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Chapter 2 Adam West and The Realm of the Everlasting System
🕑 Added 2024-02-28 19:03:24 +0000 UTCJacob had already gotten his hardwood stick, and so had two others. They were all around Jacob as he was helping them figure out the system. There was one exception: the girl on the ground who was still non-responsive.
I walked towards her and knelt next to her. "Hey there, can you hear me? I’m not here to hurt you." I continued to talk to her, but there was no response. When I touched her shoulder, she didn't shy away, but there was also no positive reaction.
Jacob finally got his shoes, then slowly others started to as well. I still tried to communicate with the girl on the ground, but there was no response. Then, Jacob went silent, and I looked towards him.
His eyes looked worried. I guess he must have gotten their next quest. Soon, arguing started, but I stayed out of it. Fortunately, me trying to help the girl meant that no one was looking for answers from me.
The others were starting to put together a plan. It wasn't a bad plan. They wanted to stick together and move near the forest edge, hoping to stumble upon some smaller creatures that we could kill.
Not everyone was on board with the killing part, but no one wanted to be left alone. While they started to argue about which direction we should go, I heard a noise from the forest.
"Silence, listen, something's approaching," my words silenced everyone, but they couldn't hear anything. They did, however, follow my eyes to look towards a spot in the forest.
It had been a long time since I needed to use my hearing to find anyone in a forest, but apparently, I was still good at it. Whatever it was, it was trying to be quiet, but when it tried to peek through the shrubbery, it was immediately seen by almost everyone as they were watching where I was looking.
As soon as the creature realized it had been seen, it rushed out. It was close to my waist height. It had scales like a lizard. Its teeth were quite sharp, and it had a big mouth with big reptilian eyes.
This monster or creature did have hands, and as soon as it rushed out, it threw a small javelin that had a stone tip. It seemed to be pretty good at it because I was quite certain it was going to hit one of the other people.
I had already started to move as soon as I saw those eyes. Moving sideways, I made sure that there was nothing between that monster and me. During my movement, I picked up a decent-sized rock, perfect for throwing.
Everyone else was still standing still, and because of that, one of the men was hit in the chest with a javelin. The creature had already pulled out another one from behind its back.
It looked towards me, and our gazes met. It seemed that I was its next target. While it started to throw, I did the same.
Rocks can be an incredibly effective and dangerous weapon, especially if they're thrown correctly. My current position was mimicking how baseball pitchers threw their fastball. If I had been in shape, I was certain that I could have been a Major League pitcher with my accuracy and speed, although not the best in the league.
When the rock left my fingers, it did feel, however, that I had thrown way faster than any pitcher in history. Immediately, I moved to the left so the javelin wouldn’t hit me, and so that I could pick up another rock.
That proved to be unnecessary, as my throwing skills were good enough for this situation. As the creature was only 20 meters away from us.
The rock hit it over the right eye and made the creature immediately collapse backward. I waited a second and then another, but it didn't move. Its chest was still moving, so it was alive.
The man who had been hit, however, had also collapsed and was bleeding quite heavily. Then his body started to disappear and turned into motes of light.
It only took a second or two for him to completely disappear and then another second for him to reappear in the position where he first stood when we became conscious in this place.
He screamed and collapsed, trying to pull off his blue T-shirt that was now completely repaired, and there didn’t seem to be any wound on him. I did notice that one of the crystals on his left hand had disappeared.
Everyone was standing in place, looking at the scene that was unfolding in front of us, even me. This was unlike anything I had experienced before, and I had experienced a lot.
I was snapped out of my daze, but I noticed the monster starting to slowly move. It was obviously still heavily concussed, but it seemed like it was slowly regaining awareness.
Immediately, I started to move towards it with my rock ready to be thrown. On the way there, I walked past a rock that was about half the size of a basketball. I picked it up and continued to move towards the creature.
Killing it with a stick would be time-consuming, the same with a small rock. The creature had a specific smell to it, but it wasn't too horrible. As soon as I was close enough, I caved in its skull.
