I woke up so early in the morning to start my training for the day that it felt like I just fell asleep and only got an hour of rest. It was so early that the birds had just begun their birdcalls and the sun was barely in the air. If my phone still worked it would show it being near the ass crack of dawn.
No one else in the camp was up yet and the lack of sound was disturbing. I was never the first one up so there was usually the sound of conversations or the clinking of pots and pans for cooking and it was odd to view the camp like this. It put the camp in a new light, the only time it was this quiet was late at night when it was dark outside.
Getting up so early in the morning was hard. Getting up so early in the morning without coffee was harder. I made a promise to myself that if this training went well and if I ended up raking in the points, I would splurge and buy some.
There was no better motivator for me right now than coffee and the impending doom that my family faced. So without further delay, I grabbed my gear and readied myself to venture into the forest to start my preparations.
After gearing up inside my tent and making sure that I had everything that I would need, I began to make my way out of camp toward the forest. Before I could make it a few steps toward the new gates, I saw Austin exiting his tent with all of his gear equipped and looking like he was ready to face down a monster.
We both spotted each other at the same time and when we did, both of us froze. Neither of us expected that anyone else would be up this early and it showed when we both just froze like deer in headlights.
After staring at each other for a moment I pointed at the gate to convey we should talk over there to not wake anyone else up from the noise. Austin nodded and both of us made our way over there, as soon as we were out of earshot I whisper yelled at him.
"What are you doing up? And why are you fully geared?" Yes, I was being a hypocrite asking what he was doing up when I was also up, but I didn't care about that right now.
"What am I doing up? Did you think that you were the only one to realize we needed to do more in order to survive? I'm up to go hunting same as you I'm guessing." He said.
Well, I didn't have a response to that. We both had the same idea and both woke up early to do it. I couldn't much blame him for realizing the same thing that I had and two is always better than one.
"Well, two is better than one, right? Did you want to go together or was there something specific that you wanted to do alone?" I asked, quickly glossing over the accusatory tone I had previously.
"If it's the two of us we should be safer, so let's go together. Did you have a plan to go about this?" Austin said.
"Of course, I have a plan, I'm not stupid," I caught Austin looking at the ground with a guilty look, "Please tell me you had a plan and weren't just going to frolic in the forest hunting everything in sight."
"Well, you see, I had a plan, but looking back on it now it could have been better." He said trying to pass off his idea as anything other than go hunting.
I just shook my head at him before saying, "Follow me, I actually thought this through and with the two of us, it should go faster."
I wasn't going to go off and hunt everything in sight immediately as that would be foolish. I would begin by making all the tools we would need to then start going off and hunt everything in sight. We began to chop off branches that fit my criteria and find sturdy-looking sticks to increase the amount of javelins we had.
My plan was simple, we would venture into the forest with our javelins, carrying along multiple spikes to use as traps for the animals we were hunting. Most of the beasts in the forest were the smaller creatures like rabbits and squirrels with the occasional deer. Our target was the boars that were roaming around the forest.
We would plant the spikes firmly into the ground, propped up by whatever was around, and then attack the boar from a distance using our javelins. After it was running toward us, we would run back to where we planted the spikes. The hope was that it would skewer itself on the spikes we had, but if it was smart enough not to do that we had a backup plan.
Fighting as many boars as we have already, I felt confident in taking them down by myself. I wasn't 100% in winning alone without any injuries, but with Austin here the second part of my plan wouldn't be necessary.
Not being confident in winning without injury, I had to stack the odds in my favor. The spikes were the first part and the second would be pitfall traps. If the spikes failed to kill it, I would have it run over a pitfall trap I would dig. While it was trying to get out, I would cripple its limbs to decrease its mobility before going in for the kill.
I know taking the time to dig the pitfall traps was time that I could use to hunt other creatures, but I felt that it would have been a good use of my time. Getting injured would waste more time than digging the trap and I planned to work out my body while digging.
After telling Austin my plan, he agreed that the second part was unnecessary. With the two of us here we could work together to fight the boar and wouldn't need to waste time digging a pitfall trap. We would take turns attacking the boar making it split its attention between the two of us.
It didn't take us long to make our way through the forest and finish the preparations. Finding branches and sticks that worked was the easy part with the amount of trees available, it was the carving that took the longest time.
It took us around half an hour to finish sharpening them down so that they would be lethal and start skulking through the forest to find our prey. This was also when I realized that I had no way to tell what level anything was.
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"There might be something that I overlooked while making the plan." I said sheepishly.
"And what would that be?" Austin said.
"We have no way to tell what level anything is." I said back.
Austin stopped for a second and let out a sigh when he found out I was right. Every time that we fought anything, we had Kyle with us to tell us what level the thing was, now that we were alone we found that we would be going in blind.
"Nothing close to the camp was found to be high level other than the bear. As long as we steer clear of that then we should be fine." I said.
During all the different scouting trips that we've done, one of the main things that was focused on was threats to the camp. Anything with a high level was deemed a threat to watch out for. Most of the Rogues did the scouting and were basically forced to take the Identify skill to know what level things were. If they didn't, they could stumble onto something that was way higher level than them without knowing it. Also, it was a good idea to get more people with the ability to tell what level something was.
