Ch. 5 - Damn that Valheim!

[A/N: I've decided to completely remove Gabriel's ability of entering his pocket universe while mid-mission. If he can just enter and exit it whenever he wishes, the 1 hour of prep time before the mission is meaningless because he can just enter it again and do or grab whatever he wants, or maybe he's in the middle of a fight and as he's about to get hit, he enters his pocket universe, completely evading the attack with no effort. But, I'll introduce something that'll make him able to leave his universe while not on a mission, just wait for the first mission to end. I'm still testing the waters, so changes may happen again in the future. Sorry if this bothers any of you, but as I said, this isn't going to be serious or professional, just a fun adventure. Thank you all for the support, enjoy!]

[3373 words]

With a quiet *POP* that resounded through the air, Gabriel suddenly appeared in a forest.

"Hmm...." He curiously looked around, "So this is my first world."

Since he had done a very brief reading in the 4 minutes he had before he left, Gabriel knew that there were massive, human-like creatures that roamed this land called 'Titans'. He also saw that there were some people who were Titan Shifters, meaning they were human but could turn into a Titan while still maintaining their consciousness and intelligence.

Knowing that this world was a very tough and dangerous one, Gabriel didn't want to take any chances so he started to silently walk in a random direction.

He didn't know what time it was on this world, but by the sun's position, he estimated that it was about 5pm. In less than a couple of hours, the sun should be setting.

As he started to walk around, Gabriel felt a weight on his left pocket that he didn't know the origin. Remembering that he only placed 2 pills on his right pocket, he became curious about this so he stuffed his hand on his left pocket and removed something.

Examining what it was, Gabriel saw that it was a smartphone. With 14.5 cm in height, 7 cm in width, and 0.7 cm in depth, this smartphone really resembled an iPhone X from Gabriel's Earth.

As he turned the smartphone making the display face him, it lit up. With a white background and black letters in front, a countdown along with a percentage were displayed.

[Time left until Shiganshina Attack]

[24:41:22]

[Likelihood of Shiganshina Attack happening]

[100% - Will happen]

Interested with the phone, Gabriel tried to leave the application by swiping up, which proved to be successful. On the homescreen, he saw that various apps were downloaded on this phone, such as Instagram, Youtube and Netflix

Happy with now having a phone, but more focused on his current precarious situation, Gabriel stuffed the phone back on his left pocket and started to think of a plan.

'I have a little more than a day until the attack. Should I try to get inside the walls and defend it from there?....No, I don't think that'd work. The mission clearly says [STOP the Shiganshina attack], not [Defend from the Shiganshina attack], meaning that I must prevent it from happening altogether.' He thought as he wandered around the forest, careful to not alarm any Titans that may be nearby. 'Or, maybe, I can indeed go inside the walls and stop the attack from continuing... that's technically stopping the attack so it should work... That's actually the reason why I came here only wearing jeans. I'd use my scissors to make a bunch of cuts on it; then maybe use a knife to slightly cut myself in a few places to make the story beliavable; then I'd bury my backpack somewhere outside the walls with my shovel and leave it there; and lastly, I'd walk towards the wall while screaming, saying that a Titan ate me but I managed to cut through its stomach with a blade I found inside the stomach! Anyway, should I prevent it from happening or stop it from continuing when it begins?.....Urgh, both of them will be tough as hell! But, to go inside the walls, I need to actually find them first! Just where the fuck am I?'

Looking around his surroundings, he could only see gigantic trees, some seemed to be as talls as 80 meters, something that Gabriel hadn't ever seen.

Fortunately, he wasn't seeing nor hearing any Titans yet, and honestly, he was not confident in his ability to kill one in the slightest.

