When morning came, Alice was practically freezing to death. Even with the slowly fading warmth in her chest generating heat, no fire for an entire night was harsh. However, after several hours of nothing happening, her frayed nerves were beginning to restore themselves. She poked her head out of the cave, looking around and seeing nothing, before she slowly inched her way out of her cave. Then, taking a glance at the damp cloth, she placed it on one of the rocks that got more sun exposure, hoping it would dry out a bit. When she arrived there, there were no hints of anything out of the ordinary. She went back to catching and smoking fish, but she kept a wary eye on her surroundings.

Being caught off guard might be a disaster, after all.

Four smoked fish and one level in the {Fishing} skill and the [Survivor] class later, Alice returned to the cave. Midday had come, and there were still no notable incidents. Alice had another perk selection available, and she wanted to see what was open before trying to get a language skill from the book and taking a look at the cloth she had snagged yesterday.

Enhanced Regeneration

Requirements: Survivor level 15 or higher

Any damage to your body heals at a significantly faster rate without increasing the consumption of calories and nutrition.

Enhanced Endurance

Requirements: Survivor level 15 or higher

The effects of each point of Endurance are increased by 5%.

Bone Strengthening

Requirements: Survivor level 15 or higher

Your bones become able to resist outside impacts more effectively and resist breaking more efficiently without any negative side effects.

Nutritional Balance

Requirements: Survivor level 15 or higher

Regardless of your food intake, your body will maintain proper nutritional balance. This does not substitute for lack of food - instead, it strips some of the nutrients out of various foods consumed and converts them into other vitamins and minerals based on what your body is lacking.

Friend of Animals

Requirements: Survivor level 15 or higher, Charisma 110 or higher

Simple minded-animals are less likely to bear ill will towards you, and are less likely to attack you or steal your food.

Extremophile

Requirements: Survivor level 15 or higher

Extends your survivable temperature range by 10 degrees Celsius. You will suffer no ill effects or discomfort while within this extended temperature range.

{Friend of Animals} was almost immediately struck off the list. She wasn’t sure what the distinction between ‘simple minded’ animals were and regular animals, which made the usefulness of the perk too uncertain for her tastes. Even though being less likely to tangle with the wildlife was somewhat tempting, it simply wasn’t tempting enough.

{Enhanced Endurance} was struck off for not having a big enough impact now. While it might be more useful in the long run, she also needed to live long enough for there to be a long run. {Bone Strengthening} and {Enhanced Regeneration} were also removed from consideration after some brief debate – she wanted them, of course, because they seemed like they would be useful. However, Alice suspected that {Enhanced Regeneration} might multiply her 'base' regeneration by some amount. Given the fact that her physical regeneration worked pretty much the same way it had on Earth, that might mean her wounds would take nine days to heal instead of ten. While still useful, it wasn't that useful. It might make the scratches and small wounds on her feet her less, but compared to avoiding contracting frostbite and dying the perk didn't do anywhere near enough. {Strengthened Bones} was removed from consideration due to the fact that it didn't address any of her more immediate concerns, even if it would probably be useful.

That left {Extremophile} and {Nutritional Balance}. Alice didn’t have to think for too long before she picked {Extremophile}. Problems caused by lack of nutrition seemed much less lethal in the short run than freezing to death, and an extra ten degrees Celsius of warmth could make a huge difference.

Although, Alice did wonder why the System seemed to use the metric system and European measurements in all of its numbers. Not that she objected – even though she was raised in America, she naturally had to use the Metric System in her Physics class, and even if she had only finished one semester of the class so far, she had a good enough understanding and familiarity with celsius and meters that it wouldn’t hinder her usage of the System. However, thus far she had been guessing that the System seemed to translate perks and ideas into language that she found most easy to understand, so the sudden switch threw her off a bit.

Immediately after picking the perk, she felt the difference. The air around her felt warmer, the cold less biting, and the misery of standing next to the cool river seemed to disappear. If before she felt like she had been locked into a walk-in freezer, now it felt closer to a chilly room. Unpleasant, but no longer cold to the point of being life-threatening. More interestingly, the heat in her chest suddenly seemed to disappear almost completely - she still had no clue what to make of that, but her [Magic] stat remained at five, which meant that it hopefully wasn't a bad thing.

