With a heavy sound, I fell backwards onto the forest floor, panting. I brought my arm above my face to block the sun from my eyes. The leaves and branches on the tree above me rustled in the wind but I couldn't hear them over the sound of the blood rushing in my ears. Somehow, I felt cold and hot at the same time. Though my toes, fingers, and other hanging appendages, were freezing it felt like my chest was on fire. 

I tried to relax and let my breathing slow down. I needed to rest. I turned around my hand and looked at the pocket watch in my sweaty grip. It had only been two hours. I closed my eyes and let my arm fall back onto my eyes. 

It's been two days since that “A” goddess dropped me off in this forest. That amount of time has allowed me the ability to assess the situation further. 

The reset power has really come in handy. Even if I have no food, water, or shelter here and I could possibly be wandering in circles every night when my pocket watch strikes midnight I feel much better, at least unless I passed out. I thought this would happen if I was right about how everything worked. Everything on that hologram screen that pops up resets to how it was in the beginning. Unfortunately, when that does happen those bad status effects that I had before coming here pop up with the same countdown. Severe Sleep deprivation has been the worst one out of all of them even if I still have no clue what the magic stat does. Well, no, I know what it does, I just don't actually know any magic. The whole stamina thing really has been a thorn in my side with trying to get to civilization, it goes down so quickly.

My ridiculous luck status is the only thing that seems to be unaffected by my body resetting but that's only gone up steadily since the first time I looked at it. Right now it's already at 1,900,000,673 from just a few days. 

One thing I did do is manage to find something to cover up with. I'm not planning on wandering the forest forever and if I do find the people I’m looking for it would be a bad first impression to show up naked, even if it's just leaves and vines otherwise. I look like a very well fed forest person at this point. 

I wish my hygiene would reset too. It seems that it's only my internal physical status that changes at all and that has nothing to do with things on me that are not actually part of my body or within it. It's as if the very outermost layer of myself is the boundary for that, anything outside it is unaffected.

There has been one thing that I came up with earlier today that I've been eager to try. 

The time is 11:50 pm, according to my watch. Laid before me on a bed of leaves were some mushrooms, berries, and seemingly edible roots that I was going to try.

The logic here is that if I eat in and it's poisonous I can check my status and see that. I'll check my status every time I eat one of these. At midnight, in 10 minutes, I won't have to worry about any of the side effects because everything will be in my body. I tested that last part last night. I was curious about what A goddess said and it seems that in my mouth does count as in my body. If I have something in my mouth at the time 12am rolls around it will “reset” and disappear. I can definitely do something with that power for sure but right now it's this.

Even if I don't actually need to eat it's still an inconvenience to be hungry. A few hours after I arrived on the first day a status effect like

 

Hunger 

Bad status effect: present until food is consumed

×2 stamina consumption.

Effect worsens to Strong Hunger: 3 hours

 

Appeared followed by,

 

Strong Hunger 

Bad status effect: present until food is consumed

×3 stamina consumption.

Pain Debuff

Effect worsens to Famished: 10 hours

 

Then finally to,

 

Famished

Bad status effect: present until food is consumed

-1 health per hour.

×5 stamina consumption.

Pain Debuff

Effect worsens to Starved: 20 hours

“Status”. 

After using this for two days I'd gotten confident with saying that out loud to myself. 

 

Severe Sleep Deprivation

Bad status effect: present until sleep is achieved

×2 stamina consumption

×5 magic consumption 

Drowsiness Debuff

 

Extreme Exposure

Bad status effect: present until body temperature increases

-10 health per hour

Drowsiness Debuff

Numbness Debuff

Pain Debuff

Effect worsens to Frozen: 9 hours 37 minutes

 

Famished

Bad status effect: present until food is consumed

-1 health per hour.

×5 stamina consumption.

Pain Debuff

Effect worsens to Starved: 14 hours 36 minutes

 

Dehydration

Bad status effect: present until drinkable liquid is consumed

Effect worsens to Desiccated: 1 hour 9 minutes

 

Obesity

Bad status effect: present until body fat content decreases

×3 stamina consumption.

-5 health per day.

 

I really am pretty bad off right now, and I do realize that the cold is my biggest threat rather than the food but the food issue is much easier to fix. At this point I've been wandering around what seems to be a cold pine-tree filled wilderness for days on end. Anyone else with my level of knowledge would have died but all I'm doing is suffering endlessly until some animal comes and kills me. 