'From my small research, there will be 2 Titan Shifters responsible for the attack on Shiganshina, Reiner Braun as the Armored Titan and Bertolt Hoover as the Colossal Titan. Killing them is off the table because I'm not confident enough in my ability to kill them in their Titan forms, but if they're in their human forms, it's doable. The thing is, they're most likely kids and haven't done anything wrong yet! If worse comes to worst, I'll be forced to battle against 2 Titan Shifters at the same time, one having an impenetrable armor all around his body and being 15 meters tall, while the other is a fucking God of Destruction and 60 meters tall; so I'm completely fucked in this scenario. If I can't do anything to stop them without killing them, I'll try to catch them off-guard and in human forms. I also need to take in consideration my 2 Ability Pills. One can, in almost all cases, save me from certain death as many times as I need for 24 hours, while the other can be used to distract an opponent, which is insanely useful if used correctly..... I need to find some place to settle down first...'

Continuing to roam around aimlessly through the forest for 10 minutes, he started to hear something which made all the hairs on his body stand up.

*THUD!* .... *THUD!* ... *THUD!*

Hearing something that resembled a footstep, Gabriel started to get worried about who or what was responsible for this...

"Fuck! Is it a Titan? A Titan Shifter?! Or maybe there's elefants around this place..... nah, it's probably a Titan!" Gabriel whispered as he hid behind a large tree.

Drops of sweat started to slowly slide down the sides of his face. Adrenaline began to course through his entire body as he wondered if he would have to fight this Titan. His breath became uneven as fear started to cloud his thoughts. If a Titan saw him now, he was dead. No Ability Pill would save him, because if he was simply squashed by the Titan, he was gone. He had already faced death in the face once, but the second time was just as terrifying!

*THUD!* *THUD!* *THUD!*

Still hidden behind a tree, he started to hear the footsteps louder and louder, with the break in between them lessening as it creeped closer.

As the Titan started to enter his field of view, Gabriel slowly moved his body, circling the tree he was using as a wall to hide himself from the Titan.

Thankfully, this strategy worked seeing as the Titan simply continued walking towards the same direction.

Wiping the sweat on his forehead with trembling hands, Gabriel thanked himself and his quick thinking that saved his life.

*grrrr*

With his hands on his stomach, Gabriel suddenly heard an awkward sound coming from it. "Dammit! I forgot to eat before I came here! Shit, I really shouldn't have played Valheim until 4am, and now I may die because of it! The hunger won't kill me, but if I have to run or fight a lot, I'll be severely weakened!"

Thinking about how hungry he was for a few moments, his thoughts were quickly replaced by ones of panic, 'Holy shit! Did the Titan hear me? No no no no! I need to get away from here!'

Moving his head a little bit towards the side, he tried to see if the Titan's path had changed and he caught on to Gabriel's position. Fortunately, it didn't.

With a sigh of relief, Gabriel started to walk to his left. He wasn't going to go North because that's where the Titan came from, and neither was he going directly South because that's where the Titan was heading! Left with only East and West, Gabriel chose to head West.

Walking in the same direction for about 30 minutes, Gabriel saw that the sun was almost setting on the horizon.

"Crap, I need to find some sort of shelter for the night! If I stay in the open like this I'll only be an easy target for the Titans!" Gabriel hastened his pace, trying to find some place to sleep for the night that would soon come.

Finding a tree that had a lot of small branches to the sides, Gabriel decided to climb this one.

Even though the branches were small, it was only compared to the tree's size. In reality, the branches were 3 meters wide and 5 meters long, so they were big enough for Gabriel to lie down on them with no problem.

Looking up from the ground, he calculated that the branch he felt was the best one was about 30 meters up, making it a dificult task for him to climb it with the backpack in his back and a shovel on his right hand.

Digging a small hole on the ground right besides the tree with his shovel, Gabriel buried the backpack there. He didn't know if there were wild animals here that might be attracted to his bag, so he decided to bury it. He removed the chef's knife from inside the bag just to have some kind of weapon with him.

Covering the small hole that contained his bag with dirt, Gabriel awkwardly stuffed the chef's knife on his right pocket along with the Ability Pills.

Climbing the tree and jumping from branch to branch, he finally managed to reach the branch that he had targeted.

Since there was still some time left until night-time, Gabriel removed the phone from his pocket and started to mess with it.

