World Seed: Game Start (19 page)

Taking
off my shirt, I put it into my inventory and activated Aspect of the
Bird. Though I wasn’t particularly adept at flying, I was able
to go up to the branches of the trees. From there, I just needed to
glide from one branch to another, while using Wind Manipulation under
my wings to guide me.

Thanks
to this method of travel, I was using a bit of mana with every jump,
but also took a few seconds between jumps to recover it. By the time
I was nearing the wolves, five minutes had already passed. Yin and
Yang were both happily circling around me as I clutched my bow,
looking down at the wolves below. Thanks to using Wind Manipulation
in small amounts, I was able to prevent my scent from being carried
down to them.

I
didn’t need to be too worried here, since wolves can’t
fly. As long as I didn’t do anything stupid like jumping off, I
could pick them off one at a time until I either ran out of arrows,
or that big snake above me came in for a– wait, what?

Looking
up, I saw a rather large snake, its body as thick as my waist,
wrapped around the branch above me. Its eyes were passively looking
at me, its tongue slithering out every few seconds. Why the fuck did
I not notice that before? Glancing around, even Yin and Yang had
apparently fled from the immediate area.

Think
fast, think fast. Could be poisonous, but I have an antidote spell.
More likely to be killed by a lethal bite or it constricting me to
death. Would rather neither of those happened, to be honest. Too
close for me to pull my bow on it, too high up for Earth Manipulation
to help. Can’t hide, snakes see heat, or was it movement? Damn,
I should have paid more attention in class, this is going to hurt. My
mind was going at a mile a minute, while the snake just continued to
stare at me, as if it hadn’t noticed that I saw it. Perhaps it
didn’t see me as a threat? Either way, it was looking at me
like I was food. I was the one that was supposed to be hunting here,
dammit!

I’d
have tried poisoning it, but if I killed it then I was eating snake
today! I didn’t want to poison my own meal. If I didn’t
kill it, well.. then I’d be in trouble and wouldn’t have
the right to complain anyways. If I lost a level now, would I lose my
class? I didn’t really want to find out. So, I very carefully
put my bow and quiver back in my inventory, showing the snake that I
was just a harmless winged half-elf.

Then
I pulled my dagger out instead. Me Tarzan, you meat! Coating my blade
in mana, I lunged at the snake. I didn’t really expect the mana
to do anything, but several games I had played before used this as a
method of strengthening melee weapons, so I could only hope. Seeing
my lunge, the snake hissed at me before its jaw opened almost
impossibly wide. The thing looked like it wanted me to jump directly
into its mouth!

Well,
who am I to pass up such a tempting offer? I haven’t played it
sane so far, so why start now. Using the wind on my wings to guide
myself, I stopped right inside the massive mouth, planing my feet on
its jaw. As it tried to snap its jaw shut with me inside it, I
quickly raised my dagger up to carve at its upper jaw.

I
heard something cracking, and was fairly certain it was me. Had I
been thinking, I would have remembered that snakes exert a much more
powerful force closing their jaws than opening it. While my dagger
had managed to cut through its mouth, and even stab into its brain, I
still considered myself on the losing end of that exchange.

Pain…
it hurts. I unhesitantly began casting Alchemic heal on myself over
and over, crying out as my bones were forced back into their
positions before they were able to mend, and once that was done, I
triumphantly crawled my way out of the snake’s mouth. Which way
is the exit?

Chapter 17: New
gear? Finally!

It
took me a little bit to crawl out of the snake’s mouth, since I
had started going in the wrong direction. Thankfully, after a few
feet I noticed that I shouldn’t have been that deep in its
throat. When I emerged, I felt it was a miracle Celeste hadn’t
been damaged in that exchange. Though, when I called for her to make
sure she was alright, she appeared in a holographic nurse uniform.

“
So
Falenel, what seems to be the problem today? Yes, yes… I can
see that you are suffering from a chronic lack of common sense.”
She nodded to herself as she was going over a holographic clipboard,
supposedly my patient’s chart.

I
sighed, regretting having been worried about the AI. “Nice to
see you’re okay too, Celeste.” I leaned down and picked
up the dead snake with great difficult, and stuffed the body into my
inventory. Next, I sat there and waited for my mana to recover, while
ignoring the furious barks from the wolves below that now obviously
knew of my presence.

I
was a bit sad that my knife had broken in that fight, snapping under
the pressure after having successfully killed the snake. Now I was
just left with my bow and… twenty eight arrows. Those were not
going to last me very long, were they? I guess the next thing I
should cultivate would be Fire Affinity, followed by Plant Affinity
so that I can fully take care of myself in the wild. But for that
I’ll need Water Affinity as well… Gah, so troublesome

Once
my mana was recovered, I began gliding back to the grove in the same
manner I had taken to get here, gathering a few small branches along
the way to start the fire. I’ve never really had snake before,
but it shouldn’t be too bad, right? I wasn’t poisoned
when it tried to eat me, so it shouldn’t be venomous I think?

After
I arrived back in the grove, I got the snake body back out and
started to chop it up… Wait, I lost my knife… how the
heck am I supposed to chop this thing up!? Frustrated, I logged off
and had a bowl of cereal for my morning(evening) meal. Strangely, the
Seed was actually much larger when I logged off this time, and I
noticed I still had the wings from Aspect of the Bird. It seemed the
device really did resize itself to match the occupant. Once I was
back in NeoLife, I decided on a new new plan. First, I needed to
practice flying until I could go for at least ten minutes at a time.

