Finally , he decided to waste some water for a quick shower in the trailer bathroom , even though the water was limited . After some intensive scrubbing away the blood caked all over him , the filth was mostly rinsed away . He stepped out of the shower and donned another set of clothes , feeling like a new man . When showering he had also noticed that he seemed to have actually gotten more in shape , with most of this gut gone and his muscles seeming , if not bigger , then harder and more compact than before . It seemed that the stats had some effect on his physical appearance as well . Hopefully , an increase in intelligence wouldn’t make his head larger and larger though .
After a quick breakfast , he was finally ready to head out according to plans he had made yesterday after browsing through the shop . There were a dizzying array of possibilities to choose from when building an outpost , even when most of the options were disabled .
Many of them he could understand or at least somewhat intuit the purpose for using a lifetime of playing video games . There were buildings such as an inn , blacksmith , different types of stores , bank and so on . Most of these required a town though . There was also something he was extremely keen on getting , the teleporter . If he built that he might be able to actually teleport to his hometown in one go .
There was one confusing aspect of the buildings though , which was that there were often hundreds of versions of most of the buildings , especially the commercial ones . Even though they seemed to fill the same function they were of different design and some minor differences in the description . After a while he could only surmise that the different choices represented different factions or planets . It seemed that creating a store wouldn’t actually create some NPC-style beings , but rather move people here from other planets or intergalactic corporations .
There was also a huge amount of supporting buildings that could improve the offense , defense or improve the town in other manners . There seemed to even be some sort of training facility that seemed to be able to slowly improve stat points without leveling . If possible Zac would have gone on a shopping spree , but he quickly realized the harsh reality that roughly 10 000 Nexus Coins would only be able to buy a few of the most basic buildings .
He had formulated a plan yesterday after browsing through his options for hours but needed to explore some more before actually spending the few coins he had .
Zac had seen a hill the day he had been forced to go out to gather firewood , and he planned to scale it to get a better lay of the land . Donned in a fresh set of clothing and his trusty hatchet he once again set out into the woods .
Soon he had walked up the hill , hunkered over to not be spotted by any potential threats . Luckily the hill was filled with lush bushes and even a tall tree at the top , making for some simple protection . Unfortunately the hill wasn’t tall enough to give a complete overview of the surroundings as it turned out , with the crowns of larger trees still obscured the distance inland . Still , he could see his trailer and further on the ocean .
Still , he wanted to see whether he was actually on an island , or if the system had teleported any type of civilization in the vicinity . It would be a bit insane if he lived as a transient mountain man in the trailer if a town was just a few kilometers away .
He swung the axe and embedded it slightly in the tree , and then started climbing it for a better vantage . Zac once again marveled at the improvement of his constitution from his increase in stats . He felt like a gibbon , almost effortlessly dragging himself upwards along the branches with his arms , something that would have been an impossible work-out in the past .
Soon he was almost at the crown of the tree , afraid to continue up any further as the branches seemed inadequate to support his weight . A quick glance around unfortunately realized his fears . It very much seemed that he was on an island without any civilization in sight . However he couldn’t be completely sure , as there was actually a mountain off in the distance . It wasn’t gargantuan , but still large enough to solidly block any visibility of what was beyond . It looked quite odd to have a steep mountain right next to the ocean , but Zac guessed that was what happened when the system pressed the randomizer for a world . The good news that there was land in sight in the distance , though it looked like a few scattered islands , rather than a solid land-mass .
The island (as Zac decided to call it until proven wrong) he was on was huge , and he couldn't properly assess the size . He and his trailer were on the far edge of it , while the ever-shining red beam of light was almost on the opposite side , in a vale halfway between the center of the island and the mountain . He guessed that the reason why he still only had encountered one of the demon dogs was that they mainly spawned scattered around the incursion itself .
Zac didn’t have time to analyze the situation any further , as a branch in the periphery of his sight suddenly exploded into movement and instantly was upon him . Before he had time to adapt to the situation , a brown snake had wrapped itself a few loops around his torso , leaving only the arm he used to hold onto the tree for leverage free . The snake seemed to be over 3 meters long and slightly thicker than his arm .
He immediately felt an intense pressure on his chest , the air leaving his lungs and wounds on his side screaming in protest . Zac strained until his face was red with exertion , but was unable to free his trapped arm at all . The snake had him in a vise , and even with his improved strength he could not get free . Its head slowly rose up towards his , a hiss escaping from its maws .
By now all air had been squeezed out of Zac’s lungs , his consciousness starting to get fuzzy and lights flickered in his sight . Zac knew he was running out of time , it was time for a Hail Mary action . He suddenly let go of the tree with his free hand , grabbed the head of the constrictor and bashed it with all the force he could muster into the tree trunk . The slam obviously had an effect on the snake , as it slightly released him from its grip . With newfound strength from a ragged breath , he slammed the snake’s head twice again into the tree with even more fervor .
However , just as Zac was feeling jubilant about escaping death's grasp he felt the branch he stood on give way , and both he and the still entwined snake came crashing down .
Chapter 11 - Upgrades
Zac woke up with a jerk , which caused a pained groan to escape from his mouth . There was not a single part of his body that didn’t feel battered and broken . A quick look around showed that he was halfway down the hill , his whole body full of scratches . The snake lay lifelessly a few meters away from him , seemingly having uncoupled from him somewhere during the tumble downhill .
Not daring to take any chances due to negligence again , he ignored the screaming protests of his body and dragged himself towards the snake . There was a rock roughly the size of a head on the way which he ripped out of the ground . Finally he arrived in front of the beast , and with a snarl grabbed the stone with both hands and slammed with all power he could gather right in the forehead of the snake . The long body convulsed slightly but seemed not to react further than that . Zac wasn’t done however , and with guttural grunts from deep within his throat he kept slamming the stone down again and again , each time eliciting a wet thud . After a few hits the body’s death throes stopped , but Zac kept going until the bloodied stone finally slipped out of his hands . By then the head and neck was only a mess of broken flesh and brain matter .
The grunts gave way to sobs as Zac collapsed next to the headless snakes , his whole body shaking . He had messed up , that had been way too close . Not finding any more demons the last two days had made him complacent , barely looking around for threats . The Stargazer had even warned him just yesterday about the world changing due to absorbing cosmic energy , but he hadn’t even reflected on what that meant . There shouldn’t have been snakes of this size in the woods where he was , but the energy in the world had not only increased its size and strength but made it more aggressive . Had that been a venomous snake instead of a constrictor he would be a bloated corpse by now .