if the claws had dulled since the last time they had eviscerated him.
With his last dying breath, Red slammed his thumbs into the creature’s amber eyes. A glimmer of shock managed to sneak past the suppressive green light as his fingers skittered uselessly off the slimy surface of the bear’s eyes. The creature didn’t even blink as its jaws closed like a hydraulic vice around Red’s skull.
[Stab Resistance 1 → Stab Resistance 2]
A nestling chirped pathetically in the distance.
The suppressed pain faded to the background as, once more, Red stood unharmed in the middle of the forest. Idly, he noticed other things about the forest. There was a dull cacophony of droning sounds filling the air from insects, birds and all other manner of invisible creatures. The bark of the trees was rough and gnarly. Probably climbable, but he’d lose the skin on his fingers if he attempted it. In the distance, he vaguely saw the forest thin to reveal a rocky outcropping.
Red turned in the direction the bear always came from and spotted the creature staring at him from behind a tree. Time seemed to freeze as Red came to a decision.
Under normal circumstances, he would have run. As fast and as far as he could. Damn, all the survival guides, which said that was the worst thing he could do when encountering a bear. He had unassailable proof that standing his ground was a terrible idea. There had to be some sort of civilization around here, or at the very least, a shelter where he wouldn’t immediately die at the claws of a rabid bear.
Running was objectively the better idea.
But these weren't normal circumstances. It seemed as if he was immortal. Or...rather. He could die, but that only respawned him at the beginning of the...level. For lack of a better term. Pain existed, and so did every other sensation. That normally would have given him pause in facing a giant bear head-on, but...
The green light flared, and all the fear drained out of Red. All that was left was a burning curiosity regarding the glowing words that had appeared twice already.
The bear growled, and Red couldn’t help but grin as he lunged at the beast. The green light did nothing to suppress that emotion. For a moment, he managed to grab the creature by the ears and almost jumped onto its back, but the bear roared and slammed him to the ground.
Red wheezed as several tonnes of enraged bear crushed his chest cavity into a red smear. Blood gurgled out of his mouth, nose and ears as his glowing green eyes shone like beacons.
He blearily looked into the jaws of death. From the outside, it appeared as if Red was staring at the jaws, but he was actually looking at the line of glowing text floating before his eyes.
[New Skill → Crush Resistance 1]
A nestling chirped pathetically in the distance.
A slow smile lit up Red’s face. Just like that, he had a path forward. Even with just the two skills, he could already tell that the bear’s claws weren’t cutting as deep. It even felt like the level in crush resistance was helping in dull the bear’s claws somehow. The bear wasn’t any weaker, and poking his arm didn’t feel like his skin was harder, but all the same, the effect was there.
Red looked around once again. The thought of running came up again. He could do it. The bear would only arrive in a few seconds. But...why? In the past, he would have balked at throwing himself at a problem like an idiot like this, especially if it involved mutilation, dismemberment and death. Hell, any rational person would do the same.
But the green light and the loop meant all those concerns were no more important than a death in a video game.
And there was a man-eating bear just wandering around. What if a backpacker stumbled across these parts?
He had a job to do.
So Red stayed. He turned as the bear growled and, with almost eager glee, met the bear’s charge. He wasn’t stupid about it, though. He charged the beast, yes. But at the very last moment, he pivoted around a tree. The bear lashed out, clipping him with one of its enormous claws. Red blocked with his briefcase, but the claws tore through the thick leather like it was made of tissue paper.
Once the claws encountered his skin, they slowed dramatically, though still penetrated all the way to the bone.
[Stab Resistance 2 → Stab Resistance 3]
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Red winced, and the green light flared. Somehow, it didn’t interfere with his vision, and he raced toward the bear. He kicked it as hard as he could in the flank. It felt like kicking a concrete wall covered by a thin, molding rug.
The bear spun far faster than a creature that size had any right to move, and Red warily limped backward. Thoughts and strategies raced across his mind as the bear lunged. Red managed to dance around the bear for a few more seconds before he was inevitably pinned and mauled to death.
[New Skill → Brawling 1]
[Crush Resistance 1 → Crush Resistance 2]
A nestling chirped pathetically in the distance.
Red took a deep breath and turned to meet the bear once more.
This repeated for another dozen loops as Red fought a creature far above his weight class. If this were a game, he would have tried to memorize the creature’s attack patterns and exploit them, but the bear was a living, breathing creature. It fought reactively and viciously, which forced Red to make openings or die through attrition.
