“Ah…That’s why.”

Alex said softly as his eyes skimmed through his status. Eyes blank and emotionless, his mind still trapped in a daze. His whole body slightly shaking.

Oddly, even though he had just gained two new skills at what felt like a minute, he wasn’t surprised. His whole mind was calm, no thoughts were present in his mind.

Although, right now, his mind could hardly differentiate between what was calmness, and emotionless. His eyes stared into the blue skies with no real intentions, his heart simply wandering around trying to ascertain itself.

And then, a small question suddenly came barging in.

Why am I being so calm?

…And then, it all ticked.

“What was with that cheesy ending line?!”

His eyes opened in shock as he shouted in retort to himself. He quickly covered his face with his hands and turned around in shame.

What was with that ending line?!

Ah! It’s so embarrassing!

If his friend was here, he would’ve probably laughed until his throat blew open! Ah! Just trying to imagine that makes his head hurt!

That was so not him!

He cringed painfully as he forced himself to accept that what he said was really said by him. The cringe he felt was probably more painful than the crab’s meat!

Actually, which one was more painful, really?

Wait, this isn’t time for that!

With his face burning red like that of a tomato, he slowly moved his hands away and brought back his status. His eyes slowly read through, this time truly noticing the changes to his status.

His hands still shivering, he slowly moved his finger and tapped on the two new skills, and their descriptions were brought up.

[Cleaving]

Rank 1

The user handles cleaver-type weapons much better than before.

The user’s strength is doubled when holding a cleaver-type weapon.

2% to Rank 2

[Blood Hound]

Rank 1

Taking advantage of increased blood pressure, the user’s status is increased by 50% when active.

Fear and hesitation becomes none-existent.

0% to Rank 2

“O-Oh…”

With a frown, he acknowledged that he really did say that…before dropping onto the sandy shores in shame and rolling around on the sand.

Whether because of a skill, or just because he was caught in the moment, he still said it! And if he said it, means that it’ll forever be stuck in his memory!

Ack! Just leave already!

……

After around an hour of just tossing and rolling around on the sand in embarrassment, he finally stood back up and sighed deeply. He dusted off the sand from his somewhat dry jeans. His face was still burning red though.

“Phew…Right.”

Back on track! Turning to his front, he saw that his backpack had just landed on the sand right before a tall palm tree. He walked over to it and opened the backpack, and to his surprise, the stone tablet was somehow still intact!

What a nice turn around!

With his backpack back on his back, he walked around the island and picked up the dead bodies of the crabs. After all, he didn’t have any food left, and although the meat makes him want to run a marathon, they were a great source of food.

He put them inside a plastic bag before putting them in the bag of course! No one wants a smelly bag!

That done, he gently placed down the backpack next to the giant berserker sword, still impaled at the coastline. Sighing deeply, he shrugged his shoulders and dropped onto the sand.

He was exhausted, both physically and mentally.

He just…needed some rest.

“Hah…”

And then, without him realising it, his eye lids began to feel heavy. Slowly, they began closing, and soon, his world turned dark.

……

“Quuaack!”

“…”

“Quack!”

*Pak!*

“Ack?!”

Not even an hour passed by, and his sleep was interrupted! His eyes were forced open as a sharp pain was felt from his head.

“Ouch…” He covered his stinging head with his arms. His eyes looked around for the enemy with tears slowly building up. And then, he turned his head up, and there he saw it!

It was a damn seagull this time!

“Quack!”

Closing its wings, it descended at an astounding speed and directed its beak at him. By reflex, he jumped forward and dodged the attack, his body sliding on the sand before stopping.

“Tch. Another one?”

Before he could even get his berserker sword, the seagull opened its wings gracefully and flew into the sky! It was out of reach once again!

“Damnit.”

He needed to attack! But how?

How about a ranged weapon?

But what though?

“Hmm…” His mind brainstormed for ideas for a ranged weapon, going from a primitive hunting bow, to a modern sniper rifle.

Easy to say, as a simple high school boy, he was unable to use a bow, nor can he use a military style sniper rifle. Then what can he use?

“…Does that even work?”

Suddenly, his mind came upon a cool idea! Problem is, does the effect he thought of even work?

Well, no time to waste! It’s going to dive down any second now!

“Quack!”

It dived down once more. Alex saw this and rolled forwards, letting it dive into the sand. Shaking away the sand, it flapped its wings and flew back up in style.

His finger lighting up, he traced a simple model of a gun. I say simple, it was more like two rectangles stacked on each other, one as the body, the other as the handle, with a small trigger in between on the bottom.

“Let’s see…[Shoots a bullet using MP by pulling a trigger]-“

*Wiishh…*

“What?! That counts?!”

To his surprise, the long sentence he wrote actually counted as one effect?! That’s not even an effect anymore! That’s a function, not an effect!

Is something wrong with his skill description?!

Whatever, at least it works!

"Ooff...I feel slightly strange..."

Out from the light, came the simple stone gun he created. Being the simple thing it is, it didn’t have any fancy writings on it, nor did it have any cool looking features. But, it should work!

…Right?

It’ll be insanely embarrassing if this thing didn’t work.

Wrapping his finger around the trigger, he pointed the barrel of the gun at the hovering seagull. He closed his left eye and aimed carefully.

Being an amateur, his hand was shaking, and his aim wasn’t perfect. His finger slowly pushed on the trigger, and then, magic occurred! His hand nearly let go of the gun!

*Bang!*

“Quack?!”

In shock, the seagull was frozen from the sudden sound of the shot. Out from the muzzle, came a pointed bullet, made completely from his MP. Cutting through the air, it made contact with its wings, and a hole was blown open!

