Deadworld Isekai

The claw slowly rose out of the soil, catching the sun as it extended upward. It was oddly clean, as if the dirt had acted as a scrub without sticking to it. The sharp inner edge looked as sharp as a knife.

Soon, it was more than a claw. Where the claw ran out, the foot began, and the Bonecat's massive paw bent downwards as it planted itself and prepared to pull itself free from its intended grave.

Oh shit, oh shit. Matt was beginning to reconsider his brave guy die-with-your-boots-on stance on not running. Faced with the enormity of the blade, starving to death on an island was starting to sound a whole better. Even the guardian was affected by it.

“Shit, Matt. For what it’s worth, I actually am kind of sorry for what’s about to happen.”

Matt gulped, then reached down and unsheathed his knife. He wouldn’t have a chance against the thing, but he was going to keep trying. He took a deep breath and readied himself for the rest of the monster to emerge.

But it never came. Matt's eyes stayed glued to the exposed leg. Everything was still. Even the guardian stayed quiet and stared at part of the Bonecat sticking above the ground.

Minutes passed without anyone moving.

“Holy shit,” the guardian said.

“Holy shit,” Matt agreed.

Ding!

Achievement: Holy Shit

That thing should have absolutely demolished you. You don’t have a single ability that was meant for this situation, and you don't have a single party member to help complement your skills. The fact that you didn’t die is insane. I'm not going to lie, usually we break out the tape and look for glitches in situations like this. But you won fair and square, so here are the maximum rewards I can give you at your current level.

Rewards: +1 all stats, [Survival of The Least Fit] title, 10x trap spikes, +4 Class XP

Matt had put together a trap with several elements, all of which had a chance to kill or neutralize the Bonecat. The Bonecat proved to be more tenacious than any of the elements alone. But together, they were a lot more dangerous than the sum of their parts. Matt had expected them to kill almost anything when he first built the trap.

The fact that the Bonecat had almost survived was a testament to the sheer terror of the thing. But it had died. And Matt had squeaked out a win at the finish line.

Probably a win, at least. He was honestly afraid to check.

Matt didn't move a muscle until a small bag materialized and clattered to the ground. He assumed it was the trap spikes, but it kind of didn't matter anymore.

“Aaarrrrhhhh. Yes. Yes! Screw you! Bonecat! I got you!” Matt let loose a series of noises that were just bundles of emotions. He danced around on the dirt, and even gave the blunt side of the claw a few kicks. Generally, he was making a fool of himself.

“Matt! Dumbass! It might not be dead. Matt! Stop it!” The guardian's voice rang out amid Matt's celebration. Looking over, he saw her staring at him with what was unmistakably fear and worry.

Oh, that’s sweet, he thought, she’s incorporeal and still afraid.

“No, it’s okay. I got a system message. It’s really dead.”

“What? How?”

“Huh? I mean… it was under there for minutes. You might not need to breathe, but it does. I guess it was enough.”

For a moment, the guardian couldn't come up with a retort. Finally, she squeezed out, “You lucky asshole. Do you know how lucky you are?”

During the guardian's pause, Matt restarted his “I win” dance, and responded to her between wild gyrations, “So what? I'm lucky. I don't care! I won! Woooooo!” He tried to find a phrase to describe his happiness. It must have been what soldiers felt after a long hard battle. He had prepared himself for death, and received life. There was no better feeling.

“You idiot. I still don’t believe it.”

As if on command, the Bonecat corpse started dissolving into nothingness. Matt kept dancing, kicking the exposed paw as many times as he could. Eventually, it blinked out of existence, and Matt barely avoided getting buried in the resulting cave-in. Scrambling out, he saw the guardian rolling her eyes so far back that he worried she might hurt herself.

“You idiot.”

“So what? This is a major triumph of the ingenuity of man.”

“What ingenuity? You buried the turd. Even a cat can do that.”

“Hah, that’s a sick burn. Good job.”

Matt could have sworn that the guardian's face almost broke into a smile. The edges of her mouth twitched upwards in the beginnings of a non-malicious, un-sarcastic smile. Before it could form, the smile was gone.

The dungeon system chose that moment to finally catch up to recent events.

Ding!

Dungeon Objective Achieved!

[Stranded But Not Alone]: You managed to kill the Bonecat, alone. That shouldn’t be possible for your class or level, but you did it while incurring only minimal injuries. Bonus objectives rewarded.

Objective: Eliminate Bonecat 1/1

Bonus Objectives: Solo Clear, Dominant Performance

Reward: Low-Grade Dungeon Loot Selection, Survivor’s Multitool, +4 Class XP

Suddenly, a small stone pillar much like the entrance stone to the dungeon rose from the earth, dramatically rumbling as it did. It startled the hell out of Matt for a moment before he realized it wasn’t the second coming of the Bonecat.

“Guardian, what the hell is that?”

“A reward plinth. Some dungeons have them. It’s a design thing. You don’t always see them, but given the kind of clear you managed, the dungeon probably thinks you deserve a little more showmanship.”

Before he approached the plinth, Matt wanted a little more information. Now that he had gone through the process before, he knew that his choice of rewards would depend not only on what he wanted, but also on who he was. And he had been changing a lot lately.

