Something moved again behind him.
The sound was heavy and deliberate, branches shifting somewhere deeper within the darkness between the trees.
The sound snapped Traise out of his thoughts instantly as his survival instinct took over.
He turned and bolted deeper into the forest without looking back, his breathing already ragged as he forced himself between tightly packed trees while uneven roots and fallen branches threatened to trip him with every step.
Moonlight flashed through the canopy overhead in broken fragments, barely illuminating the terrain enough for him to react in time as bushes tore against his clothes and low branches scraped across his arms.
The forest no longer felt mysterious.
Now it felt dangerous.
And somewhere within the darkness between the trees, something was actively hunting him.
Another growl echoed behind him, low enough to vibrate through the forest itself as the sound came noticeably closer this time, forcing Traise to push himself even harder.
The ground suddenly dipped ahead beneath the roots of a fallen tree, and he instinctively planted one foot against the trunk before awkwardly vaulting over it.
His landing nearly failed as loose dirt slid beneath his shoes, but he twisted sideways at the last second and caught himself before crashing completely into the ground.
Even so, the impact sent a sharp pulse of pain through his ankle as he stumbled forward again.
[You have taken 1 damage]
The growl behind him deepened.
Traise weaved between another cluster of trees, ducking beneath a low branch before nearly slipping again on wet leaves scattered across the forest floor.
His movements were still clumsy and desperate, driven more by adrenaline than skill, but gradually his body began reacting faster.
He stopped crashing directly into every obstacle ahead of him, his footing adjusting instinctively as survival pushed him harder with every passing second.
Then the system suddenly appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Dexterity increased to 11]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The message nearly made him stumble again.
“What—?”
It vanished almost immediately, leaving Traise confused as he pushed himself deeper into the forest.
Had the system rewarded him just for managing to move through the terrain without tripping over every root and fallen branch in his path?
The thought barely settled before he noticed something else.
His footing felt slightly steadier now, and despite how hard he had already been running, his movements through the forest suddenly felt smoother than before, as if his body reacted just a little faster with each step.
The realization sent a brief pulse of excitement through him before exhaustion began spreading through his legs more heavily than before.
His lungs burned now, each breath rough and painful as he continued forcing himself deeper into the forest without slowing down.
Several more minutes passed before another message appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Endurance increased to 11]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise gritted his teeth as another surge of pain spread through his chest.
So the stats really did grow through effort.
The thought barely crossed his mind before something lunged from the darkness behind him.
A claw ripped across the side of his shoulder as he threw himself forward instinctively, the impact spinning him sideways hard enough to slam him against a nearby tree trunk before he collapsed awkwardly into the dirt.
[You have taken 2 damage]
Pain exploded through his shoulder instantly.
Warm blood spread beneath his torn sleeve as panic surged through him again.
The attack had only grazed him, but the force behind it made one thing painfully obvious.
If the creature landed a proper hit, he would die.
Traise shoved himself back onto his feet just as a wolf-like beast emerged fully from the shadows between the trees.
The creature looked even worse up close.
Long silver streaks ran through dark gray fur beneath the moonlight while pale blue eyes remained fixed directly on him with terrifying focus.
Its body was lean rather than bulky, built entirely for speed and pursuit, and its elongated limbs moved with unnatural silence despite its size.
The metallic rabbit-like creature had been running from this thing.
Now it was hunting him instead.
Move.
Traise turned and sprinted again.
The wolf-like beast followed effortlessly.
The distance between them barely changed no matter how hard he pushed himself, and the realization sent another wave of panic through his chest.
He wasn’t escaping this thing through speed alone.
Then the forest suddenly opened ahead.
Traise barely had enough time to realize something massive was standing in the clearing before it charged at him.
A monstrous boar-like beast burst forward with explosive force, its enormous body covered in thick dark hide that reflected faintly beneath the moonlight like armored metal.
Massive iron-colored tusks curved upward from its jaw while glowing red eyes locked directly onto him.
“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me—!”
The beast charged instantly.
Traise threw himself sideways just before the creature slammed through the exact spot where he had been.
The force of its movement shook the ground beneath him as he rolled violently across dirt and stone, skin tearing across both palms while sharp rocks scraped along his side.
