The cawing of some sort of evil bird echoes through the forest. The floor is covered in a small blanket of fog, and I swear to the Gods I’ve seen something dart between the trees. Is it too late to turn back now?

  Hopper, armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows, walks beside me. Penelope, wielding a greatsword, is a couple of paces in front of us. Meanwhile, I have a sword that I don’t know how to use and a pocket full of pebbles. This is going to go well.

  “Is this your first time hunting?” Hopper asks.

  “What, no, of course not. I’m an expert at hunting and all things that have to do with the outdoors,” I say sarcastically.

  “He’s a city kid, Hopper. He doesn’t even know which way is north,” Penelope says as she chuckles.

  “I know which way’s north,” I say, offended.

  Penelope stops in her tracks and walks over to us. “Really? Which way is it then?” she asks.

  With a brief glance around us, I point in a random direction. “That way,” I [Lie].

  Penelope rolls her eyes. “Lucky guess,” she says as she turns around.

  “Not to interrupt, but are we walking in a random direction or what?” Hopper asks as he leans against a tree.

  “I’ve been following these goblin tracks,” she says, pointing towards the ground.

  “Princess, respectfully, those are our tracks,” he says, trying not to sound rude.

  “Do you think I can’t tell the difference between our tracks and goblin tracks?” she asks with pride.

  Hopper moves to reveal a marking on the tree he was leaning against. “Well, considering that we’ve been going in circles the last fifteen minutes or so. I would think not,” he says, gesturing to the marking.

  A tinge of red dyes the tip of Penelope's ears. “I was getting a lay of the land, but if you want to give it a shot, then so be it,” she says.

  Hopper hops over to the front, switching with Penelope. I give her a devilish smile, to which she responds with an eye roll. Hopper, using his bunny ears, leads us further into the forest, which I’m not a fan of. It feels like everything is dangerous here, and not the kind of dangerous that I can deal with. What am I going to do if a goblin appears? Lob a pebble at it, or I could use this thing. The weight of the sword feels foreign in my hands.

  “What is it? A bit worried you're in over your head?” Penelope asks.

  “I thought we were putting the past behind us and trying to get along, Penelope.”

  “This is me ‘getting along’. I’m just worried that you might get hurt out here. What with all the dangerous goblins and slimes. Especially, since you only have [Throw],” she mocks.

  “This conversation would have a lot more weight to it if you hadn’t been following our own tracks for the last fifteen minutes,” I mock back.

  “I… I’m not good at tracking. It’s a bit difficult, and I naturally don’t have the [Skill],” she says, trying to hide some embarrassment.

  “We all have our strengths. You don’t have to be great at everything. You’re not perfect,” I say as I try to figure out how to hold my sword.

  With a sigh, Penelope takes the sword from me and wraps my hand around the handle. “This is how you hold your sword. The way you were holding it will lead to a broken wrist.”

  “Thanks.”

  As we finish talking, Hopper abruptly stops and looks around.

  “What’s wrong?” Penelope asks as she grips her greatsword.

  “I was following the sound of goblins, but they suddenly stopped,” he says as he readies his bow.

  The Whisperwood Forest suddenly grows quiet. No chirping of evil birds or even the sound of the wind. Silence. As I reach into my pocket, I grab a handful of pebbles in one hand and ready my sword with the other. I’m getting an odd feeling all around me.

  Hopper closes his eyes as his bunny ears move around. “Above!!” he shouts as he fires an arrow upwards.

  Looking up, I see my worst nightmare. A black spider the size of a house dangling from an even larger web. The arrow from Hopper clinks off the hard exoskeleton of the spider. With its eight purple eyes, it locks on to me before letting out a terrible scream.

  The spider drops down to the ground and charges straight for me. You’ve got to be kidding me!! Without much time to think, I sprint towards the nearby tree, hoping to find some cover, but I’m not fast enough. The spider's mandibles that drip with green venom bite towards me. Then out of nowhere, Penelope appears between the spider and me. Putting up her hand, a magical white shield appears, blocking the spider's attack. The spider staggers as Penelope draws her greatsword along her forearm. With a crackle of electricity, the blade comes to life. With a heavy swing, she cuts through one of the spider's legs.

  As I reach the tree, I bump into Hopper, who’s readying a shot. As the spider swings down one of its legs towards Penelope, Hopper lets the arrow loose. The arrow wobbles through the air, hitting the spider square in one of its eyes. The spider recoils in pain, allowing Penelope to slash at its underside, leaving a long gash, but before she can react, the spider slams Penelope, sending her flying. Before she can hit the tree, Penelope puts her hand up, lessening the blow with a magical shield. She clatters to the ground with a heavy thump, but gets right up.

  “CJ, the Princess needs another frontliner,” Hopper says as one of his arrows bounces off the hard exoskeleton of the spider.

  Well, yeah, that’s obvious, but why’s he telling me? Oh, right. I wouldn’t have to be fighting fucking giant spiders if I stayed in the alleyway. Penelope tanks another hit from the spider using her magical shield. Ah, damn it. Why’d she have to save me earlier? Gripping the sword in my hand, I rush out from behind the tree and slash at one of the spider's legs. The sword barely cuts an inch into the leg and gets stuck. The spider lifts its leg and my sword into the air. It then slams down hard as I barely manage to dodge out of the way. The resulting hit leaves a visible crack in the ground as its foot sinks in.

