Octavius crouched low as he circled behind the massive animal. Every step was taken with the most meticulous care not to alert the beast. Even with the measures he had taken to remain quiet, the deer lifted its head and looked around. Octavius was just outside its field of vision, and a sigh of relief nearly escaped him when it went back to eating.

He stopped moving when he was just behind it and a few feet to its left. There were twenty feet between him and the beast; it would be difficult to catch it off guard from this distance, but it would be nearly impossible to get closer without alerting it. He readied his spear and charged it.

His spear was aimed at the perfect angle to enter from behind its ribcage and straight into its vital organs. The deer seemed to react in slow motion as Octavius thrust forward, executing instant thrust as he did so.

The razor-sharp spear bit deeply into the thick hide of the deer. It entered the thick muscle of its flank and began to slow. The moment the spear entered it, the deer began to shift to face Octavius. That movement caused his spear, which was quickly piercing into its side, to slam to a stop against one of its thick ribs.

Octavius’s quick reaction time allowed him to pull his spear back before it was caught, but he knew he’d lost the advantage. He revolved around it, making sure that it couldn’t turn its massive antlers towards him. His spear flickered in and out, creating superficial wounds along the flank of the deer.

After a dozen seconds of this, the deer gave up attempting to bring its antlers to bear on him and changed its attack. It halted before quickly reversing the direction of its rotation. Octavius was caught off guard by this change and was thus unprepared for its hind legs slamming outward and clipping his chest.

The leather armor on his chest managed to reduce the force of the impact, but it still forced him to stumble backward. He recovered in a moment and brought his spear up horizontally to catch its antlers that were looking to gouge into him.

Luckily, it didn’t have the distance to build up a significant amount of speed before reaching him. He planted his feet as the spear hooked into the branching shape of the antlers. His boots dug deep furrows into the damp ground as the deer forced him backward.

His face was mere feet from the snarling maw of the deer. The smell of blood coming from it was overwhelming. He gripped the haft of the spear and pulled it back, taking three quick steps backward. The deer, not braced for the sudden lack of force pushing against it, stumbled slightly.

Octavius spun away from it and activated instant thrust. His spear, only held by his right hand, seemed to leap forward and dig into the bottom of the deer’s skull. The thrust, which was from an extremely disadvantageous position, was bolstered by the increased speed and momentum from the instant thrust skill and pierced the hide of the deer.

The blade of the spear continued upwards as the deer's momentum carried it forward. The grip of Octavius’s right hand was far from enough to hold the spear against such a force, and it was ripped from his hands.

The deer ran forward with the metal spear dragging on the ground from below its jaw. It turned to face him, its wide black eye burning with hate. One of its hooves moved forward, followed by another as it began its charge towards the unarmed Octavius. What it didn’t account for was the spear.

When it ran, the spear was dragged behind it, but the spear was braced against the ground when it turned. The moment it put its weight behind its charge, it impaled itself on Octavius’s spear. As the spear thrust upwards and into its brain, its legs seemed to fall out from under it. Its body slammed into the ground with a heavy thump, and its forward momentum carried it half a dozen feet towards Octavius.

You have killed Uncommon Carnivorous Deer (Lvl 35) and gained 13125 EXP (1/4)(35)(2)(6)(1.25)(100)

You have gained the title Titanslayer I

You have killed a beast twenty-five (25) or more levels above you. Effect : All stats +3

You have gained a level in the skill Spear Fighting Affinity.

Your Spear Fighting Affinity is now Lvl 2

You have gained a level in the skill Instant Thrust.

Your Instant Trust is now Lvl 2

Octavius, who had drawn his dagger the moment he had lost his spear, watched with a slightly incredulous expression as the deer essentially killed itself. Well, I was expecting a lengthy battle, but I suppose this will do. I’m not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. Or deer, I guess.

He chuckled softly as he resheathed the dagger into its correct place on his belt. Next, he examined his armor. There was a massive indent of one of the hooves of the deer from when it kicked him. The kick landed on the place where his pauldron and chest armor met and left a large imprint.

Even as Octavius watched, the imprint began to fade. If only his own body could be so lucky. He prodded the imprint with his left hand and winced. Now that his adrenaline was wearing off, he felt the deep bruise forming, along with the cracked ribs. He could also tell he had jarred his left ankle sometime during the fight, but that was a minor injury.

He walked over to the deer and removed his spear, deftly wiping it on the deer’s own hide. Then, he looked over the corpse of the deer. He needed to decide what to do with it. After some consideration, he decided to leave most of it to the people of Sanctuary. It had a lot of meat on it and likely held a significant amount of materials for the craftsmen to use. Though, he still wanted some of the beast for himself.

