Congratulations! You have slain a Level 3 Puma Raptor. Experience deferred due to level cap.

First Blood! By slaying your first dangerous enemy unaided by friend or class, you have gained an additional fusion point.

Congratulations! By slaying an edible creature, you have gained access to the Hunter class.

Congratulations! By winning a fight to the death, you have gained access to the Warrior class.

-

Feeling shaky and more than a little giddy now that the danger was past, Milo lay staring up at the sky for a minute, giggling helplessly as he replayed the brief battle in his mind. His heart pounded. That was…insane. Is that what fighting is like? It had felt so rushed, no time to think or plan. If not for his backpack, his life could have been over in an instant. Definitely need to get some good armor or defensive skills ASAP.

Shaking his head as his mirth faded, Milo finally got to checking both of his new classes. After skimming to the bottom and noting that neither of them were Journeyman or higher, he didn’t bother with any further details. He was happy to note the new fusion point, though judging by the wording it looked like he couldn’t get another one the same way a second time.

Fine by me.

Squirming out from underneath the alleged puma raptor, he checked himself over. He had cuts in the back of his thighs from where the beast’s hind claws had dug into him when it pounced on his back, but they weren’t too deep. He was pretty sure his amputated wrist had opened and bled a bit after his rough meeting with the ground. Other than that he seemed to be uninjured.

Lucky, he thought to himself, grabbing some water from his ravaged pack and rinsing the shallow wounds to the best of his ability. That encounter could have easily been the end of him. It was so quick.

He’d grown too complacent, been too distracted by his discovery of the mine. He had to remember that, as peaceful as the forest had appeared yesterday, unknown dangers could await him at any turn.

After he was finished with the cuts, he turned to examine the creature that had tried to make breakfast out of him. It was distinctly odd-looking. The name the system had dubbed it with was appropriate, as it looked sort of like a cross between a bird and a large cat. A very large cat. Milo estimated it was between one and a half and two times his own weight. What he had initially taken for the beast’s fur was actually a dense coat of extremely fine, mottled-brown feathers. As he had noted before, it had a thick, somewhat smushed-looking black beak in place of a snout that hid several rows of small, vicious-looking teeth. Weird. He was reminded of the feathered iguana-things he’d seen before. It’s like this world had dinosaurs but no meteor, and they evolved into this instead of birds.

Come to think of it, had he seen any birds so far? He couldn’t remember.

With a tug, Milo removed his hammer from the thing’s skull. It oozed a bit when he did, a dark red color that he assumed was blood. Looks like they run on hemogoblins in this world too, he thought with a smirk. He did his best to wipe his hammer off in the dirt, getting most of the gore off of it.

Well now what? He no longer felt safe sleeping out in the open with these things around. Plus, the carcass would start to stink and almost definitely attract scavengers. Milo didn’t want to be around to see what those looked like, and he didn’t think he could drag the corpse far enough away to matter. He needed a new place.

Maybe…the mine? It was definitely out of the rain and would guarantee Milo would only see predators of a maximum size and from a single direction. Well, if he could see them at all in the dark, that was. Hm. Not so sure about this plan.

He supposed he could continue with his original plan to explore it first, then see how he felt after that.

Mind made up, Milo went to round up his things. He decided to take everything with him rather than just grabbing his phone, his original purpose in coming. Regardless of whether or not he decided to hole up in the mineshaft, he definitely didn’t want to hang around here. He quickly repacked his backpack, which was still holding together despite the beast tearing into it. The outermost pockets were shredded and useless, but the main compartment was pretty much intact.

He took only a couple of minutes. He made sure to pack more Soylent than he would normally be comfortable carrying, along with a few other things he would probably leave behind once he left this region of the forest for good. His shoulders protested mightily at the brutal treatment, but he ignored it for now. It was only a few minutes to the mine.

Before he left, he also scooped up his remaining two unopened boxes of Soylent, balancing them awkwardly in one arm. His hammer was threaded through a belt loop on his right hip, ready should he need it.

He was extra vigilant this time as he trekked away from his sister’s basement, though he couldn’t keep his mind from wandering to his experience fighting the puma raptor. He hadn’t thought he was the type to freeze in a dangerous situation, but neither did he expect the viciousness that erupted from him when he got over his initial fear. Or the vicious swearing, even to himself. He rarely swore, having been raised as a good Mormon boy before converting to godless heathenism.

It had felt…good. Primal. Milo had always been a competitive person, but he’d also been raised to be a good sport and control his emotions. He couldn’t recall ever feeling overly constrained by that requirement, but being able to let loose in a life or death situation like this was an eye-opening experience. As frightening as it had been, there was a part of him that was curious to explore that feeling further.

Am I crazy? Why would I want to risk my life like that?

Milo considered himself a slow, careful thinker and planner. He enjoyed games like Risk and Settlers of Catan and had had what was perhaps an unhealthy obsession with Magic: The Gathering for a number of years. He’d remained a virgin until his mid-twenties because sex seemed really risky!

...Okay, maybe all the Magic and his highly introverted tendencies had had something to do with his prolonged virginity as well, but he was getting off track…Milo was a careful person! Seeking out danger was the polar opposite of that. He shook his head, returning his focus to the task at hand.

He followed the trail of X’s he’d left himself and, doing his best to stay hyper-aware of his surroundings, completed the short journey without incident. Upon arriving, he carelessly let the heavy Soylent boxes tumble from his arms, his bags joining them on the ground immediately after, followed by Milo himself. He took a few minutes to recuperate and locate his phone, then tentatively approached the entrance to the mine.

He felt the urge to simply start heading down, but he wanted to be careful. He gathered a few more stones and chucked them in, not eliciting any reaction other than the sound effects he anticipated. Then he checked for tracks around the entrance, finding none but his own.

Finally satisfied that it was more or less safe, he decided he was ready. Milo began to descend, but stopped himself again after a few skidding steps when he realized that he only had one hand but wanted to be able to use both his phone and his hammer simultaneously.

The solution, he realized after a few moments’ thought, was to secure the phone some other way.

Genius. Now how do I do that?

After scrambling back up to his stuff and a lot of trial and error, he found a solution he was happy with: he’d wrapped one of his stretchy fitness bands around his torso a couple times and worked the phone in underneath, creating a chestlamp of sorts. Simply wedging it into his existing sling had been unsuccessful, and wrapping one of the bands around his head had been extremely uncomfortable and made the light point at an upward angle pretty much no matter what he did—but the chestlamp was good. Now he was really, truly ready.

…right after he went and relieved himself near a tree. Then, resolutely zipping his pants, Milo descended into the shaft.