9 Investigation 01 (1/2)

I was walking through the prairie again back towards the area I started in. Partway through my journey, I spotted some more horned rabbits. I may have been a little vindictive towards them because I had my bow out and an arrow nocked.

”You guys will make for good practice.”

I was using [Sneak] to make my way towards a rabbit. Once I was close enough, I then activated [Snipe] and took aim. The thing I liked about using these skills is that they assist you when you want to do something.

[Snipe], for example, places a white pulsing circle in my vision, and it moves with my bow. I found the pulsing action is connected to my breathing and heart rate as well. The arrow has a chance to go anywhere within that circle, so I would guess that circle gets smaller as the skill ranks up.

Once I had my shot lined up, I let the string go. A moment later, a thud could be heard as the rabbit dropped.

You have gained enough XP to level!

Seeing that message made me excited. Wanting to level up some more, I spent some time hunting rabbits. I would practice sneaking with some, others I would run around while shooting them.

Once I had my fun, and my anger over these rabbits subsided, I checked my notifications. It seems I gained another level, and my [Snipe] and [Bow Mastery] leveled up. Even my skill [Friend of Eri] leveled up.

It was about 2 pm in-game before I made it to the forest.

”I guess I will just wander around in the forest until I find something. I hope I don't get lost, kind of wish I had a map.”

Once I said that a screen popped up in front of me. It was a map that showed everywhere I had been while the places I haven't been to were all blurry.

”Oh! That's useful.”

With my new discovery, I roamed around in the woods using [Survival]. I was using it to find any animal tracks and find plants that might be useful to me.

Item: x2 Black Lotus – A plant that has a necrotic poison.

Item: x21 White Lotus – A plant that has an excellent enhancing effect.

Item: x4 White Moss – A moss that soothes any status ailments.

I started to notice that the further in I went, the fewer animals I had found. There was also a light fog rolling on the ground giving the woods an eerie feeling. The sky had become visibly darker as well, looked like just before a storm.

[Survival] picked up some large footprints about the size of my hand. They looked like they belonged to a dog of some kind.

”Looks like a big dog. Should I follow them?” I had said while placing my hand over the tracks.

I decided to follow them as it might lead me to something with my quest. I crouched down, and as silently and quickly I could, I followed the tracks.

It had been about ten minutes before I could hear some growls and what sounded like another person. Following the sound, I came upon a fight between a giant wolf and a tiny person. The wolf was a dark black with streaks of dark red in its fur and bone spike coming out of its back. It stood, at my best guess, around 165 cm.

The person it was fighting was a girl who looked like she could be 19 or so, but the odd thing was she could have been no taller 100 cm. She didn't have any armor and wore a green shirt of some kind that had half sleeves, Brown pants, and a pair of leather boots.

She was doing well against the wolf, but I knew she would lose eventually. Without thinking about it too much, I activated [Quick Shot] and shot five arrows at the wolf. Two of the had missed, but the other three hit their mark.

The wolf turned its attention to me and ran towards me. I then ran in between the trees shooting the wolf. I used [Analyze] on the wolf and found a red bar above its head, and it showed it was half empty. I also discovered that the wolf was called a corrupted wolf. At this time, I heard the other person speak.

”Hey, wolf! I'm over here!”