Setup
The wind rustles the leaves of the evergreen trees in the small forest. A sudden noise startles Liam awake, almost making him fall from the tree branch he was on. Disoriented, the young man takes in the situation. He's in a tree, and a boar is rummaging around its base, as the feeling slowly comes back to his wings, he remembers. "Oh, right, this is my life now." Now a bit more awake, he remembers that he was supposed to be hunting, being one of the few that volunteered for the job as well as being used to it. Memories of the hours spent farming in the game briefly passed through his mind, but he didn't have time for nostalgia now; his trap was working. The boar was cautiously approaching the tree, lured in by some orange peels. The instincts of a wild animal are not to be underestimated as the sounds in the branches halt its advance, its poor eyesight, however, doesn't allow it to spot the angel. Once the animal gets into range, Liam mutters a spell under his breath firewall.
A ring of fire ignites around the boar following the angel's outstretched finger; the animal panics. Another spell fire bolt, it hits the boar on the side, causing it to run in the opposite direction into the flames. A dull sound resonates in the air as the boar hits a tree head-on, blinded by the fire and guided by the strategic hit, the last hits come from below holy arrow, the hind legs of the boar buckle and break, the animal now unable to move far. The angel in the tree observes the scene dispassionately, his plan went exactly as predicted but there is no pride to be had in outsmarting an animal, as the fire damage slowly finishes of the grounded boar Liam reaches into his dark wing and retrieves a sheet of bark, he heats his finger and starts using it to write on the bark, a research bar appears in his field of vision, accompained by warnings and penalties that he simply ignores. Some time later, the forest is quiet again, the angel stores the bark-note into his wing and glides down to the now corpse.
"The EXP is trash even like this, but the village does need food. Maybe Sephi can raise it at least." After checking how burned the corpse is, the angel drapes a wing over it to store it, casting a quick purify on it to avoid Yaofan nagging him about the unclean kill. His method was optimized for multitasking, so it was inherently better, he was sure of that, for now at least. Cleaning up the area a bit, Liam considers going back to his post. The bait is still untouched, but the smell of smoke and burnt flesh may scare away other prey. "How I wish I had wind magic already, then again, if I had that I wouldn't need to use it like this, I could just get a cleaner kill." Deciding that the spot had been lost for now, the angel gathers the remaining bait and lifts off the ground, maintaining altitude just above the treetops. "This is the third boar today, it should be enough. Now I can experiment a bit without any nagging." Liam quietly surveys the forest, searching for appropriate test subjects.
Something catches the eye of the young man, a grey blob of sorts. Upon closer inspection, it looks like a sleeping wolf. "It's hard to say at this distance, but it seems too big for a normal wolf, but also too small for a dire wolf. Must be juvenile, perfect." With a target in sight, the angel soars straight up, the clear weather allowing a stable ascent without too much wind, optimal conditions. He stops, slightly winded but still stable. Even if he were to run out of stamina, he could still glide safely down, so he remains calm. "Time for my good old friend to do its job. This was much easier with a targeting system." Magic swirls around his hands, two spheres of energy of different elements stabilize then combine, as his hands come together, a blade takes shape. When the spell is done, the weight almost makes him fall; the equip conditions are not met. With just a moment more to stabilize, Liam takes aim and simply lets go of the sword, blade down.
Liam slowly descends after the sword, taking his time and looking at the scenery. The result is out of his control for now, so there's no rush. About halfway down, a window appears in his view.
Level Up!
Gained 6 stat points
Gained Data Corrupted
Congratulations!
"What? I'm not even supposed to get a Skill at level 2. Whatever, the important thing is that this means it worked, I can think about the bugs later." The angel allows himself to fall faster, slowing to a glide when he gets close to the trees, looking for the site of impact. A couple of branches are missing from the tree under which the wolf was sleeping, singed in the places they touched the blade. The wolf instead lies dead, the sword firmly lodged in its skull and a good portion of the ground underneath. "That was lucky, it probably wouldn't have died if I had hit it anywhere else." The angel attempts to put the wolf in the inventory, but the sword is stuck, preventing it from being gathered. Looking at the sun almost setting on the horizon, he decides to go for the easy solution, mostly to avoid being yelled at. With a wave of his hand, the sword turns to light and fades away. The wound left behind, half cauterized, reveals dark purple blood. "*That's worrying, it's a bit too close to camp for a corrupted creature. I'll purify it later." Once again, his wings drape over the corpse, making it disappear.
