Chapter 9 – Plan B
Some people say that dreams come from our daily life’s worries, ambitions and fears. I was located in a place that I was so familiar with, but I couldn’t remember. I guess it was the town I lived in, or maybe just some other area I knew.
I was walking forward to some abandoned alley step after step, as water splashed under my feet on the small puddles that was on the ground. At that moment I looked up, the sky were filled with clouds. “I should get home fast before the rain starts to pour.” I said to myself as I hurried home.
No one was in that alley, I selected it for that reason only, even though it would have taken me longer to get home I still chose to take it. I had a bad feeling in my mind that I couldn’t get rid of, as if someone was following me and that feeling was getting stronger.
I could hear the sound of thunder from afar with it the rain started to pour, I stopped for a second to look up and then started to run faster and faster. As if I was running from someone, I looked behind me and to the sides, my face was ashen from fear.
In front of me I saw a silhouette of a person coming my way down the alley, at that moment I made an abrupt one hundred eighty degree turn and went back to from where I came. As I ran the strange feeling got only stronger and stronger.
I slowed my pace and stopped completely, a moment passed I clenched my fists and mumbled something to myself and just stood there in the rain. Just a second after, the surroundings started to shift and shatter as everything went back to being pitch black.
“…A dream? Another creepy weird dream…” I said with a confused voice. I activated my magic perception skill and found myself all bloody and almost lying on the side. I balanced my body and used my self awareness skill.
*Self Awareness Status*
-Ontopary bush Lv4-
Experience: 38/40
Rarity: Common
Health: 1/6
Mana: 16/16
Stamina: 4/4
Race: Berry bush.
Status: Unique-Intelligent
Skills:
*Magic Perception Lv3(Active)* *Self Awareness Lv2* *Calm Mind Lv4* *Inspect Lv3* *Rage Lv1* *Killing Intent Lv1* *Pain Resistance Lv1* *Mana Manipulating Lv1* *Wood Element Control Lv2* *Dig Lv1* *Stealth Lv2* *Detection Lv1* *Lifesteal Lv1*
Titles:
*Clutz Lv1*
I started to go through my status. “My health is at its lowest, now that I found a safe cave to stay in I should not engage in any battles and just stay here and heal.” I was at my death’s door and any damage could be fatal.
”I have more two experience points till I level up and my mana rose again, is it because I blacked out? Or because I leveled up my wood element control skill?” I asked myself a question that currently I couldn’t answer. “I guess I will know it in the future.”
“What is that? Lifesteal skill? I don’t remember getting something like that, Inspect *Lifesteal*.”
*Lifesteal Lv1* – Grants the user the ability to steal health from an opponent, the correct way to steal health different from user to user.
“Yea pretty much what I was thinking, but the correct way to steal health? What does it mean?” I was little confused be the explanation of the skill, but it didn’t bothered me much, currently I had other problems to care for first.
I moved my perception on my body and saw the dead snake inside me. “Ew, how could I forget about this… *Dig*.” I dug myself out from the ground and formed my roots into a shape of crude circular legs.
I slowly started to remove the dead snake out of my body and tried my best not to damage myself in the process. It wasn’t that easy to do, because few of my branches were still stuck inside the snake carcass. After few minutes of struggle the snake was removed.
“I was lucky yesterday, this attack would not work at anyone else, only if it would enter inside me on their own accord.” True this attack was at most one timed, it still could be used for protection, but it was too consuming for me at the moment.
“I guess that I learned lifesteal skill after I passing out, or more correctly to say my body learned it on its own.” I reached my hand to the snake corpse and said. “*Lifesteal*.” After that I checked my status and said, “As I tough it didn’t work, guess it’s because the snakes already dead, that explain why I didn’t get any health when learning the skill as well.”
I was correct, last night the life force that was in the blood of the snake was barely enough for me to learn the skill and not even close to start to heal my wounds. “This is great, now I can heal myself… But I need to engage into another fight for that.” I was standing there for few moment deep in my toughs.
I looked at the dead snake’s body, then looked at myself and yelled with shock. “What the hell?!” When I looked at my body I found out, most of my leaves were crushed and lots of my branches were broken. But what surprised me is that all the berries that were eaten by the bunny the other day, has grown back as if they were never touched before.
“Heres goes my genius plan for stopping being a monster lure, but on second tough it could be pretty useful.” An evil smirk emerged on my imaginary face as I came up with an evil plan. “Na it’s too dangerous for me in my state.” The evil smirk disappeared in a second as I moved all the carcasses of the snakes deep into the cave.