[You have taken 3 damage]
Pain shot through his ribs as he struggled back upright.
The boar-like beast turned sharply toward him again.
Then something gray exploded from the darkness.
The wolf beast collided with the other creature in a violent crash of claws, tusks, and snarling fury.
Traise froze.
The two monsters tore into each other with terrifying force as the larger beast slammed its armored body against nearby trees hard enough to splinter bark apart, while the wolf-like creature darted around it with frightening speed.
Blood sprayed across the clearing as tusks gouged through fur and claws ripped deep across thick hide.
The sounds alone were horrifying, snarls and squeals echoing through the forest while massive bodies crashed against trees hard enough to shake the ground beneath him.
Traise backed away slowly, barely breathing as he watched.
These things were monsters.
The larger beast lowered its head suddenly before charging again, smashing through the clearing with enough force to uproot smaller trees as the wolf-like creature barely avoided being impaled by one of the massive tusks.
The silver-furred predator retaliated immediately, tearing into the beast’s exposed side before leaping away again moments before the heavier creature could crush it beneath its weight.
The system sounded in his ears.
[Observation failed]
[Target exceeds current user Grade]
Traise’s eyes widened slightly.
Whatever ability the larger beast possessed, it was apparently beyond what his current Mimic skill could learn.
The thought barely had time to settle before the fight below grew even more brutal as the boar-like creature finally managed to catch the wolf beast across its side, one tusk ripping deep through silver-streaked fur as blood poured heavily onto the ground beneath them.
The predator staggered from the impact before suddenly lunging upward and clamping its jaws onto the side of the larger beast’s throat.
The clearing erupted into chaos.
The boar smashed wildly into trees and rocks, trying to throw the predator off while the wolf-like beast held on desperately, claws digging deeper into thick hide as blood continued pouring down the beast’s neck.
Then, slowly, the larger creature weakened.
One final cry escaped the boar monster before its legs finally collapsed beneath it.
The creature crashed heavily into the dirt, shaking the clearing beneath its weight.
Silence followed.
The wolf-like beast released its jaws several seconds later before stumbling backward unsteadily.
Blood covered nearly half its body now, one hind leg dragging behind it while its breathing had become ragged and uneven.
But it was still alive.
Traise stared at it from the edge of the clearing, his pulse hammering painfully in his chest as the realization slowly settled in.
This was probably his only chance.
The thought terrified him almost as much as the creature itself.
The silver-furred predator slowly turned toward him.
Its glowing eyes locked onto his again.
Traise moved first.
He grabbed a heavy fallen branch from the ground and charged before fear could stop him.
The creature lunged weakly toward him at almost the same time, but its injured leg failed beneath it halfway through the movement.
Traise swung the branch with both hands, the impact making a loud crack against the side of the creature’s skull.
The wolf-like beast snarled violently and tried to rise again.
Traise hit it again.
And again.
And again.
The final strike landed hard enough to cause the creature to collapse motionless into the dirt beneath him.
A new system window appeared immediately.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[You have killed a Moonfang Stalker]
[You have gained 5 Experience]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise stood there breathing heavily, still gripping the bloodstained branch as adrenaline flooded through his body.
His hands shook slightly now that everything had gone quiet, the reality of what had just happened finally catching up to him.
Moonfang Stalker.
So that was its name.
For several seconds, he simply stared at the body in silence while the scent of blood filled the clearing around him.
Then another window appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Item Acquired]
Moonfang Fang Necklace
Grade: Initiate
Effect: +2 Dexterity
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Item Acquired]
Moonfang Meat x2
Fresh meat harvested from a Moonfang Stalker.
Safe for consumption, though cooking is recommended to reduce impurities.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Would you like to store all items?]
Traise blinked.
“Store it?”
The moment the thought crossed his mind, another screen unfolded beside the first.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Added to Inventory]
Moonfang Fang Necklace
Moonfang Meat x2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
His eyes widened slightly.
A real inventory.
Like an actual game.
I need to equip it, though.
The necklace vanished from the inventory instantly before suddenly appearing around his neck.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Moonfang Fang Necklace Equipped]
Dexterity +2
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
At almost the same time, a strange lightness spread through his body.
It wasn’t strength exactly, but movement suddenly felt smoother somehow, as if his body responded slightly faster than before.