Thankfully,
that was a fairly easy task, since I had been practicing with my
wings more often. After a couple hours, I could already reach my goal
with little difficulty, as long as I helped my flight with Wind
Manipulation. And with that taken care of, it was finally time to get
a bird’s eye view of the place! Though, I was starting to get
hungry again… cereal is never really filling.

Off
to the side, I notice Yin and Yang flying off for a brief moment,
then returning with an apple and a strange brown fruit that looked
vaguely like an orange.

…

What
did I go through that hunt for then!? I lowered my head in
depression, but nonetheless thanked the two birds and took the
fruits. I first ate the apple, as I at least knew what it was, while
inspecting the brown orange with my mana. By this point, I’ve
at least gotten good enough to identify if there is a poisonous
substance inside of something. Strangely, I found that there was no
such thing, even a bit of a warm medicinal feeling.

Since
the apple was enough to tide me over for now, I put the weird fruit
in my inventory. “Okay, Celeste, time to head back to town.
Need that map again.”

“
Going
to meet any new snake friends while you’re out?” The
holographic navigator snickered from my wrist.

“
Very
funny.” I shook my head, then fully raised all four of my
wings, slamming them downwards to launch me into the air. I only
needed a very slight adjustment from my Wind Manipulation to keep me
going in the right direction, but soon I was flying up over the tops
of the trees. What I saw surprised me a little, to be honest. The
forest we were in was not as massive as I had imagined, and the
starting village was actually near the edge of it. It’s just,
the grove where I had been training was at the dead center of the
forest.

Off
in the distance, I could see other, similar forests all of roughly
the same size. On the horizon, I saw metal structures rising towards
the sky, signs of a more advanced settlement. Of course, I wasn’t
so eager to immediately make my way in that direction, as I could
make out black specks soaring through the skies closer to that city.
From the distance, and the fact that I still managed to notice them,
those specks had to at least be the size of fighter jets. Airborne
monsters that big were far too much for me to handle.

“
Celeste,
add the area around here to the map.” I said as I gave a slow
spin, capturing the scenery around me, before finally diving in the
direction of the town. Since I was flying well above the treetops, I
did not have to worry about any monsters such as snakes, and my path
was a straight shot. I ended up ducking into the trees just before
reaching the village, then gliding down to the ground to put my shirt
back on after dismissing my wings.

You
may be wondering, why am I going back to the village now? Shouldn’t
I be training more to master the rest of my magic? Well, I don’t
really like continuous training montages, but more importantly…
I’ve still got that snake in my inventory! If I can’t eat
it, I might as well get something out of the thing!

Once
I had landed in the town, I walked over towards Harlan’s store.
If anyone knew where to sell animal corpses, it’d be him. “Yo,
Harlan, you in?”

“
Just
a second! Be right out!” I heard his voice coming from the back
of the store, having apparently been on break due to a lack of
customers. Once he came out, he gave me a curious look. “Hmm,
you were in here the other day, right? For your first companion, if I
recall. Did you manage to break it already?”

Rather
than letting me answer, Celeste appeared as a hologram above my wrist
and scolded him. “Hmpf! Like I could be broken so easily!”

Shaking
my head, I looked at the salesman. “I’m interested in
selling an animal body, and wanted to know where I could do so.”

Raising
a curious brow, Harlan seemed at least interested. “Well, that
would depend on the animal.”

“
It
was a snake, about… a foot thick, maybe eight meters long?
Mostly green, with occasional spots of yellow.”

“
Ah,
that sounds like a Great Boa. Rather surprised that you would be able
to kill one, their scales are hard as steel.”

I
winced slightly, remembering how I had originally intended to cut
into it with my dagger. “Well… Let’s just say I
found a soft spot. So, can you help me sell it? The corpse is
entirely intact, and no it’s not poisoned.”

He
chuckled a bit as I added that last note in. “Well, there’s
not a bounty on them at the moment, since they rarely come out from
the upper tree branches. However, like I said, their scales are
incredibly hard. That alone makes them a valuable crafting material
for armors. Their meat is also rather popular. I’d say you
could sell the whole thing for… fifteen silver?”

I
swear, when he said that price, my foot slipped and I landed on the
floor. Fifteen silver? I was going to consider myself lucky for five!
“U-uhm… do you think I’d be able to make a trade?
Get some of the armor made for myself?”

He
thought about it, then nodded. “Even making a full set of armor
wouldn’t use more than half of the scales. If you do that, and
trade it to me, I can give you eight silver for the body, and have
the armor commissioned for you.”

Finally,
I can get some real armor. And it’s even snake scale armor, so
it wouldn’t violate the ‘standard’ theme for
druids. I wonder if they have any armor restrictions here like in
some games? I decided that was something I’d have to ask Jarl
later. “Deal. Uh… do you have somewhere that I could
take the snake out?” I didn’t want to take it out here
and wreck his shelves.

As
if suddenly realizing the issue, he nodded quickly and led me to a
large open room in the back, where I deposited the snake. “Thanks,
and is it possible for the armor to be enchanted to change whenever I
transform? I’m a druid, and my body shape isn’t always
the same…”

Harlan
looked to me at that and nodded. “Certainly, certainly. An
adjustment enchantment is rather basic, and can be included in the
armor easily.” He then looked back to the snake and smiled
slightly. “Is there anything else you need?”

“
Well…
I could do with a new dagger. My last one broke when I killed this
thing.”