During the week that we've been in this tutorial, the forest near the camp has been scouted extensively. Already, we were making our way deeper into the forest to extend our range and there were discussions of scouting the mountains to the north as well. In the forest, the only things that were found so far were a variety of forest animals all under level 10 other than the bear.
Since the animals were mostly solitary and weren't mutated like the bosses during the waves, they were deemed not a threat to the camp and left alone. The bear was a different story. Being level 15 put it over 10 levels above us and being the apex predator it was didn't help things.
A level 15 rabbit didn't have the same connotations as a level 15 bear. Bears killed humans long before levels came to Earth and we were taught from a young age not to mess with them. There were some plans in the works of hunting the bear down, but with how busy have been recently, it never came to pass. The bear also just minded its own business in the forest and never came closer to the camp. If it had, we would have worked together to kill it.
After some more discussion, both of us agreed that continuing was worth the risk. The highest level boar that was found was level 8 and there were only a few of those this close to the camp. Most of the higher-level animals were further out in the forest. Since we most likely wouldn't run into anything too high level we decided to proceed with the plan. [Identify] is definitely going to be my next skill.
It didn't take us long to find a boar after we stumbled onto the telltale signs of boar activity. Heavy hoof marks in the dirt and dug-up plants that the boars foraged for were easy to spot. We didn't even need a tracking skill it was so easy to find. It might have been the fact that the boar wasn't trying to hide that made it so easy but we didn't think about that.
After finding it we backed away to begin the preparations. I figured out that [Power Strike] could be used with a shovel while we were digging the traps for camp, so while I was digging the hole for the spikes I could also train my magic skills. The only thing I would have to train later would be agility and perception. Fortitude and Vitality training were inevitable in the battles to come.
There was no way I was going to make it through the whole day completely unharmed, but I would try to limit the injuries to ones that I could fight through. Getting scratches and scrapes were bound to happen, it was the more serious wounds that I was worried about.
It wasn't long before everything was in place and we could begin the fight. Austin and I both had our javelins ready standing about 100 feet from the boar. The boar had no clue we were there and continued sniffing around the forest floor, oblivious to the two men aiming it.
Both of us released at the same time and both javelins hit their target at around the same time. Mine flew a little faster but with the distance being so short there wasn't a lot of time spent in the air.
The boar obviously didn't appreciate the two new additions sticking out of it and whirled to find the perpetrators. It charged straight at us after it found us and Austin and I took off running toward the spikes.
Leaves and branches whizzed by as we sprinted toward the spikes with the occasional branch hitting us in the face. We had to set up the spikes a distance away from the boar, otherwise it would hear us, so there was a decent amount of ground we had to cover while the boar was chasing us. Given the head start we had, it wasn't even close to reaching us before we reached the trap.
Both of us slid in between the spikes and turned to taunt the boar to follow. We both threw another javelin at it to make sure that it wouldn't pay attention to what lay ahead of it and be so aggravated that it charged ahead blindly.
We tried to camouflage the spikes the best we could with leaves, vines, and other plant life but it wasn't perfect. Luckily for us, the boar never noticed the danger it was running toward and ran headlong into the spikes.
Our plan worked perfectly, the boar incapacitated itself on the spikes and couldn't back away. The only thing left to do was wait for it to bleed out or put it out of its misery. We went with option two, and Austin thrust his spear deep into its chest killing it.
You have contributed in slaying {Highland Boar: Level 5} 10 Points earned.
It was surprisingly easy. Everything worked out perfectly and our first boar went down without a hitch. We quickly deconstructed the spikes and with our newfound confidence, searched the forest for our next victim.
We found a few more boars that ended up meeting their end but it was soon time for breakfast and people would wonder where we were. We had to head back before people freaked out that we were missing. After finishing off our fifth boar, we packed up everything and started heading back to camp.
None of the boars went down as easily as the first and we had varying levels of problems for each one. The spike broke during the second boar and we had to face it down with our weapons, being as experienced as we were fighting boars made it simple at this point and we ended it without any injuries.
The third boar noticed the spikes and avoided them completely, forcing us to face a fully healthy boar without any injuries. It went down much like the second, but took longer. Austin and I also didn't walk away unscathed. The fourth and fifth had a combination of issues.
They either missed the spikes altogether or didn't incapacitate themselves after hitting them. The fourth boar just backed off of the spikes after a superficial wound to its side. That one was angry and fought with a rage that the others had lacked.
The fourth was the one we took the most injuries on, as the boar would gladly take a swipe to the leg in order to land a hit on the person it was facing. There wasn't anything life-threatening, it was just unpleasant to deal with. I would have to get Abigail to heal us when we got back. I would have to beg her not to say anything but she usually had my back about these kinds of things.
Neither of us leveled after the hunting trip but both of us felt good about it. We might not have leveled today, but we would eventually. It was only a matter of time if we were as successful as we had been today.
We stashed our extra javelins and the spikes that we made in the forest and washed off in the river before making our way back to camp. Washing off got rid of most of the evidence but if someone looked over us carefully, it was noticeable.
Both of us walked with a limp and looked like we had been up all night with the exhaustion we felt. We both had smiles on our faces though and felt proud about how the day went. Our first day of training could be called a great success.