They talked a bit while walking, and Paul learned that the village was really small. There was just about a dozen simple houses and a few fields. The village belonged to the land of a minor noble who didn’t even bother to collect taxes from them. There was no commerce apart from trades among the surrounding villages. The most notable person was in fact Marcus, who acted as the hunter, elder and doctor. Although his medicinal expertise was limited to applying bandages and knowing where to find some common herbs with healing properties.

Paul used the opportunity to look at Marcus’ info.

[Marcus the Hunter

Human

Level 13]

So Marcus was level 13. Paul didn’t have any reference, so he had no idea if level 13 is really strong or average, but Marcus must have hunted quite a lot to reach such a level.

When they arrived at the settlement, Paul was not impressed by its scope. As Marcus has said before, it was a very poor village.

There was no defensive perimeter, all of the houses looked like they would crumble sooner than later and could barely keep the rain out. The handful of people that could be seen had very simple and mostly dirty clothes. The most impressive aspect of the village were the fields were corn and vegetables were grown, but they were small in scope, although they looked healthy.

A small farm on Earth would exceed the whole village by many times.

“You have a nice settlement here” Paul complimented Marcus “Just seeing this gives me hope again. Please let me stay here for a while. I will make sure to repay you to my best ability”

Paul had already decided. He may have been lazy during his last life, but here in this world hard work would result in hard experience and stats. He would do his best to earn experience, learn skills and raise stats. Helena had already told him that stats could be gained by manual labour, so he resolved to go as far as necessary to become strong.

The fight with the fox and his miserable performance while travelling through the forest had already shown him that he was not yet prepared to fend for himself. He was sure that a single wolf would be able to kill him over and over if he wasn’t careful.

“My house is the one over there, let’s bring the animals inside and let me take a look and that injury on your leg first.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Marcus boiled some water and cloth in a pot, then washed the wound, applied some herbs and bandaged in. He also looked at the scratch on Paul’s chest and foot, but decided they were healing fine after just some cleaning.

Marcus also gave Paul a small loaf of dark bread, which he devoured quickly. Paul had said that he was out in the woods for several days, so Marcus must have thought that he was starving, but Paul was already quite hungry.

He provided Paul with a pair of pants and a shirt, both made of course linen. Paul noticed the lack of foot protection, but decided to keep it for himself for now. Any clothing is better than being naked.

“Seeing as you already managed fine hunting some small game and surviving out in the forest by yourself, I must say I am slightly impressed. The snakes are not really suitable for food, but the skins are sought after, and those rabbits are surely quick and hard to catch in the grasslands.”

“Thank you for your praise, my skills are certainly lacking.”

“See, what our village is certainly lacking at the moment are tools. We need a plow and various tools for carpentry.

Unfortunately, we cannot provide for any of those ourselves. They are not very expensive, but with the limited capabilities of our settlement we have nearly no way to produce anything worth trading.

The only way for us to get items worth at least a few coppers, is hunting and tanning. Therefore, I want you to support me with hunting. The villagers here are good people, but they are not really suited for this work. I have tried to train some other people to become hunters, but the majority of the people here are more suitable for farming. After one of the young men was killed by a bear last fall, no one has come forward to learn hunting from me and people stay near the village all the time.”

“I look forward learning from you. I am willing to help in the fields when there is a need, but I myself think I would be more suitable supporting you hunting, if I may say so myself” Paul said.

“No need to speak so politely. I plan to have you support our settlement from now on, so think of this place as your home. I will introduce you to everyone in the evening, so let me show you how to work with the carcasses you brought for now. Help me carry them outside”

Marcus grabbed two knives, a bucket and the fox corpse, while Paul grabbed the remaining carcasses. Then they sat down behind Marcus’ house.

“Ok, let’s start with those snakes. The snake skins can be used as water bladders in emergency situations, but they are mostly used for clothing. The leather is quite tricky to tan and process, so they fetch quite a few copper, but all in all it is a common type of snake. They are quite poisonous and hard to spot in tall grass, so it is a good achievement that you were able to hunt 3 of them in such a short time.”

He cut off the head of one snake and threw it in the bucked, and then quickly peeled the skin off the snake.

He handed Paul a knife and one of the remaining snakes. Paul then copied the cut Marcus made earlier and also peeled the leather off the snake. It looked easy when Marcus did it, but it was a bit tricky. He managed to skin the snake after a few minutes.

Marcus then skinned the fox and a bunny, while Paul watched. He left Paul to skin one of the bunnies, while he skilfully skinned all the remaining carcasses. He then gutted the skinned animals and gave them to one of the women in the village to cook them for later. He only kept the snakes.

