Kyle reaches around in the bag and doesn’t feel anything. It takes him a few moments of angrily shuffling around before he screams. “Hey what the fuck is wrong with this shit.” Defeated he plops on ass and sighs. Now fully aware of the potential death trap in his hand, he places the gun safely in its holster. It takes him a good few minutes of self loathing to notice the floating blue prompt.
“Okay… so how the fuck do I get it” He reaches back to into the pouch, this time though thinking about the coin. Once he thinks to grab the coin, his hand closes around a cool hard object.
Pulling out the coin in astonishment Kyle gasps. The coin doesn’t weigh too much more than a penny, but it’s much thinner and not too much wider. The relief of the coin ineloquently depicts a womanly figure with a plant around her head. The reverse of the coin is completely flat, so smooth and polished Kyle makes out his reflection.
“Fuck you disgust me” His mantra rings out. He drops the coin into his and and squeezes it tightly.
*NOOO!!! Be productive please be productive.* The thought leaves his mind as soon as it enters.
“Okay let’s figure out how some of this system shit works”
Kyle opens his stat window back up. “Is this really all it will let me see? That’s fucking lame. No hp bar. No mana bar. NO XP BAR!!!!!!! Do I just have to like to feel that shit out?”
When he finishes speaking he notices the stat menu changed and now includes more things.
“Okay I’m starting to see how this works. Same thing with the loot bag. I just have to think about it and it will appear. Wait why did I only get 6 xp from killing that massive fucking monster it’s 5, 6?Levels above me? Wait! Why! What the fuck why am I level 0. Also fuck you system. I have some skills. Holy fuck how video gamey is this”
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Kyle looks at his hip and focuses on the magazine. With a bit of thought the numbers 4/30 appear above it.
“HOLY SHIT that’s so fucking cool” Kyle exclaims “Kind of inconvenient though if only I could move it around”
Again as he tries to move the ammo gauge around he succeeds. With that one success he goes wild trying thing after thing. He learns to move the stat window fully around him in any direction, even moving how far away from him it appears and where it pops up.
*Basically any window can be popped out and moved to any location within your view. You can change its shape, form and even the way in which it relays the information.*
By the end of his tinkering Kyle had his health displayed as a partially filled red bar at the side of his vision that vertically had the numbers displaying his health. His mana would go on the other side once he had some. His ammo display was moved to the bottom right and made small unless he grabbed the gun.
Kyle toils with newly acquired trinket. The dime thin piece of shiny metal twiddles indelicately around his fingers failing to properly slot in between each of his fingers. He drops the coin for the dozenth time “fuck, I fucking hate my life why do I fuck up everything.” He kneels down to grab the coin, it sends a shooting pain through his left calf. “I can’t even roll a fucking coin through my fingers god I’m a failure.” He says in rage
Physically every part of Kyle wants him to go back to bed and rest. Walking nearly a mile a day surpasses his weekly record. The blood on his knee has begun to clot, causing bits of fiber from the denim of his pants to stick together gluing themselves to the wound. The bruising on his shin has finally set in, but he can’t tell with his left pant leg still intact.
Mentally Kyle doesn’t really care. *I could keep going. It’s not like this is any less unfun than being at home. Sure, the pain is bad, but I can move through it. I’ll still be in pain at home anyway. Going back to my bed would be nice, but is it worth the effort of going all the way back there first?* A few dabs later, his pen is too hot to let him take another. Exasperated “gaaaaa I wish I could just do nothing”
******
“I AM THE GREATEST” Jisseppi inhales as deeply as he can “There’s nothing I! CAN’T! DO!” Overcome with glee after successfully escaping the Froghemoth.
*Aaaaa damn that thing must have been an evolved creature if it gave me enough xp to go from level 6 to 7 stealth. I really lucked out* He mentally and physically patted himself on the shoulder. Still casting stealth, though it faltered during his previous outburst.
In the distance Jisseppi can hear the slight sound of clawed footsteps.
