AN: Finishing this chapter, I think the mechanics have been sufficiently established. What is left now is filling the story with action and fun. If anyone would like to see certain events or characters, inspired by "Death March" or not, feel free to make suggestions (although naturally I can't promise to implement every idea).

Chapter 3:

The boar Markus had singled out as his target was a kilometre or so away, so he took a look at his inventory while walking towards it.

He toggled the inventory screen to show on his vision using the [Interface] sub menu and adjusted the frame so he could walk and manipulate the screen without bumping into things.

It was a mixed forest, with only some needle trees and shrubbery blocking certain parts. For the most part, it was comfortable walk among the trees. Fallen trunks and broken branches littered the floor, distinguishing this wild forest from the commercially used ones Marcus knew from modern Earth.

While walking, he started sorting the items he had looted from the dragon’s hort. Unfortunately, the inventory screen was not as comfortable as the map. He could only search for words within the item descriptions and create categories.

Markus made three categories for now: [Equipment], [Valuables] and [Other]

Going through the list, he sorted the items into their respective sub-folders. Most of the stuff he had picked up were valuables: coins, chunks of precious metal, gems or decorative accessories, like silver bracelets, crowns and the like.

Some of the items caught his interest. There was a large sword, made for two handed use, which had a gilded hilt and a sturdy blade. While looking ceremonial, it was clearly a well-made item suitable for being used in combat. There was also a full plate armour made of shining metal with ornaments, but it was dented and the headpiece was completely crushed. Markus took a glimpse inside and spotted some dried blood and chunks of something, so he suspected that this set once belonged to a brave knight who challenged the dragon but got killed in the process.

Other, similarly damaged equipment made up most of the wearable items.

There was also a dagger with a blade made of nearly transparent crystal that somehow looked magical. It had a large red gem embedded in its hilt and was unusually cold to the touch.

[Chrystal Dagger

A mysterious dagger with a blade made of an unknown mineral. The silver hilt has runes carved into it and features a facetted, red gem.]

The description was vague. Markus figured that the system was only telling him things that he would also know by looking at the item in question. If he had more information, it might show up in the item description.

Apart from these items there were also some things like a chest and linen bags mixed into it, which had contained coins or gems. Markus put those items into the [Other] category, along with the corpses.

While walking, he occasionally picked up some unusually straight branches, dry wood and interesting plants and put them into his inventory as well. As he did not have to actually carry the weight, it would not matter if he never had any use for them. He also wanted to know if his storage could conserve items like plants, or if they would wither over time.

He also tried to put a small snake into his inventory but failed. After he killed it, he could stow it away just fine. A rather large beetle was put away with no problem even while alive. Markus quickly released the beetle again after testing it out. In case his inventory was some sort of room in a different dimension, he did not want to release potential pests into it. Further testing was needed before doing anything unreasonable.

When he was finished sorting through his inventory, he had nearly reached the place where the boar was currently at. He started to walk quietly in order to not scare it away and gained a [Sneaking] skill, which he maxed out.

Finally he made visual contact. The boar did not run away from Markus after spotting him and instead started charging.

[Wild Boar

Level 5

Health 100%]

After his fight with the young dragon Markus was not overly worried about getting hurt here. The charge of the boar could not be as hard as being hit by the dragon’s armoured tail and that attack didn’t even leave a scratch on him.

He stood still and waited for the boar to come close, readying his fist to deliver a blow. When the animal was within reach, he gave it a horizontal swing using all his power, hitting closely behind its head.

The impact was tremendous. His fist broke the thick hide and send blood spraying into the forest air, leaving behind a misty fog. A cracking sound simultaneously indicated the breaking of several bones within the boar. The beast was sent flying and grazed a nearby tree, sending it into a violent spin.

Still rotating, the body hit a large tree several meters away, where it half exploded. The belly burst open and guts came spilling out while the tree was visibly shaking, making branches and leaves rain down from the canopy.

Somewhat doubting that this boar could still be salvaged for meat, Markus went to collect the corpse anyway. He then went towards the next closest one, which was luckily only a few minutes further away.

This time he pulled out the large sword. His first, somewhat awkward swing opened a large wound on the flank of the animal. With the second swing he cleanly decapitated the confused and gravely wounded animal.

[Skill: Two-Handed Swords] gained.

