Lucas learned that Sarah had been doing nothing but running since she arrived here, and the messages had disappeared until she woke up.
He needed to explain to her how to view the messages and everything else. Inwardly, he hoped that she would be able to see them too. He didn't want to be labeled as crazy or delusional.
But it was his lucky day, Sarah first saw all the starting messages that she missed before, she was surprised and rubbed her eyes various times. Lucas only chuckled seeing her acting like a small child finding a new toy
"Now, try thinking of how strong you are." He said. Sarah was confused at first but when a screen came in front of her, she froze looking at all the descriptions about her. Lucas tried various times but he could not look at her status, it only seemed that she was looking straight in a daze.
"Now... In the skills section, what is written?"
"Uh… first is an uncommon, fireball. Then... extremely common, sprint." Sarah said, she clicked on something in the air and her gaze went a little left. Lucas was surprised by hearing her say 'fireball'.
"Wait! fireball?" Lucas asked with widened eyes.
"Uhh... yes... is that bad?" Sarah asked feeling as if she did something wrong.
"I don't know, but after I have seen what I can do, unbelievable things can be real too." Lucas said out aloud yet Sarah only looked at her with confusion.
"If you want to try it out, we can go outside. That way, nothing will be harmed."
"... Alright I guess." Sarah seemed to be more confused than ever and it was not her mistake. Lucas looked outside for a second and made sure if it was okay to go outside.
Together, Sarah and Lucas stepped outside, and Sarah began to concentrate on using her fireball skill according to the instruction Lucas told her to look at.
With a deep breath, she closed her eyes for a second and suddenly, a small flame materialized in her hand. When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see the flame and looked at Lucas, who was equally astonished.
"Wow, you really can use fireball, Its a dream come true," Lucas said, impressed.
Sarah tried to control the flame, making it bigger and smaller making Lucas wonder how she could do all this naturally, she even threw it upward in the air like a ball. She was amazed by her newly found ability and couldn't stop smiling.
Lucas looked at her and chuckled, she was so scared just a moment ago.
"Does it burn?" Lucas asked with curiosity to which Sarah only shook her head. A few seconds later, her eyes started twitching, and sweat fell from her forehead profusely.
The fireball was the size of a baseball, it was a little uneven due to being literal fire, suddenly, it started getting small and eventually vanished.
Lucas asked "What happened?" and reached out to grab her shoulder, but she was so unsteady on her feet that she almost fell over.
"I feel very exhausted… Using this took all my energy…" Sarah said. Beads of sweat were falling off her forehead.
"Careful," Lucas steered her carefully inside the shelter again.
Lucas placed her inside the shelter, the floor was made of soil but it was finely furnished. There was no grass, no rocks, no misalignment, a perfect floor if one left out that it was still made of soil.
He was wearing a cotton shirt over his half-sleeved t-shirt so it was better to give it to her. He placed it on the ground and laid her down on the ground. Her eyes twitched various times but they closed from exhaustion after just a few seconds.
Lucas only sighed and went out of the shelter, his stomach growled in hunger which made him look around but the trees had nothing but leaves and branches on them.
'Should I use that Vixenox? It had red blood anyway…' He thought and started bringing small twigs of wood together. When a substantial pile was collected. He took some dry grass and leaves that he found near a tree and placed it over a twig that had a big surface area.
He didn't know what he was doing, just the things he had seen on discovery channel when he was a kid.
He took hold of another lengthy stick and began moving it back and forth in a vertical motion over the withered grass.
"Fucking hell…"
Lucas couldn't believe it, he was moving the stick so fast that it had taken a hard time for him to think it was real. The thought of his strength that increased in stat came to his mind which made him grin mildly.
The difficult part was over when some smoke started coming out of the dry grass. Lucas knew it should have not been so easy, but results were results.
"Yess!!" He shouted but realized again that he was inside an unknown forest with dangers he didn't know about.
He blew some air from his mouth on the dry grass slowly until the smoke increased. With haste, he placed it inside the pile of twigs he had collected.
And with a little more effort, the work was finally finished. Lucas had made his first-ever fire, it was a menial task yet it was a very proud moment for him. Living in a society where people make others do all their bidding had made their survival instincts and skills weak.