Misteriously enough, even though this world was in an almost medieval-like period, his phone had a full Wi-Fi connection!

'This must be God Lucas' doing...' He concluded in his head.

Spending about 3 whole hours fidgeting with his phone and its various applications, Gabriel saw that the moon was already in the sky, basking the forest in the beautiful moon-light.

Not feeling tired at all but filled with hunger, he started to look around, trying to find some edible wild-life. Making a camp-fire was a piece of cake for him, the hard part was actually finding the meat!

Observing his surroundings from the branch he was on, he briefly saw some movement on the ground behind a tree.

As he patiently waited for whatever was behind the tree to show itself, he started to think about how he would go about killing it,

'Maybe sneaking up and stabbing it is the best option.... hmm.... unfortunately, that leaves little to no room for mistakes. If I stab it even a centimeter away from its heart or brain, it'll be able to escape, maybe even alerting other closeby animals or worse of all, Titans. I could try to cut their Achilles, but that's too hard. Only options left is to either eat the Attention Change pill and kill it then, or to try and kill it from a distance. I don't want to eat the pill now, so that only leaves killing it from a distance. Seeing that I don't have a bow or a gun with me, I'll have to throw my knife at it..... ahhh, shit.' [he didn't know that most Titans were inactive at night]

*squeak*

Hearing some weird noise behind him, he quickly turned to see what it was.

One meter behind him, on the same branch as he was, was a small little squirrel. With a cute brown-ish pelage and a bushy & smooth tail, it stood behind Gabriel with curious eyes.

'A GOD-SENT!' Gabriel excitedly thought.

"Hey there, little guy! C'mere!" He slowly approached the small squirrel.

The squirrel didn't show any signs of fear or anything, it simply stood there, staring at Gabriel with eyes as black as the void.

Extending his right hand as he neared the squirrel, Gabriel started to steadily pet its cute fur.

It seemed that the little squirrel also liked it since it didn't retract its body or try to bite Gabriel, instead it lied down on the branch, quietly enjoying Gabriel's petting.

Seeing that the squirrel had no intentions of running away, Gabriel slowly removed the knife from his pocket, hardening his heart along with it. He didn't want to kill this cute squirrel, but it was the least-risky option for him to get food. Along his entire walk throughout the forest, he hadn't found a single berry or fruit!

Removing the knife with his left hand, Gabriel switched it to his right and hid it behind his back as he continued to pet the squirrel with his left.

Seeing as the squirrel had his body lying down, it became easier for Gabriel to quickly and painlessly kill the poor bastard.

Slowly moving his right hand with the knife in front of him, Gabriel went for the strike. 'I'm deeply sorry, little guy...'

*swoop*

In one fluid and quick motion, he beheaded the cute squirrel with his knife.

As blood flew out from the squirrel's neck, Gabriel grabbed the dead squirrel's body and started to slowly remove the fur and skin.

After a few minutes, he had crudely removed all fur from the squirrel, leaving only the raw meat in his hands.

Now one half of the way there, Gabriel only needed a camp-fire to cook it.

Grabbing some small sticks and leaves that were present on his branch, he sat down on the part of the branch which was thicker and sturdier. It was the part connected to the tree's trunk, so it was naturally stronger than the rest of the branch. He was also starting to get cold since he was only wearing pants, so he needed to create fire soon.

Trying his best to create fire with the tools present, he finally managed to do it after 20 minutes.

Create a small little rudementary camp-fire and supplying it with leaves, Gabriel impaled the squirrel's entire body with a stick and began to hold it on top of the fire.

15 minutes later, it was perfectly cooked. At least that what Gabriel thought...

*crunch*

"My God, this is terrible..." He said after taking a bite. His face showed an expression that showed disgust.

Not having the luxury to choose what to eat at the moment, he was forced to eat this meat to completion so as to not starve.

Now with a full stomach, Gabriel felt a little sleepy. Since he had nothing to do besides using his phone, he decided to try and sleep. It was very early in the night, about 9pm, but after he ate, an urge to sleep came to him.

