Where I am
What is the most disastrous thing that can happen when out on a camping? Animal attacks are dangerous, yes they are, but did you know a person is more dangerous than any animal out there?
================================================================================A map, a compass, a weapon ammo indicator, the titan gauge, my abilities...all of it were now fully integrated within what I can see. Though a few minor changes like a yellow bar below my health bar is present, and things like item quick slots and an inventory with limited space are now here too.
[You look very beautiful today aren't you?] I lifted this heavy machine gun called SPITFIRE and admired its aesthetic beauty. Ah, so this is what they say that Americans love freedom and guns huh? No wonder, I am an American as well.
I also put my sidearm which is a HAMMOND P2011 into the holster on my hips. Right now I am truly ready to explore this world. But first and foremost...
[A plan, where do I go first?] Should I immediately enter a dungeon and challenge it? Or should I enter a city first and gather information? The latter seems to be the better option. I opened the expanded MAP feature and scanned the visible area around me, hmmm, not much to be seen for now.
Hence to the city it is, the map can be expanded further to show me the area as far as I can see as indicated by the shadows in the map gradually becoming a clarified terrain. Huh, this feels like an old-school fantasy RPG.
[So this is a guessing game now] I picked up a random stick from the ground and made it stand in front of me.
[God, guide me to where I will go, to the nearest city please] I then removed my hand from the stick and let it fall to where it will fall....and it was to the north.
To the mountain, it is then...the heck.
{TITAN DEPLOYMENT GAUGE: 30%}
[Damn, traveling is shit after all] In the end I can only walk and admire the scenery for now.
Now that I remember it, I have never done any outdoor walking for the past years of my life. Ever since I started entering my college days, exercise and hiking were put on a halt because there were a lot of more important things to do back then. But now?... I have so much time that I don't know what to do anymore.
[Sheesh...Man I am already missing my apartment] Will the landowner notice my absence? The news about my death should be spread by now, though I hope it reaches the landlord's ears. There were a lot of things in my unit too, my gunpla collection, light novels, pieces of literature, as well as my sketches during my free time all of it was stashed there....and now left alone without anyone to look after it.
Man. My man cave....
Now that I have arrived here, I have to move on and continue to where I am supposed to be going. Man can only move forward while looking back at where man came from after all.
To safely enter a dungeon, it is best to gather information....but where? To the bar of course! That's the cliche template location that every isekai anime should start with, I mean the bartender has every information there is, right?
But the goal is far from getting into due to the distance I was put at, ugh, couldn't they have put me at least even about a few miles nearer to a city or starting town just like in MMORPGs? But I can't ask for more knowing how complex my wish was already, anyway whoever god you are I thank you for granting my wish.
There are just problems that rose in my mind as I walk towards the north, and that is....what if I won't arrive there before night comes? To be in the forest at night without any cover over my head would be somehow...dangerous.
The angel said that monsters and humans alike do attack people, and that contributes to the likely causes of my death. I guess that is pretty normal considering this is a forest. I can just blast them up using this LMG here, but ammunition is a problem too.
How do I obtain ammunition? Currently, I have 5 100 round boxes stashed within my inventory taking 5/50 of the space it currently has. As for the secondary firearm I have 20 magazines in total...so that means I have to learn when to and when not to shoot at things. Ammunitions are scarce, for the fact that I have no idea how to replenish it.
I already regretted not taking the IMC side, but energy weapons also use batteries that are disposable so that just makes my situation the same even if I took it. But come to think of it, batteries generally take a while to be exhausted....................
Damn it, it is already too late to ask for a redo.
[Haaaah...shit] All I can do now is push through. Besides, it does not take long anyway for the gauge to be at 100% and I can just ride Ronin on the way there. Besides, that guy has a frickin' huge sword.
About water and food, water isn't a problem since I was provided with a water treatment kit for 5 sessions as well as some dried rations. Biscuits, dried meat, and dried fruits and nuts. Basically what every granola bar would have except it does not have honey or maple syrup.
I was trying to explore what I can do for the next hour of the walk toward the mountain.
First and foremost is the abilities the titan pilot would have.
[Woah, I am already carrying this much weight but I am walking just fine] First to be noticed is the increased strength and endurance. I tried to break a rock with a hand, and though it took time, it did crack. As for endurance, the LMG hanging at my shoulder is very heavy. About 20 lbs. if I am correct because that is usually how heavy these things are. Add that up with its 100-round box magazine.
Next is enhanced vision and hearing, the senses of a pilot are essential for survival hence everything about it got one-upped. For now, I can see very clearly, and probably my vision is about 1.5x clearer than normal, as for my hearing--I can hear the ambiance of the forest such as chirps, howls, growling.....growling?
So monsters are still animals but since this is a fantasy world....animals are treated as monsters. On the way to the mountain, I encountered monsters that are harmless such as the common river slime, a large bird that preys on bees, bees as big as my fist... and green-skinned... humanoids?
[Graaaaaaa] (??)
[Gruoa?] (??)
[Gra! Gra!] (??)
The way the three of them communicated with each other made me feel stupefied. Monsters huh...they look harmless at first but closely looking at the trio--they were holding axes and clubs made from wood and flint. It's noticeably tainted with blood that has already dried.
My first encounter with hostile mobs in this world...
[Graaaaaaaaa!?!!] (??) Oh crap, they noticed me now.
The other two got alerted and began to draw their weapons on me.
