Patch 1.03

The creature was intelligent. Maybe not as much as I or any other person would be but it was not dumb. That was for sure.

It had ambushed me from the back and tried - as little as it was - to cover its tracks.

That was also an advantage. The creature was cautious and so instead of killing me like it would another animal. In the face of an unknown it had let me go.

It didn't know what I was capable of.

It stalked me and followed my movements combined with its superior stamina meant that I would be dead in a couple hours.

I had little options in my bag of tricks. 

"So exhilarating" I breather quietly to myself

I was not sure how far sound would travel in this forest but it was better to ere on the side of caution.

Silence was the name of the game.

I climbed atop a tree. Careful to make the least amount of noise I could. I was able to do this because I had an obsession, earlier in my life, with climbing trees.

It was really only a small miracle.

I kept myself as still as possible and made sure to keep a lookout for any suspicious moving mound of snow.

The creature came tumbling around. It sniffed at my most recent tracks and looked around. Soon after it moved to go somewhere else but I didn't let it.

There was calculation in its eyes. Yet in the face of death I smirked.

I had no time to make a weapon, nor to fashion something that could do the same. I could only rely on my innate savageness to keep me alive.

The beast looked up at me in surprise. I had jumped from my perch onto its back. Without hesitation I burrowed my fingers into the beasts eyes.

RAAAAGHHHH

It roared mightily in response. Bucked wildly to try and push me from my perch. 

I held still.

Save death, I was not going to move.

"Come on!"

Adrenaline rushed through my ears as I roared out a battle cry.

The beast slammed uselessly into a tree. All it did was break the damned thing down - the idiot. There was some worry when the force of the beast's blink had injured my fingers.

I just dug deeper in response.

It could have rolled over. It really could have. But the thought never came to its mind.

My muscles began to burn with exhaustion, trying to hold onto the beast, I did not yield. I would not yield!

The injury started to take a toll on the beast. Blood began to pour down its sides and the squishy brain folded under the pressure. I had completely torn any chance of survival from the beast. 

All it could do now was hopelessly yield to my strength. To my savageness. 

It would roll over and die.

That was what my thoughts were saying. That the beast should roll onto the ground and die.

It did. I had won. Despite the odds, despite the death I would take had I made a single mistake.

If my grip was just a little bit less tight. Had my queasy stomach tried to empty its contents. If anything else was different than I would have died.

No doubt about it.

But this was not the time to think about what if's. I had won.

Won.

[XP gained]

"Shit!" I yelled to myself. Pinching my cheeks the reality of the game still pressed heavily upon me.

For a moment there I had forgotten that this was a game. That if I died then I would just be booted from here. 

Maybe that was part of the appeal. I could feel every ounce of pain the same I would in reality. So much so that it was easy to lose myself in the game.

My eyes trailed down to my bloodied hands. They were filled with gore, crushed eye balls, and brain matter.

I shook the gore off me and knelt down for a second.

My head rose to the sky. Eyes looking straight to the winter sun.

"This... Truly... HEh~ HEheHA~"

My laughs were deranged. For the game came as advertised. They might have even had undersold it.

/./

[Gabriel]

[Lv1]

[Skills: None]

/./

Not long after I had discovered that I was able to check my status. It came with a simple swipe of my hands.

Apparently I was instructed on that? But really I didn't even remember there being a tutorial so... eh...

Other than that my status was really only a bare bones summary. It had no experience bar that would tell me how close I was to the next level.

Not even stat points to watch grow bigger and bigger.

It had nothing save for a level and my current skills.

Of which I had none.

To others, maybe, it might be discouraging. But to me, it just invigorated me. I needed more. I needed to conquer and take more.

Survival came first. It was the only reason I was able to compose myself and remember lessons from a school trip that happened years ago.

I made a simple shelter and closed my eyes to try and sleep the adrenaline off. 

My stomach grumbled. Just as my mouth did, my stomach had interrupted the sleep I was due. I couldn't ignore that though.

If I did then I would wake up on an empty stomach and well... that just wouldn't be good.

It took some time but I made a fire and cooked some of the meat from the beast. Was it safe, was it sanitary?

I didn't know the answers to either. But eh... I was hungry. Soon after I shivered and huddled against the fire.

It really was cold. But now that I had food in my stomach and a fire next to me it was even easier to sleep.

Soon after the night fell. 

But there was this incessant howling and growling that kept on waking me up. Enough that when I woke up I was majorly pissed off.

My eyes were bloodshot at the lack of sleep, there was dark circles under my eyes. And my food was gone too.

 Fucking wolves.

I left my fire and my shelter. There wasn't really a use in surviving. This was a combat test so why would survival time matter.