I stayed in the cave for five days to heal my wound, at the time I stayed there not even one low tier monster dared to approach the cave, I discovered that those monsters are afraid of the snake’s venom so much that they didn’t even dare to approach them at all.
One bite of the snakes should kill or heavily poison most of the low tier monsters, even on me it should work a little, but thankfully the snakes couldn’t inject the venom into my body and even if they could the effect should be much much weaker.
It would be the same as to spray the venom on the skin of a person, the skin can itch or even get numbed a little, but it shouldn’t do any real damage. That day after the battle I felt little wobbly I guessed it was because of my injuries and because I got little of the poison into my system as well, nothing life dangerous but still not pleasant, tough even my self awareness skill didn’t care about it.
This five days were really peaceful nothing much happened on them, at day I would go out of the cave and root myself to the ground near the entrance to absorb the sun. I would take with me a carcass of a snake, to make sure no monster would approach me.
Truly it shouldn’t even matter, I was still covered with their blood but being a little caution wouldn’t be bad. Thank god that my magic perception smell sense almost didn’t existed, I couldn’t smell it but other monster could and from really far away.
When I was outside I would always train my detection skill for obvious reasons, but when it got late I would return to the cave and train my wood element control skill, until I got tired and went to sleep.
That how all the five days passed nothing special happened, except that on the fourth day there was a weak rain for half an hour, I took the chance and washed the blood off my body. It could be useful as a repeller, but there was still a small chance of a stronger monster to appear because of it.
After five days of training in the cave I increased the level of my wood element control to three and my detection skill to two. But I was really disappointed at that moment, because after all those days my health didn’t even restored by one.
“AGHH! My wounds dosn’t heal at all, if I had my flower it wouldn’t be the case.” I cried a little inside. “I can’t stay here forever, maybe I should execute Plan B?” You would ask yourself what is plan B, but of course it was my ‘genius’ plan on healing myself, with the help of my new skill lifesteal.
“But I will need to leave the cave and endanger myself…” Leaving my safe spot and going to a dangerous mission wouldn’t be a fun fit, but if I stayed here it would take me at least a month to heal my wounds and who knows what could happen at that time.
“I should be fine, I will be caution and it’s not like I have a choice *sigh*.” I sighed and started to prepare for my great plan, after close to half an hour I exited the cave while holding lots of berries in my hands.
I walked far away from the cave to an open area, then I stopped and placed the berries that I was holding into a small pile, after that I picked more berries from my body and started to spread them around, I even throwed them farther away in a few directions only to increase the radius of the spread.
After few minutes of hard work my body was almost completely empty from berris. “This should keep me safe from predators.” I said with proud voice. “Now all what I need to do is wait.” I rooted myself close to the pile of berries that I placed.
*”Dig” leveled up to Lv2*
“Oh lucky!” I happily said, then I used my stealth skill to conceal my presence and started to wait for my pray. It was morning so I hadn’t any problem to wait for long. An hour passed then two after it even four hours, but no monsters came. “Yea it wouldn’t be so easy as I tough. *Yawn…*” I said when yawning from boredom.
But then for my surprise I saw a bunny with two little horns sticking from its head. “At last!” I exclaimed with delight. The bunny started to eat the berries that were scattered around, and slowly but surely was coming closer and closer to the small pile of berries and me.
As it approached me a vile smirk again appeared on my imaginary face. “Here it is.” I said as the bunny was standing across the pile of berries and started to eat them. I looked at him eating the berries one by one.
Slowly the pile of berries disappeared, but I was still standing there looking at the bunny not moving even an inch. At the moment the bunny was standing there and cleaning its paws. I looked at him and said “Come on, come on.”
*”Killing Intent” leveled up to Lv2*
“Shit…” The bunny jumped back away from me and looked at me with a frightened look. “Why now, it was going so well.” Be accident I lost control of myself and activated my killing intended skill then the bunny discovered me.
“I just need a little more time, *Dig*.” I digged myself from the ground. As it saw me move the bunny started to run away, so I gave chase. I discovered that even if my body was severely damaged I still could move without a problem, because my body was like a marinete on a strings that was controlled by the wood element control skill, so the wounds that I currently had didn’t slowed me down at all.
But it didn’t matter, because I didn’t need to run for long at all, with a painful cry the bunny fell onto the ground, I approached it from behind and said. “Took you long enough, Inspect *dead bunny*.”
-Horned White Bun Lv4-
Health: 12/15
Mana: 4/4
Stamina: 10/10
Status: Poisoned(Strong)
Fun fact: I love bunnies.
One Of Many - Web Novel 