Re://Start

Opening his eyes, Alden blinked his light golden eyes a few times at his unfamiliar surroundings. From his current position on the hard, cold ground, he could see the outline of trees in the darkness around him. Looking up, he saw an expansive tangle of branches and leaves dozens of feet above him.

As he sat up, he noticed a blinking spot in the corner of his vision. Focusing on it caused it to expand into a glowing golden window floating extremely conspicuously in front of him. He glanced around, seeing nothing that required his immediate attention, before turning back to the window.

[Initializing Monster Armament System.]

The screen blinked, before a loading bar appeared. It started to fill extremely slowly, and it seemed that it would take a few minutes to fill completely.

*Snap*

Alden's head whipped around as the sound of a branch cracking rang out behind him. Gold met red, as his eyes met another's. Unfortunately, the dripping muzzle filled with rows of razor sharp teeth below the eyes didn't seem as friendly as he would have hoped. He took the barest glance at the rest of the creature, shrouded in darkness as it was, it seemed to almost melt into it.

As soon as a low growl began leaving the creatures throat, Alden rolled to his feet and took off like a bullet. The wind brushed past him as he sprinted through the brush. The sound of snapping twigs and the crackle of dry leaves rung out behind him as, evidently, the creature gave chase.

He was panting, his stamina leaving him quickly as he kept running.

*Thud*

Tripping over a root, Alden hit the ground with a loud thud. He heard the steps behind him slow down as the creature caught up to him. Rolling onto his back, he got a better look at the creature slowly padding towards him as a pale shaft of moonlight shone down onto it. Glowing, malevolent red eyes, a body formed of solid shadow, and a pale white mask of bone composed the creature that he couldn't help but recognize.

'Grimm.'

A word that held serious implications, though he didn't quite have time to consider them right now. As the creature came to a stop in front of him, he saw a vicious sadistic glint pass through it's ruby eyes. It was only a few meters away from him now, and he couldn't see any scars on its bone mask, nor much additional bone armor on its body.

That was good. As far as he knew, that meant it was young, inexperienced, and not too strong.

*Ding*

As it continued slowly padding towards him, and his mind raced to find a way out, he was interrupted from his thoughts by a quiet noise that seemed like a gunshot as it broke the thick tension. Evidently, creature, or as he assumed, the beowulf, couldn't hear the noise as it didn't react in any way. Suddenly, the window popped into focus in front of him once more.

[System initialized. Open Starter Package?]

'Yes'

The only response he could think of. He didn't know what this 'system' was, nor what it could do, but he certainly didn't see any other way out of this scenario.

[Opening Starter Package. Obtained: {Random Weapon Armament} (*), {Random Accessory Armament} (*).]

[Rolling {Random Weapon Armament} (*). Gained {Creep-bone Spear (C)} (*)]

[Rolling {Random Accessory Armament} (*). Gained {Sabyr Tooth Necklace (UC)} (*)]

[Auto-equip active, Armaments equipping.]

As the prompt faded, two items formed upon his body. A spear made of bone in his hand, and a necklace with a single long tooth as its centerpiece around his neck. He rolled to his feet, as the Grimm stopped mid-step in surprise. Without quite knowing what he was doing, Alden surged forward with spear in-hand, and cleanly thrusted it forward at the beowulf. It lodged deeply into it's shoulder, and it gave a low growl of pain.

He wrenched the spear back, and as the Grimm attempted to lunge at him, he stepped to the side and dragged the spear along the Grimm's side. As it exited, a long, jagged line was left behind, with shadowy smoke curling around it. The Grimm wasn't able to support it's front limbs on it's shoulder any longer, and collapsed to the ground. Alden exhaled before piercing the spear through the Grimm's mask, ending it's existence.

*Ding*

As he collapsed to the ground, he watched as the Grimm's shadowy form dissipated into smoke, drifting off into the night sky. There was a glint of light on the ground as it seemed to have left behind a small crystal. Letting out a heavy sigh of relief, he returned his attention to the ever-persistent golden window.

[Congratulations on slaying your first Grimm! Would you like to forge an armament?]