Chương 9: Chapter 8

While Sam headed towards the forest, he went carefully through his plan.

'First, I need to level up, and Lucky also needs to level up…' Lucky, somehow sensing he was thinking about him, looked up at Sam and grinned with tongue lolling, still trotting beside him. Sam smiled back, then continued to think.

'Then I need to get some more armor, as a bracer and gloves wouldn't help much. But if I get some quality wolf furs, then that will not be a problem…' Looking around to make sure nobody was following him, he simply continued to whistle (badly) while sometimes throwing a stick for Lucky to bring back. All in all, he was perfectly content.

As Sam and Lucky arrived at the forest, he quieted down, Lucky following in his footsteps, as if sensing that they would be hunting, was standing almost fully still, only moving his adorable little head with the smallest movements. Knowing that he had been playing for a long time, Sam planned only to hunt a few wolves, so he wasn't really worried about the quest. And that is what he did. He stepped into the forest, followed by his loyal wolf, and began to hunt.

The first thing he came across was an angry hog and not a wolf, but Sam didn't mind. It was good to practice on something more manageable than a big wolf. He barely had time to unsheathe his sword before the enraged animal charged at him.

'Damn!' He jumped aside, barely landing on his feet, while Lucky growled at the monster that weighed at least ten of him. Balancing on his feet, trying not to fall over, he watched as the hog snorted and slowed down from its charge. Sam was a little disappointed that the animal was smart enough not to ram into a tree. Still, Sam gathered himself and raised his sword before the hog had time to slow and turn, it pawed the ground shaking its glinting tusk in threat.

Though there was little chance that he would manage to cleanly separate the hog's head from its body, just like with the rabbits. It was a little too big for that. Nonetheless, he was prepared to try. Or do as the saying goes… He watched as the eyes of the hog stared at him, the cold, calculating intelligence radiating death, and couldn't help but swallow.

'Ugh, couldn't have the developers made the animals stupider and less lethal?' Sam raised his sword and prepared to strike. The hog pawed at the ground and prepared to charge. For a moment, both of them stared at each other. Then… SWISH! Sam jumped aside, and the hog squealed as it ran past him, its side bleeding from the cut that he inflicted. For a moment, he expected the hog to flee, with blood flowing freely from its side, but then it turned around, and Sam could almost see its face turning red from rage.

Apparently, there would be no peace. Sam sat on the ground, his back to a tree, panting with exhaustion as the aggressive hog was laying in front of him finally, dead as a doornail. It was bleeding from multiple wounds, and it was a minor miracle that it was slow enough that Sam managed to dodge every charge, every tusk strike, and body slam. Poor Lucky was practically useless against the hog… He was dirty, drenched with sweat, and exhausted. But he killed it, and the feeling was rather exhilarating…

'I could get used to this…' he mused, while slowly getting up and approaching the corpse of the giant animal, retrieving his knife.

'This will be perfect for bait as the hide is ruined…' He stepped next to, kneeled down, and began roughly carving up the dead hog. Sam waited in silence behind a tree, physically holding back Lucky, as they watched as a very big wolf (though smaller than Lucky's mother) approached the cut of the hog that Sam had left out. They watched as it sniffed around, walked around the piece of meat, then finally, after a minute of indecision, it decided to eat it. And that's when Sam struck.

He leaped forward, cutting down straight with his sword, right at the neck of the wolf. However, the wolf was faster than him and managed to jump aside, and immediately strike back with its claws. Sam felt the claws hit his side; thankfully the Mana Shield took care of the damage, but it was still too close. He quickly renewed the spell, with his shaky mana control, and instantly moved toward the wolf, afraid that if he would let up with his attack, the wolf would get in a lucky shot or worse, run away.

He struck once, twice, and three times, but the wolf always danced away, and only the last strike nicking it on its side, but it didn't even draw blood. Sam wondered for a moment if he bit off a little more than he could chew and cursed the fact that acquiring a skill that would allow him to estimate his opponent's strength was a little beyond him when Lucky came to the rescue. The adorable little wolf let out a battle howl, shocking the wolf staring hungrily at Sam, and charged at it with reckless abandon.

