A man in his boxer sat under a tree, leaning on its bark. His belly was filled, and his body was clean. If he could, he would have slept to replace the time he had lost last night, but not out here. Not in the wilderness where enemies could come out in the most unexpected way. Nonetheless, he was stress-free. Gazing at his numbers and stats, assessing his current self.

Name: Zachary Gardwin

Level: 12/50

Species: Human

Title: The First of the Underdogs

Class: -

HP: 590/590

MP: 19/110

SP: 110/110

Strength: 25(+1)

Vitality: 11(+1)

Defense: 18(+1)

Agility: 19(+1)

Perception: 15(+1)

Intelligence: 11(+1)

Spirit: 7(+1)

Charisma: 8(+1)

Point: 4

Skills: Phlegmatic Will(Lv.Max), Living with the Pain(Lv.Max), Value of Water(Lv.Max), Dominion of Satiety(Lv.Max), Swordsmanship(Lv.4), Arcane Cooking(Lv.1)

He was in a dilemma. Not knowing whether his current self was good enough or not. He made a mental note to ask Calrin for his status for comparison's sake. Since he couldn’t really improve until he knows what he lacked. Nonetheless, his skill acquisition was going well. Two skills within two days were quite an achievement if he thought about it. Not relying on the system as he sought them with pure hard work and a bit of luck on the side.

While the four new points, their distribution was put on hold at the moment. He figured he had some leeway to try experimenting with his other status to see their effect, especially in vitality and spirit. For defense, he learned that one point in it would give an additional twenty points to health points. So if he calculated this correctly along with the bonus ten health points that came with each level up, then he assumed that vitality only gave ten health points for each point, exactly half of the defense stat.

But what about SP or stamina points? From his previous dumping to defense, there was no increase in stamina points, so he reckoned vitality would play a big part in it.

Zach sighed. Things would be a lot easier if he had a quill and paper to jot things down. He couldn’t see it clearly just from looking at his status window, but on second thought, perhaps an increase in Intelligence wouldn’t do much to a user unless it was related to spells and whatnot. Zach shook his head. He was jumping the gun too fast there as perhaps an additional one point wouldn’t be enough to see a change in his mental capability. Oh well, he had plenty of time to figure things out as it was only the second day.

The rustling of leaves broke his glance away. At the opposite end of the pond, a silhouette emerged. Revealing a new monster of the day.

“Is that a boar?” he questioned. True to what he had seen so far, the creatures here were the strangest he had ever seen. Even back in Brittania, the most unique beast he had laid eyes on was the mighty griffin, flying across the sky, the symbol of royalty of the House of Valion. But the boar he was looking at was a tad different. Chitin-like armor covered its back with tusks that curved similarly to a mammoth’s. Then its eyes. Those eyes reminded him of a housefly, the compound eye, and he wondered whether those features would give the insect-like boar an edge in a fight. Well, he was about to find out.

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Zach ended his break and cracked the bones of his knuckles. It was time for some morning exercise. Rather than boosting himself immediately, he thought of fighting with his bare status. For the sake of evaluating himself more transparently.

He confronted the insect boar. It was strong as he expected. His blade was useless against the chitin armor as he reckoned it might be stronger and thicker than the chitin of the tusk-ant. The insect boar tanked all of Zach’s attack while it swung its mammoth-like tusk around. Zach jumped from one place to another, barely standing still at one spot as he kept evading those wide-angle tusks. Surprisingly, the insect boar was a handful. It seemed he had overestimated himself yet again as without the boost of Living with the Pain he wasn’t the so-called overpowered.

Another thing he found out while fighting this insect boar, its tracking ability was remarkable. Its compound eyes would always find him even when he was jumping around erratically at the highest speed possible. Attesting the advantage of having those compound eyes. It seemed taking it by surprise like an assassin wouldn’t work. Zach changed his tactic. Using stabs rather than slashes. Finding space between the armor plates as it was the only way possible of hurting the creature. But it was easier said than done.

Despite his best effort, Zach couldn’t inflict enough pain. It was a stalemate. Whenever he found a gap, the stab he did was too shallow as the insect boar reacted immediately. Zach cursed under his breath. Reality was quick to set in as it told him he was far from being powerful enough. As frustration piled up, Zach broke his own restriction. He cut himself, and points started to stack. Zach began another experiment, testing himself against the insect boar using an increment of the stack to gauge the necessary bonus points of killing this boar off.

By the third stack, Zach finally managed to kill it. His breath was ragged as he stared at the dead insect boar. Again, he was still too weak. “Fuck it,” Zach said.

He used his time well, building a fire first, and then continued dismantling his new game. The flesh was separated from the chitin armor and he was quick to make skewer out of them. In the wild like this, skewers were the only thing possible. He put aside using arcane cooking at the moment as his mana was running low after the many failures of his cooking. At the same time, he collected the chitin-plate armor of the insect boar as he had an idea of using them.

By the time he returned to the fort, his belly was stuffed. Thankfully, his Dominion of Satiety had the extra effect of not causing any visual change of the usually distended abdomen. He earned an extra one point to Strength and one point to Defend, courtesy of the Chitinclad Boar.

Passing through the entrance, the men that stood guard nodded to Zach while casting their eyes down. It was a show of respect to the nobility, especially to the one reigning at the top. But Zach saw something else in them. They feared him. That little stunt he pulled this morning exhibited the strength he held, and defeating Lord Orland Shieldford only bolstered the claim that Zach was strong.

“Doing good?” Zach asked, trying to appear friendly. Placing his hand over the young lad’s shoulder. But it did the opposite. He could feel the lad’s body shaking. He did more bad than good. Prompting him to let go immediately, and walked away with an awkward smile.

It was embarrassing, and if he had a room, he would have hidden inside right at this instant. Unknown to him, the extra meat he carried on his shoulder which was half of the chitinclad boar was half of the reason why people wouldn’t dare make eye contact with him. It was a feat that not everyone could pull. But the truth lay underneath, they themselves did not know their full capabilities as they still thought their strength was only limited to the limit of a normal human, and Zach wasn’t going to be the person that would shed that light.

He stumbled upon Jeyne as he went along his path.

“Good afternoon, Lord Zachary,” she said. Greeting him with a lady’s courtesy. “It seems your outing had been fruitful.” She slightly eyed the meat on his shoulder, before glancing her sight away to the side. From the look of it, Jeyne too couldn’t maintain eye contact with Zach. He questioned whether his impression was going downhill, but he sort of forgot one important fact. He was half naked with only his silk boxer.

“Luck was by my side,” Zach said. “If you’re hungry, pay a visit to Milly. I’ll be giving her this meat for her to cook up something good.”

“Thank you, Lord Zachary,” Jeyne replied. “It will be a pleasure that I could not wait.” She gave a few glances every now and then, in an attempt not to be overtly rude.

“Well I don’t know if it will be that good for a noble’s taste, so try not to get your hope’s up,” Zach said. Then something dawned on him. “Oh, I just remember, have you met the other healer, Tobias? If you spend some time with him, I’m sure he will teach you a thing or two about what he knows as a healer.”

He expected a good response, but Jeyne’s sad expression told him otherwise. Zach frowned instantly.

“What happened?”

“He’s resting in the living quarter, Lord Zach, and I’ve done my best.”

The moment he heard it, Zach bolted.