After a lunch of smoked fish and nuts, she began studying the book in the fading light. She first started by looking for any common and repeated characters in the book – it was important to know whether the language had an alphabet or not.

The book’s language used 39 different characters in its writing, and all of them were repeated several times. While she didn’t know what any of them meant, she at least knew what kind of language she was working with. Were some of the characters punctuation, perhaps? She tried looking through the book to see if there were any common ‘periods’ or something that seemed to crop up after a certain amount of text had been written, and found a few different characters that seemed to show up less frequently and were more evenly spaced out. It could be a coincidence, or it could be punctuation.

At least it was somewhere to start. Afterwards, she began counting various other things, trying to find other patterns within the language. Fifteen minutes later, the result she was hoping for finally appeared.

Through training, you have increased a skill!

Illvarian Language Proficiency +1

Alice was immediately able to translate a few of the words in the book. Not only that, in a way she somehow completely failed to comprehend, she was suddenly certain that she could also speak the language out loud with no problems.

Testing it out a bit, she spoke a few words out loud, and was somehow certain that she was not only speaking the language correctly, but was also doing so with no noticeable accent. She only knew a few basic words like ‘hello,’ but the fact that the system allowed her to fluently speak a foreign language with no accent was… baffling. If the system kept various forms of pronunciation consistent, did this planet even have dialects? How did new languages form in that case?

How much easier was it to learn a new language when the system would just hand out words and grammar comprehension whenever someone tried to learn it for a long enough period of time?

Excited now, Alice turned back to the book, ready to see if she could make out what the book was about before the sun finished setting. However, unfortunately, while she could make out a few basic words the book seemed to be rather more complex than she had originally thought. One of the only things she could make out was on the first page, which seemed to be some sort of… introduction?

Greetings …. …. ….. . I …… ….. …….. ….. years…. …. …. ………..

Beyond that, most other things she could translate were just random collections of words like ‘I’ or ‘the,’ and she had nowhere near enough information to figure out what the author meant. However, that didn’t deter her. If she persisted long enough, she would naturally be able to understand the book. At this point, it was just a matter of patience.

She continued looking for clues about the language and the book until the sunset. When she went to sleep, she first checked the cloth she had left outside, and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was dry. Then, she fell asleep in her newly acquired blanket. It was warm, her belly was closer to full than it had been in days, and she was able to study a new language without any immediate threats to her existence. It was the best night she had spent in this new world so far.

Through training, you have increased a skill!

Illvarian Language Proficiency +2

* * *

The next day, Alice started out by gathering some more firewood for the morning, grabbed a few more random edible plants, and then went to gather some more fish. Smoked fish would be a critical food supply for her over the winter, along with nuts, and the fish would be particularly difficult to restock after winter began since the river would probably freeze over. She also needed a way to store some water or a way to break down the ice chunks into drinkable water, which caused her to once again come back to the issue of boiling water. She could try finding some sort of uniquely shaped stone, but it was unlikely to be able to hold any reasonable amount of water unless she got incredibly lucky, and Alice didn’t really fancy her chances when it came to luck these days.

That meant that she needed to make something. A stone bowl might be achievable – that would at least allow her to boil water. She could even, very roughly, finally guess how she might go about doing so – if she hit rocks together for long enough, that might allow her to at least make a depression in a stone if she found a softer one and used a harder stone to chip away the outer layer. As for storage… she had no idea.

Alice hummed thoughtfully as she started getting ready for her usual fish-hunting. Despite the fact that she had survived the past few days, it felt like there was still so much she needed to do, and she hadn’t had any time to prepare before winter was upon her.

Suddenly, Alice felt fear pierce through her body. She wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but she froze, listening to the sounds around her and trying to figure out what had disturbed her. After a few seconds of stillness, she saw something black scuttle around in the corner of her eyes. She turned her head to stare at it and saw something that looked like a mixture of a crab and a spider. That is, if crab-spiders were as tall as her waist, had four crablike claws, ten spidery legs, and twelve eyes. It looked like someone had simply stuck the two animals together in a blender.

