Chapter 6: Chapter 5 – A Pouch, A Rock, and A Stick

A bowl landing forcefully on my forehead woke me up. I had never looked at myself, but I was pretty sure there would be a big, red bump there coming out by now, almost like I was starting to grow horns.

"Get up, you idiot!" Guen yelled.

Honestly, I would have preferred waking up by the sun's warm rays caressing my face and the blow of the wind messing my hair. But at least, an exciting day was up ahead and I was looking forward to it.

I got up clumsily, with slow moves. I did not sleep much during the night. Instead, most of my time was spent spinning around myself, thinking about what was going to come the next day. I had no clue, other than that I would learn how to fight, and this made it all the more exciting.

Other than sleepy, I was also very hungry — starving. I had not eaten anything since yesterday. Since I was 'born' basically. Maybe yesterday's stat increase helped damp down my hunger and that was not why I did not realize. But now I could eat anything.

I looked at my left, towards the dead boar we - Guen - beat yesterday. Its meat should be edible, right? And we had the fire to cook it if we wanted to. In my current state, I felt like the cooking part was optional.

I looked at Guen to tell her what I was thinking.

"Way ahead of you," she said before I had the chance to say anything. She handed me a big piece of some odd-looking meat. It was purple and looked slimy. At least at the parts where it was not completely burned. It did not look like the most appetizing thing ever. Why couldn't we have the boar?

"What is this?" I asked. "Where did y—"

I was not able to complete my sentence as she forced the awful-looking piece of meat in my mouth.

"Just eat it and say 'thank you', you idiot! It's not that hard!" she snapped.

I ate it. Not much of a choice.

To my surprise, it tasted a thousand times better than it looked. Almost like chicken. I could definitely get used to eating that. Or this could potentially be the case because I was so damn hungry.

Once I swallowed the last bite of meat that came from unidentifiable sources, I felt a notification popping up

 

Consumed [Odd Meat]. Temporary increase in defensive stats.

 

So this kind of meat boosts your stats, huh? I guess that's why we could not have boar meat. Of course, having me eat this meant that things were going to get tough soon. This should probably make me feel anxious, but I could not stop smiling. I was itching for whatever was about to come.

 

"I can give you more, if you liked it that much," Guen said looking at my expression.

"No, thanks, let's go," I said impatiently. I turned my back to her and started walking towards the forest.

I forgot I should not be turning my back to her and a bowl on the back of my head reminded me of just that.

"Where are you going without a weapon?" she said. "You'll die in seconds if you go bare-handed in there."

This made me take things a bit farther than I wanted to.

"Well, I don't have a weapon, okay!?" I snapped back. I should be more cautious with my words — she could kill me at any moment. But I was not able to hold it back this time.

"You know I just spawned here a day ago!" I said. "Now, are you going to actually help me, or are you going to keep mocking me for things I couldn't possibly know? If it's the latter, feel free to fuck off — I don't need you here!"

That's it. I was probably a dead man now. But man, did it feel good!

"Finally," she grinned. "That's the attitude you are going to need if you want to survive in the forest. Let's go."

She walked next to me, ready to go into the woods. As I was about to take my next step towards the forest, Guen planted an uppercut right on my stomach.

Saying that it hurt would be an understatement.

The red lights around my vision started glowing once again, just like the time the boar sent me flying, but this time darker and less transparent.

Guen kneeled down next to me, smiled, and said softly, "but don't you ever talk to me like that again — I don't know if I will be able to hold back next time. Got it?"

I could barely breathe, let alone talk. I nodded in agreement before I fell to the ground in pain.

"Good," she said.

She took out what seemed to be an oddly detailed glass bottle containing some kind of red liquid. The glass was full of edges that made it look like it was comprised of a bunch of smaller triangles glued together. It looked cool, sure, but it would probably poke your sides when carrying it with you.

Guen took off the bottle's cork and poured the liquid straight into my mouth.

I had trouble swallowing it — I had trouble doing anything at that point, actually. So, the liquid formed a small, red pond inside my mouth before I was finally able to get it down.

I started feeling better instantly. The pain was going away and the same thing applied to the red lights. After a minute or so, I was standing up as if nothing ever happened.

"This is the second potion I'm spending, but it was well worth it," she said.

She peeked into her bag and pulled out another bottle containing that red liquid and three violet balls small enough that she could fit them in her palm. Wait, was that bag always there?

