The rumbling became louder and louder, as if it were coming in this direction.
And, indeed, it was coming in this direction. It had a long elongated muzzle. Its tubular snout took up most of its head, having relatively small ears and eyes. Its long grey fur had patches of white running along its entire body and its bushy tail was wagging around in excitement.
What appeared was a six meter tall, hungry looking anteater.
It came from Sophia’s right and the ants left, both staring at the giant furball stampeding along the pathway towards them. No, towards the ants.
It completely ignored the dumbfounded Sophia as the anteater chased the ants, that were running away as soon as they recognized the monstrosity. Even that big ant was running like its life depended on it. Well, it actually did depend on its life…
Sophia thanked the cute gigantic furball as she started jogging along the forest path.
If everything went well, she wouldn’t meet any scary monsters along this path. She would safely reach the protection of the town and everything would be fine. Yes, everything will be okay.
That’s how Sophia hoped things would turn out. Unfortunately, it didn''t.
After a minute of jogging, Sophia had to slow to a walking pace to catch her breath. It was natural since she was wounded and although she had a slim build, she wasn’t a very fit person to begin with.
She was also getting rather dizzy from blood loss, which worried her. If she fainted now, she’d most likely die. Sophia didn’t want to die just yet. At least not until she was sure her family was okay.
And to top things of, another ant appeared on the forest path. Worse, it noticed Sophia, who hoped it wouldn’t notice her.
Instead of foolishly turning around like last, she decided to wait. The ant didn’t care what Sophia did and just rushed her. Doing the same thing the other ant did, which consisted of skittering along the ground and when it was close enough, lunging at her.
Sophia, at some degree expecting its movements, stumbled to the side. She managed to successfully dodge the ants lunge, which made her release a breath she didn’t realise she was holding.
The ant itself didn’t expect to miss, so it barely managed to land. And Sophia saw an opportunity she didn’t miss. She half ran half stumbled towards the ant that was still trying from falling and kicked it on its side.
A similar disgusting crunching sound emanated from the place Sophia kicked the ant. She almost fell because of the force she used, but managed to not embarrass herself.
The ant flew half a meter before landing on the ground. It twitched and tried to get up, but failing. Its three legs where Sophia kicked were broken, so it was pretty much impossible for the ant to get up. Instead, it started dragging its broken body towards her.
She was dumbfounded for the fact that the ant didn’t give up or tried running away. The other ants did so when the anteater came, so why wasn’t this one doing so? Was it because of the color? Instead of black like the ones Sophia met before, this one was blood red. Now that she looked closer at the figure, it looked slightly bigger?
Sophia shook her. Now was not the time to ponder. It’s friends would soon come and she believed she wasn’t going to be as lucky as last time if she didn’t get away in time.
Sophia walked towards the unyielding ant and crushed its head with her foot. She could’ve just left it there, but what if it could follow her scent or something? And then direct its friends towards her? The paranoid Sophia didn’t want to risk it.
She then started walking again, but at a slightly higher pace.
Nothing really happened for several minutes, so Sophia listened more closely to the sounds emanating from the forest. Chitters, rumbling sounds of something big moving, bird sounds that were louder than usual as well. One sounded particularly clos-
Sophia’s train of thought got interrupted by a piercing pain on her shoulders. She screamed as something big lifted her off the ground
When she was three meters high, she got pressed down by a huge weight, plummeting back towards the dirth.
“Ugh” She was shocked due to the force of the crash and the sheer weight kept her from breathing. The bird, Sophia assumed, and something else were pressing her down. She felt her right arm crack when her body, that of the huge bird, and the third party were pressing on top of it. The panicking Sophia struggled to get out of her restraint despite the pain, but it was fruitless.
She heard a cry of an eagle and then she heard a chittering noise. Was it another ant? But that chittering sounded a lot different than the noises the ants made. It was higher pitched than the deep chitter of the ants.
The eagle and the third party struggled, crushing Sophia under their weight. She was terrified.
The eagle soon stopped moving, and when she was about to pass out from suffocation, the pressure lifted. The third party dragged the eagle off Sophia. She gasped for breath when she was completely freed from that crushing weight. Sophia coughed and looked at the corpse of the big eagle and the slightly bigger spider that was dragging it into the forest.
She widened her eyes when she saw the three meter wide corpse of the eagle. It must’ve been about seven if you counted the wingspan. It had beautiful white and brown feathers. It was lying on its belly to the side so Sophia couldn’t really see its face or talons, but they would look very intimidating if she saw them.
But Sophia froze in fear when she saw the four meter long spider dragging it with the help of a thick, sticky thread. It didn’t appear it had noticed her so Sophia stayed very still, holding her breath in fear she might be noticed if she breathed.
She stayed like that for the remainder of the time she saw the spider dragging the corpse into forest.
She slightly relaxed when the spider was out of sight. She tried getting up, but the pain in her shoulders and her broken arm made it difficult.
Eventually, she managed to shakily stand up. Her breathing was sluggish, she was dizzy and everything hurt. And now, she was having a panic attack.The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Sophia tried to force her breath to steady. Her ears were ringing and her heart was beating so fast it might burst.
She managed to stay relatively calm in front of the ants, because that was something she could handle. That big group was different. Although she felt fear, it was different when she saw the two heavyweights. The anteater she could handle too. Well, not really, but it didn’t really have any interest in her, so that didn’t seem as a problem. She just needed to not provoke it, which Sophia was a master of. But a massive eagle that wanted to eat her? Not only that, a terrifying looking tarantula?
She didn’t want this. She hoped this was all just a bad dream.