Judging this skill as more impressive and probably more useful than the dagger skill, Markus maxed it out. Just counting his current skill points, he had enough to max out 150 skills and still have sufficient points to spare. Having some battle skills could not hurt in the long run.

After collecting the corpse and the head, Markus headed to the river. Using a mix of sprinting and jumping, utilizing both his high agility and the acrobatics skill, he moved through the forest at an amazing speed. While evading roots, trunks and uneven terrain, he gained another skill, [Cross-Country Movement]. Just spending 5 points on the new skill made evading possible hindrances even easier.

Soon he reached the river, which was about 15 meters wide on average. Crossing it was no obstacle for Markus. He gained a [Swimming] skill along the way, which improved his sub-par natural swimming skills to Olympic levels, making swimming through it a breeze.

Choosing a spot where the river was especially wide and the water was running comfortably slow, Markus first pulled out the body of the second boar and his dagger. One side of the double edged weapon was still reasonably sharp and he did not want to use a potentially legendary level artefact for something as mundane as butchering a boar.

He lay the corpse on the ground and started cutting away as he deemed appropriate. After a few minutes of surprisingly hard labour he had gained both the [Hideworking] and [Butchering] skill.

Bringing both to level 5 made the remaining work much easier. The dagger was an awful tool for the job, but he managed to peel off the skin from the boar rather skilfully. He then tied the skinned and eviscerated corpse to a low branch nearby with a piece of cord from one of the bags in his inventory, in order to drain the blood. Raising his skill level had the effect of Markus just knowing how to prepare the animal to get the best results given the circumstances.

While letting the boar bleed out, he went back into the river. His earlier swim had already removed some of the dragon’s blood from his body. This time he actually tried scrubbing of the remains. It came off easier than he would have thought. After washing, diving around and scrubbing himself off with sand from the riverbed, he was finally feeling clean again.

On that occasion he also noticed that he had in fact gotten younger. Not only was his skin smoother, he also had virtually no beard and the body hair that had started to grow in weird places over the course of his life was nowhere to be found. Whether this was due to the fact that his body was shaven or he simply did not grow it was to be determined later, but Markus suspected the latter.

Coming out of the water, Markus finally equipped the simple clothing he had in his inventory. If anyone saw him now, at least he wouldn’t look like a blood-crazy exhibitionist.

Cutting off some of the best meat from the dead boar and putting it on a clean, sharpened stick as a makeshift skewer, his next task was one he had no concrete plan for.

Make a fire. He had no survival skills, so he did not want to try randomly rubbing sticks together like he had occasionally seen on TV. At least not before exhausting every other possibility.

The first thing that came to mind were the [Fireball] and [Magic Torch] scrolls. First, Markus piled up some dry wood, while using small sticks and dry leaves as tinder. If he had a lighter, this should burn splendidly.

He then pulled out the [Magic Torch] scroll. [Fireball] sounded more like a pure attack magic, while a ‘torch’ had a more practical feel to it.

Opening the scroll, Markus started concentrating on it, while trying to somehow pour ‘magic energy’ into it. The feeling was kind of weird, like a liquid or gas pouring out from his hands, but while unfamiliar, it was not unpleasant and was instinctively easy to control.

As soon as he had put enough energy into it to make his mana drop by 1 point according to the UI reading, the scroll turned to ash and vanished completely. At the same time, a brightly glowing, blue ball the size of a small marble appeared in front of his right hand. Gas or slow moving flames appeared on top of it, dancing around towards the sky.

Markus immediately had the feeling that this was not going to work to start a fire. No heat could be felt coming from the small magic ball. Still concentrating on the spell, he poured more energy into it. This made the ball grow in size and brightness. After his mana had dropped by 5 points in total, the sphere was around the size of a large chicken egg and emitting a very bright light.

When he tried to pour more mana into, it did not work. The spell was still subconsciously demanding his attention, the ball floating in front of his hand could not be let go yet. It felt like this magic was cast in two stages.

Markus tried pouring energy into the spell once more. Now his mana was dropping again. After stopping the release of energy, having poured mana worth 5 more points into it, the ball finally started floating up into the air by itself and moved above Markus’, where it started making small circles.

Picking up a small branch, he stuck the tip right into the centre of the floating ball. After pulling it out, it was not a bit torched. Pressing it against his skin, it even was not warmer than before.