When I looked towards the others, they were all looking at me in horror. Somehow, that look was comforting. Then, to my surprise, the creature's body started to disappear the same way the man's had just a few moments ago.
System notification:
Quest completed - Kill an opponent (5/7)
You have killed your first opponent and survived to tell the tale. Not all can say they have done the same. As a reward, you gain one level and a supply bag.
In front of me, a shoulder bag materialized. I picked it up immediately and moved towards the group, away from the forest edge. My notification symbol was also blinking, and when I opened it up, it notified me that I had gained a level in my warrior class.
I kinda wish I had time to see how much killing this creature would have increased the percentage to the next level. I opened up my character sheet to look at the changes.
As I approached, four people took a step back, while others watched me warily. The man who had been killed and was alive once again was now non-responsive.
So, from the 10 people who woke up here, two were currently in an unresponsive state, almost everyone else was deadly scared of what had happened, while a few others were taking it a bit better. Those were some horrible odds at surviving whatever this was.
System notification:
Quest Given
Travel to a Point of Interest (6/7)
In the system world, there are often points of interest that appear. To enter these points of interest, you must use the portal that connects to them. Inside will be a small world filled with resources and monsters. Defeating these points of interest is imperative because, left unattended for too long, the monsters from inside can break free and cause havoc to the surrounding lands.
As soon as I finished reading the quest text, a pillar of light appeared, what looked like about a day's journey toward the north if the sun was rising from the east. It would mean that I would need to follow the edge of the forest for some time before entering it.
"What are you looking at?" Jacob asked, breaking the tense silence that had fallen over the group. I looked towards him with a questioning look. "Can you not see the large pillar of light?" I said while pointing toward the large pillar of light.
Everyone shook their heads. "Was it because of the next part of the quest chain?" Jacob asked, and I nodded my head.
"We should probably follow you towards it and hope that we will find an easier opponent to kill along the way," he said, his words calm and rational, which helped others back from the brink of breaking down.
I gave him another nod and looked into the side bag I had gotten. Inside, I found 4 plastic bottles of water, some jerky, two power bars, and a dozen biscuits. It was a pleasant surprise, and I quickly slung the side bag over my shoulder. Jacob was looking towards it questioningly. But before I could answer, I heard some more noise coming from the forest.
Immediately, I turned around and everyone went into high alert. This time, the creature turned out to be just a normal rabbit. I threw another rock, stunning it, which made everyone look at me questioningly.
"Someone go and kill it so you can finish your quest," I said. It only took Jacob a few moments to decide before he started to move. This time, I noticed that he had pulled out his hardwood stick and would have actually been ready for a fight.
It took him three swings with the stick to kill the rabbit, and he informed us that he had finished the quest. In front of him, there appeared a bag. Unlike me, he immediately took out one of the water bottles and drank a little bit before putting it back. He then looked off into the distance toward the pillar of light that he previously couldn’t see.
"Looks like we will all have to go to the same point of interest," he announced to everyone. What followed was everyone preparing themselves to leave our current location. We were able to get the man who had died up, and it looks like he was recovering from his ordeal and would be good enough to bring with us.
The girl, however, was a different story. She had been in the same position from almost the start, and it didn't look like she was going to respond to us.
What followed was almost half an hour of discussing how to bring her with us. Although, before they started to discuss, I told them that we should leave her. No one was on board with that. Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one who was not willing to carry her.
Carrying a body was strenuous, especially if at any moment you might need to fight. During this time, we also had another rabbit show up, and one more person was able to complete the quest.
I, however, had enough. "I’m going to move towards the pillar. You can either join me or not; it's up to you," I said while turning towards the pillar and starting to walk. "We can't just leave her here; she'll get killed," Jacob said, and four others quickly agreed.
"You're right, she will get killed, but it's not my responsibility to save her, and I will not risk my life for someone I don’t know. It's also not all of your fault if she dies. Whatever this is, it seems like she is simply not capable of adapting. It’s a shame, but the rest of us shouldn’t die because of that."
