Suddenly, all those noises, that I had just started to adapt to, all that chirping and the innocent breaking of a branch just shy away from my field of view, once again became the things that made horror movies work!

And I didn't even have Dirt-kun now!

At least he is easily replaceable. And this time I have a secret weapon, two secret weapons in fact! I started chanting the summoning spell, and by the time I finished, a solid body, knee-high, made out of rocks had formed. Yes! This time I wasn't limited to soil, take that!

“I hereby name you Rock-kun! Let us vanquish our foes together my extremely tiny and inoffensive looking friend!”

3...2...1 And there's the guts pose! Yes!

Next, inscribing my stone dagger.... Or not. It seems that crafting takes mana in addition to stamina, so not enough for inscribing. That was 10 mana for the summon, 5 for the crafting, and inscribing takes 10 more. So let's wait a few seconds, and a few seconds more, and juuuuuuust a few seconds more... and there.

As I was saying, next, inscribing my dagger! I seem to have forgotten something... well, whatever, all that matters is surviving the long march to newbie village for now!

Five minutes have passed already. Needless to say, I'm moving extreeeeemely slowly. From tree to bush to tree to bush. Trying my best to remain as unseen and as unheard as I can. Obviously stopping whenever I hear anything as much as creaking somewhere nearby. Simultaneously, Rock-kun valiantly marches about three meters ahead of me, hopefully drawing the attention of nasties in place of me. At least I have already unlocked the skill. And like a well-oiled clock, Rock-kun fell lifeless on the ground, five minutes are up. At least it's just a three second cast to revive him. Aaaaaand done.

Hmm? There was the sound of leaves getting stomped just a bit ahead. Staystill time. And there's the leaves again, and again, and again. Something is walking towards here. Undoubtedly one of the legendary starting village animals is on its way. I hope it's a rabbit. Rabbits aren't scary. I could also hope for a slime, although I have no clue how it could make such sounds moving if it was one. Let's hope it's not a wolf though. Wolves would be a big no-no.

Regardless, better safe than sorry, OP skill camouflage show your worth, activate! I should have tested that sooner... my skin tone barely changed to be a bit more the tree hunk I use for cover... Character creator you lied to me! What did you show me, lvl10 of the skill or something?!

And heeeeere's the nasty. And it's sniffing the air, searching for me I think?

Ok, it's not a wolf. It also isn't a rabbit. I want to know which sadistic bastard thought it would be a good idea to put wild boars next to a starting point! That thing is massive. Need I remind you that I'm at most a fifty kilo guy at the moment? That thing could crash me in a single charge. Let alone damage, I will surely die if I get hit.

Rock-kun is also doing his best impersonation of a rock. You betrayed me Rock-kun!... Actually, he has done that every single time I stopped moving and taken cover, I wonder how he knew? But it doesn't matter, I'll say it again, you betray me Rock-kun! Go and valiantly charge at the nasty boar and take aggro!

He...he... he actually charged! I'm so proud of you Rock-kun! Now, to run away...

As the tiny elemental charged, the boar that was clearly walking towards me stopped for a brief second. Enough for Rock-kun to gap the distance and throw his tiny fist right into the stinky muzzle. From the outcome of it, it looks more like it annoyed it rather than actually damaged it, but that seems enough to stop looking at me.

Now, camo and sneak around the battleground towards the exit, Rock-kun is made out of rocks, he should last that long, right?

The boar just headbutted the lump of rocks, poor Rock-kun just learned how to fly! And now the boar is charging straight up to where the poor elemental landed. Come on! This is clearly elemental abuse! At least this time Rock-kun stood his ground as he retaliated with yet another (tiny) punch, on the leg this time since he couldn't easily reach the head.

Standing still for a moment to survey the, already decided, battle, it looked almost as if the elemental was getting angrier. Elementals didn't have rage? Right? Regardless, sneaking away, sneaking away, this battle has nothing to do with me, sneaking away...

My happy thoughts were interrupted by a lump of rock that crashed on the tree just next to me as it was, once again, launched by the boar, and theeeere comes the follow-up charge, right next to me.

Crap, did the boar just turned its head and looked at me. And it suddenly cried in pain and turned its attention back to rock-kun who had finally managed to break the skin of the boar's leg with his fists and made him bleed.

But I'm seen, and with my current speed, I'm already dead.

“Nothing to lose except my pride. Let's use the short route to the starting village then.” I sighed as I lunged forward, crappy stone dagger in hand.

