Chapter 2 — The Way Ahead

It was a bleary-eyed Edwin who blinked awake the next morning, curled up in the hollow of a tree. It fortunately hadn’t gotten very cold overnight, because his thin jacket and jeans would

He was starting to wonder what

He flicked himself on the arm to make sure he didn’t get carried away on that tangent. He wasn’t in his room or in class, he couldn’t afford to daydream right now. This was a literally alien world, and he had no food- his stomach growled at the thought- no water, and no shelter.

As it continued to get brighter in the forest, the wildlife picked up. Today, there seemed to be a lot more birds in the area, and maybe just more activity in general? Did they get less skittish of him? Was there something else in the area yesterday that was scaring them away? Was he just noticing them more today? Maybe-

“Hey system guy, I don’t suppose I could get a skill to help me focus?”

…

…

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“Please?”

…

“…Fine.” He grumbled, ducking between a fallen log and a tree, stopping suddenly as he

Wait, was that magical? It

…

So as it turned out, the web

Wait, walking? Was there not a running skill? Why was it called walking if it covered running as well? Did it also cover hiking? Swimming? Flying? This would require a lot of testing.

Soon, he was out of breath from his mad dash away from that horrible creature. Spiders were fine, so long as they

He tiredly consented, happy for any kind of reprieve.

“Further testing required,” he murmured. Promising himself he would get around to figuring out the intricacies of

He still needed to find water, now more than ever.

With his breathing relatively under control, Edwin set off at a relatively brisk pace. The fact no predators had bothered him yet meant one of two things: Either there genuinely was nothing that saw him as potential prey lived in the area, which had its own set of interesting considerations, or he was insanely, absurdly lucky and his crashing through the forests had somehow escaped the attention of

Edwin broke himself out of his musing as he came across a fairly steep slope. Peering over the edge, it didn’t look too tall, but definitely marked the start of a long descent. Given his goal of trying to survey the area, he wasn’t convinced he should head down, but at least following it along the top would likely make sure that he wasn’t going in circles. Staying a few feet from the edge to ensure he didn’t fall, he began navigating to the… left. Worked as well as going to the right. After some time, he had a bit of a routine down, and ducking around the bushes in his way started becoming almost second nature. He barely even needed to consciously make sure that he wasn’t going to start sliding down the slope anymore.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than he felt the ground underneath his foot crumble. Time seemed to freeze as the sudden lurch made his stomach drop. He had never been good with falling, and being literally dropped from the sky yesterday hardly helped in that regard. Though Edwin would have loved to say he managed to come up with some ingenious plan in between two heart-stopping moments, all he was really able to clear his head enough to think about was a single, simple thought:

As he was fortunately sliding down the hillside feet-first at the moment, Edwin was desperate to maintain that status quo, and when frantic handfuls of dirt failed to yield anything save a couple of thin roots which broke off in his grip, tried to dig his heels into the hillside, an action which was nowhere near as effective as he would have liked, as it just freed more soil to join him in what was apparently turning into a miniature landslide. His next chance to try and stop himself arrived quite abruptly, a tree that almost seemed to come out of nowhere, impacting his outstretched legs. Edwin tried to scramble into a half-sitting position, aiming to bear hug the tree, but the sudden motion, instead resulted in his head catapulting past his ankles and tossing up even more loose soil as he fell into a tumble.

Tucking his head in and managing to lift his arms to protect his neck in a half-aware daze of adrenaline and terror, all he could do was hope that he didn’t hit anything too hard. Even as he felt what seemed like every sharp rock and twig within a mile dig into his back and hands, he felt locked up from terror and was only barely suppressing a scream which was surely resounding in his head. Then his memories jumbled together and he lost awareness of what was happening.

The next thing he could remember, once his memories started straightening out, he was half-buried in a bush, covered with the detritus he had knocked loose in his descent, and with his ankle

He could have sworn the message was mocking him. Groaning, he extricated himself from the bush- Ow! Was that a thorn?- and propped himself up on the slope he had just come down, accepting the skill.