There was silence after my words, but then I heard footsteps joining mine, and more and more people started to walk towards the pillar.
We had only walked for a little while before I started to mess with the interface. The first thing I learned was that the bag I was getting needed to go into the shoulder slot, but for that, I would need to remove my T-shirt from being in that slot, which would also remove it from the chest slot. I would have been completely fine doing that if the bag gave any bonuses, but it didn’t.
What I did find surprising was that I could add a stone to my second weapon slot. I was still holding one and collecting good throwing rocks into the side pocket of my pants. What was surprising was that it actually gave a plus one to perception. I didn’t need to think twice about adding it to the item slot and gaining another stat point.
I still had my head, neck, hands, and arms slots open. It would be a good idea to find something to put into these slots so I could gain even more stat points. There were also the accessory slots, but what could I put into these?
I bent down and picked up a blade of grass, tied it into a loop so it would look like a ring. It, unfortunately, didn't show up on the list under rings. Perhaps this was too simple, but currently, I couldn’t concentrate more on making a proper ring out of grass because at any point we might be attacked.
We walked like that for a while in silence, which was preferable because then I could hear better if anything was coming to attack us. Eventually, however, the silence broke as people started to complain about the walking and feeling thirsty.
Hopefully, we see some creatures we can kill soon because I was not going to give my water to anyone else, unless it was a desperate situation, but currently, we weren't in one.
The third creature we encountered a little bit after everyone started to speak was a snake that rushed out of the forest to attack us. It was quite fast, and I didn’t have time to throw a rock, but I also didn’t need to.
It seems that some of the other people here had started to come to terms with this world as they had pulled out their sticks and were able to hit the snake before it was able to bite anyone.
They went a little overboard because as soon as one of them hit it, the others joined in, except for three people who watched like I did. We just stood there and watched them beat the living hell out of a snake that was already dead, but they just kept hitting it.
Well, it was good that they were getting some frustrations out. What did surprise me was when, in front of all of the people who had attacked, a bag appeared. It looks like all of them completed their quests.
Everyone was happy. They ate some of the biscuits, some even ate a power bar, and of course, they drank too much water. Even Jacob tried to tell them not to consume too much, but they were all a bit too happy.
We continued our journey, but everyone was a lot more talkative now. They really shouldn't waste so much energy on talking. Fortunately, it looks like I wasn’t this group’s leader; Jacob was, so while I did tell him these things, I didn’t try to teach any of them anything if they didn’t ask me to. No one asked me to teach them anything.
The next creature I saw was a colourful bird. "When the bird drops, get ready to run towards it," I told one of the persons who had yet to finish the quest.
I didn’t throw with all my strength; otherwise, I wouldn’t have been accurate enough to hit it, and I did have to wait a while before the bird didn’t look at us before I could throw. I was happy to see that I hit the bird, but unfortunately, it died from the strike, so we couldn't complete another quest.
What did happen was that I got one percent closer to the next level. So if I were to kill 99 more birds like that, I should be Level 3. It was kinda tempting to just run off and try to level. If this was an actual game, I might have done that, but so far, this felt too real to risk doing something so dangerous.
We continued to walk, but our speed started to slow down as people began to complain and grow tired of walking. We still had some light left, but I thought it would be better to camp outside the forest and enter it in the morning instead of trying to sleep inside the forest during the night. I said that to Jacob, but it took him a bit to think it over before he agreed with me.
This seemed to be a good boost to morale, as people were actually willing to work to set up a rudimentary camp. "Should we also build a fire?" one of them asked, but I immediately spoke up.
"It’s not cold, and we don’t have any food to cook. It's better if we don't make a fire because it would be a beacon to anyone around here, and perhaps even the monsters would be drawn in." That silenced the people around us, but everyone seemed to agree.
The forest here resembled a lot of the forests of Europe, but there wasn’t much undergrowth, almost like someone was taking care of the forest, or perhaps it was a designer's oversight in how actual forests look.
