Dave

Fallen Jungle

56th of Cycle 2, 1015

Why did I decide to sleep under a tree?

Those were the first thoughts to cross my mind when I woke up in a space confined between a tree and the dirt. It took me a great deal of effort to crawl out without scraping against anything, but I eventually got up to my feet. I noticed a few ants crawling around on my chest and brushed them off before taking a look around. Most of the trees in my area were knocked down, exposing me to the blistering heat of the sun. I walked over to some shade and sat down.

First things first, I needed to check my skills. I reached into my pocket for my skill stone but stopped when I remembered that the god-demon had given me an upgrade to the system. I focused my mind on the image of the screen, and sure enough, it popped up in front of me.

Name: Dave

Race: Human?

Class: Scout(rare)

Class Skills: Sneak(Int) Lv6, Fleet-footed(Int) Lv9, Archery(basic) Lv5, Hyper-Accelerated vision(Int) Lv 6

Class Skill Slots 1

Skills: Hypnosis resistance Lv1, Survivalist(unique), Poison Resistance Lv3, Dangersense(basic) Lv9, Knife-Combat(basic) Lv 4

New Skill(s): Pain Resistance Lv1

Active quests: The Silver Panther

The upgraded interface added a new skills tab, an active quests tab, and a little button in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen labeled (show more). Clicking it revealed extra boxes of text.

Fleet-footed(Intermediate)

Increase speed and agility by 20% passively.

When active, drain stamina twice as fast and increase the bonus to 40%.

Upgrades to 30% and 60% respectively at Advanced rank.

Sneak(Intermediate)

Removes the sounds of your footsteps and lowers your visibility by 20%.

Upgrades to 40% at Advanced rank.

Hyper-Accelerated vision(Intermediate)

For those who can’t keep up with the pace of battle, hyper-accelerated vision slows it down.

Accelerates your perception by 50%, giving you the illusion that time is slowing down by 50%.

Upgrades to 75% at Advanced rank.

Duration: Four real-time seconds.

Cooldown: Twenty seconds.

I never noticed it had a cooldown, probably because I never tried using it in quick succession. I decided to skip over archery and the other self-explanatory skills, stopping at dangersense.

Dangersense(basic)

Detect danger that is directed toward you without your knowledge.

Earlier detection of danger unlocked at intermediate rank.

Cooldown: One minute.

Last but not least…

Survivalist(unique)

The survivalist is a man who flourishes in situations where his life is on the line. When others run away from something, he runs straight toward it with a grin on his face.

XX% increase in the rate at which new skills are acquired.

XX% increase in the rate at which existing skills level up.

Percentage increases based on the level of danger you are in with a maximum of 500%.

Note: This skill was given as a gift during your reincarnation.

I didn’t even want to think about that ridiculous skill description, so I let out a sigh and moved on. I had a lot of training to do if I wanted to go up against the silver panther.

But first, I needed a weapon, so I foraged around for some materials with my sneak skill activated. After a half-hour of stealthy foraging, I ended up with a few sharp rocks, some thin vines, and a couple sturdy sticks. I tied a rock and a stick together, creating a makeshift knife.

Well, calling it a knife might be pushing the boundaries of what some people would consider a knife, but it was good enough for now. I sat down and used my newly created tool in an attempt to sharpen one of the other rocks. I was a little worried that the noises of me scraping rocks together would attract predators, but I carried on anyway.

I had severely underestimated how difficult it was to make stone tools. After about an hour elapsed with little progress being made on the stone, I decided that this was an impractical way to get a weapon. Then, I thought of a genius solution that would fix both my dagger and my bow problems at once.

If you can’t make something, steal it from someone who did.

With that said, I was going to head to the dark elf village once again. If Jason or Matilda were here, I’m sure they’d tell me that my plan is stupid and risky, but they weren’t here, so all is well.

I retraced my steps from yesterday’s chase by following a path of knocked over trees. When I finally reached the starting point, I was faced with the decision of which way to go. I remembered that as we got further away from the dark elf village, the trees became sparser, so I went in the direction of denser trees.

After about an hour of walking and just before I gave up my search, I saw the outline of the dark elf village on the horizon. When I got close to it, I circled around the walls until I found the secret tunnel Matilda had used to get us out. I stopped myself from walking in immediately and sat near the entrance to wait for nightfall.

I took the downtime I had to check if any of my skills had leveled up, but they hadn’t. Then I clicked on the active quests tab and noticed a curious (show more) icon at the bottom right-hand corner.

Aspect of the Panther(Unique)

The panther is a fearsome creature that has mastered the arts of stealth and agility. If you lose track of a panther during a hunt, know that you are the one being hunted.

Activating this skill increases your agility and stealth by 100%.

Duration: Five minutes.

Cooldown: One hour.

You see that, survivalist? That’s a unique skill. Not you, you’re fucking terrible.

I shook my head. That's one hell of a skill, and if I saved my last class skill slot for it, the effect would be 200% because of the way scout worked. I got excited for a second, but my spirits dropped when I remembered that I had to kill a legendary beast first. I sulked and laid down on the dirt.

After a few painful hours of waiting, the sun set, and I entered the tunnel. I emerged on the other side and activated sneak. I didn’t have enough experience with the alleyways in the village, so I was forced to use the wide-open streets to reach my destination. A few people seemed to notice me, but they weren’t close enough to realize I was a human. Good thing I waited until nighttime.

I reached Elrund’s smith and moved to infiltrate. The door creaked open, and I tiptoed inside, being careful not to step on any of the swords lying around on the floor. I could’ve just picked a small dagger and cheap bow off the floor and left, but I was greedy. I moved over to the counter, where the more expensive weapons were, and started looting. I got a proper bow, a quiver of arrows, and a dagger with its sheath.

I’m sorry, Elrund.

I equipped my new gear in the shop and turned around to leave. When I passed through the door, I heard a deep voice call out, “Guards! Guards! The human boy is back!”

I abandoned all hope of sneaking out and sprinted towards my exit point. The townspeople reacted to Elrund’s yelling by calling for the guards themselves.

Only a single guard responded to their calls. He stood in my way and shouted, “You son of a bitch! All my friends are dead because you led those monsters here! I’m gonna fucking kill you!”

He fired a couple arrows at me, and I used my vision skill to get around them. With an active fleet-footed and a wide-open street, I decided to try my luck at running past him. He dropped his bow to the floor and drew his shortsword before rushing at me with reckless abandon. If he had kept his bow and fired arrows at my back, he might’ve been able to stop me, but he wasn’t agile enough to keep up with fleet-footed, so I juked him out and ran past. He tried to chase me but wasn’t fast enough, and he lost track of me before I reached the tunnel.

When I emerged on the other side of the tunnel, the guard’s words sank into my skin, and I felt an immense amount of guilt well up in my stomach. I already knew that all the death in this village was my fault, but hearing his hatred filled voice drove home that fact.

I wondered if coming here was even worth it as I glanced at the weapons I stole. I shook my head and started running away.

What’s done is done.