Author's note: Chapter length is pretty inconsistent so far, I am still figuring things out for myself. I also feel kind of sorry for everyone who read the overly long and so far pointless backstory of our MC in Chapter 1.

If anyone wants to add a suggestion for what should happen, feel free to send some. I still have many ideas and something like a "storyline" for the immediate future, but additional inspiration cannot hurt I guess.

Chapter 5:

Paul’s vision floated out of his body, like when he adjusted his appearance before coming to this world. The major difference to that time was, that he could now clearly see in the dark as if it was day, but everything was lacking colour.

He saw that it was indeed a pack of wolves that was roaming around the forest, and the largest of them was busy taking bites out of his upper body, while the others were waiting nearby. The sight of his body being eaten was pretty terrifying, so Paul hovered back towards the creek.

Paul then flew up a few meters in the air to take a look over the forest. Unfortunately, there was a huge wall of fog about 200 meters in front of him in every direction, so he could not see very far.

After flying all the way to this unnatural border, he confirmed that he could not pass through the fog.

“I was hoping to get a good view of the area, but it seems that wont be happening… at least I died pretty quickly and wasn’t eaten alive. Now I just hope that Helena didn’t trick me and I can actually revive. I really don’t want to be haunting this part of the forest for all eternity.” Paul thought so in jest, but the prospect of such a future was more terrifying than he initially imagined. He decided that there was no reason to doubt the words of the goddess though, so he put trust in his ability to respawn later.

He stayed away from the wolves eating his body and opened up the menu to pass some time. Helena had said something about 12 hours he had to wait, so there was probably quite some time left to pass.

Paul checked all the stat and skill descriptions again, but there was nothing new for him to discover. Apart from the spear skill he had gained nothing new, and offering himself up to the wolves had not granted him any special bonus or title. The combat log just showed a large crit done by a wolf, followed by the [bleeding] and [unconscious] debuffs. A few points of damage later he was dead.

After reading through the menu, he flew up and down the approximately 400 meters of creek, lowering his altitude until he was literally flowing through the water. He tried flying through some trees, which was possible. He then flew down into the ground, but it was just darkness.

Paul became bored really quickly. He briefly checked, and the wolves were still feasting on his corpse.

“That 12 hour penalty is really no joke” Paul thought. “I was kind of hoping that Helena would come and strike up a conversation. But it hasn’t even been 48 hours after I arrived here yet.”

Paul tried to dive into the ground and get some sleep, but for some reason he was not feeling tired at all and knew that this won’t work either.

He then opened the note function of the menu and started writing a “to do” list.

Grind diligently

Level Up a lot

Become overpowered

Earn fame and riches

Find cat girl tribe

The list turned out to be rather short and useless.

Paul flew around the small stretch of the forest, looking at leaves, trees and grass, followed a beetle around and then decided to dive into the darkness of the ground and tried to meditate and just think of nothing.

He had already tried every possible command and thought regarding time compression, and was convinced that he just had to endure the 12 hours. For a person like Paul, who was addicted to entertainment, it felt like true torture.

Finally, when he got out of the ground again, the forest was shown in colour again, which indicated that it had become morning already. The wolves had left, and there was not much left of Paul’s body. A leg was completely missing and nowhere to be found, and every bodypart was damaged. Even his face was mauled beyond recognition.

“Not necessarily a bad thing.” Paul had decided to somehow hide the corpse, but if it was found there should not be any problem.

His spear was still stuck into the ground, but the dead fox was gone.

After what felt like an eternity of aimlessly hovering around, inspecting various types of bark up-close and briefly thinking about the meaning of life, a window popped up.

[You may now respawn. Please select a location.

(Location where you last rested) (Initial Spawn Point) (Current location)]

The options were ok. The last place where he rested was probably the village, the initial spawn point must be the clearing deeper within the forest. Paul hovered to a safe distance above the ground and chose (Current location).

He could feel the cool morning breeze and got goose bumps from the slight cold. He then went over to his body and half-heartedly dragged it behind a couple trees and covered it with branches and dirt while gagging a few times. It was still fresh, but he could swear that the arm he was dragging it by would come off he pulled on it any further and he wanted to avoid looking at the gruesome remains as best as he could.

He made sure to wash all of the blood off in the creek before grabbing his spear and walking downstream again to fetch his belongings.

As he had expected, all his injuries were gone without a trace. He even felt well rested and sated, just like after he had come to this world. His stats were exactly the same as before, down to the experience points. Apart from the cruel 12 hour wait, respawning seemed to have no repercussions.

He hurried back to the place where he had stashed his things and got dressed. Now it was time to serious! He hunted 5 snakes and a bunny with his spear and stashed the corpses inside the bag. When the sun was starting to rise high and he got hungry, he started walking back to the settlement. He ate the bread on his way and when he got back, he was greeted by a delighted Marcus near the entrance of the village.

“Oh boy, good to see you again. I was really worried that we would never see you again.” Marcus seemed so happy that Paul was worried he might start hugging him.