Lucky latched onto the hind leg of the bigger wolf, then began to chew on it. The wolf yipped in surprise and pain, and looked back at the cause of its pain, while Sam, without hesitation, used the gap in the monster's defense to charge at it. The wolf had enough time to look back at Sam before it was impaled face first with his sword. Sam panted a little, then tiredly called out to Lucky, who still keeping hold of the leg of the wolf.

"You can let it go, Lucky!" The little wolf cub sent him a questioning growl, then sniffed once, and let go of the furred appendage. Then slowly trotted up to him, sat down on the ground, and looked up at Sam with a truly wolfish grin. Sam chuckled and began petting his little hero while reading the screens that popped up. [You've killed Adult Forest Wolf!] [Due to the Adult Forest Wolf being four levels higher than you, you (and your pet) will receive increased experience points!] [Congratulations! You've leveled up!] [You're now level 3!] Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. [Gained 2 unassigned attribute points!] [Gained 1 END point, thanks to your endurance during battle!] [Congratulations! Your pet, the Juvenile Gray Wolf, has leveled up!] [Juvenile Gray Wolf is now Level 2!] [Do you want to see the wolf's status screen?] [Congratulations, thanks to your persistence with the sword, your Basic Sword Mastery skill has reached Level 7!] [Congratulations, thanks to your accuracy with the sword, your Pinpoint Accuracy skill has reached Level 1!] [Congratulations, thanks to your usage, Mana Shield skill has reached Level 7!] Reading over the notifications, Sam was a little disappointed that his mana control didn't go up, but it probably needed something bigger than him using it in a battle. Probably some kind of breakthrough reminiscent of fantasy novels…

He assigned the new points to Wisdom and Strength, dressed the corpse of the wolf, and then sat down for a quick meditation to recover his lost mana. After the first wolf, everything seemed to click into place. Sam continued to hunt the wolves and hogs that made the forest their home with Lucky, getting faster and faster with killing them as he learned how they moved and how to apply his own skills.

By the time his internal alarm rang that it was time to go, he managed to kill a wolf in two strikes, or one strike if Lucky was, well, lucky enough, to catch them unaware. He collected a sizable amount of wolf and hog carcasses, lots of random assortment of plants that he recognized from his inherited memories, and even one old necklace that was stuck into the dirty and matted fur of one very big hog. Sam finished dressing the last corpse and glanced at Lucky.

The little wolf was still looking around alertly, but it was obvious it was beyond tired as it continued to yawn (cutely of course).

"Come on, Lucky. Let's go back to the town and have a rest!" The wolf perked up, barked in happiness, and then immediately turned around, facing the direction where Sam knew Greenwood was.

"Lead the way then…" Sam said with a chuckle, then began tiredly following his little friend. Thankfully, nothing interesting happened on their way back. A few wolves tried to cause trouble, but Sam just threw a small amount of meat at them, and while they were distracted by it, the two of them legged it. However, he made sure to enter the town from a different direction, not wanting to meet the guard who gave him his newest quest for now.

He did a quick detour towards the butcher, haggled a little for processing the hogs, then headed directly to the inn and his room. Waving a tired hello to Sarah, who was sitting behind the counter, reading a book, he asked for another two days of extension, paid, then trudged up to his room, Lucky in his arms, as the excitable little fellow's legs gave out around the time they left the butcher. In his room, Sam put out food and water for Lucky placed him on the end of the bed, took off his boots, and laid down.

Then did a final check of his notifications. [Congratulations! You've leveled up!] [You're now level 5!] [Gained 4 unassigned attribute points!] [Gained 1 AGI point, thanks to your speedy actions!] [Gained 1 DEX point, thanks to your deft strikes!] [Congratulations! Your pet, the Juvenile Gray Wolf, has leveled up!] [Juvenile Gray Wolf is now Level 5!] [Juvenile Gray Wolf has learned the Strong Jaw skill!] [Strong Jaw: Level Max (Passive) The jaw of the wolf is strengthened.] [Do you want to see the wolf's status screen?] [Congratulations, thanks to your persistence with the sword, your Basic Sword Mastery skill has reached Level 9!] [Congratulations, thanks to your accuracy with the sword, your Pinpoint Accuracy skill has reached Level 3!] [Congratulations, thanks to your usage, Mana Shield skill has reached Level 9!] [Thanks to fighting alongside your partner, your Companion Sense skill increased to Level 2] [Congratulations, thanks to your usage, Meditation skill has reached Level 9!] Chuckling at the unhelpfulness of Lucky's newest skill, he opened his status screen. When he leveled up, he added one point to Strength, one to Magic and two to Vitality. Balance was the name of the game at the beginning.

