Chapter 4

 

 

 

            A soft chilled wind tussled my shaggy blond hair which hung loosely in my face, as I laid on the small hill that looked out over an area of about 4 acres. The weather today was just perfect for an after-lunch nap. Afternoons like this were the best, chilly but not too cold, and the sun behind a pack of clouds. A stillness hung in the air as if even nature itself was pausing for a moment to enjoy the nice day.

            The soft crunching of grass resounded from somethings movements on the ground near me.

            “You know, if you keep sleeping out here in the cold, you’ll get sick,” Said a voice off to my right. Even though my eyes were closed I knew that voice anywhere.

“Oh, come off it Renton. It's only like 50 degrees out, it’s too nice out for me to get sick.” I'd always thrived in the chilly weather. A rustle off in the distance caught my attention and as a reaction, I crossed my arms in front of my face waiting for impact.

            “Your damn reaction speed never dulls” my brother annoyingly said while trying to toss a stick at me. But instead of a direct hit, the stick bounced off the ground next to me. We had been out in the woods for a full two weeks now. Our Dad called it survival training but my brother and I both knew it was just a way for him to get rid of us for three weeks. We had been doing these little training sessions ever since we were around 7 or 8 years old, but now at 16 and 15 here we were in the same stretch of wilderness as we had been so many times before.  

            Opening my eyes and sitting up I took notice of my brother moving towards me. “We’ve only got 3 days until Dad picks us up, so we should start dismantling all the non-essential gear.” He said dropping down on the hill next to me while observing our surroundings. “I mean that’s 3 days away we don’t have to until the day before, it shouldn’t take us that long to break down the well and shelter so they can be pushed off. The lookout tower can stay up this time. I doubt Dads going to knock it down again.”

I casually chimed in while spinning the stick Renton had thrown at me in my hand. In the past when our Dad showed up, he had wrecked our camp in the middle of the night to simulate an attack. His first target was the unoccupied make-shift lookout tower we had built in a tree.

            “You say that but you know just as well as me that trying to predict Dad is a useless task. He always just appears out of nowhere and destroys all our hard work so...” Before he could finish his statement, I cut him off “Nothing comes from nowhere Renton. When he shows up it's going to make no difference if we’ve packed up all our gear, he will still destroy anything built during this trip.”

            Clicking his tongue my brother jumped to his feet suddenly while gazing into the distance. “Three weeks’ worth of progress always gets obliterated in minutes. Hell, we’ve been back to this camp what 4, 5 times now and the amount of left-over stuff is almost nonexistent.”

            He wasn’t wrong, without him knowing I had tried to hide the handmade tools we always created but by the time the next trip came around everything I had hidden would just vanish without a trace. It didn’t seem to matter how creative or crafty the hiding places were when I searched for them on the next outing the hidden tools were missing.

            “Well I’m going to grab some more firewood, If it’s already this cold we will need more. Unlike you, I have no blubber to keep me warm.” The casual dig at my weight fell on deaf ears. I was used to him poking at me over stupid things like that. It’s not like I’m overweight; I just have a little extra fat on me. Shrugging it off I watched my brother as he jogged down the hill to our base camp. Only a couple more days until the assault on our little world begins. Our Father was very keen on attacking in the middle of the night and trying to catch us off guard. If we failed his unspoken tests the coming months were going to suck. To date, we had only passed his tests one time. His reward was the matching knife set that was shared between Renton and I. It was the one tool we were allowed to bring from the outside world into the wilderness.

            Unsheathing the hand and a half-sized hunting knife I held it out in front of me and expertly flicked it towards the ground burying it to its hilt in the soft dirt before me, pulling it up and repeating the process. It was a little accuracy game I had come up with out of sheer boredom years ago. The Goal of the game was to hit the same spot over and over 10 times. The game itself wasn’t necessarily difficult but the number of times one could have perfect aim diminished the larger the hole in the ground got. As a result, after around 20 tosses I gave up, picked up the knife and walked down the hill to where Renton was stacking newly acquired firewood.

            “What’s your record for Knife Toss?” Renton inquired after noticing I had come down from my resting spot. “If I’m not lying, I'd have to say 8 or 9 before too much of the ground was dug up.”  Renton handed me a small log to toss onto the fire behind me. Fire is the most important resource when in the wilderness. Without it not only would you freeze to death but being able to cook raw food from hunting or fishing would be impossible.

