Quill dangled his feet off the edge of the cliff overlooking the expansive ocean as he peeled the skin off an orange, tossing said skin over the cliff and down to the rocky waters below. He plopped a slice into his mouth and chewed, enjoying the fresh taste and juice moving over his enhanced taste senses.
There was an irony somewhere about how it took the complete upending of society and him being in the middle of the wilderness for him to actually start eating better than before the system integration but he decided not to give it too much thought.
He would definitely need to figure out how to grow various fruit trees from all the fruit he had in his storage. The last thing he wanted was to run out of that. He also needed to figure out how to secure some better meat too. He supposed there was fish with the ocean so close and he was pretty sure there was something lurking within these planes somewhere that he just hadn't run into yet. But whether those were monsters or just regular animals he wasn't entirely sure.
But now that he thought about it, he wondered if it was technically possible to domesticate monsters or use them as farm animals and livestock. Maybe there was a skill or a class related to that. What even was the difference between a monster and an animal?
His musings were interrupted by Grey speaking up in his head. “Perhaps your first concern should be securing some shelter or maybe figuring out how to work that village ticket. Just think, you could build us a home we can lovingly live together in.”
“Congratulations, you just made me want to avoid finding some shelter even more.” he grumbled, a little miffed that the peace and quiet he had been enjoying was interrupted. He would have liked to have kept ignoring her. But it was kind of hard to do that when she was constantly in his head and could read every thought he had. Or at least every thought he could have without her getting pissy about him trying to keep secrets.
“ I have every right to be pissy about that! I-.... You know what, we are not going to be retreading water here. Let's just put it in the past and consider it water under the bridge.”
“Yeah, lets keep doing that.” he answered sardonically while plopping the rest of the orange in his mouth and looked out over the ocean. It really did seem to just go on forever, but it was nice. Sure as hell beats the Metro tunnels as scenery.
He watched what looked like a water spout shoot off in the far distance. He wondered if there were Marine monsters. Probably were. He pitied those who had a fear of the ocean, they were likely not going to have a good time with that.
His eyes then turned to the sky where a flock of birds flew in the distance. He briefly tried casting identify on them but showed nothing so he believed he was too far away for the skill to work. While it was kind of hard to tell from this distance, they looked pretty big so he did have to wonder if they were some kind of monster bird.
A soft chuckle escaped his lips as he stood up and brushed off some of the dirt of his tattered pants. If he knew where any kind of tailor was, his first goal would have been to procure clothes that didn't look like they were about to fall off his body at any second, regardless of the distance he would have to travel.
Since that wasn't the case, Grey did make a good point about trying to procure shelter, as loathed as he was to admit it. He turned his attention back behind him and off to the distance where he could faintly see where the trees started without his enhanced eyesight turned on, and more importantly where the E grade Zone was. There was no way he was going to be building a house there but perhaps the trees would be useful for supplies. Although he knew jack shit about construction so who knows how useful that would actually be.
His thought process was cut short when he noticed the tiniest bit of tremors underneath his feet. He doubted he would have picked up if he did not have his enhanced touch senses on. He didn't know which direction it was coming from but it did feel like something big or a large amount of somethings was moving. Perhaps said things would be around or near a shelter that he could either co-inhabitat with or find some way to live peacefully with them.
“Or you could just kill them all and take whatever shelter they might theoretically have for yourself.”
“I'd really rather not do that. I know you are super trigger happy with me killing things but I'd rather not if it can be avoided.” He responded back and manifested a pillar underneath his feet again to shoot himself high in the sky.
He looked to both his left and his right. There appeared to be movement of something to his left though the distance was still too far for him to make out, but it did take up the whole strip he was on. Since there was nothing to his right, he had to assume whatever was causing those faint tremors was from the left.
He lowered the pillar and dissipated it before setting off to the left. Even if whatever monsters or creatures over there were hostile, it would do him good to figure out what exactly lived here and potentially how strong said things were. He was in an F-grade Zone and he didn't know if his current level was in the lower part of f grade or in higher part. He really should have asked Ssevinac when one became an E-grade and so forth.
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“Feels like you should have asked him a lot of things and just didn't. Personally I like the surprise more, keeps ya on ya toes you know?”
