Deadworld Isekai

Digging was hard. Matt had worked retail and office jobs in his time on Earth, and had occasionally stared wistfully through the window at construction workers or landscapers as they went about their own work. They got to be outside, in the sun. They didn’t have phone calls to make or spreadsheets to fill out. They just got to go zen with a repetitive task, hang out with the dudes, and get stuff done. He had envied them.

Now he regretted every last time he had thought that way. Vitality continued to follow the pattern of not jumping into action to heal him until he stopped actively working on whatever activity was hurting him in the first place, and during the first day he had to take several breaks just to let blisters drain and heal or to let cuts and scrapes close. Digging officially sucked, and he was over it.

What made it worse was that while the shovel he made was passable, it wasn’t anywhere near good. After his first hour, he stopped and added a handle. That took time. Three or four hours in, he had to stop and add a crosspiece to the pole, so he could push better with his feet and spare his arms. That took even more time. But each improvement made subsequent rounds of digging move a little bit faster.

“This isn’t going to work, you know.” The guardian was sitting on a nearby rock watching all of this go down. “And it’s taking forever.”

“How positive.” Matt stabbed the shovel into the ground, climbed out of the hole, and went and sat by her. “You know, if you want this to go faster, I would absolutely let you take a turn digging.”

“I think I’ll pass. Besides, I don’t work like that, unless you have some sort of magic shovel that lets me interact with dirt.”

Matt took a long swig from his canteen, then looked at her carefully. “I’ve actually been meaning to ask you about that. You can’t interact with anything, at all? I’ve seen you walk, so at least you interact with the ground.”

“Nope. I’m supposed to be able to keep up, so I keep up, and you see whatever you need to see for that to make sense for you. I’m not quite a figment of your imagination, but I’m close.”

“So you aren’t real?”

“Not quite that, either. I have a location. Wherever you see me is really where I am. And I can see things you don’t see, although there are some limitations to the kind of things I’m allowed to tell you about, since the system wants me to be a guide, not a scout. It’s all pretty arbitrary, but I do exist outside your brain.”

Digging into the details of the guardian was weird, but she was right that she was mostly limited to guiding rather than being useful in any other way. She could go look at things, but she couldn’t tell Matt many specifics about what she saw until he saw them too. She couldn’t go underground, because there was no reason he would know about things there unless he dug them up. She couldn’t interact with matter at all, so Matt didn't expect any help digging or fighting. And only he could see her, so she couldn’t even be an invincible distraction.

What she could do, though, was pretty useful. Matt began to realize this when the rock fell off his shovel, and he went to retie it.

“Why are you doing that manually?”

“Because… I don’t have an automatic shovel making machine? Doing it by hand is pretty much the only option here.”

“I don’t mean that. You’ve made that shovel before, right? Using instructions from survivor’s instincts? Part of the point of that skill is that you don’t have to do that manually anymore once you’ve made a particular type of object.”

“So I can just command shovels into existence?”

“No, you stupid ass. Just… decide to make the shovel, and stop telling your hands what to do.”

There was a good chance this was a prank, but Matt decided to take a chance on it. And lo and behold, his hands started moving more or less on their own, tying the rock back into place just like it had been before. It was a weird sensation; it didn’t feel like he was being controlled, just that he didn’t have to tell his hands what to do. It was like doing a task he had done a thousand times before, and didn’t have to think all that hard about now.

“Now, if you want to improve the shovel, that’s a different thing. The skill will only automate to roughly the quality level you’ve achieved before. But that’s the basic gist of the thing.”

Ding!

“Oh, dammit.”

“What?”

“I think I got an achievement out of this, which means I’m going to have to thank you for it later.”

“Don’t strain yourself.”

Matt took a look at his notifications.

Survivor’s Instincts - LV2

Your instincts are slightly improved as far as staying alive is concerned. If there’s a wall to climb, you have a better idea of if you can climb it and if there’s an enemy to fight, you are better at estimating your chances of winning. You also have an increased baseline knowledge of survival methods.

You have leveled the skill, and now know and can do a little bit more. Automation aspect of skill improved. Knowledge aspect of skill improved. Judgement aspect of skill improved.

He had forgotten about the judgement aspect of the skill. Looking back, he realized he didn’t get a lot of information about the Clownrats, but definitely had a vibe that he absolutely couldn’t take the Bonecat in a straight fight.

