It's a… wolf. There it was a large grey and black wolf foaming at the mouth staring right at me. It was an immediate fight or flight response, and I chose flight. No way in hell I could win a fight against a wolf, are you kidding me!

I turned in the opposite direction and started running. I ran as fast as I could but it was no use, the wolf was too fast. it ran beside me as I continued to run as fast as I could, almost as if it was trying to taunt me. “You know what! Ima kick your ass wolf!” I shouted as I came to a stop. I pointed towards the wolf and yelled “Inspect!” and it’s menu popped up in front of me.

[Menu]

[Name: N/A] [Gender: Male] [Species: Preshop Wolf] [Level: 13] [Age: 7] [Job: Hunter] [Class: none]

Stats: Strength: 24 Speed: 36 HP: 53 MP: 0 Intelligence: 16 Luck: 10

Skills: [Sharp Fang Lv.4](species) [Sharp claws Lv. 6](species) [intimidate Lv.7](rare)

Traits: Prideful, Strong

Equipment: N/A

Ah shit… this thing is a lot stronger than me. I almost pissed myself as the wolf started to circle me, inching closer and closer with each step. The only way I'd have a chance in a fight like this is if I had a weapon but there wasn’t anything but sticks around here.

I looked around for a long stick that I could use to fight against it but I had no luck. “C'mon man, there's gotta be somethin around here” I mumbled under my breath, and that's when I saw it, the perfect sized stick.

It was long but even and it looked pretty sturdy too, but… it was behind the wolf. Not only was I not even sure if the plan was gonna work but I'd have to go against the wolf just to put the plan in motion. This is way more than I bargained for.

Without giving it a second thought I leapt towards the wolf hoping to jump over him onto the stick but no… I landed right at his feet. I must’ve misjudged the distance between me and the stick or… I misjudged how good I was at jumping. I snapped back into focus, there was no time to have an existential crisis about my jumping ability; I was about to be eaten alive by a wolf.

The wolf shot towards my neck, mouth agape. My physical abilities were nothing to be proud of but I definitely was fast on my feet. I swung my fist towards the wolf, hitting it straight in the jaw and knocking it back a couple feet. I took a handful of dirt from the ground and threw it in the wolf’s eyes, hoping to mess up its vision for a little bit.

I stood up as quickly as I could and grabbed the stick off the ground. I didn’t have much time to get adjusted to the new weapon because as soon as I picked it up the wolf leapt towards me. Purely off instinct and adrenaline I swung the stick as hard as I could onto the wolf's head. It let out a loud yelp and tumbled onto the ground.

It wasn’t down for long though, only a split second later the wolf had snapped its jaw onto my leg. The pain was excruciating, it felt like multiple tiny daggers piercing through my leg slowly inching closer and closer to the bone. The pain was too much to bear, I let out a scream at the top of my lungs “AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”.

My eyes started to blur as I hit the wolf over and over again, blood spraying everywhere. It was akin to a horror movie.

The next thing I knew it was morning and I was laying on the ground covered in blood with the wolf’s corpse only a few feet away from me. I tried to stand but jolts of pain shot through my leg as I did. “Ah shit… I forgot about that” I grunted. I may not have been a doctor but I knew what to do in a situation like this.

I took off my shirt and tightly wrapped it around my leg. I used the stick from before as a makeshift crutch. I hadn’t noticed this before but I could hear the sound of water coming from somewhere around me, so I hopped my way towards it. It would only take a minute to get there normally but with my leg how it was it took around ten.

Though it was hard to walk like this I was actually pretty used to it. In grade 6 I broke my leg falling off a trampoline, I had to use crutches for 2 months, it was probably one of the worst times in my life. This definitely brought back bad memories. When I finally reached the sound of the water my jaw dropped. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. It was a small pond with a waterfall coming down from a rock cliff and There were small purple flowers growing between the cracks in the rocks.

The only thing I could think was woah…. I didn’t hesitate to rip all my clothes off and hop in. It was honestly pretty carless to jump into potentially dangerous water with an open wound but I didn’t really care. My cut stung for a moment as I got in but after a while it faded.

By the time I got out of the pond my wound had stopped bleeding but it still hurt like hell. I washed the blood and sweat out from my clothes and laid them flat on some rocks to dry. My underwear and shoes seemed fine so I didn’t bother washing them(I also didn’t want to be naked or cut my feet).

After a while of waiting for my clothes to dry I got bored and decided to head back to where I fought the wolf. When I laid eyes on the battlefield I almost threw up. It was disgusting, the trees and ground were painted red and the mangled wolf corpse was soaking in a pool of its own blood. I fell to my knees and started to pray. I wasn’t really a man of religion but it was the only thing I could think to do.

