"I look ridiculous," Tobi said, a pained expression on his face.

He was not wrong about looking completely absurd. Laura was adamant that he needed some sort of armour. Since we couldn't afford anything from the store that would give him any meaningful protection, we had to resort to some rather... creative measures.

The cabin, as was tradition of any cabins owned through the generations, had a lot of different junk strewn around. We found an oval serving tray and I punched holes in its corners. Then we used the remains of a sheet I used to make that horrible belt thing and tied them as straps around his body.

The result was so bad that the System didn't even attempt to classify it as armour but it was better than nothing. The metal serving tray would, in theory, provide some protection for his internal organs.

We also sacrificed a couple of pillows and made them into smaller cushions that we attached to his legs. I tried to raise the issue of lowered mobility but Laura wouldn't budge. Thankfully, she conceded to not putting them on his arms which would make wielding weapons nearly impossible.

As for weapons, I stuck with my trusty hatchet and a steak knife. I stashed them both in my inventory to summon on command. Tobi got my old broom handle and knife spear that we improved with some air-dry epoxy-like substance we bought from the shop for 15 credits. The blade felt like it was much more secured than before, but that was not a surprise given that it was previously held up with layers of electrical tape.

"You need a weapon too, " I said to Laura.

"Can we make anything?" Tobi asked, still a bit annoyed about his outfit.

I shook my head. "I don't think we have anything left. "

We looked through the Shop Terminal but all of the weapons were out of our budget. We had 137 credits left when all was said and done. Thankfully we didn't spend them on other necessities before we decided to get out there and find ourselves some monsters.

"I have an idea, " Laura said. She approached the Terminal and typed something in the search bar. I looked over her shoulder and saw that she was looking at slingshots. Some of them were pretty high-tech looking and cost upwards of 10k. She filtered the selection to under 200 credits and there was only one item left.

SlingShot FunBlast: Auto-Return Edition (Common)

A perfect blend of excitement and safety for kids and kids at heart, this slingshot comes with 10 metal pellets and a mechanism that ensures you never lose ammo again! Return radius: 5 meters.

Price: 170 credits

"What do you think?" Laura asked.

"Hmm... I'm sure we can figure out something to get the other credits. And it would be good to have a ranged weapon," I said, but I was a bit sceptical. It was a toy after all.

"It's worth a shot," she said with a smirk.

It took all my willpower to not roll my eyes at her.

"Alright, " I said. "Maybe we could try to sell the chopped firewood for some quick credits. I'm out of Energy so I can't make any more of the wood resource, but maybe the raw wood would be okay. We have plenty right now."

"What will we use to cook?" Tobi asked, a look of concern on his face. "

"We'll just have to go to the forest and cut some down, " I said. "We're going there anyway, so we may as well. "

We spent the next fifteen minutes hauling all of our chopped firewood to the Shop Terminal and selling it for some credits. The task was made easier by the fact that we could just put the logs into our inventory, making sure to not get encumbered. I was a little surprised when I saw that the maximum weight I could carry in the inventory was raised to 22 kilograms. The only explanation I had for that was that my strength stat increased from 3 to 4 from the last time I checked, and that was somehow related.

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The number went up and that's all that mattered. Every little increase was another step forward in The Plan.

In the end, we sold around 40 kilograms of chopped firewood and that put us over the needed credits. I found a way to open an account on the Terminal that would keep all of our credits together. It was pretty easy to transfer the credits over to the account, but we couldn't transfer them back to us. That served us just fine, as we didn't have any other way to use them.

"Alright, " I said. "Let's get this SlingShot FunBlast. "

"That's a very stupid name, " Laura said as I tapped 'Buy' on the shop's interface.

As before, a package appeared from thin air and fell on the cabin floor with little ceremony.

"This never gets boring, " Tobi said.

The slingshot was in one of those hard-to-open plastic packagings, with garish red and yellow letters cheerfully stating SlingShot FunBlast: Auto-Return Edition.

I remember when I moved out of Mom's place into my apartment I ordered a pair of kitchen scissors and they came in one of those clear plastic things that needed scissors to open. The rage I felt was unparalleled to any other. In the end, I had to knock on my neighbour's doors to ask to borrow some before I hurt myself with a knife. Old Bernard was pretty amused at my predicament.

Thankfully, the cabin came with some sharp kitchen scissors and the toy was out in a quick second. The ammunition went all over the floor as we opened the packaging. It felt heavy and promised to deal some damage.

The toy was made of plastic, a step or two above the toys you bought in the toys aisle of a budget box store. It was also an electric blue colour and fit comfortably in Laura's hand. There was a pretty obvious yellow button in the middle of the handle that presumably activated the return of ammo.

"You should go outside and practice some, " I said to Laura as I handed her the loose pellets. "We have to see how this retrieval mechanism works. "

She nodded and we followed her to the well, where she placed the few logs of wood we didn't sell. She aimed and shot a few times, missing every time.

"I'm going to take this stuff off. I'm getting a bit hot, " Tobi said and walked over to the front of the cabin where Cloud was happily gazing.

"This might take a while, " she said, a frustrated frown on her face.

"You probably just have to practice some. Maybe you will get a skill if you repeat it enough."

She ran out of ammo in a few minutes. After pressing the retrieval button, the ammo floated a little above the ground and just disappeared. We looked at each other in confusion.

"Oh!" Laura exclaimed excitedly, "It went into my inventory!"

"Oh wow, that is handy."

"This toy is really good for the price. "

"It makes you wonder how much better the expensive slingshots are."

She continued training. I watched as she improved in real time. First, she would hit two in ten, then three in ten.

"I got a skill. "

"What is it?"

"Slingshot, level 1, " she said and smiled.

"Do you want to practice some more?"

"I think this should be good enough, " she said, a shadow passing over her face. I could see that she still didn't like the idea of us going out there, and getting ourselves in danger.

"Hey, Laura?" I said.

"Yeah?" she pressed the ammo retrieval button and turned to face me.

"Thanks for doing this. I know that you're not happy about it. "

"I'm not, " she paused, gathering her thoughts. "But I also know you're right, Dee. We have to get stronger if we want to survive. We need food and clothes to make this cabin more liveable. "

I nodded and decided to drop the subject.

We walked back to the cabin porch. Tobi was leaning against Cloud who was lying in the grass next to the veggie garden. The alien sheep greeted us with a cheerful Bleeugh when he spotted us.

"Did you get a skill?" Tobi asked.

"I did. I am ready, " she said and then frowned at him. "You shouldn't have taken off your armour. I wasn't practising for too long."

Tobi rolled his eyes in a way only teenagers can. "It's hardly armour. Plus, it was making me sweat. "

We secured the metal serving tray back on his chest and the little cushions on his legs. Then we checked if our weapons were in place. Finally, there was nothing else to do but go pick a fight.

"Which way?" Laura asked.

"Let's go in the front. I should check out my car anyway. "

And so we headed out to go find ourselves a few monsters to kill.

Name: Diana Mond

Age: 25

Class: Homesteader

Level: 1, 70/200 exp

Strength: 4 (+1)

Constitution: 6

Intelligence: 6

Wisdom: 4

HP: 60/60

Energy: 6/60

Points to distribute: 0