            When I extended my hand to grab the wood from him, he gripped my forearm causally and tapped it 3 times with his middle finger. A gesture that would seem to any unsuspecting person as just a random movement but it was a signal. Renton and I had devised several callsigns and hand signs that would go unnoticed if observed by someone outside of the two of us. 3 taps on the forearm meant multiple potential sets of eyes are watching us. Withdrawing his hand Renton reached for another piece of firewood from the stack. Turning my back on him I placed the wood in the center of the firepit and poked it with a stick to stoke the embers and allow some air through them to ignite the dry log.

 3 sets of eyes could be animals or people. If its people just staring at us, we will have to be on guard. If it’s just animals we should still observe them but odds are they won’t attack right away. When I turned back around to grab some more wood from Renton he was already moving away from the pile towards the make-shift shelter we had been using as a resting spot at night. The Shelter was raised roughly 3 feet off the ground on stilts made of small tree trunks that we had cut down on the first day we were in the area. A thatched style roof was conditioned out of dozens of branches and some unidentified brush.

He was giving the appearance that we had finished our work and he was going to rest. Taking advantage of this situation once he was out of sight, I knew that he would be making use of the hidden windows we had crafted into the walls of the shelter. This method of observation was something we had gotten used to over the years. Whenever one of us would notice something, we would move back to the shelter and take advantage of it to block our threat's view of us. Then the next step was gathering information on the would-be attacker. Upon inspection, in the past, the threat was always some kind of scavenging animal looking for food. But judging by how tense Renton’s movements were when he alerted me it was safe to assume this wasn’t a normal threat.

“Hey I’m gonna go take a piss; the fire should be good to go for a few hours.”  My acting should be enough to fool any unsuspecting eyes. Even if it did sound a little strange. “Yeah, yeah whatever, don’t get bit by 3 beamers’ while you’re out.” His reply was code. Yet another tactic we had devised. The phrase always started with “don’t get bit by” and was followed by how many and what type of animal. The animal's name was always mixed into a random word but it wasn’t hard to figure out “Beamer” had 2 extra letters that shouldn’t be there.

 I see. 3 bears. Judging by how many there are it should be a mother and her 2 cubs which is extremely dangerous. No further information from him yet. It’s the time of year that bears are gathering food before hibernation so it’s not that rare. The cubs shouldn’t be an issue but depending on the size of the mother it could be trouble. For now, let’s try to get downwind and flank them. I walked slowly to a patch of thick woods as if I was going to go to the bathroom, but instead of searching for a spot to relieve myself, I was searching for a blind spot that could block my escape. Once I was sure enough that I was out of eyesight of the target I broke into a sprint. Staying low to the ground I navigated the rough terrain.

For years we had been clearing out the area we had set up as basecamp but that by no means meant we hadn’t mapped out the surrounding forest.  Renton and I had spent many months memorizing the surrounding area. We both knew it like the back of our hands. Within a few minutes, I had taken up a decent vantage point and had eyes on the unsuspecting animals. As I had suspected it was a mother bear and her 2 cubs. They were all three looking at our camp while keeping low to the ground. Even animals knew how to be stealthy. The bears appeared haggard and thin, their light black fur was matted and greasy looking. From the looks of it, they haven’t eaten in a while. I noted while observing them. I silently moved up a tree some 40 yards away from the family of bears.

Somethings weird, they’re just watching the camp as if they have some level of intelligence. Quietly I took my knife out of its holster and readied myself. Once Renton gives the sign ill move down from the tree to attack the mother first. The cubs look like they aren’t yet a year old and since they’re malnourished, they shouldn’t be able to put up much of a fight. The Cubs looked to weigh less than a hundred pounds while the mother appeared to be 5 or 6 feet tall if it stood up on its hind legs. If I can catch them off guard, we can eat well for the next couple of nights until we are picked up.

