SWNOVELS
Chapter 10: Departure
On the third day of hiding in the Nymph’s territory, my Health was finally done regenerating. Well, really, it was done about halfway through day two, but I wanted to wait a bit longer just to get some rest and wait until the morning, when I’d have a full day’s worth of sunlight to spend traveling. I decided that I was going to make a serious attempt to find civilization now, so I wanted to make sure I was totally ready for it. contemporary romance
I didn’t do much over the few days I spent hiding out, getting water from the river and making small expeditions outside of the Nymph’s influence to hunt small game to eat, which earned me a little bit of XP. I’d gotten a bit used to eating raw meat – at the very least, I could get it all the way down without gagging now. Some of the larger monsters like Wood Wraiths and Dire Bears came and drank near my little shelter, but – like I’d guessed – they didn’t attack, paying me no mind other than a bit of caution. But other than that, I spent most of my time relaxing. Well, I did one other thing.
Threshold reached. Noxious Grasp XP has reached 14.
Noxious Grasp Rank has increased to 3.
Due to Noxious Grasp Rank reaching 3, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 3.16 to 3.24
Health Drain: From 11 to 11.6
Stamina Drain: From 5.51 to 5.79
Threshold reached. Noxious Grasp XP has reached 20.
Noxious Grasp Rank has increased to 4.
Due to Noxious Grasp Rank reaching 4, it has undergone the following changes:
Mana Cost: From 3.24 to 3.32
Health Drain: From 11.6 to 12.2
Stamina Drain: From 5.79 to 6.08
I’d ranked up Noxious Grasp two whole times! It’d gotten pretty difficult to Rank by now – I was currently at 16/30 Spell XP to the next – so I imagined it would take a bit longer to Rank up from now on, at least until I started Leveling up again and got some more Mana/Minute. Of course, ideally, I wouldn’t need to focus so hard on gathering more power – I hoped I’d be out of this forest soon – but what was the point of getting a Class if not to try and become as powerful as possible?
I’d also finally taken the time to figure out the math behind the way the Noxious Grasp Rank-ups were working. It’d been in the back of my mind for a while, wanting to try and figure that out, but I had been so busy with trying not to die and all that I hadn’t been able to until now.
I didn’t remember much from the negligible amount of reading I had done on Magic-Type Classes and the ways their progression systems worked, but after studying the little information I had available, it started to come back to me.
With regards to Spell Ranks, the Spell XP costs were the same between all Spells. However, the Rank-up benefits were not. I remembered my eyes glazing over when reading some dumb formula about a summation function within a summation function when I was looking into Spell XP costs, but it actually made a bit more sense when looking at it from a real-world situation. Essentially, to find the Spell XP cost for a Spell Rank, you just needed to find the sum of your current Rank number plus all previous Rank numbers you’ve already gotten for that Spell, and then add it to the previous Spell XP cost.
So, as an example, Noxious Grasp was currently at Rank 4. To get to Rank 5, I’d just add 4 + 3 + 2 + 1, which is 10, and then add that to the previous XP cost – which was 20 – to get my current Spell XP cost of 30. And at Rank 0, the Spell XP cost would just start out at 10. I also remembered something about this formula changing every tenth Rank – something about the added numbers being multiplied by five – but I didn’t quite recall exactly how that worked, so I’d just deal with it when I got there.
When it came to the benefits of Ranking up a Spell, though, that was different for each one. I’d figured out the way Noxious Grasp Ranked up, though. The math behind this one was actually quite simple. Essentially, it just multiplied the previous Rank’s Mana Cost by 1.025, and then multiplied the previous Rank’s Health Drain and Stamina Drain by 1.05. It also seemed to round the numbers so that they were only three digits long, since, for example, when going from Rank 3 to 4, my Stamina Drain went from a Stamina Drain of 5.79 to 6.08, even though 5.79 times 1.05 was actually 6.0795. So it seemed like it just rounded that up, cutting off the 95 on the end.
Well, anyway, it was nice to know that the Health and Stamina Drains were increasing at double the rate of the Mana Cost – if they weren’t, then the Spell wouldn’t be getting much better every Rank up.
I looked back on the space that I had called my home for the past 72 hours. Strangely, I felt I would miss it. Not only this little base by the river, but also the forest as a whole. It was… interesting, finding ways to survive out here.
Before I left for good, I decided to get one last meal. Well, as much as raw muscle and tendons could be considered a 'meal'. I'd gotten to know some of the territories around here in my few days I'd spent in the area, so finding something to eat would be easy. Much easier than trying to find something while out traveling through completely unknown lands, at least.
So I headed off to one of the animal territories I knew of. What was I in the mood for – Rabbit, Elk, maybe even Bear cub? Even if the meat was raw and unseasoned, each animal still had its own texture and flavor. I'd become something of a connoisseur over the days. Maybe when I got back to civilization, I'd drop my dreams of adventuring and open a raw meat restaurant.
Yeah, no.
Eventually, I just settled on the closest place – I was restless to get out of here, and didn't want to waste time going on some grand journey for exotic Hydra meat. So, Boar it was. There was a little mud pit where rainwater collected only a half-hour away, and the Boars and Boarlets would often come by to bathe or play or whatever they did in the mud. Normally, it'd take an hour or two of waiting for some of them to come around, but I could wait another hour before leaving.
But when I got there, I was pleasantly surprised. There were already a pack of Boars there, tramping around in the mud. What luck! It seemed like today would be fortunate for me – I got to leave the forest, and I didn't even have to wait for food to come to me. Perhaps the wilderness was giving me its blessing for my departure. Today would go well for sure!