This magic was clearly designed as a magic flashlight or lamp. It certainly did what you would expect from a torch, namely lighting the surrounding, but it was utterly wasted in this situation where he wanted to start a fire.

Dejectedly, Markus opened up the menu and looked at his [Spells] screen.

Luckily, the spell now showed up on the list of known spells.

[Magic Torch

Two Phase Magic

Phase 1: Brightness

Phase 2: Duration]

The description matched with what Markus had ‘felt’ while casting the spell.

He selected the spell from the list and started releasing magic energy again. Immediately a small blue ball like before showed up in front of his right hand.

This time Markus stopped pouring mana into the ball after it grew just a little bit, then concentrated on filling it with fuel instead of having it grow. Again, after consuming only 1 MP, he released the spell. The small ball floated above its head like the larger one before.

Both spheres followed Markus around when he moved. He reached out his hand to one of the balls and started pouring out a bit of magic energy. It was not enough to reduce his mana pool, but the ball reacted. Moving his hand away, the light now followed his hand. When Markus stopped releasing energy, the ball stayed in place and did not follow him, even when he moved away.

Reaching out to the second light above his head, this time Markus tried to use the opposite principle. Knowing the feeling of releasing mana, he tried sucking it in. Immediately after he started to draw out the energy from the ball, it started to shrink and then vanished completely.

All together it was a very convenient magic, but useless for Markus right now. As he already had the [Low-Light Vision] skill, it might even stay useless. Although only as something like a party trick, it was nice to have.

After confirming that the scroll’s magic was copied to his spell book and could be used again, he pulled out the [Fireball] scroll. He took a few meters of distance towards his campfire, then started to cast the spell.

Again, the scroll evaporated and in its place a burning ball the size of a tennis ball appeared. This time Markus could properly feel heat emanating from it. Pouring a bit of energy into it, the ball quickly grew to the size of a large orange and Markus could feel the heat spreading. It was very hot, but not painful at all.

After confirming that there was a second phase to this spell as well, Markus poured more energy into the fireball. When he stopped releasing mana, the ball was visibly vibrating and making small movements in front of his hand. It reminded Markus of a dog that wanted to be released from its leash.

Properly taking aim at the stack of firewood, he released the spell. Immediately, the ball shot forwards at high speed, making a swooshing sound in the air.

When it hit the campfire, it violently exploded, sending wood and splinters flying into all directions. Markus who had been standing a good distance away, was thrown back from the pressure and landed in the sand.

In place of the neatly prepared pile of wood, there was only a smouldering crater about two meters in diameter left. Markus had not taken any damage, because of the soft landing in the sand it was in fact just a surprising development devoid of any pain.

Luckily, a large piece of wood that had started burning from the spell landed close to Markus. He quickly picked it up and then built a new campfire around it. Within a few minutes he had a nice fire going.

Finally Markus could grill his meat. It was somewhat bland and tasted gamey, but it was otherwise filling and satisfying. The fact that he had produced everything involved all by himself made it even more rewarding.

After he ate, Markus stashed the bled out boar corpse away.

He decided to play around with the attack magic some more. He shot some fireballs into the river, experimenting with the intensity of both phases. The first phase determined the energy and explosive power of the fireball itself, while the second phase determined the velocity and impact energy of the projectile.

He also found out that he could fine tune the energy during both phases by pulling out energy again using the same mechanic he had used to extinguish the magic torchlight.

When he poured as much energy into both phases as possible, he could produce an explosion that looked like a large artillery shell exploding in the river. Due to the water evaporating and creating large rising clouds, he was a little worried about attracting too much attention, so Markus tried to shoot with as little explosive power as possible from then on.

The [Ice Shard] was similar to the [Fireball] while creating, but did not explode, making it much less likely to backfire. The shard was extremely pointy and could grow from the size of Markus’ index finger to the size of his arm, depending on how much energy he used during its creation.

When he used a lot of energy to charge it in terms of velocity, the projectile produced a whip like noise, indicating that it could go faster than the speed of sound. Where the fireball was like an artillery shell, the ice shard was like a rifle bullet.

The attack spells consumed 20 mana each when fully charged. Mana did regenerate when he was not casting and he gained several points per second. Considering his absurdly high mana pool in comparison, he could basically cast spells without worrying about ever running out of mana.

