It wasn’t a monkey, not really. But that was the closest analogue Levi had. It had four arms, two tails, and what looked like two more arms for legs. It’s build seemed suited for movement in forests. It had two monkey ears, but its face was that of a predator, with an elongated snout and some very, very sharp teeth. Two of its arms ended in razor sharp claws, and it also had a short spine of spikes down its back. And its fur was camouflage, which was partly why Levi had a hard time seeing it when it had leaped at him. It blended in with the colors of the forest perfectly.

He shivered, picturing what this thing could have done to him had Susan not been quick on the draw. It was one thing to be tangentially aware of potential dangerous beasts, but being confronted with the real thing had Levi’s adrenaline levels topped off.

Susan walked over to join him by the corpse.

“It’s clearly a predator,” she said, squatting down to examine it more closely. “Possibly a mammal of some sort. I wonder how intelligent it is?”

“Do you think it’s alone?” Levi wasn’t keen to run into more of these things.

“Hopefully. We need to make sure to stay alert though. I doubt this is the only dangerous thing out here.”

Susan moved to continue walking but Levi stopped her.

“Uh, shouldn’t we check it for a monster core or something?”

“A monster core? What’s that?”

“It’s a magical crystal in the beast that gives it it’s powers. A lot of stories talk about them. It’s what makes a normal animal into a monster.”

“Then do we have one of these cores?” Susan asked skeptically.

“I don’t think so,” Levi responded. “We have this system thing instead I think. I’m not even sure if this has a core, but I think we should check. It also might drop loot.”

Susan moved back over to the monkey. “Drop loot?”

“Yeah, like in video games. When you kill monsters, they drop loot. It could be money, weapons, armor, crafting materials, anything really.”

Susan gave him a flat stare. “So you think if I cut this open I’ll find some golden coins inside? Or maybe a sword stuck up its ass?”

“Err, yeah?” When she put it that way it did sound kind of stupid. “Maybe the monster core is more likely?”

“Why don’t you cut it open then?” She said, gesturing for him to go ahead.

Susan stood there, arms crossed, while Levi debated what to say next.

“Well, the thing is, I’m not so good with cutting things open. I was hoping you could do it.”

His dissection class in high school biology had not been fun. He had held down his lunch, but only barely. Chelsey had made fun of him for weeks after.

Susan sighed, and held out her hand for a knife, which Levi gladly gave her, and she started on the gruesome task. It actually wasn’t so bad as Levi watched her go about it, following his instructions to check places like the head and chest. He would have told her to check its dantian, but who knew where in the seven hells that was actually located. He made himself watch the whole thing, and had a feeling his skills made it easier to deal with the gore. His increased willpower probably helped too, but he was betting on the Survival skill. He hadn’t had any problems cleaning the fish earlier, although fish just weren’t as gross as cutting open a frog or a mutant killer monkey.

“Nothing,” Susan said, finishing up the task and then washing her hands off in the stream. “It was a good idea though. Also, from what I could see it seems mostly normal on the inside. That could be valuable knowledge if we needed to eat it.”

That done, they continued on their way, trying to keep a better lookout for more creatures bearing ill will. Levi was once again glad he ran into Susan. Surviving alone might be harder than he had first assumed, and a competent veteran seemed like a good travelling partner.

Around twenty minutes later Levi finally found words to describe the tension he felt building.

“Hey Susan, do you think that the forest sounds, louder, somehow?”

“Louder?” She paused, mulling it over. “You’re right, it does. We should be careful. Something is different from yesterday.”

Now that they were aware of it, the gradual increase in volume seemed almost painfully obvious. Whereas before it felt like they were walking through a secluded forest, devoid of any large animal life, now Levi compared it to how he imagined a rainforest would sound, teeming with the sounds of a thousand different species intermingling. The sounds might have been beautiful in a different context. Now it just brought up images of four-armed monkeys and the potential harm they could cause him with their claws.

They made it through lunch unmolested, no further signs of danger other than the still increasing volume of the unknown creatures inhabiting the forest. The stream they were following originated in a mountain range kilometers behind them, and it was from that direction that they first heard the sounds of fighting. It was a cacophony of screaming and caterwauling, the sheer volume even at this distance making it hard for Levi to think. Each new roar and screech grated on his nerves, leaving him jumping at the smallest shadows. Susan looked like she was faring better, but how much he couldn’t tell. They both had tried at some small talk during lunch, but it only lasted a few sentences before they had lapsed back into silence again.

Shortly after they broke camp after lunch they ran into their next sizeable creature. It was the size of a large dog, and, were it not for that, Levi would have thought it a bear. It was snuffling around the creek, digging into the bank in search of who knew what. It was also sky blue.

“Susan, I don’t suppose you could shoot that, could you?” Levi wasn’t taking any chances. His imagination could fill in the blanks all too easily with what could happen with a small slip up.

“Why? It might not be dangerous. We shouldn’t immediately fight if we don’t have too. I don’t have unlimited ammo.”

“It’s definitely dangerous,” Levi said. He was whispering, and with his eyes urged Susan to do the same.

“You sure? Do you know what it is? I can’t say I’m familiar with any small blue bears.”

“I didn’t notice at first because of the coloring, but look at the eyes. See the lines? I bet it’s some sort of badger.”

They both froze as the badger stopped digging and looked straight at them. The two sides stared at each other, evaluating the opposition. Levi silently prayed that it wasn’t really a badger and instead some friendly herbivore. The badger declined to answer his prayers. It was a badger, and it didn’t care. It promptly roared, turned a bright, angry red, and charged at a speed much too fast for any terrestrial animal.

