(9) Don't Embrace Death Too Soon

The wolf stared down Owen, checking him if he was a threat. There wasn't a single trace of fear in the carnivore's eyes.

Owen, on the other hand, maintained his distance and eye contact. Something was telling him that the moment he ran away, he would face a sorry state.

He could see basic information about the wolf above its head.

[Forest Wolf - Level 8]

[Affiliation - N/A]

[Skills - Unavailable] (You do not have the necessary detection skill/s to view the following information.)

And because animals don't usually have moral values, the wolf's name was the color yellow. If it was truly evil though, the color would be red.

His mind whirred rapidly.

'OH F***, I'M SO SCREWED. What do I do, what do I do? Should I run? Wait no, I can't outrun a wolf! What am I even thinking?! I have nothing in my inventory! Wait, it just finished hunting… it's probably tired! I can outrun a tired wolf right?'

Owen was starting to lean on the idea of running away.

The wolf was wary of Owen since it had never seen something like him before. But it could also sense the hesitation in him.

The wolf took one step forward. Because it was hostile now, the color of the name tag turned red.

Owen's heart jumped. There was no other choice.

He turned around and ran away as fast as he could!

*Grrrrr…. Nrragh!* The moment Owen turned around, the wolf growled deeply and immediately rushed forward.

It easily caught up with Owen and by using its mouth, it snatched Owen's left ankle, tripping him face first into the dirt.

"Gah!" Owen flipped himself upright from the ground and saw that the wolf was biting his feet hard. "That f****** hurts!" Owen used his other leg and began kicking the wolf in the face.

It received some of the kicks, but all it did was make the wolf angrier. The wolf had enough and lifted Owen into the air like a ragdoll.

When Owen was flung up, the last thought in his mind was, "Am I going to die…?"

*Crash!*

The wolf slammed his body into the ground.

"Kahh-!" Owen's body was so shaken from the impact that his mouth and nose began leaking blood.

[-3 HP]

The wolf lifted Owen once more, ready to slam him down again.

Thinking quickly, Owen used his left arm to absorb some of the impact. But against that much force, his arm was like a toothpick that could easily break.

*Crash!*

[-1.5]

"Aaaaaaghhhh!" Owen's wrist broke upon landing on the ground. His pitiful cries filled the air, but no one was able to hear it.

Owen's left hand looked like it was snapped backwards at an unnatural angle. It was only hanging on because of his skin and veins. The bones of his forearm stuck out of the fresh red muscles that spurted blood.

The wolf was still pissed, it didn't like Owen shouting so loud. It then began biting Owen's hand off, even his forearm wasn't spared.

Like biting off a carrot, the wolf crunched through his wrist and his hand. Owen watched as his hand was eaten with nothing he could do about it.

Not only that, the wolf began sniffing parts of him that were bleeding. So, it started eating his bleeding left Achilles tendon.

"No, no, no! Stop!" Owen was struggling helplessly and started looking for anything he could use against the wolf. He turned his head and saw a rock that was right next to him. He grabbed it with his right hand.

He used his elbows to sit upright and swung the rock at the wolf's eye!

*Awooo!!* The wolf whimpered in pain after its left eye was crushed into chunks of bloody paste.

When it recovered, it looked at Owen with a look that spelled its intention to kill him immediately.

Owen threw the rock at the wolf, "Damn it!"

But the wolf shrugged it off and snarled at Owen for even trying anything.

With a huge bite, the wolf used its mouth to get ahold of Owen's left cheek and ripped his skin off. It tore through the left side of his face, taking off the skin on his ear, his eyelids and his scalp.

After this, the wolf ate the skin that it ripped off.

[-5 HP]

And unlike the wolf that was barely damaged, Owen wasn't doing so well. He was missing parts of his face and tongue, his left hand was gone, his left leg was bleeding out and was full of holes.

Because of the amount of damage he took, Owen couldn't muster the strength to get up. Giving the wolf the impression that Owen could no longer fight.

The wolf bit his bleeding leg and dragged him back to the deer that it was eating earlier.

Owen's entire body went limp. His arms were barely following along.

After returning to where it was eating earlier, the wolf began feasting on the deer once again. The wolf felt like the deer tasted better than human flesh.

*Crunch… Slssscchh…*

The wolf tore through the deer's organs and fat, noisily enjoying its meal.

"..."

Owen was barely breathing. His mind was barely hanging on.

His mind was in disarray.

"... Why does it seem so… quiet…" A teardrop escaped his right eye. This wasn't what he envisioned to happen at all.

The reality began sinking in. Owen knew that he was in another world. He lost any thoughts about being able to return after dying. His instinct knew that this was different.

But the pain that he felt knowing that he might not even see the faces of his mother, his father, his sisters and his friends. It was something that hurt more than anything else.