"Take these and don't ask — I'll explain later," she said.

I took them without saying anything. Until I did.

"Where do I keep them, though?"

"Use your inventory," she said like she was explaining the simplest thing in the world. She probably was.

Now that she said that, I did remember seeing an 'inventory' tab in the blue screen earlier.

I focused on myself, making the blue screen pop out once more. I skipped my stats, nothing had changed anyway and I was not planning to use the rest of my free stat points yet. From there, I searched for the inventory tab and I found it on the right side.

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Once I pressed it, a leather pouch popped up, almost exactly like Guen's, but much smaller. Nice, now I had somewhere to put my stuff.

But Guen did not seem to always have the pouch on her. This meant that I could probably hide it again somehow.

I tried letting it fall down, in hopes that it would go back to the screen, but this did not happen. It did break the potion Guen had just given me, though.

She gave me another one, along with a hit on the head as a bonus.

There should be a way to hide the pouch again, though. This time, I tried pushing the pouch into the blue screen and, sure enough, it worked.

This was a nice way to access my stuff and hide them when needed, but it felt a bit slow. It would not be very convenient if I needed something in the middle of a fight, or if I was badly injured like a few moments ago.

I closed the blue screen and this time I focused on just the pouch. To my surprise, it worked! I got my pouch without having to open up the screen first.

Same thing with hiding it. I could just think about it and the pouch would vanish, only to appear again when I need it.

I tried doing the same with individual items, like the potion, but it did not go as well and I did not know why. Instead of appearing in my hands, it appeared at that height, but three meters to the left.

Thankfully, my Agility was high enough and I was able to catch it before it fell and broke, otherwise I would definitely be in trouble.

"Oh, so you found out about the shortcuts already, huh?" Guen said. "Maybe you are not as dense as I thought — still pretty dense, though."

Guen started walking towards the forest.

"Now, we need to find you a weapon," Guen said. "Of course there are no weaponsmiths or shops around here, as you can see, and, unless you are some kind of magical hero sent by the gods of whatever, you should not have one in your inventory either."

I double-checked the pouch in my inventory — nothing. I nodded negatively to let her know.

"Okay, we will have to use something else as a weapon then," she said.

"Can't I use my fists as a weapon?" I asked. It would probably be better to use good old punches than rely on a weird, gimmicky contraption.

"Theoretically, yeah, you can," she said.

I did not like how she started her sentence...

"Practically, most people are significantly weaker if they are not using a weapon. There are, of course, some exceptions that are much better off fighting with their fists or their kicks than using even the sharpest of axes. But, based on your fight with the boar yesterday, you look more like the rule to me"

Damn it, I knew she would say something like that.

Guen picked up a small rock from the ground and threw it to me in a way that I would catch it.

"Here, how about this?" she said.

A rock? Really? That would be my weapon? My companion in battle? One could argue that my companion in battle would be Guen, but I was not sure. She could very well be the enemy.

I examined the rock for a moment. Not much more because it was just a rock. I even used my [Identify] skill on it, which yielded the result:

 

[Rock - Lvl. 1]

 

This took me by surprise. The rock had a level for some reason. Why? It's just a thing. Do all things have levels? Or was it so because I was seeing it as a weapon? This was probably not the right time to search for an answer, so I didn't.

I threw the rock a few centimeters in the air and then caught it again, weighting it, feeling it with my palm. For some reason, it felt lighter than it seemed and it went higher than I expected.

I aimed for one of the forest's outer trees and threw the rock as hard as I could. It flew in a straight line, with speed comparable to that of an arrow, until it hit the thick bark of the tree. It hit into the tree with so much force it left a big dent on it, enough to make the rock stuck in there.

It was good, but not enough.

"What else do we have?"

"Hmm, if ranged weapons are not your style, why don't you try this?" Guen said and gave me a stick that was probably part of a tree's branch at some point.

I grabbed the stick and used [Identify] again.

 

[Tree branch - Lvl. 1]

Can be used as firewood, building material, a sword, a javelin, or to pick your nose.

 

This time it gave me a description too. Possibly because of the stick's many potential uses, although I would pass on that last suggestion.

I did not think much about why the stick had a description while the rock didn't.

I was too absorbed by this overwhelming feeling. By the feeling I got once I started holding the branch as if it was a sword.

The way the stick felt into my hands... it felt natural, like I had been using a sword for years now...

It felt... perfect.

I smiled confidently.

"This is my weapon."

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