“Qua?!”

With a hole on its right wing, it was unable to hover correctly, and began dropping!

“Q-Qua…”

Even after the seagull had crashed onto the sand, Alex hadn’t moved a single inch. His mind was unable to catch up to the sudden development. His eyes and mouth were wide open in shock that this thing had actually worked!

No, seriously, how did that long sentence of an effect work?!

“……”

In the end, he nodded in approval to his inner self about his conclusion. He didn’t want to waste any more energy trying to think up for a reason as to why that dang effect worked.

In simple terms, he just said ‘It’s magic. Deal with it, me.’ And nodded in approval.

Walking over to the downed seagull, his eyes looked straight at the crying bird. Its black eyes were wide open, and he could see it begin watering slightly. Was this thing crying?

Ha! What a baby!

*Bang!*

With a pull of the trigger, the bullet shot right through the seagull’s head, and ended its life spectacularly.

Oddly, as more time went on, he found it harder to feel sympathy for these monsters. He became slightly worried for himself, but shook the thought away in denial.

And then, the white orb came out from the seagull and entered his chest, releasing a soft warmth before disappearing completely. With some excitement, he opened up his status to get a look.

Status: Damian Alexander Lv 5

Health: 42/55

Mana: 13/80

Strength: 17

Intelligence: 28

Resistance: 20

Agility: 25 (+1)

Skills:

{Illustrator} Rank 1 (08%)

[Agility] Rank 1 (08%)

[Cleaving] Rank 1 (02%)

[Blood Hound] Rank 1 (02%)

Titles:

Surprisingly, after shooting the seagull down with a gun, he hadn’t gained any new skills related to shooting, or something along those lines.

Does that mean that gaining a skill takes a lot of time?

But he got cleaving in such a short time though…

Maybe he got lucky!

He felt slightly more optimistic about his current situation as that thought came in. If getting a skill would allow him to use things like this gun better, then he would gladly acquire said skills!

Besides that, did his MP just drop drastically?

Meh, must be his imagination. And mine too, I have bad memory...

But, what to do?

“Hmm…” As he inspected the gun, his eyes swam around to search for a target. And just as he looked behind him, his eyes settled on the palm tree.

His lips curved upwards as he slowly made his way to the tree. He tapped his hands on the tree, testing whether this thing could actually stand getting shot with his gun countless times.

*Pak…Pak…*

It doesn’t seem like it, but this tree was the best target he could ever have for a target practice. Well, besides actual gun targets anyways, but he didn’t have that here!

So, with that in mind, he began his preparations.

First, he conjured 3 different things, a circle target, a wooden mallet, and a couple nails. He picked up the target and nailed it onto the bark of the tree, using his wooden mallet and the nails he conjured.

“Ack?!”

Although, he wasn’t very skilled at his job. He ended up hitting his finger a couple times.

After all that was over, his target was finally ready!

Picking up the gun, he slid his finger around the trigger guard, and settled on the trigger. Being made from stone, it wasn’t the most pleasant feeling to say the least, but he dealt with it.

Taking his aim, he closed his right eye. Carefully taking aim, he pointed the muzzled for the smallest circle in the middle of the target. Pushing against the trigger, a shot was fired!

*Bang!*

……

Three minutes later,

*Boom*

“…Oh.”

To his annoyance, the tree held on for far shorter than he had expected. After getting shot a couple times, the target broke along with the tree, before slowly falling back.

On landing, a loud boom sounded, and the broken tree slowly drifted away into the ocean.

Was what he was doing bad?

“Wh-“

“Pi!”

“?!”

Just as he was about to do something, a familiar foe came lurking out of the ocean. By reflex, he turned around to face the enemy he faced many times, and the first enemy he had ever fought.

The SeaSurfer Crab!

But this time, it had backup!

The 3 SeaSurfer Crabs were carrying a large clam, about 20 cm in width, requiring the 6 claws of the crabs to carry it. Slowly, as the crabs continued to tap onto its shell, the clam’s shell slowly creaked open.

“…”

The clam looked on silently, before closing its mouth once more. Alex only stared at it silently as it stood there idle.

But then,

The clam’s shell opened, and a jet of water was shot out!

“Woah!”

Because of the sudden shot, he was unable to dodge and received the hit. Although the attack didn’t send him flying, like a certain dolphin did, it did chip away 10 HP away from his HP count.

Now that he knew about that attack, he couldn’t afford to get hit again!

*Puushh!*

And then, the second shot was fired!

This time, now that he knew what it could do, he dodged the attack by moving to the side. He quickly moved his hands over to the large berserker sword’s handle, and picked it up with a great force.

“P-Pii…?”

“P-Pi..”

And then, as his eyes slowly moved onto the clam, his eyes began pulsing red. All his emotions withered away, and his world turned black and white.

The sounds from the outside were dulled. So much so that he could hear his own heart beating deep in his chest. Pointing his blade at the crabs, his gaze locked on.

His [Blood Hound] skill had activated!

“……”

Pushing off the ground, he leaped at the clam. His sword raised, the clam hurriedly opened its shell and shot out a burst of water. The water hit him straight in the gut, but he was unfazed and swung down his giant blade!

*Bam!*

In a single slice, the clam’s shell broke away, from two halves, into four pieces, each dropping into the sand.

“P-Pii…”

“……”

Now with their backup destroyed, the three crabs stared in fear at the predator before them. Now, they finally realised, they caught the attention of the wrong enemy!

“…Die.”

*Bam!*