“Mama can’t we just ask them for some food, we don’t have to hurt them right. They haven’t done anything to us.” The words stunned me so bad I almost fell out of the tree I was perched in. DID THAT BEAR JUST TALK!? The cub on the right of the mother bear looked up at her with teary eyes. “Yunta we haven’t had anything to eat in weeks we must attack if we are to steal from them.” The mother replied to her child in a weak voice. WHAT'S GOING ON? TALKING BEARS?! …

I was dumbfounded, bears can’t talk. What was I witnessing? “Yun, we have to listen to mama, I don’t think these human cubs would just give us food. Humans are mean.” the slightly smaller cub remarked to its sibling. The sight before me continued to unfold as the Mother tried to console the older cub. “Humans take more then they need leaving us with little. You should learn well from this experience, while I would prefer to not harm them my only focus is to see you both grow into strong adults. If I must I will kill to feed you.” She nuzzled the head of the cub named Yunta with her snout. But as the Mother Bear was showing this sign of affection, A noise made all three of them drop to their bellies.

Renton had come out of the shelter and was walking toward the fire. I took notice of a shape underneath his shirt. He had his bow resting against his chest and used his clothes to hide it from any prying eyes. “Mama the human cub came out of his home. Do we attack now?” The smaller cub said meekly. “Quiet Beylin” the mother snapped using her paw to push down the cub named Beylin’s snout into the dirt. “These two have strength similar to that Man’s, if we are not careful, we will become the prey, not the other way around.”

The scene in front of me left me bewildered. Talking bears, INTELLIGENT, talking bears. I’m not crazy right? I’m not dreaming, either right? I gripped the blade of my knife hard enough to feel it bite into my flesh. Pain droned through my hand and a slight trickle of blood fell onto the branch I was crouched on. Nope defiantly not sleeping. I stifled a wince and the pain got stronger from the fresh cut on my palm. But I had made a huge mistake.

The second the blood hit the tree branch the Mother bears head whipped around and our eyes made contact. SHIT! I jumped down from the tree, landed on all fours, rolled and ended up in a crouched position with my knife held in front of me in a guarding style. “How can you talk you’re just Bears.” The words hung in the air until a familiar notification box popped into my vision.

MEMORY UNLOCKED

 Adding Assessment skills

           

            A heads-up display appeared revealing my status bars and my map in their standard locations. Stat Sight and Inspect-Kun automatically triggered.

Name: Linta

Level: 25

Race: Bearkin (Pureblood)

Gender: Female

Health Points: 2580/5000

Status: Starving, Malnourished, Sick, Shocked

 

            “HUMAN!!” Linta roared in shock as she charged towards me. Her meager appearance shifted as her fur began to glow with a green hue. The rippling fur gained the appearance of armor as she drew down closer to me.

            Frozen in fear I did nothing except ready myself for a fight as the Mother bear grew closer and closer and then….

 

            I woke up

           

I jolted awake realizing I was on my feet in the same stance I had been moments before only I was in my apartment now, and covered in sweat. My hair had grown into the same appearance as It was in the dream and now hung low in my face reaching down to my chin. My whole body ached with a dull pain no doubt from the Level-Up sickness I had suffered after drinking the Experience Tonics.

What was that dream? I remember all of the wilderness training trips perfectly. But why don’t I remember those bears? Did...did I have access to the Requiem System in the past? No that’s unlikely. The system alerted me with Memory Unlocked and then my current skills activated. You’d think I'd remember something like that happening.

            As always there were just too many unanswered questions. “Ugh, my hair hasn’t been this long since I was a kid what the hell happened when I leveled up,” I muttered while flicking my bangs out of my eyes and tucking them behind my left ear while walking to the bathroom. My clothes were soaked from the sweat so I had decided to wash up but when I reached the bathroom mirror, I was stopped in my tracks.

“Wha...WHAT THE HELL!?!?!”

            The person looking back at me appeared to be around 16 or 17 years old. The appearance was something I hadn’t seen in a few years. Gone was the scar above my left eyebrow, gone were the scars on my shoulder and chest from the car accident I had a few years back.

The person looking back at me was myself from Highschool. While I didn’t look entirely different, I was noticeably younger.  The biggest difference was my physic. Gone was any trace of scars and fat. The person in front of me had broader shoulders and a well-toned torso, akin to that of an athlete. I had also grown a bit in height as well. Before the level ups, I was 5 ft 10 inches, but now I stood taller at around 6 ft 1 inch.

