(Book 1 Complete!) Side Quest [Isekai / LitRPG]

Logan clutched the fruit in both hands, and held it at arms length, pure adoration filling his eyes. Softly, he brought it in for a loving, grateful kiss. "Thank you, you sweet, beautiful fruit."

Purple, slightly waxy skin reminiscent of a plum protected the fruit's exterior. The inner pulp's texture was closer to a persimmon, and the taste fell somewhere between that of a watermelon and a pomegranate.

Basically, it was divinity incarnate. That could just be Logan's famished stomach talking, but it banished his hunger pains and dehydration-induced migraine.

Neither too sweet nor too tart, the drakla melon had a meatiness that was satisfying in a way no vegan meal had ever filled him. Refreshing juice dribbled down his chin in thin rivulets, and he quickly repositioned it to avoid wasting any of the heaven-sent succor.

He ate the entire thing right down to the central pit, which he promptly chucked into the woods upon finishing. He wasn't completely full, but the melon was a vast improvement compared to gray cave moss, which was the only other thing he'd had so far. While the cave ingredient had its value for healing, it did nothing to sate hunger.

With a laugh, he looked down and regarded himself. He had lost his shirt in the cave. Sticky droplets of nectar had meandered down in glistening ribbons over his small potbelly. The left side of his pajama pants was torn to shreds up to his knee, and the right hem at his ankle was all tattered and flapping. His improvised foot bindings were dirty and starting to bundle at the arch of his foot, and even when he tried to stretch the fabric wider it just gathered at the center again. In his hunger, he hadn't noticed how ridiculous he looked.

"I need some new clothes." Fortunately, temperate weather held steady in the area, but the sun was sinking. He didn't really know where he was or what else might be in these woods. He didn't even know if this was the same day since he had first woken. Multiples times he had passed out, but while his hunger and thirst had been real, he suspected it was still within his first 24 hours… assuming this world used the same time measurements as back home.

With some of his immediate needs satisfied, he could now pay more attention to safety. "I'll need to find a place to camp soon, and it wouldn't hurt to check if there's more unblighted melons nearby."

The fruit all around this spot had been the cleanest. Also up ahead, a promising cluster of trees beckoned him, with minimal signs of blight marring their trunks. If he was going to spend the night in the woods, he would rather tuck himself against less blighted trees, anyway.

He also opened his ears for any signs of predators. Up to this point, he had stomped his way through the underbrush of fallen twigs and rotted roots. How many animals might he have announced his presence to?

As quietly as he could, he stalked to the healthy-ish trees.

His soundless tread made him beam with pride. Would the System award him with a stealth skill? That would make him feel better.

However, no such recognition came from the System. Stealth probably doesn't kick in unless there's something nearby to sneak away from. Of course, the alternative was that anything nearby had already noticed him, making his efforts in vain. But he didn't need that kind of defeatist mentality clogging his mind.

He engaged his Analyze skill as he continued peering around. Now that the enriching drakla meal had refilled some of his energy reserves, he turned his attention upward. Most of the fruit was out of his range, which seemed to be about fifteen feet. The melons nestled in clumps hanging from branches.

His hunger-riddled mind hadn't considered the possibility of climbing the trees.

Before long, he located a patch of ripe-looking fruit. From what he had analyzed so far, the redder the fruit looked, the more swollen with blight it was. At the moment he realized that, his Analyze jumped two levels, not to mention another level just from staying so focused. Now his Analyze was at level 8. That seemed odd to him, because his heat and pain resistances had hit some sort of brute-force scaling at level 5. Had that been an artificial leveling wall reserved for the cave region, or had something happened after choosing a race that raised the ceiling for easy gains? He would keep track of this, and other skills to see if he could find a pattern, but now he needed to give his attention to the fruit.

One patch looked entirely purple from his current vantage. Now he had to get close for a more thorough inspection.

He approached the tree and sized it up. Its bark gave it a rough exterior, but when he poked it, he detected a spongy softness beneath the tree's coarse protection. That had to be a byproduct of the blight. The smushy give was more prominent near the roots, even to the point he could leave an imprint of his finger. Up higher, though, there were parts that held steady beneath his grip. The last thing he wanted was to make it up high just to have decayed wood give out under his weight and send him plunging to the forest floor. He had already had enough of falling from heights with the mountain to revisit the sensation so soon.

Thorny vines also crept down from unseen heights, but they were thicker on the opposite side of the tree. He guessed it had something to do with whatever direction the sun rose.

He pulled the fabric on the one long leg of his pants until it bunched up above his knee to prevent any unnecessary fraying. But the moment he wrapped himself around the tree, his mindfulness proved pointless.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Tacky sap covered the trunk, and each time he maneuvered for a better grip to climb the tree's bole, he had to pry himself from his last position. The rotting wood's springy give made some of the coarse bark tear away, which then stuck to his chest because of the gluelike sap. Each shimmy added to the debris, and it quickly grew uncomfortable. "I might as well be rubbing sandpaper against myself."

The journey up was tedious, since patches of bark crumbled under his touch. Suitable grips were challenging to find this low on the tree. Splintered bits of wood stuck to him, adding to the abrasive grating sensation, not to mention the occasional rogue thorned vine that poked into his palms.

By the time he made it to the branch he targeted, though, he looked like he was a mini tree himself with how much of the soft bark clung to him. From here, though, he was within analysis range. Between the three tantalizing treats, two were wholly untouched by the blight, and the third carried a mere 2% affliction. The entire cluster hung from the next branch up, so he continued his upward climb.

