Octavius’s jaw moved rhythmically up and down as he chewed the tough smoked meat. Its flavor was bland and the texture was extremely disagreeable, but it was full of protein and calories. The noonday sun streamed through the canopy and illuminated his features.

He looked over the forest floor as he ate. The previous few days had been extremely beneficial to Octavius. His spear fighting affinity had leveled up twice, and both his identify skill and instant thrust had leveled up once. Beyond that, he was only sixty-five hundred experience points away from level 12. If the rate of his experience gain remained the same, he would level up sometime later that day.

The forest’s unnatural silence had continued, and it impacted his mood in a way similar to an impenetrable blanket of clouds. Despite that, the day was warm and sunny. Under different circumstances, it would be a perfect day. Under these circumstances, it was not.

He’d only spoken to Ava once since the Emergence began, but the picture of the situation at the Sanctuary her words painted was not good. With his own experiences over the past few days added on, it was clear that the Sanctuary was not in good shape.

They’d gone through almost all of their ammunition, and now the once common gunshots no longer broke the silence of the forest with any real frequency. The protection of the Sanctuary had fallen largely to the melee fighters like Ava. The good news was that at least they were holding.

The losses amongst the fighters were relatively light, largely thanks to the abundant supply of health potions available to them. Another reason they were able to hold out was their new weapons. Someone had come up with the idea of melting down the shell casings from the bullets and casting them into blades. The material was far from optimal, and the weapons were of poor quality, but they were better than flint. Overall, that, and the increasing levels of the defenders, allowed them to keep up with the increasing levels of the beasts that assailed them.

Even then, the beasts that arrived had begun to have greater and greater levels. By now, it was not uncommon to see a beast with a level of seventeen or more. These high-level beasts required a whole group of melee fighters to take them down reliably.

Octavius felt his eyes drooping slightly but ignored the tiredness that had developed since the start of the Emergence two days before. The possibility of being attacked by a rabid squirrel or bird had caused him to not even trust the trees with his safety.

As he ate, he tried to figure out more about the Emergence. The more he understood the threat, the higher his chances of not only surviving but thriving from the challenge were. Over the course of the past few days, he had migrated to the north of the Sanctuary. The decision was made simply because as the beasts in the area all died and beasts from further away closed in, the number of beasts coming from the east was much less than the amounts coming from the other directions.

He leaned against a tree as he thought about the problem. Over the past few days, he’d devoted much of his time to trying to figure out the answers to the many questions that were building up in his mind.

Ok, so the question is, why is the average level of this tutorial instance so much higher than I expected? And then also, why are there an even amount of beasts coming from the north, west, and south, but not from the east? He asked himself.

Over the previous days, he had come to the conclusion that there was a group of high-level people in the tutorial instance. Still, doing the math made it clear that these people needed to either have ridiculously high levels or be in larger numbers than were possible given the number of tutorial survivors. He had thought often on the issue and hadn’t come to any concrete conclusions. From his lack of epiphany, it seemed as if that wouldn’t change during this meal.

Moving on, he thought about the second question. This one was much more important in his mind. If he could discover why there weren’t many beasts attacking from the east, he might be able to use the answer to create an advantage for himself, or even for the whole of the Sanctuary. He’d had many ideas that seemed plausible at first, but none of them seemed to make much sense.

It could be that there’s something to the east that scares the beasts off. No, they are all crazy and aren’t afraid of dying. They wouldn’t be scared off by anything. He thought of idea after idea before discarding them each in turn. The east was the direction he had the most experience with, and his mind kept wandering back to the stream.

That's not it, the stream couldn't affect the beasts' movements, it's weeks away. Oh! Maybe there is another population center to the east that is drawing the beasts away? That was a new idea. Perhaps the group is made of high-level people, and that could explain the disparity between the average level of the Sanctuary and the tutorial. On the way to Sanctuary, I didn’t come across any groups of people, but didn’t the group of thralls near the dungeon say they were spying on a campsite?

At that thought, his mind seemed to go blank for a moment. “FUCK!” he cursed aloud. He had entirely forgotten about the thralls! Everything seemed to click together in an instant. Of course the average level is so high! If the system was counting the thralls, then they would’ve brought the average level up a ton with their high levels. I only came across thralls to the east of here; that must be where their base is! And the beasts to the east of Sanctuary are mostly drawn there instead. That makes so much sense now!

