Slaying the Beast

Ian tried to get familiar with his cybernetic suit. Connected to his personal microchip with a wireless connection, it could be updated with virtual currency. What a pity that he had no money. Still, it was nicer than his old training suit. The lights on the sides of his arms were not on yet. Apparently they would light up at the moment of the system activation.

He was afraid. He didn't want to actually end up making sandwiches for rich military wives.

Trying to stay optimistic, he clicked on the tracking device on his left palm and headed towards the river.

There was supposedly a place that dropped decent systems, but it was on the other side of the stream and he would have to pull some tricks to get there. No one knew why the humanoids placed the portals in such strange places. They could not put them just anywhere, that much was clear, but there was simply no reason to make it all so hard.

On the other side of the river, there could be something much better than a Sandwich System.

Ian suppressed a chuckle. He didn't want to have a laughing fit, and he surely didn't want to run into a krobinnuti.

He walked through the rocky area that was known for things that closely resembled snakes, rhino cobras. These serpents were able to utilize their body mass in a charging motion that was, disappointingly, known as rhinoing. They charged towards their intended victim with a speed that was comparable to the force of a tornado.

From his favorite experimental science documentaries, Ian knew that even a fruit gummy could be lethal if it hit a person with a velocity high enough.

He didn't want to get rhinoed on the most important day of his life.

He stepped carefully, trying to find a balance between causing enough noise to drive the rhino cobras away and being discreet enough to avoid any serious encounters with the bigger beasts.

Finally, after what felt like two hours but had only been thirty minutes, he came to the refreshing stream of fresh water.

The water was not shallow enough to wade through. Ian had known that. He had a rope in his bag, and of course, everyone had laughed at him.

For reasons that were based on honor and not reason, they were allowed to have only one extra object with them. Ian had chosen his rope.

It was a rock-climbing rope with a hook at the other end. The material was durable and reliable.

Ian didn't consider himself a troll as much as a monkey.

He was very good at climbing. He had always loved the feeling that most considered to be agoraphobic and anxiety-inducing. Ian, though, he was made out of a different kind of flesh, loving every second of standing on the roof of a skyscraper, or the wind in his hair when he had climbed the only mountain in the area of 13.

On the mountaintops and the roofs, he was free.

He went for a large tree on the other side, sinking his hook into its side, and now he could swing himself across the stream. He did get his shoes wet, but they could take it. For whatever reason, even after receiving technological assistance from interdimensional humanoids, humans could not make perfect shoes. The requirements for a military grade shoe were higher than ever, and serial production had to set some kinds of limitations on the price of the materials.

Ian landed safely on the other side, looked for a way back so that he would not get stuck, noted that if there had been a lack of suitable trees, it would have been too late, laughed inside his mind and went to look for a liquid portal behind a large rock.

He was now face to face with a growling krobinnuti.

The krobinnuti were a beautiful, terrible species, with a head that looked like a mix between a polar bear and a tiger. Their fur was the purest white, which made them easy to spot in the jungle, but they had been quick to adapt, with their absurd potential for rapid evolution, and this individual did have stripes masking some of its body. The paws were strange – they were able to grab things with the efficiency of a chimpanzee, but they were still large and formidable, just like the paws of a polar bear.

For thousands of years, humans had been in contact with bears, and while some primitive tribes still had a lot of respect for regular bears as well, the krobinnuti were not feared because of their strength, let alone their claws or their saberteeth.

They had intelligence that surpassed human reason in some ways, and then there were the tails.

They had giant scorpion tails, with a venomous sting at the end. Some scientists had speculated that the strange formations on the backs of these smart beasts were actually their spines, or exoskeletons, but in any case, the ridges formed a sturdy tail, and the venom that readily dripped from the ends of their stingers caused something that was more horrifying than simply dying painfully.

No, the pain had to be more unbearable than the pain caused by the ants that Ian could never name, not even after ten classes on venomous creatures. The venom had to be immobilizing, of course, so that the victim could not scream for help or end the suffering in a final act of desperation.