But he couldn't do anything…

He smiled at himself. "So this is how I die. How pitiful, yet fitting."

*Vhoom..*

[Bleeding-4]

*Vhoom..*

[Slowness-2]

*Vhoom..*

[Weakness-2]

*Vhoom..*

[Vision Obscurity]

*Vhoom..*

[Defenselessness]

"..."

His finger twitched.

Strangely enough, despite bleeding so severely, the small streams of blood that were trying to leave his body weren't weakening him at all. His vision from his eye that was damaged by one of the wolf's teeth suddenly became clearer.

And even though his organs and muscles were damaged, he had never felt so strong before. His sluggish body no longer felt so hard to move. Instead, it felt like his joints were maintained like a well-oiled machine that moved smoothly.

Owen clenched his jaw.

A visceral scream of primal energy rang in his mind.

"I- AM NOT- GOING TO DIE- LIKE THIS!"

Owen slowly got up and saw that the wolf was busy eating the deer's flesh. It didn't seem to notice him because for all it knew, Owen was dead.

Although Owen was close to dying, he felt a strange feeling enveloping the entire area like a fog.

He didn't know what it was. But when he looked closely at the wolf, he felt like the way it was moving was…. Wrong.

The wind rustling against the tree branches, wrong.

The rocks laying around the place, wrong.

The wolf with its back turned on him…

Absolutely wrong!

Owen looked at his left forearm and saw sharp bones sticking out. A wicked smile appeared on his face.

He stepped forward ever so slowly.

The wolf was still oblivious of his presence.

But as it ate, the wolf felt that something was amiss. The wolf's ears stood up and turned around afterwards.

But the moment it did, Owen got on top of the wolf and wrapped his right arm around its neck. His legs tightly gripped the wolf's body as his left arm stabbed the wolf's eye socket!

*AwoOOOoo!*

The wolf whimpered in pain like a terrified pup. It tried struggling, but Owen was strangely stronger than before. Enough to keep it locked.

The wolf tried to turn around and bite Owen, but Owen merely dug his forearm deeper into the wolf's skull.

The wolf howled in agony.

Since that didn't work, the wolf flailed its legs all over the place. Kicking up soil and small rocks as it did.

But Owen never let go. Right now, a normal person would've been tired from the wolf's resistance. But since Owen had the Debuff Knight class, his body would virtually never get tired.

He pulled out his forearm from the wolf's skull and stabbed it in once again! And Owen's right arm wasn't idle, it was squeezing the wolf's trachea so hard that it was starting to be deprived of oxygen.

"DIE! DIE! DIE! YOU B*TCH!!!" Owen was shouting hysterically.

Owen twisted his forearm inside the wolf's skull. He pulled it out once again, and a grotesque gaping hole full of flesh and blood that looked like strawberry jam could be seen from the wolf's eye.

The wolf still tried to fight back, but Owen would just stab it repeatedly.

And after a few minutes, the wolf stopped struggling and its body slumped. It wasn't dead yet, it was just unconscious because it couldn't breathe.

Owen wasn't satisfied though. He stood up and got on top of the wolf's body and began using the exposed bones in his forearm to spear its brain out.

"NRAGGH! GO TO HELL!" Owen shouted. He released all of the pain he suffered and the anger he harbored against the wolf.

"GAAHHH! NGGH! NGGH-! …."

*Slsch… Slch…*

He kept stabbing the wolf's head while screaming like a lunatic. If anyone were to see him now with his current mutilated appearance, he would look like a crazed zombie with its eye about to pop off his skull that was desecrating a corpse.

*Vhoom..*

[+ 75 EXP - Forest Wolf: Level 8]

Even though he saw the notification, Owen was still stabbing the wolf's head nonstop. Right now, it looked like pink mush with whitish brain goo and bits of broken bones.

At times like this, people would stop after losing their energy. Taking time from their fatigued state to regain clarity.

But Owen was still going at it.

He didn't stop at all.

He no longer had the sanity to stop.

Well, it was until something had to snap him out of it.

*Vhoom..*

[Insanity]

"Huh..?" The crazed look on his face immediately faded away. He widened his eyes, thinking about what he had been doing just now.

Owen looked at his bloodied up body and with a moment of realization, he stood up and slowly backed away from the wolf's corpse.

He tripped and fell on his back.

Owen examined himself. With a trembling hand, he started to break down into tears.

"I- just want- to go home…."

"Please…. I don't want to suffer any more…. Whoever is out there listening…. Whether you're a god or not…. Please help me." Owen cried with a quivering voice.

Right now, he looked absolutely pathetic with no remaining trace of the person he originally was.

However, despite being drowned in his sorrow, no one helped him.

This was his reality now.

He had to accept it no matter what.

It was either that, or he dies.

Plain and simple.

