Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Realizing that it was time to leave, Alice grabbed the supplies she felt she needed, such as food, and stored them in her basket. She also grabbed her spear, stone hatchet, and stone knife, because having some weapons on hand in case she ran into something else terrifying might be critical. She spared a glance at her cave, which she had slowly worked to transform into a somewhat cozy home, before she turned back towards the entrance. She didn’t feel regret over leaving it behind. It had been her home for four months, but she missed other people far more than she would miss her time in the wilderness.

The only other thing she brought along was her book on magic, which she had long since memorized. It had taught her magic, and also a language. She was reluctant to leave it behind. Besides, in less technologically advanced societies, paper was hard to produce. Alice had no clue whether books were easy or hard to produce in this world, but there was a chance she could sell her book for a fair amount of money when she reached civilization.

She left behind Taps, the pet rock that she had painted a face on a while ago. Before she left, she knocked him against the wall one last time. He could guard the cave for her and keep it safe. Then, she took one last look at the cave, before she turned to the sky above this world. Despite the fact that it looked similar to the sky back on Earth, Alice knew that she was looking at a completely different sky now. Her thoughts drifted back to home.

Sorry, mom and dad. I still don’t know how to get home. I wonder if you two are thinking of me right now? The cops must have declared this to be a missing persons case by now. They might have even decided I was dead. I wonder if they’ve stopped searching for me. I hope you’re doing okay. It might take a while, but I won’t forget where I come from. Someday, I’ll see you again. I’ll try my hardest to get back soon, so don’t feel too bad while waiting for me, okay?

After that, Alice grabbed her stuff, and began walking upstream. She didn’t see any monsters with {Sixth Sense}, so the creature that had been roaring earlier wasn’t close enough for her to worry about yet. Based on that information, Alice kept a pace that would make good time, but would keep enough energy in reserve to let her sprint away if need be. With how much tougher her body had grown during her time in the wilderness, she no longer feared her feet getting cut up by the wilderness, and any lingering remnants of winter and the cold didn’t pose any threat to her.

Another roar sounded in the distance, but as far as she could tell, it didn’t seem to be moving closer to her. Still, she felt uneasy, and picked up her pace a little in hopes of escaping the territory of the creature in the distance as quickly as possible.

A few hours later, she heard another one of the terrifying roars. This time, however, it was much closer, almost on top of her. She froze, her heart hammering in her chest as she scanned each direction.

Something massive stepped into the range of {Sixth Sense}. When she turned to her left, she saw a bear towering over its surroundings. Its eyes were an inky black color, and it was looking right at her. Alice paused in shock for a moment, wondering why the monster had locked onto her location so quickly, and then her brain unfroze. She began running for her life, following the river and hoping she could run faster than the creature. However, her hopes were in vain, and the creature quickly caught up with her. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that even the plants seemed to be quivering under the lumbering strides of the creature.

Then, a few blades of grass grew in length as they reached towards her ankles. Alice tore through them, since a few blades of grass couldn’t stop her from fleeing. However, ahead of her, larger, thicker cords of grass were forming. She realized that, somehow, the bear was controlling the grass around her.

Shit! That’s not one of the four basic magics!

Alice heard another roar, and she glanced over her shoulder, seeing the bear grow in real time as it rapidly closed the distance between them. Then, she realized it was literally growing. Before, it had stood two and a half meters tall on its four legs, but now it was closer to three. Panicking, she felt her stomach churn with dread as she realized she was going to die here. She was still trying to run away, tripping over the cords of grass and vegetation, but she wasn’t going to make it.

Half-blind as she struggled to focus, Alice took a misstep in the wrong direction, and crashed into the thawing river. The ice shattered, and freezing water snapped her out of the primordial terror that had torn into her brain moments ago. She saw, in a brief moment of lucidity, the bear seem to shrink instead of grow, but before she could process what had changed, the bear also jumped into the water to keep chasing her.

Suddenly, she felt much heavier. At the same time, she realized that {Sixth Sense} was now picking up on the presence of two monsters, instead of just one. Her eyes flicked down, and she saw a fern-like creature scuttling along the bottom of the river, its three-meter long plant maw filled with teeth opened wide as it pointed its mouth directly at her and the bear. She extended some tendrils of magic towards her makeshift toga and draggedherself upwards, desperately trying to stay away from the river-monster below. The creature’s mana felt like it was squirming around, and Alice realized that she hadn’t been imagining things earlier – the creature was somehow dragging her towards its mouth. However, the bear was much closer to the creature and much heavier than Alice.

The bear suddenly seemed to shrink into itself, and one of the trees from nearby tried to extend a helping branch towards the bear. The beast’s size continued shrinking as it desperately tried to swim away, until its height shrank to two meters. Then, its head dipped below the roiling current, and even its angry growl vanished beneath the waves. As Alice used her nonexistent swimming skills and Kinetic Magic to keep her head above water, the massive bear sank lower and lower into the water. Finally, the plant-monster’s mouth snapped shut, and the vinebear stopped thrashing. The plant monster stopped using whatever magic it had available, and Alice popped straight out of the water as her kinetic magic dragged her upwards.

