I woke up the next morning after a night of restless sleep.

  “Today I choose violence. Anyone or thing that attacks me will be met with overwhelming violence” I say with an exhale.

  That isn’t who I would normally be I tended to be, a go-along to get along type. I am not even the murder hobo type in my gaming group. I tend to be the guy who wants to let enemies run in my games. The others would always tell me stories of enemies who were allowed to escape coming back stronger at inopportune times. They were always the ones killing everything that they could. Well now I was going to be that guy, if you come at me with force, I will meet it with more of the same. Before I leave, I need to know what I am working with in full. I go back of my equipment in full with both detect magic and identify active. What I see shocks me, and that’s saying something considering my current situation.

  I am surprised at the level of my gear all of a sudden. The runes I have carved into each of the items are glowing with power. With this and my first encounter outside the cave. I know I must have been dropped far outside of a safe zone. I get the feeling I am in the most dangerous place possible. I also know that without this gear my likelihood of survival would be zero. Whatever wanted me here wants me to survive at least.

  My bow now looked like something from a video game. It was black and sleek and looked like one fused piece even though I had just put it together. It had been made of wood, metal, and fiberglass before. But now it all looked like the same material and one solid piece. The sight that had been on the bow previously also had folded into the bow. I don’t know what to make of that, but I will find out later. The bow and the arrows seem to absorb the surrounding light. The bow seems to have a slight air of hunger, and danger about it. I practice taking it in and out of the armory. I find that it takes a little concentration but I can summon it and put it away in a matter of seconds. When the bow is in my hands the quiver automatically fills with arrows.

  If my bow was dangerous my sword was death incarnate. When I drew the blade this time the air inside the cave changed. It got colder and darker like a permanent shadow has been cast across the door. There was a black miasma chasing up and down the blade like a snake. The blade felt hungry, I could tell it wanted blood. The blade existed to draw blood and to take life. I had a feeling like this was going to happen if I was going to survive.

  The last thing I did was take stock of my wands.

  I was glad I had gone through the trouble to make these. I had hand carved each wand just like most of what I had left. I had used resin epoxy that I had colored to match what I thought each wand should look like. The Lighting bolt wand had a blue stone with yellow streaks. The stone looked like crystal now and the yellow streaks looked like crackling lightning now. The Magic Missile wand was just a clear stone before now it was flecked with spots of absolute black. The two healing wands were green, one a light green the other much darker. The fireball wand was red on a gradient being the darkest in the center. The last wand was a deep blue. All of the wands glowed with an inner light. The Magic missile wand doing void damage also explained the extreme damage done.

  I take a look at my status just to see what it looks like now.

  Now that I had all of my gear sorted it was time to stop dawdling. I had put off leaving the cave long enough. I climbed out of the entrance hole and started back in the direction I had gone yesterday. I could see the red dots on my map there was a number milling around the edges of the area. I could not tell if they were waiting for me or if they just hunted this area. I got my answer when I crossed over the invisible threshold and some of the dots headed in my direction immediately. They were hunting me, waiting for me to emerge again so they could try to kill me. Too bad for them I chose violence this morning today I would not run or hide, they would die by my hand.

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  Before I knew it my bow was in my hand with an arrow nocked when the first of the beasts came into sight I drew the arrow.

  Dire Squirrel lvl 17.

  I had wondered about the sight when I first saw it when I was going over the bow. When I drew the sight became a holographic sight, and started what I could only refer to as a quick time event. It felt like something out of a fallout game, parts of the beast became highlighted. I fell back on my old habits once the head was highlighted, and I released the arrow. The whole world returned to normal time as I watched the arrow streak towards the beast with a crack. I knew that I had made a mistake by falling back into old habits. This was not a video game and this was not a gun. Shooting headshots with a gun made sense because of the velocity of the bullet. Shooting an arrow at something's head made no sense because I had no idea if the bow had the penetration power to punch through the skull. I hastily knocked another arrow and got ready to take another shot. It was not needed as I watch the arrow hit and blasts through the beast’s skull. The beast dropped like I had unplugged it. I turned and sighted in on the second beast.

