Raven sits in his camp slowly cooking the stingray and processing the rest of the meat to be smoked later when a thought strikes him “why do I get exp from killing creatures but not from fishing what is the limit to what gives EXP and what doesn’t I wonder. Very strange.” Once done Raven eats his fill and stores the rest of the meat in his room on a rough dry rack he pieced together by the pond. Getting up and ready again as the day is still young he decides he will try his luck one more time at the lake, while he does have a good stock of food it wont last forever and who knows if this planet has winters or not. Headed back out he makes it half way to the lake when he catches movement out of the corner of his eye to his left, looking over he sees something duck down in the tall grass but clearly its tail is fully visible looking much like his own but far smaller. Raven draws his bow knocking an arrow and taking aim, a hiss comes from the creature and its tail starts swaying side to side, Raven looses an arrow slamming into the creature hit barks and runs at high speeds away from Raven as he knocks another arrow. Waiting for a while the creature does not come back so he decides to walk over to where it was, when he finds where it was trying to hide he finds a hand sized blood spot on the ground, with a sigh Raven starts to follow the direction the creature went as he does not want to leave the creature to suffer if that was a fatal hit best to put it out of its misery now instead of having it suffer.
After ten minutes of following the foot prints pressed down grass and blood marks Raven comes up to a flat rock leaning onto a hill creating a small shallow cave, looking within Raven spots the critter immediately, its a bloody raptor and not the proper looking ones but the ones from those old dinosaur movies where they thought they had scales and not feathers. The only difference to those movie ones and this one is that it is only as high has his hip but still has all the teeth and claws. Knocking another arrow Raven fires it at the prone dino hitting his mark direct in the lungs the dino flinches then goes limp. “You have killed a level one Raptor due to your level you gain no experience” With a sigh Raven walks towards his kill looking it over. Deciding its going to take to much time to dress it here he stuffs the over sized lizard in his bag and looks around the cave finding a grassy bedding area with four eggs within, deciding not to waste them he takes them as well. Heading back to his camp to process the raptor Raven heads out, making it back to his camp without any issue breaking down the dino as skilled as he can trying to maintain the hide in hopes to maybe replace some of his cloths as they are damaged and stained but having no idea how to do any of that Raven just hopes he can figure it out.
Fleshing out the hide Ravens not sure what to do next so he leaves it on his drying rack near the fire so it at least gets some smoke to kill any bacteria hoping that will help. Once done working the leather he finds he has a piece about the size of his chest possibly workable into something later, but with no skill this is going to be a labor filled with errors. A few hours go by and Raven has thoroughly destroyed the leather achieving nothing and only leaving scrapes of weak leather behind he decides to put them in his garbage pile for now he will feed it to the slime later, just because he has the protection zone doesn’t mean it’ll work no sense risking something big coming for an easy meal. Collecting his waste including the left overs of the raptor and some other debris he had laying around putting it in the cart and sending it down to the slime it takes only a minute and its all broken down and gone. Going back to his camp he sets the four Dino eggs by his bed for the time being as he doesn’t wish to eat them right now, they will make a great breakfast. Deciding he has tempted fate enough today he works on his tools for the rest of the day.
Waking up the next morning Raven hears a squawk come from beside his bed, looking over he finds one of the eggs has hatched and eaten the other three eggs that don’t seem to have been fertilized. Looking around for the baby dino he finds It quickly jumping onto his drying rack trying to eat what is left of the stingray a large amount of it already missing. With a shout Raven jumps up grabbing one of his daggers and rushing towards the baby Raptor, as he comes up on it the raptor turns to Raven and squawks again tilting its head to the side and wobbling side to side slowly. Squawking again the raptor tilts its head the other way looking at Raven expectantly when Raven just stands there baffled as to why its not trying to eat him the Raptor lets out a light hiss and goes back to trying to get the rest of the fish. Raven steps forward grabbing what's left on the drying rack “this is mine you little shit get your own food, you cleaned me out in one night while I slept that food could have lasted me day! Where the hell are you even putting it there's no way you ate it all?” The Raptor squawks again jumping towards Raven as he holds the left over fish, managing to get its teeth onto a piece hanging from his grip it tears off a chunk and swallows it without chewing tilting its head back and swallowing it whole. “Well that was gross” Raven says trying to push the raptor away with his feet. The baby jumps up a couple times squawks again rocking its head side to side then seemingly forgets about Raven curls up into a ball and goes to sleep. Raven stands there dagger in hand and fish in the other hand “what the hell am I supposed to do with this thing when it gets bigger its going to try to eat me” currently no larger than a cat its claws while sharp don’t seem to be to much of a threat. Deciding he doesn’t feel like killing the baby he picks it up and puts it outside the tunnels outside his zone of control maybe if it has a chance it will leave.