It felt nice to just lay down for a little bit. His clothes were filthy, he had a hole in his jacket, and was desperate for a drink, but at the very least, he wasn’t dead and wasn’t hurt beyond some scrapes and bruises. It could be far worse. Far, far worse. Still, it would be so nice to just lay here and take a nap, despite it only being about noontime by his reckoning. Even his internal monologue seemed too exhausted by the fall to pipe in and get his mind off just how

…

As he raised himself from his seat- though he had started off more or less fully leaning against the slope, he had quickly slid down until his legs were relieved of all their burden- he couldn’t stop another groan from escaping, but found his footing well enough, regardless of the protest his legs were trying to put up.

Edwin was on a bit of a flat stretch about halfway down the slope he fell down. Still what

He trekked onwards, legs burning but unwilling to stop his aggressive limp.

It was several hours later that he finally came across something noteworthy. Namely, the sound of water crashing down. The slopes on either side of him he had been following had long since steepened and turned into rock faces, so the only logical situation was a waterfall of some sort coming up. And that meant

Well. He hadn’t been expecting

Turns out, he had first woken up on the top of a mountain or something, which… wait, how did that work? He had been walking for

He

With shaking hands and weak knees, he crawled away from the edge and collapsed the moment he felt halfway safe. It took a moment, but his limbs eventually regained enough strength to push himself up to standing once more. Even still, his fingers stubbornly refused to stop trembling as he tried to think of what to do.

Backing up a ways away from the precipitous drop, Edwin evaluated his options. The rock face was decently craggy, though of debatable strength, and there was the odd tree which clung stubbornly to the narrow strip of soil he found himself on. It could help him clamber up the rock face, and all he would need to do is

With luck, it would be as easy as leveling Visualization.

Was the System mocking him? He felt like it was mocking him. After a quickly aborted attempt at climbing- his legs simply wouldn’t cooperate to push him up- Edwin gave himself a bit of a break, laying on the ground until his legs felt somewhat more normal.

Edwin wedged himself between a rock and a hard place. Well, the hard place was really just a tree that

– but he could at least still manage to pull himself up to one rock, steady himself against the tree, and prepare for the next step. It sure would be nice to get a skill for this, he couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t already gotten one-

Athletics? Why not climbing? Was this not close enough to true climbing for the System to be happy? Just ‘athletics’? Wasn’t that part of walking? Was there not a more specific skill for climb-

His foot slipped half an inch, and Edwin froze. No more getting distracted. He accepted the skill but didn’t look at it. In fact, he switched entirely to doing his best to ignore all System notifications so he could just focus entirely on

Reach up. Grab a protrusion. Haul himself up. Brace against the trunk. Panic as the tree swayed slightly. Look for the next spot. Set his footing. Reach up. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Don’t look down. Just keep looking up. Stop imagining falling down. Stop it. Look for the next spot to grab. Make sure your foot is secure. Keep three points in solid contact with the wall at all times. Leave the tree behind, it’s too thin at this point. How much farther could it be? This has to have been hundreds of feet, surely. Wedge hand into crevice, hope there aren’t spiders. Maneuver left foot onto previous handhold. Sprawl out across a pair of handholds absolutely too far apart for comfort. Hug the wall. Reposition right foot to avoid doing the splits while on a cliff face. Test to make sure that rock is solid. Freeze as a small bit of dirt falls from where his hand was placed. Reach up. Grab a protrusion. Haul himself up. Set footing. Look for the next handhold. Reach up. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Re- WHERE’S THE HANDHOLD. Oh.

He had… made it? He made it! Hooray! And with no real incident beyond what felt like a half-dozen heart attacks. His limbs were like jelly and his hands and arms

Why had his status leveled up? Hm. What was it, increased customizability per level? Did it level up by him ignoring his notifications somehow? Could he level it by

First, though, he was going to lay here for a minute. Maybe five. Yeah, just five minutes. Just five… more… minutes. This was fine. This… was… totally… fine…

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