I was physically unable to get up. On my thigh, there was a gigantic bruise, which I couldn’t touch because of the pain. So I decided to just lie on the floor and analyze some information I gathered, and also make some plans. I needed to fix my sight and on top of that get strong enough to be able to hunt without getting hurt. I had no idea how many goblins there were in the forest and how they would start behaving since we were murdering them, so the best moments to gather points were passing by my nose because of the injuries.

There were two ways to hunt safer. One was to get stronger, and the second was to get better tools. A shield would be nice – I thought to myself. But there was no way of making something decent with the things available in the device. I couldn’t buy rope, or wire, or strings which I checked already, but maybe I could get leather since buying meat was a possibility.

Leather straps could be used to tie pieces of wood together to make a haphazard shield. It didn’t need to look pretty, all it needed to do was to provide protection for a couple of fights. I had no idea how much it would cost, but on top of that, I needed at least 3k points to fix my eyes and get some upgrades.

My strength and constitution were good enough, but I lacked the agility to not get hit. That was more than 30 goblins, and three were enough to almost kill me. If I encountered four yesterday, I would be dead by now.

With those thoughts, I managed to force myself to get up and limp to the device. A lot of people gathered around. A couple was making shields the way I just thought about – with leather and wood. Others were sharpening long sticks to make spears out of them or making other things that seemed useful. There were also a few scavenging in ruins. All in groups, still fearing to roam around the city alone.

[0)ᴠᴇʟ After some waiting, I managed to put my hand on the device. Materials for the shield cost me 45 points, on top of that I bought a round, wide, but short plank of wood to make a bowl of it, and sharp rock, flint to be precise. 2 points for rock, and 7 for wood. All together it was 54 points, which left me with 286. It took a bit of time to move things to the place where I was going to work. I didn’t want to go back to my hideout, because I wanted to listen to others and find out what’s going on around in general.

It turned out that not everybody managed to get crystals during yesterday’s hunting, and a few ended up with injuries. Among them was a petite girl that caught my eye. She was well dressed by my standards, which actually meant that she had more than just one layer of clothing.

I was interested in her hoodie. It was obviously too small, but I had only a pair of boxers on me, so anything counted as an upgrade. On top of that, she was asking people if they are not willing to share some food with her.

At some point, she came to me asking for the same. She was clearly trying to get the advantage of losers, like me, but unfortunately for her, I was not a simp, so she didn’t get anything for free. Although after a long conversation she was willing to trade her hoodie for a spear. I lost another 9 points, and also 6 to buy food.

By the end of the day, I had a hoodie, shield, and a bowl. The shield was made of thick wooden sticks tied together with leather straps. It was ugly, and barely functional, but still better than nothing. Able to withstand a couple of blows before breaking, and that was all I wanted.

Bowl also wasn’t by all means pretty. I just hit the plank with rock and removed splinted pieces to finally make it into something bowl-shaped. Then I filled it with water from the device. The tastiest water I ever had if we won’t count the shavings in it, and the cost was only 1 point.

When I was done with work and had somewhat filled my stomach, I limped my way back to the hideout. As always making sure to not get followed. Nobody got killed which was proving the theory that we couldn’t get points from one another in that way. Still was too early to confirm it for sure.

Tired, I went to sleep with 270 points on my account.