Chapter 5 - First strike

What was that? Where did that voice come from? Was it only me who heard it?

I shifted my focus back to Urvi's eyes, which looked at me with wonder and full of emotion. My heart swelled instantly; my skin burnt red hot. I began to feel all fuzzy like I was embarrassed and euphoric at the same time.

Wait. Is this what love feels like?

"I mean... I meant..." I stammered.

The forest up north rocked, and its echoes reached us. We looked in its direction to see the trees and the ground shake violently.

"Give me a moment," she said as she stood up.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

She didn't answer me, instead picked up both the weapons that sat behind us. She gripped the axe in her left hand and the claymore in her right, before walking off toward the disaster.

I didn't say anything, instead watched her pick up pace with an open jaw. Her speed had increased drastically. In mere seconds, she was blitzing toward the mammoth at lightning speed.

As soon as she crossed the circle, multiple tree vines shot towards us with speed that beat my eyes. But Urvi was faster, she dodged them like they were nothing before leaping off the ground and onto one of them.

The beast began to take shape. I could see the bark of trees and leaves smashing into one another as a gigantic maw formed in front of Urvi. Urvi didn't stop and headed straight for the gaping mouth. A loud roar thundered through the forest, trembling my heart. As she reached the jaw, a log of wood smashed into her, sending her flying to the ground. However, on impact, she rolled, reducing her fall damage, and was up on her feet in seconds.

She looked around and saw pieces of the forest flying towards her at full speed and in all directions. She loosened her grip on the weapons and began to spin them around in her wrist. She was fast, creating a shield that knocked out most of the debris. Quite a few of them passed through the fan, leaving behind shallow cuts and gashes. Urvi focused on saving the more vital parts of her body and in turn, traded in a few superficial injuries.

Her eyes closed on the tree trunk coming down her. Her knees bent as she leaned forward, escaping the crushing foot of the treant. She now faced a bigger problem. The treant's head was almost fifteen feet in the air and it had retracted all the vines connecting to it.

As the treant began to lift its leg, ready to bring it down once more on the woman below it, Urvi squatted down and held her arms in like a spinning top. The air around her began to crackle and then explode as she leaped into the air, straight as an arrow. She cut through the base of the leg, sending the log crashing into the ground beneath while she continued upwards and reached about the beast. The face of the treant looked up and sent the rest of the vines barreling towards her. My heart stopped looking at her trapped in the middle of what felt like a death trap.

Urvi curled up like a fetus, the blades sticking out and upwards. She began to fall downwards, spinning like a blade, towards the mouth of the beast. As she fell, she began to spin faster and faster. She entered its jaws and into the dark void of the beast's mouth when I screamed out her name in panic.

The jaw shattered in half and the beast screamed in pain as Urvi smashed through the beast's head. She landed on the forest ground, squatting down to prevent damage. She wore a wide grin as she looked up and saw the beast fall apart and onto the ground around as soft debris.

I ran towards her as she stood up and looked at me with a proud smile on her face.

"That was awesome!" I said.

She looked at the weapons in her hand and said, "Oh yeah. I like this!"

***

Urvi was panting hard; her chest rose up and down as she breathed through her mouth.

The experience band around her hand began to grow. Filling up once, clearing up, filling up again, clearing up again, filling up for the third time, before clearing up, and finally stopping at like thirty percent. The number on her arm changed to four. "I leveled up..." She said.

"You were crazy. Where... how?" I asked in excitement.

"I don't know. I was just... full of anger and sadness and joy and what the fuck not. I couldn't think straight and then suddenly my body told me to move and I did. Then this happened."

I took a moment to introspect when an idea popped into my head. "Give me your journal," I asked. She pulled it up and handed it to me. I flipped through the pages. As expected, the base stats were raised. But more importantly, one of the skills was already selected.

"Urvi. When did you pick this?" I asked pointing at it.

She leaned in and took a good look at it. "I actually don't remember… I opened it so many times to read through the guide for some help. I must have accidentally picked it."

I rubbed my chin and said, "You picked dual-wielding. The ability to use both your weapons, if they are melee, at once. It gave you a small boost in attack and speed. Nice!"

"Wow…" she said, holding up the two weapons. She looked at them with glazed eyes and an open jaw.

Behind her, something shiny caught my eye. I pointed at it and said, "I think the beast dropped something."

She looked behind before walking over to it. Bending over, she examined the curious thing before picking it up. It was shaped like a glass orb with some kind of glowing light inside it. "What is this thing?" She asked.

"I don't know."

"What do we do with it? Ack! I know the answer to that as well."