Having to replace what food he had since the baby raptor cleaned him out other than the raptor parent he still had on the rack which didn’t seem to interest the dino Raven decides its time to go fishing again. Headed back to the lake he gets to the sandy beach with no issue, but once there he does notice large prints in the sand but sadly its hard to tell what kind of creature left the tracks, the size of Ravens chest he really does not want to meet this creature, Moving away from the tracks and down the shore line a little from where he usually fishes he casts out. After an hour wait there's a light pull on his line and he gives it a pull instantly pulling a yellow and black fish from the water the size of his palm. With a grin he dispatches it adding the fish to his bag and continues to fish. A few hours go by and Raven manages to catch four more fish of the same size he decides that will be enough for today and starts heading back to his tunnel. As he comes to his tunnel he finds the raptor is not where he left it, with a sigh Raven heads into his tunnel to finish cleaning the fish and eating when he hears claws clacking on stone. Entering his room he finds the raptor on top of his bed looking at him with its head tilted looking to his drying rack he finds only the other raptor meat remaining the last of the stingray gone.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Raven growls drawing his dagger and storming up to the raptor on his bed anger in his eyes, the raptor jumps once and opens its mouth tilting its head back while keeping an eye on Raven. Raven stops just staring at the dino “what in the hell? You think I'm going to feed you is that it? You just ate twenty pounds of stingray in one day how the hell are you still hungry? Your the size of a cat!” the raptor remains in place head tilted back and mouth open but gives a loud squawk in reply. Tilting its head in question the raptor eyes Raven and with a sigh Raven pulls a fish from his bag giving it to the raptor. Swallowing it whole the raptor trills in delight looking at Raven directly now when a system message appears “congratulations on bonding a raptor what would you like to name it” Raven blinks at the message “oh what fresh hell is this? Bonding you? What does that even mean? Well let me think of a name. Oh I know how about Kemo, because you’ll be the slow painful death of me… that sounds like a perfect name for you.” Trilling in delight the raptor now known as Kemo does a spin in place and hops once. “You like the name… of course you do…” Kemo rushes over to Ravens bed laying down in his covers and instantly falling asleep. “You know you could be cute if you weren’t going to grow up to be a giant lizard killing machine…” Remembering all the movies in his past life he watched of over sized raptors and how devastating they were sending a chill down his spine.
Cleaning the fish and cooking them over the fire Raven eats his dinner leaving the bones in a pile with the guts, maybe the murder machine will clean up his messes from now on. Doing his daily chores cleaning maintaining and trying to make anything useful to help his day to day life before trying to go to bed shoving the baby Raptor off his bed and going to sleep. Waking a short time later he finds Kemo laying on his chest curled in a ball fast asleep, with a sigh Raven decides to let it sleep and goes back to sleep.
The next morning Raven decides its time to do some exploring of the other tunnels in his area maybe he can find something useful, packing up his gear and heading out he finds Kemo at the entrance to his tunnel waiting for him. “ No you stay here its dangerous out there and your my emergency food supply since you ate everything else. Kemo squawks but Raven shakes his head no and points back to the tunnel, with its head hanging low Kemo walks back to Ravens room. “Ok that thing is kinda cute in a could kill me in my sleep kinda way…” Raven chuckles. Headed to the closest tunnel only a ten minute walk from his own he approaches the cave, looking in it seems to slowly go up the mountain with a few turns so he heads up the rocky path.
