When Richard finally came to, it was to the feeling of something poking at his head. He opened his dirt encrusted eyes as the poking became seriously annoying and increasingly painful. However, being face down in the ground really didn’t help. Painfully lifting his head a bit, he found himself staring at a furry face and a slightly pink nose. The creature backed away a bit, almost as though it was surprised. It had a cute look to it, reminding Richard of a rabbit except for the twin horns on the sides of its head and the slightly longer limbs. He smiled as the rabbit thing tilted its head in a cute way.

Then, it snarled… widely opening its mouth to display its wicked looking, serrated teeth and lifting its paws to display the talon like claws on them. Richard screeched in an unmanly way and rolled over, barely dodging as the rabbit… no… devil rabbit almost ripped off his face. Adrenaline rushing through him, he propelled himself backwards on his elbows, trying to put as much distance between himself and the little monster.

Of course, the devil rabbit had other ideas, and it followed him, propelling itself forward faster than any rabbit Richard had ever seen. “What the f%#&K are you?” Richard couldn't help but yell as he barely managed to dodge the creature again. Stumbling to his feet, he backed away from the little beast, keeping it clearly in his line of sight. Now that he had a better view of it, he realized how deadly and different the creature looked in comparison to a rabbit. Its longer limbs seemed to be built for quick dashes, and from how quickly it moved, Richard realized he had been lucky to dodge the creature the first time around.

The devil rabbit slowly circled him at a distance, moving more like a cat than a rabbit. Richard swore that he could feel it analyzing him as it observed him. When he took a step backward, it moved closer, and when he moved forward, it backed away. Richard had no clue what to do. It felt like he would be attacked the moment he let his guard down.

He had a bad feeling that killing the damn thing was the only way to get out of this alive. That brought up a whole slew of other problems like how he had barfed the he last time he saw a cat run over by a car. Richard didn’t think he was being queasy, but then again, the average person’s never killed an animal with their own hands either. The other big issue was simpler yet damning: he had no weapon.

Glancing around, all he saw were rocks, rocks, and more rocks. It wasn’t exactly an armory, but he at least had an almost unlimited amount of ammo. Picking up a few of the medium sized rocks, he began throwing them at the rabbit as fast as he could. Unfortunately, the creature dodged them like a pro-dodge ball player and bared its teeth at him. “Yeah, same to you, you little freak!”

Frustration welled up in him until he remembered that business with skills and cores and whatnot. He had completely forgotten about it all, but then again, he hadn’t been in his right state of mind while freaking out about being turned into monster chow earlier. “Umm… what was it again… Display… umm… something about my core coming up… ughhh.”

Suddenly, the transparent, blue tinted screen from earlier popped up in front of him, and he jumped back in surprise.

With the display blocking his line of sight, he couldn’t make out everything clearly on the other side. For a second, he panicked as he imagined the devil rabbit attacking him while he was distracted. “Go away you stupid screen!” Almost immediately, it vanished, leaving him staring at the rabbit, which was still at its normal distance, sitting up on its hind legs with its head tilted sideways in question.

“Umm…” Richard became curious about the screen and how the rabbit hadn’t reacted to it. So, he tried calling it up a few more times, both by using words as well as his thoughts. Still, the rabbit remained at a certain distance, staring at him or circling him, almost like it couldn’t see the screen. Also, with how transparent the screen was, Richard was able to angle his body so he could see the rabbit through the screen at times.

Finally getting down to business, he tapped on the Skills tabs, which opened up a new section. It was pretty much empty except for one skill. “Ummm… Mimic Skill… What the hell?” Tapping on it, opened up another screen over the first one.

Passive Skill: Mimic Skill

Gives the skill user a small chance of successfully copying one skill of a target creature, person, or construct that the user kills and adding it to his repertoire.

Level 1: 5% Chance of Success, Copied Skill has 50% the Effectiveness as the Original Skill

Skill Cool Down Time: 240 seconds

“What the f&%$K?” I have to kill the damn thing for this to even be useful, and a 5% chance of success? Seriously?! That damn office piece of…. Argghhhh!” Richard screamed at the top of his lungs after looking at how useless his skill was going to be.

In front of him, the devil rabbit jumped backwards as it was suddenly scared by this strange creature’s roaring. The devil rabbit could feel the anger emanating from the two legged animal and wondered if hunting such a creature was safe. It had seen other beasts go mad and act in bizarre ways before, and when they had been killed and eaten, the killer had usually ended up going insane as well. The devil rabbit became a bit annoyed that it never had any luck when it came to free food.

Of course, Richard had no clue what the rabbit was thinking or doing. He was lost in his own misery, lamenting his earlier decisions. “Uwwaaahhh…! ‘Elemental Fire’… Sounds so cool… Why did I get sucked into the whole ‘Legendary’ skill shit? Uwaaahhhh!” Saying he felt bamboozled was an understatement, but then again, he wasn’t thinking straight since he had been hunted by everything that moved since arriving on this world.

Eventually, he calmed down and hung his shoulders in misery. Richard realized he couldn’t do anything to change things at this point in time. Sighing, he flipped back to his last hope: the special item he had been given. The Items tab opened up a screen that looked like an inventory list from a game. There were dozens of small boxes, but they were all empty. Only one had something in it, and the icon looked like a star. Richard hesitantly clicked on it, thinking, “Please be something good… please be something good.”

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Sounding like he had just won a carnival prize, a large roulette wheel appeared right in front of him. Richard stepped back in shock, wondering what the hell he was seeing. His item screen was gone and in front of his a small blue panel appeared with a button saying, “Press to spin.”

