1.27

Four. That’s how many times they tried to convince him that wood wasn’t a useless, awful, and redundant construction material. Well, sort of. Harold and Amber had given up after the first three tries didn’t pan out, but Alina kept up her spirited attempts.

Rocky honestly didn’t know why they were so adamant in trying to argue for wood’s utility. Stone was clearly superior. Alas, he was their benevolent rock overlord and town leader, and would deign to hear their petitions.

“Look here idiot.” Alina angrily buzzed around his head, green wings fluttering about. “Stone is great for building, okay? And, factually speaking, wood is weaker than stone, yes?”

He nodded. Those were indeed the facts as he saw them.

“Okay, good. But tell me, what is more abundant: wood or stone?”

Oh, he knew this one! “Stone! It’s the entire ground, so there must be more if it than wood.”

She sighed, placing one of her tiny Sprite hands on her face. Then very slowly, she enunciated each and every syllable in her next question. “I suppose I walked right into that. Which of the two can you get more of, with less effort, in the nearby area?”

“Stone-”

Alina held up a hand. “I classify ‘nearby’ as roughly five minutes of travelling, maximum. We’re not going back and forth to that goblin camp you wrecked.”

Rocky stayed silent, fuming. This was unfair! If she kept constricting the rules, eventually he would be forced to answer… “Wood. But only in that very very very very specific situation.”

She smiled, for the first time since the conversation had started. To Rocky, it looked almost predatory. An falcon closing in for the kill. “Finally, some headway. That’s good. Rocky, we’re in that very very very very specific situation right now, okay?” She held up a hand once more to silence his response. “So what does that mean for our settlement, if wood is the only thing we can get nearby?”

“But we found the goblin camp, we can just get stone from-”

“Ah ah ah.” A singsong voice cut off his thought. The sprite wagged her comically small pointer finger at him. “Answer the question. In the immediate area, close by as defined by the five minute rule, what will we have to use because we have a lot of it?”

Rocky felt his light dim. He didn’t know how, but he just knew that the Sprite could sense her impending victory. The vicious creature had backed him into a corner. “...wood.”

“What was that?” Her face was elation given form. “I couldn’t really hear you. What do we have to use?”

“Wood…”

It seemed she was satisfied with that. “Okay, so now we have to talk about what type of wood is better for what, and which types we should use to build things in our camp.”

“The presence of stone makes every type of wood equally inferior.”

“OH FOR THE LOVE OF-”

#####

Day 1

It took all of one fight for Robb to start regretting his decision to venture out alone.

The stories he had read hadn’t told him anything about how utterly awful it was to try and hunt alone. In a group, stumbling over a fallen tree branch in a fight might be dangerous. But alone? Tripping over was to tempt fate itself.

Robb’s first discovery was that he wasn’t the strongest kid on the block. It wasn’t that he was weak. ‘Well, it has been a while since I worked out.’ But he wasn’t incapable of pulling his weight.

But fighting a several hundred pound, muscle-bound monkey with nothing but sharpened sticks? That was hard. Doing it while weighed down by supplies of a dubious quality? That was worse.

Unfortunately, he was caught between fighting with his supplies on his person, or leaving them behind to chase his quarry. Neither was a particularly enticing option, especially due to his lack of a backpack.

He sighted his first target, a lone [Lvl 9 Orangutan Skull Screamer], perhaps the runt of the litter. Sitting alone, it was the ideal target for his set of abilities.

Robb observed his target. It was picking bugs out of its own hair, completely unaware of the world around it.

He estimated that the screamer would have been around six feet tall had it been standing. But while sitting, it’s head was at the perfect height for some… aggressive negotiations with Robb’s makeshift daggers.

Darting from cover to cover, tree to tree, Robb gradually made his way towards his waiting target, the still unmoving screamer, who only roused to pick another insect out of its bright orange fur.

Now he crept up behind the creature, legs tensed to retreat at any moment.

Robb was close now, close enough to see the individual hairs on the creature’s head. Close enough to count them, had he wanted to. Instead, he brandished the two sticks hidden up the sleeves of his commandeered leather jacket, waiting for the precise moment…

Crack! He jammed both sticks as far into the Orangutan’s head as possible. The weapons entered both ears at the same time, and Robb could feel as the weapons punctured something soft. His [Concealed Weapons Mastery] and [Lethal Blow] activated simultaneously, giving his sturdy wooden weapons the bunching power to pierce the monkey’s skull.

Robb hoped that he had hit the brain. For if it wasn’t? Well, he wouldn’t be living much longer to lament his poor target choice.

It seemed lady luck was on his side now, however, for the monster was dead before it had hit the floor.

Only now did Robb notice that a chunk of himself now felt… missing. As if someone had taken a part of him and run off with it. An emptiness that could never be filled, save for the healing that time would afford him.

In other words, this was something Robb recognized from the stories, something he had never thought to experience in the whole of his twenty four years living on Earth, or even in the several days he had spent away from it. He had used up all of his mana, and was now experiencing mana exhaustion, he was sure of it.

He couldn’t fall now, he knew that. If he fell, even if he were assumed dead by the monsters that found him, he would be eaten alive while in his defenseless state.