They were far enough away though that Susan had plenty of time to pull out her pistol and empty three rounds into its head. She almost shot another three, as it appeared to keep going, despite the fatal wounds. When it finally fell dead, it was mere meters from their position.

They waited good minute to make sure it had indeed stopped moving before Susan moved over to examine the corpse, Levi following her. Upon closer inspection, it was clear to see it was a badger, complete with the distinctive eye markings. It had been hard to see them before, with the color scheme of the badger trending more towards monochrome.

“Look,” Levi said, pointing to the fur, “the color’s changing again.”

The fur, which was previously bright red, was now fading, the color slowly leaching out leaving only white behind. Levi guessed the badger could change its fur color, that or perhaps it changed depending on its mood. He would remember to stay away from any bright red badgers in the future.

“We need to either find more survivors or figure out a way this system can help us fight,” Susan said with a frown. From the sound of her voice, she wasn’t happy. “I’m going to run out of bullets eventually, and we would have been toast if this badger had been closer. After I shot it, it kept coming for a good fifteen meters or so.”

Levi nodded. What would they have done if there had been two badgers? He tried to ignore the obvious ‘nothing’ that sprung to mind.

As Levi was lost in his own musings, Susan zoned out for a second, checking a system notification she had received.

“I have some good news,” She said, eyes coming back into focus. “I leveled up, which lets me increase one of my stats. It seems like every time we level up we can increase a stat by one.”

“How did you level up? Do you know?” He had been wondering about the level for a while, and what exactly leveling up would do. Only one stat point wasn’t great, but maybe there were other things too?

“Let’s see,” Susan concentrated on her System and focused on the level, trying to learn more about it. “I think killing monsters helps. Increasing skills and doing other things might help too. Killing monsters for sure, although I feel like it’s not just anything, but only things with a level.”

Hearing that, Levi immediately focused on the corpse in front of him, kicking himself mentally. He should have tried to inspect things before. Every game had some sort of interface, and this System one wouldn’t tell you anything unless you unlocked it yourself. Of course he would need do it manually first.

Sure enough Levi was able to discern something from the corpse.

“I think this is level five. It’s a bit harder because it’s already dead, but level five just feels right.”

“How can you tell?” Susan asked.

“Just focus on it and try and figure out what level it is. I wasn’t able to figure out anything else though. Most games give you more information about monsters than just the level, like a name and maybe a short description. But I guess this isn’t a game, so it looks like all we get is a rough guess at the level.”

Levi had to forcefully stop himself from continuing. He doubted Susan would be interested in game development, and even if she was, she clearly didn’t know the proper terminology. And this wasn’t a game anyway. This was real life. He had to remember that.

“I get level five too,” Susan said, after staring at the badger’s corpse. “This should be useful if we come across any other unknown creatures. Do you have ideas about anything else this System could help us with?”

Levi pondered for a second.

“Maybe. Invite to party: Susan. Inventory. Open inventory. Party invite: Susan. Invite Susan to party. Friends list. Social. Chat window. Quest log.”

He paused after each thing, concentrating on it in the hopes of something happening. Eventually he shook his head.

“Nothing. Maybe I’m just not doing it right though.”

“That’s alright,” Susan said. “I don’t really know what I’m missing anyway.”

They journeyed on until they stopped for dinner, which consisted of fish that Levi caught added to a dehydrated soup base he had in his pack. As they were eating, Levi turned his thoughts to leveling up and improving his combat power. Truthfully, he didn’t know enough about this System thing to try and metagame it, so he was basically flying by the seat of his pants. For instance, if he carved out a wand and started waving it about in a swish and flick motion would he get a magic skill? He knew magic existed, but in what form of shape was still a mystery.

While trying to think about how to get more information he realized there was still something more he could easily learn.

“Hey Susan,” Levi said, “what’s the skill you unlocked. I don’t think you ever told me.”

He should have asked earlier, but it was surprisingly hard to focus while walking in a forest that was getting spookier by the hour. Only this morning the trees looked so inviting, while yesterday they had seemed a paradise on, well, wherever they were. Now the forest felt like something that would house one of those cabins you always saw in horror movies. He wasn’t looking forward to when it got dark in a few hours.

“I guess I never told you,” Susan replied. “It’s called Improved Awareness. It helps me notice things out of the ordinary and enemies and such. It’s tied to insight.”

Levi mulled over this new information. It was likely the skill came from Susan’s time in the military if skills were tied in some way to what you were actually skilled in. Which made sense, both logically and with what little info he could glean from the System itself.

He was hesitant to ask Susan more about her past, but he decided to suck it up and give it a shot.

“I don’t mean to pry, but do you remember what other skills you could choose from? I know when I was looking at my list all the skills seemed to represent something I had some skill in before this all happened. Did it look like that to you?”

“You mean did the skill list represent my actual abilities?”

“Yeah. If my hypothesis is correct, you should have had access to a Pilates skill and stuff like that. Things you were skilled at before this all happened.”

“Maybe,” She said. “Give me a minute to try and remember.”

Levi waited while Susan muttered under her breath, trying to remember what skills she had access to and make sense of the information.

“I think you might be right. No, you’re definitely right. There were a few that didn’t make sense, but the longer I think about it the more there seems to be a correlation there. Is this helpful though?”

Levi shrugged. “Maybe. I’m not really sure. It should be, but without knowing all the unlock conditions I could swing a sword for years without unlocking anything.”

He would have been hesitant to try waving a wand around if he had been by himself, but he certainly wasn’t going to embarrass himself in from of someone else. It was kind of tempting though. Maybe he could try shooting an energy beam from his hands?

“Well let me know if you think of anything else you need my input on,” Susan said, standing up and dusting off her pants. “I’m happy to help.”