When he hoisted himself to a seated position on the fruit-bearing limb, rustling sounds came from the adjacent tree. He tensed.

Was this a predator that he had unwittingly revealed himself to? What if it was something as gross as that tentacled creature from the lake? It could be anything.

As the rustling grew louder, he caught movement in the leaves. Wilted foliage collapsed under the motion, which provided an unobstructed view of the incoming noisemaker.

Logan laughed. It was just a squirrel-looking thing! That wasn't so bad. It was kind of cute, even, resembling a cross between a chipmunk and a skunk.

It hopped from the adjacent tree to his.

"Hey, little guy," he said when he noticed it had seen him. He Analyzed it.

Name: Flicktail Squirrel
Type: Beast
Level: 8
Lore: This woodland creature lives in the Blue Forest of the Gnashridge Valley. It lives off Drakla Melons and carries the leftover pitted seeds of its meals in its pouch. The alphas are larger and more territorial, but even a beta will pelt you if it feels threatened.

Logan eased, especially when the beast just sat and cocked its head as it watched him shimmy the rest of the way to sit on the limb. The critter wasn't carnivorous, and he guessed it was one of the smaller of its kind.

"I don't suppose you know of any nice tree hotels nearby, do you?"

The flicktail squirrel chittered and tilted its head to the other side, but otherwise gave no answer.

Logan chuckled and faced the fruit. He got up from his seated position, holding the heel of one palm against the trunk to keep himself steady. The squirrel pressed its chest against the tree limb and its tail shot straight up.

As Logan extended his non-weight-bearing hand toward the cluster, the squirrel bared its teeth and hissed. Its tail bristled and the spiky fur on its forearms flattened. Clearly, this was a display of dominance to assert its rightful claim to the life-giving drakla melon.

Logan bit his lip.

The small creature looked ready to pounce. But if Logan didn't get the fruit first, he didn't know how long it would be before he found more. Logan shifted his palm along the trunk's surface, slow enough to avoid drawing attention. His hand found one of the sturdy, thorny vines.

"Sorry, pal." Logan lunged for the fruit, securing himself to the side of the tree with the vine so he didn't fall off the limb.

The squirrel squealed and pulled a drakla pit from its stomach pouch, tossed it into the air, and smacked it with its tail. The seed hit Logan's dome with a solid thunk, and then the domineering squirrel leaped in a blur of motion. His health dropped a small percent, but the squirrel didn't follow up with another attack. Instead, it wrapped its body around one of the unblemished melons and gave no sign of letting go. It was twice his level, but didn't seem to be fighting to kill.

As the squirrel writhed, the entire cluster of melons wobbled. Logan could only brush his fingertips against the other ripe fruit.

Logan grunted. "I'll let you have it. Just give me one!" The squirrel didn't understand him, of course. "Come on, we can both benefit here," Logan said anyway.

The squirrel wrangled with the fruit all the harder, and the rotten branch holding it up began to sag and creak.

Logan gripped the thorny vine tighter, its short spikes pricking into his skin. He yanked on it, trying to extend his reach.

The vine pulled away from the tree with each tug, and by the third, Logan closed the distance enough to nestle the second, healthy melon in the crook of his arm.

As the squirrel snapped its tiny buckteeth and flicked the back of Logan's hand with its tail, the branch creaked louder.

Logan took a deep breath and then yanked with his elbow. He had to get this fruit in his grasp before the entire cluster fell to the ground and smashed into a useless pulp.

The sudden jerk triggered the branch's loud snap and sent Logan tumbling to the ground. He tucked the fruit into his chest like a football and ignored the digging claws of the flicktail squirrel as his furry frenemy fell with him.

He landed on a root, which knocked the wind out of him, and then a spray of wet pulp bombarded his face.

Pain Resistance is level 6!
Pain Resistance is level 7!

With a moan, Logan rolled to the side and took stock of the aftermath. He still held two melons—the ripe one he had clung to, and the slightly blighted one sharing a stem with it. The squirrel's quarry was the victim of the impact and currently lay in two halves. The squirrel hugged one with its tail, digging its claws in and shoveling food to its mouth, while glaring at Logan with contempt.

Its eyes darted to his two whole melons, so Logan quickly secured them behind himself lest the squirrel get any ideas. He would need them for tomorrow, for sure.

The other half of the fallen fruit was in his reach, and he grabbed it. "Might as well get some use of it now." Logan doubted the fruit would last long with its skin broken.

"Cheers," he said, only half grumpy as he lifted his share to the squirrel in a toast.

The squirrel eyed Logan with suspicion and then continued eating.

After they finished the rest of their shared meal in silence, the squirrel finally wiped its paws off on its paunch and darted away.

Logan leaned against the tree, quickly regretting it because it added more sap and splinters to his spine, and watched the squirrel scramble to an upper limb of a tree several feet away. "Stay safe, little dude, and may you find food to your heart's content."

Scarcely had his send-off left his lips when a blur of a black cat sprang from a higher limb and pounced on Logan's squirrel buddy.

Between the cat's abrupt yowl and the squirrel's shrill cry, Logan flinched backwards, grinding against the coarse bark. The moment passed, and the squirrel hung lifeless in the cat's jaws. The cat glanced at him with its yellow eyes, then bristled as if daring him to steal its meal. It deftly climbed fifteen feet in a few bounds, then crossed to another tree and scrambled out of sight.

The suddenness of the fight had Logan alert. Despite the cat leaving, though, something felt off. He felt like he was being watched.

Logan looked up to find another pair of yellow eyes glaring down at him.