CHAPTER 1: IN A CERTAIN FOREST

In a certain forest, two figures were could be seen hiding behind a few large bushes. It was two young men wearing strange clothes. Well, strange according to the modern world we live in that is.

“Hey Yimso, are you sure this will work?” The shorter one, with wavy brown hair wearing a robe with a hood whispered to the person besides him.

“Huh? Oh, yeah I’m sure it will work out.” Yimso whispered back and gave a wide grin.

The person was tall, muscular and had medium length, jet black hair. He was wearing chainmail, had a sword strapped to his back and a shield in his left arm.

He slowly drew out his sword and continued.

“We just need to wait patiently.”

“Alright then…” The robed young man sighed and turned his gaze away while still feeling nervous.

He was a mage, a class that was extremely vulnerable in most combat. They could deal heavy damage while behind cover, but they themselves had fragile bodies and could easily be taken out is caught by surprise so his nervousness was justified.

“….”

After comforting the mage, Yimso turned his gaze away as well, looking over the bush where around over a dozen meters away from them in a clearing, a gigantic(Compared to earth standards) black wolf was currently feeding on a rabbit.

The rabbit was not much different from the ones normally seen on earth, other than it being 3 feet long and having a 1 feet long spiral horn on its head. The rabbit must have put up quite a fight as well before going down, seeing that the wolf had several large and small wounds on its body from which blood was slowly trickling down.

There were a few smaller rabbit carcasses besides the wolf as well. They were probably hunted by the wolf as well.

****

A while later, the wolf seemed to have had its fill and fallen asleep.

Whoosh

Right then, an arrow flew out from the top of a tree and hit the wolf’s face, but the arrow couldn’t penetrate the wolf’s skin.

Unfortunately for the wolf, the arrow was never supposed to cause it any damage in itself; only carry a vial which broke after hitting the wolf.

After the vial broke, a dark, viscous and foul smelling liquid splashed the left side of the wolf’s face which instantly startled it awake.

“Titus, Now!” Yimso roared and rushed out of the bushes and straight towards the wolf with a shield and sword in each hand.

Just as he rushed out of the bushes, the mage pushed his hand forward and a ball of fire the size of a head shot towards the wolf.

“ROAR”

The wolf looked towards the direction of the sound and roared out. Unfortunately for the wolf, the ball of fire had shot straight into its open maws and it set a part of the beast’s head on fire after exploding.

Moreover, upon coming in contact with the foul smelling liquid too had actually caught fire, causing the flames to burn even more brilliantly.

“ROAR”

The wolf bellowed in pain and anger.

Just then, Yimso, who had reached the wolf narrowly dodged a blind claw strike from it and bashed it on the head with his shield quickly moved back after giving it a kick in the face.

Slash

Right after, a lean man wearing light armour and wielding two short swords rushed out from behind Yimso and towards the wolf. He made his way towards the wolf and slashed it with his swords, leaving 2 long gashes on the side of the wolf and then quickly jumped into the bushes.

The wolf cried out in anger and turned to look for the creature that had wounded it. But taking advantage of the moment the wolf looked away, Yimso brought down his sword on the wolf’s neck. The sword hit the wolf and made it stagger, tearing its skin, but failed to cut through its firm neck muscles.

The wolf quickly recovered and sent a paw strike towards Yimso.

He hurriedly lifted his shield to block. The attack hit the shield, making his arms go numb and pushing him back by 3 meters before he could get back his footing.

Suddenly, his body was washed over by a wave of green light and the wolf’s body was washed over by a grey one, greatly relieving the numbness in his arms while the wolf felt its body grow heavier in an instant.

These were the spells [Heal] and [Slow] casted by the mage Titus just now. He was hiding behind a bush with the lean looking guy who was preparing to shoot an arrow. He was also the one that shot the arrow at the start of the fight.

Yimso, sheeting his sword, held the shield with both hands and charged straight at the wolf. The wolf who had its left eye blinded by the fire glared at him while squinting its remaining eye and pounced forward with its maw filled with knife like teeth wide open.

Yimso put the shield over his head and dived towards the right, right before colliding with the wolf. Just as he dodged, a ball of fire and an arrow with a vial, the same as before, entered the maws of the wolf, causing a loud explosion to occur.

*Boom*

The wolf collapsed on the ground, twitching and continuously puking out black coloured blood. The blood flowing from the wounds made by the lean man’s swords on its side had also turned from red to black. Clearly, it had been poisoned and was quickly nearing its end.

“Whew” Breathing out a sigh of relief, Yimso dropped his shield and collapsed on the forest floor and voiced out “Hey, Titus, Puvi! How long are you going to be watching from over there, come over and let’s finish up here!” He then turned to look in the wolf’s direction and a floating blue box appeared in front of him.

