Tess stood and rolled her shoulders, releasing the tension inside her. She never liked having to put down animals, but in this case, there was no helping it. The boarlus’s legs were broken in ways she couldn’t fix, at least not without modern medical equipment.

And there was no telling if that existed in this new world.

The woman sighed. At least she could use the animal for rations. There was no telling how far she would have to go to find a trace of civilization.

If there was civilization and the boxes that appeared in front of her weren’t lying. Tess wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of gods. Not after her upbringing.

The woman stomped over to her supplies, half of them smashed to pieces under the boarlus’s initial charge. Her signal mirror, which was already cracked, had shattered to pieces. Her radio and flashlight were broken as well but both her matches and water tablets were intact. Surprisingly, both her watch and compass had lasted through the charge. Though, the compass did look a tad beat up.

Her sunglasses were fine as well, but that was nothing to the true saving grace that was Tess’s intact water bottle.

“Small graces,” the woman muttered. Now she didn’t have to worry about making a container for water.

She quickly collected the intact items and placed them into her pack, then grabbed her broken radio and the batteries out of her flashlight. She might be able to do something with them later. If nothing else, she could likely pawn them for money.

The sunglasses went on her head, just in case the sun got too bright as she moved.

Her knife wouldn’t work the best with this kind of animal, but it was all she had and she wasn’t about to lug around something that weighed more than she did. Luckily, she kept her knife sharp and made sure it was always clean. However, without a way to lift the animal, Tess resigned herself to removing the two unbroken legs.

It was messy work as she couldn’t drain the blood, but eventually, the woman pulled away two severed legs. She propped them up on a tree to drain as she wiped herself clean with leaves.

“Alright, first order of business is water,” Tess said to herself after wiping her hands.

Tess sighed at the box. “Look, whoever you are on the other end of this box thing. You might think your entertainment is more important than my survival, but I don’t. Water always comes first. And I know there’s some nearby with that animal.”

“Or I could get crap,” Tess replied. “I’d rather take the sure bet than some random decision.”

“If it will get you to stop whining, sure,” Tess answered.

Plus it wasn’t like Tess wasn’t going to spend her experience at some point. She wanted every advantage she could get out in this wilderness. And there was no point questioning if this system thing was good or bad. It was something that could help her, and Tess wasn’t going to refuse just because she was a tad suspicious.

Besides, things were already so far out of her wheelhouse that Tess didn’t much care what the system might do at this point.

The woman scanned the forest floor for animal tracks, they would be her best bet in finding a water source. The boarlus’s tracks were simple enough to spot, the heavy animal’s hooves easily sank into the dirt. She grabbed the two severed legs, covered them in leaves for simple preservation, and did her best to connect them to her belt.

Tess started to retrace the animal’s steps, keeping her knife at the ready just in case there were more of the animal.

For all she knew, boarlus’s moved in packs.

Tess continued to follow the tracks while keeping an eye out for other signs of water. She made sure to look for swarming insects or particularly lush vegetation. She also kept her ears peeled for any sounds of running water.

Trekking across the forest was slow going, but Tess wasn’t complaining. This was her in her element. This was what all her survival classes had been for.

A part of her had always wanted to go off-grid. To live in the wilderness with nothing but herself. There was something freeing about the wild, something in nature that a city couldn’t seem to give.

She never went through with it, mostly because it was expensive to live by yourself.

Tess froze in place as the box appeared. She scanned the area for danger, but couldn’t see anything.

“This is not important right now,” the woman hissed.

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m the only one here,” Tess groaned. “Just, don’t put another box in front of me unless I’m going to be in danger.”

The woman continued on her journey.

She found a small stream as the sun dipped low. She looked up at the wine-red sky, thankful for the fact that not everything seemed out of place. Trees still looked like trees, and most of the animals around were variations of earth animals.

“Alright, let’s prepare for the night,” Tess said.

“I’m not going to forget,” Tess huffed. “But finding a safe place to sleep is more important.

Luckily, the land around her was level enough for sleeping, though it wasn’t going to be comfortable. The various trees would provide her with escape routes, and she didn’t see any dangerous animals about.

Tess went to work, gathering fallen branches and placing them against the crook of two trees that had grown together. She was making one of the simplest of shelters, a lean-to. All it required was a sturdy central branch that could rest securely against a tree. Or in this case the two trees.

She placed her longest branch between the tree nook and started to layer her other branches. The sun had dipped below the horizon by the time Tess finished, but two bright moons in the sky let her move with ease. She slipped inside her shelter, laying flat on her back.

Moonlight spilled between the gaps in her shelter, and Tess prayed that it wouldn’t rain tonight. Her current clothing was good enough to keep her warm in most environments, but rain had a way of sapping someone’s strength.

Just as Tess got comfortable, the damned box appeared again.