Chapter 3: A Scary Feeling

Crius grabbed his hammer and the dagger, making his way towards the forest behind his lodging. He needed food, and to get some immediately he forced himself to stave off the sleepiness nagging his mind. As he walked, he found a small stream and threw water on his face. He checked back over his character card and found the peculiar [System Revoked] skill.

"By system revoked, it must mean the state I am in. I'm not a player, nor a true NPC, so it classifies me as a Unique NPC because, if I was to assume, my real body is in a hibernating state or dead. Furthermore, if it is update 57, that means 57 years has passed since the beta. I would be 75 years old in total then. But anyways, this system is kinda lame compared to what I would want. For starters, the failure success on refining, sharpening, durability and shit is ass. Who would like to play with that sadistic combination? I doubt the level up would be rewarding."

As he proceeded forwards talking to himself silently, he caught a faint wisp of conversation.

"Goddamn this tutorial area is boring. Levelling up takes forever compared to the main map."

"Hey, its to make sure you have base abilities, so we don't have a perma-death right off the bat!"

"Yeah sis, when you see anyone who lived over 50, back off cause they have insane stats that even Transcendent players have trouble dealing with."

"Shh, shut up! There's a deer ahead."

Crius slowly followed the voices into a clearing to see the party of three. One female and two males in their teens. In his eyes, their stats appeared.

[Group, Combining Stats]

[Luc-E, Gem, Jade]

[Class: Hunters]

[Level: 0 Collective]

[HP: 300]

Crius breathed a sigh, they were just newbies! He snuck over to them to see the deer and initiate conversation, but things went just as well as when he first entered the game. With a snap of a branch near him, the deer and party were alerted. Turning towards the source, the trio jumped up from their position and unleashed a volley of arrows to his location as if they practiced for months on end.

"Bandits in the tutorial?!"

"Nice! Mum taught us well!"

"Should see what she does with her God's Arm Legion, the arrows block out the sun!"

They approached the dead man slower than they would a dying animal, who knew if he had covered armor under his shirt? Their parents warned of how creative the game could be when killing with surprise attacks.

"Wait, he's just a normal guy? He doesn't have a player logo on him, so will he respawn in the tutorial or did we break the game?!"

"Please don't make him be an essential quest to get out of here, dear god."

"At most it would slow us down a day or so, we could just load into a new tutorial zone after 12 hours."

They only spent a few minutes searching the corpse, collecting a hammer and dagger.

Back in the village, a bell sounded the end of the day and the start of curfew. Crius was sitting on his bed observing his still shaking hands. Death was no trivial matter. It terrified him to no end! The helpless feeling of blood draining from his heart and veins as his eyes lost their focus and his body its feeling… Not something someone should go through twice in their life. Yet he knew it would happen again, and he hated the thought. Too realistic!

He lost his shitty dagger and hammer, making his crafting much harder, but in exchange he felt rebirthed, new body, new mentality. Preservation! He needed to be way more cautious of his footing and balance. With the need for food and sleep gone, he headed outside to look over his forge and clean up anything within reason. Fenger was definitely an NPC based on how he talked, and those kids in the forest were definitely players.

Crius looked over the main furnace and noticed the bars he previously saw disappeared, the same with the tools. He grabbed some materials and attempted once again to make a dagger but failed. No stats or anything showed under his [Blacksmithing] title like before.

"Does dying further the game to becoming my reality?!"

If so, he would face a serious issue. But with this discovery, a headache began approaching him, information of how to craft weapons and armor with accuracy and precision. The knowledge of a master in blacksmithing upon his mind. Yet he could not comprehend most of the information, as it needed firsthand experience. With the burning imprint he needed to cool down. He felt hot. Crius lifted tongs from the workbench, looking as if he would write a poem by pen. Removing piece of metal straight from the still burning furnace, he got to work. Refining, forming, blacksmithing. With an idea of what he wanted in his mind, a blueprint tested by time emerged. From where the knowledge was gained, he thought of the system. Who's memories?

"It doesn't matter, I can make do with this, complete the assignment and get my tools back from the kids."

Saying so, he picked up a rock slab and improvised a hammer to make himself a new hammer. He felt his proficiency in the tools he used reach a level of what could be considered a low introductory level. The knowledge, but not the practice. Practice makes perfect.