The confirmation of this theory was perfect for me for two reasons.

1. I could use the force field (or whatever this thing was) of the house to aid my extermination efforts.

2. I didn't have to leave my house.

*I would get very bored eventually... h.e.l.l, even now, whenever I spend more than two minutes inside doing nothing, I get bored.*

To reiterate, there was no internet and no one to communicate with. Even though I could spend my time playing single player games, with no one to share my achievements with, clearing them wasn't even worth too much effort.

*Games are meant to be played with others. Most of them, anyway...*

Of course, there are many valuable single-player experiences out there. From video games to sports to other activities, there's really no shortage if you think about it.

*Uh... Solitaire? Tennis with a ball machine?*

Okay, maybe not "no shortage". But there are probably many more out there.

While contemplating my situation with the strange properties of the house, I noticed a fairly l.u.s.trous object on the stairs. It was located on the exact spot the rabbit had disappeared.

*...what's that?*

I moved closer to examine it more thoroughly.

*It's... a crystal?*

Its color appeared clear and gla.s.s-like, but its shape was fairly crystalline. It looked like a clear type of quartz with a slightly irregular shape. I was going to pick it up, but then I noticed something.

*It's... evaporating? What's the deal here? Is this thing safe to touch?*

Evaporating was a fairly loose term. It was actually sublimating, leaving no trace of liquid in its wake. It grew smaller and smaller the more I stared at it. I had to decide what to do with it quickly, or it would be completely gone.

*Uh... safe or not safe... safe or not safe...*

I truly had a difficult time deciding. If it wasn't for the strange sublimating property, I most likely would have rushed to pick it up.

*It's not radioactive, is it?*

Well, if it were radioactive, I'd be screwed at this point. This thing was emitting visible particles! I wasn't dead, so it probably wasn't.

*It was inside of a rabbit. How dangerous could it be?*

Only dangerous enough to completely destroy its brain and cognitive functions, right? After all, it didn't come out of a normal rabbit.

*Let's make a gamble.*

I wasn't going anywhere in this world. I knew I needed to get stronger before I could even venture out to explore, but that would take a while. Even though I could clearly feel pain, I couldn't exactly die in the proper sense.

*That is, if I have unlimited "resp.a.w.ns"...*

Which is why this was going to be a gamble. I didn't know what was going to happen to me once I picked the thing up.

*Well, here goes nothing.*

I walked over to pick it up, and... nothing happened.

*How anticlimactic.*

Obviously, if it was indeed radioactive, the effects wouldn't immediately show. But it was certain that I was safe for now. Immediately after I had picked it up, the crystal's rate of sublimation decreased many-fold, and after I reached a certain distance from the house, it stopped completely.

*That's odd. I wonder why that is... Is it possibly the same distance that the rabbit... f.u.c.king disintegrated?*

I shook that disturbing thought from my head. In other news, it felt exactly how it looked. It looked like a clear crystal, and it felt like one too. It contained a similar consistency to gla.s.s, although it was perhaps a bit more brittle. There was only one way to find out.

*These things should be fairly common if I found one inside of those common monsters, right?*

Obviously, the chances of me getting insanely lucky to find one of these pseudo-crystals was exceedingly rare. I could only come to the conclusion that they were common.

*Once again, here goes nothing...*

I threw the crystal with a decent amount of force onto the steps of the house. As I predicted, the thing was fairly brittle and fragmented into countless pieces. Due to the smaller sizes of the fragments, they disappeared from existence almost immediately.

From this observation, I could hypothesize a fundamental truth about this world. Or at least the world as I knew it. But an ascertainment would need to wait. I needed a few more clues before I could confirm my suspicions.

*First, let's go hunting again.*

----

It didn't take me long to find a few more rabbits near the vicinity of my backyard. Of course, I was on the lookout for a creature higher on the food chain the entire time. However, nothing out of the ordinary occurred on my reconnaissance. It seemed like I was still safe at the moment. Since I had learned the rabbits' behavior by now, I was able to capture two of them successfully by grabbing their ears. Fortunately, they were alone. Once I returned to the steps to the deck, I decisively threw both of them on the wooden structure.