"Time to go home."
The flight to the village from the forest isn't long, but an almost full inventory does make it more tiring, so the angel stumbles a bit on the landing and stops to catch his breath. The sun has almost set, the village is preparing for the night, but the atmosphere is strange. Instead of the quiet and relaxing feel he normally gets when back from hunting, the air feels tense, the people shuffle from one place to the next, watching over their shoulders. Confused by the strange mood in the air, Liam stretches one of his wings to stop a random villager in his path, who proceeds to let out a startled half-scream. "Wha! What happened?!"
"Hey... Jim, where's Yaofan?" The angel says, accessing his mental database of game NPCs to remember his name.
"The storage, maybe? How would I know, you're the one that finds her when she disappears." The villager is clearly tense and a bit saddened.
"I should have expected that, with her stealth, a random villager may even forget she exists. What happened? Why all the tension?"
"The miners got attacked, nobody knows what it was, but it was horrible."
"Unknown monster? I doubt it; the miners are not the most reliable source on that. Don't worry, I'll take care of it." With a flap of his wings, Liam was gone.
"What!? No you can't..."
From the sky, finding the vagrant was surprisingly easy; she hides better normally. Descending close to the tent, Yaofan was coming out of, the angel greeted her like it was routine by now.
"Hello Yaofan, I bring food!" Liam spreads his dark wings, and three boar corpses fall to the ground. "And assorted materials, you know, like usual."
Yaofan sighs at the familiar display. "You know you don't need to do this; there's no need to show off. Just put them in the stockpile, I'll get to them later."
The angel gathers the corpses again. "That was too simple, something's wrong. So... What did I miss? I kinda fell asleep while hunting."
With the resigned expression of someone who was clearly asked the same question all day, the vagrant answered. "An attack on the mine, we lost some of them. The monster is unknown; I never heard of it, at least. The survivors are resting; they will probably get a cold. I need to think of a plan. You go and see if you recognize the monster with that encyclopedia in your head."
"Is it a poison monster? Giving people a cold is definitely a new one, even for me."
"That's unrelated; they were just being dumb and played in the river too long."
"Ah, it's Taro, isn't it? I saw him training his Abilities there. He kinda gets in a trance sometimes, I almost mistook him for an NPC. Gotta admire the dedication."
After a look of annoyance she moves on. "The monster is a Wendigo, apparently. Remember that you're not level 100 anymore before you run off to fight it."
"Well, neither are you, wandering princess. Let me remind you that fighting against the odds is my field of expertise. I am beating the system 2-1 and am about to get a third point."
"Just be careful, now, if you'll excuse me..." Just as Yaofan starts turning away, Liam interrupts her with a wing.
"I have another thing, it may be important." The wolf corpse falls from his outstretched wing.
"Impressive, you killed a wolf with a weapon you don't meet the requirements of." Sarcasm tints her voice. "Why are you showing me?" The vagrant clearly had enough shit for the day.
"It's not a normal wolf; it shows signs of corruption of sorts. It could just be a wolf in the process of evolving, or it could be something worse. It was getting late, so I didn't investigate but I can get there pretty easily."
"Fine, I'll take it, it's better materials than boars. Now please, tell me you're done, I need to sleep."
"Like always then, good night, wanderer." The angel smiles and waves, the vagrant glares warily as if expecting more problems, when none appear, she starts walking away. "The survivors are resting, so I guess meeting them now would be bad, on the other hand..."
Liam looks to the tent, wet clothes hang on a makeshift line on the outside, with a gesture and a muttered word, a spell activates purify. Taking out the bark-note from his inventory, the angel starts walking away as he writes on it in scorch marks.
"I guess it's time to come up with a plan then."