  Lesser Dire Squirrel lvl 26.

  The same quick-time event triggers and I sight in on the skull again, and fire. This time the shot hits the side of the skull and blasts out the side, visibly taking a chunk of the skull with it. The beast twitches and falls to its side. I had made an error I did not realize until the last minute as I am hit from the other side.

  Lesser Dire Squirrel lvl 28.

  The last squirrel hit me hard knocking me to the ground, and latching onto my bow arm. I released my bow and it disappears, the dire squirrel had my arm pinned to my side. I could feel where the beast had latched onto me. I felt the pressure but no pain as the beast had failed to puncture my armor. Surprisingly for its size, the dire squirrel was not as strong as I had thought it might be. It did have just enough leverage to keep my arm pinned to my side, keeping me from drawing my sword. I danced with the beast for a few seconds before I became frustrated and cocked back my arm and punched the fucker dead in its jaw. The punch impacted the beast just behind its jaw, and I hear a sickening *crack*. The beast's jaw dislocates from the force of the blow. I turn and the beast is writhing on the ground. I immediately stomp on the back of its neck ending its struggle with another *crack*.

  I jump up and then get into a crouch, looking around for more enemies. There are none close on the map, so I check myself for injuries. I got lucky, the squirrel that latched onto me was unable to pierce my armor. I decided to check my log quickly to see what happened.

  You have learned the skill Bows lvl 0 < lvl 4.

  Bow shot does 440 STR damage plus 110 Void damage plus 137 void damage (arrow) critical hit x damage. Total damage 1375 critical (piercing).

  You have defeated dire squirrel.

  Bow shot does 440 STR damage plus 110 Void damage plus 137 void damage (arrow) critical hit x damage. Total damage 980 critical (piercing).

  You have defeated lesser dire squirrel.

  Lesser dire squirrel bites you for 128 damage. Your AC of 3200 mitigates all damage. You take zero damage; your armor takes zero damage.

  Lesser dire squirrel latches on continuing its bite for 256 damage (crushing) and pinning your arm. You take zero damage; your armor takes zero damage.

  Lesser dire squirrel latches on continuing its bite for 256 damage (crushing) and pinning your arm. You take zero damage; your armor takes 2 damage.

  You have learned the skill unarmed combat lvl 0 < lvl 7.

  Punch does 440 STR damage.

  Stomp does 440 STR damage critical hit x damage. Total damage 580 critical (impact).

  You have defeated lesser dire squirrel.

  From what I can tell critical hits are a thing and depending on where you hit it can be an instant kill. I will have to test to see what happens if a critical is not a headshot. I also find out that unarmed combat is a separate skill. It’s not as if I was a fighter back home. I had taken some classes here and there. Hell, I had even gotten into a fight or two, hence the classes. It was nice to know that I had a fallback even when I had been disarmed. I also learned how my armor worked something had to hit me higher than my ac for me to take any damage. That effectively at least doubled my hp or more it meant that, if necessary, I could take a hit of 3200 hp and not be injured. I moved over to the dead beasts I touched the largest one and said “loot”. I tried different things but nothing happened.

  “So, no loot function,” I say with a sad sigh.

  This world has game-like functions but some things still required skills I did not possess. I did the only thing I could think of and put the carcasses in my storage until later. All three bodies went in easy enough, just a quick touch and poof. At least there was that once I got somewhere, I could have them processed.

  That done I moved on, I could see more dots on my map. They were not drawn by the combat it seemed like the individual groups each had their territories. I would find out soon as I started getting close to another group. As soon as I crossed some imaginary boundary all of the dots turned and started my way. This time there were four of them they split into two groups of two this time. I moved and put some trees between myself and the groups this time.

  Lesser Dire Squirrel lvl 22.

  Lesser Dire Squirrel lvl 26.