They took the skins and the snakes and went to the river.

“I will show you how to process those skins now, first, we need to clean them properly.” He gave a bunny-skin to Paul and took the fox-skin himself. They sat down next to the river and scraped off the remaining fat from the skins while properly cleaning them. Marcus then made a small fire and started roasting the snakes, while Paul continued to wash the skins. They hung the wet skins over a tanning rack nearby and sat down to eat the grilled snake.

“There is not much meat on those snakes, and a lot of bones. But meat is meat, although it is not very popular to eat snakes.”

When they were finished, it was already early afternoon.

They left the skins to dry and Marcus told Paul, that he had to check on several traps he laid out in the nearby forest. They walked about half an hour down the road and then into the forest. Marcus had laid out some snare traps made from string, but most of them were empty. One of them actually caught a bunny.

“Go ahead and kill it, I will then show you how to lay out a trap. I suggest just snapping its neck” Marcus said.

Paul grabbed the panicking bunny and held it in his hands. He grabbed the bunny by its head and twisted it, until it snapped. The whole process was rather cruel, because the bunny was quite cute, but Paul was determined to progress and he had already killed several of the critters earlier by himself. He checked the menu and noticed that the captured bunny yielded the same 3 XP as the ones he hunted earlier. This time it was much easier though.

Marcus showed Paul how to tie and prepare a snare trap, before they checked the remaining traps.

After they checked all of the traps (all of them were empty), Paul noticed a red dot on the edge of the minimap. He looked in the direction of the dot, but could not spot anything.

“Wait, I think I heard something from over there.” Paul alerted Marcus.

“Hmm? I didn’t hear anything” Marcus was not convinced.

“I am sure that some animal is nearby. Please, let us check it out”

“OK, I let you have your way. Let us not waste too much time though, I am starting to get hungry” Marcus looked a bit annoyed,

but for now he was coming along. He had his bow and arrows with him, and both of them were armed with a knife. So Paul was confident that they should be able to hunt a fox at least, without suffering too much injury.

They approached the red dot carefully, while Marcus was following behind Paul. None of them spoke a word and listened carefully to their surroundings. Then the red dot moved and there was a rustling noise. Marcus heard it as well and had a determined look on his face. He prepared his bow and an arrow and they proceeded to sneak towards the noise.

The rustling sound came from behind some large shrubbery. Marcus signalled Paul to flank the bush and lure the animal out. When Paul started sneaking towards the bush, Marcus aimed the bow towards the bush.

Paul got ready, he still could not see or hear whatever what behind the bush. Only rustling and digging noises. Whatever it was, it was not a fox, but something larger.

He held his knife in front of him and circled around the bush towards whatever animal there was.

A wolf! It had a level of 8 and was half buried in a hole it was vigorously digging. It must have followed some small animal and was trying to dig it out of whatever hole it crawled. The wolf had not yet noticed him, and Paul wondered whether he should run or fight. He decided against running. Marcus was far enough to be not the immediate target and could probably handle himself. And if he himself got killed and had to respawn, he did not care too much.

He glanced down at the knife he had in his hand:

[Short knife

Damage: 4-5

Durability: 18/20

Dagger

Mostly used as a tool, but with a sturdy blade, pointed end and reasonably sharp.]

It was definitely better than the stick he used before. Paul decided to act before he lost the advantage of the surprise attack. He took a few steps towards the wolf and jammed the blade into the wolves back using both hands. He hit it next to the spine.

You stabbed the wolf for 18 damage. *sneak attack*

He pulled the knife out immediately. The wolf howled loud and jumped back to get out of the hole. Paul kicked the wolf as hard as he could to throw it off-balance. He wanted to land another stab and retreat towards Marcus, so he could fire an arrow at the wolf.

You hit the wolf for 1 damage.

The attack was not very effective… Paul decided to retreat early, because the wolf was already ready to attack him, and he felt like he would definitely die if he lunged towards him to attack with his knife.

Paul took a few stabs back while focussing on the animal. Marcus should already see him, and after a few more steps have a good view of the wolf, which was slowly following Paul.

At that moment the wolf jumped up towards Paul. He was prepared to attack it as soon as it made a move, but at the moment it actually jumped at him, he felt too intimidated to actually do anything but hold his arms up to stop the wolf from biting down into his throat as best as he could.

He had lost a few hp just from being pushed to the ground.

Paul stumbled backwards and fell onto the ground, the wolf pinning him down. As soon as the hit the ground, the wolf winced and Paul managed to shove him back a bit and crawl out under it.

