The Primal Hunter

As he ran through the forest, telling the others to try and keep up, Hank truly regretted convincing them all to go camping that week. But how could he possibly have known that something as world-shattering as the initiation to some goddamn multiverse could happen?

The only lucky thing was that at least they had all entered the same tutorial. They had entered the tutorial with nine people - Hank, his wife, his two kids, his sister, and her husband and kids, and a long-time mutual friend of theirs.

Out of the tutorial walked only four. Hank, the family friend Miranda, and his two kids. Not that they liked being called kids anymore, his boy Mark being 19 and his daughter Louise at 22.

In the tutorial, they had stuck together initially but had ended up split up due to circumstances out of their own control. They were forced into these trials in groups of five. Due to their class choices, Hank and his wife had chosen to split up, his wife joining his sister and her family.

None of them returned from the first trial.

Now it was just those four. Thrown back to Earth into the middle of a forest that had clearly been altered significantly from before. They had been only a few hundred meters from the road upon the initiation, but now no such road was to be found anywhere. Instead, they found themselves walking through a seemingly endless forest for a bit over two weeks.

They managed to fight off the beasts, most of them not being above level 24. Hank, his trusty axe in hand, easily able to handle them. His son, Mark, a healer who was able to fix any immediate issues. It had gone well at first, with the four of them surviving without losing anyone - until today.

A beast had appeared. One that Hank, even with his race at level 31, couldn’t identify.

[Oakwood Tiger – lvl ??]

He became unequivocally sure that any beast he couldn’t identify was far above his ability to handle from the tutorial. He was powerless against the tiger that was a weird mix of wood and flesh. Yet it hadn’t simply killed them.

They met the tiger nearly three hours ago. They tried to run at first, hoping it would ignore them like most other high-level beasts, but this one was out for blood. It cut them off with incredible speed and attacked them, showing that it clearly was also strong. Hank felt like his arms were about to be torn off from every casual swipe of its barbed wooden claws.

Yet whenever Hank thought he would die, the beast simply switched target and attacked someone else. It only did small wounds, clearly enjoying itself… it was just playing with them.

Hank was furious, but no matter what he did, it proved useless. In the end, their only course of action was just to run.

Louise was also an evolved caster, but her spells did even less to the beast than his own axe. Miranda wasn’t a fighter at all, having focused on her profession instead of class during the tutorial.

He wasn’t entirely clear on her profession, but it was some kind of social type. It did, however, give her some insight into mana and an intuition skill. A skill that had guided their direction of fleeing for the past few hours. Needless to say, Hank was beginning to doubt it.

They ran desperately, encountering several weaker beasts on the way, resulting in even more injuries. Mark was already dangerously low on mana, and Hank could barely keep his legs moving with his nearly depleted stamina.

But suddenly, something changed. The tiger appeared to be unsettled by something. Unsettled enough that it decided to stop playing around and finish off its prey.

as he ducked and blocked with his axe. Despite his efforts, he was still sent to the ground, a large gash on the side of his face where

lucky enough to only receive a gash. His entire right arm was torn to shreds as his axe, and the claw both smashed into

still clear enough to see a bolt of electricity hit the creature from the side. It

the beast. His son was standing beside his sister, right in the crosshair of the charging tiger. Hank’s eyes turned red as he saw his only

without him even having a body to bury. His friends in the tutorial suffered the same fate. The final promise he made to his wife before parting for the last time was to protect their

he could into his one good arm.

into a cloud of bloody mist. The pain was unimaginable, but he remained clearheaded enough to see the axe fly true and strike the tiger midst

the beast straight in its midsection, embedding itself deeply. The impact also made the tiger stumble, missing its charge as

vines sprung from its back, pulled out

off the man who had wounded it. Hank knew it would barely matter either way. His eyes were

He could see the tiger was anxious for

flew towards him from the tiger - one for his head, the other his heart. Unable to

the blow never

eyes once more, he saw the vine less than a meter from his face. Frozen in mid-air, slightly shaking. He saw the tiger trembling for some reason as its eyes focused on something off to the side. Hank

new arrival, but the build made him identifiably male. He didn’t appear to carry

through the mask, focusing on the tiger. Hank felt a cold shiver run down his spine when he saw them. It reminded him

was only a few meters away, whatever froze the tiger stopped. The vines nearly at Hank's eye retracted, but instead of switching target to the new arrival, they merged back into the tiger. And with

get around him but was instead met with a bone-white dagger that looked like a fang. Hank was a bit surprised as he hadn’t seen where the weapon came from, but the beast was even

up once more, trying to block, but like when Hank tried to block in vain earlier, the beast’s struggles

to be their death instead met its own demise. Completely dominated by whomever

be dead, but what about this new arrival? Was he human? Some kind of creature brought by

thought, the person disappeared once more, only to appear right in front of Hank. The middle-aged man tried to shy back in fright, but he could

he was instead presented with a bottle containing a very familiar red liquid

said in a distinctly male voice. One that sounded significantly younger

second arm was entirely missing. He looked up at

followed as the bottle was presented to the man who couldn’t move to accept it. The masked man

still barely open his mouth, allowing the woman to pour the liquid down his throat. Instantly he felt a rush of vital energy enter his body. It was

arm had once been starting to itch and wriggle as a new arm slowly began growing out. His mangled

that would take a while to regenerate, but even that shouldn’t even take an hour from the still overflowing vital energy in his body. He checked his status and, to his surprise, saw that his health pool of around 1800 was entirely

was still dangerously low, and he was exhausted, but he couldn’t quite relax yet. He had to figure out the situation he and his family now found

had managed to stand up. Mark was especially

the help, mister…?” Miranda asked their masked savior,