The blade easily slipped through the hide opening a huge wound on the back of the boar. No, I'm not kidding. I don't know how, but the extremely blunt dagger somehow easily pierced the tough hide of the wild boar.

As the boar roared in pain mister system decided it was a good time to pop blue screens in front of my eyes.

You have gained Dagger mastery Lv1

You have unlocked the Lv1 Dagger talent Stab

Stab: cost 20 energy, cooldown 3sec, +10%damage, +30% armor piercing

You've unlocked the sneak and dagger talent Backstab, damage is dependent on both Dagger and sneak levels

Backstab: cost 40 energy, cooldown 0, requires stealth, +100% damage, +100% armor piercing

Ah... that's how. Then, stab.

I felt that I knew how to use the move the second I got the system update, and indeed, the second I thought of using it, I gripped the dagger slightly stronger as I delivered a quick thrust hitting right where the leg of the boar connected with its main body, and almost instantly pulled the dagger out. Certainly not a fancy move, but also certainly effective.

The boar tried to maneuver, tried to turn around towards me, but it seems that Rock-kun had done a nasty work on its leg already as it obviously had trouble using it. Giving me enough time to madly flail about with my dagger, sadly, only one of the three strikes actually connected, leaving a really swallow cut on its hide. And now I was out of breath, figuring exactly how it felt to run out of stamina. And a mad wild boar was looking at me, ready to tear my guts out.

Well... at least I tried. Let's see how much is the pain conversion in this game.

The very next second, the boar roared once more in pain trying its best to maneuver once again away from us or to be more precise away from Rock-kun.

The small elemental was radiating a bright red aura as it flailed his fists, continuously hitting the hind legs of the boar. With every tiny punch, the rock around its arms chipped away, turning the previous blunt pebbles to razors that easily sliced off chunks of flesh.

“Go Rock-kun! Rage your heart out!” I exclaimed as my dagger unerringly found its way towards another soft spot on the hide of the boar, courtesy of stab getting off cooldown. And I immediately regretted my decision to stick around as the boar's eyes flashed red and he started to madly thrush around... there was the stereotypical death rage of wild boars that I've completely forgotten about...

The first one that was sent flying was, of course, me, even with doing my utmost to jump out of the way, even if his attack just grazed me, I was still sent flying, accompanied with a nice red -15 message in front of my eyes. Which truth to be told, I found weird, since that was the first damage number I've seen so far. Nice, calculated survival at 1 hp.

Seconds later, Rock-kun went flying towards the opposite direction. But he shall be remembered as a hero in my heart. Since the boar's charge, with both of his hind legs and one of his front ones, crippled, was really more akin to boar-slowly-hobbles-towards-his-target.

I had enough time to stand up. Clear the dirt off my tattered clothes, and... patiently wait for my doom. Seriously, I couldn't feasibly make a ranged weapon at this time, summoning an elemental would just mean one hit at most before the new one went flying as well, there was no way in hell I was personally going next to the boar to land a stab, so...

I could always run away, but it felt SO wrong, to be so close to victory and yet being stuck to the position of seeing my doom slowly hobbling towards me.

“There goes nothing...”

Concentrate, concentrate, don't look at the mad boar slowly making his way towards you, concentrate...

And there, with a gust of wind, a misty air elemental appeared in front of my eyes, at least this one had the courtesy of flying at the height of my face so I immediately noticed it.

“Greetings Windy-chan” Air elementals are by default females right?! “I entrust myself to you!”

3...2...1 Where's the guts pose! Oh! It's a curtsey this time!

“Just to be certain, how do you fight?”

The small bundle of air made small punching motions, like air-boxing. Something that for a being comprised of air seemed like it would be hilariously inefficient.

“I see... let's not do that. Could you instead launch those as projectiles towards the big nasty over there?” I said as I filled my palm with the razor sharp byproducts of my dagger, mainly sharp flakes of stone.

Windy-chan, like the good girl she is, slowly levitated one of the stone flakes towards her, and when I say slowly I really mean slooooooowly, making me depressed on my choice of elemental. But before I even finished my bad, bad thoughts, the flake was launched with tremendous speed, as it embedded itself right in the moving mass of death that was crawling towards here!

“That's it! You're... the... best...?” My victorious speech was cut in the middle as I watched a deflated Windy-chan trying to breathe, not having enough power to even fly properly as she slowly gravitated towards the ground.

Somehow, even though I was certain that I wouldn't be able to do it, I picked her up and started the slow procedure of backpedaling until her stamina came back. Launching a shard. Backpedaling for 10seconds. Repeat. Some time, after a bit, enough mana had come back to also summon Windier-chan, doubling my DPS!