Maybe it works better when the gap between me and the monster is bigger?

The second notification was, true to the system’s usual form, a bit snarkier.

Achievement: [Taking Your Time]

You delayed leveling a level 1 skill long, long past what you’d expect from an average adventurer, and at great risk to your own life. What was that all about? Were you… trying to prove a point?

Reward: +1 WIS

He didn’t love the sarcasm, but he’d take the point in wisdom. He still didn’t feel any smarter, but had to assume that at some point the cumulative effect of mental stats would start to be noticeable in at least some way.

—

Between rebuilding his tools, letting his hands heal and dealing with a system and system guardian who both seemed deadset on being only minimally useful, digging the hole took the better part of a few days. This was even slower than he had expected, partially because the Bonecat was still noticeably out and about. Every once in a while he’d hear it crashing through the trees and have to take cover just in case it came his direction. Whether it was luck or just a lack of motivation on the Bonecat’s part, it never actually came close enough to realize he was there. Matt had to assume there was a timer on that luck, though, and hurried to complete the rest of the project as soon as he could.

The next part of the project was scouting. Being chased by the Bonecat before had put a fear of being trapped deep in his bones. If he had run into any impassible terrain during his initial retreat, he’d be in pieces now. Over the course of several hours, he mapped out enough of the surrounding terrain to know what directions he could run freely in and which directions would lead to him trying to talk down an angry monster before it cut him in half.

By the time he finished the final prep on the trap, it was night. The next day would make or break him, one way or another. He popped a few food cubes and settled down for the night, only to find he couldn’t sleep. The work of setting up the trap had distracted him from the danger of what he was about to try, but now there was nothing keeping him from thinking about what could go wrong in full technicolor detail. It was hours before he finally started to drop off, and the last thing he could remember was surprise that the system guardian was quiet the entire time, as well.

I guess it’s too much to hope that she might be worried too. I’ll ask her about it tomorrow.

—

Sneaking was hard, but not sneaking was almost harder under some circumstances. One of those circumstances was when every instinct he had was telling him that approaching a living, breathing battering ram made out of sharpened bone was not just a bad idea, but also an almost sure-fire method of suicide. He tamped down the instinct, as overpowering as it was. If this thing spotted him, it was actually better for him if it was from further away.

He watched as the thing snuffled around the forest, aimlessly. Suddenly, it stopped. It had caught a scent. Matt’s scent. It turned, saw him, and roared. Then they were both off, ripping through the woods at top speed. Once again, Matt had to face his suspicions that these animals were a little more complex than programmed simulations. The Bonecat was pissed. Where before it had screamed once, now it wailed and snarled every step of the way. Where it had knocked over trees before, now Matt heard them splinter and explode out of its way.

Apparently, it doesn’t like losing.

All that anger translated into extra speed. Matt glanced behind him to see the thing closing the distance on him surprisingly quickly. Earlier than he planned, he started running in a serpentine pattern, putting angles between him and the slow-turning beast. It helped, but not much. The thing was still gaining.

Faster. I have to go faster.

Zigzagging, Matt oriented himself towards the thickest tree growth in his route. The footfalls of the thing had been getting louder for a while, and Matt sprang through a gap in the trees a half-second before he heard the same trees get demolished. The thicker growth still had an effect, though. Matt slowly rebuilt his lead as the thing’s momentum was cut further and further by the trees.

Reaching the edge of the heavy growth, Matt dug deep and put every bit of power he could into his legs. The trees gave way to a clearing that offered no obstacles at all to the Bonecat, and despite Matt’s best efforts, it quickly eliminated whatever space was left between them. Matt heard the footsteps get closer and closer until suddenly, he felt an impact on his back. It felt like a mountain had been thrown at him, and he felt his legs leave the ground as he was catapulted through the air.

All his breath was driven out of him as he slammed into the ground, and as he struggled to his knees, he saw the thing approach then loom over him, blade raised. He heard the beginnings of a whoosh as the blade cut through the air and sprung backwards with everything he had. The thing screamed, raised the blade again, and pushed off the ground towards him. He wouldn’t be able to dodge again.

Then, just before it bisected Matt, it vanished. A pit in the ground opened up underneath the Bonecat, and it plummeted into the hole and out of Matt’s field of vision.