The strange creature seemed to be sniffing the area, trying to find something. Her scent? Her heart was starting to pound. Alice had no idea if it was her intuition or her levels in Survivor, but something was telling her that this thing was dangerous.

After a few seconds, it edged a little to the left, maintaining a distance with her. It ran its limbs over the ground, and Alice took a cautious step away from the fish she was cooking. She would be seriously upset if her three fish were taken away by this thing, but wild animals were attracted to food, right?

If it was looking for her meal, she would happily exchange it for her life. She took another step backwards. With a sudden shriek, the thing rotated its body and pounced. Alice shrieked, then immediately turned around and began running towards the trees. She hoped that this thing couldn’t climb trees. The thing seemed to be entirely ignoring her fish. Instead, it was sprinting directly towards her. Go after my meal, not me! Why? Alice leaped up, grabbing at a tree branch. She slipped. At the last second, she managed to stabilize her grip. She hauled herself onto the branch. She felt something painful latch onto her foot and bite down hard. Alice screamed and kicked, feeling some of her flesh tear as something heavy flew off of her leg. Screaming in pain now, Alice finally pulled up the rest of her body, her injured leg throbbing as she moved it. Unsure if she was safe yet, Alice moved up one more tree branch as she tried to stifle moans of pain. The system started spewing out notifications, but she couldn’t spare the time to look at them or her status screen.

The creature that had tried to eat her had already shaken off her little kick and was already prowling underneath the tree, looking up at her. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to be able to climb trees, but her leg hurt.

Alice clawed her way up another few tree branches, stifling whimpers of pain. Her leg felt like it was on fire. The creature started hurling itself against the trunk of the tree, over and over again to no apparent effect. After almost a minute of watching the creature try to reach her and fail over and over, Alice felt comfortable enough with her safety to inspect her wound.

Her foot didn’t look like it was in critical condition. However, there were two puncture marks that were deep enough to hit muscle, and the area around those two puncture marks also had two long and bloody gashes where she had dislodged the creature afterwards.

Shakily, she stood up on the tree branch and tried to put her weight on her foot, and fiery pain bored through her entire leg. Gasping, Alice gave up the attempt. Instead, she tore off a strip of her pajama sleeve and then used the cleaner side to start wrapping up her wound. She needed to keep the wound from being infected, just in case her perk and achievement weren’t able to cope with one. That was what you were supposed to do when you were injured, right?

Given the creature still snarling and seemingly trying to bash the tree down another glance, Alice carefully made her way up one more tree branch, just to be safe, and then started checking the system messages she had been ignored. Please, let me have reached level 20. A Perk can save me. Please.

You have levelled up!

Survivor level: 17

You have gained an achievement!

Monstrous Encounter (Rarity: 1)

Given the fact that they're everywhere, you're bound to encounter them sooner or later, right?

Increases the effects of the [Endurance] and [Dexterity] stats by 2%

Through training, you have increased an attribute

Endurance +3, Strength +2, Dexterity +2, Perception +1

Through training, you have increased a Skill

Medicine +1, Sprinting +1, Climbing +1

What the heck did the system mean with ‘they’re everywhere?’ Did that mean she had to figure out how to contend with monsters on this planet?

Suddenly, Alice felt very nervous. A world with an RPG system that seemed to somehow violate the laws of physics and grant all sorts of bizarre and useful abilities… also had monsters in it? She hadn’t really thought about it before, partially because the concept just seemed unlikely to exist in reality and partially because the shock of being dumped onto another planet hadn’t worn off yet, but… this planet really had monsters in it. What was attacking her wasn’t just a wild animal, it was, for some reason, classified as a monster, when the thing she had met on her first night hadn’t been.

It was also very clear that the System wasn’t going to save her here. Level 17 did not grant a perk, and she was well away from level 20, where she would get a perk that might be relevant here. In other words, she was on her own. Not to mention, even if she survived this encounter, the message accompanying {Monstrous Encounter} hinted that, rather than being unlucky she had stumbled across a monster, she might be lucky that she hadn’t found any so far.