He retrieved his rucksack and dug out a plastic bag. Using his combat knife, he cut a large chunk of meat off the back of the deer and sealed it inside. The meat was difficult to cut into, but with some intelligent application of force, he was able to cut through it. Next, he moved up to the head of the deer. He carefully removed one of its antlers with a combination of the file on his multitool and leverage, securing it to his rucksack with the inner fibers of some of the small amount of remaining paracord he still had.

He stood and surveyed the scene. It appeared that there was nothing else for him to do, so he hefted his spear and left the cooling body of the deer alone on the grass, looking over his status screen as he left.

Name

Octavius J. Asher

Race

Human (F)

Level

10 - 36998/50000

Class

Spearman

Titles

Forerunner, Titanslayer I

Health

484/560

Stamina

543/660

Mana

448/520

Strength

43

Dexterity

48

Agility

36

Constitution

33

Vitality

28

Perception

28

Intelligence

26

Wisdom

22

Will

34

Free Points

0

Status Effects

Injured - You have been injured. You will feel pain from certain movements. Certain movements will make your injury worse.

Skills

Identify (Lvl 12)

Speech (MAX)

Instant Thrust (Lvl 2)

Whirlwind (Lvl 1)

Spear Fighting Affinity (Lvl 2)

Octavius was moving at a slower pace back towards the clearing where he met Ava. Careful not to exacerbate the injury to his chest, he stepped over a log only to freeze when he heard a human laugh carried by the wind. The voice was loud and deep, clearly the voice of a man.

Octavius moved so that he was shielded from the direction the laugh came from by a tree. He was thankful that he had already reentered the dense forest and left the meager cover provided by the tree in the deer’s territory. The cover provided by the dense foliage around him made it relatively easy to shield himself from sight.

He waited and listened as the first laugh was joined by two more, both the deep timbre of grown men. The laughs were followed by voices that grew louder before dying with the wind. Without the wind, Octavius could barely make out the sound of human speech, much less what was being said.

He waited as the sounds grew closer and more clear. It took a few minutes for him to be about to truly hear them even though they weren’t making any attempt at silence. If these were the members of the Sanctuary’s primary hunting team like Octavius thought, they were astoundingly undisciplined.

He focused on understanding what they were saying.

“... down an’ this chick comes up to me. I’m talkin’ like a ten outa ten here. She was smokin’. So, anyway, she - she comes up to me and tells me, ‘You can’t be sitting there. Please get up,’” the man said the last part in a high pitched falsetto. “And obviously I…”

Octavius stopped listening as intently to the content of their conversation. Unless they had complex coded communications for some reason, they were just telling stories and cracking jokes. Instead, he focused on the movement of the sounds they made as they trampled through the forest.

It wasn’t difficult to plot their course in his mind. They were moving from in front of him towards the creek. Octavius was moving in a straight line in the direction of the Sanctuary, while this group was following a similar route that Octavius had used to get to the deer. In only a few minutes, they would walk barely three dozen feet from his current hiding spot.

He moved slightly to get better cover behind a large tree with a thick bush next to him. Within that amount of time, he could leave the area completely, but decided against it. He was confident in his hiding spot holding up to trained professionals, much less these people who didn’t seem even to have any bushcraft experience.

He waited, peering through the dense branches of the bush and towards where he expected them to emerge into his vision. Their voices grew loud enough that he didn’t even have to concentrate on understanding them.

“... that ever happened,” a new voice guffawed, “That’s bull, and we all know it!”

The first voice responded with an annoyed tone, “I swear it’s true. It happened just like I said!”

A third voice interrupted the two, “Shut up, you idiots. No one cares if it's true or not, we just care that you idiots won’t shut the fuck up about it.”

This voice was familiar to Octavius. It itched at the back of his mind, but he couldn’t remember where he had heard the voice before. Suddenly, movement caught his eye, and a bald young man entered his line of sight. He wore jeans and a biker jacket, a pistol held loosely at his side.

Adrian - Human (F) (Lvl 8)

The name meant nothing to him, and his level and apparent abilities were unremarkable in Octavius’s opinion. He waited while the next three men entered his vision and used identify on them.

Chen - Human (F) (Lvl 8)

Derek - Human (F) (Lvl 9)

Marcus - Human (F) (Lvl 8)

One of the men, Derek, was level 9, but Octavius guessed that he was still rather far from leveling up to level 10. All of the men were armed with various handguns and held them like they had at least some experience with them.

Next came two more people, a man and a woman. He used identify on them the moment they became visible to him.

James - Human (F) (Lvl 9)

Claudia - Human (F) (Lvl 8)

Ah, so that’s James, He thought and focused on the man to get a better look. The man was in his late thirties. He was tall, with blue eyes and short brown hair, and was strikingly familiar. It took a moment, but the man's identity entered his mind like a whisper on the wind. It was the same James that had attacked him with his cronies on the first day of the tutorial.