As we continued to work throughout the day, I was getting a feeling that this place wasn’t correct. I think that this is just a tutorial area and not actually the real world. I did not voice my suspicions to anyone, as they already had too much to worry about.
As everyone else was resting, I decided to go into the forest. It had been a long time since I had done anything in a forest, so it would be a good idea to practice and remind myself how things worked.
It was fun remembering how to walk, what to watch out for, and most importantly, that whenever you walked in one direction, always look backward every once in a while and memorize the way back, just in case. Well, this forest wasn’t really that thick, and I could see the edge of it even while being a decent way in, but I knew forests where you could take a few steps in and you could already be lost.
While I did find some deer and rabbit footprints, my biggest find was a tree hollow that a pair of birds were using as a nest. It was a bit difficult to simultaneously block off their escape route but also capture both of the birds alive. They were small enough that I could hold them both in one hand while making sure they couldn’t escape.
There were also three eggs. I picked one up and shook it. It seemed like they were still just eggs, so I cracked it open and ate what was inside. I did the same with the second egg.
The third one, I didn’t crack open; I ate the entire thing, shell and all. It tasted horrible, but it was not the first time I had done something like that, and this situation was bringing back my old survival instincts.
After getting a drink of water, which was difficult to do with only one hand available, I headed back towards the camp. Jacob seemed to be happy to see me, while two others didn’t.
Well, that was interesting, but I was never going to let my guard down around anyone. Sleeping was going to be a pain. "Hey, you two who still haven’t finished the quest, come here. I think you can finish the quests by killing these birds."
Everyone approached, but when they saw the small birds, some of their faces went white. "What? I can’t do that," one of them said, while the other seemed to nod in agreement with him.
"If you don’t kill them, then I won’t help you kill the next ones we come across. It's now or never. Or try to kill something without my help." No one seemed to like my words. The woman who had agreed with the man before now stepped up and took one of the birds from me.
"What do I do?" she asked, while a tear was rolling down her face. "Snap the neck." She hesitated for a while, but her other hand slowly got closer to the bird’s head. Then a small snap sounded out, and the bird was dead. A few moments later, a bag appeared in front of her. After that, the man grabbed the bird as well and quickly snapped its neck. With that, everyone had completed the quest.
They actually buried the birds. I was not the biggest fan of it, but I also didn’t speak up. It seems that I had already rubbed some people the wrong way. For now, it's the safest choice to stick together. That way, if we run into multiple monsters, we would stand a better chance of surviving together rather than alone.
I slept a little bit away from the others and otherwise just listened at the edge of the conversation. Never getting all the way involved but also not completely being out of it. This was my survival method when being part of new groups. To balance playing like you are a part of the group but revealing as little as possible about yourself.
One of the things that bothered me a lot about the conversations the group was having was that we were not discussing the system. It was obvious that people were trying to put it out of their mind, but I couldn’t blame them.
This was a difficult situation to wrap your head around, and honestly, I was kind of going with the flow. You do not want to be the rock that stands out when your life is on the line. With those thoughts going through my mind, I fell asleep.
My eyes snapped open, and I immediately looked towards two people that were getting a bit too close to me. Now, I didn’t know if they had bad intentions or not, but I still kept my eyes open and looked towards them.
Eventually, they went back to their sleeping spots, and I went back to sleep. When the morning came, I was a little bit exhausted as I really wasn’t used to sleeping so lightly. At least it looks like no one was killed during the night.
We ate breakfast mostly in silence. Everyone seemed to be quite tired. Now that I thought about it, I guess it made sense because everyone had to sleep on the ground and out in the open, so no one was feeling good.
When we started to travel in the forest, I had an urge to leave them behind because they were making so much noise. I did try to teach them, but half of them wouldn’t listen to me at all, and while the other half tried, they soon forgot what I told them.
That was actually normal; if you don't remind people, they revert to their normal behavior, but none of them were also eager to learn, so I just gave up on trying to make us more stealthy. Two of them had picked up the rogue class, but it seems like they chose it because they liked those classes in games.
