Chapter 16

There was only one thing to do: grind out levels. Regardless of how he escaped Tenebrous Valley, it was going to be easier if he was stronger. More stats would make everything easier, increase his odds of success, give him a bigger margin for error if he screwed up. With a monstrous earth elemental squatting on his only known exit, he either needed to be strong enough to overpower it or fast enough to outrun it.

That did bring up an interesting point. The pass was his only known exit, but he’d hardly explored the many, many caves in the valley. He’d seen no reason to, knowing they were infested with goblins and albino spider people and God knew what else. However, there was a possibility that they extended past the mountains, that he could walk to freedom that way.

If neither of those scenarios played out, the third and final option he saw was getting some new skills related to mountain climbing and making himself some new tools, then going over the mountains instead of going through the pass. Luke didn’t like that solution though. If one of those behemoth earth elementals was sitting in the pass, there was no telling whether there were more of them up in the mountains. The last thing he needed was to be clinging to the side of a cliff when an elemental popped out of the rocks and took a swing at him.

No matter what he decided to do, more levels was the starting point. He couldn’t run fast enough or long enough to get by all the elementals in the pass. He couldn’t fight his way through all the goblins in the caves. He couldn’t climb mountains at all. So he would need to remedy that situation.

If he was going to be stuck in the valley long-term, he felt it was time to invest some effort into a more permanent camp. He considered the workshop his brother had made out of a hidden pocket in the roof of a cave to be the most viable location, but Curt had also died just outside of it, so there was definitely some risk there.

It was entirely possible a group of goblins had banded together to take down a threat that was too high level and somehow tracked Curt back to his base, then ambushed him. Whatever else they were, they weren’t stupid. Maybe they weren’t smart, but not animals either. Goblins were probably going to be his primary source of XP moving forward, unless he got brave enough to venture back up the pass to fight earth elementals.

He'd gotten a few good chunks of XP from his early kills, but he fully realized that if the elemental had popped up behind him instead of in front of him, he wouldn’t have been able to retreat. It was possible he could have run up the trail and it wouldn’t have chased him, but he had no evidence to support that, or that there wouldn’t be even more elementals deeper into the mountains.

That made him extremely reluctant to go farm elementals for XP. Unless some goblin boss monster showed up, it was probably a much safer tactic to fight goblins. They were easier to kill anyway, even if they did fight in packs.

He snorted and shook his head at that. Earlier that day he was warily moving around the edges of their territory, trying not to get spotted and drawn into an unwanted confrontation. After fighting the elementals though, he felt like he had perspective on how easy goblins actually were to take out. More than that, he’d significantly increased his strength and perception, and gained several new combat-oriented skills.

Luke crossed the dead zone between the trail and the trees with a lot less hesitation than he’d had the first time. Though he was sure there would be goblin scouts coming soon to investigate the noise if nothing else, he didn’t have it in him to be afraid of them anymore. He’d seen something that scared the hell out of him, and goblins just didn’t measure up. He told himself that was a bad mindset to have, that a crossbow bolt through the throat would kill him just as easily as being crushed under a boulder, but it was hard to shake it.

Luke wasn’t ready to call it a day so soon. Once his heart had stopped threatening to pound out of his chest, he was reminded that he was now in the best physical shape probably any human had ever been in, at least anyone from Earth. The last half hour of his life had been scary, sure, but he hadn’t actually been hurt and he had a clear new goal in mind: attack and kill goblins.

“Heh, it’s just like that one- gah!”

Red swooped down, somehow unnoticed despite his newly enhanced perception, to perch nearby and give him what Luke had decided to call ‘the look.’ He translated that look as, “I’m hungry. Go find me something meaty to eat.” Whether or not that was correct, Red was still a higher level and Luke hadn’t yet gone wrong with offerings of raw meat.

“Alright, let’s go find something to eat. I suppose I’m kind of hungry too. What are you in the mood for today? Maybe some of those big squirrels to snack on? Or, oh! How about some rabbit? One of those would be more than enough for the both of us. Yeah, that sounds good.”

There was no way he could have remembered where he’d seen that burrow of man-sized rabbits without [Survivalist] keeping track of it for him. Fortunately, he did have the skill, and he was able to find the burrow with minimal effort. It was proving so useful that he thought he’d invest the AP into ranking it up to the next level. That wasn’t that far off either. He could do that while he was getting lunch.

The burrow was occupied, but only by one adult. It came out bellowing and charged at him, floppy ears streaming behind its head as it lunged forward faster than a train. Luke calmly brought his mace down on its face with one hand and drove it into the dirt. He followed that up with a second blow to the back of its skull, which tore away chunks of fur and bone, and the rabbit monster stilled.