BLACK WOLF

TIER 1 MONSTER

TYPE: BEAST, WOLF

RANK: ELITE

HP: 100/2550

MP: 100/100

STATUS: POISONED, FATIGUED, HEAVILY WOUNDED

*Rustle, rustle*

After the rustle of leaves, the mage, Titus and the lean man, or Puvi walked out. “Hey~, how is it going for you down there?” ‘Puvi’ joked. “You aren’t going to die now are you? Hahaha!”

Puvi was 185 cm tall, with slightly messy looking hair reaching his eyes, both black in colour and was carrying a sword each on both sides of his hips.

“As if i could die sooner than you do.”

Yimso joked too as he was pulled up by Puvi. “Now let’s hurry before more monsters appear.”

Although they had not gone too far in, this was still the jungle, and there were predators that could catch the whiff of blood from miles away. So they had to either wipe out the scent of blood or leave the scene after they are done. They had already learned their lesson before when they had camped out in the forest and had slaughtered a deer next to the camp without burying the entrails, leaving it in the open which caused the camp to be surrounded by wild animals pretty quickly.

Luckily, they hadn’t attracted a big animal and only smaller ones had appeared. They had quickly packed up and escaped before the bigger predators had appeared; like this wolf that they just killed.

“Here you go.”

Titus handed Yimso a vial made of transparent glass bottle containing light green liquid and drank one himself as well. The only difference was that his was blue in colour. “And I told you not to call me that. Call me Titus, I said” He spat.

“Thanks, ‘Tito’.”

He looked at him with smiling eyes at him as he took the vial. Of course, Yimso wouldn’t reject the vial that was being given to him. He knew that it was an item, a [Health Potion] to be exact, that they had found was obtainable in this strange world they had found themselves in one day.

The inhabitants of this world seems to have been born with a game-like floating system interface that they could use to check out their ‘status’ or sometimes others’ too. And the three of them had discovered that they had it too. Yes, similar to the ‘system’ described in novels back on earth.

The ‘system’ had appraised the items as below.

[Lowest grade Health Potion]

Category: Consumable

-Heals most light wounds and restores 300 Hp instantly.

-Usage: You drink it. What did you expect?

[Lowest grade Mana Potion](Consumable)

-Restores 200 mana upon use.

-Usage: You drink it. 😊

“Yuck! I really wonder what in the world do they put in these things? They taste disgusting.”

Yimso thought out loud while making an exaggerated ‘disgusted’ expression to which Titus just answered with a shrug.

“System, show me my status.”

Instantly upon saying those words, a blue box with numerous texts appeared in front of him.

NAME: YIMSO

HP: 620 /700

MP: 110/250

#Note: Recovery rate increases when not in battle

RACE: HUMAN

BLOODLINES: [NONE]

MAIN CLASS: [WARRIOR]

SUB-CLASS: [NONE]

TITLES:

[BEGINNER TANK]

Effects:

HP= (V)*100

MP= (I)*50

[STATS]

STRENGHT: 9

AGILITY: 5

DEXTERITY: 5

VITALITY: 7

MAGIC: 5

TRAITS:

Otherworlder

[SKILLS]

PASSIVE: NONE

ACTIVE:

-1.BATTLE CRY:

+20% STRENGTH

+10% AGILITY

+20% DAMAGE REDUCTION

DURATION: 60 SECONDS

MP COST: 100

-2. TAUNT:

ATTRACTS NEARBY MONSTERS’ ATTENTION TO YOU.

+10% DAMAGE REDUCTION

MP COST: 50

Over to the wolf’s side, Puvi had stabbed his sword into the wolf’s chest, ending its life.

He then collected its knife-like teeth and claws and dug out a crystal orb the size of a fist from its chest, then put them all in a pouch. “Hey Tits, catch!” He yelled as he threw the bag at Titus.

“Sigh, I feel like I’m being bullied.”

Catching the orb and putting it into a backpack, Titus couldn’t help but sigh and grumble as he thought about how his friends keep giving him nicknames.

After resting for a few minutes, they discussed for a while before deciding to take back the entire wolf carcass back. And so, they departed, with Titus carrying a backpack half his own size and Yimso carrying an almost 3 meter long wolf carcass on his back.

“I’ll scout ahead!” With that, Puvi dashed ahead and started jumping from one tree to tree, soon disappearing.

“Huaah~, thank goodness we are finally out of that damned forest” Yimso sighed as he could finally see their destination; a village surrounded by 5 meter high walls made of wood.

“Gasp, pant” “Finally. W-we are finally…. o-out of… that forest.” Turning around, Yimso was greeted by the sight of Titus gasping for breath while carrying a backpack that had become almost as big as himself by now after collecting items from beasts they encountered on the way and several plants and herbs in the forest. As for Puvi, he was carrying a small boar he had caught on the way under his arm; this was going to be their meal for tonight.

Puvi looked towards the town surrounded by walls and said. “Come on guys we’re almost there.” After stopping for a moment to catch their breath, they started moving again.

End of chapter 1: In a certain forest