Hesitation

After a few moments of hesitation, Jack decides to butcher the wolf's body and make it his breakfast.

He started to skin it before unprofessionally cutting any part that looks delicious and roasted it over a fire. Because most of them will become provision for his journey, Jack cooks them until dry. That way, the meat will last longer and easy to carry.

Jack doesn't forget to separate its tendon and two large canine teeth to make a spear later. All he requires is finding a suitable tree. But he didn't too worry about it because he is in the middle of a jungle now. It is like looking for a bag of flour in a grocery store. How hard can it be?

Jack still wants to make his spear because two small daggers wouldn't be enough to fight a monster as big as the giant wolf from last night. He needs a weapon that can keep the monsters away from quite a distance, and a spear is the only choice he had.

After all the meat is ready, Jack wraps it with a large leaf, puts it in his emergency bag, and starts his journey in another world.

He walked down the river flow but did not stay too close or too far away from it. If too close, he worries that he will meet another monster and if too far away, he is afraid of losing his way.

Meets monsters and kills them will make him stronger, yes!. But without a proper weapon and armor, it is no different than suicide. And if he dies, everything will end. So unless Jack is sure that he had a decent weapon or even magic spell to hunt them safely, he won't be looking for them.

The first thing he needs to do is find a large city and figure out how this world works.

In the afternoon, Jack finally finds a suitable tree for his spear's shaft, just beside the riverbank. It only has one main trunk like a bamboo tree but still belongs to the hardwood species. It seemed that the tree existed to become a spear shaft.

After choosing a suitable size, he cuts it down before taking two portions of a different length. The long one will craft into a long spear, and the short one will serve as a backup weapon. And the crafting season begins.

Jack reshapes its tip then adjusts them to match the base of the canine tooth. After that, he will strap it with the wolf's tendon. According to what he read, the tendon will shrink when dried and hold the spearhead sturdily like a steel plate. Primitive people often used this method to make a hunting spear.

Now, all Jack needs to do is expose it to sunlight and the self-made spear is ready to be used.

When the sun goes down, the surrounding place becomes very dark. It's impossible for Jack to see past six meters, even with the help of the blue moon reflected by the river. So he decided to stop for the day and climb the tallest tree and rest in its trunk.

During the night, Jack uses every command he knows to try to trigger the system response. The result is quite disappointing. Besides the Status command, he only finds a few standard phrases that work, like Equipment, skills, and Technique commands.

Only the Equipment command displays something, while the other two are blank. Yet it could only tell him what he already knew, like the weapon he carried, such as his stabbing dagger and a survival knife, without any additional explanation.

Jack started to think that his system is broken and worthless.

The next few days, Jack repeated what he already did today without any variation. Travel during the day and rest in a tree trunk at night.

He also did a few experiments during that time and finds out that apparently, this world is not much different than Earth.

That fact denies the theory that this world is a fantasy world, so Jack created a new hypothesis.

This world is just another planet with another culture and trees. Yes! Trees.

At first, Jack still doubts that he is in a different world because the trees around him still have a few resemblances with trees on Earth. He was about 40% sure that he was actually still on Earth.

He thinks that the system is just a delusion that he created as a byproduct of self-defense, or maybe because he was reading too many novels with a system title. But everything is still a big IF if he can't answer the key questions.

How did he end up in the middle of the forest? Who did this to him? And for what purpose?

The last thing he remembers is going back from work like usual and going to sleep early. After that… He wasn't so sure.

He also tries to invoke a spell by chanting some phrases he knows of like Fireball, Blizzard, even Winggard*um L*viosa. But nothing worked.

That made him more convinced that the system he had was just a delusion. Same as the giant wolf that attacked him that night. Maybe it is just a normal wolf after all.

But… What about the big canine tooth that has become a spearhead?

So many questions mixed up and filled his head with doubt. Doubt of what is real and what is fantasy.

Confused and disappointed, Jack closed his eyes to end the day.

The next morning he decided to stay in that tree for one day to dry the tendon in his spear in the sun while resting and refresh his mind.

He still had enough wolf meat for about a week, so he didn't have to worry about food. All he wants to do today is enjoy the scenery and pretend to spend his holiday on a camping trip inside a forest.

So a day just went by for Jack while doing absolutely nothing.

When the night came, Jack left his long spear in the base of a giant tree he called home for today as usual and went to sleep with a refreshed mind. But when the sun rises, he finds another giant wolf monster sitting leisurely in the ground below him and curses.

"Sh*t! I am not delusional. It really is a giant wolf monster, and it is much bigger than the previous one.

"Will this be the death of me?"