Alice looked at the creature jumping around below her again, and imagined a giant swarm of them tracking her down and eating her as she tried to follow the river upstream. Then, she imagined a swarm tracking her down while she slept and eating her inside of her cave. She had no idea how she would survive either encounter. In the end, it seemed to come down the fact that she had no way to defend herself alone in the wilderness like this…

Panic seized her thoughts, and for a moment, she wondered if there was any way to survive at all. Even if she lived through this encounter, would she live through the next one?

No. She clamped down on her panic, trying to regain her focus. She refused to die here.

She frowned, and looked at the spidercrab. It was still hurling itself against the tree, over and over again to no effect. It didn’t seem particularly intelligent, and was very, very hostile towards her for some reason. However, it had no way of climbing up the tree yet. Even though spiders were fairly good at crawling upwards, it looked like the spidery legs couldn’t quite manage, even though spiders on Earth were excellent climbers. Perhaps it was because the thing's body was too heavy?

Alice glanced around again, and confirmed that besides her pajamas she had no weapons or supplies. If she had been thinking more clearly, she would have carried her stick with her instead of leaving it to keep smoking her fish by the fire, but she had panicked when she had seen the freaky monster rushing at her.

The monster showed no signs at all of giving up, and if anything it was throwing itself at the tree more ferociously as time passed, so this wasn’t something she could just wait out. Alice looked around her, and saw browning leaves and dying tree branches… tree branches?

Alice grabbed one of the more sturdier tree branches that she was able to reach, and after several tugs managed to break it off. The branch was around four or five feet long, and was much more unwieldy than a real spear, but at least enough to help her keep some range. She inspected the point at the end, and decided that it was at least solid enough to possibly make a dent in the softer parts of the monster’s chitin. As it was jumping towards the tree branch, Alice stabilized her position on the tree as best she could with her feet and hands, and then stabbed as hard as she could towards one of the fleshier spider limbs.

She felt a tremendous jerk as she took the brunt of the force the spidercrab had used as it hurled itself towards the tree, nearly dropping the branch. However, fortunately, she felt something squish.

SKREEEEEEEE! The spidercrab’s howl sounded like nails being scratched on almost a dozen chalkboards at the same time. If before it had been thinking of her as a meal, now it was seriously pissed off.

More System notifications that she ignored.

More importantly, although she hadn’t really done any major damage, she had successfully injured it!

“Spidercrab, I’m coming for youuuu!!!” Alice yelled, half to hype herself up and half to try to intimidate her opponent. It would have sounded much more intimidating if her voice hadn’t quivered halfway through her statement, making her sound more terrified than brave.

She stabbed at the spidercrab again!

This time, her aim was much worse than before. Really, it was something of a miracle that her stick, which wasn’t particularly sharp in the first place, had actually somehow pierced the spider bits of the spidercrab. Still, she ended up successfully... skewering the air above the spidercrab, completely missing her intended target.

The spidercrab, seeming to have figured out something from her previous attempt, leapt towards her again. However, this time, it swiped with its chitin and spidery hair-covered legs, trying to knock the stick out of her hands. Alice’s natural instinct to nope the fuck away from this thing saved her from losing her weapon, as she pulled her stick backwards, cowering back onto the tree branch. More System dings that she ignored.

The creature leapt for a final time, trying to reach Alice. As it was doing so, she managed to steel her heart and stab once more towards its eye. More through sheer cosmic coincidence than any real semblance of skill, Alice managed to penetrate the thing’s eye, and felt something else squish under the force of the stick.

The thing shrieked again, and Alice could almost feel its anger as it lost one of its twelve eyes. Upon landing on the ground again, it shrieked, then hurled itself against the tree trunk again as if it had lost its mind. Alice stabbed at it, trying to get in another lucky blow, but missed completely. Finally, Spidercrab failed one of its landings and flopped onto the ground below. Alice crawled down one or two rungs of tree branches and stabbed at its softer underbelly as it tried to claw its way back to its feet. Even with her terrible aim, she could hit a flailing stationary target, and managed to get it in the stomach. After she managed to get in a few good jabs, Spidercrab was noticeably injured and bleeding, favoring one of its sides as it finally climbed back to its feet. It screeched at her one last time, letting it know just how pissed off it was, and then scuttled back towards the trees. It wasn’t dead, but it had given up on turning her into a meal. For now.

