I reach the end of the tree line around 20 minutes later, only to find that I’m out of the forest and instead, standing in front of a river, and beyond, a meadow stretches off to the horizon.

Short green grass spreads across it with a few trees every here and there. These trees seem to be a little smaller than the ones here, but I can’t be sure since they are far from where I’m standing.

The river is around 1.5 meters in width and doesn’t seem to be too deep, knee-high, maybe, and it draws far to each side of the forest edge.

I was contemplating going upstream or downstream, when I notice a dirt road just 50 meters ahead of the river.

I follow the road with my eyes to see that it continues parallel to the river for a bit than curves away from it.

‘Well, that will probably end up taking me to civilization, but I don’t see any buildings ahead, and the sun is setting.

I really don’t want to sleep in the middle of an open area.

I should head back to the forest and rest tonight on top of a tree maybe, but before that, I really need some water.’

I walk closer to the river and get on my knees to drink some, but stop just before reaching the ground and smashing the thing under me.

A small semi-transparent globe, with green color the same as the surrounding grass...

Forest Slime Lv.3

‘I see, so this is a Slime, if it didn’t keep twitching constantly, I would have thought it was just a normal orb of glass.’

I try touching the Slime to see if it will react, but the moment I have my finger 2 or 3 centimeters away from it, its body extended and absorbs my finger.

At first, I was scared shitless; I thought my finger was done for, but after a second or two, I noticed that nothing happens, except for it slowly sucking on my finger.

“Aww, you are a cute one, aren’t you?”

Or so I thought until I started feeling my finger burning, I quickly retracted my finger and checked it, to see that the skin around my finger is red and was burning like hell’

“Fuck! This hurt!”

I sigh, stand up and take a step back.

‘And here I was thinking of maybe keeping it as a pet,’

I sigh again and start looking around for a stick around, and I find one quickly, a meter long stick a few steps away from me, I grab it and turn back to the Slime.

The stick isn’t sharp enough to poke the Slime with, but is thick enough to use as blunt a weapon.

I raise the stick and bring it back down on the Slime, but not too hard, I don’t want to have slime all over me.

The Slime explodes and leaves a puddle of goo in its place, and at the same time, a screen pops up in my vision.

You have slain Slime Lv.3

You have gained 12 EXP

You have reached EXP threshold.

Level UP!

You are now Level 2.

‘Oh, This one gave more EXP, And I even Leveled up!’

“Status Menu”

Status Name: Temothy Age: 19 Race: Forest Elf Level: 2 Attributes STR: 10 VIT: 10 INT: 10 WIS: 10 CONS: 10 AGI: 10 DEX: 10 UAP: 3

‘3 UAPs, huh? What should I put them into? Should I invest in STR for now since I how the other ones affect me, while STR is more straightforward, but how do I do that? Do I just think about it? I will try it.’

‘Uhhh...’

“Aaaah!”

A Jolt pain shot through my body, not as painful as when I woke up the first time, but still painful enough to make me go down on my knees and start panting heavily.

After a few moments, my breath goes back to normal and I try to stand up, but almost trip as I stood up a little too fast.

‘Wow!!... is this the effect of STR? I feel like my body is lighter and like I had just woken up after having the best night of sleep ever,’

I check my Status Menu to find out my STR has changed to 11 and my UAP to 2.

‘So, This was the effect of a single point only, I Wanna test putting the other two points, but is that pain worth it?... Well, I will have to do it eventually, so I will just do it now and get it over with. Ummm...’

“Uhg!”

Another jolt of pain runs through my whole body, but this time I stay still, grunting and feeling out of breath.

After a few moments, my breath steadies and I straighten up, my body feels even better than before, the best I felt my whole life, like I could run for hours without a rest, or punch a tree and break it in half, this is awesome!’

I look at the sky to see that the sun has almost set, and I feel alarmed, this is a different world, that has Elfs (me) and Slimes, and I don’t feel like meeting any other new creatures, especially big ones, with lots of big sharp teeth, scary, bloodshot eyes, hands and feet with long, sharp claws that could probably rip me to shreds, hmm, yep, yep, exactly like the ones in front of me.

...

I look down at the stick in my hand, and back up at the 10 to 15 wolves, slowly coming out of the forest, back down to my stick, and back up to the wolves.

Forest Wolf Lv.4

Forest Wolf Lv.5

Forest Wolf Lv.3

....

Forest Wolf Lv.8

the wolves are about 20 meters away from me, and the one with the highest level is at Lv.8.

I consider my options for a second, 1) Fight. 2) Hide. 3) Run.

The first one is an absolute no no, as for the second, they already saw me, so this only leaves me with one option.

“fuck this” I whisper under my breath.

I drop the stick to the ground, turn around, and start running as fast as possible, but only to meet the ground, face first, a second later.

“OUCCHH!”

It seems like I’m still not used to my new STR; I get up and look back quickly, to see the wolves standing still, a little taken aback, they seem to be stunned by my little display; I blush for a second, but immediately remember that they most likely want to eat me, and they seem to remember that I’m their dinner tonight.

the biggest wolf, which seems to be their leader, start slowly walking toward me, and I could swear that I saw him smirking, but I can’t be sure since I only got a glimpse of him before I was already back on my feet and running, this time a little slower to not trip again.

I jump over the river, and head towered the Dirt road, and I hear the sound of many footsteps behind me, so they are gonna chase me down... ‘FUCK!’

I start picking up speed but making sure not to trip again, and in less than a 5 seconds, I reach the dirt road; I get on the road and start running at full speed, and after what seems to be 30 or 40 seconds, I can hear the sounds of the wolves foot steps getting farther and farther away, but I don’t look back, I just keep on running, and after another 5 minutes, I can bearly hear their footsteps, but I’m already almost at my limit, a minute or two and I’m gonna be finished, but just when I think that, I hear the wolves howl, and look back to see that they stopped, and are going back.

‘Holy moly, that was close, I will just run for a bit more and then stop’

I run for around a minute more and look back, but I can no longer see the wolves.

I slow down, and look back once more, to check on the wolves, and once again I find nothing, ‘good.’

I move to the grass and blob down, laying on the ground and trying to regain my breath.

Two bright moons, one yellow and a smaller white one are hovering in the sky, surrounded by thousand of stars, the scene would have been breath-taking, but I’m already out of breath.

‘This is bad, I was planning on sleeping on top of a tree tonight, but that idea is out of the way, unless I walk back to the forest, find a new area away from the wolves, and make sure the new area has no other creatures there that want to eat make me their midnight snack, which is a ton of work, so that’s a no’

‘My other options would be to either continue walking until I reach a town or a city, which might be pointless and impossible since I don’t know how far the closet settlement is.’

another option would be to see if I can find a nearby tree, one of the few I saw when I was still at the river.’

I get up and look around me. And behind me, about 300 meters away, stood a single tree.

‘Hell yeah!’

I do a small victory pose and immediately head towards my bed tonight.