  This time when the first group came into sight, I was ready for it. The quick-time event triggered both beasts in my sights. I could choose either one but I somehow knew that if I targeted the first one, I would hit the second one as well. I loosed the arrow and watched as it blasted through the first squirrel and into the second. The first one dropped immediately the second took a few extra steps before falling over. I could tell that even though it was not dead I had hit something vital. I turn and look for the second group, they were rounding a tree to the opposite side. This time I did not get lucky with another perfectly lined up shot, as coming around the tree had separated them some.

  Lesser Dire Squirrel lvl 20.

  Lesser Dire Squirrel lvl 25.

  I targeted the one in front and fired. The arrow blasted through it and clipped the one behind it slightly in its shoulder. Injured the second one kept coming at me while the first one dropped dead. The second one had been slowed a bit by the injury but not enough that I could get another shot off. Not willing to be caught again I dropped the bow and watched it disappear as I drew my sword. I could feel displeasure from my blade. It was angry that I had drawn blood and taken lives without using it. The sword hummed in anticipation as I waited for the attack. This time when my sword came out, I thought I recognized some fear in the beast. It realized for a split second that it was not the predator here, I was. Either way, it did not live long enough to regret its mistake. It lunged at me desperately, the move had no power due to its injury. I easily dodged the clumsy attack and stabbed the blade through the side of the squirrel’s skull. The twist and withdrawal turned the lights off forever as the beast just stopped moving. I walked over to the last beast still moving. It was on its side still laboring to breathe the arrow must have punctured a lung and clipped a blood vessel if the pool of blood it was laying in was an indicator. A swift stab with Sky Cutter put it out of its misery, I stored it along with the others and moved on.

  I continued like this for some time, crossing from one unknown border to the next. As soon as I would cross territories the beasts would sense my presence and rush to attack me. I would kill them and move on, I tested my magic some I would empower my blade and cast lesser elemental touch. That group was the first to try to run away after attacking me. I did not let them of course; I woke up and chose violence. After they had committed to trying to attack me, they had sealed their fate. That group died screaming as the combination of fire and lightning damage seemed to be quite painful.

  I did that until about noon after clearing the current area I stopped to drink and eat. While I was taking my lunch break, I decided I should look at my status. It was funny I had done many jobs growing up I had shoveled snow for neighbors, and done yard work. When I turned sixteen, I had gotten a job at the grocery store bagging groceries, mopping floors, and shagging carts. My most recent job had been for a tech firm doing customer service. The pandemic had us working from home most recently. I realized just halfway into the day just how hard surviving in the wild truly was. I had food for the moment but the prepacked food I had brought with me would run out sooner or later. I had no idea how to skin the beasts I had already killed or even if I could eat them. These are the things the anime, manga, and games never brought up. The games had some kind of mechanic while the anime, and manga just mostly glossed over things like this.

  I knew if I wanted to survive, I would have to figure it out! I decide I would deal with that when it came up hell, I might get lucky and find people before that happened. All I could do was keep surviving until I found others. My priorities were to keep moving and surviving and to do that I need to be stronger. I decided to see where I was with my status. I looked at my log most were combat notifications.

  The skill Weapon Focus has increased in level, lvl 0 < lvl 6.

  The skill Bows has increased in level, lvl 4 < lvl 7.

  The skill Unarmed Combat has increased in level, lvl 7 < lvl 9.

  The skill Arcane Empowerment has increased in level, lvl 0 < lvl 4.

  The spell Lesser Elemental Touch has increased in level, lvl 0 < lvl 2.

  I could say the one thing about being in such a high-level zone, was that I was burning through the early levels. Having to fight and kill things that were so far beyond where I am, is also tiring. It is not so much physically, my body felt surprisingly good. It is mentally tiring. It is also slow, it had taken me half the day to get as far as I had gotten the previous day. It was like something here had directed the beasts in this direction. I had to figure out a better way!

