I got started at dawn the next morning. The idea that I had stuck in my head was seeing if there was a difference between using faith or blood for the skills. For that, I needed a test subject. I found some bugs under a rock and chose them as the targets.

  First, I cast Toxin on one of them using blood, applying Contagion right after. The initial target died, as did the bugs nearby, but that was the end of the test. It petered out. Under another rock, I tried the same thing using faith.

  The feeling was very different. Like with all faith casting, it felt wrong—albeit not in the same was a blood. The problem was that—in spite of the differences—the results were the same. Only the nearby bugs died. There was no mass transference of the toxin. That was also true when I repeated the tests with Disease.

  I kicked dirt in frustration. Why was it so hard to get started? I needed the experience to start coming in as soon as possible. These delays were not helping! Still, there was nothing I could do, so I put the project away while I worked on other things.

  I went to check the pitfall trap I had made. For days it had been empty—the top trampled over by small critters, but nothing big. When I saw the top had caved in, I felt joy bubble up inside me. Had I finally caught something? Would I finally be able to eat something other than acorns? That’s when I heard the whine of an injured animal. I had caught something!

  I rushed to the edge and looked into the pit. Inside was a deer—a doe, if I was right. It didn’t have any horns, but it was large. Too big to be a baby. It was impaled on the spiked below. I didn’t have anything to kill it with on hand, so I returned to my hut. That’s where I had a spear I had made and fire-hardened. I took it and went back to the pitfall where I stabbed the deer until it died.

  Getting the carcass out of the pit was a huge pain. The spikes dug deeply into the side and belly of the deer. I had to detach the spikes from the ground and lift the deer out. Once out, I pulled the spikes out and reset the trap. I carried to deer back to my hut where I hung it from a tree to let the blood flow out of it.

  When the blood was drained, I removed the organs—and any tainted meat. Then I removed the ruined skin. The spikes had left it holier than the Pope! I separated the meat from the bones. The result was a lot of half-minced chunks of meat. Certainly too poorly butchered to be sold, but good enough for what I needed.

  Using green branches, I skewered thin strips of meat and left them by the fire. Over the next two days, I smoked and dried as much of the meat as I could. Anything left over was thrown into the pot for cooking. Even with all that preparation, there was still a sizeable chunk of the food that had spoiled too quickly. Remove Toxin wasn’t able to stop the bacteria from doing their thing. Rather, it removed whatever toxins those bacteria created. I was still liable to get sick because the bacteria would keep making the toxins after I ate it.

  The dried meat didn’t smell, so it was mostly safe from wandering animals. The rest of the deer was fair game, so I wanted it as far away from my hut as I could get it. The offal, skin, and bones I dumped in the lake to feed the fish. It wasn’t the best option, but it was the only one I had that kept my hut safe.

  Winter was approaching, and that got my ass in gear. I needed enough wood to heat the hut until spring. While it wouldn’t snow every day nor stick around forever, there would be plenty of days where I would be stuck inside.

  The wood that burned best was wood that was dried. Wood took time to dry if I cut it down. So while I planned on chopping down a fair amount of it, the primary source would be from deadfall. The deadfall could wait, though. The longer the green wood had to dry, the more I’d have over winter and into the spring.

  I set out with my axe to find trees big enough to burn but small enough that I could drag them back to the hut. These trees tended to be about six inches across. I hacked away at the first tree until I felled it. I dragged back large segments of the tree and laid them next to the hut before going back into the nearby forest for more.

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  The segments were about as tall as I was—way too large to actually be useful in the fireplace. So after a couple of days hauling trees, I set about breaking down the segments into smaller pieces that I could use in the fireplace. Each piece ended up being about as long as my forearm. I stacked them into a neat pile as tall as the roof of my hut. The top logs would almost certainly rot from the weather, but that was alright. They protected the rest of the stack.

  With the green wood taken care of, I went about foraging dead wood. The stack I had seemed large enough for the winter—or so I hoped. But it needed to dry. I needed wood to burn every night now. It was cold enough that I could see my breath in the mornings.