I looked at the first pile of purplish-bluish berries shaped like wild strawberries from earth and took one. It tasted sweet but it was really tiny. Even so the moment I put it in my mouth, it was the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten. There’s a saying that hunger makes food taste better and until now, for a fat-ass like me, it had never really applied. This was a good sign. Really amazing. 

Nothing popped up on my status screen so I went onto the next one, I didn't have any time to wait. Nut with a surprisingly soft shell that I could peel away like fruit skin. Even so it was hard to peel off, I hadn't been able to feel my fingers for hours.

I ate this.

 

There was a beep.

 

Boore Nut Poisoning 

Bad status effect: 30 minutes.

-2 health per minute.

 

Wow, that one is dangerous. That would be 60 health if I wasn't going to reset in 9 minutes. My health right now is at 122/250 from the bad effects that I have to deal with every day. Just that would have taken me down another half leaving me with only a 4th of the health I have. I bundled the leaf I brought them here with and threw the nuts out in the woods. I won't be eating those again. 

I went to the next one, not having enough time to actually wait. It was a green waxy fruit about half the size of an apple but with a stem like a cherry. This was the biggest one that was on the tree but I don't know if it's actually ripe or not. I don't know much about fruit but one that's not ripe shouldn't be any more or less poisonous than one that is, right?

I took a bite.

 

There was a beep.

 

Unripe Layered-Jewel Berry 

status effect: 1 hour

×4 stamina regeneration.

 

OOOOH!!! IT'S A JACKPOT! The shimmering silver flesh of the berry was bitter and tart but that effect was nothing to spit out. It almost brought a tear to my eye, it was the first positive effect I'd seen. In this cruel world this Jewel berry was the greatest blessing I could have hoped for. I greedily ate the rest of it, incredibly tempted to eat another. 

I looked at my pocket watch. The time was 11:55. 

Next one, ok, no time to be excited.

A large mushroom with light purple frills giving off a nice smell. Probably poisonous. I tried anyway. 

There was a beep, but it tasted fantastic. 

 

Lady of Endless Suffering Mushroom Countdown

Bad status effect

Effect worsens to

Lady of Endless Suffering Mushroom Poisoning: 1 day 13 hours 5 minutes.

 

That's a scary name but that timer really won't be giving me any issues. Seriously, looking at that I could eat this thing at 12am and not need to worry about the poisoning part. Lucky me, reset man wins the day!

Onto the next one, I can eat the rest in 4 minutes. A root that was probably something close to a carrot. The leaves looked kind of like carrot leaves so I pulled it up and got a good sized root. I bit into it.

No beep but HOLY SHIT THAT TASTED HORRIBLE.

I coughed up the root that was in my mouth and shoved the rest of the mushroom in. The light sweet tingling of the fungus washed away the remaining taste of that horrible root instantly and replaced it with a nice earthy mushroom flavor.

I swallowed, thanking that “A” Goddess for making such a great mushroom. Once again there was a beep from the lady of endless suffering. I looked and it had just doubled the message that was already there.

Little red berries? Beep

 

Ajajuju Berry

Bad status effect: 6 hours

-1 health per hour

 

Small white mushroom? Beep

 

Coriandale Feather Mushroom

status effect: 10 minutes 

Mental function Buff

Hallucination Debuff

 

A psychedelic shroom, cool but not exactly useful at the moment. I'll keep them anyway.

Let's see.

Large brown nut? No beep but it was too hard to break open.

Multi Colored berries? No beep and they were pleasantly sweet.

The time shifted over to 12am on my pocket watch and a warmth encompassed my body. All the effects that I had been staring at for the past few minutes disappeared and were replaced by my original situation. I could feel my fingers and toes again. I yawned, exhaustion being the only thing that I really couldn't save without deeply risking my life. Even if I hadn't seen an animal so far doesn't mean that they aren't here. That is a bit strange though, that I haven't seen any animals in this place. I wonder what's going on. I stood up, picking the leaves that contained the food that I actually wanted to keep. These few precious hours at the beginning of the day were my best chance to make some progress out of this mysterious forest. I didn't at the moment have any pain rushing along my skin. I really need to fix this whole naked thing before I find other people… if I find other people. I guess at the very least I can do a sort of fig leaf thing so the most important parts are covered but that really doesn't help me with how cold it is out here.