*This isn't going to look pretty.*

I averted my eyes for a moment. As much as I didn't want to admit it, seeing live animals vaporizing was another traumatizing experience since coming to this world. I had a weak stomach, and that fact wasn't going to change very quickly. Considering how wide open the wilderness appeared to be, if I couldn't find any other settlements in the wild, I would have to rely on my own hunting capabilities to keep myself alive. Hunting meant killing. Of course, if my quarry turned out to be relatively similar to these rabbits, it would make my job slightly easier. By "relatively similar", I mean "unnatural behavior". Unsurprisingly, I found it much easier to slaughter a rabid animal than a healthy one.

*Not that these rabbits were unhealthy in any way. They're just... unnatural. Makes me feel like I'm playing some s.a.d.i.s.t's game than living in reality...*

Wait. Game?

*Of course. How did I learn that I was in a different world to begin with? What do most of these stories have in common?*

I was thoroughly surprised it took me this long to figure out something as trivial as this. It looks like I was an avid light novel reader for no reason.

*I learned nothing from all that. It wouldn't be the first time... Well, here's a toast to recognizing another truth of this world.*

With that thought, I enunciated aloud...

"Status window!"

For a split second, nothing happened. In fact, I didn't really expect anything to happen. This "truth" of the world I had supposedly discovered was merely a hunch - a hypothesis with very few facts to endorse the claim.

And when a result clearly showed itself, I was ecstatic, even if I couldn't show it on my face. There was simply too much I needed to discover.

*But... do I really need to discover anything? Is anything even a requirement in life?*

They say nothing in life is certain but death and taxes. And neither of those was true now.

"..."

This was an unnecessarily profound question I asked for no reason. Perhaps the loneliness of my current situation was already eating away at my soul. And so in spite of the many things I had yet to discover, with no clear obligations in this life, I allowed myself to smile in the face of my success.

*Alright. Now let's get to it.*

A split second after uttering the sacred phrase of mediocre light novels, information flooded my mind in an organized fas.h.i.+on. As I studied it, I came to an important conclusion.

*This is useless.*

How did I come to this conclusion? Wasn't this quite a bold claim? Although I was quite a proponent of bold claims, I didn't just rattle them off just to sound cool.

*n.o.body thinks I'm cool. Anymore, that is. Maybe in a parallel universe, someone might. Wait. Aren't I in somewhat of a parallel universe right now?*

Once again, I derailed my own train of thought.

*By this logic, someone might think I'm cool!*

There were multiple things wrong with this statement, but I was unable to focus due to my dopamine rush from multiple sources. Fortunately, this statement was so absurd that it allowed me to regain my focus.

*That... clearly doesn't make any sense. I died to rabbits. Who's cool, again? Also, does a cool person say "I'm cool"? Aaaaahhhh!*

I shook my head violently and studied the information in my head once more. At this moment, another of the digital jingles I was so familiar with reverberated around my skull.

*That's really trippy, but I at least I figured out what it really means.*

In my status window, I witnessed the number next to the word "level" climb from four to five. In other words...

*I leveled up.*

But like I said earlier, this status window was fairly useless. Why?

1. Stats are relative. It doesn't matter how high or low the numbers on a screen may seem. The only thing that matters about stats is their relative magnitude to the pack. Since I had no way to judge what my stats were relative to those around me, I had no way of knowing whether I was strong or weak. The only way to appease this flaw would be to acquire an appraisal skill, which was a staple cheat skill among various protagonists. Although possible, there was no guarantee that I would be able to get one.

2. Stats don't encapsulate the entire culmination of a being. Or rather, they cannot. A living being is too complex for a mere few numbers to fully a.n.a.lyze. I could easily think of multiple examples of various pseudo-stats that a "status window" could not refer to. For example, talent. Of course, you could put a number on someone's IQ. But then again, IQ is a sort of specialized talent. One can train for intelligence quotient tests. What if someone's IQ score was very high, but due to their meaningless training, they fall short in other aspects of life? It's impossible to put a single number on a person's generalized intellect.

3. I didn't completely comprehend it. There were a few categories that were self-explanatory to some degree, such as "level". But there were a few I had absolutely no clue of.

*What's "Affinity"?*

I had an impossibly high physical and ethereal affinity of 101%. But on the flip side, my dark affinity was null.

*So many things I don't understand...*

Once again, I had to remind myself that I would understand all of it in due time, and I was under no time constraints whatsoever. As long as I didn't get invaded by aliens tomorrow, I could kick back in my house and relax.

So I decided to give up on studying the useless status window and turned my head back towards the staircase.