[Strength: 1/3
Dexterity: 2/5
Endurance: 8
Health: 1/5
Mana: 0
Intelligence: 10/12
Luck: 2
Medicine: 1
Effects: critical condition, serious wounds
List of abilities:
Active:
Provocateur – cooldown 16/24 hours
Insightful 2 – cooldown of 5 seconds, consumption of 1 mana or 0.5 health
Murderous Feast – cooldown 24 hours, consumes -1 intelligence every minute of use
Passive:
Failures surround me
Cockroach
Features:
Virgin
Murderer 2 – 7 murders
Survivalist]
Well, it's not even surprising that I'm on the verge of death. It's a pity that I didn't have a healer with me at the team.
[Critical condition – you are dying.
Description: you have suffered a lot and are incapacitated right now. Your attack, defense and spells are 70% less effective regardless of your stats. If this effect lasts too long, you will die.
Countdown: 48 hours.]
If I do die, I hope to be reborn in a better world. Right now, my thoughts were, to put it mildly, not so rosy.
While I was checking the stats, Uncle Jack and I were shackled. Where do animals get shackles? Ask the kangaroos, they have all sorts of things in their pouch.
And yes, our bags were searched and taken away. And I was thinking that I could learn magic with the help of that book.
[Serious wounds – you have severe burns on your back and thighs, a bleeding section on your abdomen and a fractured wrist.
Description: these wounds limit you very much in everything. -2 of the maximum value of strength, dexterity, endurance and health. The debuffs will disappear when the wounds are healed.]
And I was wondering where my stats had gone.
[Insightful 2 – you have become more intelligent and insightful than before. It is impossible not to congratulate you!
Description: you can use this ability to find out the names of the traits and abilities of the target, as well as see their descriptions. There is no longer a risk of getting brain cancer for using without mana, but the consumption of health is greater.
Consumption: 1 mana per use on a single target. If there is no mana, 0.5 health units are used.
Cooldown time: 5 seconds.]
The ability has become more useful, but in my current state, using it is a deadly mistake. Literally.
[Murderer 2 – your insatiable thirst for blood leads you to hell. Keep up the good work.
Description: if this trait continues to evolve further, then you will get new abilities.
Merder counter: 7.]
So my assumption that the Survivalist trait gave me the ability of a Cockroach is very true. If I survive this day, I will need to accumulate as many traits as possible and develop them. Yeah, it's easier said than done.
"They're all dead, all of them," someone said behind me. Probably a wolf or a fox, because a battered kangaroo was walking in front of everyone. The other one and the grizzly were left behind.
"They'll be resurrected soon," said another voice.
"Yes, but in what form? Have you seen what happened to William yet?"
"Another kangaroo? No, not really, what about him?"
"He was resurrected too, but he looks more like a brainless zombie than his old self."
"How awful, I hope our comrades will be treated better."
On this sad note, the conversation ended. But... comrades? I hope these furries haven't built communism yet.
[You've got a new trait!]
[Listener – you're good at listening to others, even if they don't want you to.
Description: do you like to eavesdrop on other people's conversations? What else could be expected from someone like you?]
Eventually we came to a very lively place. There were houses around and on the trees themselves, which were reached by stairs carved into the trees.
Children were playing around, and adults were chatting among themselves. This place looked more like a paradise than a den of evil animals.
But as soon as they noticed us, the mothers began to take their children inside the houses, and the men started slanting their eyes in our direction.
When we reached the center of the place, we were greeted by a bear in a 19th century gentleman's suit: top hat, monocole, black vest and frock coat, trousers of the same color.
To be honest, he looks more like Winnie the Pooh from the meme, where he becomes more aristocratic.
But he wasn't alone here. A suite of kangaroos and other bears stood around him, and two people knelt in front of him. Wait, I recognize that blue hair and the rattail! It's those two from the guild!
We were put on our knees across from them. I exchanged glances with the girl, but neither of us said anything. Well, at least she looked unharmed. That's a relief.