Dying of this excruciating poison could take a week. To make things worse, in the jungle on the other side of the river, no one would look for Ian. No one knew anyone had the means to come here. Tracking his signal would be hard. He happened to know that the trackers for inexperienced newcomers were some sorry excuses.

Ian swallowed. He didn't know whether to run or to run and pray.

The krobinnuti jumped.

Ian acted on impulse. As a human being, he still had plenty of ape instincts, and these instincts told him one thing.

He could not flee. If he would freeze, he would die.

He would have to fight, for the first time in his life, he had to fight to kill.

As the beast landed on him, he pulled his gun and shot it in the only place he could reach with the teeth sinking into his right arm.

He shot it in the belly.

The scream the krobinnuti let out of its maw was enough to deafen anyone. In a gross explosion, the venom that was apparently stored in its swollen abdomen dripped harmlessly on the tree trunk it had used to propel its heavy upper body onto the young soldier.

The pain in his arm hit Ian with a delay. Now, he was suffering so much that he could not comprehend a worse agony. He thought about the venom and the fact that the worst imaginable fate had been one lucky shot away from him.

He crawled away from the dying beast. It drew its very last breath, too badly maimed to even kill its murderer.

Ian knew the krobinnuti to be intelligent enough to fear death, but seeing as the beast had been more than ready to kill him in a completely brutal way, he did not feel any regret.

The body was too heavy for him to drag back. He still wanted to use this fortunate event to gain a better social standing back in the city.

His arm had been maimed, and he could only carry himself and something light back across the river.

He tried to lift the tail of the krobinnuti. He found it to be somewhat hollow and rather light.

He took his utility knife, and with great trouble, he used his almost useless left hand to saw the tail off.

He wrapped the tail up in a tight coil, carefully, in order to keep the dangerous stinger away from himself at all times, and put it into his backpack.

Then he realized the beast had been sitting on top of a liquid Mini Portal.

The liquid in the small hole in the ground was orange in color. Ian had not thought about the actual appearance of the portals. He had not expected to be able to find a cool one with any significant powers, but this sparkling, fiery liquid looked promising.

Leaning on his healthy arm, he bent to drink it all up.

The taste was unlike anything he had ever experienced.

There was the burning sensation that was familiar to Ian from alcoholic drinks he had tasted in secret, but there was also something like exotic fruits, something absolutely intoxicating, sweet and sour, and he found himself gulping down everything in a minute.

Then he waited.

There was a moment of silence, and he feared he had consumed something quite different from a Mini Portal, but then his entire field of vision went black.

A pop-up window appeared with some text in it, and a voice read out the text. It was a kind, yet robotic female voice, and Ian preferred it to be female. Girls always sounded so sweet.

Not that he had a lot of experience with girls, but he had always been more favored by the fair type of humans, with young women sometimes showing what he could only interpret as empathy towards him. Then there had been that one case with the blonde, but he did not have time to think about that.

[ACTIVATE SYSTEM BY USING COMMAND: YES]

"Yes," Ian thought. He was not sure if he said it out loud, but it was not like that mattered.

He expected to get a language based system, or perhaps something to do with math, something that would allow him to live with a comfortable salary, in a comfortable apartment downtown, with a comfortable family, relieved of military duties due to his usefulness in other areas of life.

It wasn't like he had any hope of becoming the heroic figure he had always wanted to be.

[STARFIRE SYSTEM ACTIVATED.]

Starfire? That sure did not sound like office work and nine-to-five days.

That sounded like scary situations and explosions.

"Show me my stats," Ian commanded the system in his thoughts.

His vision started to return to normal, but a new pop-up window appeared.

[NAME: IAN RAINWALL]

[LEVEL: 1]

[POWER UP POINTS: 0]

[EXPERIENCE POINTS: 0/15]

[HEALTH POINTS: 50/100]

[STRENGTH: 5]

[INTELLIGENCE: 11]

[CONSTITUTION: 8]

[SKILLS: SHOOTING STAR]

Then, while he was still dizzy from all that information, he received another update.

[SKILL DESCRIPTION: SHOOTING STAR]

[SKILL: SHOOTING STAR ALLOWS IAN RAINWALL TO TURN THE HEART OF A LIVING TARGET INTO A BALL OF FIRE]

Ian could not contain his excitement.