I smiled softly. I really didn't know.

"Well. The only way to find out," she said and crushed the orb with just her right hand. The light from the orb flew up into the air and began to take shape before falling to the ground as various assortments of items.

"Loot!" I exclaimed.

A wonderful joyous expression appeared on her face as she jumped up in the air. She squatted down and picked them up as I hurried over to her.

"These are so fucking cool! But... what are these?" She held a total of three items. One looked like a delivery packet, wrapped in a cloth. Another was a glass bottle with a strange green liquid inside and a cork sealing it. Last was a tiny knife, or at least what looked like a knife.

I held on to the bottle and the knife as Urvi began to tear open the packet. The content of the packet fell apart as she tore it open. However, instead of falling onto the ground, they wrapped themselves around her, forging into new armor. Urvi found herself wearing a thick steel breastplate accompanied by metallic shoulder pads and a steel ribboned skirt to protect her thighs. A silver belt buckle held up a leather strap that went around her waist. Her hands were covered in thick leather gloves with metallic knuckle bracers and her feet now wore tall steel warrior boots.

"I look badass!" She cried out in excitement.

I nodded in equal excitement and said, "That is because you are!"

"Okay, okay. What is next?" she asked as she looked at the two remaining items in my hand. She picked up the blade and examined it. "Is this a pocketknife?"

It looked horribly designed for a pocket knife. The blade covered most of it and was shaped like a Sabre while the handle was far too small to handle. Hold on. "Hold the handle once," I instructed.

"It is too small," she said but nevertheless tried to. The blade grew in size rapidly, forcing me to move out of the way. We watched in awe as the tiny blade now became an appropriately sized saber with a shining blade and red cloth-draped handle. Urvi had tears of joy in the corner of her eyes. "I can't even..."

I examined the bottle in my hand and saw that green liquid shimmered under sunlight. If my video game knowledge is right, then this must be a potion. Most likely a health portion. I looked back at Urvi who was examining the sword in awe. The cuts and gashes on her arms and legs had disappeared and all four life bands looked full. I guess we will save this for later.

She finally put the sword down and looked at me with a sly grin. "Do I look like one of your video game girls now?"

I cocked a smile and replied, "You indeed do."

We retreated into the safety of the circle, not wanting to awaken another beast. Urvi set her sword down on the soft grass before flopping onto the ground beside it. She had a broad smile on her face.

"Doing good?" I asked with a wide grin on my face.

"Still trying to process what happened... what just happened?" she asked again.

"You took out the mother of all treants."

"I took down a mountain! Well, maybe not a mountain. A hill?"

"Let's not ruin the moment with specifics."

I had so many questions, but my dumb brain took ages to process the idea that I had a fucking guide with me all along. What an idiot. I looked around trying to find my journal but couldn't find it. Wait. Where did it go? "Urvi, did you see my journal?"

"Your journal? Oh. Just hold out your hand and think about it," she said.

"Seriously?" I did as she told me, and the journal manifested itself in my hand. "What the! How did you know?"

"I was desperate dying so many times, so once between deaths I just thought about it and it appeared in my hand," she replied.

"I see… we can summon our default items whenever we want!" I quickly opened the stats section and saw my stats hadn't budged at all. It stung my heart a little. I died so many times and my experience had barely increased, I hoped to see at least an increase in maybe a point or two. But alas. I moved forward, into the next section, skills. No change here either.

Up next was the journal. This was where things got interesting. I had several lines printed on it.

 . Exited foundation for the first time.

 . Killed three treants. 30 XP gained.

 . Found a chest. 5 XP gained.

Lastly and most importantly.

 . Destinies linked. The first link in the chain created. 

What does that mean? I quickly flipped more pages and began to scan the guide. The guide covered some basics. Stats, gaining XP, weapons, and chests. But beyond that, everything else was just more explanation about the five topics. Dammit. I also realized that there was no explanation for the magic system as well.

"What are you looking at?" Urvi said. I looked to my left and saw her peeping over my shoulder.

"Did you hear someone say something when I said... I would marry you?" I asked, trying hard not to blush.

Her eyes pointed to the canopy as she went into deep thought. "Hang on. I think I did. But I was so out of my head, I don't remember what it said."

"It said, destinies linked." I pointed to my journal page.

She got off my back and pulled out her journal as well. Flipping it open, her eyes suddenly went wide. She held the book up and pointed to the stats. "They increased!"

Level

Health

Attack

Defense

Speed

Special Attack

Special Defense

4

64

16

12

15

13

11

Hot damn! That's my girl! "Congratulations babe!"