Under the moonlight, with the crackling fire in front of him, Gabriel lied down on the hard wood and fell asleep.

.

~5am~

Gabriel slowly woke up due to him hearing some voices in a distance.

Checking the time on his phone, he saw that it was a little over 5am, meaning that the sun would be coming up soon.

Wondering if he actually heard a voice, he stood there, silently waiting for this voice to say something again,

"I'm glad we didn't run into any Titans..." Gabriel heard this voice say from a distance.

'Holy shit, is this Bertolt and Reiner? They're already here?' He was immediately awake after hearing a voice for the second time.

Quickly grabbing his knife, he started to go down his tree, jumping from branch to branch, making sure to be as quiet as possible.

"Marley's research is reliable!" He heard another voice as he was making his way to the ground.

Finally managing to reach the ground, he slowly crept to the voices' direction looking at the ground in order to not step on anything that would alert them of his position.

"We're going to the wall tomorrow, and...." The voices talked.

'This one is a bit different from the earlier 2.... shit, are there more people with Reiner and Bertolt? Damn that Valheim! Fucking game made me unable to research more about this Shiganshina Attack!' He cursed Valheim in his mind.

Even though he was slightly worried that there might be more people with Reiner and Bertolt, Gabriel continued to slowly make his way towards them.

"Don't tell me you're feeling hesitant to kill those island devils." The second voice said.

Gabriel imagined that he must be about 10 to 30 meters away from them at the moment, so he was even more careful than before to not make any sound.

Walking for about 10 more seconds, a light from a camp-fire in between the trees entered his vision. From what he could see, there were 4 people surrounding the camp-fire and they were exactly where the forest ended.

'Dammit! 4 people?! 2 was hard enough, but 4?! If I assume that all 4 of them are Titan Shifters, which is very possible, I'll have to be extremely cautious and silent to not alert them!' Gabriel thought.

"!" Gabriel's eyes went wide, 'Since the forest ends a few meters behind them, I can climb a tree near them and observe them from there!'

Formulating a good plan, Gabriel hid himself in between the large trees and started to make his way towards the tree closest to them.

Thankfully, he was able to walk up to it and climb it without alerting them, which was a miracle in and of itself, but what made this even better was that this tree was only 10 meters tall, so it was much easier to climb.

Standing at the top of the tree, Gabriel quietly observed the 4 kids talking around the fire. There was a boy with short blond hair, another boy with short black hair and a tall body, a girl with moderately short blonde hair, and lastly, a boy with a swept-back, short black hair.

'Alright, the blonde boy should be Reiner with the power of the Armored Titan; the tall boy should be Bertolt with the power of the Colossal Titan; the girl and the other boy I have no fucking idea...' He wondered about their identities.

"I'm sorry, Reiner..." Said the boy with swept-back hair as tears formed in his eyes.

Standing up, Reiner stared at the boy with a confused expression on his face. "Why are you apologizing...?"

Just then, behind Reiner, something started to come out of the ground as if it was buried there.

Slowly and silently, this creature made his way to the surface.

'That's a Titan....!' Gabriel thought as he saw the creature.

When it's big body was half-way out of the ground, it opened its big mouth and lunged itself towards Reiner.

'Fuck, this is my best chance! If I want to stop the Shiganshina Attack, I need to kill one of these kids! They're too far into their plan to be convinced through words! I need to take advantage of this distraction!' Gabriel removed all hesitation and pity from his heart and readied himself to kill a kid.

Just as the Titan was about to devoure Reiner in one bite, the swept-back haired kid pushed him out of the way.

Before any of the kids could even understand what was happening, the swept-back haired kid had his head bitten out of his body by the Titan's strong jaw.

"This is my only valuable chance! I need to kill this kid!" Gabriel encouraged himself before he jumped out of the tree with both of his arms in front of him and the chef knife being held by both of his hands. He aimed at Bertolt's head, who was directly beneath one of the tree's branches and in human form...