He had just received the most dramatic, awesome, flashy system ever. Starfire System! That sounded like a promising future in the frontlines, in the military, where all the real alpha males were. He would be able to slay the krobinnuti like rats. He would get any women he wanted, he would finally get the respect of his peers, and he would get a salary good enough to buy a whole damn skyscraper.

Then he realized that he was still hurting and bleeding – and his health points were at 50. That was half of what it was supposed to be at this point.

He would have a great career if he would get out of this jungle alive.

He had nothing to help him with his arm, no painkillers, no bandages, nothing. He cursed the military complex for making young people dive into the rainforest with no equipment. It was as if everything had been calculated to maximize the number of those who died honorably and stupidly.

He had never appreciated his own species less. Even the seemingly arbitrary behavior of the humanoids was more understandable than this idiotic code of heroic honor.

He realized that he was being a hypocrite after being so overjoyed about a system that did nothing to heal his arm.

[WARNING: HEALTH POINTS NOW AT 45/100]

[HEALTH IS DROPPING]

"Why, thank you!" Ian screamed and slammed a hand on his mouth immediately. He had not meant to cause more commotion in the most dangerous place he had ever been in.

It was hard enough to swing himself back with his backpack full, but with the added motivation of his lights on the cybernetic suit now glowing orange, he could hoist himself up with one arm and get himself across the river.

[HEALTH POINTS NOW AT 40/100]

[HEALTH IS DROPPING]

The pain made him delirious at this point. It was hard to say what was indeed pain and what was something else, like a sensation from the sharp grass harmlessly sliding against his cybernetic suit. The wind was cool and refreshing against the parts of his skin that were exposed.

He would need a new suit soon, but boy, would the scientists in 13 be absolutely delighted to have a whole tail of a krobinnuti to examine! To Ian's knowledge, there had never been a case of someone actually managing to bring some venom to a lab. He would be the first.

He expected to get a few grands in cryptocurrency, or more, if the cut marks on the tail would turn out to cause little or no disturbances in the venom. He knew from his chemistry classes that some substances reacted badly with oxygen.

He was counting the monetary profits when he realized he had stumbled to the path that would lead him back to the loving arms of 13, the city, or the town that had bullied and ostracized him all his life.

He was in such agony that walking felt like an impossible task, but at least his health points were going down slowly now. The decline was not as steep and radical. Perhaps there was something in krobinnuti spit that helped with stopping the bleeding.

He crawled, and as he crawled towards safety, the branches poked him, he received cuts into his arms, and he felt tears roll down his cheeks. This was no way to die.

[HEALTH POINTS NOW AT 35/100]

He reached the military base that he remembered from that day, earlier, in that mythical time before a heroic death had become a realistic possibility.

He had not even lived for twenty years. He was three months away from being nineteen. He couldn't do this to his loved ones, as few as they were.

Someone grabbed him and the entire world became a black abyss.

He woke up a moment later. The first thing he saw was a digital clock on a hospital wall. The numbers revealed to him that he had been unconscious for five hours.

He had been stripped of his suit, but the cybernetics had to be ruined, anyway, with such heavy damage to the important chips in the sleeve.

He was wearing a hospital gown.

A worried nurse walked up to him.

"How's the pain?" the redhead in the white dress asked him. "Your arm? Is the morphine kicking in?"

"I feel all right, even though I probably lost the arm?" Ian laughed. He felt so easy and free, and as he remembered his new system, he propelled himself into euphoria.

"Show me my health points," he thought.

A pop-up window appeared.

[HEALTH POINTS: 69/100]

"Even my system thinks I am doing great," he announced loudly.

"I bet your HP is not yet too high, though," the redhead nurse said, but she could not apparently stop herself from smiling a little. "What did you get with that tail, huh? You have caused quite a scene. In a good way, though. You should see the scientists…"

"You mean my system?"

For once, Ian was afraid of absolutely nothing.

His system was impressive. His system was flashy, special, useful.

"I have the Starfire System," he said.

The nurse dropped the medicine tray, and her mouth fell open as well.