“ Well you do seem to love it when I get thrown into horrible situations. What was it you called it? entertainment.” he growled out
“Hey, I can't help it if you always got the funniest reactions to crazy situations. The way your face looks when you get so exasperated and upset over some crazy bullshit is just too fucking cute. Ugh! I just want to kiss all over your face every time I see it!”
“Ew.”
“What do you mean ew!?!? I'll have you know I give the best damn kisses ever! You would be considered lucky to have me kiss you!”
“Oh do you kiss many people then?”
“No, you will be the first person I kiss.”
“ Well then how do you know you give the best kisses.”
“Because I'm me, duh, everything I do is the best. Honestly, asking a question with such an obvious answer feels really out of character for you. I thought you were smarter than that.”
He just rolled his eyes at that and began to pick up the pace towards the motion far off in the distance. It would still take a bit but it was better than walking and his body stat was high enough that he could jog about the same speed as a horse without tiring for several hours if not longer.
As Quill jogged he pulled out some jerky to awkwardly munch on from his storage ring. He still wanted to make soup at some point but he needed some cooking utensils first, and a big ass pot. Plus he did have plenty of meat so he wasn't terribly worried about running out before he got more. He was quite thankful that the tutorial points store also sold seasonings with the food, though if he was being totally honest, he hadn't even heard of some of the stuff they were selling. Maybe it was alien seasoning. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't actually sure what kind of meat this jerky was. Perhaps it was alien meat, or Monster. Technically wouldn't monsters be aliens anyways?
His train of thought continued down that weird rabbit hole as he jogged forward. Occasionally catching a water sprout shooting upwards in the far off distance of the ocean. There was definitely something causing that as he didn't think water sprouts were supposed to be that frequent.
Greys voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts and musings “Hey so, I'm currently feeling what you're feeling-”
“What do you mean you're currently feeling what I'm feeling?” he cut her off
“It means exactly that. I am currently seeing, smelling, feeling, tasting, and hearing everything that you are because I'm tapped into your senses. What? Did you think that the being who can control your body at will isn't capable of that?”
“You make a fair point, also that is kind of violating so please stop.”
“Never! Now let me finish, I am currently feeling what you're feeling and I can't help but think that those tremors are much bigger than you initially thought. I mean the fact that you could have felt them so far away should go to show that it's a lot of things or a very big thing. Are you sure you want to be running towards this?”
“Of course I'm not sure. But it's not like I know where else to go or what else to do. I'm kind of in a strip with only two viable directions since I am sandwiched between an E grade area and the ocean. So I either go towards the thing causing all the tremors or I go in the opposite direction which is likely safer and-.... oh my God what am I doing?”
Screeching to a halt, he slowly tried to process what insane lunacy made him think heading in the direction towards what was likely a very dangerous thing was a good idea.
“Awh! No! I was only bringing it up so you could be a little cautious when approaching. Not run away. Where's the fun in that???”
“The fun is me getting to live to see tomorrow!” he snapped back as he placed a hand onto the ground and closed his eyes so he could focus on the tremors. She was right, unfortunately. Whatever was coming towards him was either very very big, or there were a lot of them, way more than he was initially thinking. Either way, running towards them was a very stupid decision.
Quickly pivoting his ass around and broke out into a sprint, running in the exact opposite direction of whatever was now behind him. He just needed to put some distance between each other and it will be all good.
He ran for what he assumed was a solid hour. However he didn't have a timer or clock so he wasn't entirely sure anymore, Probably should have gotten a watch or something from the tutorial store. The point was while he had been running as fast as he could for an hour, he was pretty sure the tremors were getting stronger.
“That's probably because the tremors are getting stronger. Whatever is coming towards you, it is much faster than you.”
He groaned and stopped running. if he couldn't outrun them he'd either have to hide away or fight them. The fact that the tremors were getting much closer now probably meant he could at least see what was coming and that would decide what he was going to do.
Quill quickly manifested another pillar below his feet and shot upwards into the sky, looking across the land he spotted Buffalo. Gigantic, metal sheened looking Buffalo. What was with the system and giving regular animals weird properties and then increasing their size??
Also there were a lot of them. Like he was surprised they weren't falling off the cliff or trampling through the woods they were so packed together and went on for a distance to the point where he couldn’t see where the conga line of death ended. So unless he suddenly had a nuke in his pocket, there was no way he was going to be able to fight that.
He dissipated the pillar and landed on the ground with an exasperated sigh. To quote the wise words of Winnie the Pooh “oh bother.”