Yeah, let's not jinx it. Saying shit like that was just begging for the gods to strike you with lighting or something.
I crouched and hid a few paces back from the treeline, taking care to stay out of sight of the animals. It wasn't like angering the pack would result in my death – I was a Classer now, so mundane animals couldn't really threaten me, anymore. I mean, even if one of them bit into me, I could just turn on Noxious Grasp and it'd have to let go or risk dying before I did. But still, the adults could be pretty aggressive, and it would still suck to get gored by a Boar. Or they could also just run away.
So I sat and waited for a while at the edge of the pit, watching and listening for my moment to strike. There were about a dozen Boars there, so it only took a few minutes for an opportunity to come my way.
One of the Boars – a younger one – wandered away from the safety of the pack and over to a nearby tree. It rubbed against the tree, evidently trying to scratch an itch on its back. I crept over to the tree, taking care to move silently, and approached my prey. It turned to scratch a different part of its body against the tree, now fully facing away from me, and I took my moment to strike.
I lunged forward and snatched the back legs of the Boar, activating Noxious Grasp the moment I touched it, and pulled it back, away from the others. It squealed for help, but I moved quickly, and I was sure its voice was quickly fading from the ears of the other Boars. Of course, they would still be able to hear it, but in my experience, they wouldn't investigate.
In a forest full of Dire Bears and Drakelings, smaller animals like the Boars only had two survival skills: hiding and fleeing. They might be able to fight back against the other smaller animals with their small tusks, but, if they caught the attention of something like a pack of roaming Stripeks, they'd be diced before they could even turn around. And these Boars at the mud pit had no idea what was attacking their companion – they could only hear its squeals. So, instead of running to its aid and most likely getting themselves killed alongside it, they just stayed where they were and hoped they weren't next.
So I quickly backed away with the kicking and fighting Boar, slowly feeling its vigor vanish as Noxious Grasp drained away its Stamina. After a bit of time, it stopped moving, and I got my notification.
You have struck Level 2 Boar for 71 damage and drained 35 Stamina over the course of 5.8 seconds using Noxious Grasp.
19.3 Mana Cost. Your Mana is 141.
You have slain Level 2 Boar.
You have earned 6 XP. Your XP is 39.
Once it was dead, I let go and readjusted my grip, picking the Boar's body fully up and hoisting it over my shoulder to make it easier to carry. Then, I headed back to my home by the river. I needed to wash off the meat in the running water of the river, and wanted to get one last refill of my waterskin before heading out for good, too. Besides, getting one last look at the place that'd kept me safe for so long would be cathartic.
I'd done some tests with Noxious Grasp over the days, and found that it didn't actually do much to the meat of the monsters I used it on. It mainly seemed to strain and sink the non-edible parts of the body, as well as a small amount of the fat stores. As for everything else, it more or less left the monsters untouched. No negative effects for eating something that'd been killed by it, or anything.
And so I enjoyed my pleasant walk back to my makeshift shelter, fresh kill on my back. The forest was bright, this morning, the sun glancing from the dew on the leaves. Over my days here, I'd gotten much more used to the previously unknown wilderness. I'd never been outside my village walls before, despite aspiring to work a job that'd have me out here constantly. But by now, the incredible greenery felt natural, and I'd even picked up on some of the local landmarks. There was a tree whose trunk looked like the face of one of the librarians back in my village, there was a massive hill that I could see from off in the distance, a pile of rocks that looked manmade. I'd gotten quite a bit familiar with the place.
Ah, passed tree-face. That meant I'd just take a turn here, and I'd get to my home!
Once I got to my hut, though, I froze.
I had an intruder.
The Nymph. The same one that'd killed me in a split-second. It was there, bent over and examining my lean-to with narrowed eyes. I took a soft step back, the rushing river masking the sound of my steps, as I watched. It sniffed at one of the sticks making the hut and scrunched its nose in disgust. Then it stood back up, bared its long, needle-sharp claws, and swiped at the pile of sticks. In a single motion, it cut right through my hut, splitting it in half and causing it to crumble to the ground.
The Nymph turned around and examined the rest of my campsite. I'd taken the emptied-out corpses of the animals I'd killed away from the camp and over to a hole I'd dug, but apparently the Nymph could still detect them. Gingerly, she bent over, dug them out of the hole, picked up the corpses, and looked at each of them with its pure-white eyes. I wasn't the best at reading the facial expressions of monsters, but I was pretty certain this Nymph was a mixture of sad and pissed off. I didn't have to wonder what was causing its anger – and who it might be directed toward, if the Nymph found me.
Yeah. I needed to fucking run. I couldn't do that with the heavy corpse over my shoulders, so I carefully placed the Boar on the ground, and backed away from my shelter – well, not that the shelter was still standing, anymore. I may have missed my little campsite and wanted to get one last look at it, but I definitely missed civilization much more. And I wasn't very interested in getting impaled by the Nymph again.
I quietly took my leave, constantly glancing around for any sign of me being followed. After some time, when it seemed obvious that I was clear of the danger posed by the Nymph, I finally let my guard down a bit. And my fear was replaced by excitement. I was going to find civilization. I would do it today. I would walk, and walk, and walk, until I got out of this gods-forsaken forest, and found a real, actual Human that I could talk to.
I just hoped I wouldn't have any more run-ins with dangerous monsters on my way.
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