Kra’ghe was enjoying a peaceful evening stroll, with a lite breeze tickling his back. He strode forward in the moonlight with regality and power, as was befitting for one such as he.

It was a rather curious affair, as no one else knew that his name was indeed Kra’ghe. I mean, how could anyone ever know this, it’s not like he would be able to tell them. And even if he was able to tell them, it would likely be pointless, as he’d just as soon eat them regardless.

It’s not like he did not understand the purpose names held. They were instrumental in communication and sometimes identification amongst species that were actually capable of communicating such things verbally. Admittedly those races were few and far between though.

Still he had one day named himself such on a whim. Looking back on that time, now he could only find it amusing how foolish and impulsive he was in his younger days. Kra’ghe was however torn from his reminiscing, by a rather delicious smell.

He blended in with the shadows as he carefully and silently headed in the direction it was coming from. It did not take long before he found the source of the delicious smell, but it gave him pause. There was a light, a light that he knew well. Although this light was capable of burning things and greatly changing the taste of meat, it was not the light itself that concerned him.

No. With such a thing, it was usually the creatures that were able to wield this light that were on occasion, more than a little dangerous. Not because they were overly vicious or physically strong in any way, but rather because they usually also possessed weapons and were more often than not cunning. It’s not like he actually felt threatened in any way, but rather simply that he should be a little more cautious than normal.

There wasn’t much in this place that could hurt him, he was old and strong compared to most of his kind. The weapons wielded by creatures like these, however, sometimes fell in this category.

After watching the creature for a while, Kra’ghe decided that it did not appear to be a threat. The creature itself was tall and had no fur. It walked upright on two legs and had paws that were clearly the kind not meant for fighting but rather for finer jobs, like crafting weapons. Hence why Kra’ghe believed that it had made the weapon it was currently holding itself. Well it wasn’t exactly a stretch of the imagination, the creature already clearly knew how to change meat with that light, which means it likely also know how to create the light in the first place, among other things.

Once the creature was done with the fish that was skewered into his weapon, he began gobbling it down with fervour. He looked like some starving lesser animal to Kra’ghe. He felt almost sorry for the creature. Almost.

Kra’ghe cancelled the ability and stepped out of the shadows, confronting the creature head on.

The creature was so absorbed in eating the fish that it didn’t even notice him at first. This only served to annoy Kra’ghe as he had only done this out of amusement, to see how this creature would respond to the threat. This was fast becoming a waste of his time, he should just gobble the creature and his fish whole and be done with it.

Fortunately or not, the creature soon spotted Kra’ghe and panicked. It jumped back and stared at Kra’ghe with great fear, food still in it’s mouth. The creature simply stared and did not move a muscle. This too was boring, so Kra’ghe decided to spice it up a bit. He slowly prowled from side to side, facing the creature the whole time. It was a pattern that he found to be menacing and often instilled fear in lesser creatures. He was looking forward to seeing how this creature responded.

To be honest he was no longer concerned in the slightest. This creature was clearly physically weak and the weapon he wielded, as far as Kra’ghe could tell, was of a similarly poor quality.

The creature finally acted. It slowly reached for its weapon, with its second hand. Kra’ghe was almost disappointed when he took this to mean the creature was preparing to fight, likely taking up some kind of stance. So he was pleasantly surprised when it instead, slowly slid the fish off the weapon.

Oh. This is interesting. Was it going to pay tribute? Kra’ghe stopped pacing and instead watched the creature expectedly. It reached back and tossed the half eaten fish, which in turn landed quite a distance behind where Kra’ghe was standing.

He was seriously tempted to kill this insolent creature on the spot! How dare it mock his intelligence with such an obvious slight! The creature obviously thought that he would chase after the tasty food like some mindless beast, while it could then make a run for it.

Kra’ghe stepped forward intent on teaching this flea a lesson. A very final lesson. However after only one step, he paused. While it was true this dumb creature had wounded his pride Kra’ghe also knew that this emotion was normally a pointless one, that yielded no real benefit and often resulted instead in harm further down the line.

He had not come as far as he had by letting such foolish emotions dictate his actions. Kra’ghe instead snarled a warning at the foolish creature and then turned to leave. He picked up the discarded fish as he passed by it. It had been burnt by the light just right and was quite tasty.

Kra’ghe would leave for today and let the foolish creature think he had outsmarted him. The foolish often don’t know that they are fools. So Kra’ghe would simply have his revenge and enjoy the look on the creatures face when he ultimately returned for his next tribute. After all the only reason for him not to eat the creature was to keep it as a pet. One that needed to make regular offerings, lest he become the next offering himself.