And after all 30 shards were gone, and the boar was reduced to a pile of moving blood, with its rage and stamina all gone, I valiantly charged, stabbed, and randomly flailed one more time till that beautiful, beautiful, blue screen popped up.

Event complete

Avon, God of War got seriously irritated at you, a member of a proud hunter race, when you decided to throw away the life of your valiant elemental and run away from your very first battle without even testing yourself! So, he decided to tinker with the odds of the wild boar finding you, all so that you would die together with your elemental that decided to sacrifice itself to give you a fighting chance.

Against all odds, and reason, you actually won. Turning his initial irritation to admiration and even more irritation.

Reward: +500xp, you gain Wargod's blessing

“Oh yeah baby! We did it wind-chans!”

Wargod's blessing: +15Patt, +15Pdef, 30 meter aura that attracts hostile enemies, lasts until you enter a safe space

“Oh fuck you Avon! I'm gonna punch that battleloving idiot the moment I see him IRL!”

So... before we get brutally mutilated by whatever this forest has to throw at us, there are important things to do. First, looting!

It seems RealWorldIII went the route of realistic disassembly instead of bodies vanishing and loot appearing, at least in the case of animals, since the bloody corpse is still in front of me. Let's see how to put it into my inventory. Seeing it suddenly occupying six out of my 10 spaces in the inventory there was only one thing to do. Raise my fists and shout to the sky!

“Oh come on devs! Inventory limitations on 2132? That's ridiculous! What else? Do you plan on...”

You're extremely overweight. Moving speed reduced to 50%

“...of course you don't plan to add weight limitations. You had it in already. Fuck!”

Now that I think about it, there was this one topic on the beta forums on how dimensional storage magic was practically required for efficient farming. But I assumed that everyone had that and I casually skipped the rest of the forum rant.

So, it seems we have to acquire said skill.

But I couldn't really abandon my spoils of war. Either way, I was sure that I would die and respawn to the village soon thereafter, so no problem.

Next order of business was to bring Rock-kun back online.

It took me a good 10 minutes to find where the mass of stones had landed, but at least he was launched towards the direction of the village, so no harm done. What WAS painful, was that the suicide rage attack that chipped his hands into razors, also meant that now there was not enough solid rock to resummon him.

For a second, I thought about harvesting the chipped rocks for ammunition for Windy-chan, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Rock-kun lived and died as a hero. He deserved to rest as one. Those two minutes it took me to dig a shallow grave, bury him, and then cover him up with a bit of bark that was reading “Here lies the hero of the battle against the demonic boar, Rock-kun” courtesy of the inscribe ink, were well spend.

Windy-chan and Dirt-Kun even took a second to kneel in front of the grave. I'm so proud for them.

And yes, I figured I was an idiot, since my natural mana regen was enough to keep 2 elementals and the inscription on the dagger going without any problem. I was regeining enough mana for each of them every 1:40, and they lasted 5 minutes each... If I was smarter, maybe Rock-kun wouldn't have to pay with his life...

After all was done, then started the period of my life that would be known as the long march...

There is no need to further describe my battles with the three wolves, and no it doesn't matter that they were killed one by one and not as a pack, nor with the vicious bloodcurling rabbits, or the bear that... ok, so there wasn't a bear, that's besides the point.

Moving on, I'm sure bards will tell the tale of how I emerged victorious from the dreaded forest of doom, with a boar and a wolf in my inventory, and pulling two more dead wolves tied with vines on my back, and the three dead rabbits safely tied around my neck. As the rest newbies looked at me with eyes full of admiration, fear, and obvious pity, as I proudly, and slowly, reeeeeally slowly, walked towards the starting village, with my 10% moving speed, three hours since the start of the game, I had finally found civilization!

What needs to be told, is that +15 Patt and +15 Pdef, when I originally only had 20 and 18, were actually more than helpful, and that a crappy dagger with an inscribe on it stops being so much crappy. Also, two elementals are actually better than one, and despite their tiny size, they were actually a strong skill. Also it seems like Windy-chans used stamina while Dirt and Rock-kuns used rage, so using one and one actually complimented their attack patterns. Lastly, outside of talent strikes, I seem to suck using the dagger...

But as I was saying, I'm sure bards will sing of the epic of this tragic hero, which ends with him falling to his knees as he entered the village, kissing the soil, and then raising his fist towards the skies, extending his middle finger, and shouting “Fuck you Avon! I survived!”