The Dexterity boost.
Before he could think about it longer, exhaustion washed over him all at once.
His shoulder burned from the earlier claw wound, while his scraped palms still throbbed painfully from falling against the rocks.
Traise immediately looked toward the surrounding forest again.
The clearing suddenly felt far too exposed.
He climbed the nearest large tree quickly despite the pain shooting through his hands and ribs, eventually settling himself onto a thick branch high enough above the ground to feel somewhat hidden among the leaves.
Only then did he finally breathe properly.
The forest stretched endlessly beneath the twin moons, silver light filtering through the canopy while distant noises echoed faintly somewhere far away.
Traise leaned carefully against the trunk before glancing down at his injured shoulder.
The wound was still there.
But the bleeding had stopped.
The cuts across his forearms already looked smaller than before, the torn skin no longer quite as deep as it had been earlier.
The healing wasn’t fast enough to watch directly, but after enough time passed, the changes became impossible to ignore.
His status checks confirmed it.
[Health: 5 / 10]
Several minutes later:
[Health: 6 / 10]
His eyes narrowed slightly as he watched the number increase.
The healing wasn’t instant, but gradual.
Most of the pain still remained, but the wounds themselves were visibly improving little by little.
So this was how regeneration actually worked.
Not immortality or instant recovery.
Just steady healing over time.
Eventually, hunger pulled his attention elsewhere.
His stomach felt painfully empty now, the exhaustion from running, fighting, and blood loss making the hunger worse with every passing minute he remained hidden in the tree.
The thought of climbing back down into the darkness below made his chest tighten immediately, especially with distant noises still occasionally echoing somewhere deeper within the forest.
After a long moment of hesitation, Traise pulled one of the meat portions from the inventory.
The item materialized directly into his hands.
He stared at it uncertainly.
Raw monster meat.
“…There’s no way this is safe.”
His stomach cramped again.
Traise grimaced before reluctantly tearing off a small piece and forcing himself to chew.
He expected the taste of raw blood and uncooked flesh immediately, but instead the meat felt strangely tender, far closer to cooked meat than anything raw should have tasted.
The taste and texture were still unfamiliar, richer and heavier than normal meat, but nowhere near as unbearable as he had expected.
His eyes widened slightly as the system appeared again.
“What…?”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Temporary Effect Gained]
+1 Endurance
Duration: 2 Hours
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Warmth slowly spread through his body afterward, easing some of the exhaustion weighing down his muscles as Traise stared at the message in disbelief.
“Monster meat gives buffs too…”
A second notification immediately appeared beneath it.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skill Acquired]
Beast Digestion
Class: Initiate Low
Type: Passive / Survival
Allows safe digestion and absorption of foreign biological material from monsters and beasts.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise blinked several times while staring at the screen.
“Of course that’s a thing too…”
After the hunger finally eased, Traise decided to open his status screen again.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[The Upgrade System]
User: Traise Axton
Grade: Initiate
Level: 1
XP: 5 / 10
Health: 7 / 12 (+1 Temp)
Mana: 10 / 10
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Attributes]
Strength: 10
Dexterity: 13
Intelligence: 10
Endurance: 12 (+1 Temp)
Willpower: 10
Luck: ???
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Skills]
Mimic
Class: Special
Type: Growth / Replication
Current Mimic Slots
2 / 3 Available
Current Mimic Skills:
Minor Regeneration
Class: Initiate Low
Type: Passive / Healing
Mastery: 4 / 100
Current Effects:
Passive healing over time
Reduced bleeding damage
Recovery Rate: 1% Maximum Health per minute
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Beast Digestion
Class: Initiate Low
Type: Passive / Survival
Allows safe digestion and absorption of foreign biological material from monsters and beasts.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Traise stared quietly at the screen while the forest shifted softly beneath the pale light of the twin moons around him.
Only hours ago, he had been sitting alone in a dark apartment on Earth.
Now he had killed a monster, gained experience, learned skills, and stored items inside a space that shouldn’t even exist.
The fear was still there.
The danger was still real.
But as he looked back out across the endless forest beyond the tree line, something slowly settled in beneath the exhaustion.
Determination.
If this world worked like a game, then he would survive by becoming stronger than everything trying to kill him.