Matt Perison
Level 3 Survivor
Class XP: 5/20

HP: 55
MP: N/A
STAM: 35

Assignable Stat Points: 2
STR 7
DEX 11
PER 9
VIT 11
WIS 8
INT 6

Class Skills: Survivor’s Instincts (LV2), Survivor's Combat (LV2), Eat Anything (LV2)

Leveling had been a given at this point. But seeing survivor’s combat and perception both advance, Matt also realized that he had missed at least one accomplishment during his battle.

Achievement: Watchful Combat

You came out on top after spending an extended amount of time observing an opponent, both during and outside of combat. An expert is constantly looking for weaknesses to exploit. Score one for the observant, thoughtful types!

Rewards: Survivor’s Combat advancement, +1 PER

At this point, Matt was feeling pretty well rewarded, even before getting to his official dungeon rewards. He pretty clearly wasn’t on the “almost immediately overpowered hero” Isekai path, but every increase in stats was noticeable and significant.

Between all his recent efforts walking and his increased VIT and DEX stats, he was now at a level that would have been considered insanely fit in his old earth life. He was even able to outrun a big monster, even if it was just for a little while. His wounds healed faster. He could see what was coming better. It wasn’t superpowers, but it all added up to much-needed survivability.

With all that done, Matt walked over to the plinth to take a look at the rest of his prizes.

Reward Selection

In addition to your Survivor’s Multitool bonus reward, you are entitled to a section from the following list of low-grade loot.

Reinforced Survivor’s Garb Survivor’s Trap Kit Survivor’s Battle Knife Survivor’s Dowsing Rod

The survivor’s trap kit immediately caught his attention, and he hurriedly zoomed in on the description.

Survivor’s Trap Kit

This trap kit has everything you need to make someone's day a lot worse. Do you want barbs? We have barbs. Do you need better rope? We have rope. How do you feel about spikes? Because there are so many spikes in this thing. Just so, so many.

The survivor’s trap kit also slowly replenishes lost or broken supplies, making it much easier for you to avoid running out.

That was big. Really big, actually. Matt had been hamstrung in all of his traps by needing to make do with various components that he could salvage from the environment. This would solve much or all of that problem.

The only thing that kept him from selecting it immediately was the pack of spikes he just got. It didn’t do nearly as much for him as this pack might, but it did solve some of the same problems. Even though the pack sounded tailor-made for keeping him alive moving forward, he was willing to look at the other options before deciding.

The survivor’s garb piece still sounded nice, but it wasn’t vital at the moment. That left the battle-knife next on the list.

Survivor’s Battle Knife

Some knives stab, and some knives slash. The survivor’s battle knife is not that polite or elegant. It lops. The battle knife’s weight is shifted towards the front, making it something between an axe and a short sword. This lets you detach limbs as easily as you clear brush out of your way, and does so in an easy, swing-as-hard-as-you-can sort of way that doesn’t require much refined skill.

Matt was imagining this knife was similar to Khukris back on earth. For the types of fights he was getting into, this made a lot more sense than the assassin's dagger from before. People would quit fighting after getting a hole poked in them, but monsters would mostly panic and fight harder. Taking off a limb or a head was a better option.

Still, Matt felt like he should treat melee combat as a last resort. Things like the battle knife and the armored garb were nice and in a better situation, he’d have taken them first without even thinking about it. But here on burned-out Gaia, his priorities had to be different.

That left the underwhelming sounding dowsing rod. He queued up the window.

Survivor’s Dowsing Rod

A staple of treasure hunters, the dowsing rod helps you find things. If you approach an anomalous object that doesn’t belong in its immediate environment with the rod in hand, it will begin to vibrate. The vibrations will increase the closer you get to the object, allowing you to home in on an odd findable you otherwise might miss.

If Gaia was still alive, there was no way that Matt would take this. And if his game experience was any guide, good loot always came from dungeons. If it wasn't for his unusual survival needs, Matt would be building out his ability to hack and slash monsters in the support of a party, and he would have been unbelievably happy about it.

Even with his weird needs, the trap kit just seemed like a better call. But the more he thought about it, the more he distrusted himself. Did it seem like a better call just because he thought it was cool? In the background of his mind, he could feel survivor’s instincts telling him that he didn't need more traps.

There had been close calls, but the traps he had made so far had worked. Better spikes and ropes would not have helped with the Bonecat.

In fact, more than anything else, what helped his fight with the Bonecat was his state of being fully hydrated and a full stomach. He was in peak condition and not collapsed from lack of nourishment in a post-apocalypse desert somewhere.

In better times, the dungeons would have been his goal. He would have done everything he could to optimize taking down as many of them as possible. These were not better times. He was surviving.

As much as it pained him, he had to take the dowsing rod. There was an entire ruined world to scavenge in, and he had no idea how much useful garbage he had missed already. Like it or not, he needed a better way of living off the dead, inhospitable land.

But, he still had one thing to try. Stepping back from the plinth, Matt raised his hand at it and mentally mustered every bit of authority that he used to command the system guardian. Using his most authoritative voice, he boomed out his order.

“System: Give me better loot.”