She was jumping up and down in excitement. "Thank you! Thank you!" She stopped her jumping and flipped her page. "Karna! I got more stats!"

"Show me."

She did and I saw that five more had opened up. Strength, stamina, dexterity, recovery, and lastly charge multiplier. I wonder when these open up. "Your looks a lot different than mine."

"Hmm..." She took back her book and flipped more pages before saying. "There are entries in my journal.

 . Exited foundation for the first time.

 . Killed two treants. 20 XP gained.

 . On target aim. 5XP gained.

 . Found a chest. 5 XP gained.

 . Destinies... linked. The first link in the chain created...

Karna. What is this?"

"Keep going."

She turned back to her book and continued.

 . Killed mother treant. 500 XP gained.

 . Iron guard armour gained. First strike Sabre gained. Healing potion gained.

She shut the book and looked at me, wearing a concerned expression.

"There is no explanation about the destiny thing in the book yet," I said.

"There seems to be a lot more mysteries in this world," She replied.

"Indeed. And I think it makes it all the more interesting, don't you agree?" I asked.

She grinned with caution and said, "I guess so. What now?"

"Time to start unlocking the mysteries of this world." I said before pointing south. "Beginning with the chest we still yet to loot."

***

The journey to the chest was smooth. No creature ambushed us, no treants brought their wrath on us, and the forest remained a little too calm for our liking. The chest sat buried in the ground, with all its contents still intact.

Urvi squatted down and began to pick up the contents of the chest one by one. First up, was the mysterious shard. "Here you go," She said as she passed the shard up to me. I held onto it, admiring its dull green shimmer.

She continued digging and found a hunting knife sheathed in black leather. As soon as she picked it up, the piano tune played once again. A voice said, 'survival attribute activated. Hunger and thirst unlocked." What the hell?

I felt a strange sensation in my stomach, something familiar but also new. "Did you feel that?"

Urvi gasped. "Is that hunger?"

"I think so."

These voices. They sound like notifications. But not all of the notifications seem to be triggering them. I wondered what the condition for triggering the piano and voices was.

She continued to pick more items from the chest. Three more bottles, one with green liquid, one with red, and another with silver liquid. Beneath them was yet another package, covered in a tan shade cloth. No wait. Two packages. The other was wrapped in green cloth. She put them down beside the chest and reached down into the chest. A second later, she pulled out a large bag of kind of thing. It had a leather strap with a very small opening. The content inside sloshed around.

"Water!" we said in unison.

"Hold it," she said as she handed it over to me before returning to the chest.

"I think this is the last one," she said as she pulled out, what appeared at first glance to be a book.

It was a book. A tome, to be more precise. "What is this?" she asked as she began examining the inscriptions and symbols on it.

"I think it is a book," I answered.

"Oh... Here," she said and shoved into my torso, making me gasp. She proceeded to pick up the two packages and stood up. "Think they are armor?" She asked, holding each in either hand.

"Give them to me. Let me open them this time," I said.

"Hey! Why so?" She said. She looked a bit annoyed at the idea.

"When you opened the armor, it seemed to morph to fit you. Considering I need one, maybe be a bit generous?" I asked.

She snorted and said, "Go ahead. Which one?"

"Give me the tan-coloured one."

She lent me the package which I proceeded to rip open immediately. Just like before, the content of the packet fell apart, making me panic for a second. But immediately after that they wrapped around me and transformed into... clothing? I took a proper look at what I was wearing. Dark green trousers, black leather boots, a tan shaded loosely stitched T-shirt, and no gloves. I have to say, I am a bit disappointed.

"Damn! You are looking sharp my boy!" Urvi commented.

"This is..."

"Disappointing? Yeah. You look like you just walked out of a fashion boutique. But I can't deny that you still look sexy as fuck."

It cheered me up a bit. Maybe it was my level. Sometimes the armor is tied to the level of the player. Perhaps I should have waited until I leveled up a little more. Urvi managed to level up to four in just her innerwear.

"Let's see what is in this," she said and proceeded to tear through the green package. This wasn't cloth like I initially thought. It looked a lot more organic. "It's... soft." She opened it a bit more carefully. What we found inside were three blocks, each was of a different color. Could it be? "What is this?"

"I think it is rations," I said.

"Food?" She pressed on it, and it sprung up like a sponge. "Huh. I think it is bread."

"Well, I guess that is something."

Urvi, however, looked a bit disappointed. "Well, what are going to do now?"

I looked at the tomb in my hand, whose runes and letters allured me. "Do some reading I guess."

"You do that. I am going to go swing my sword around."