  Axe in hand, I wandered off, away from my hut. The nearby dead wood had been used up already, and I needed to go farther afield to get what I needed. Most of what I found was too rotten or small to be of much use. I brought back anything thicker than two of my fingers. They might not be ideal, but I would much rather have had wood to burn than nothing. Plus, the kindling came in useful whenever I had to reset the fire.

  Burning a fire in the fireplace daily left a lot of residue. I knew ashes were useful, but I hadn’t learned how to use them. Still, I couldn’t let them pile up too much, so I used the ashes—mixed with water—to plug any gaps in the hut so the warmth would stay inside. Even after all of that, the ashes continued to pile up. I had no choice but to dig a pit and start dumping them there.

  One day—while out gathering dead wood—I had a strange feeling of being watched. I was confused and frightened immediately. Had someone from Grandpa Joe’s cohort found me? I looked around quickly to pinpoint where it was coming from. The problem was, I couldn’t see anything that looked out of place!

  My heart raced. I held my axe in front of me, still looking all around. Then I heard a twig snap. I whipped around to see the large, black paw of a great cat almost upon me. I tripped to the side—the dodge attempt being a rather poor one. A line of pain erupted across my shoulder.

  I gasped, nearly dropping my axe. I knew there was no time to think, so I set my body to attack with the axe when it next approached. The cat leaped at me again. I swung my axe as it twisted out of the way. I hit it, but not strongly enough to do any real damage.

  The cat spun around and pounced again. I moved to hit it with my axe. This time, the axe bit into the cat somewhat. The axe was fairly dull—used for chopping wood more than anything else—so I ended up crushing the cat as much as cutting into it. That was for the better, I soon discovered.

  The cat was limping when it rose. Instead of attacking me, it tried to run away. There was no way in hell I was going to let it escape. Just knowing there was a dangerous animal in the area was not good for when I was out hunting or collecting wood or whatever else I needed to do.

  I chased the cat. Even limping, it was still faster than me. As much as I hated the idea of it, I had to eventually break off the chase lest I get lost. Hunting that cat down was a priority—yes—but my survival was more important. A night in frigid temperatures could end my life just like the cat could. I hoped that the tussle with me was enough to make it wary of my and stay away.

  My body shook as I returned to the hut. A few Heals stitched up whatever damage the cat had done to me, so it wasn’t pain. I knew part of it was from me coming down off of the adrenaline I’d just been on. The rest, I wasn’t sure. I breathed a sigh of relief when I shut the door to the hut.

  I built the fire extra high that night. Not because it was cold, but because doing so made me feel safer. I felt weak. The cat might have been the same one that almost killed me when I went hiking with Grandpa Joe all those years ago. I couldn’t be sure. While I was thankful to not be dead—something I attributed to equal parts luck and stats—I couldn’t help but be apprehensive of it being nearby.

  Despite the fire’s protection, my dreams that night were anything but peaceful. The cat hunted me there, too. I woke up sweating more than once that night. For the first time in a long time, I felt something very strongly. Fear. Yes, I’d been afraid of being caught for what I’d done at the port. This was different.

  At a fundamental level, I was freaked out. I knew the cat could kill me even though I was tier 2. It was bullshit! Tier up should have made me much stronger! I felt the difference between being tier 1 and tier 2 when I had broken through that barrier. I was much stronger and tougher than I had any right to be. And yet, that cat could still end my life with a well-placed swipe of its paw. That’s what terrified me.

  Tears fell from my eyes. It just wasn’t fair! I’d been working so hard for so long and I was barely any different than I had been before all of this happened. And when monsters came, how would anyone stand up to them if I could be killed by a cat? A fucking cat!

  I knew there wasn’t anything I could do about it that didn’t involve wasting a lot of experience in the process. Leveling up a ton wasn’t the solution—as much as I wanted it to be. No, I needed to murder every animal on the planet, collect the experience, and skip town. That was my way out.

  Still, I couldn’t shake the fear. Every time I walked out of the hut, I was watching my back and jumping at every sound. Nights were no better. It was stalking me there, too. No matter what I told myself, it wouldn’t go away.

  That’s when I remembered what Max had said. Something about looking inward and hypnotizing myself. It’s not like anything else I’d tried had worked, so I was willing to give it a shot.

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