  One hit from that and I’m dead. So, don’t get hit. I watch as the spider struggles to lift its foot out of the ground. An opportunity! Rushing back, I slide up to the foot and push with all my might on the sword embedded in it. The spider looks over at me, but soon regrets it as Penelope slices one of its mandibles off.

  “Focus on me, you eight-legged freak!!” she screams as she readies for the next attack.

  Using the opportunity, I manage to cut through the spider's leg and free my blade in the process. Green blood splatters on the ground as I hurriedly rush away from the flailing leg. Gross. As I rush over to the other side, an arrow whizzes by and hits another eye of the spider. It screams out in pain and sends a swing towards Penelope. Instead of putting her hand up to block, she disappears from the path of the attack and reappears next to its other leg. The greatsword crackles straight through the leg. As the spider turns, Penelope disappears and reappears on top of its back. She readies to strike, but before she can, the spider jumps to a nearby tree. Penelope loses her footing and falls to the ground.

  The spider jumps from tree to tree around us. Until it stops and lurches right towards me. It’s moving too fast for me to dodge. Dying by a spider is not how I wanted to go, but if I’m dying, it’s coming with me. With my sword in my hand, I [Throw] it straight towards the creature's head. The sword spins through the air until the blade lands between where the head meets the body, sinking all the way to the hilt. Right before the creature hits me, Penelope appears at my side and puts up three layers of her magic shield. The spider shatters two of the layers before being stopped by the third.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Oh, thank the Gods!! Letting out a sigh of relief, I stop to catch my breath before feeling a sudden wave of exhaustion. Oh, that sucks. Followed by a wave of nausea. That’s worse. Before long, I find myself leaning against a tree, trying not to throw up. Looking over at Penelope and Hopper, they don’t look much different. What in the hells is this feeling?

  I [Leveled Up]? Well, I guess that was the idea in the first place. I’ve never [Leveled Up] before. Is this how it feels? It’s shitty, worse than that time smelly Doug threw his shit at me. Gods, why do people do this? Although I am curious what it did to my [Stats]. I take a peek at my [Stat Window].

  +1 to all my [Attributes] and that seems to be it. Naturally, my HP and MP also went up, but I can’t tell how good or bad this is without anybody to compare to. Lucky for me, I have two people with me that I think I can gain some info from. Well, maybe one. Yeah, there’s no way Penelope's going to tell me jackshit.

  “How are the two of you feeling?” I ask.

  Penelope fights back the nausea before answering, “Fine. I guess you pulled your weight after all.”

  Hopper finishes throwing up behind a tree before answering, “I’m good. [Leveling Up] is still just as terrible.”

  Walking over to the spider corpse, I climb onto its head. “So, how did you guys fare [Attribute] wise?” I ask as nonchalantly as possible.

  Hopper goes to answer, but Penelope cuts him off before he can. “Why don’t you tell us how your [Attributes] went up? I’ve always been curious what ‘The Chosen One’ gets,” she says, thwarting my plan.

  With a grunt, I pull the sword out of the spider. “You don’t have to tell me, Penelope, if you don’t want to. I was just making some small talk. No harm in that,” I say as I slide down from the corpse.

  “That sounds like a sidestep if I've ever heard one. What’s the matter? Afraid you might get found out,” she says with a sweet smile.

  Damn it, she's got me. I should’ve asked Hopper when we got back to the dorm, but now that she's cornered me, it’ll look suspicious if I don’t answer. But if I do answer and I lowball it, then I’ll be fucked. To put it simply, I’m stuck between a rock and smelly Doug. A place you do not want to be in. Looking down at the spider's corpse, I groan. Well, I don’t have to tell them everything. Just how much they went up by.

  “Fine. They went up by one across the board,” I say, telling the truth, but omitting some details.

  With a shocked look across her face, she asks, “Are you sure?”

  Both of them give me an odd look like I grew a third horn. What did I aim too low? Well, I can't back down now.

  “Yeah. Why do you think I can’t do math?” I say with an irritated tone.

  “No. That’s just odd. I’ve never heard of a [Blessing] that gives you that. Mine gives me two to my [DEX] and [CON],” Hopper says as he picks up his arrows.

  Penelope looks at me, a bit confused. “Odd is one way to put it. My [Blessing] is considered one of the top-tier ones, and it gives me three to my [STR], [CON], and [INT]. I’ve never heard of a [Blessing] that gives each of your [Attributes] a bonus,” she says, oddly, believing me.

  “Well, I am The Chosen One after all,” I say, trying to hide my confusion.

  Hopper finishes collecting his arrows as he walks back. “We should rest here for a bit before we continue. It’ll let the Princess regain some of her MP. You must be running low,” he says as he points towards Penelope.

  “I’m doing fine, but since you lot need a rest, we might as well take one,” she says, trying to hide her ragged breathing.

  Plopping down, I look up at the spider's web. What have I gotten myself into?