When he robbed backwards over the ground to gain some distance, he saw an arrow stuck in the side of the wolf. Immediately afterwards a second arrow hit the wolf, close to where the first one hit.

Paul looked over to Marcus, who was already drawing out the third arrow from his quiver. The wolf was momentarily startled and looked for the yet to be seen attacker.

When it turned around towards Marcus, he fired the arrow, which hit the wolf in the shoulder. It winced again, but was obviously getting ready to attack him.

Paul hesitated, wondering if he should just let Marcus handle it. He was more experienced and better prepared than Paul, but then decided against it. The wolf had barely one third of its life left, and Paul had already decided to learn some skills in Marcus’ village. If Marcus got injured during the hunt, not only would the villagers resent Paul, he would also lose the most capable teacher.

He crawled forward and stabbed the wolf’s neck.

You stabbed the wolf for 10 damage. *crit*

Wolf is [enraged].

The wolf twisted its head around and bit Paul into his right arm, the knife got stuck inside the wolf and Paul screamed out in pain.

Wolf bit you for 12 damage.

You are [bleeding].

You are bleeding for 1 damage.

At that moment another arrow hit the wolf from the side.

The wolf lost most of its strength of the bite and let go of his arm. It was still alive and ready to kill Paul, trying to tear out his throat.

Paul blocked the wolf with his injured right arm and grabbed the knife that was still stuck in its neck his left hand, twisting it around.

You stabbed the wolf for 5 damage.

Wolf bit you for 10 damage.

You are bleeding for 2 damage.

Paul had barely 10 health points left and his right arm felt like it would come off any second now.

The wolf only had a tiny bit of health left itself. Then another arrow hit the wolf in the neck.

At that moment the wolf lost all of its strength, as its health plummeted completely to zero.

Wolf has died.

You gained 50 XP.

You gained one point of endurance for taking a large amount of damage while fighting a strong enemy.

You are bleeding for 1 damage.

When the wolf collapsed, Marcus came running towards Paul.

“Hold still for a second” Marcus took out a large piece of cloth from his belt and wrapped it tightly around Paul’s arm. The [bleeding] stopped.

“Honestly, you are really an idiot. A brave idiot, but still.” Marcus showed mixed emotions. “Can you walk? We should leave the forest as soon as we can. Wolfs hunt in packs, who knows when the friends of that beast come around.”

“Yea, don’t worry” Paul got up. He looked at his right arm. The bandage was already soaked in blood, but he was no longer loosing health points. Now that the adrenaline was slowly leaving his system, he felt pain in his back and neck from being pushed down by the wolf, but walking should be somewhat ok for him.

“I will take care of the wolf carcass, can’t just leave it here after that fight, can we? Here, take a hold of my bow and quiver.”

Paul noticed that the quiver was empty. Had he not dealt some attacks to the wolf himself, or if Marcus had missed just one shot, this would have ended badly. Possibly for both of them.

Marcus flung the large canine over his shoulders and they hurried out of the forest. Barely ten minutes later had they reached the edge of the forest and another twenty minutes later they were at the bank of the river.

Marcus put down the dead wolf and turned towards Paul.

“Really boy, that was a bit too close for my liking. We nearly died there” He scolded Paul, but couldn’t hide a faint smile.

“You had an impressive aim with your bow, and fast too…. Thank you, Marcus. I bit off a little more than I could chew.”

“You can say that loud. Anyway, let me take a look at that injury again. I just stopped the bleeding, but it needs a little more

care than that much to heal properly, you know? Don’t want to lose a promising hunter over a poorly treated wound” Marcus was obviously less angry that he wanted to admit.

“Alright, I will let you look at it.”

Paul held up his arm and Marcus removed the cloth. It looked so gruesome that Paul nearly puked and had to look away. Marcus looked slightly worried as well.

“Hmm… don’t worry, it will heal just fine. Probably.”

Paul couldn’t image this healing just fine, even with proper care in a real hospital. Marcus grabbed a few herbs from his pouch, put them on the wound and wrapped a clean cloth around it. He then carefully pulled the arrows out of the wolf and put them into the quiver.

“Let’s go back home as quickly as we can.” Marcus said, picking up the wolf.

They walked back to the settlement, while Marcus told Paul how he was a soldier for the local lord when he was younger. He got sent to several monster extermination parties and even a feud between several higher ranking nobles, one of which got support from the local noble. He had obviously plenty of combat experience.

Paul thought about it. If someone who has trained over many years, someone who fought a lot of monsters and wild animals only reached a level of 13, then levelling up seems to be really hard.