But when Lucas was making a fire leisurely, around a million outsiders like him had already died with him being oblivious of it.
The fire started burning and making crackling sounds, Lucas went for the corpse, and then realization hit his mind.
"How will I get the flesh out?"
The Vixenox's body was not harmed from the outside, so there was no wound on it. Lucas had kicked and made its insides all battered but he didn't have a way to cut it open.
He inspected the whole thing and finally found something he could work with. The left gut, where he had kicked the damn thing, had a little pointy skin which usually is not the case but because he didn't know the anatomy and had never seen the creature before all this, he inspected some more.
Turned out, when he kicked the Vixenox, many of its bones broke and one came a little out trying to cut the skin.
Lucas knew what he had to do for survival, killing the thing did not have much of an effect on his conscience because he had consoled himself that the creature had tried to kill him first. But being the man who had never even cut a single tomato, doing something like this was more like skipping some important steps while climbing the stairs.
He pressed the fur of the creature to get the bone out but it was not so easy, the skin of the Vixenox was a little tough and elastic. If not for Lucas hitting all his weak vitals by mistake. First the brain, then the ribs, it would have not died so easily.
With a little more strength in the pushing and teeth gritted tightly. A somewhat white-red colored pointy rib came out of the skin. Lucas was very happy, he had achieved something again. But if Sarah had watched what Lucas did and then became happy, she would have fled right away.
What he did was actually a double-edged sword, the blood started pouring out like an open water tap, Lucas didn't want to dirty his hands as there was not a single sign of water near him
But the situation was urgent, he brought the blood-leaking corpse near the fire and made the blood fall on it. He didn't know what he was doing but what more choice did he have?
The already highly lit fire threatened to exhaust with every batch of blood that fell on it.
Whenever the fire was going to exhaust, Lucas retracted the corpse and let it settle down. The process went on for around four minutes, and the blood that was falling had become less as compared to before.
He looked back and saw Sarah just sleeping soundly, he decided to wake her up after taking care of the blood.
'Do I let her stay? Everything here seem dangerous. I don't know whether she is dangerous or not too. What to do?" Lucas thought while letting the blood fell in the fire.
All this time, Lucas was smelling and having a bad metallic taste in his mouth. He was only continuing this process because the smell was a little mild compared to the previous time.
His whole body was sweaty from being so close to the fire, after another five minutes, the blood stopped coming out, the Vixenox was only the size of a cat. Lucas thought that enough blood had come out, so he kept the corpse near the fire.
"A little more blood is left inside, but I don't know which part to take out and which to eat…"
Lucas pondered while saying aloud. His gaze went to Sarah who had been sleeping for some time now.
It was only Lucas's presumption with nowhere to look for the time there.
Lucas crept over to where Sarah was sleeping, her face peaceful and untroubled. Despite the chaos that surrounded them, she seemed to have found a moment of respite, a brief escape from the fear and uncertainty that plagued their every move.
"Sarah, wake up." Lucas said while crouched down.
"Mhmmm" A long hum came out of her mouth as she moved her face to the side. Lucas's eyes twitched a little, the girl was sleeping so deeply in a dangerous situation like this.
"Well…. Fuck it." He felt a little annoyed and he started tugging on her arm to wake her up.
Sarah's eyes opened wide as she got up straight on her back. She smacked Lucas's hand away and went staggering to the corner.
"Are you okay?" Lucas asked in surprise, "I had no intentions for anything bad, Sarah. I was just waking you up. Sorry if you found it rude." He said while scratching the back of his neck.
"No No, I just got a little surprised. No need to apologize please." Sarah said and wiped her mouth.
She averted her gaze feeling embarrassed.
"I woke you up because there is something that I need help with." Lucas said while ignoring her embarrassment. Somethings it was better to just change the topic to help the other.
"First, Can you check your strength again, tell me if something has changed.." Lucas said while waving his hand at her to come out.
Sarah nodded and looked at her status, her gaze went from up and down until it stopped.
"This 'mana', it shows that I have only five left out of the eleven I had," Sarah said, her face formed in a frown.
"That means that this 'mana', that we both have depleted when you used that abnormal skill. Let me try something too."
Lucas said and thought about using his 'Military Power' skill.