Realizing that a wide smile had spread across his features, he got control of himself again. The questions had been bothering him immensely, and the answers came with a good deal of catharsis. He swallowed his snack and stood tall once more. The answers didn't help him at the moment, but they could in the future. All information could be used to gain an advantage in some circumstances. Just because it didn't help him now didn't mean it wouldn't in the future. Now that he had finished eating, he was ready to hunt again, and he was feeling energized by the revelations.

Spear in hand, he walked towards the creek. While the creek made for a poor natural barrier, any animal that crossed would leave an obvious trail leading away from it. The sun’s golden rays reflected on the clear surface of the water as it flowed past him, and he walked along its rock-laden bank in the shade cast by the vibrant green leaves above him.

It was barely a five-minute walk before he came to a set of recent tracks. The indents of large paws were clear in the muddy ground, and he crouched to examine them. They reminded Octavius of a dog’s prints but were much wider. The front of each toe of the imprint was pointed sharply, likely from some sort of claw. The depth of the footprints led him to believe that whatever beast left them was extremely large.

Not having ever encountered prints like these before, Octavius decided to follow them carefully. With the levels of the beasts increasing constantly, the last thing he needed was to be caught unaware by an unknown and high leveled opponent.

With his spear held in a defensive posture, he crept along the trail the beast left. The path it took was marked clearly not only by the prints in the forest floor but also by the severely damaged undergrowth. It took him barely a dozen minutes to catch sight of the massive creature as it lumbered along towards the Sanctuary.

The moment he saw it, he froze, cursing up a storm in the safety of his mind. Please have a low level, he pleaded as he used identify on it.

Rare Grizzly Bear (Lvl 21)

A sharp breath escaped him as he watched it pad along. Bears were deadly creatures at the top of the food chain. Even if a bear with no level from earth was placed in front of him, defeating it with melee weapons would not be a trivial matter. Trying to defeat it with all the extra stats twenty levels gave it? That would be almost impossible.

While he wasn’t sure what, if any, special abilities it got from its rarity, Octavius was wary of fighting the beast. What made his decision for him was thinking about how the warriors of the Sanctuary would bring it down. With its level and pure size, it would take a ridiculous amount of bullets to bring down, and fighting it in close quarters with shoddy weapons and low levels would be suicide.

The bear was massive, maybe eight feet in length and a thousand pounds. Its thick brown fur was matted around its lower legs, still drying from the creek. It was an intimidating beast.

Concentrating, Octavius activated his illusion ring, knowing that he would need any advantage he could get. He would have to use his agility a lot during the fight. The bear would likely be slower than him, but he doubted he could survive a single solid hit from it.

There were two options for him to take down the beast. He could attempt a decisive blow or try to slowly whittle away at its health by inflicting more minor wounds. The beast was moving towards the Sanctuary, which meant it was rabid and would not try to avoid his strikes. However, even if it didn’t try to dodge, landing an immediately fatal blow would be difficult.

He moved silently to be just behind the bear. While a prolonged battle was dangerous, attempting a fatal strike would be even more so in his opinion. Any fatal strike would require him to commit fully, and if it failed, would leave him open to a counterattack. He probably couldn’t survive a single hit from it, so he deemed the risk too great. Instead, he used the element of surprise to aim a powerful strike that was nearly guaranteed to land.

The bear paused in its lumbering trot and stood on its hind legs. It sniffed the air as if looking for something, and Octavius knew that it was the time for him to attack. Leaping into the air, he put his full weight behind the attack. Activating instant thrust, the spear powered into the beast's right thigh.

The roar it released was deafening. It was not one of pain but of pure rage. Pulling his spear back, Octavius backpedaled as he watched the beast topple over. With the muscle of its leg damaged, it failed to compensate quickly enough and fell forward onto all fours once more.

The silver-colored spear was practically invisible as it flashed forward again and again. Shallow cuts appeared all along the bear’s back and legs as it roared furiously, searching for whatever was attacking it. It spun to face Octavius, but he was no longer there. Instead, Octavius had circled it in the opposite direction and thrust powerfully into the same thigh once more.

Without his entire body's weight behind it, this attack was much less powerful than his first. Even so, more blood ran down the bear’s hind leg, matting the fur together. The bear pulled itself onto its hind legs, ignoring any pain it might have felt. With the claws of its forepaws extended, it whirled in a circle, striking out at its hidden attacker.

Octavius ducked low and waited for the claws to pass harmlessly overhead. The moment that they sliced through the air above him, the powerful muscles in his legs pushed him upward. Activating instant thrust, his spear was nothing but a small ripple in the air as it raced towards the bear’s neck.