  I have already concluded that just walking through this forest like I was on a hike was getting me nowhere. I needed to change how I was doing things. In-game, we would not try to stealth until we got somewhere like a keep or a lair because it would slow down movement. I decided that I would start once I got done with lunch. It would slow me down but that would be no different than having to fight every few meters. I also wanted to try to find out what the signs were for the borders between the beast’s territories. If I could determine that it could it would also help me move along faster. Right now, I decided to use the points I had gained from leveling. Unlike before when I had used all of them at once I would use them in smaller parts. I decided then I would split it into five portions of five. Doing it this way is far less painful and did not leave me open to attack since I stayed conscious the entire time. Instead of feeling like someone had stuck a hot spike into my brain it only felt like a bad headache for a few minutes. That is until I got to the last set of points. When I added the points the last time the mind spike set in and I blacked out.

  I woke with a start in a panic I remember what happened, and where I was. I checked my map to see nothing was nearby. I realized that I had not been out for very long. I could tell because I had dropped my bottle and only a small portion of the ground around me was wet. I reached down and picked up the bottle and capped it. The water loss was not bad, the bottle still held plenty of water.

  I am concerned because I didn’t know what had happened, but I did have a blinking red notification waiting. When I open it, I received a new surprise?

  Upgrade threshold reached 100 to all base stats. Upgrade commenced!

  Upgrade Completed!

  Upgrade results: Human Might < Human Might 2, Human Regeneration < Human Regeneration 2.

  After looking at the notifications I realized what I had done. I had hit some threshold that I had no idea about. This reminded me just how much I didn’t know about this world and its rules. I was operating blind out here and without a net. That one mistake in the wrong situation could have gotten me killed. I resolved to save my AP changes to when I was relatively safe and not in the open. That would mostly mean when I had settled in for the night.

  When I stood up, I felt different. My pants and shirt were tighter. My armor had adjusted with me but my regular clothes had not. I had seemed to have grown four inches in height and I had become barrel-chested. My compression fit tee shirt had been stretched to the limit, and my pants had looked like I had hulked out. I had to place some slits into my pants to make them comfortable. I had been lucky that either my boots had changed to fit my size or my feet had not changed. As I started to walk, I stumbled it was taking a few minutes to adjust to my new body. Once I start walking, I notice just how fast my normal walking speed was. Now that I was used to the changes, I started working on trying to move quietly and quickly.

  You have learned the skill Move Silently, lvl 0 < lvl 5.

  It’s a start, not the skill I was looking for but it’s a start. I find that moving this way only slows my movement slightly. With my new speed, I find that I am making good time. I get much closer to the next group before they finally sense me somehow and move to attack me. Once I deal with the group and move on, I find that moving like this becomes second nature. I get even closer to the next group before they sense me and attack, this time I get so close to this group that I see one of them stick its nose into the air before it turns towards me. Once one triggers, the whole group comes. I deal with this group of four and stop. Insight and my observations trigger showing me what I have been doing wrong.

  Insight shows me that stealth was not just a matter of movement, several factors needed to be accounted for. As a gamer, I had been conditioned to think of stealth as just moving quietly. But now I knew otherwise stealth requires knowledge and wisdom as well. I realized that I smelled differently from the natural environment, and that scent made me stand out. I had gotten lucky the transition had turned my armor jet black so I did not have anything shiny reflecting light. My pants were tan, and my undershirt was grey neither color would stand out in this environment. I found a patch of wet dirt in the shade of a tree and proceeded to roll around in the dirt taking time to cover any exposed skin in some mud. Once I had taken care of that I took some leaf litter and dropped it, and watched. This was to see which way the air was moving. Even after attempting to cover my scent, I knew I needed to stay downwind of the beasts to catch them truly unaware.

  Armed with my new knowledge I started to move keeping an eye on my surroundings. I also started to notice other things, like wear on certain trees, and claw marks on others. Some areas where I moved smelled differently than others. I started to develop an idea as to how the groups marked their territories. I got to the end of the territory of the group I had just killed and realized that it bordered the territory of two other groups. One group I was downwind of, the other I was upwind of. I moved into the territory of the group I was downwind of. I could see some slight reaction from the other group but could tell they did not know what to make of it since they did not move far off their previous spot. There was no reaction at all from the group whose territory I had entered. They had stayed in the same general area they had been in. I was able to sneak up on them and watch them for a while. They seemed to forage like squirrels back home. Watching their behavior, they seemed to be omnivores, attacking and eating anything smaller than them.

