Gobric the hunter

Still, the fact was that he wouldn't last too long without eating. Fortunately, Jared had watched a few survival-themed videos on OurTube and considered himself a pretty good hunter.

However, first he put both his free points into Dexterity, hoping it would help him out with the task.

He quickly found a sturdy-looking branch. He then started breaking and pulling various plants, trying to identify something with strong enough fibers to make a bowstring.

By the time he finally found something suitable, his palms were greener than before, partially due to the plant juices and partially due to the blood that had leaked out of various small cuts.

"Alright you little shits. Uncle Jared will turn you all into a string now.", he mumbled while looking at something that looked close enough to nettles.

Fighting his urge to stop due to the plants stinging his hands, Jared kept pulling the upper layer with the fibers off the stem and once he had processed all of them, he started twisting them into thin threads and then twisted the threads into a thicker string.

The end result was a lumpy and hairy mess, but for the most part, it still looked like a length of string.

*Dong~*

[Crafted lowest-grade string (will break when exceeding 5 kgs of force) Crafting +2

Auto-crafting feature unlocked (allows user to automatically create items that have been crafted previously)]

'Huh? Nice!'

He tied the string to his stick and after putting a small bend into it, managed to tie it to the other end as well.

*Dong~*

[Crafted primitive shortbow (ranged +2) crafting +1]

Jared tried to store the bow in his inventory, not expecting it to fit into his pocket, but through some miracle, it did.

He gathered another bundle of nettles and, already familiar with how the system generally operated, said: "Autocraft!"

*Dong~*

[Do you wish to craft lowest-grade string? Yes/No]

After Jared chose Yes, the plants pulled themselves apart and the fibers spun themselves into string.

[Crafting +1]

'Hey, isn't crafting the string supposed to give me 2 points?'

*Dong~*

[Skill point gains from auto-crafting are reduced by 60%]

Jared picked up a bundle of smaller sticks and after a bit of searching, found a rusty knife in the caves – it seemed to have been the belongings of either one of the women or someone the goblins had met earlier.

After breaking 4 or so arrow shafts, finally a message came up:

[crafted primitive flint-tipped arrow (ranged +2). Crafting +2]

After the first arrow was completed, he used auto-crafting to make 5 more arrows, except something unexpected had happened – he got no crafting skill points for the last arrow.

He checked and sure enough, his Crafting skill had reached 10, which was apparently a limit for the 'primitive' category of products. He simply decided to find a way to advance the skill later, now it was time to prepare for a hunt.

Jared was well aware that his archery skills needed polishing. Thus, he looked for a soft and rotten tree stump for a target and started practicing.

More often than not, the arrows failed to even fly at all, instead dropping to the ground beside the bow like dead weights.

While the bow was extremely easy to draw even with Jared's weak body, the arrows didn't fly all that far and his fingertips and arms started hurting just after a bit of practice.

The goblins that had been scavenging for food so far had gathered behind Jared and stared at what he was doing, not even sure how they should react to it. For them, it looked like something completely unreasonable – it was much easier to use a stick to dig for larvae and roots directly, instead of throwing it through the use of some complicated contraption.

After a while, the audience simply shrugged and left to be more productive members of the community. It wasn't their problem if one of their kind had lost it and decided to starve to death.

After a while, he had made over a hundred attempts to shoot an arrow off. The rotten stump had been reduced to a pile of dirt and his original 6 arrows had dwindled down to 2.

Finally, his archery skill had reached 9 and he shot off another arrow. The path to the stump and its surroundings had been worn muddy by his feet a long time ago, but Jared didn't care about that. He fired off the arrow and managed to hit a leaf he had placed down as his target dead in the center.

"Take that you tree-spawn! I'd like to see some elven archers do the same!", he shouted. The feat would've been impressive if the distance to the earthy remains of the stump wasn't 5 meters.

*Dong~*

[Archery +1. 10 points in Archery reached. Skill: Piercing shot gained.]

Jared navigated his Stats panel and found the description of the skill: Piercing shot (increases ranged damage proportionately to the amount of MP used, 1MP= +1% total damage)

Seeing that, he couldn't help but curse out loudly and lament: "Really, system? You tell me this now that I've already spent my free stat points! I don't even have mana! I bet you've been awarded the title of the least helpful system every single time!"

*Dong~*

[Would you like to spend 10 Soul Points to unlock system AI feature? Yes/No]

"Hey, system, what even are soul points? Where can I get them?"

*Dong~*

[Soul points are a high tier currency used for unlocking System features. Soul points can be obtained from killing sentient beings, such as Humans.]

In the end, Jared just made 10 more arrows and set off into the forest, marking the trees on his path to not get lost. After a while, the wildlife started showing up more frequently, a sign that the village's influence had been left behind by him.

It took him around 2 minutes of sneaking about before he finally managed to line up a shot on a squirrel. He took careful aim and released the arrow. At first it seemed like his first meal in this world would be a roasted squirrel, but somehow, it hit a falling branch and was deflected, missing by a large margin. Luck -10.

Suddenly, the squirrel he had been trying to shoot became alert and was about to run up the tree, but before it managed, it was snatched up by a red-eyed rabbit with a horn on its forehead. Jared could've sworn the rabbit was grinning at him maliciously.