For a brief moment, Alice flew out of the water, her kinetic magic launching her out of the stream like a cork from a bottle before her momentum faltered and she flopped back into the water. Alice struggled for a moment to get back into a swimming position, before She looked down one final time. Whatever was at the bottom of the river was working on swallowing the bear whole, and didn’t seem worried about her any longer. Terrified, Alice quickly swam back to shore, eager to get out of the way of the plant monster before it got hungry again.

After a brief swim she collapsed onto the sandy riverbank, exhausted and terrified. It had only taken the blink of an eye for the newly awakened monsters of this world to nearly kill her. Even though her physical abilities had nearly doubled since she had come to this world, she had barely survived. She couldn’t help but shake as she remembered how hopeless she had felt when she was being chased by the bear, as well as the strange abilities of the plant monster.

She took a few minutes to relax, just breathing in and out, before she finally checked her System notifications, realizing that this encounter had finally pushed her to level 35 in [Survivor]. She examined her surroundings to make sure she was safe, before looking through her new Perk options while praying they would give her new tools to survive the monsters she had just encountered.

Sense hostilityThis chapter's initial release occurred on the n0vell--Bjjn site.

Requirements: Survivor level 35 or higher, Perception 100 or higher

Whenever any being gazes upon you with hostile intentions, you will sense it, as well as sense the direction of the entity in question and its power relative to you. If said being is significantly stronger than you, or is too far away, locating them may be impossible. Improves the effect of the {Perception} attribute by 20%. Enhanced by your Perception attribute.

Ambush Predator

Requirements: Survivor level 35 or higher, Stealth - related perk unlocked at any point in time within the [Survivor] class

While undetected, you gain the ability to see twenty meters around you in all directions with any senses available to you. When attacking a target which has no knowledge of your presence, you will be able to pinpoint its weaknesses more accurately, and it will lose blood much more quickly for two minutes after your first attack.

Hardy

Requirements: Survivor level 35 or higher, Endurance higher than 75, Magic higher than 25

Your body gains a significant amount of natural resistance against hard impacts and magic. Effects of the Endurance stat increase by 20%.

Slayer of Monsters

Requirements: Survivor level 35 or higher, Monster Slayer Achievement, 3 stats at 100 or greater, no stats below 50

If you have killed a monster within the last 7 days, all of your stats have their effectiveness increased by 15%. Your ability to track and locate monsters is improved. (When determining whether you have killed a monster, this Perk only counts the final blow.)

As she observed the little farming town more closely, she realized that the age of people seemed to directly correlate to how superhuman their actions were. People around 30 and below still seemed somewhat similar to a mediocre Olympic athlete, while those between the ages of 30 and 50 seemed to be the ones who could give Olympic athletes a run for their money and also had a few supernatural abilities slapped on top of that. She also saw a few older people helping out, although they seemed notably weaker than the younger ones. Apparently, even the System didn’t prevent the physical deterioration brought about by old age.

Still, the casual superhuman strength everyone displayed with was astonishing for Alice to see. While they were all significantly slower and weaker than what she had seen from the bears that controlled plants and fear, they were much stronger than her. Alice had no clue what the soldiers of this world looked like, but if these people were average [Farmers] she should probably expect something far more ridiculous from people actually trained to fight. Despite this casual superhuman ability, the [Farmers] still kept one eye on the forest at all times, making Alice wonder if they were afraid of vinebears or monsters creeping up on them and attacking them.

As she walked closer, she could also see that there was a [Guard] post of some sort outside one of the walls. A group of wagons approached the guard on duty, resulting in some gesturing before the guard began moving to check the wagons. Some sort of tariff, perhaps? Wondered Alice as she observed the exchange. The wagons were pulled by horses, and she couldn’t find a single hint of automation or machinery anywhere. Therefore, the world she was currently was somewhere in the middle ages. This was important information, and made Alice somewhat more hopeful about the prospect of selling her book for some survival funds later.

Meanwhile, a large number of other people in plain clothes labored near the river, digging at the area for some reason. Back on Earth, the digging probably would have taken hours, or even days, while here it took mere minutes for visible progress to come from each [Laborer.] She was a little astonished to see the means of this new world at work as she watched some of the piles of dirt fling themselves away after people had stopped touching them, sliding away from the working site as if they were ice skating on dry land.

Alice took a deep breath, before trying to look as natural as possible and hoping nobody would accidentally squish her in passing. Considering how strong these people were, Alice felt that a casual fistfight with a regular inhabitant might crush her ribcage or kill her on the spot. Then, working up her courage, she kept walking towards the town, homing in on the [Guard] station.