Alice stayed on the tree branch for almost an extra half hour, waiting anxiously as she stared at where the spidercrab had disappeared back into the wilderness. She couldn’t shake off the fear of the creature so easily. However, eventually, she calmed down her wildly beating heart and rough breathing and realized that it was probably gone for now. Slowly, she climbed back down, and then checked her system messages.

Through training, you have increased an attribute

Strength +3, Endurance +1, Dexterity +1

Through training, you have increased a Skill

Spearmanship +5, Climbing +2, Dodge +1

You have leveled up!

Survivor: 19

Alice looked over her levels and attributes and realized that, insanely enough, she had gained several more levels in the last hour than she usually got on a good day. Not to mention, she had gained almost as many stat points as she had during her entire stay on this planet so far. Perhaps the system was… actually designed like an RPG?

The ‘levels’ obviously seemed to work differently than they would in an RPG since her ‘survivor’ class kept levelling up based on her wilderness survival, but maybe other classes and stats were based on killing monsters? Alice was suddenly dumbfounded. Maybe that was why her magic class wasn’t levelling up… ?

Or, alternately, perhaps the system responded to danger. Since she had almost died in the last hour as well, she had been exposed to far more danger than she had at any other point in time on this planet. Perhaps that somehow increased the rate of stat gain or something. Or maybe there was a totally different set of rules that she wasn’t aware of. Honestly, she had no idea. Even if it were true, she wasn’t exactly eager to throw herself into danger in order to gain more stats and levels. That just seemed like a good way to end up in a monster’s stomach.

Alice climbed back down until she reached the ground, making sure to keep her weight off of her injured foot as much as possible, and waited another five minutes at the tree base to make sure the spidercrab hadn’t just been waiting for her to get down from the tree before making a move. Then, after seeing no movement in her surroundings and deciding she was safe, she flopped onto the ground and took a few minutes of rest in the dirt.

Afterwards, she slowly crawled back towards her fishing spot. After seeing to the fish that she had been smoking, Alice was relieved to find that they were still fine. Although, that raised another question. Why had the monster gone for her and not the food? It seemed to be pursuing a meal, but most animals on Earth would have gone for the food she was cooking after scaring her off, rather than risking a fight with a potentially unknown animal. At least, she thought so. What she knew about wild animals could fit in a thimble, so maybe she was wrong, but she thought that was true, at least.

Furthermore, the system hadn’t classified a single animal she had seen so far as a monster, but specifically distinguished this one as a ‘monster.’ Even the weird, scary raccoon-like creature she had seen on the first night hadn’t triggered the {Monstrous Encounter} perk. What was the difference? Aggression? Some quirk of biology? Alice had no idea.

Finally, she was confused about how the spidercrab actually kept its internal organs functioning properly. Spiders couldn’t grow to the size of a dog on Earth because of the lack of oxygen in the atmosphere, and while the spidercrab seemed to be a very different species, it still seemed to be at least somewhat anatomically similar to a spider on earth. Spiders needed a whole lot of oxygen if they were bigger than the size of the average spider on Earth - in fact, it was one of the major reasons most spiders were fairly small. How was spidercrab able to supply its system with oxygen when there didn’t seem to be enough oxygen in the atmosphere for it to function? What was powering it?

Alice sighed. She had no idea how to answer any of these questions for now. What she DID know was that there was an entirely new component of the environment she hadn’t thought of before that had a very high chance of threatening her life. She hadn’t thought much about her initial run-in with whatever the thing was that had tried to maul her on her first night, due to how much insanity she was trying to process at the time, but this had brought that encounter back to the front of her thoughts. In addition to potentially toxic mana, starvation, freezing to death, and the difficulties of surviving alone in the wilderness, she had to worry about freaking monsters.