The Primal Hunter

The night was quiet, far quieter than one would expect from a forest filled with borderline mindless beasts who wanted nothing more than to munch on human flesh. There were no roars, no howls of wolves or hoots of owls. No sounds at all, really, except the breeze rustling the trees and bushes, and the crackling of the bonfire.

The responsibility of the person on watch was quite simple. Keep an eye out for things trying to kill them, and keep the bonfire lit. Jake checked his stamina, seeing it up to 135/140. Nearly maxed out again by around three hours of sleep. It had only been at around half when he went to sleep, regenerating far faster than he had predicted.

The need for sleep being reduced with levels was certainly a possibility, or perhaps the introduction to the system had changed something fundamental that simply made sleep less important. For example, Jake was wondering what would happen if one just chugged down stamina potions whenever it got low if one could stay awake indefinitely.

Shaking his head, Jake got up and took a short walk around the camp, surveying the perimeter of the small clearing. In hindsight, the location of their camp was poorly chosen, to say the least. There were trees and dense bushes all around them, making easy hiding spots for any predators, and not a single direction offered any solid cover from potential assaults.

Jake considered if they should look for a cave or something like that in the morning. Then again, caves also had their drawbacks, as chances are there would only be one entrance… and he could just imagine a beast like the big boar charging through the narrow tunnels, trampling anything in its wake. Yeah, not a pretty picture.

Looking at the trees, it was perhaps possible to somehow make camp up in one of the larger ones? Though that would make having a fire impossible, and he was not completely confident in everybody’s ability to climb said trees.

Thinking about how little activity there was in the forest at this time of night made Jake think that the system or whatever/whoever had designed this tutorial was not completely ruthless. The absence of nocturnal beasts made surviving quite a bit easier, giving them time to sleep and recuperate. Even animals like badgers, which were normally active at night, seemed to only hunt during the daytime.

Jake, however, still had to remain vigilant as he had no solid evidence that there were no beasts out there, still hunting. He could also not forget the other humans of the tutorial. He had seen them on the giant pillar at the start, spread out to all sides. Thinking back on it, they had only been to the left and right, and none in front or behind him. He also couldn’t forget the giant wall off to the back of them.

The space between the pillars was measured in kilometers easily, so it was not surprising that they had not run into other survivors yet. It had only been half a day or so, and while they had been moving for a while, they had not gone far, perhaps only a few kilometers tops. The pace had been slow, and everyone tense and overly careful, even taking some detours to avoid potentially dangerous areas. The direction they had traveled was also directly away from the wall.

He didn’t even know if the other participants in the tutorial all were actually human. He had seen silhouettes, indicating bipedal creatures, but he had no way to know if they just had roughly the same shape as humans, or if they were humans. And quite honestly, he was not sure if he preferred for them to be humans or for them to be aliens, as chances are, they would end up in conflict at some point.

the monotony started getting to him. While sitting still and just keeping an eye out sounds easy, anyone who has worked any kind of night job knows exactly how boring it is. But sadly, reading a book or playing on his phone was not an

likely kept themselves entertained by talking and keeping the other awake and aware. The boredom, mixed with the lack of even

awoken from his stupor once more when he heard rustling from one of the bushes at the far end of the clearing, the furthest away from the bonfire. Jake fixated his eyes on it as the bush kept rustling. He did not feel any sense of danger from the bush as he focused on it, but his instinct nevertheless told him

mainly due to the mental exhaustion of this whole ordeal, so he was

to go right up to it. He

was, a silhouette charged out from the bushes. He couldn’t properly see what it was in the

others, but the sound had barely left his mouth

nearly falling to the ground, barely holding onto the bow with both of his hands. Finally, he got a proper look at the assailant and saw that it was a bearded

their fight into a stalemate. Jake trying to get his bow back and retreat, with

way to use his bow. The others back at the camp had awoken by now, but

do as the axe wielding warrior got closer. He had no time to think, so instead of thinking… he just reacted. Less than a second before the axe smashed his head in, he let go of his bow just as the warrior

of the arrow’s length, managed to hit the axe wielder's eye with an overhead blow, just reaching across his guard. The arrow barely penetrated, but it

his knife. The warrior took a step back and swung his sword once more, but this time there was a slight red gleam around it, as it moved faster and was far stronger. Jakes's attempt to block it was met with severe pain in his wrist as the knife flew out of

senses were stimulated like never before. He saw, no, felt the battlefield. The axe wielder had gotten up once more,

For the first time ever, he completely embraced the feeling of these new, unfamiliar senses. But

the arrow into the man’s hand, making him yell out in pain as he dropped the sword. The axe wielding warrior behind him once more tried to strike him, but he dodged the blow by ducking beneath it as if he had eyes

to finish off the now disarmed man. Jake ran towards him and cut him once across his arms as he raised them to try and block, with the second blow slicing his neck

in the head. Before the disorientated warrior could recollect himself, Jake lifted the sword and stabbed it downwards into the skull of the kneeling man. With his entire weight behind the blow, the sword still ended up only penetrating a few centimeters, but it was more than enough to pierce deep