Now that she was closer, she could see that the people around her weren’t quite as superhuman as she had first thought – while the [Farmers] and [Laborers] were, without question, far stronger and more durable than she was, she didn’t see people moving fast enough that she struggled to track them, or anything of that sort. Putting together what she had seen from her own perks beyond level 25 in [Survivor] and her rudimentary understanding of Stats, she quickly realized that most of these people were probably several levels higher than her in some sort of [Farming] class, and that probably gave them several boosts to [Endurance] and [Strength]. At least, that was her best guess about why these people seemed to have such stilted physical attributes – their dexterity was definitely higher than hers, based on speed they moved, but the difference didn’t seem to be overwhelming.

Finally, she reached the guardhouse. The people there were wearing leather armor and holding long, metal pikes. Alice nodded to herself, more sure than before that the industrial revolution had yet to reach this world. Then, she marched towards the second guard outpost, trying her best to seem normal while she fabricated a story. It wasn’t perfect, but it would do on short notice. Before that, she had to wait in line, since the guard was apparently still checking the wagon in front.

While she waited, a group of kids playing scrambled by as Alice watched in bemusement.

“Tag! You got eaten!”

“Ahh! I got eaten again! That’s no fair!”

Another kid showed up, wearing a yellow armband. “Bzzt! I got the monster!” he said as he touched one of the other kids.

“Aww!”

“All the monsters are dead! Civilians and Mages win the round!”

“Who are the mages this time?”

“I want to be a monster!”

“I got eaten three games in a row! I want to be something besides a civilian!”

The group of kids drifted off while Alice pondered. At the very least, it doesn’t seem like Mages are hated here. That’s a relief. Although, if normal people can do this much, what the heck killed the guy whose body I found? I might have suspected a vinebear before, but there’s no way he got killed by a monster even I escaped from if this is what an average civilian looks like. There must be much scarier monster than just vinebears somewhere around here. Or scarier people. Alice shivered.

The guard finally finished checking the wagon in front of her, collected some silver coins from the group, and waved them through. Alice stepped up to the guard.

He looked at her, and seemed surprised for a moment. Alice winced. Her ‘toga’ was definitely weird compared to the other clothes she had seen – most people wore tunics and pants, or dresses and skirts, depending on gender. She hadn’t seen anyone else wearing what looked like a clumsily folded piece of cloth. At least, although there were a few holes and bite marks here and there, it still covered everything, but her attire definitely stood out.

“Name? Occupation? Actually, do you have an occupation? What’s your reason for travelling here?” Asked the [Guard] giving her a suspicious look. It was probably more than Alice deserved, considering the fact that she had shown up looking like a filthy beggar, but the [Guard] didn’t seem to mind.

Alice took a deep breath before launching into her pre-prepared story. She wasn’t sure if the guard would be able to tell from the minute twitches of her body or something equally ridiculous if she was lying, so she kept her statements as close to the truth as possible.

“My name is Alice. My father was a [Merchant], but I encountered misfortune, and I’ve been surviving in the wilderness alone ever since. I am here because I have been looking for a town or some other bastion of civilization, and I saw the walls from the distance.” Technically, everything she said was the truth – her father worked to sell electronics, which was a kind of [Merchant]. She wasn’t interested in divulging the fact that she was an {Outworlder} until she knew more about her situation – it was best to pretend to be a local for now. If she needed to run, she was pretty sure she had zero chance of escaping the civilians here, so she really needed to blend in... as much as she could when she walked slower than the average twelve year old and was covered in a few days of mud and dirt. At least her dunk in the river while fleeing from the vinebears had worked as some kind of bath and helped her clean up a bit, and after she had figured out how to boil water she had begun occasionally wiping herself down with a wet cloth to stay clean, or she might have smelled like a marsh monster. If she hadn’t, Alice wondered if the [Guard] would have chased her away before she could even enter the city.

The guard raised an eyebrow, and suddenly Alice felt as if he could see through her for a moment. Then, the feeling faded as he shrugged and waved her forward. “Do you have any Perks which allow for the storage of items?”

“No?”

She felt as if the guard was looking inside of her again, although {Sense Hostility} still didn’t pick anything up. She tried to identify what was going on, and after a moment, made a guess. Some sort of lie detection Perk? It does seem to be in-flavor for a [Guard], at least.

Please read this statement out loud.” He handed her a block of stone with some words carved into it.

“I am entering this city while bearing no hostile intentions towards the city, nor do I anticipate my intentions changing before I exit. I do not intend to physically harm any person within the walls, nor do I anticipate my intentions changing before my exit. I am not a spy of the Sigmusi Empire. I am not a spy from any other nations. I have no outstanding arrest warrants, and do not intend to take any illegal actions while within the city walls.” The feeling of the guard seeing through her returned. After a moment, he nodded.

“Good enough. Go to the guardhouse just inside the gates and talk to the receptionist.” For the first time, Alice saw a hint of sympathy in the man’s gaze. “If you’re interested, at least. He can help get you caught up with whatever you’ve missed, and possibly help out a bit with getting familiar with the area. At the very least he can offer you some information.”

Alice nodded, trying not to think any more about her parents that she might never see again. For now, at least, she was in the company of humans for the first time in months. She had finally reached a town, and it seemed like monsters avoided this area. She stepped through the gates, filled with a mixture of nervousness and hope.