“Yea, it went well. And it even worked out as I had hoped. Plus I brought some spoils” Paul said quickly, to steer the conversation elsewhere.

“So your injuries got better? That’s good to hear” Marcus seemed to not expect much.

“Yes, or rather, I got completely healed. I still don’t know much about whose blessing I have, but it seems quite powerful” Paul said while showing Marcus his completely healthy arm.

“What? That’s even more impressing than the healing the apprentice priest from the temple in Prozor performed last year.” Marcus was slightly shocked but still smiling.

“More importantly, I brought a bunch of snakes and a bunny, so I would like to go skin them. It would be nice if you could watch over me while doing so and give me tips on how to improve.”

Paul showed Marcus the contents of his bag, and they went to the place behind Marcus’ house. While Paul was skinning and gutting the carcasses, Marcus pointed out several minor mistakes he made. Then they went to the tanning place at the river, where the training was continued. The wolf fur had been treated by Marcus already and was hanging over the tanning rack. After removing the tanning material from it they went into the house and Marcus taught Paul the process of beating and stretching the fur for the final step.

With his arm healed, the leatherworking skill and the additional points in agility, processing the skins felt a lot easier than the days before. Marcus looked satisfied as well. They spent most of the afternoon producing leather and hides, and Pauls skill even rose to beginner level 2.

They went on a hunting trip and checked Marcus’ snares, while Paul looked for additional prey on the minimap. When they returned back to the settlement, they brought back 3 bunnies, a snake and even a fox.

Paul got into a routine of processing skins in the morning, hunting after lunch and leatherworking again in the evening. When he had some spare time, he helped out Ray in his workshop and collecting, mostly moving logs or doing the first steps of cutting down wood, before Ray took over for the final steps.

On the fourth day he rose to Level 3 after finishing the treating of a bunny fur.

He had not learned any new skills, so he learned the [Resilience] and [Healer] skills he had already unlocked. He was slightly injured on several occasions, either by foxes or while working in the village, so he would have enough opportunities to raise those skills.

Marcus, satisfied with Paul’s progress, started teaching him about trapping and where to find helpful herbs, not only for healing but also for food, while they went out hunting. Paul noticed that on rare occasions the small animals came in slightly larger varieties, had a level of 2 and yielded twice the experience.

When the durability of his spear went down, he asked Ray to repair it, which lowered the maximum durability a bit. The pile of treated animal skins in Marcus’ house was steadily rising and Paul could see Marcus look happy whenever he was looking at it.

Paul had started to write a diary with the note function of the menu, but it was not very interesting. Apart from Marcus killing a deer and helping Ray with the construction of a small shack next to Marcus home to store the skins, nothing noteworthy happened.

Ten days after his arrival Paul reached level 4. He had acquired one point of agility while wielding his spear and a point of strength on a particularly busy day carrying logs for Ray.

Paul distributed his stat points, learned the [Sense surroundings] and [Trapping] Skills, and looked at the results with satisfaction showing on his face.

Name: Paul

Adult Human Male

Level: 4

Experience: 6 / 1%

Strength: 12

Endurance: 15

Agility: 21

Intelligence: 10

Wisdom: 10

Luck: 0

Health: 75

Mana: 50

Stamina: 75

Skills:

[Leatherworking] Beginner Level 4, 31%

[Spear-type Weapons] Beginner Level 3, 25%

[Resilience] Beginner Level 2, 45%

[Sense Surroundings] Beginner Level 2, 20%

[Healer] Beginner Level 1, 85%

[Trapping] Beginner Level 2, 64%

The trapping skill allowed him to not only efficiently lay traps but also see the snares on his minimap. On higher levels it was supposed to show better hidden traps laid out by third parties.

The sense skill that widened his minimap range only did so at a rather insignificant rate, about 10m per level, which meant at level 2 he could now “see” about 220 meters on his radar. It improved whenever Paul engaged into combat after finding a creature on the map and hunting it down, so it naturally improved without paying too much attention.

Paul was determined to learn magic at some point, but according to Marcus the only magician he knew of was the court wizard in Prozor, and it didn’t seem like he was taking apprentices. Paul planned to allocate some points into intelligence soon. He was hoping that apart from raising his mana, he would gain some more advantages like better memory or faster improvement of his crafting skills.

There were many things that Paul did not quite understand when it came to the stats. While strength was pretty straight forward and he had already noticed the benefits of higher agility, the endurance and especially the health system seemed a bit mysterious. The injury on his arm came with a more or less permanent reduction of 10 HP and hindered him in a way you would expect from a serious injury to your dominant arm.

He imagined the effect of a spear through the heart or an axe blow to the neck to be the same, whether one had 50 or 500 health, so he wondered if higher health meant a higher necessary force before the skin and tissue was penetrated. He also wondered if he really could die by continuously stepping on sharp stones, but was not really tempted to try it out.

Paul was sure to figure it out along the way. So far the world seemed pretty similar to Earth, he had yet to encounter any magic or strange animals or races, even if he had heard of those things from Marcus.