[I guess peace was never an option then] I cocked the gun and then revealed myself as I got out from the cover of the bushes.
[Graaaa!!!!!!!!] (??)
[Bring it on, you green-skinned ugly mother fuckers]
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To kill and be killed, to usurp the weak and survive as the strong. Such is the law of the jungle, to pity and to cower is to die for the brave and vile.
[Graaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!] (??) The trio then starts their assault by approaching me with their mouths wide open, ugh, their mouths were filled with crooked teeth.
[Woah there] I dodged the first one and kicked it in the nuts, causing it to collapse in an instant. The family jewels are now broken, my guy.
[Raaaaaaaaarrrgg!!!!] (??) Oho? I stepped back to dodge an incoming spear and then held the spear shaft with my free hand while aiming the gun toward the head of this monster.
*Bang!*
That's one. Man, they die with one hit in the head. I mean its head exploded because I fired it at point blank.
Blood spluttered in the air as one of them got done with, and the contents of the head scattered too. It smells terrible.
{YOU HAVE KILLED FOREST GOBLIN X1, EARNED 5 EXP}
A notification rang in my head as the familiar floating semitransparent screen popped out at the corner of my vision, but that also came along with the sight of a nimble goblin trying to stab me with its measly flint knife.
[Ra---] (??) I delivered a solid kick in the neck to the guy, making it look like a scene out of a horror movie. That is two...
{YOU HAVE KILLED FOREST GOBLIN X1, EARNED 5 EXP}
The last one tried to crawl away......should I end this guy too? In the first place, I never had the plan to kill these guys and just walk away, but they were the first ones to attack me. This is just self-defense, besides, they are monsters. Wait, why am pitying it again?
*BANG!*
{YOU HAVE KILLED FOREST GOBLIN X1, EARNED 5 EXP}
{TOTAL EXP GAINED [15/100]}
Sweet.
With that, the monster encounter is finished, but it sure stinks bloody hell in here. Phew...I wasted two rounds on the fuckers, but at least it was a job well done.
[So it is 5 experience points per goblin, what are the maximum experience points to level up then?]
CHARACTER STATUS
NAME: JACK COOPER
AGE: 20 YEARS OLD
RACE: HUMAN
OCCUPATION: [MILITIA] TITAN PILOT LV1 [15/100]
TITAN: RONIN LV1 [0/100,000]
HP: 100/100
ENERGY: 100/100
STR: 15
VIT: 10
DEF: 15
STAMINA: 15
LUCK: 13
SKILLS:
CLOAK LV1
S.T.I.M. LV1
GRAPPLE LV1
A-WALL LV1
PHASE SHIFT LV1
PULSE BLADE LV1
HOLOGRAPHIC PILOT LV1
So it is one hundred EXP to graduate from being a level one noob eh. What if I enter a dungeon and grind there for days? Surely it would not be at level 2 by then, but the dangers are still unknown. By weighing the pros and cons, you would know which is better to do and not to do at all.
[Their weapons seem usable but it's crudely made, to think there are even intelligent monsters that can make crude weapons like this] As an avid light novel reader of any fantasy genre involving "ISEKAI", "SUMMONING" or "TRANSMIGRATION", goblins are illustrated as a monster that would rape women and kill the men. They are also called frog eyes due to the manner their eyes look like, goat eyes too look like frogs in some sense. Crude weapons? They use it, it's also laced with some kind of mixed poison.
{CRUDE FLINT SPEAR [POISON: GOBLIN PEE, NEUROTOXINS(MUSHROOM, INSECT VENOM)] x2}
{CRUDE BRANCH CLUB x 1}
So...should I dispose of these? And how? By smashing the weapons using my strength and tossing it at a nearby body of water. At least nobody is going to use it anymore. As for the corpses, I just threw them at a nearby shrubbery and let mother nature handle whatever she wants to do with them. Besides, there are other monsters here that are scavengers. Rats, maggots, anything that can stomach a slowly decomposing corpse...they would eat it as if it was a buffet.
After easily disposing of whatever remained, my journey resumed. Still to the mountain that is as high as I can see. I walked and walked, looking around all the time as a wary individual that something may not be detected by the map and I can't truly allow that. This is my 2nd life and if I die that would be instantly a GAME OVER, you can't revive here and treat your death as a save and reload type of game. If I die now and meet that angel again with her disappointed face, I think even my soul would die by then.
[Argh! Focus Jack, Focus for fuck sake] I slapped my helmet and get myself over with about the topic regarding life and death.
For now, it is best if I would reach the mountain and take a nice view of where I am headed next.
{TITAN GAUGE: 60%; 5 HOURS TILL FULL CHARGE}
[Nice] At least it won't be a day-long till its arrival, but damn I am getting impatient. I don't know though how this will go, as there are no spaceships up in the atmosphere. Heck, how god works regarding the skills I have are something else.
So I guess I should stop here for now and wait.
I looked at the onboard real-time clock display in my UI and saw it was at 1:45 PM by now. So it is still 24 hours here? I wouldn't know until midnight arrives, besides it is always told in fantasy light novels that time flows differently here and there. So there may be a disparity when it comes to how time flows here.
The weather is getting a bit cloudy...wait no, the clouds seem like they carry that much precipitation due to the dark color.
[I really should find a temporary shelter for now] I walked to the mountain in hopes of finding a cave-like entrance to stay for a while.