  After watching them for twenty or so minutes, it was hard to tell since I had nothing with me that could tell time. I decided to take the initiative, it would be the first time I would be the one attacking first. I drew my bow and fired an arrow at one of the foragers. This was the first time I had fired the bow not being attacked first. I was surprised at how dead quiet it was. I had spent money on a bow silencing kit off the Zon where I had got the bow. The kit was two puffballs that had been a right bitch to get on the bowstring right, as well as two pads where the strings hit the bow. It had quieted the bow, but it had never been this quiet before. I guess this would be the type of thing you would not notice if you were always getting attacked. The only sound was the whistling of the arrow through the air. The squirrel never knew what hit it as the arrow pierced its skull, and it fell over dead. It took a few minutes for the others to realize the one I had shot was not moving. One of the others went to go check on it, I took aim and fired on that one as well. It fell over with a whimper. The other two were on alert after that, I could see them start to panic as the smell of blood started to float through the air. The final two came together and went out to investigate, I shot one of the two as they moved out. The last one panicked and started to nervously pace around sniffing. I melted out of my concealment with my sword and stalked toward the beast, and for the first time, I saw fear. The dire squirrel was afraid of me, the roles had been reversed and I was the hunter now. I also saw the skills I had been working to learn.

  You have learned the skill Stealth, lvl 0 < lvl 6.

  You have learned the skill Survival, lvl 0 < lvl 5.

  You have learned the skill Animal Behavior, lvl 0 < lvl 3.

  I moved on for the rest of the day I would sneak through the area. I would kill some and sneak past others now that I could sneak past them without them noticing me, they became much less of a challenge. I continued to move like that until the end of the day when I came to what looked and felt like a border between different areas. The new area felt much different from the area I was currently in so I stopped before crossing into the new area. I cleared the area I was in and found a defensible position and set into camp for the night. I took out two items I had made for my game for comfort purposes and to avoid excess encounters. These things would be essential to my survival. Without them, I would need to hide and hope at night.

  Even with them, I was still doing that but I had an advantage. I pulled both stones out and cast the campsite first. On the lowest mana setting the area was large enough for a sleeping area and a campfire. The way it was set up there was only one real entry way into it. I had set it up that way on purpose. After that, I used the alarm stone. This was more for when I need to sleep as my map showed me much more of the area than the stone covered. I sat down and ate a protein bar, it still tasted funny but it was edible.

  During and after my dinner I sat and watched my map as the forest went from day tonight. It was almost like watching tv, one of those nature documentaries. I watched as the daytime animals scurried into hiding as the nighttime animals came out. The most interesting part was the difference between the two zones. The zone I was in seemed to have set rules but the next zone over seemed to be a free for all. In my current zone, the animals’ squirrels mostly seemed to have neat little territories that they stuck to. The next zone over was like the wild west I watched as animals would cross each other’s areas some dots would disappear. The animals would continue to move I watched as one dot took on two dots and survived only to enter an area with another dot and disappear. The funny part was some of the dots on the map were the same as the daytime map. Which led me to believe they were capable of hunting either day or night. The dots that remained were the ones that had been stationary. Which led me to believe that those were ambush predators. I watched for a while longer the stationary dots seemed to fair well during this time winning more conflicts than they lost. I also sat huddled in fear as something truly massive wandered the area. Wherever that monster went everything was wiped off the board leaving the area void of any dots. Lucky for me as the beast never came close to my area, even though I felt the rumble of its steps even from my location.

  I slept in my little protected area long enough to feel rested. When I woke it was much later in the night? The nighttime activity seemed to have plateaued. A few areas that had been cleared had new inhabitants and the large beast was nowhere on the map. I could see the path it took though and it was heading away from my current location. I could have gotten up and moved at this point, but I was taking no chances it was still too dark and with the ambushers out there I wanted to be able to see where I was going and what I was up against.

  I would realize just a few hours later how the decision to wait saved my life. I had thought my excursion through the last zone had been difficult. But I would come to understand that I had been sent to a place where everything had been set to nightmare mode.