A bright red glow permeated my eyelids as I squeezed them tightly closed and felt around for my pillow to cover my face. The only thing my hands found in my search however was wet grass. Shielding my eyes with my arm I gradually opened them and peered around to see what the hell was going on. I was in the middle of a clearing surrounded by forest wearing my sweats and tank top from the previous night along with my loosely tied combat boots. Upon further inspection, however, I discovered that the clothes only resembled my outfit from the night before and were instead made of a completely foreign material I had never seen before. It felt much more stretchy and soft than I was expecting, almost like elastic silk. My boots were even more strange with the leather being thicker and feeling much more durable almost like flexible steel.
Thinking back to my encounter with the strange and abrupt goddess I remembered that she said this was a world with stats and magic so I started to think of what I might be able to do. I had read my fair share of isekai books in the past and I knew the first things to try. “Inventory,” I said out loud crossing my fingers hoping this would be the hack of all hacks. Nothing happened. Fuck, worth a try at least. “Status” waiting a moment, still nothing happened. “Well, this sucks,” I thought out loud.
I looked around the clearing hoping to find some sign of life but there was nothing around. “I guess I will just pick a random direction and start walking” Talking to myself helped me sort out my thoughts and keep from freaking out about the fact that I was in the middle of the woods in a new world with no clue what to do.
I spent the next several hours walking through the woods without seeing anything living hoping to find some sort of sign of a civilization. What seemed like another 3 hours later I finally found a stream with fresh clear water running off to my left. “Well I read somewhere that water always leads to civilization so I guess I am going to follow this.” I bent down to the water and dipped my hands in for a sip of water.
A massive Crocodile head came up out of the water and latched onto my arms with crushing force. Or I thought it was going to be a crushing force. I only felt a minor amount of pressure and some indents on my skin where the teeth were. Bewildered, I stared into the croc's eyes which were nearly as large as my fist as it tried in vain to move me.
“What the fuck is going on?” I began to panic but had no idea why I wasn’t already dead. I began to back away dragging the crocodile along with me and it must have easily been 30 feet long. When I had gotten both of us well clear of the water I decided to try to remove my arms from the mouth of this massive lizard by moving my right arm up and left arm down as hard as I could. I was not expecting the bottom jaw to come clean off with my downward motion while my right fist smashed through the brain of the massive beast as if it were made of paper.
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Covered in a thick layer of blood and viscera I stared dumbfounded at the decapitated animal in front of me as blood poured out of its neck where its head used to be. I looked down at my arms and gaped at the completely unblemished flesh in absolute astonishment. Just then a message popped up in my vision “You have killed Crocovile level 95 no experience gained” No experience gained for a level 95? What the fuck is that bullshit?!
“Crocovile’s Vile Toxin has inflicted poisoned status on you.” “You receive 0 damage from Crocovile’s Vile Toxin 30 seconds remaining.” What the fuck is going on? I am poisoned and taking no damage? From a level 95? This is making no fucking sense not even counting the fact that I tore it apart with my bare hands like it was tissue paper. I ignored the status effects and tried to think about what was going on.
Deciding to say fuck it and figure it out when I found people I walked over to the stream and looked in the water to make sure no more surprises were waiting for me. Finally able to get a drink I dunked my arms into the water and washed all the nasty Crocobits off me and then leaned down to drink directly from the clear water rather than get a mouth full of Croc water. A couple of gulps later I was making my way downstream and hoping to find some sort of human life along the way.
The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon when I finally had a sign of life. I caught a faint whiff of burning wood smoke ahead. Rather than risk coming upon people in the dark I decided to pick up my pace and took off at a run. That was a mistake. My legs were just as powerful as my arms and I shot forward like an arrow blasting through a dozen tree trunks before finally rolling to a stop a little dizzy from the short roll. Gripping my head with my hands I tried to steady myself and feel for injuries since I just took out literal tree trunks with my body but there wasn’t a scratch yet again. I felt like a bull in a china shop just trying to do normal things.
A loud crashing sound suddenly came through the woods as a dozen dirty-looking disheveled men entered my makeshift clearing. Every one of them was carrying a weapon of questionable quality and they all were looking around frantically trying to figure out what had caused all the noise. Trying not to seem like a freak, I raised my hand and said, “Hi guys, can you tell me where the nearest town is?” As one all their eyes turned to me and I could tell these were not good guys. They distinctly looked like very bad men.