He immediately moves to the side of the tunnel attempting to make himself as small as possible, he scoots along the edge.
*What should I do when I approach it? How should I sneak past it? Should I sneak past it? If I kill it that will give me a fuck ton of XP for stealth too. Wait, I'm being stupid. I don’t even know what’s making that sound. I can’t let my hubris be the death of me.*
After 5 minutes of slow travel he is within range of the sounds progenitor.
A troglodyte. A younger one only about as tall as him, but hunched over to look shorter. Its whole body was incredibly boney, the tendons and veins clearly visible, with its skin stretched extra tight on its lean frame.
Even at this size their claws are dangerous.The full length of the troglodyte's finger and claw is the same as Jisseppi’s forearm.
*Regardless of how thin it is, it surely has a higher strength stat than me. After all, unless it’s evolved it will have that gaunt appearance.this thing could be level 4 and mess me up super easily. Orrrr….*
Jisseppi observes the monster as sniffs around at the tunnel wall. Every few sniffs it will take a step and every few steps it licks the walls as though it’s picking up on the trail of something that passed through.
*Okay this thing is clearly trying to hunt for something and it doesn’t seem to see me. Even when I’m 3 feet from it. If I strike while its back is turned and it’s distracted, I can get a clean blow to its neck. I'll kill it instantly. No sweat.*
After working himself up Jisseppi charges, still concentrating hard on stealth. Once he’s one step away he begins raising his dagger. Unfortunately for him he struck a moment too soon the blade missed it’s mark instead cutting directly between it’s lower jawbone. Slipping between its teeth and piercing its tongue.
The blade stabs deeper, stapling the monster's tongue to the roof of its mouth. He tries to hold onto the dagger, but as the troglodyte starts thrashing its head he loses his grip.
The troglodyte tries to scream, but with Jisseppi’s blade stuck in his upper jaw, he’s unable to let anything more than a muffled screech escape.
Jisseppi, beginning to panic*Oh shit! Oh fuck! I missed!*
Reeling in pain, the troglodyte takes a moment to regain its focus, luckily for it, its inexperienced foe is still fumbling around unsure of what to do. It slashes it’s claw forth toward Jisseppi.
This gives him the push he needs to regain his faculties. He quickly raises his left arm to block the blow, his speed far surpassing the beast, but the late reaction allows the tip of its right most claw to nick under his chin cutting into the underside of his jaw.
The leftmost claw mostly misses only grazing the side of his forearm.
Most of the force went into the middle claw, it cut deep into Jisseppi’s arm. The long cylindrical like claw pierces deep enough to hit his bone. The claw cracks and splinters at the tip, forcing shards of claw to dig into his bone.
Jisseppi screams deep enough to hurt his voice. With its claw still embedded as deep as the troglodyte can get, the troglodyte continues its attack by swiping its claw down, using its body weight. It traces a path down the entirety of his forearm. The full resistance of Jisseppi’s flesh and bone slows the attack.
The screeching of claw on bone is dampened by thin layers of muscle and fat atop it.
Barely conscious through the pain Jisseppi grabs the blade from the beast's mouth effectively falling while gripping on to it as hard as he can to yank it out.
Lucky for him this also lets him slip out of the troglodyte’s range. As quick as he can, holding the dagger upward, above his head; he tucks his in and jumps.
The knife pierces through the lizard's neck right through the other side embedding the handle into the monster's body.
It dies almost instantly
*You have defeated a level 3 Troglodyte Slasher. You have gained XP*
“Oh thank fuck!” Jisseppi drops to his back and rolls around in pain clutching his arm.
“Uuuggg. Aaaa. Urraa”
*Oh no. Am I gonna die? I’ve never been in this much pain in my life. I can’t even check my health bar. I’m scared. WHY? WHY!*
He gathered his courage and checked his health icon. He has his status effect icons tied into his health bar so when he saw the 4/10 on his health bar dripping red droplets his heart sank.