Sure, I wasn’t a great guy but I'm not a demon. I had taken a life, all I could do was repent. I understood that this is the way the world works but that doesn’t make it any less gruesome. After saying my prayers I made my way back towards the waterfall. I didn’t touch the wolf’s body at all, I wanted to give him a proper burial but with the condition of my body it wouldn’t happen anytime soon.

When I reached the pond I sat down on a nearby rock and checked my menu.

[Menu]

[Name: Gillian Marx Andrews] [Nickname: Gill] [Gender: Male] [Species: human] [Level: 4] [Age: 17] [Job: None] [Class: none] [Current Title: Wolf Killer]

Stats: Strength: 26 Speed: 13 HP: 51 MP: 18 Intelligence: 93 Luck: -1

Skills: [Inspection Lv. Max](legendary) [Staff Martial Arts Lv.2](rare) [Steal Lv.2](Ultra Rare) [Pain Endurance Lv.3](common) [Intimidate Lv.1](rare)

Titles: [Wolf Killer] [Abandoned Hero] [Hero] [Loser] [otherworldly coward]

Traits: overweight, tall, brown hair, short hair, greedy, stubborn, decisive, rude

Equipment: grey hoodie, white T-shirt, black jogging pants, Bordan 1’s, heart pattern undergarment, beaten up preshop wood stick

Well, at least something good came out of this; I leveled up four times and got a new skill. “‘Intimidate’ huh… wasn’t that one of the skills the wolf had?” when I said that the menu popped up again, except for this time it was showing something a bit different.

[Menu]

[Steal Lv.2](Ultra rare)

About: [Steal] randomly picks one of your opponents skills and takes them for yourself. The higher the level of [Steal] the more control you have over which of your opponents skills you take. You cannot take more than one skill from any entity.

Oh… well that explains it I thought. The sun was starting to go down and I didn’t want a repeat of the night before so I grabbed some twigs and dead leaves from the area around the pond. I also grabbed some flint and a rock I found on the edge of the pond. I was only able to recognise it was flint because I had watched a documentary about rocks while me and my friends got high.

I piled up the leaves and sticks and started to hit the rock on the flint. It took a while but eventually a fire started. I sat by the fire in my underwear thinking over the events that transpired the night before. It was my first time seeing a wolf let alone killing one. The only reason I was even able to get out of that is because of adrenaline. What if it was with its pack or even just one other wolf, I wouldn't have stood a chance. It didn’t really matter though, it was already done. I still needed somewhere to sleep and I also haven't eaten or drinken anything since the entrance of the forest a day and a half ago. I had seen a few berry bushes since I had come into the forest but I didn’t really feel like eating at the time.

“Yaaawwwwnnn… well whatever I can figure that stuff out tomorrow. For now I'll just sleep on the sand here” I said. Before I layed down I grabbed my now dry shirt and wrapped it around my leg, just so it wouldn’t get sand or anything else in it.

I laid my hoodie on the ground as a pillow to rest my head on and before I knew it I had fallen asleep. When I was asleep I had a dream about the wolf. It reassured me that his death was just and that I was just defending myself. He told me about his pack and the fun times they had. I know it was probably just my imagination trying to help me get over it but it really felt real.

I awoke to the sound of my stomach grumbling. I pushed myself up onto a rock and brushed all the sand off of my body. Thankfully no sand reached my wound. It was slowly starting to scab over but I didn’t want it to get an infection. My number one priority was clean water but first I needed food otherwise I wouldn’t be able to do anything.

I made my way over to one of the bushes of Preshop berries I passed by earlier and started eating, after I had my fill both my hunger and thirst had faded away. The juices inside the berries were mostly water so it was a very desirable food for anyone who lives in a forest and doesn’t know how to hunt. Though it was a very good food, I would surely get tired of them sooner or later and even though they have water in them it's probably not the best way to get it.

At this point the pain in my leg wasn’t excruciating so I didn’t need a crutch to walk but I did have to limp. On my way back I grabbed as many leaves that I could carry to use as a slightly more comfortable bed. When I got back I laid the leaves near where I slept the night before. It wasn't enough for me to stretch my whole body across so I went to the surrounding trees and picked some more.

I was around 6’4 so even in my old world I was too big for a lot of beds. While I was gathering the leaves I also picked up a bunch of small sticks off the ground so I could make a fire. When I had finally finished setting up my bed it was still light out so I decided to explore a little.

I didn’t go very far just in case I couldn’t make it back fast enough. There wasn’t really anything but trees and rocks around so it wasn’t really that fruitful. That was until I started walking back to the pond.

The angle I came back from was beside on the right side of the waterfall and from where I was standing you could see the rocks behind it, but what I could see wasn’t rocks. It was a cave. “Woah! I've always wanted to go in one of these” I shouted in excitement. I stripped down and swam to the waterfall. The water pressure wasn’t too hard but it was still kinda hard with my leg messed up.

The cave was level with the water but it had a bit of a slope going downwards so it wasn’t filled with water. As I made my way further into the cave it all began to reveal itself…