"Oh no you don't!", he shouted, lining up the next shot. He released the arrow hastily, and was seemingly about to miss, but in the end, the rabbit jumped a bit too slowly and ended up getting grazed by it.

The rabbit immediately dropped its prey and, pointing its horn towards Jared, rushed forward while giving off a squealing war cry.

"What the hell! Aren't you a rabbit? It's you who should be afraid of me!", Jared shouted while running for his life. That horn looked really sharp and he doubted his weak goblin body could survive getting penetrated by something like that more than once.

Jared wasn't idle while he was running, however. He was fumbling around his clothes until he managed to shove his hand into his pocket and pulled out the knife. It was quite obvious he wouldn't hit the rabbit with the arrows, besides he had already dropped the bow to ease his escape.

*Dong~*

[Rusty knife equipped! Melee +8]

Jared barely had any time to glance at the message. It hadn't shown up when he had used the knife for crafting, for some reason.

Suddenly, his foot caught behind a treacherous root that had been hiding in the grass and he fell on his face. He managed to turn around just in time to only get grazed by the horn, causing deep cut to open up on his side.

Jared thrust the rusty knife towards the rabbit before it could get away, but his enemy managed to twist its body just on the nick of time to minimize the injuries, only suffering a gash going all the way from its throat to its hind legs.

*Dong~*

[Blades +2]

The notification sound had broken Jared's concentration and he lost sight of the rabbit for an instant, but fortunately, it had been circling about to get in position behind him. He was able to find the rabbit by his hearing alone and just as the critter was coming for him, he turned around and ducked behind a nearby pine tree.

The rabbit had already jumped in the air while charging at him, ready to pierce his chest from behind, but ended up slamming straight into the tree, getting its sharp horn stuck in the trunk.

Jared's adrenaline was at an all time high and he was still scared for his life so he immediately used the time while the rabbit was still struggling to get free to stab at it. He kept stabbing and stabbing like a sewing machine, only stopping when he couldn't move his arm anymore. He collapsed beside the tree that was now decorated by a lump of shredded.

A few hours later, Jared finally managed to pick himself up from the ground and look around. While the squirrel he had tried to hunt originally was nowhere to be seen, the rabbit was right there in front of him. He hadn't noticed it before, but it smelled way better than the best gourmet piece of grilled beef he'd had so far.

Jared tried to get a fire going to cook it, but either he was still too weak from his earlier exertions or simply not skilled enough, all his attempts ended in failure. His stomach was already hurting with hunger.

In the end, he decided to just squeeze his eyes shut and bear with it, as he took the first probing bite of the fragrant meat. It was a bit gamey, but very juicy, making his saliva overflow from his mouth, simply heavenly. As tears started to flow from his eyes in gratitude for having such a tasty dream, a sound was heard.

*Dong~*

[You have consumed the first {Horned Rabbit}, a creature with superior bloodline. Skill gained: Charge.]

Jared immediately felt heat flowing into his legs. He felt like he could sprint extremely fast for a short amount of time. He also felt that he had just about enough of the system giving him constant notifications. He turned off notifications for gaining skill points – he would still be able to get a good look at his skills once he opened the stats panel.

After a while, of eating and pretending that it was a roasted goat leg he had been munching on, he opened his eyes again and discovered that there was only half left of the shredded carcass.

With a lot of wiggling it back and forth as well as chipping away some of the wood around the horn with the rusty knife, Jared managed to pull it free. He decided to take it back to the village to try and cook it later.

Now that he thought about it, he had seen smoke coming from one of the huts outside, so the goblins had to have fire, he had just forgotten all about that in the heat of the moment and ended up eating the creature raw. Jared almost threw up at the thought but managed to force the food back down somehow.

After about an hour of wandering around, he finally managed to find his marked trail and made it back into the village, carrying the rabbit's carcass on his shoulder. There were still goblins outside digging for roots, however, as they noticed him returning, saliva could be seen dripping from their mouths.

Jared straightened his back and raised his chin, then made his way into the large hut that had smoke rising from a hole in its roof.

After approaching the hut, Jared saw there was no solid surface to knock on, so he just walked in. Inside, he found a wrinkly goblin scuttering about and throwing a few herbs into a cauldron, then mixing the result.

He cleared his throat and seeing the goblin spare him a glance, he said: "Hello, I want to borrow some of your fire to cook this beast."

The wrinkly goblin replied with a voice full of phlegm: "Gobric, I see you've also grown up at long last. Good, good. What's that about cooking I hear? Is fresh meat not good enough for you? Just give it to old Gobette for making medicine for your wound."

Jared quickly responded: "The best I can give you is a leg or two. Now, about that fire?"

"Ah, so stingy, like an old goblin. Alright, but don't come crying to me to get yourself treated the next time you're about to die."

"I really can't go against an old goblin, it seems. Very well, I'll give you half the meat, too, but no more."

Jared didn't want to risk his life for a small piece of meat. Whatever the goo was that had been smeared onto his wound, he had been fully healed by the time he had earnestly started the hunt.

He cut off the front legs from the rabbit as well as the back half of the body and gave it to the old goblin, or by the looks of it, the village's shaman.

After receiving the meat, the shaman started gobbling down the meat, leaving only clean bones behind. Once she was done, she said: "It's good that at least one of the young'uns is filial to the old generation. Maybe it isn't so bad that you have some different ideas. You can take some fire anytime you want."