On the third day, he almost died. It wasn't even his fault this time.
Rob woke up from his nightmares to find that his HP and Stamina were falling fast. The culprit was no mystery; he was coughing up a lung and shivering like a babe in winter. He drank water and ate berries – the non-poisonous ones – to keep his strength up, but nothing helped.
Passive Skill Gained!
Name: Disease Resistance
Prerequisite: Come down with a potentially life-threatening disease.
Description: Helps you fight off nasty microorganisms. Sadly, you won't get EXP from them.
Fuck, what do I have? Dysentery? Malaria? I mean...I keep getting bit by animals with the 'Infected' status but...shit.
Rob made sure he Breathed Deep, and often, his new Passive skill barely keeping his Stamina above water. He wasn't sure how the relationship between HP and Stamina worked, but he had to believe that keeping his Stamina high would help his body fight off the infection. Every little bit helped. Especially when the nearest hospital was a universe away.
Hours passed. Disease Resistance increased to Level 2. His body felt a little less like it had been put through a blender, but the fact that the Skill had ranked up at all meant that his condition was serious and wasn't getting better anytime soon.
Eventually, it reached Level 3. Through a fever-induced fugue state, Rob idly wondered if Disease Resistance would reach a higher level than his actual Level before he died. He started rooting for it to surpass him. The Little Passive Ability That Could.
Thinking was getting harder.
It took the entire rest of the day and night for him to stabilize. Disease Resistance never reached Level 4, the poor thing. Rob bottomed out at 23 HP – those extra points in Vitality he'd put in not seeming like such a waste anymore.
For overcoming various microorganisms endemic to your new surroundings that your Earth immune system had no inborn defenses against, you have been granted 1 Vitality and 1 Endurance!
Hey, a twofer. Rob chuckled. Ow.
At least he had an explanation, vague as it was. Being in a new world meant that he was essentially an unvaccinated newborn, and the alien ecosystem he was living in kept coughing on him. It might not have even been the Infected animals that did the trick. The berries, the water, the air itself – any of it could be a vector he had no way of preparing for. Every disease in Ixatan Forest and beyond could be one his body had never encountered before and would need to build both a natural and Skill-based resistance against.
He couldn't change much about any of that. Berries, water, and air were kind of necessary to live, and it wasn't like he was trying to get bit by rabid animals. He'd just have to keep on trucking and hope that Disease Resistance pulled through again if he caught another sickness.
And get more Vitality. Which meant more Levels.
Rob stalked through the forest, practicing his Swordsmanship as he concentrated on his Hunting Skill. Both were still only Level 1, but they'd have to make do, because wolves weren't going to hunt themselves. The memories of being savaged on his first day in Ixatan were still fresh in his mind, but at the moment, his survival instinct was stronger than his trauma.
His survival instinct which was also telling him to hunt down and do battle with wild beasts that could tear him to shreds.
Certifiably insane logic by Earth standards, but he had to imagine it was commonplace in whatever this world was called. At just Level 3 and with a few paltry Skills, he'd already been able to walk off injuries that would have left a normal Earth human crippled or dead. The staggering potential for power latent within his stats and Skills demanded that he get more EXP as soon as he could. He'd be shocked if this world's society didn't revolve around Levels as a form of status, power, and respect. And while he'd gained a good amount of Experience from the numerous new Skills and Skill increases (thanks, Disease Resistance) he'd accumulated, he was only about halfway to Level 4. Nothing had come close to the amount of EXP he'd gotten from killing that first wolf. On a fundamental nature, this was a world that rewarded slaughter.
So yeah. He could either start taking risks and hope he won, or play it safe until some random bullshit inevitably killed him. It was hardly a choice at all.
Rob spent some time thinking of ways to even the odds against whatever creature he might come up against. Boosting Swordsmanship was an obvious one – he practiced swings without rest as he walked, keeping his Stamina up with repeated Deep Breathing. Unfortunately, Hunting didn't say it gave any damage bonuses against the beasts he hunted, only that it made his quarry a little easier to track. Maybe Identify would help him find a weakness if it leveled up, but he'd been repeatedly using it until his eyes started to prickle and the Skill hadn't leveled yet. It might need to be used on something other than random bits of foliage to make any serious improvement. He did learn that the purple grass was still called grass in this world, though, so he had that going for him.
He hoped that he found something to stab soon. It could take a while, as Hunting was still LV 1, but his legs were getting kind of tired.
For walking more in the last few days than you have in the last month, you've been granted 1 Endurance!
The dopamine hit he received from getting a stat point was mellowed out by the increasing levels of snark that the messages were subjecting him to.
A breeze blew under his nose. It lit up his senses like a Christmas tree, alerting him that something was over there. Rob followed the invisible trail through several winding turns, eventually coming upon a small clearing.
And a target.
Name: Wolf
Level: 8
Status: Infected
The wolf was in the middle of feasting on a rabbit, muzzle coated in red. Its status didn't name it as Frenzied, but after how quickly the squirrel had gone from 0 to 100 in the span of a second, Rob didn't have any delusions that the wolf would be up for some pets and belly rubs.
It was Level 8, two levels above what the first wolf had been. And if Rob remembered correctly, the first wolf had been Emaciated, looking like a thin coating of skin wrapped tightly around a rib cage. This wolf was well-fed. On every level, figuratively and literally, it was stronger.
But Rob had grown stronger too.
He took a quiet step forward, but any fleeting plans for a sneak attack dissolved when the wolf's ears perked up. It spun around, glaring at him with eyes already glowing a deep scarlet.
"You won't understand this," Rob said. "But I apologize for the pent-up aggression I'm about to take out on you." He readied his sword – no longer feeling like an awkward metal club in his hands, but an instrument of war that he could put his trust in – and charged.
The wolf let out a howl that sounded like it had a bad case of strep throat. Its body trembled as it sprouted an extra jaw layered with a row of sharklike teeth that nestled right underneath its lower gums. If Rob had any fucks left to give, the sight might have shocked him into hesitation, but he'd already prepared himself to see some weird shit. He swung for first blood, missing by a hair as the wolf leaped backwards onto a tree trunk, its claws digging in as it hung there upside-down. It eyed Rob with dilated pupils and tensing muscles.
Rob grimaced and retreated a few steps back. The overgrown mutt was fast. He discarded his strategy to put the wolf on the back end with repeated aggression – he would never hit it unless it literally tripped into his blade.
The only reason it hadn't immediately counterattacked and torn Rob's stomach open after his initial attack had left him open was because the beast was still sizing him up. As soon as it judged him, and found him wanting, it would be on him in the blink of an eye.
Maybe I can let him bite me and stab it while it's busy munching. Rob mulled over the idea. I'll call that Plan B. Don't know what Plan A is yet, but it's gotta be more appealing than B.