His spear pierced the thick fur and hide that covered the bear’s neck, but the corded muscles in it diverted the blade to the side. Thick red blood flowed freely from the wound, but Octavius knew that it wouldn’t die of blood loss any time soon.

This time, the enraged roar shook the very ground as it swung its paws in a massive arc. Octavius ducked again but failed to get his spear out of the way fast enough. The force of the impact sent vibrations down the metal haft and numbed his hands.

The bear, having felt the impact, swung again at the same spot. Octavius backpedaled desperately but was too slow to evade the entire hit. The razor-sharp claws sliced through the unknown animal’s hide that made up his leather armor.

Time seemed to slow as he felt the claws pierce his flesh and scrape gouges into his ribs, skipping along them like a stone on water. His spear fell from his hands as the blow sent him flying. The ground rushed up to meet him, and he tumbled over the grass and tree roots before rolling to a stop against a log.

The pain was excruciating as his lungs heaved for breath. Blood dripped from his parted lips and onto the leather armor that was already beginning to repair the cuts it held. He forced his neck up as the sound of his normal breathing turned into burbling gasps.

The golden light of the midday sun streamed through the canopy and fell on the bear. It was pawing at the spear that laid on the ground twenty feet away. Octavius’s eyes felt heavy as he looked at his current status.

Name

Octavius J. Asher

Race

Human (F)

Level

11 - 53467/60000

Class

Spearman

Titles

Forerunner, Titanslayer I, Skill Forger

Health

87/560

Stamina

491/760

Mana

437/520

Strength

43

Dexterity

48

Agility

36

Constitution

38

Vitality

28

Perception

28

Intelligence

26

Wisdom

22

Will

34

Free Points

0

Status Effects

Severely Injured - You have been severely injured. You will feel pain from certain movements. Certain movements will make your injury worse. You will lose health at a rate of 28 Health/Minute until your injuries are tended to.

Skills

Identify (Lvl 14)

Speech (MAX)

Instant Thrust (Lvl 3)

Whirlwind (Lvl 2)

Spear Fighting Affinity (Lvl 4)

Mana Manipulation (Lvl 1)

His addled mind had a hard time doing the calculations, but he was a Delta Force candidate. All of his training and experience seemed to crystalize into a solid iron will as he lifted his right hand into the air. The hand shook fiercely as he reached for his belt. There, he knew, was a pouch that contained five little red potions, and if he didn’t drink one, he’d die within four minutes.

His weak fingers fumbled for the opening to the pouch and closed around a cylindrical object. The effort it took to remove the vial was monumental. Black started to encroach upon the edges of his vision, and he felt so, so tired. It felt as if each of his eyelids weighed a dozen tons as his left hand reached up and removed the stopper of the vial, trembling the entire time.

The cool glass touched his blood-covered lips, and he tipped the vial up. The tasteless fluid ran down his throat as he swallowed weakly. His right hand, now holding an empty vial, fell limply onto his chest.

The feeling of the potion working was magical. Warmth flooded his body, replacing the pins and needles that had begun to spread. The pain in his chest was replaced by itching and burning as his flesh and bones knit themselves back together. His lungs sucked in air with a woosh as they reinflated, and suddenly he could breathe freely again.

He laid there for a long moment, just trying to regain his bearings. After a few deep breaths, he sat up. Phantom pain assaulted his body, and his mind screamed that he was dying, that nothing could stop it. Images came unbidden to his mind.

An old man, hair a uniform grey, sitting across a fire from him with a breathtaking tapestry of a million stars behind him. A middle-aged woman, her face stern as she stood in a pantsuit worth more than many made in a year, glared at him with familiar green eyes. A young man, tall and muscular, grinned at him with red-stained teeth, the hot, dry heat of the desert all around them.

He shook his head, forcing the memories to the back of his mind. Running on instinct, he looked around for threats. The bear was gone, having abandoned his spear where it lay on the grass. Jogging over to it, he tried to forget the memories that the near-death experience had brought to the surface. His hands closed around the haft of the spear, slipping slightly from the blood covering them.

Standing tall, he looked down that path that the bear left not moments before. His eyes burned with a cold green fire as his bloodstained lips thinned into a line. He stood perfectly still for a moment, a solitary figure amongst the swaying leaves. Then, he ran. His movements were fluid and predatory as he followed the path left by the bear.

He was back at full health, and the bear was wounded for the time being. This was his best chance to kill the bear before it tore a hole straight through the defenses of the Sanctuary.