Kra’ghe slowly walked away and once more faded into the shadows.

Armin just stood there for a moment, not quite sure how to take all this in. The black jaguar-esque beast with six legs had just left. Although he could not be 100% sure it was actually gone, since during the process of leaving, it also kind of just disappeared mid-way.

He would have been a whole lot more heart-broken after losing half of his overly due and hard won dinner, but he simply didn’t have the capacity of mental faculties available after such an encounter to even care much at the moment.

No. This jaguar like creature had simply strolled up in a decidedly threatening manner. Armin was of course extremely alarmed and would have been ready to flee at a moments notice had it not been for the fact that he sincerely doubted his ability to escape such a predator. No amount of rivers would have been sufficient to save his ass this time around.

What’s worse, he had tried to identify the creature in order to gauge just what kind of level of dead meat he currently was. He couldn’t! It was like there was some kind of resistance to the attempt. Although it mattered little, as he could feel the overwhelming aura put out by the beast just fine enough to be thoroughly terrified.

It was a small miracle that tossing his fish out like that had caused the creature to lose interest in him. He was actually surprised that it had not turned around and eaten him straight after. The original plan was of course to try and sneak away while the beast was distracted, but it’s mere presence was so overwhelming that he had found his legs completely unable to move.

Armin simply collapsed to the ground and waited for the tension to leave his body for the time being. He was certainly disappointed to have lost half his meal, especially given his current state. But honestly, he would take not getting eaten over eating any day. That said, the little bit of food he had gotten in his system had at least pushed his Essense back up to 83.

Just thinking about it, he could identify the level 43 caterpillar quite easily, yet this thing, he could feel he wasn’t even close to identifying. That coupled with the feeling it put off, spoke to just how high a level above 43 this thing must actually be. If such creatures wandered around, he was in even deeper shit than he could possibly have imagined. And that’s saying a lot, ‘cause he already suspected the neck deep level of shit his situation spelled out after the bloody caterpillar encounter.

His plan as of a few hours ago had been to build a camp of sorts. Build a very crude shelter. Get used to hunting and fending for himself. Build a better shelter. Make better weapons, maybe even level a bit. And then after all that, with a proper base of operations, start mapping his surroundings and hopefully find civilisation.

As of a few minutes ago, those plans went to shit.

If the ‘forest’ was filled with abominations like this then he was good and truly fucked! Why the heck couldn’t he have been dropped in a fucking starter town or a < level 10 zone or something. Why could he not start in a town, period? What the fuck was with the game balancing in this bloody world?!

Armin decided to take a moment to just calm down, the more he pursued this line of thought, the more pissed off he got. Having your average life expectancy cut down by like a fucking 100x over the course of the last 24 hours would do that to you.

Come to think of it, had it really been 24 hours since he got here? It felt shorter than that. Actually, one would expect the constant life and death struggle to make time feel more dragged out, yet he was having thoughts along the exact opposite direction. Now that he thought about it, when he had regained his sight this morning, the sun had already started rising. He had lost his vision shortly before the sun had started to set, or at least that’s what it had felt like. Since the blind status had been stipulated to go on for only five hours, that meant the day/night cycle of this world must be pretty short. God, that was really going to fuck him over, like jet lag on steroids.

Regardless, the main problem at hand was that he didn’t expect to have any chance of surviving any real amount of time out here in the wilderness with things like that jaguar running around. He would have to completely scrap his original plan. But what would he do exactly then. The only thing he could think of was that he needed to make finding civilisation a top priority. An unwelcome errand thought suddenly wormed its way into his head: What if there is no civilisation.

No. Can’t think like that. If that was the case then he would just end up dead, that’s all there is to it, no point in even worrying over it. Besides, he had not ever heard of an isekai where such a thing was the case, save for stories that were only vaguely borderline isekai.

So. Plan of action. He had some basic tools/weapons. He needed to travel and survive on the go, until he could find civilisation. He did not yet know how he would manage sleep, that was a problem for later. But more than anything else he needed to get the fuck out of that jaguars territory.

After a deep breath, Armin had managed to firm up his resolve. Standing up, he picked up his tools and looked around. The best bet for finding civilisation, sans any other indicator, was likely to follow the river downstream. Rivers were a valuable resource normally and if it led to an ocean, well there is normally such a thing as a port city. So Armin started following down the river.

