My heart went into overdrive as the giant serpent's gaping maw loomed towards me. Its mouth was packed with so many serrated teeth I wondered if it would even be able to close it.
'Jesus Christ! that thing has to be at least as big as a submarine,' I swore while giving a silent prayer to all the sailors and submarine pilots who had been working before all of this happened. I tried not to imagine what it might be like to be trapped on an oil rig surrounded by giant sea serpents like this one.
I pushed aside those dark thoughts and readied myself. As the gaping mouth approached me, I caught a whiff of rotten fish and blood. The man serrated teeth had little bits of rotten meat and bones wedged between them.
The cliff was only a couple of meters away now, but the mouth was even closer. Gritting my teeth, I tensed my legs and got ready to do one of the riskiest things I had ever done.
Right as the mouth was about to snap closed, entombing me between its jaws. I stomped on the bottom lip of the serpent and shot backwards like a cannonball. Using the force from my jump to end me to safety.
The Serpent's mouth slammed shut and it hissed in anger. When it landed back in the ocean with a thunderous crash it began writhing violently, smashing its slimy body against the rocks of the cliff in rage. Before today, I had never known that serpents were such sore losers.
I landed on the other cliff, in a mess of tangled limbs and sent dirt flying up into the air. Scoring a great trench in the earth from my landing.
Not wanting to be caught unaware by any more predators, I jumped back to my feet and ran back from the edge of the cliff. I didn't stop running until l was 20 meters from the edge, leaving enough space to park a bus.
It was quite chilly here, with the cool ocean breeze and sea spray lashing against my bare skin. But it was nothing I couldn't handle. I have been cold before, much colder than this.
Now more than ever, as I stood in my underwear on a cliff, I was glad I had brought extra clothes with me before my apartment collapsed.
On the other side of the chasm, the Ants roiled restlessly. They searched desperately for my scent but it had long since disappeared into the ocean with my clothes.
When I looked behind the countless ants, the path of devastation they had taken was clear for all to see. Not a single blade of grass remained. It was like the earth had been scorched by napalm.
I gathered myself and brushed the dirt off my non-existent clothes. It hadn't even been an hour since I left camp to go hunting, but here I was.
Sure, I had levelled up plenty but what did it cost? My dignity? If you asked me whether or not it was worth it... I would say yes. I would lose even more dignity if I was at a lower level than August by the end of the day.
After thinking about it so much, I decided to check where exactly I stood when it came to levels on the status.
[Name: Robert Melior
Race: Human
Class: - Martial arts Student
Level: 25
Experience: 1900/2500
Strength: 37
Agility: 38
Intelligence: 33
Mana: 29
Skills-
Passive: (Martial Arts LVL 46) (Basic Survival LVL 17) (Gaming LVL 1) (Stamina LVL 5) (Balance LVL 6) (Reactions LVL 7)
Active:(After Burner LVL 4) (Light as a Feather LVL 4)
Distance from the Edge of the world: 29650 miles
(Menu)
Messages: (12)]
I couldn't help but notice the drastic increase in all my skill levels. It sure was helpful that I could level up my abilities by just using them. It was also handy that could tell exactly how far I had come and how far I needed to go... assuming that the maximum level was 100 anyway.
My strength and Agility were almost 4 times larger than what they had been just two days ago. When I swung my fist experimentally, my body felt alien to me, almost like I was in someone else's. It was too strong, too different from what I was used to.
This feeling was a consequence of my extensive martial arts practice. When training and fighting, it is essential that you know where your limits are and exactly how far you have to go to break them. So, now that my limits were increasing so drastically and quickly, it made my head spin.
For example, I might try and jump as high as possible, but subconsciously limit how much strength I put into the jump for fear of hurting myself, despite it being perfectly safe with my new strength.
Unfortunately, the only way to solve this problem was to practice. It shouldn't be too hard if I just repeated a few basic movements from the stances I know. All I needed to do was get a better understanding of what my stats meant in the real world.
Thus, I spent the next few hours, when I was supposed to be hunting, punching and kicking the air as I ran through the proper stances in quick succession. To a passerby, I might have looked deranged, not that there would be any passersby.
Aside from the odd giant rabbit or start seagull the size of private plane, I had the whole world to myself.
Each punch produced a harsh whistling in the wind and a sharp crack like a whip. My new strength was almost intoxicating and I had to pinch my arm when I nearly lost myself in training. I didn't want to fall into the same destructive loop my father had.
I had long since left the ocean behind and wandered into a clearing of grass a couple of miles from where we had set up camp.
For a moment, my mind strayed and I thought about just leaving them and going off on my own. It would be easier that way and I wouldn't have to deal with problems like injured teammates.
I won't lie and say that the thought hadn't crossed my mind before now. But after feeling the intoxication of growing vastly stronger, it was hard to let that go. This made such cruel thoughts bubble up from the depths of my mind to the surface.
"No!" I berated myself.
I of all people should know exactly how it feels to be thought of as nothing more than baggage. I remember the exact look of disdain my father gave me the first time he realized I wasn't as talented as he was.
I didn't want to treat my companions the same way. Sure, They might be weaker than me or know less about fighting. But I couldn't jump-start a car and Kashyap could. There is more to life than just fighting and I had to remind myself that.
For a long time now, I have known that the world is not fair. Some are born rich, some are born poor, some are born with an earth-shaking talent and some are born with mediocre talent.
I fit into the latter category. Everything I have is a result of blood, sweat and tears. Not that I am a cripple or an idiot. In general, I am fairly intelligent and think quick on my feet. But as my father would say, I am lacking in mental fortitude.
Simply put, I have never been any good at practising set routines or learning fighting techniques. The only reason I know the limited amount of fighting techniques I do know is because they were beaten into me.
It is simply impossible for me to concentrate for long amounts of time on one single thing. I get restless and lose track quickly, finding it easy to get distracted. My mind often drifts off when I try to focus on one thing.
As a result, I have never been very good in school, revising for tests is practically impossible for me, when you add on the fact that I spent most of my waking hours meditating or practising. It was a miracle that I even got into university.
If not for my scholarship, I would never have gotten in. English universities care an awful lot about being competitive in sports. So all I had to do was show off a portion of my skills and a mixed martial arts scholarship dropped into my lap.
Despite never actually going to practise, in the month I spent at school before the world ended, I never lost a single bout. This wasn't due to my overwhelming talent but a simple product of my upbringing. I had trained harder, longer and more painfully than anyone else I fought.
...
By the time I returned to the camp, the sun was high over my head, beaming down relentlessly. Despite the sun hanging high over my head I could feel the faint chill of winter creeping in on the horizon... Or maybe that was because I wasn't wearing any clothes.
When I walked into the camp, I saw August doodling on Kashyap's face with a permanent marker he had taken from my bag.
He was drawing an eyepatch around Kashyap's ruined eye.
I looked over at Kyle and saw that his entire body was covered in black marker. He had a black moustache and a monocle as well as hundreds of awful tribal tattoos.
"What the actual fuck are you doing?" I asked in disbelief.
August looked up at me, and his mouth dropped open, "Why the hell aren't you wearing any clothes?" He said in shock.
After reaching an impasse, neither of us asked any questions and we both went about our business in silence.