He flicked his wrist, causing a bright white light to emanate from his body and stretch out to the limits of the shelter's territory. As the light subsided, a shimmering, transparent barrier emerge encircling the whole shelter.
Intrigued, Sarah stepped towards the barrier, her eyes widening in wonder as she stretched out her hand to touch it. To her surprise, it felt solid and unyielding, like an impenetrable wall. She couldn't help but feel a sense of awe at the power Lucas possessed.
Sarah expressed her observation, "It feels like an invisible wall. Are you able to maintain this level of security all the time? Having this extra layer of protection would be really great" As she spoke about the need for protection, Sarah finally realized that she was asking something unreasonable from him. Lucas was just a person that she met an hour ago.
"I can only use it for 2 minutes, and it used five of my mana's points," Lucas said while still fiddling with his system. Soon, he also realized that he shouldn't have even used it in front of her let alone tell her such sensitive information involving the shelter and him.
Sarah came near him, her hands in her short's back pockets.
"Uh… I want to thank you properly this time, it seems I have asked too much from you, first I slept all on my own, and… I just want to thank you for helping me in this unreasonable situation we are in." She said. Lucas could tell from her face that she was saying all that earnestly. He had seen his big sister with that embarrassed but sincere face various times.
"Now that the cat's out of the bag, I think I should tell you. This shelter is a skill of mine, I generated it a little time ago just like how you generated that fireball of yours." Lucas stated, he didn't know if it was okay to tell her all this but he too know about her skills.
When Sarah heard the last part, she was surprised and wanted to say soemthing to him but then they both heard something loud.
HOWWLLL!!
Before they could start talking again, a howl resounded very close to them. Lucas went on guard while Sarah froze. She was not like Lucas, almost no one was like Lucas. He had changed his mentality very quickly. In his mind, he had only one thought.
'I have to survive and meet my family.'
With a slight rustling of the bushes, the source of the knocking revealed itself. The creature before them was completely covered in black fur, and had striking grey eyes. At a mere glance, Lucas identified the creature for what it was.
"A wolf?"
The wolf was around three feet in height, it had a calm expression on its face. While Lucas was on the guard, his gaze went to the wolf's back leg. The fur had a red color even when the fur's color was black meaning the creature was wounded.
====
Normal Wolf
Level 0
Origin- Planet Earth
====
"It's a wolf from Earth!" Lucas exclaimed, the status showed that it was from Earth too just like Sarah and himself.
"Lucas… I think it is just hungry." Sarah said while looking at the wolf with pity.
"Hm?" Lucas looked at it again, the wolf's gaze was only at the animal corpse near the fire. He was first thinking of using the liability of the wolf's wound to his advantage but it was not wise to do it in front of Sarah.
As Lucas pondered, he came to a realization. "The howl it gave earlier didn't sound like a sign of aggression. It didn't growl at us, it simply wanted to reunite with its pack," he said, with an observatory gaze.
Lucas went to the Vixenox's corpse with slow steps, he didn't want the wolf to get away. He crouched down at the corpse and tore a little piece of flesh with his hands, it still had the fur with it. He threw the small piece of flesh at the wolf in the air, it's ears perked up, and its eyes didn't leave the flying flesh coming toward it.
The wolf came a little closer with staggering legs, it caught the food that was mid-air with its mouth and chewed on it profusely while wagging its tail.
Lucas felt like he did something good, the wolf chewed the whole chunk of flesh with the fur for a few seconds until it gulped the flesh whole.
"I don't think you should do that..." Sarah said.
The wolf looked at Lucas again with its tail still wagging, he chuckled and gave it yet another piece.
"Why?"
"We should show our dominance, if it thinks it's stronger than us, it will come with its pack to eat us and that corpse," Sarah said in seriousness.
Lucas looked at the wolf and then the Vixenox, the Vixenox may have been a little small but it was still enough. He wasn't thinking that he might have to look for food again when it became bad or finished.
He got up and before he could ask anything from Sarah about it, the wolf just flinched and ran back to the bush and disappeared.
"Don't worry, if it comes back again intending to fight, we will not just stay silent and let it do so," Lucas said which made Sarah surprised.
In her eyes, Lucas looked a lot more mature for his age.