This led to experimentation. And death. Lots of death. Many loops, he died almost instantly as a mistake threw him directly into the bear’s jaws. Other times, he managed to survive for a time before the chip damage he was taking caught up to him.
The brawling skill helped with this. It steadily leveled as the loops progressed, and his knowledge of brawling with a bear grew. It wasn’t exactly a set of unnatural instincts that took over and allowed him to fight harder, but rather a representation of his fighting ability. His punches and kicks still barely damaged the thing, but he was steadily learning the bear’s movements, how to dodge them and how to exploit them to attack in turn.
It was on the last loop that something different happened. It was Red’s best run, and he was already surviving for a few minutes, much to the bear’s frustration, when a notification popped up in his vision.
[New Skill → Athleticism 1]
A wash of strength flowed across his muscles. The moment of distraction caused Red to twist an ankle on a root, and a moment later, he was frantically grappling with the bear on the ground. His mad scramblings didn’t achieve more than prolonging his death by a few seconds, and eventually, he died again.
[Stab Resistance 3 → Stab Resistance 6]
[Crush Resistance 2 → Crush Resistance 3]
[Brawling 1 → Brawling 4]
A nestling chirped pathetically in the distance, and Red took a moment to review his gains.
His stats had risen meteorically, and the effect was apparent. The bear’s claws no longer tore through him like nothing, and his growing skill in brawling made him able to last a little longer with every loop. But he still had the issue that he couldn’t quite damage the large bear.
For the first time since appearing in the strange forest, Red ran. Not to escape but to gain a few seconds of peace so he could think. The moment he appeared, he turned away from the angry bear and sprinted away. Earth-thumping footsteps followed him and he was taken to the ground less than thirty seconds later.
He respawned and, this time, backed away more carefully, making sure never to turn his back on the bear. This seemed to work for whatever reason, and the bear only let out a series of rumbling huffs and swatted at the ground but didn’t chase as Red vanished into the trees.
Red paused only a couple hundred feet from his spawn point, not willing to accidentally run into some other threat. Also, the forest was not conducive to walking through it with dress shoes.
A few minutes of experimentation revealed his full status, which hovered in his vision like a high-tech hologram. It showed all his skills that he’d acquired up until this point, plus one additional skill called Perseverance.
Perseverance was at level one, and no additional information was revealed on its purpose. None of the skills did, but the other skills’ functions were self-evident. Red's only guess was that this strange skill, for which he didn’t remember getting a level-up notification for, was responsible for the green inner light that dulled the pain and fear.
Red put that particular mystery aside to focus on the one skill he was missing. An attack.
So far, he’d gained all the skills — except perseverance — through doing some action. He’d not gained Punching or some other skill from hitting the bear, and Brawling did more to affect his skill at brawling than the actual damage he dealt while brawling. Perhaps that meant that something more was required to get active skills.
Red took a stance and, despite feeling silly, focused his concentration on the tip of his fist. He slowly raised his fist, imagining that he was embodying some ancient Shaolin monk. His knuckles cracked as he tightened his fist in preparation. Then...he unleashed the punch.
Nothing happened.
Red frowned, now feeling very silly, but he kept at it. He tried everything he could think of. Punching, kicking, focusing, doing silly poses. He even tried shouting out the name of the skill he was trying to acquire, but nothing worked. He wasn’t quite ready to give in. Maybe the problem was that he didn’t have an opponent to receive the strikes. Or maybe it was the life-and-death struggle that made acquiring skills possible.
So Red returned to the bear, who was all too happy to maul him. This time, deaths came fast and quick as Red spawned, turned, and punched with all his might. Another dozen loops passed in the blink of an eye as Red punched the bear ineffectually.
Then it happened.
Red spawned, raced to the bear, and unleashed a punch. He didn’t quite know what was different this time. Perhaps he was focusing harder, or maybe he had simply passed some threshold set by the enigmatic system granting him the skills.
Whatever the reason, this time, when Red threw the punch, he felt something tear inside him. A wave of exhaustion starting from his gut and spreading all the way to the tips of his fingers compressed into a point at the tip of his fist. Blue flames erupted in a flickering gauntlet of ethereal fire around his thrown punch. Red’s eyes went wide as the strike slammed into the bear’s nose with a hiss.
[New Skill → Power Strike 1]
The bear flinched as the skill connected with its nose, but then immediately lunged at Red’s extended arm.