"Humans!" the bear in the suit bellowed. "Listen up! My name is Pablo Escobear! I am the mayor of this town, but today I will be your judge!"
I lowered my head and tried to hold back my laughter.
"Are you trembling, little human?" the judge asked me. "That's right, fear your fate!"
I managed to contain my inner clown and I once again assumed an apathetic image.
Pablo the Bear examined each of us carefully, using an ability similar to my Insight.
"All of you... You're all murderers!" after a dramatic pause, Bear garked. "That alone is already enough to execute you all."
He looked at each of us again, and then turned his gaze to the animals behind us.
"But I wouldn't be mayor if I wasn't an honest bear! First, it's worth talking about the broken oath that humans originally made with us!"
"In the beginning, there was a war between our two races over the forest and its resources, but when the humans weakened, they decided to make peace and divide the forest between the two races!"
"But recently, the new mayor of the humans, that bastard Alan Schneider, has started sending his people to OUR territory, who collect OUR herbs and torture OUR people to please his whims! And this morning, they killed one of us! Show William!"
When the mayor gave his order, the kangaroo I killed came out of his entourage. His fur had lost its color and became somewhat dull, his eyes glowed bright green, and in some places he was already decomposing.
The locals, seeing him, began to groan and whisper.
After all, this whole case was connected with that Alan Schneider. F*ck.
"This is what happened to him after meeting a human! What about the ones we sent after those two who entered our territory?!"
"Most of them died," replied the kangaroo accompanying us. "This particular one killed four folks and injured your second cousin, Gerda."
He was pointing at me. Was that grizzly seriously a female? It's surprising.
"Did you hear all this?!" the mayor asked the crowd.
"Yes!" the angry crowd shouted.
"You vile humans will pay for your crimes! You will be consumed by the Guardian of the Forest, Baba Yaga!"
"The crowd cheered. Who's Baba Yaga? Sounds familiar. Is it someone from Slavic folklore?"
"As for their pathetic city and short-sighted mayor, we will destroy them all!"
Passions were running high, and the crowd behind us continued to rejoice with great gusto.
All four of us were lifted up and led towards a horse-drawn open-top carriage. The driver turned out to be a battered kangaroo. Several wolves and foxes got into the carriage with us.
We set off amid the bloodthirsty shouts of the crowd.
We were driving along an unpaved road, bumps and rocks kept coming across the way, beating my ass off.
These animals looked at us with contempt, and I responded with a neutral look.
Well, at least my actions were an excuse, not a reason for the outbreak of war. Although, if you think about it, there was an opportunity between the two sides to negotiate, but the death of that kangaroo could be the last straw.
No, it's better not to think about the bad things. I will deal with self-flagellation after the end of these events.
"Please let me go, I haven't done anything wrong," rattail began to beg for mercy.
"Shut up, you scum!" said the fox, slapping the man in the face.
"Please, please, it's her, it's all their fault!" he continued to shout more loudly than ever.
"You should have justified yourself to the mayor, not to me!" slapped the fox again. "I don't care which one of you is guilty, you're all murderers and deserve to die!"
After that, the rattail finally calmed down and whined quietly, not looking anyone in the eye.
The girl sitting across from me, Adele, looked sad, either from the whole situation or from the betrayal of her partner.
"I'm with you," I whispered softly.
"Thank you," she also said softly, smiling sweetly.
I looked up at the sky. It was almost orange from the sunset, but the furries did not seem to be afraid of the upcoming night cold and predators, so they continued on their way.
Suddenly, in the distance, I saw some kind of dark spot that was approaching us and getting bigger.
"It's a dragon!" I shouted.
"What?! Where?!" the kangaroo shouted back.
"There!" I couldn't point at the approaching threat with my finger, so I kept looking in that direction, waiting for the other animals to notice my gaze.
"There!" the wolf shouted, pointing the kangaroo in the right direction.
But it was too late, the dragon got close enough and spat at us with a giant fireball.
Goodbye world, I was not happy to meet you!