We stood surrounded by corpses. On our way to a new hideout we came across a couple of groups of goblins. While they were easily dispatched, with one or two left behind to become experience for the other two, they still had the time to kill some other humans. It shouldn’t be like this. It should be at most a pair of goblins in the first week. Seems like the Hard-Mode didn’t activate itself just for me.

When the sun touched the horizon and the city turned into the shade of amber we took refugee in an apartment building on a side street. It’s surprisingly easy to get into a building if you can just melt down the lock. After getting into an apartment on the second floor and blocking the door with a bookshelf we sat down to rest.

The woman sat down, breathing hard from exhaustion, while the kid just collapsed to the floor when we got inside and was lifted on a nearby couch by his mother. After making sure that the windows were closed and that there isn’t any other way inside I let myself fall into a chair. Seriously, what did I do before this? My body is a mess. I closed my eyes to rest for a moment.

Meanwhile somewhere in the African Savanna

A man stood alone in midst of corpses of unknown creatures, mixtures of man and beasts or animals turned into monsters. He fought since hours when the monster started to appear suddenly. His first kill was sloppy, more down to luck than skill.

They keep on coming. Maybe it would’ve been better to face the cold instead of lighting a fire.

Through the night sky his fire shown like a beacon, guiding all of them to him. He wiped the blood of his weapon, courtesy of his last kill, a Leonide, mixture of lion and man.

At least I got something apart from my fists and knife.

Wings fluttered through the sky, making the man shoot around, but he didn’t see anything. He kept his vigilance as a cry pierced his ear.

“Kaaa!”

He looked at it’s directions, seeing a pair of ravens descending onto a corpse near the fire and starting to hack at it’s hide, unable to pierce it.

Seems like not all animals mutated…

He walked over, slowly so that he didn’t startled them. The ravens turned their heads to him, as if they were deciding what to do with him, before they returned to hacking at the corpse.

“Can’t do it, can you?” He looked at a corpse at his feet, taking his knife to cut of small pieces. “Hey, over here.” When the ravens turned their heads at him again he threw a piece of meat to them, one taking flight to catch it midair. Then he threw one to the other, this one waiting till it dropped and then picking it up from the ground.

He threw them some other pieces until he heard a growl behind his back. He turned around, lifting his weapon in front of him. Out of the dark stepped a leopard, big enough to rival him in size, his length even doubling his height altogether.

“Doesn’t seem like you’re as friendly as these ravens, are you?”

The leopard let out another growl as his answer before pouncing at the man. He rolled over the dirt, the claws digging into his jacket. “Haaa…” He sighed, I didn’t have that many clothes onto me to begin with.

The leopard shot at him again. As he readied his weapon, preparing to strike the beast, a black shadow flew past his head, crashing into the head of the beast. It stopped, shrieking upwards as a raven hacked at its eyeball.

Now! The man dashed forward, stabbing his weapon at the head of the leopard. It cried out in pain before swinging his claws, throwing the man away. He skidded over the ground, crashing into a big stone.

Need to stay conscious. He forced his eyes open, looking at the beast in the distance.

He relaxed when he heard the now familiar message. His chest warmed up, making him look down and seeing big claw marks, slowly mending together. As he rested his body against the stone the raven flew over, resting on his leg.

“Thank you.” He scratched the raven behind his head, eliciting a cry followed by proud flapping of its wings.

“Do my bidding? It’s more like this one decided to lent a hand to me. Or better said a beak.” The raven lifted itself once again, as the surroundings once again started to get noisy. The man lifted himself, walking back to the leopard. The shaft of his weapon burrowed itself through its head, leaving trails of blood to flow down from it. He grabbed it and pulled it out with a mighty yank. Then he pointed it at the dark.

The top of a spear glinting in the dark.

I woke up, hearing the noises in the apartment. I opened my eyes only to be blinded by the light of a lamp. Time for the next lessons… “Are you out of your mind?” Although I talked quietly the other two snapped around at my words. “Why did you think that lighting a lamp is a good idea?” I walked to the switch cutting the light off. It turned dark, the moonlight shining through the window to tint the world in grey colors.

I didn’t see their eyes but I knew they were focusing on me. “Listen, what do you think is going to happen when these monsters walk through the streets only to see a building with shining lights out of it? They are definitely not going to ignore it. HaaaHaaaaHaaa.” I sighed, “I should have told you,” what am I even expecting from beginners?

“Well, we rested a little, time to talk business.” I made sure that I had their attention before continuing. “You had the welcome message and most likely two or three level ups till now, right?”

“Yes.” The women answered quietly, afraid to anger me once again.

“Call upon your status. Just say it out loud or think about it.” The woman kept quiet while the kid loudly called out, making me shush him quiet. What did I get myself into? “You should see the main page, showing your name, job and attributes. Job should be empty right now, while your attributes should be somewhere around four to five for the physical stats while the psychic stats could be as high a ten. Both a little lower for the kid.”

The two looked onto the floating screen in front of them, wondering how it came to be. They are lucky to find out the existence of it as early as now. Most people only knew after an announcement two weeks into the appearance. “Now then, just look at your stats right now and tell me the highest for physical and psychic.”

“Mine are agility with five and perception with eight.”

While the women said her stats out loud the kid just silently looked at the air in front of him. “Hey kid, tell me your stats.” He sat there quietly before he finally spoke out.

“Endure with three…”

“And?”

“Psyche with twelve.”

Haaaa, what should I do with him. “Don’t make things up, it’s going to decide if you will live or die.”

The boy clenched his fists before he turned to me, his face stoic. “It really is twelve.”

Either he’s a liar or a prodigy, I don’t care. “Okay, then click on the field with job. For you woman, you should look for a job like an archer or scout, maybe fighter.”

“It’s Claire.”

“What?”

“My name. It’s Claire. And his name is Marc.”

I looked at the woman. “Sure. Now then kid, if you really make things up you should look for a class like mage. High psyche stats are good for healers and summoners. After you choose your class you will get attribute bonuses based on their level, take these as guides to invest your bonus points into. Then open the skill window and look at the related skills to your class.”

Now then, I should take a look at my own status.