Red couldn’t wipe the shit-eating grin from his face as the bear bore down on him. He jumped backward, using every level in brawling to bob and weave around the bear’s lightning-fast claws. They hit him but skittered over his skin as often as they dug in. He bled when they did, but that only spurred him onwards as he unleashed a series of power strikes at the bear’s vulnerable spots. Each strike took something from him — likely mana, stamina or something — and eventually, Red slumped to the ground from exhaustion.
[Power Strike 1 → Power Strike 3]
A nestling chirped pathetically in the distance.
Energy restored, Red raced at the bear with renewed vigor. In every fight, his skill in brawling and power strike improved, and slowly but surely, his punches started breaking through the bear’s thick hide.
On the twentieth loop, Red felt that this would be it, and he glanced at his improved stats just before engaging.
[Power Strike 3 → Power Strike 5]
[Brawling 5 → Brawling 6]
He hadn’t acquired any additional levels in stab resistance, but he didn’t need them.
With a smile, Red charged the bear, who reared up on his hind legs to meet his charge. Red dodged around the bear’s swipes and ducked under the ferocious jaws that sought to destroy him. With every dodge, he reciprocated with a fully powered power strike right where they would deal the most damage.
He took damage, his blue button-up getting drenched in blood, but the bear was taking worse hits. After a minute of fighting, it staggered, unable to keep standing under the relentless crushing strikes. It whimpered pitifully, backing away and roaring in warning at Red.
He grinned, the image macabre as he stalked closer. Another short scuffle emerged where Red nearly got eviscerated, but a solid punch to the bear’s nose had the thing wailing and scampering away.
The green glow slowly faded from Red’s eyes as he watched the huge beast limped away into the undergrowth.
The green glow of Perseverance faded, and Red took stock of himself. He reeled as a wall of pain smashed into his brain hard enough to make him see stars. Twin beacons of green light crushed the pain a second later, and he caught himself on the rough bark of a nearby pine.
Red blinked owlishly as he examined his injuries. His left arm was broken, and he could clearly see the white part of his tibia peeking out from the bloody hole in his trousers. His mouth didn’t seem to work right, and his neck clicked painfully every time he looked down. Worst of all, his entrails were clearly visible out of a deep gash in his stomach. He was probably going to die.
Thinking back, it was possible the bear had retreated simply from fear rather than injury, considering he looked like a walking corpse.
Red examined the pain in his body like a spectator at a football game. It was viciously strong but forced into the background in a way Red couldn’t describe. It was like hunger. Terrible and all-consuming if he focused on it, but the moment he let his mind wander to something else, the sensation faded away. Like a notification just out of reach, waiting for him to check on it.
Red took a moment in the hopes the system might grant him a regeneration skill. When it didn’t, he wearily stepped out of the growing pool of blood collecting at his feet. His shoes squelched as he fought the weakness in his limbs, the rented leather slippery and loose. He slowly staggered like a zombie in the direction of the rocky outcropping.
The trees slowly thinned as he approached a sheer cliff. At the base, there was a cave, which he moved toward. Inside, the scent of a bear was strong, but Red barely noticed as perseverance dulled all his senses. The passage narrowed and then rounded a bend.
Inside, Red saw two things.
The first was a small bear cub curled into a small ball in the corner. Worryingly, the small cub looked sick, with its small ears twitching periodically, as both its eyes were locked shut by a film of yellow-green phlegm. The little guy could have fit in both of Red’s hands.
The second thing Red saw was a doorway—a frustratingly familiar arch made of ghostly glowing lines inscribed in the stone. It sat in the corner of the bear cave. Mocking him with its glowing runes and twisty glyphs. The only difference from the doors back home was the instinctive meaning that filtered like a sewer ooze into his mind.
Locked. Save a Child to progress.
Red tossed his briefcase at the archway, twitching like an insect as his broken bones ground against each other. The shredded leather bounced off the stone wall, and flopped onto the ground with a wet thump.
A deep guttural growl reverberated through the cave, this one full of violence on a scale that Red hadn’t heard before. Behind him, the injured bear shoved its way into the narrow cave. Death on its mind.
“Ah, balls,” Red muttered as he collapsed beside his briefcase.
Darkness took him.
A nestling chirped pathetically in the distance, and Red found himself staring once more at the lively forest.
Skills: Athleticism 1, Brawling 5, Crush Resistance 3, Power Strike 5, Stab Resistance 6