So, he appears to have been doing well for himself. Octavius thought before trying to decide what to do next.

James listened to his hunting party around him bicker as they marched towards the place where the level 35 monster was supposed to be. His tongue darted out to lick his lips in excitement. He could practically taste the strength he would gain when he leveled up.

For the past month, the box in his status that informed him that he didn’t have a class irked him. When he reached level 9 and saw that the amount of experience needed to reach level 10 was so high, he just knew that he would soon get his class. He was only ten thousand seven hundred EXP away from level 10 and was certain that he would level up once he killed the level 35 beast.

His hunting party was arrayed around him. They weren’t initially the strongest, but they were the most loyal. After all, he could give them strength. All he needed to do was let them use a few extra bullets, and bam! Strong subordinates.

He allowed them to continue their blathering until they came to the first tree that was missing some of its bark. The height of the gouges was intimidating, but they were armed and outnumbered the beast. The only question was how many bullets it would take to bring it down, and he brought plenty.

He issued orders with a stern voice, “Team one, head into the trees and swing north. Team two and I will go south. Shoot it if you find it, and we’ll all come running. Stay quiet while you move.”

The small group split into two. Each of them was deadly serious, holding their pistols in front of them. James and his group followed along the north side of the monster’s territory. They walked along the creek until three rapid gunshots rang out in the forest.

His group broke into a sprint with him in the lead. Since the chase with the wolf, he had put a lot of points into agility. After all, he reasoned, you didn’t need strength to pull a trigger. He only needed perception to see what he was going to hit and agility to run away if he missed.

Due to his high agility, he was the first of the group to spot the monster. It was a massive brown deer. It appeared to be a larger version of the carnivorous deers that made up a large chunk of the Sanctuary’s food supply.

He aimed his gun at it, internally wondering why the first group had stopped shooting it. It probably tripped, but it took a lot more than a few bullets to put one of these things down. Even if they could shoot it through its eye, it would take time for it to finally die. Or at least that it was what he thought.

In the time it took him the squeeze off two shots, he noticed the massive pool of blood surrounding the deer. He slowly lowered his gun and approached it. It was definitely dead. The entire underside of its skull was torn open, and a large chunk of meat was torn from its back.

“What the fuck happened?” he asked quietly before repeating himself in a near shout, “What THE FUCK happened?”

Claudia, the only woman in the group, bent down and laid her hand against the deer’s side. “It’s still warm. Whatever killed it might still be in the area,” she said. She swiped her dark brown hair from her eyes and looked closer.

James trusted her. While she wasn’t as loyal to him as the others, she did have hunting experience before the tutorial started. That was why James spun to face outwards at her words. He leveled his gun at the surrounding trees, “That’s definitely the massive deer that Brian saw. If something killed it, does that mean we have something higher than level 35 in the area?”

When he finished speaking, all of the members of his group that weren’t already facing outwards spun and readied themselves for a possible ambush. His thoughts were derailed when Claudia next spoke.

“I don’t think so…” she trailed off before speaking up again, “These cuts are smooth and straight. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that a human killed this thing with a knife.”

James spun to face her. “What?” he demanded.

“Here, look,” she pointed at where an antler once met its skull, “That looks like someone snapped off its antler, and here,” this time she pointed to where the chunk of meat was torn from its back. Only, up close, it looked more like it was cut out. Claudia continued, “This is the backstrap, one of the best cuts that come from a deer. It looks like someone cut it out to take with them.”

James was furious. It was looking more and more like someone had taken his kill. Now it would take him over a week to level up at the rate it has been going. But he was also scared. He was at the absolute top of the food chain in the largest settlement in the tutorial; he thought he was among the strongest people around. Now he had to call that into question if someone was killing level 30 monsters with a knife.

He had Claudia look around for any hints of who the person who could have been, but perhaps predictably, she found nothing. After ordering the others to get the deer ready to carry back, he began to pace back and forth. He didn’t like being afraid, and he was most certainly afraid right now. There was someone out there much stronger than him, and that was a possible threat.

Once the others had prepared the deer to carry back to Sanctuary, he had Derek take the lead. The others shouldered the massive weight of the deer and set off. While his subordinates struggled to carry the massive deer carcass, he had more important things to think about. What am I going to tell the other council members about what happened? It took a lot of bribes to let them bring this much ammo, and I’m not going to be able to get all that stuff back. At least we got the deer’s body. That’s gotta be worth something.

He didn’t see the blazing green eyes that blended in with the vibrant undergrowth as they bore into his back, and thus didn’t realize that the council was perhaps not his largest concern.