After half an hour of walking around in this tunnel he finds a small room in the room there is a skeleton of what appears to be a human, next to the body a rotten leather bag and some rotten clothing on the skeleton as well as a dagger in their hand. Looking to the bag raven pulls out a book that seems to have been protected some what from decay, the cover is water damaged slightly, made of leather there was some image on it but it has long faded opening the book he sees its written in English so he starts to read. The book seems to be a journal of a traveling merchant trying to go from Terminus to another port town in the north by foot called Gallen where he was to meet his ship and depart for the human capital to report on the findings in this new land to their king and to inform them of anything of vale found in the land on his travel. It seems he was dropped off at Terminus by his ship that then went on a salvage run on a sunken ship in the north once they were done they were to meet in the north once the merchants job was done. It seems while he was traveling the lands he got sick and a rainstorm forced him into the cave where he stayed till he died of exposure. His last remarks in the book is that he could hear something deeper in the cave so he dared not venture further in his weakened state having lost all his gear feeing from monsters and the storm on his trip.
Deciding to take the book as this is the first time he has seen paper in this world and the dagger, leaving the bag and clothing as they are falling apart. Looking the dagger over it appears to have a slight blue glow to it Raven figures that means it has some magic ability but unable to determine what it is he puts it in his bag and decides to carry on into the cave following the tunnel deeper. After a short ten minute walk Raven finds himself coming to another room this one twenty feet by twenty feet with a rather low ceiling of seven feet high, walking into the room he sees something on the other side of the room what looks to be a beetle digging at the rock, this beetle is the size of a car wheel when Raven notices it he draws his bow and arrow knocking and loosing in one fluid motion without hesitating, the arrow strikes the beetle and bounces off its hard carapace, Turning towards Raven the beetle clicks and clacks at him rubbing its head on the ground when it curls into a ball and starts to quickly roll towards Raven. Jumping out of the way as the beetle zips by Raven slamming into the stone wall with a loud crack, Raven drops his bow drawing his sword and stabbing at the beetle but again just bouncing off its armor Raven gulps. The Beetle turns towards Raven again curling into a ball and shooting towards him with some unknown force propelling it. Raven manages to dodge it once again and the beetle slams into the wall again with a loud crack this time he can see sparks shoot from the wall, the beetle uncurls and turns to Raven yet again when he decides to punt the beetle as hard as he can his foot slams against the beetle knocking it onto its back and breaking two of Ravens toes. With a pained grunt Raven steps forward and stabs down at the beetle piecing the stomach of the beetle it writhes in pain curling around the sword and dying with a final clack from its mandibles. “You have defeated level two iron beetle due to your level you gain no exp”
Raven sighs looking at the bug on the end of his sword finally in full detail, it has hand sized mandibles gray in color its carapace hard as iron deciding the shell could be useful he cuts it off the insect putting it in his bag and looking around for any other tunnels but not finding any he decides to head out. Once he reaches the exit he hears something in the distance, a loud thud echoes through out the area from the jungle in the distance. Looking to the jungle he can see trees shaking as something moves within the tree line, something big strong and having large claws. “Is that a fucking T-Rex, give me a god damn break why does everything have to be from a horror movie… where's the nice fluff… never mind… damn Monty Python knowing this place rabbits will have sharp teeth and red beady eyes…” watching the T-Rex roam the forest tree line he can see it look his way a few times and smell the air so it for sure knows he’s there but as it cant see him it doesn’t seem to interested in looking for him… yet.
Once the dinosaur is out of sight Raven moves on to the next Tunnel deciding this wasn’t enough adventure for him for today and in desperate need of knowledge and gear he decides to risk it. Finding another tunnel in short order this one a steep path deeper Raven carefully makes his way down the rubble covered path. After making it down the rubble pile he comes to a Cavern the ceiling pass what his dark vision will allow him to see and the room far larger than anything he has ever seen before, the air is damp and the cave smells of dust mold and a slight hint of death.