She held back tears as she moved at a snail''s pace. Her shoulders were burning! It was like they were ripped to shreds, which they probably were. Not only that, she just noticed her ankle seemed to be strained.
She didn’t know if her luck was good or bad...
“Haah… Haah” Sophia was gasping for breath even moving at this pace. Was she… going to make it? She wasn’t so sure. It would be at least another twenty minutes before she was even out of the forest. She was bleeding all over the place. She’d probably attract predators before she could get out of here. But what then? What if the town wasn’t safe? What if it were even more dangerous than the forest?
Sophia’s future seemed bleak.
She suddenly stopped. What was that annoying blinking in the corner of her vision?
As soon as she thought that, a message came.
Congratulations! You are the eighth to kill another species since the System was established!
You received a Healing potion!
To receive the Healing potion please recite ‘receive’ in your mind or out loud.
Level up!
You received three unallocated stat points!
To add unallocated stat points to the wanted stat, please recite ‘status’ in your mind or out loud.
“What?” Sophia was surprised reading all of these messages.
‘What is this, a game?’ Was the first thing she thought when she read all of it. It sounded ridiculous. Stat points? Status? Healing potio-
Wait.
“Receive?” Sophia recited, secretly hoping it wasn’t some dumb joke.
A glass vial with a blood-like substance in it materialized and floated in front off Sophia. She grabbed it and stared at the vial.
Healing potion
This was what appeared in her mind.
“Uh… Okay” Sophia didn’t really trust the message. It was too convenient for her. There’s only so many times she can survive with luck.
Well, she didn’t really have much of choice. So she hoped for the best.
“Please don’t be poison. Please don’t be poison.” She muttered while sitting down with her back against a nearby tree. Sophia couldn’t really hold it and uncork it. Her right arm seemed very much useless. Her left arm was unharmed, but her shoulder wasn’t the same. Luckily, she could manage moving her left as long as she kept in mind it would hurt a lot. She placed the vial between her legs to keep it from falling over. She then used her left hand to uncork the vial.
Being successful, Sophia lifted the vial towards her right shoulder first. She thought about removing her shirt, but it was going to be impossible with her painful wounds. She dropped a small amount on her shoulder.
“Hiss” She grimaced as the wound burned. Sophia felt the muscle and flesh mend together. She almost dropped the vial there.
She placed the vial back between her legs and started removing the dirtied, shirt that was wrapped around her right forearm.
Having successfully removed it, she threw it away and grabbed the potion. Sophia dropped a few small drops on the wound. Now being prepared, she kept her left hand steady.
She felt her bones snapping back together and Sophia looked in wonder as the muscle and flesh mended before her eyes.
It wasn’t completely healed though, so she dropped a few more drops in until it was completely healed. The only thing visible from the wound was a scar, but Sophia could live with that. It was better than dying.
Sophia tried using her right arm. Although it felt a bit stiff and her shoulder didn’t seem to have been completely healed, everything seemed completely fine.
After putting another drop on right shoulder to completely heal it, Sophia used the rest on her left shoulder and ankle. Luckily, it seemed she had just enough of the stuff to mostly heal all of her wounds.
She then decided to try the next thing that message said. If ‘receive’ worked so should ‘status’ right?
“Status?”
Name: Sophia Kanze
Level: 2
Specie: Human
Sex: Female
Age: 20
Class: n/a
Attributes:
Strength: 9
Dexterity: 15
Agility: 10
Endurance: 9
Intelligence: 11
Perception: 12
Skills:
Sophia stared at the status screen that appeared in front of her…
“So, it was real…” She exclaimed in wonder.
She shook her and decided to figure out what all of this was. She wasn’t really into games, but she knew this was somewhat like an rpg.
Class… what could that possibly mean? Sophia didn’t know and decided to just skip it.
Strength was strength, obviously. Dexterity… something with hands, right? Right. Agility was speed. Endurance was stamina. Intelligence was how smart she was? How does that make any sense? And perception was… How you see things?
Skills? What does that imply?
Sophia didn’t understand half of what these things meant…
Wasn’t there some tutorial mode? Since this resembles a games so much it must have it right?
“Tutorial?”
…
Nothing happened…
Well, it was worth a shot.
Sophia needed to make a decision of where she should place her points. She had three. One should go to endurance since she was tired, and she was probably going to get even more tired in the future. One in agility. She needed speed to outrun things, obviously. She had one more point… Maybe another on endurance or agility? Strength was pretty useless to her. She could already destroy the little ants even with her strength, and the other creatures were probably so strong that 1 measly point wouldn’t really make a difference.
Maybe intelligence? It might make her smarter. She’d probably need to be smart to survive. Dexterity? It probably wasn’t very useful to her as of right now. Although Sophia was pretty good with hands, she couldn’t really think of anything that might have her need the nimbleness of her fingers...
Perception seemed like a good idea. It allowed her to see things more clearly right? That might be really useful. How? Sophia didn’t know…
“I wish I were smarter” she lamented. Then, to hopefully make her wish come true, put the final point in intelligence.
Name: Sophia Kanze
Level: 2
Specie: Human
Sex: Female
Age: 20
Class: n/a
Attributes:
Strength: 9
Dexterity: 15
Agility: 11
Endurance: 10
Intelligence: 12
Perception: 12
Skills:
Sophia didn’t really feel any smarter when she put that point in intelligence…
She put her hands on her face and sighed. Of course it wasn’t going to make her smarter. What did she expect? Become smarter for just putting a point into an imaginary screen?
She was actually hoping that would happen...
Well, she couldn’t do anything about it now. No point in being angry at her past self for being so stupid. Sophia dismissed the status screen, grabbed the vial and resumed her dangerous trek through the forest.