No, that would not do. His head pounded, his body struggled to complete its most basic functions. His eyes blurred, his limbs shaking like the leaves faced with a stiff breeze. Even in this state, Robb fumbled his way into a nearby bush, hardly able to sustain his own weight.

The exhaustion had hit him like a truck. And mere moments after the mana exhaustion kicked in, it forced him to fall to the grassy forest floor.

Robb’s head hit the ground, and he promptly passed out.

#####

Day 2

When the proverbial rooster crowed, and when the sun rose the next day, Robb did not rise with it. The pounding in his head had subsided. Slightly.

The dull ache in Robb’s skull still remained, and he mutely wondered why the headache still felt so pronounced. ‘Maybe it was the fall that did it.’ Regardless of the cause, itt would serve as a reminder of his foolhardiness, of his pride in coming alone.

Would he go back then? To the relative safety of the camp?

No, he decided. Quitting was not the fate of Robb Curthose.

The sun was at its peak when he finally did rise. Shakily dusting off his clothes, the dust that had accumulated overnight stuck to his person, giving the impression of his being in the wilderness far longer than he truly had.

‘How am I still alive?’ He hadn’t gotten far from his victim’s body, that much he was sure of. Surely they could have just found him if they looked.

He stepped past a tree to see the half eaten corpse of the [Lvl 9 Orangutan Screamer]. Its skin and meat had been stripped away, leaving only the bones as the only portion of the body to remain fully intact.

Robb tried not to grimace at the sight of the rotting remains. It was disgusting, true, but it was also the reason why he hadn’t been discovered. At least that was his theory.

The teeth on these monsters were fairly impressive. Huge molars, ever present to grind down even the toughest foods. That much was to be expected. But the bones of this corpse showed him something else. The Orangutans had fangs, where the canines would be on a human. They were long and sharp, seemingly able to rend and tear.

Coincidentally enough, the tattered remains of what had once been the skin of this monster had rends and tears through it. Almost as if something sharp had tore through the beast’s hide, to reach the lean meat inside.

‘Cannibals.’ Robb shuddered. It was only a theory, but it still made him extremely uncomfortable, even with how common cannibalism was in the animal kingdom.

Nevertheless, the easy source of food for the Orangutan’s fellows had likely saved Robb’s own life, and he wasn’t about to let it go to waste.

His sticks were still jammed into the beast’s skull. One had broken into pieces upon entry, and the other had lost its tip. Neither one was worth retrieving. What that meant for Robb, however, was that he only had a few spare javelins and-

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEE. The screech resounded through the forest, and the call seemed to echo as it travelled to Robb’s ear. Instinctively, he recoiled, seeking cover immediately. That was the call of a predator. Worse still, it had been nearby.

Ducking behind a nearby pine, he peeked out to see, well. He saw terror incarnate walking the forest. And it was heading right towards him. He dashed away as fast as he could, careful not to be spotted by the walking monstrosity.

[Lvl ??? Orangutan Skull Screecher]

SKREEEEEE. It cried once more. The monster seemed to be waiting for a response. Shit. Is it waiting for a response from a guard? Robb looked back at the corpse of the beast he had killed, the bloodied remains didn’t seem keen on rising from the dead to save him from this predicament.

He did the only thing he could think of. Cupping both his hands into a cone shape on his mouth, Robb screamed louder than he had ever thought possible. “SKrEeEeEeeeee.”

Even with all of his concerted effort, Robb’s fatigue from the previous began to tell, and the latter end of his imitation screech trailed off into a decidedly weaker cry. Nothing at all like the strength of the [Orangutan Skull Screecher] before him.

In retrospect, Robb might even have called his fatigue good fortune, for his call had been just strong enough to convince the Screecher that its servant yet lived, yet still weak enough as to not be construed as a challenge to its authority.

Of course, Robb didn’t know that now, and was actively shitting his pants as the monster’s steps sent subtle vibrations into the earth below him. Not that Robb could feel those, though his nerves certainly seemed like they could.

Nevertheless, the beast turned away and began calling in a different direction. Hopefully, to a less dead, and less human guard.

Robb stumbled as his eyes blurred once more. It really hadn’t been advisable to scream like that, not while the remnants of yesterday’s headache still plagued him. Still, he was alive, and that counted for something.

Only now, with the excitement over, did he have the presence of mind to check his notifications.

[Congratulations, Level Up! Level 7 Trickster]

[Congratulations, Level Up! Level 8 Trickster]

…

[Achievement Acquired: System Acolyte - Where others would have faltered and cried out in terror, you have embraced to role given to you by the System]

[Title Granted: Trickster Incarnate - Passive grants experience for deception]

All great things to be sure, though perhaps he would have argued against the religious connotation of an achievement named 'System Acolyte' had he been of a stabler mind. But right now, he just had to get back to the safe zone, he could rest there and-

[The Survival Period has now closed, all Safe Zones are hereby negated. Please head towards the beacons for System-designated equipment. Good luck, players.]

That was worrying, now that even the system was wishing him luck. Huge beams of light, blinding against the darkness of the evening, shot upwards from some unseen source deep within the ground. He sighed, “well, fuck. No rest for the wicked then.”

Robb turned, and slowly made his way back to camp.