“Wait, actually,” Issac brought his status up and looked at it carefully. “Didn’t the [Basic Danger Sense] have like descriptions and flavor text? Do all the other things on my status screen have those?”
“Uh, let’s see….” He clicked on one of the two things that got him in this mess – his race. Another holographic screen popped up with a new wall of text.
“Woah, Woah, what the fuck is this?” Issac stared at the text with utter confusion. “Arachnid Demon, eating spider hearts, mythical creatures? Does it still want me to live? And my knowledge of biology? You mean high school biology helped me out? And here I thought that should remain useless till I died.”
Issac inhaled and breathed out a breath full of frustration. He looked at his status screen again to see that his race had changed from 1/8th Spider Demon to 1/8th Arachnid Demon. He stared at it for a brief moment before clicking on 『Illusionist』. Just like before, another screen with a wall of text popped up.
“Hallucinogens? When have I been under those!?” Issac thought hard, but the answer wasn’t coming to him at the moment. He rubbed his temples; learning so many things at once was taxing on his brain, especially when he was in such a hostile environment.
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“So, even our life before coming here matters?” he stared at the last line of the description with a nostalgic smile. However, that smile soon disappeared when he heard something rustling behind him. Drawing the goblin sword, he turned around.
From the bushes slithered out a small snake with brown scales and a blue gem on its head. Issac took two steps back as the snake slowly slithered towards him. He focused on the snake and a holographic screen popped up.
“Mesmer snake?” Issac circled around the snake. It simply stood in place and watched Issac. Once Issac stopped, it immediately stood up and hissed, opening its hood. It bobbed back and forth like it was being charmed.
Issac waited, but nothing happened. “…what is it doing?” he watched as the snake continued to dance and hissed at him.
“Uh…” before Issac could kill it, a familiar ding rang in his mind. He looked at the holographic screen next to him.
“What? It was trying to hypnotize me?” he looked back at the snake. The snake was still trying to hypnotize him. He could almost see it sweating from the effort.
Issac scoffed and chopped down with his sword. The goblin sword connected with the snake’s neck, decapitating it. The snake flopped on the ground like it had a seizure before finally stopping. Issac left the snake’s corpse where it was but dug out the gem with the help of the sword.
He washed the blue gem in the river and looked at it carefully. It was transparent and oval. The status screen didn’t reveal anything useful, so he chucked it into his pouch. With that small roadblock overcome, he began to walk downstream again.
Looking at the gushing river next to him, he had a dangerous thought, “It’s a miracle I haven’t been attacked by any aquatic creatures. But I think aquatic predators that lie in wait for prey can’t do that in rivers…? Yeah, yeah, then the river would just carry them away!”
He felt a bit more at ease. Though he still had to be vigilant of threats out of the water. With the goblin sword in hand, he continued to travel vigilantly. He hoped to find a bridge or a road or something that would lead him to other people. He hoped that he would at least get into a city or village of some sort.
As he kept walking, the sun changed positions. It was just above the horizon and dyed the forest in its orange hue. As the shadows covered him, Issac felt loose. He felt like he had a spring in his step and could move better.
“Perhaps this is the effect of the 『Night Owl』 job?” Issac moved a bit faster. Even though he felt like he was on point with his guesses, he still couldn’t wrap his head around why it would work when he was in the shadows. Aside from this, his biggest worry was why nothing had attacked him yet. It’s not like he wanted to get attacked, but rather it was strange for it not to happen.
“Is there an animal behavioral pattern for this? It can’t be because they hate water; that’s dumb!” Issac shook his head at this unsatisfying conjecture. “This is unnerving…. The only other reason would be that it’s a stronger animal’s territory.” He nervously chuckled to himself, “But which animal would be that powerful to have the entire river as its territory? I’m creeping myself out for no reason, right?” But no one was there to affirm or deny his guesses. This lack of an answer only served to stress him out more.
The crickets chirping at night made him feel like it was a night in the suburbs, but the gushing river brought him back to reality. In this forest, it wouldn’t be surprising if even the crickets started attacking him. But this quiet time really made his ‘territory theory’ seem plausible. And the implication of that was terrifying at best and fatal at worst.
“I would really like it if you were here, Nyx. I need a god right now. Er, or a goddess in your case.” Issac was agnostic since God never really played that big of a part in his life, but heaven knows that he needs a physical god by his side now.
After walking another hour, Issac noticed that he didn’t need to take a break, but he still sat down and did so, if nothing, just to heal his mind. Since he didn’t need to massage his feet, he decided to do something else.
He opened his status screen and tried to see which skill he could train in this downtime.
“Let’s try Night Blade,” he pressed on ‘Night Blade’ so he could get a good idea of what it was. Another screen with a wall of text popped up.
“This sounds killer, and no pun intended,” Issac’s eyes shone as he read the perks and effects. If it did what he said, then he'd have the absolute advantage at night. "Let's get to it then," he held his hand and tried to manifest the Night Blade.
It was not. It took me two and a half hours or even longer.
It just showed me how to fill an outline of a shape you drew with a brush! Fuck! But that video did give me another idea. The bucket tool. I can fill the space up instantly. So, I selected the bucket tool and picked the color then I went to color one of the space.
And it colored the entire background!