Richard stared at the roulette wheel, confused and amazed at the same time. He saw a dozen different items including what looked like symbols for a sword, axe, shield, knife, and a wand. His eyes began tearing up in relief, and he pressed the spin button, sending the wheel turning quickly.

Dooh!Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh! Dooh!... Dooh!.... Dooh!..... Dooh!..... Dooh!..... Dooh!..... Dooh!........ Dooh!........ Dooh!........ Dooh!............. Dooh!

The spinning wheel slowed down gradually, and Richard’s eyes followed the little selection arrow with desperate hope. When it finally stopped, he looked up at the selection with his heart beating anxiously. He hoped for a powerful sword like Excalibur or something, so he could teach the stupid rabbit a lesson in manners. Instead… “Huh?.......... What the…? A watch?” Confused, he stared at the roulette wheel like a stupefied zombie.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Suddenly, a message box popped up in front of him.

Congratulations! Your prize has been deposited in your inventory.

The roulette wheel disappeared, and Richard’s item screen popped back up. Once again, there was a single box that was occupied by something… that looked like a wrist watch. His body starting to shake in disbelief, Richard tapped on the icon, choosing to view its description.

Compass of Seeking

Can be used once every 24 hours to seek an object of your desires within a one mile radius.

“Heh heh heh heh hah hah hah aahahahahaHAHAHAHAHHAAHHHAHAHHAHHH!” Richard began laughing hysterically as he held his head and yanked on his hair. The blue screen in front of him vanished, leaving him staring at the monstrous little devil rabbit, which made him even more hysterical. “ARGHGHGHGHHGHHGHGHH!”

The devil rabbit had been patient up to this point. It had been a little surprised when the big round looking thing had appeared out of nowhere and began making a racket. However, having lived in the desert for all its life, the devil rabbit was used to surprises. So, it had watched the round thingy carefully, waiting for an attack that never came. When the round thingy had disappeared, the rabbit was left feeling foolish. It became very annoyed. Then, the two legged creature began making the crazy sounding noises again, and it began getting louder and louder. Finally, the devil rabbit had enough of the whole mess. It snarled, revealing its teeth and got ready to turn the two legged creature into a meal, not caring if it was crazy or not.

As for Richard, he saw stupid rabbit snarling at him…, and he completely lost it! Being killed was one thing. Even being mocked by a gloried office worker was acceptable. But there was no way in hell he was going to let a stupid rabbit make a fool out of him without a fight! Snatching a rock off the ground, he wildly threw it as hard as he could, mostly hoping to distract the damn critter.

Clud!

Richard stared in surprise at the rabbit fell over after being hit on the head with the rock. For a second, he remained frozen where he was, shocked at the scene, but his brain finally woke up. Running with a lurch, he made it to the beast just as it began twitching awake. Without pausing, he stomped his right foot down as hard as he could on the disoriented rabbit’s neck.

SUEEERRRRKKK! SUERRKKK! SUERKK!

The devil rabbit’s painful squeal petered off as Richard stomped on it a couple more times, breaking the creature’s spine and almost crushing part of its skull. It twitched a bit before going still. Richard looked at its dead body…. and then stomped on it a few more times just to vent. “Stupid… little… piece… of… shit!”

Eventually, he got tired of pulping the dead creature and collapsed on the ground, exhausted. “Ughhhh…” As tired as he was, he had a smile on his face as he realized he had finally killed a monster. That was until he remembered it was a rabbit… well, a devil rabbit. Still, it seemed pretty pathetic. Face-palming himself, he whispered, “A frickin rabbit… gahhh.”

When he finally looked up to see if there was anything else to worry about, he saw something out of the corner of his vision. Turning, he tried to make look directly at it, but it remained where it was… in the corner of his vision. Focusing on it, he realized it looked like a small circle that was half colored in. When Richard wished he could see it better, it enlarged and centered itself in his line of sight.

He realized it was part of the skill and core system and was a clock of some kind. Under the half filled circle, there was a timer that said, “120 seconds.” A second later, it dropped to “119 seconds.” Richard realized this was some kind of countdown timer and looking at the label above it, he realized it was for his skill, ‘Mimic Skill.’

It took him some time to understand, but he realized his skill had activated as soon as he had killed the devil rabbit, hence the countdown timer being used. He quickly called up his skills menu, hoping to have gained something. However, all he saw was his skill, ‘Mimic Skill.’

“Oh come on! After all that, and I don’t get a skill?” Frustrated, he kicked at the dead rabbit’s corpse. It seemed like his skill had failed miserably. “Damn it!” Of course, on top of all that, his special item turned out to be a stupid compass of some kind.

Pulling up his inventory, he clicked on the watch like compass. A couple options popped up including an option to equip it on his left wrist. When he picked that option, he felt a slightly cold sensation on his wrist as something began to appear there. It looked like it was forming out of some kind of mist, but it quickly solidified into an archaic looking watch, with leather straps and a circular, meal display. However, instead of markings for time, the display had a star shape engraved on it. Curiosity getting the better of him, Richard touched the star.

Ding! A message box popped up right in front of him.

What do you seek?

As tired as he was, he wasn’t thinking straight. He didn’t even remember the limitations for the compass. However, thankfully, the first thought that came to his mind was “water.”

Ding!

The message box vanished, and a blue, misty line appeared before him, extending about a few feet and pointing towards the large rock formation ahead. He stared at the mist like trail, the large rock formation, and the dead rabbit in that order. “Fun times...”