Chapter 13: Chapter 12

Alice threw some supplies into a basket, especially her remaining emergency rations. 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 – even though it had been her home for four months, she missed other people far more. It had been months since she had heard another human being’s voice, after all.

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 some societies paper and books might be valuable – in which case having a book on hand to sell might be a good way to get some funds.

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 would guard the cave for her.

Her stay in the wilds had been cold and lonely, and she had little to remember it by except for the levels and stats in her status screen. Before leaving, she took one last look at the area around her, and remembered the day she had arrived in this world. For a brief moment, her thoughts drifted towards 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.

Alice grabbed her stuff, and began briskly walking upstream. She didn’t see any monsters with {Sixth Sense}, so whatever had roared probably wasn’t close enough to be a problem yet. Therefore, she would move quickly enough to make good time, but save energy for if she needed to jog or sprint later on. She moved as quickly as she could while still watching her surroundings, keeping an eye out for monsters. Looking back on her first few days in the world, it was a miracle she hadn’t run into more of them, moving so brazenly and quickly out in the open.

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 as much as she thought she could get away with. Between running into a few more spidercrabs and whatever was making that sound, she would pick the spidercrabs every time.

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 massive bear towering over the surrounding landscape. Its eyes were inky black, the color of a starless sky. It was staring at her, and it looked pissed. It took a huge, lumbering stride towards her, and her brain finally unfroze. She turned and ran, deciding that tangling with this thing would be the last mistake she ever made. She ran a few steps up the river, determined to try to follow her original plan as much as possible. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see that even the plants seemed to be shaking in fear.

Then, a few blades of grass reached towards her ankles. She easily tore through them, the difference in strength far too large for the fragile foliage to accomplish much. However, ahead of her feet, 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. She was going to die…

She crashed into the thawing river, Thin ice shattered, and the cold water snapped her out of the primordial terror that had seized control of her being. She saw, in a brief moment of lucidity, the bear seem to shrink instead of grow, but before she could even process what was happening, the bear had also crashed into the water.

Then, she suddenly felt much heavier, and it was suddenly difficult to even keep her head above water. Her eyes flicked down, and she saw a fern-like creature scuttling along the bottom of the river, its three-meter long plant maw which for some reason had huge teeth opened wide as it pointed directly at both her and the bear. She extended some tendrils of magic towards her toga and dragged herself upwards, desperately trying to stay away from the river-monster below as the bear began to sink beneath the surface.

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 snapped towards two meters, still huge but no longer at the level of a giant descending upon the mortal plane, diminished in the face of this new threat. Then, its head dipped below the roiling current, and even its angry growl vanished beneath the waves. A few moments later, its thrashing ceased. The sucking sensation dragging Alice to a watery grave stopped.

She popped straight up, her kinetic magic launching her out of the stream like a cork from a bottle as she accidentally sent herself rocketing towards the sky...before her momentum faltered and she messily plopped back into the suddenly still waters. She looked down one final time, and saw whatever was at the bottom of the river swallowing the bear whole. Terrified, Alice quickly swam back to shore, eager to get out of the way of whatever the fuck that thing was as fast as possible before it got hungry again.

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She flopped onto the sandy riverbank, then crawled several further meters away before she collapsed into the ground, exhausted and terrified. It had only taken the blink of an eye for this world to nearly kill her. With a sinking sensation, Alice wondered if perhaps she had been lucky that she had dropped into this world near the start of this world’s winter. If whatever these monsters were hadn’t been hibernating when she had first come here, she was absolutely certain she would have died the first time she saw one. Even with her magic and the fact that her physical abilities had nearly doubled since she had come to this world, she had barely survived. Hell, if she still would have died if either of monsters had focused on her instead of each other – the bear had definitely been gaining on her, and she would have run out of mana before long if she was trying to escape 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 scanned the available perks, gauging what they actually did.

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