After playing around for an hour or so, Markus decided to move on. He had made a lot of noise and while he could check the map for enemies, he did not want to make camp here in case someone or something decided to check for the source of that ruckus during the night.

As an experiment Markus put a piece of burning wood into his storage before leaving, but when he pulled it out again the flame was dead, leaving behind only the charred wood.

He settled on [Brookside Settlement (destroyed)] as his destination, seeing at is was close to the river and he could just get there by running along the riverbed.

It was a certain distance away, but with his amazing speed while moving on foot he was certain that even someone on horseback would have a hard time keeping up with him.

Markus reached the place even before the sun started setting. Brookside was in a terrible state. There were about half a dozen wooden houses, all of which were collapsed and partially or completely burned down. Around the settlement abandoned and overgrown farmland could be seen.

At the centre between the structures was a well, but even here the small roof above the well had broken down and was now covering the hole underneath.

A small distance from the central well a few shallow graves could be seen. It looked like someone had come back here after the village had been attacked, likely by the dragon, judging from the damage, and buried the casualties.

It was highly unlikely that there was something of worth to be found here, but Markus looked around the place anyway. Apart from some broken farm tools in a shed near one of the houses there was nothing even vaguely intact. All of the houses had been stripped of their roofs and set on fire.

There was one house that had been built of stone, at least partially, so the walls were still standing. After walking around the place, Markus found one room that had not been torched during the attack. A desk was standing in the centre of the room and after digging through some rubble, he finally found a prize. A small book, clad in leather, had been buried among the remains of the collapsed roof.

After looking through its contents, Markus was quickly disappointed though. Not only was it heavily damaged by water, diluting the ink along the edges of the pages, but what was still legible was written in letters unknown to Markus.

He tried to make sense of it, but there was no indication of what the contents were about. After flipping through the pages and trying to find a pattern, a message appeared.

[Skill: Language: Ausalia Empire (Soba Dialect)] gained.

After maxing out the skill, Markus could determine that this was a ledger considering the various farm products of this settlement. He wondered in how far a written document could confer a dialect, but he was still new to the mechanics of this ‘game’, so he did not ponder too much about it.

He did notice however that in order to gain a new skill, he had to seriously make an effort to utilize that skill, no matter how amateurish the result was.

Stashing away the debris into his inventory made excavating the remains of this house considerably easier. There was not much to find, but he got a few rusty and not at all trustworthy looking tools. He found a dull saw for wood, a hammer and a rusty knife. He also dug out a stone wheel belonging to a rotating whetstone, although the rest of the tool was broken beyond repair.

Searching through the ruins using his inventory was finished quickly and Markus used the remaining evening trying to build a shelter in the room that had been left partially intact.

He had dug out the former fireplace at some point, so his first task was making a fire. Using his fireball skill (outside the house) and some of the wooden debris, he quickly had a fire burning.

With some of the materials he had salvaged, he started constructing a shabby, makeshift roof over one of the corners of the room. While he was working, he gained both the [Woodworking] and [Construction] skills. After putting 5 points into each, he gave up on his plan. Markus realized that without the proper tools all he could achieve was piling up some planks. If there was a little bit of wind or even a storm, it would come crashing down on him during the night. In the end he pulled out a large linen bag from his inventory to use as a makeshift sleeping bag and filled a smaller pouch with weeds to use as a pillow.

He then grilled some more of the boar over the fireplace for dinner.

After the sun had set, he crawled underneath the desk and went to sleep. It was a terrible shelter to be honest, but with the stone walls protecting him from the wind, the desk protecting him should it start to rain a little during the night and the fire warming him, Markus was not seriously lacking anything either, apart from a softer spot to sleep on perhaps.

While he was lying on the floor Markus was seriously wishing that this absurd episode was not just a dream. So far this day had been more fun than he had ever had in his life, even if the day ended with him making camp like an amateur bum.

On this occasion, Markus notices something else. He had no concrete memory of what he had been doing yesterday. He knew where he was working, the names of his co-workers, could remember his childhood and family, all the important events of his life. But he had no recollection of what he had been doing before.

He would be hard pressed to say which season or even which year it had been. Sure, he knew his age, but it was like his short-term memory had been wiped.

Markus did not really care either way. So far his adult life had been boring the hell out of him and he was hoping that tomorrow he would wake up in this world, not to his previous life on Earth.