The agonizing scream was short live. Al covered his mouth, muffling his own scream as the repercussion of such action in this silent dangerous night would be inviting a catastrophe. He braced for himself, enduring the pain. It was like a thousand needles prickling through his skin, slowly getting through, reaching the weak flesh inside.

Tears trickled down on his cheeks. The pain was unlike he had ever felt before. His reddish eyes stared at the slime that was slowly creeping up on his right arm, trailblazing a path of corrosive pain. The dim moonlight from above graced Al’s sight and he saw it. The thing moving within the fluid body of the slime, a spherical core the key essence of the slime’s existence. Al found his escape from pain, and he grabbed it by the hand. The core was literally in his grasp, and he squeezed it. Tensing those flimsy forearm of his and then, it cracked.

The slime disintegrated. Turning into a harmless puddle on the ground.

Al found his relief, but he hissed in pain. The nasty wounds on his forearm still stung and to make things worse, blood seeped out, trickling through blotchy flesh wounds. “Fuck,” he said, glaring at his shaking hand. Yet his vision was obstructed by a bombardment of notification windows.

[Congratulation! You have reached level 2]

[Congratulation! You have reached level 3]

[Congratulation! You have reached level 4]

[Congratulation! You have reached level 5]

His curse finally showed its brilliant effect. But the stinging pain blocked him from having a smile. He took off his shirt, the only thing that protected him from the chilly wind, and wrapped it around his wounded arm.

While tying a knot on his arm, something sparkling caught his attention. “Hmm?” he looked at the floating thing on top of the puddle of the dead slime, and realized what it was. “Loot?”

Identify confirmed what it was.

[Red Potion. The lesser potent healing potion. But enough to treat external wounds. Warning, do not ingest. Only suitable for topical purposes.]

The annoyance was real. He should have notice the potion first before tying his shirt on the bloody wound. Clicking his tongue, Al removed the shirt and uncorked the damn red potion. He poured it on his wounds as the slight sting upon contact vanished after a few seconds. And right in front of his eyes, he saw for himself the miracle of this red potion. Wounds mend together with new skin proliferating on the surface until his whole arm was good as new.

“It work,” Al said. Turning his forearm left and right. Amazement was one of the words that was stuck in his mind right now, opening his eyes for real to the new reality that he was living in.

A shimmer drew his glance. There was another loot besides the red potion that just saved him from the unending torturous pain.

[Transparent Slime Boots. A see through boots made out of the mucus membrane of a slime. Always maintain a hygienic state for both the user’s feet, preventing the occurrence of smelly feet. Another additional effect is the passive skill, Silent Step. Removing any sort of noises when stepping down even after breaking a twig.]

“Okay,” Al said. “It’s not actually useful for combat, but I guess the Silent Step does seems useful.”

He took off his shoes and changed it with the Transparent Slime Boots. To his surprise, it was quite comfortable, and didn’t feel like he was wearing. His toes wiggled and he could see it clearly. He tried touching his toes, and felt a thin layer barely felt in his fingers. Al didn’t know how to exactly describe it as the most similar thing he could compare to was plastic but not exactly plastic. It sounded weird, but it was what it was.

At the same time he also tried accessing the dimensional storage. In front of his very eyes, ten slots empty slots emerged in front of him like those slots you could see in mmorpg games. He placed his shoes in one of them and voila, his New Balance changed into a 2-D image with the number one at the right bottom corner. “Exactly like a game,” he said with the smile returning back on his face.

Al wore back his t-shirt, which was now bloody as hell. He didn’t like it, but he couldn’t really complain. The night breeze was not really friendly to him, and to make it worse the wind was getting stronger.

Al nestled in between the tall grasses, peeking at his new status window.

Name: Alduin Lightfoot

Level: 5

Class: -Please choose your class-

Strength: 5

Stamina: 5

Regeneration: 6

Dexterity: 5

Agility: 5

Perception: 7

Intelligence: 7

Wisdom: 6

Charisma: 4

Stat Points: 10

Unique Ability: Curse of Solo

Skills: Identify(Lv.1)

Ten free points for him to use, courtesy of the curse that plagued him. Right now was a moment he really appreciate having the curse. Getting to level five in a single swoop along with double the status points really put a smile on his face as if all those stress he felt when being unable to level up was washed away like it had never existed.

Hugging himself with the leaves, Al pondered on what stats should he focus on. Truthfully, this system has way too many attributes as some of them could have combine together as one. He had his own opinions on the system, but opinion was just an opinion. For now, he focused on three stats as the primary. Strength, stamina and agility. Allocating three points each and the last one to perception just for the sake of experimenting. He knew what perception was but he had to try to sense the change when upping it.

I don’t feel any different though, Al thought. Thinking that perhaps one point wasn’t enough to show a difference in the change of perception.

“Hmm?” unknown to him, the one point increase in perception made him notice the subtle shadow that flew above him. His head craned up, staring at the blackish mass flying in the air. “What the…” he was left speechless, and Identify showed who it was.

It’s him, Al thought. The blackish flying mass was a familiar face that he wasn’t please to see. The One-Eye Nightraven flapped its wide wings, circling the airspace above the plains as if searching for something.

Shit, it’s looking for me, Al thought. That loud and short scream he let out a few minutes ago drew unwanted attention. Al laid close to the ground, hoping for the best that the swaying grasses were enough to shield his body temperature from being seen from above. The identify reminded him again that the killer bird had thermal vision, a factor that was scaring him to shitting himself right now.

Deep down, Al kept on cursing like mad over this situation right now. It was one after the other, and Al couldn’t seemed to catch a break. Rather than staying still, and waiting for the bird to go away, Al crawled on the ground, heading towards the closest tree line. His best bet right now was to hide under the thick canopy of the woods.

The crawling journey was rather smooth for someone who wasn’t accustomed in doing it. Those points in his physical attributes really did wondrous in enhancing his physical capabilities, enough not to make him panting for his breath.

In time, the shade of the woods grew closer. By the time he reached the end of the plain, the One-Eye Nightraven was far behind him, circling at the same spot, searching with its one eye. Al remained wary, and still kept on crawling close to the ground until he finally out from the plains and in to the woods.

Al hid behind a tree trunk, leaning on it. Taking cover from any line of sight from the plains. He calmed himself down, letting his heart rate steadied at a lower pace. Al might escaped the sight of the One-Eye Nightraven, but another enemy loomed near, an unseen threat. An enemy called survival.

Al was an indoor type of person, so camping or bush-craft was something far from the likes of his repertoire. I can put aside shelter for now, but how the hell am I going to get a good source of food and clean water? Eating the monsters are the obvious answer, but can I really? What if they’re poisonous or something?

He worried. Al was a picky eater, and with beast meat had a chance of being poisonous, his pickiness just got a lot worse. It seemed for the first few days, he might have to starve himself for a while.

Al found a nice looking shrub, and once again, he hid himself underneath like a scared hare, running from a wolf. He cared less of how he looked like as no matter what it was, safety took priority. But as he took shelter underneath the foliage, he surprisingly found something unexpected.

A treasure chest? Al thought. It was a spitting image of what he saw in the Pirate of the Caribbean, albeit it was a much smaller size.

Al gulped a mouthful. Wary of the ornate chest as he feared another kind of monster that resembled a treasure chest. Another kind of mimic.

Some might say he was being paranoid. But knowing such thing, and being in a world that made such thing possible, he was well within reasons to be more cautious.

Al snapped a branch, and with something not his fingers, he tried opening the treasure chest. It took him a few tries since unlatching with a tree branch was rather unorthodox. Then it opened.

He peered inside, and his eyes went wide.

“Oh my God.”