He of course would keep an eye out for any suitable hills or possibly even small mountains that he could climb for a good scouting advantage. Unfortunately he did not see any such location as of yet, but he could hope.

He also needed to review those character traits again, he now had 5 points to spend on them and needed to spend them well. Although he had definitely been leaning in the direction of constitution, for the sake of his immediate survival.

Armin got up and stretched his legs. It had been a relatively peaceful 24 hours. At least compared to all that he had been through the first day. On that note, it had actually been a lot less time than that, he just still couldn’t wrap his head around a shorter day night cycle.

He had managed to catch four fish at an area of the river that was slow moving and pooled up thanks to a bend and some kind rocks, earning himself another level up. For the first time he had eaten his fill and was feeling quite satisfied. Heck, his Essence was even up to 91 and now he had 10 points to spend.

The only thing he was lacking in was sleep. Still needed to do something about that. If he fell asleep, he couldn’t keep up his body warming technique and this would eventually cause him to wake up again from the cold. So it had been pretty touch and go in the dreamland department.

The other problem he also faced, turned out to be water. He unfortunately discovered that the water is indeed harmful, just not that harmful. He had gotten used to the flavour and during his marvelous lunch, drank a bit too much in one go, the result of which had turned out to be a mild poisoning status effect. In the end it had taken off two thirds of his health pool before finally petering out. A good thing his health had been full at the start of it, or it probably would have killed him.

Just another thing to add to his ever growing todo list, figure out how to deal with poison.

Armin sighed. Survival was a pain in the ass.

A noise just ahead of him, suddenly caught Armin’s attention. Looking up, he was greeted with the most unusual of sights. A creature stood there before him, about ten meters away, looking something like a cross between a monkey, a boar and a- geodude?

It had a roundish body that looked kind of leatherish, and its head, if it even had one, seemed to be a part of its body, or so far sunken into it that they were indistinguishable. It had two arms, or was it legs- maybe a bit of both that it used for walking, that reached a decent way past the bottom of its body, to the ground. The confusion came from the fact that they were the only two limbs the creature possessed and looked more like a monkey’s arms and hands.

Lastly, it had two distinctly boar-like tusks coming out the front of its ‘face?’

Identifying it yielded: Moonka - level 2

Below his level, and he didn’t even have much of one to begin with. This creature only took him by his chest in height and did not look particularly strong or fast to begin with. Also having only two limbs should be a huge disadvantage. Lastly its skin looked akin to leather. You could make clothes out of leather, right? Pure speculation for sure, but this all seemed like a rather golden opportunity. He should at least try.

Armin was definitely more on the pacifist side of things. In fact, he could not remember a single time in his life he had instigated an actual fight. It was simply shocking how circumstances could change a person in such a short amount of time.

Armin slowly approached the Moonka, his spear held at the ready in a throwing ready grip and position, should the creature try to suddenly run. He was also ready to switch his grip around, should the creature suddenly charge him instead.

The Moonka simply stood motionless, eyeing Armin warily, either sensing his bloodlust or just being a cautious creature in general. Armin could not tell which.

Armin had only taken a few small steps towards the Moonka, when it finally reacted. However, it had elected to neither run away, nor charge him. This was the one scenario Armin had not considered.

The Moonka deftly clutched some dirt in one of its hands it was still standing on and with a swift motion swung the arm over backwards. It was an almost comical sight, as it meant the creature was now balancing its full body on only one arm. But this is not what surprised Armin the most, rather it was the fact that the Mooka’s arm spun backwards, over the top and down in front of him, a complete 360 degrees, like it was on some kind of a pivot rather the being connected muscle and bone.

The result of course was an arm and a throw that would be the envy of every pitcher out there, not to mention the trouble Armin was suddenly finding himself in.

The lump of dirt was off course slightly, so despite the fact that it travelled at a disturbing speed it only grazed Armin’s shoulder. This however was still enough to jerk his whole body to the left. The dirt felt more like a solid rock than a clump of dirt, not to mention that it did not break up mid flight, despite the force. The Moonka must be compressing it somehow.

The how was irrelevant. The problem at hand was that the Moonka was engaging him in a ranged battle, which Armin was poorly equipped for.

The Moonka readied and fired off another salvo, Armin had already instinctively retreated a bit and was able to ascertain the path of the projectile just in time to jerk his head to the side and out of the way. That would have been a direct hit. He was confident the force this thing was putting out, would be enough to do some serious damage if it hits him wrong, not to even mention what it might do to him if the Moonka landed a head shot.