"..."

10 minutes had passed…

It took a while until Owen stopped crying. Because of the [Bleeding] debuff, his wounds had been healed now.

Skin grew back on his face, but it looked like it suffered burn marks. So although he was fine now, there were still traces of damage.

His scalp grew hair once again. There were no problems with it except that his hair was thinner on that side. His left leg had fully healed, but his left forearm didn't regrow his hand. Although the healing provided by reverse bleeding was good, it couldn't regrow torn limbs.

The skin around his face healed because there was enough skin to rebuild his body with.

Owen also managed to learn that even though the [Bleeding] debuff can help him stay alive, it also closes its own wounds, meaning it was somewhat temporary. He also cannot bleed for a long period of time because complete blood loss will kill him.

Right now, he sat down and contemplated his next course of action.

He raised his left arm to scratch his hair in frustration, only to remember that he no longer had a left hand.

He sighed, "Seriously, this… this isn't like a game at all anymore." His eyebrows furrowed.

"I'm still weak… too weak."

Owen then decided that it was better to leave now.

He walked quite a long distance away from the wolf since it may attract some other predators that could kill him. Right now, he had low blood reserves, so any kind of severe injury would kill him.

He wandered around the forest with caution. Every little sound would scare him to the point of paranoia.

"I have to be more careful now…" Owen remembered that time when he first encountered that strange woman. "Compared to the wolf, that woman is still worse.." He thought to himself.

Suddenly…

He heard the sound of water trickling.

Owen found this suspicious, why would there be water here?

He followed the source of the sound. The source of the noise came roughly in the northwest direction.

Owen was careful. After all, Garden Of The Gods never ran out of things that could kill you.

Because of his silent and steady pace, Owen soon saw that the source of the sound was a long haired guy with some armor and significantly better clothes than him. The guy also had two hatchets on each side of his belt.

Yes, he was just peeing. He was facing a tree, so he couldn't see Owen behind him.

Although this wasn't what he expected, what really caught Owen's attention was the campfire which was a fair distance away from him. He could faintly hear a conversation going and see some people around the campfire.

He also saw the basic information above the man's head.

[Ledasdore - Level 8]

[Affiliation - Bandit]

[Skills - Unavailable] (You do not have the necessary detection skill/s to view the following information.)

The man's name was Ledasdore, and his basic information was colored red.

You know what that means…

Owen now has the moral justification to kill this man and steal all his loot.

He has to be sneaky because all the debuffs he had earlier faded. [Weakness] was caused by his arms being damaged, [Slowness] was because of his injured leg.

And folks, I'm sure you can piece the sources of the other debuffs together yourself.

Owen looked left and right to see if anyone was close by. He was also looking for something that he could use. It was great that he found quite a large rock nearby.

Did he hesitate? Of course.

However, a part of him was saying that this world is just a game. If he killed a person or two, as long as he can return, it's all worth it, right?

Owen chose to believe this lie.

Even though he accepted the reality that he was in another world, he also accepted that he had to do anything to get back.

That's what pain and a loss of reason does to a person.

He picked up the rock and slowly approached Ledasdore from behind.

"Nothing personal, you kill and you get killed… for me, that seems fair enough." Owen said in his mind.

Owen raised the rock. But what he didn't account for was the shadow he cast from the moonlight.

As Ledasdore was relieving himself, he looked at the tree and saw that his shadow was showing that someone was behind him.

"The hell?" Ledasdore turned around and saw Owen throw the rock at him.

And it was the last thing he saw.

*Bam!*

Ledasdore's head was struck heavily by the rock, knocking him out. His head smashed against the tree, shaking off its leaves and causing it to drop some pinecones.

Owen quickly took the hatchet on the man's waist and chopped his neck. When he pulled it out, it made Ledasdore's arteries spurt out blood.

He wasn't dead yet though.

Ledasdore's ambush was heard by the other bandits.

From the campsite, a tall and large man with two missing fingers on his right hand looked at where the scream originated and saw Owen looting Ledasdore's body. He had good armor with chainmail and a quiver of arrows on his back.

His name was Drulg.

"Hey! All of you! Get that bastard!" Drulg wasted no time and quickly grabbed his sword and a bow the moment he saw his men getting attacked.

"Got it boss!" A cross eyed, stupid looking bandit nodded and ran towards Owen.

A few ugly bandits followed as well. They had an assortment of weapons. And for them to have decent quality equipment, they must have been working for a long time.

Before giving chase, Drulg turned around and told his remaining men, "Guard this area while we're gone… Do not touch our haul or else some of you are going to be fed to the wolves without your limbs.."

The nearest bandit fearfully nodded his head.

"Hmph.." After giving orders did Drulg finally left.

"..."

Owen turned his head and saw the bandits approaching him.