[You have slain Hulking Lepus (lvl 5). 25 XP awarded.]

“You know, usually something that low level ignores me. System, why did this thing come at me like that?”

“Perhaps because you are near its home,” System answered. “Some creatures are quite territorial and will attack enemies with more XP than them despite the difference.”

“More XP?” Luke asked. “Not more levels? Why do I feel like you told me this already?”

“We briefly touched on the topic a few days ago, but you were otherwise occupied by a powerful enemy approaching you. To your question: it is an academic difference, as more XP means more levels, but technically yes, more XP. What you are sensing is the amount of XP you have compared to them, not the actual level itself.”

“Would that ever matter?”

“For all practical purposes, no. I am merely explaining the exact mechanism by which you sense another creature. Functionally, there is no level with an XP requirement great enough that a creature at the beginning and one at the end would not feel the same to you.”

Luke hefted the carcass up and started walking back off through the trees with it. He was limited to the game trails in order to haul it with him, but that wasn’t an issue. His old camp was only half a mile away in a straight line, maybe twice that on the game trail. There wasn’t a lot left there, but he’d left the fire pit and some unused firewood behind.

Red flitted from tree to tree overhead, though it disappeared for a few minutes at a time, only occasionally showing back up to check on Luke. It wasn’t until he got a fire going and had started hacking chunks of meat off the rabbit that Red settled down nearby. It occasionally darted over to the corpse to snap off a chunk of meat and swallow it, which startled Luke more than once and almost sent him over the fire when [Twitch Reflexes] kicked in.

After he’d gotten everything set up, he settled back with a block of wood and his folding knife to pass the time and said, “System, got a question for you.”

“Yes, Luke?” it asked.

“What can you tell me about that huge earth elemental? What level is it?”

“My apologies, I am unable to provide this information.”

“Figured,” Luke said. “Doesn’t hurt to ask though. Okay, is there anything you are allowed to tell me?”

“In regards to the creature you ran from? I am afraid not.”

“How about the goblins? You’ve been decently helpful at navigating. Is there a tunnel out of this valley?”

“There is, but I am afraid it does not take you to where you want to go. I would advise against pursuing it, as it leads through the west side of the mountains and directly into the ocean. You would need many, many times more stamina than you currently possess to hold your breath for the hours or even days necessary to navigate the tunnels once they become submerged.”

Luke stopped fiddling with the wood he was carving and looked over at System. “That’s a possibility?”

“Of course.”

“How long could I hold my breath right now?” he asked.

“In a hypothetical situation where you are fully submerged underwater, but not being threatened or trying to move, I estimate you would be able to go without breathing for about thirty-two minutes, give or take half a minute.”

“Damn. That’s crazy. Are you sure about that?”

“Yes,” System said. “Be aware that the time would be significantly shorter if you were swimming or fighting.”

“Right, obviously. But still. I could barely hold my breath for a minute back on Earth.”

“The accumulated XP has reinforced your body in many ways,” System said. “That is the purpose of your stats, after all.”

“And skills are I guess the mind part of the equation,” Luke said to himself. “Instant knowledge dumped straight into my brain.”

“That is not an inaccurate description,” System agreed.

“Okay, how about this then. What if I wanted to climb over the mountain instead of taking the pass?”

“There are several skills to help with that. Some of them, such as [Survivalist] and [Leatherworking], are already in your possession, though you would be well-served to increase their ranks. You would likely need to increase your stamina significantly as well, both to endure the cold and to go longer periods without food and water.”

“What about monsters? Are there any up in the mountains?”

“There are many things living up there. Quite a few of them would be able to easily kill you at your current level.”

“Fuck me,” Luke swore. “So that pass is the only realistic way out, and it’s blocked by a sentient hill.”

No matter how he moved forward, more levels were going to be essential. That was going to be true no matter what. Getting out of Tenebrous Valley was only the first step. He still had to make it all the way to the God Machine, and he didn’t figure that was going to be an easy trip. At least he wasn’t on a time limit.

“Wait, I’m not, am I? System, is it going to be a problem if it takes me a long time to get to the console at the God Machine?”

“No, Luke. The console has existed for thousands of years. It is extremely likely that it will survive undamaged for many decades to come.”

“Good, so I’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Point of fact: you have at most eight or nine decades before you expire of natural causes.”

“…yes. Thank you, System.”

“You are most welcome, Luke.”