[Name: Sam 'Solar' Level: 5 (7%) Title: - HP: 160/160 MP: 90/90 STR: 7 DEX: 7 AGI: 7 VIT: 8 END: 7 MAG: 9 PER: 7 WIS: 6 LUCK: 9] With that done, Sam closed his eyes and triggered the Log out button. He woke on his couch, with the morning sun illuminating his apartment. He spent a few minutes just laying there, contemplating what he had just experienced, then Sam slowly sat up, stretched, put the VR helmet on its stand, then slowly walked to the bathroom to take care of his hygiene needs.

While it seemed weird that he had to log out from an inn room, it was good to get used to it. After the game reached its height of popularity, people would play it so much that life almost stopped in the real world. So the government mandated that the maximum playtime was 12 hours a day, for example starting from 6 in the afternoon until 6 in the morning. This allowed people to plan around the game, and nobody's stuff would get stolen because they couldn't log in for some reason.

However, the playtime could be restricted by health reasons, so most people only played as much as their body could handle. Finishing with his shower, Sam fixed breakfast for himself, grimaced at the taste of the 'healthy' cereal, sat down in front of his computer, and began looking up news about Magic Unbound. Magic Unbound has indeed unbound the magic! A new game that surpasses every expectation… A fantastic game for fans of the fantasy genre… Derivative and cliché… Just as he remembered.

The first opinions were generic and didn't manage to grasp what made the game great. Then he clicked around a little, checked his account on Shadowland, answered the messages there, and posted a few guides and secrets, setting the price low, just to get a little more income before people migrated to Magic Unbound. Then Sam went to a streamer site and began searching for streamers that played the game…

After he was done with gathering intelligence on the gaming community, Sam puttered around the apartment a little, cleaning, and organizing stuff. Writing down notes about his actions, making notes of his expenses and lone income, while also writing down the skills he and Lucky acquired, compared them to his notes while using this information to plan further ahead. Then Sam went through his routine exercise, hating the fact he had to do it but knowing it was important if he wanted to remain competitive later.

And when he finished, he took another shower, then simply crashed into his bed, asleep the moment his head touched the pillow. Sam woke up late in the afternoon, hungry beyond reason. He shambled out to the kitchen, threw together a nice chicken salad, sat down in front of the television set, and began watching some kind of news, extolling some kind of government action, as his brain tried to start up.

Finishing his meal, he took a bathroom break, and made another check of the gaming news, then when Sam saw nothing interesting happened while he was out, then laid down on the couch and reached for his helmet. He missed Lucky. The blackness was more familiar but still slightly disconcerting. [MAGIC UNBOUND] [Welcome back, Solar!] [Log in?] Sam pressed the button without hesitation, and then within a second, he found himself lying on the bed back in the Green Stump Inn with Lucky snoring at the end of the bed.

Thankfully, the developers of the game were nice enough to set it so that when a player logged out, the game wouldn't try to disturb them. For example, the game kept Lucky asleep, and nobody came into the room to bother him. He sat up, and the moment his bare feet touched the ground, Lucky was up, wagging his tail, grinning at him, ready for action.

"Come on, Lucky, let's get some good food, then money, then we can hunt a little more…" he said while patting the not-so-little wolf's head. Apparently, while he was asleep, Lucky grew up. Reaching Level 5 allowed Lucky to turn from a Juvenile Gray Forest Wolf into a Gray Forest Wolf. He was no longer small, but he was the size of a border collie. Sam was a little disappointed, as the little wolf with its oversized paws was super adorable. But at least this way Lucky would be much more useful.

He shook his head, patted Lucky one last time, then opened the door to his room, ready for another day of adventure.