“This is too much, now I’ve not only gotten younger and more toned but now taller too.” I looked like one of those popular kids in school that I never was cool enough to associate with. Not only had I packed on muscle, and gotten younger but my face was more defined. My jawline had gotten sharper and my face was all around more fit. The weight I had carried in it was completely gone and now the face looking back at me was almost on par with the kind of face you’d see an actor have. It was still me but more physically attractive. After a look down of my body, the one thing I noticed was any scar or abnormality was completely fixed as if I had been perfectly healed. The most noticeable one was the pinky toe on my right foot which had been broken dozens of times and stuck out at a weird angle was now perfectly straight as if It had never been damaged before. Likewise, my right ring finger and pinky finger were also perfectly straight now. 

“So…what I’ve been physically healed of all my past injuries now?” Years of physical damage that occurred over my lifetime were wiped away in a single night. My dark blond hair which was previously clean-cut now hung down in my face and looked just as shaggy as it had when I was a teenager. Brushing my hair back opened my mouth and looked at it in the mirror, my teeth were all perfectly straight and from what I could tell there wasn’t a cavity my mouth. The back molar the had a huge hole in it was not repaired as well. “Well, now I don’t feel so bad for not wearing my retainer all these years. Everything’s been fixed hell, now I REALLY wish I had access to the System years ago. I woulda been one of the popular kids in school” I laughed and showered up.

Once I was fully dressed, I went back out into the living room to digest the dream I had seen after I passed out from the Level-Up Sickness. While sitting on the floor where my couch used to be, I scanned my memory with the help of Memorize.

 How could I not remember that attack? What happened? I clearly hadn’t died, that much I’m sure of. Bearkin (Pureblood) that’s gotta be a fantasy race right. Does that mean Halflings exist too? It was level 25 I’m SURE I didn’t have access to the Requiem system back then.

 The questions hung in my mind as I tried to remember what happened all those years ago but all I was met with was a headache.

One thing is for sure. It looks like I have to return to that hellhole my Father took us to. If memory serves its somewhere near the smokey mountains in Tennessee. I think I can retrace my steps to the drop off point that our dad used to take us but I’m not sure I can get back to the Clearing we made. Dad used to blindfold us when he took us into the forest. I remember trying to count each turn and step we took but we would walk for days with a bag over our heads and when he’d give us the signal to take off the bags we were already near the clearing.

Mentally exhausted I leaned against the wall and let out a sigh. The sun was starting to peek into the room which meant a full night had passed since I died. That was when I remembered the Tonics and the scene that had unfolded after I drank them. Pushing off the ground I stood up and walked over to the kitchen. The floor was a mess of broken tile and smashed concrete with dried blood in the center.

“Shit there goes my deposit....”

Making a face I went about cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. There wasn't much I could do about the floor; so, in typical me fashion, I just took one of the floor mats that was nearly placed in front of the sink and draped it over the hole in the ground.

“I guess I should check my stats now, I feel way stronger but it can’t have been that much right?”

I was wrong. Very, Very Wrong. My stats had completely changed, some of my skills had ranked up, and not only that but I had gained several skills and a couple of new titles.

 

 

 

 

Status Window

 

Name: Ayke Jetlensr

Age: 16

Level: 45

Race: Human

Job: Re-Life

Gender: Male

Health Points: 6500

Mana Points: 4500

Stamina: 1000

Stat Points: 45

Skill Points: 45

Strength 43, Dexterity 29, Agility 30, Intelligence 45, Magic Resistance 29, Vitality 40

SKILLS: Inspect-D, Stat Sight-D, Scan-D, Language Knowledge-C, Memorize-C, Multitask-D, InvisaHand-E, OverClock-C. Alchemy-D, Sturdiness-C, Wilderness Survival-B, Hand to Hand-C, Knife Fighting-D, Swordsmanship-D, Bowman Ship-D, Dual Wielding Swordsmanship-D

Titles: Thinking on The Fly, Starter, Revived, User, Amature Alchemist, RNG Master, Rapid Experience, Beginner, Survivalist, Pain Resistant, Combatant,

 

“Well, looks like I have to use up all those stat and skill points now,” I said while grinning devilishly.

To Be Continued