With Alex's enhanced body he saw everything that happened a lot better this time with the rabbit getting launched from the clearing and exploding into a mess of red as it hit a tree as Alex did and he might have become red meat paste on a tree if he were slightly weaker when he was attacked. The beast was fast that Mike could not see it perfectly but he was able to see that the thing lived underground which explained how it attacked him so quickly and vanished.
Alex did see a vague silhouette of the thing but it seemed to only be the top half that comes out of the ground. It had a vaguely humanoid figure to it but instead of two arms, Alex thought he saw three or four arms that were significantly shorter than the rest of its body. There also seemed to be something on its head but Alex was not sure if it was something like horns, so he would not know. As for the rest of its body, Alex had no idea what the thing looked like besides these defining features that he was able to get a glimpse about.
Still, Alex had no idea what kind of beast this was even with the knowledge he had there were too many animal and human remains that were found here on Eve when it was discovered so Alex had no idea what type of beast it could potentially be. Sheila would probably know based on Alex's description and if need be he could just show her and hopefully get an answer from her on to what it is that he is dealing with and how he could potentially deal with it.
Seeing as how Alex is still too weak and hurt to even think about fighting that thing Alec decides to do a tactical retreat back to the village. Alex gets up and starts moving back while he remains ever vigilant of anything that could potentially attack him since he was low on health and could be easy prey from any sort of predator that he met.
Thankfully he was able to avoid any such encounter and was able to get back into the village with his tired body he starts moving around looking for Sheila or the old guy to ask for information. The people of the village however would not let that happen as they attempted to help deal with his injuries and drag him away to give him treatment but Alex just ignored them and tried to ask where Sheila or the old guy were. He got no response from them as they were more focused on his injuries so he was bombarded with questions on how he got them and where he should be treated.
Eventually, the mass of people swept him away and into a hut where some nice old ladies were tasked with helping heal him to the best of their abilities. Alex was stripped bare, scrubbed, poked, and wrapped up in leaves that were going to act as bandages for him as they were attached to his body. As he was being manhandled in this way Alex was able to discover something strange about his body. It was nothing big but he was actually gaining some muscles that were showing on his body. They weren't impressive, to say the least, but Alex was surprised by this since he had never really tried to lift weights or do any type of exercise back when he was on his time's Eve so this sudden change after only a few days here was really weird to him.
'Is it my system?' Alex thinks to himself remembering his strength stat
If this was true then one day Alex may look like some sort of action movie actor that had just finished preparing for a movie where he needed to be shirtless and buff. Alex shivered at the thought as have too much muscle was not what he had in mind at all or what he wanted. As Alex was getting treated Sheila and the old man were notified by some people about how he returned to the village beaten up and injured prompting them both to rush over to the hut he was in.
Sheila was the faster of the two since she was younger and the lead hunter had better stamina and speed than the old man. She burst into the hut to see Alex lying on the floor of the hut with some of the elder women rubbing his stiff muscles and joints while also putting on some more leaves to help him. An animal pelt was draped over his lower body while he was lying on his stomach and just accepting his fate as he let the old women clean and help him. Alex was in some pain from his broken bones but the massage and surprisingly the leaves were helping Alex with the pain as he just lay there enjoying the feeling he was experiencing.
"Alex are you okay?" Sheila asks seeing Alex's condition
"Hm... oh hey Sheila yeah I am fine," He says
"What happened to you?" She asks
"Got hit by a beast while in the forest and it packed quite a punch"
"What kind of beast?" She asks
Alex then proceeds to tell Sheila what happened up until this point and he was able to describe what it was that attacked him. After Alex's recounting Sheila thinks about what he had just told him. The thing was that Mike had no idea about what it was that he encountered out there in the forest which was weird since she had encountered most of the beasts in the forest but never the one that Alex just described, which was weird for her.
"I believe the elder will know more about what it was that you encountered out there," Sheila finally says
"Alright then... but I recommend that you join in the massaging if you want these ladies are really good at this," Alex says with a blissful smile on his face as he enjoyed the feeling of the massage
"..."