We also didn’t have any healer type classes, and while we did have a few rangers, none of them actually had a ranged weapon. Thinking back a little bit to last night, I think I should have worked on some accessories while I was listening to the others speak. Damn it, I really need to be more conscious of my actions.
All of a sudden, the forest background noise dimmed a bit. I immediately stopped moving, soon everyone else did as well. The silence continued for a while as I tried to look through the forest, which was a lot thicker than it usually was.
"What is it?" one of the people asked, as nothing had happened for a minute or two. As soon as those words were spoken, the underbrush moved.
Six of the small lizard-like creatures ran out, all wielding small club-like weapons. "Attack, and move together!" I yelled immediately, while throwing one of the rocks I always had in my hand.
This time, I threw it as fast as I could because I didn’t have time to do a proper power throw. With my right hand, I pulled out the hardwood stick, but I didn’t rush forward as fast as I could but kept in line with the others.
"Use your skills during the first strike!" I once again yelled out when we were almost close enough to attack each other. I took my own advice and thrust my stick out using my quick strike skill.
My aim was true, and I hit the creature’s windpipe. It was stunned and couldn't breathe, so I moved to help the others. One of the other creatures had its head caved in by a heavy strike, and another had a broken arm because of a skill.
The monsters had also gotten a few hits in, but it seems they were not too devastating. My next strike wasn’t skill-empowered, but I had plenty of time to deliver a powerful blow to the back of another monster’s head.
I wasn’t sure if it was dead, but it certainly dropped like one. The rest of the creatures were quickly overwhelmed, and afterwards, I went around and finished off the still-breathing monsters with a large rock while others were trying to come to terms with what had happened.
A lot of them had sustained quite heavy bruises. Three of them looked close to breaking, and most others didn’t look much better. I was up to 17% towards my next level.
We were waiting for the creatures to disappear, and when they started to, everyone looked towards them. To all of our disappointment, none of them dropped anything. "Damn it," someone said out loud and continued to curse for a little while.
We continued our journey until I noticed a large patch of blue on the ground ahead of us. "Jacob, come here," I said to him when I stopped everyone from moving forward. Then I pointed towards the patch of blue.
It took him a little longer to realize what it was than I would have liked. "Should we go around?" he asked me, and it was a good question. I looked back to see everyone not doing too well. They had yet to recover from what had happened.
"Yeah, let's call for a break. I think they need a small one. Go and tell them that I am scouting the surroundings. I will do that but also check out the body and if there is anything like drinking water, I will bring it back".
Jacob looked at me and slowly gave me a nod before returning to the others. Sounds of relief came from the group, and I headed towards the body.
When I made it close enough, there were two bodies instead of one. Both of them had piercing wounds. There were also three javelins similar to the one that had killed one of our members before. I think they managed to kill the monster but died in the process. Both of them had javelin wounds in places where you would bleed out—not fast, but not slow either.
They also didn’t have bags or the hardwood sticks. What they did have were their blue T-shirts, pants, shoes, and socks. The javelins were worthless; they were too small and too flimsy for my liking. Unfortunately, the shoes were not my size, but I did take the socks. I probably should wash them before I use them. I also started to rip apart their shirts, disregarding the blood-soaked parts.
The strips I placed into my bag and then made a proper round around the resting spot. Didn’t find anything interesting, so I returned a little bit before Jacob got everyone moving once again. It took another hour before we made it out of the forest.
We were so close to the beams of light that we could see where they landed. It was a large clearing with many blue portals in it and other people.
"Our portal is in front of the people down there. If we hurry, we can get in without having to confront the people down there." Jacob said, which confused me. I pointed to a portal that my beam of light was indicating, it was behind the group of new people. "I think we all have different portals," I said out loud, which brought up some cursing from the others.
As I observed, one of the portals winked out with no one coming out. I did not know if I should be pleased or not, but if only we can go into our portals, I think I would actually prefer it.
