“Tis a single set of tracks, we don’t have to worry about mama bear shredding us, at least not for a while, by the time she catches wind we will be out of here.”

“Get us out, like, without having to face this Empire or whatever?” I asked

“Yes, like, without having to face the Empire or whatever, I know a guy, but let's focus on this for now, I’ll tell you afterward when I’m full”

He walked along the trail, looking around cautiously in case the bear happened to be nearby, but it was never there. We saw the den in the distance and Jeremy immediately started looking for trees, he approached one and squatted by it with cupped hands.

“Hop on, I’ll boost you and then you pull me up, we can both stand on this one fine.”

“Wait, let me stretch.” I wasn’t used to this kind of athletic movement, I didn’t want to inadvertently bash my head into the tree trunk.

After some waving of my arms and legs, I felt ready, I reared myself and jogged forward, timing the placement of my foot on his cupped hands as he launched me up and I pushed down with my foot, landing on the place where 4 thick branches split off from the main trunk, I squatted down and left my hand out for him to grip.

He held on tight and I pulled him up with great effort.

“C’mon c’mon c’mon,” I grunted as he slowly scaled the trunk, but we managed. We were cramped up here but it definitely was a good vantage point, I climbed up a bit higher so that he wasn’t cramped and I could stand alone, and now we waited.

I sat down on the branch I was on to conserve stamina and to make the fall just that little bit softer with the lower height, I had daggers clenched in both hands and was ready to strike at any moment.

Minutes passed and I detected some movement, there was a small growl and heavy thuds as the bear peered out.

Jeremy wasted no time as usual, He jumped and let out a wild battle cry as if he was a viking berserker. Two daggers plunged into the bear’s back but he was quickly shaken off, Jeremy managed to keep hold of these daggers and take them with him as he fell to the ground.

That was my cue, I hopped off and struck these daggers into the bear's back, as the blades sunk in I kicked off of it and fell on my back.

I quickly stood up and ran off, creating distance between me and the bear while Jeremy distracted him, holy fuck, that was a thrill slamming my blades into the beast, I needed to recover from that.

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Wait, it’s a bear, I couldn’t leave that all to that guy, judging by what he said about his stats, this wasn’t something he could do on his own.

I steeled myself and prepared myself to face off against a beast.

I sprinted over and with a battle cry reminiscent of the one Jeremy just did, repeatedly slamming my dual blades into the bear, causing it to scream in agony.

“Thanks for the assist!” He shouted, dashing back and throwing one of the blades in his shoulder strap into the monster.

The handle collided with tough hide, it bounced off and it barely even registered in the bear’s mind what Jeremy tried to do.

The bear was fed up with my repeated stabs into its back, it didn’t pierce deep, the blades were short and the beast's body was tough. It turned towards me and swung an arm haphazardly, sending me back a few metres and knocking the wind out of me, I accidentally let go of my blades.

I coughed out blood, I think my ribs were broken or bruised. I couldn’t tell.

Jeremy was still going strong, he had two daggers and was fast, he might not have invested much into strength but he was definitely agile, he was ducking and making minor slashes into the beast, if we won, it would be via death from a thousand cuts.

I slowly got up, pain shot into my body as I made my small body adjustments and such that happen when you do go up, but I powered through it, I didn’t want to see this man die, he was helpful.

I grabbed a rock on the way up and tossed it as hard as I could into the bear without hurting myself, that did basically nothing so maybe I could resort to throwing knives.

I inched over towards the blades I had dropped, picking them up painfully and tossing them, the first one luckily sunk into the bear, and the second bounced off.

The bear faltered, the many cuts I had put into it, the blood loss from the minor cuts slowed it down and our initial dives into the thing had injured it a lot.

It swiped for Jeremy, he ducked and it tripped.

Jeremy did not hesitate to kill

He leaped up and slammed both blades down onto the bear's throat, ending it for good.

“Agh! Holy fuck man, that was awesome, are you sure you are under-leveled, I can’t do that.”

“I’m average, I just don’t have the strength for the forge, so they made me do this until I become strong enough.”

The bear let out a small gargle, and an award sound played in my head.

[You are now level 2, you have 3 stat points to allocate]

[You have defeated a bear, you have 1 Basic Loot Box]

[You have gained the skill: Knife-fighting I]

“Cool, a loot box. Anyway, yeah, they’re keeping track of all that stuff, took a finger n’ all.”

I recalled something about some guy who could smuggle us out, I needed to ask him about that.

“Who could get us out of here?”

“I'll tell after lunch.”