Sheila did not know what to say as she just waited for the village elder to appear so that Alex could tell him what he saw while in the forest. Eventually he did appear and Alex did the same thing recounting what happened with the beast in the clearing. After Alex was done the old man actually did not know either as he had never heard about this kind of beast before so he could not tell him what it was that he encountered. Seeing that they were of no help Alex knew that he had a few things he should do.
He had no idea why but he really wanted to get his hands on that blue flower but the only way that could happen was if Alex was able to kill that beast that was guarding the flower and in order to do that he would either need to get stronger or to get Sheila's help with the matter. However Alex did not really want to bother her with this task since he wants to do it himself and prove to them that he could be useful so taking down this beast by himself would be for the best.
As Alex is thinking this the old ladies cleaning and massaging him finish up and he is allowed to leave after putting on some clothes and he heads back to his hut to think of how to get stronger than through eating donuts. From what he had gathered Alex could do quests which could give him rewards like his life mission for example which had high rewards and high penalties. If Alex could get some quests he might be able to get stronger to the point where he could kill that beast and take that flower for himself.
'There should be another way besides quests though,' Alex hinks to himself as he checked the leave bandages
Using the checking system Alex was quite surprised at what these seemingly normal looking banana leaves did.
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Raralo Leaves - Rare leaves that have great healing properties when applied to the body
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Apparently the leaves healed him and he could tell when the leaves healing was used up because they shriveled up once they were used. There effects were amazing since Alex was able to feel the affects instantly from them as he felt less pain from his wounds and heck even his broke bones felt better as if they were being set in place before healing. Still it would take a long time to recover with the help of these leaves since Alex had broken some bones they would take some time even by themselves and thankfully with these leaves he would not need to worry about the chance of his bones not healing correctly at weird angles.
Eventually Alex left his hut to look for some way to gain some missions that he could complete. As Alex is walking through the village he sees a man who was carrying a large bag of rocks for some reason on his back in a basket and he looked like he was having some difficulty so Alex being the nice person goes up to him.
"Do you need help?" Alex asks
"Ah yes please" The man say
[New Mission received]
[Mission: Carry the rocks
Help the man carry the rocks to the site for the village wall
Reward: 30 exp]
'A mission?' Alex thinks seeing this mission pop up just from asking this man if he needed help
"Ah here let me help you out" Alex says quickly taking the load off of the mans back and onto his own
Instantly Alex feels like the weight is to much for his but he pushes through and follows the man to the first area where the wall would be built. Alex had recommended that a wall be erected out of stone to help defend the village in case of an attack from some beasts and that was taken quite well that construction was about to get started once they had all the necessary materials at the starting point. The wall was just going to be a simple mud and brick wall that was going to encompass the entire village since the place was not that well defended Alex thought it would be best to prepare for the worst.
Once Alex was done he had an idea of how to get some missions to complete and get some rewards. Soon enough Alex was going around asking if people needed help with anything that they seemed to be having difficulty with for some low exp gains which slowly accumulated as the rest of the day went by.
Alex was now lying on the ground of his hut away from the village as he was looking at his gains from the day's mission completion. It was not much for completing a single mission since they were just simple tasks like helping with cleaning, helping with a problem, or something like that which generally gave exp for him. However in total Alex had received 324 exp from doing the missions that he got from the people in the village.
'At this rate I will level up in about three days' Alex thinks to himself as he saw the rate he was increasing his exp slowly
Now that Alex was thinking about it though there could be another way that he could get more exp could be from killing things. Looking back at when these 'players' were active in Alex's time they tended to kill a lot as if their lives depended on it and now that Alex was considered a player that means he might be able to get more exp through killing then through missions. Unfortunatly though Alex was to weak that he might not be able to kill anything if it really came to it since he had never killed before so he was going to be a bit reluctant when taking the life of something or someone.
Still Alex knew that to survive he would need strength and in order to get strength he would need to change the way he thought and did things so killing was something that he would need to become comfotorable with probably. These are Alex's thoughts as he falls asleep.
...
Night came and back at the clearing that Alex found the blue flower a strange light was seen emintaing from the flower as it was bathed in the moonlight that was shining in the clear night sky and as this happens the beast under the earth appears and leaves the clearing but staying ever close in case the flower was suddenly in danger.