Armin responded in the only way he could in such a situation. Before the Moonka could get his next shot off, Armin pulled back, lined up his spear and threw it. It sailed through the air nicely and embedded itself firmly in one of the Moonka’s legs. Armin would proudly claim leet status at this point if it were not for the fact that he’d been aiming for its head.

Still a hit was a hit. Unfortunately for Armin, despite the fact that the Moonka was wailing in pain, it was not about to lay down and die quite so easily. The Moonka, despite looking a bit unsteady, balancing on a leg with a spear embedded in it, still managed to fire off another shot. One that did not seem to be diminished in power in anyway whatsoever.

Armin desperately dodged out of the way and pulled up behind a tree for cover. “Ah come on!” He could not help but cry out audibly in frustration.

The situation quickly turned into a stalemate. The Moonka could not really run off with only one good limb and Armin was pinned firmly behind his tree as the Moonka fired off shot after shot, trying to suppress him.

Armin of course had already realised that this fight was as good as won though. As long as that spear was embedded in its leg, it would eventually succumb to its bleed status. All Armin had to do was stay behind this tree and not get taken out by one of those crazy volleys.

If only things were ever that simple.

The pairs standoff was suddenly interrupted by a sound. Armin couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from, but it had the unmistakable drone that you would get from a large swarm of bees, or similar flying insect. He had a really, really bad feeling about this.

Even the Moonka, had stopped slinging projectiles at him and was now also looking around frantically, trying to figure out where it was coming from. Armin’s heart sank even further when he realised that the Moonka was panicking in a way that suggested it knew all too well what was coming.

Armin for now, just kept dead still, clutching his tree, hoping that whatever it was either passed, or simply did not notice him. Be one with the fucking tree basically.

And then he saw it. What should have been a swarm of insects, came from over a couple of nearby tree tops and quickly descended on the poor Moonka. They however looked more like a swarm of purple glowing balls, not that he could tell from this distance and their insect like size.

The ‘insects’ left tiny trails of blue light behind them as they moved and did not appear to have wings, or anything else really that would allow them to fly. So who knew where the bloody droning like sound was coming from exactly. Strangely it did not bother Armin too much, this world had already beat his common sense into submission a few times after all.

Armin remained dead still, as he watched the swarm circling all around the Moonka, while it desperately thrashed about, trying to get away or just chase them off. Strangely enough, it did not look like they were doing anything to the Moonka, or at least not that he could see.

Armin had of course spoken too soon. The Moonka suddenly collapsed to the ground apparently very dead. Fuck. He still had no idea what they had done to it, the creature was not injured in any visible way, save for the spear still sticking out its leg. Maybe it had succumbed to the bleed status? Desperate or not, Armin of course knew that was truly wishful thinking.

He also realised that this question was about to be answered for him, mostly in a way he decidedly did not care for. His ploy to remain hidden had clearly failed. The insects apparently done with the Moonka had made an about turn and were headed straight for Armin now.

Armin of course ran. He ran his ass off. But the creatures were far too nimble and easily caught up to him. Armin thought he was going to die of a heart attack when he realised they had surrounded him, despite him still pumping his arms and legs at max speed.

Except, nothing seemed to be happening. At least not at first. After a while of being chased like this, he started to feel like his body was hurting all over. Like that really deep kind of bruised pain, except on the inside. Checking his status while he ran, he realised that his stamina was not the only thing busy draining! Both his health and mana were being drained even faster. In fact his health had already dropped to just under 30!

He was going to die, and soon! Armin made a split second decision and twisted left, diving into the river. Whatever these things were, they seemed to be using some kind of magical ‘drain’ ability, that drained both health and mana. He had no other explanation for it.

Armin did not open his eyes underwater, not wanting a repeat of what happened last time. He of course only felt safe enough to avoid doing so, because he noticed that as soon as he had jumped in the water, the draining had immediately stopped.

The river wasn’t all that fast here, so he couldn’t be sure if it was safe to resurface or not. He doubted he had moved far, so that left, the insects buggering off on their own as the only real option. Armin still could not risk his vision in such a situation, so instead of opening his eyes, he activated his mana sense, to see if he could get a handle on the situation.

Much too his displeasure, it worked. He could see the creatures by their mana, just fine. They were directly above him, steadily tracking his position. They may not be able to go into the water or even hurt him while he was under, but they knew he had to come up for air sooner or later. This clearly was not their first rodeo and they would not be leaving any time soon.