On the other hand, as far as he could tell, the concept of levels is not known to the people. So naturally, one would rather try to avoid combat and live a peaceful instead of killing a lot of creatures just to gain xp. The fight against the wolf had shown him that he still had to learn a lot before he could even think about roaming around alone.

When they arrived at the village, people greeted them. It was already evening and the farmers and their families had gathered in the central square, sitting on some benches around an open air fire place.

The successful wolf hunt was obviously something unusual and people were curious about sudden appearance of Paul.

Some women brought out food and everyone prepared to eat. Before the small feast started, Marcus spoke up and introduced Paul.

“Listen everyone. During my hunt earlier today I picked up this young guy. He has travelled into these lands and was robbed by bandits before getting lost in the forest. Instead of despairing, he went around and hunted a several days worth of game with his bare hands. He was so kind to offer to join us for the time being and I have high hopes for him. Please welcome our newest resident, Paul.”

He obviously left out my invented amnesia, but I did not think about it too much. Marcus then told the story about how we hunted the wolf (slightly embellished) while I was enjoying the food. Knowing that the meat was caught by me earlier felt quite special and filled me secretly with pride.

The other villagers were quite simple people. Their levels ranged from 4 to 9 for the adults and they were overall quite young.

The oldest couple was in their forties. The children had levels from 1 to 2 and one young boy around 13 had a level of 3.

Apart from the farmers there was one man around Marcus age who was a woodcutter and carpenter. He was responsible for firewood and repairs to the buildings, and the construction of furniture. Judging from the state of the houses, he obviously wasn’t a prodigy of carpentry.

After the gathering was ended, Marcus and Paul went to the river. Marcus brought some boiled rags and hot water, and then properly treated Paul’s wound. When that was done, Marcus showed Paul how to treat the skins. They were dried properly by now, and he pulled out some ground bark in a basket. He rubbed the material into the skins and let Paul practise on one of the bunny skins. His right arm was mostly unusable, so it took him as long to prepare one skin as Marcus needed for all the remaining ones. Marcus then hung the skins over the tanning rack and they went inside his house.

Paul spoke up to Marcus “Hey, I noticed that you did not mention that I lost my memories earlier. Is there something I need to be concerned about?”

Marcus showed some uneasiness in his face “You know, in my times at the castle, I heard all sorts of gossip and stories. In general, if your mind is affected by some magic, it is rarely a good sign. Sometimes it is a curse, sometimes a mage used some forbidden magic and there were even stories about gods meddling with mortals in similar way. Some decades ago, a lord mindcontrolled a bunch of mercenaries into committing various atrocities in an area not too far from here. Several of those goons were memory-wiped afterwards. It was a really bad episode in the local history.

You are obviously too young to have anything to do with it, and most villagers here have not experienced that time themselves, but it left a bad aftertaste. I am sure the villagers here won’t ask too many questions about your past anyway. These kind of new and small villages tend to draw people who want to leave behind something, so if you don’t want to talk about your past, people won’t ask.”

“Good to know, then I will not worry. Thank you for accepting me here in your village.”

“Haha, it is not MY village anyway. And I guess you already noticed, but these folks here are really happy if they get a helping hand, especially from someone courageous and able like yourself.

Paul spent some time asking Marcus about the region, and Marcus was happy to answer all his questions. The local lord lived in a small town called Prozor, about a day walking distance away from the settlement. Marcus was well known among the villages in the surroundings, because he often traded furs and sometimes joined some other hunters to bring down an especially troublesome beast, like a bear or a bunch of wolves. The settlement was just known as “Marcus’ Place”, because it was so small and relatively new that no one bothered to give it a proper name.

There were some goblin tribes on the far end of the forest on the other side of the river, but they never came here. They caused some trouble for some villages in their area, but as the terrain was not easily passable, the distance would be at least three days walking and with the river as a natural barrier, most of the villagers had not even seen a goblin in their lives.

The lord had some “beastkin” servants, and Paul wondered if these were the rumoured catgirls, but he did not ask yet. Instead he asked about magic beasts around the area.

“Here in the surround forests we have mostly regular beasts. Wolves, foxes and sometimes a bear or two. There is a small mountain not too far from here to the south. There are some abandoned mines around the area, and gods know what lives in there. Might even be trolls. There are also some huge snakes in the forests near the mountain, rumour has it that they were somewhat interbred with a dragon a long time ago, but I never saw them myself and don’t really believe it. Perhaps somehow magical, but I don’t think a dragon would breed with a common snake.”

Before going to sleep, Paul fiddled around with the menu. It was convenient that he could control it via thoughts and could do so without being noticed.

He already had 84 XP, with only 16 XP missing for his first level up. He planned to level up tomorrow, and thought about what kind of class he should focus on.