*Qiiiuuuhh-* *Thwack!*

An arrow landed on the tree that Ledasdore was pissing on. This urged Owen to move faster.

"2." Owen called out in his mind.

The inventory panel appeared in front of him.

Owen grabbed two hatchets and tested how he could put it in the inventory slots. He quickly figured it out by focusing on one slot and whatever magic is behind the scenes seemed to understand his intention of storing an item.

Seeing this, Owen quickly looted Ledasdore's armor and began storing them in his inventory.

However, another arrow hit the ground near his foot. And sadly, Owen had to leave despite only filling 7 inventory slots.

He made a run for it.

*Thwack!*

Another arrow was shot, but it killed Ledasdore instead of hitting Owen.

"Dammit! My EXP!" Owen regretted not killing Ledasdore. He assumed that he was dead, but he remembered that there wasn't any EXP received.

Drulg saw that Owen was now running away from them. He sneered.

"That kid's not getting away from us that quickly." He thought to himself.

Drulg decided to shoot another arrow towards Owen. But under the moonlight, he saw that Owen would turn around from time to time. Seemingly focused on him.

It made sense since he was the only one with a bow. But another part of Drulg said that what Owen was doing is useless.

"Heh, like that's going to do anything.." Drulg pulled and arrow from his quiver and shot an arrow.

But surprisingly, Owen ran a bit to the left the moment he showed the intention to shoot, which made the arrow miss completely.

"Hm? That kid…. He knows what he's doing." Drulg sensed that whoever he's chasing knows a thing or two about fighting.

This feeling made him think.

"This must be a bait…. If so, whoever is doing this put someone who's good at running and avoiding arrows for a reason…" Drulg thought that this made sense.

He stopped running and shouted, "Halt! We're going back…"

"Huh?"

The bandits were confused.

An ugly looking bandit with a sword asked Drulg, "But boss, why?"

"This must be a bait… They're separating us for a reason… we should return and get the packages delivered to our clients." Drulg watched Owen run away into the darkness before turning around.

The other bandits felt that his intuition must be correct.

They had no qualms about Drulg's decision.

"But, boss… what if they come back?" The same bandit asked.

Drulg merely laughed. "Then this time, we're prepared. I'm sure all of you would pay more attention now that there's a possible threat to us."

The bandits nodded collectively.

"..."

Meanwhile at Owen …

"Huh?" Owen turned around after seeing that the bandits were no longer chasing him.

"Strange… At the game, they would chase you nonstop. Do they act differently now that the world is real?" Owen thought about this and felt that it must be the case.

"That's not my problem, at least I got what I needed." Owen called out the inventory panel and looked at his gains.

…

At the bandit's camp.

Seratil, a decently sized bandit sat on a log near the campfire. He was holding a piece of wood and a knife on the other hand. Seratil was trying to carve a horse, but since he only picked carving as a recent hobby, the horse looked like a hog with down syndrome.

Other bandits sat around him, waiting for Drulg to return.

Soon, they heard footsteps.

"Hm?" Seratil turned around and saw a figure of a human. But since this didn't belong to Drulg or to anyone who belonged to their camp, he frowned.

"Who's there?" As the figure approached, Seratil was now sure this wasn't one of them. He grabbed his sword and quickly stood on guard.

The other bandits noticed where he was looking and similarly took their weapons.

They were all expecting a terrifying looking man, but as the figure got closer, it looked more… feminine?

Eventually, they saw what the figure looked like.

She was at least 205 centimeters tall, her hair were like thin strands of gold and her eyes reminiscent of the translucent appearance of fresh honey. She had a large scar on her right cheek that healed improperly. Making it look quite terrifying.

She wore a black, wide brimmed hat, a long black scarf covering her neck that flowed down behind her. Her right arm was completely made of mechanical parts powered by blue runes carved into it.

She wore a black long sleeved coat made of a strange leather and black pants of similar material that fitted around her figure, making it look more alluring. Each of her boots were buckled by two belts. Her weapon is a sword with the sharpness and luster of obsidian, held by her her left hand.

The woman lifted her head to look at the bandits. She laughed ever so softly,

"Hey there boys, my apologies but, a client of mine asked me to return all of what you've stole… So pardon my intrusion, I will make it quick."

Seratil's pupils shrunk considerably.

He recognized this woman.

The beautiful mercenary who roamed the lands.

No enemy survived unscathed upon encountering her. Most of them lived their lives wishing for death.

Those who died were considered lucky.

She is the sadistic murderer.

[Ixie, the Mercenary Of Golden Grace.]

The last thing Seratil saw was a wave of her arm and a swift flash of light. There was also his headless body in front of Ixie.

That was when he realized that he was just a head now, flying away from his body.

"So that's her... She's gorgeous." In Seratil's final thoughts, he still found her captivating.