Nat had walked quite a bit in the forest, who now had became more of a mountain than a wood.

Along the way she used her Inspect skill, and leveled it up to Beginner 6 (42,7%).The only useful informations she got were :

*Mava bush

A blue-leafed bush who grows in the West Mountains of the Azylean Continent.

His colored leaves are sometimes used in dyes.*

*Bism grass

A grey colored grass, majorly eaten by Kelsans and rodents.*

*Agarik stone

A grey stone with a hue of red in the center. Found in the West Mountains and the Bura Kingdom. Mined essentially for building.*

*Anantir Tree

A strong scent emanates from this rather commonly found tree. His sap is used in insect repellents.*

*Palsch lichen

A common specie of lichen, essentially growing on trees. Poisonous to most parasites of trees. Live in symbiose with trees as he needs to be the higher possible to receive sun rays.*

*Jaber moss

A typical kind of moss in forests. Used as combustible when starting a fire.*

*Bezir mushroom

A highly flammable combustible, found growing on trees.*

Nat put some Jaber moss and Bezir mushroom in her Inventory, as the rest seemed unusable at the current point.

She was now in a totally mountainous landscape, rocks hazardly laying on light green grass.

Nat spotted movement further ahead and quickly used Inspect.

*Monun Level 1

Hp : 25/25*

The beast looked like a fluffy and plump marmot. It was cute as hell. As Nat approached, it scurried away in his lair. She was mildly relieved to see it gone, as she didn't want a repeat of her fight with the innocent-looking rabbit, but needed every exp she could gain.

Shrugging, Nat continued to ascend the hill she was on. On the way up, she inspected a bird who was flying high in the sky.

*Grey falcon Level 2

Hp : 60/60*

Uneased at the higher levelled beast, Nat tried to walk away stealthily. After a few minutes of her weird crab-walking from boulder to boulder, Nat gained the new skill Stealth.

Finally reaching the top of the hill without being attacked, Nat let out a relieved sigh. She looked upon the valley below and reprimed an excited squeal. A fast flowing stream was watering a beautiful and lush valley. It was filled with high trees, and what looked like deers were peacefully eating grass.

High mountains were cutting the line of horizon in such a way that Natasha was left several minutes gazing at the magestic view before her.

Nat shrugged of her awe at the nature surrounding her, and began to undertake the descend of the hill, in direction of the stream.

“I'm nearly down, just a bit more..” thought the girl, looking at the river ahead.

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CRACK !

*-48hp*

‘Oww my leg, what the fuck ?!’

Wincing in pain while looking down, Nat saw the cause of her sudden loss of hp. She had walked on a hole probably made by a Monun, and her leg was embedded in the muddy ground till the ankle.

*You've broken a bone

Hp regeneration of the bone divided by twenty until complete recovery*

“Damn it hurts like hell, and will heal in soo much time...”

Nat removed her right foot from the hole and sat down with a sigh. She made a quick calculation, and discovered that she would recover in twenty days, as the cicatrising powder would be of no use. Natasha pondered whether or not she should remove her sneakers, in case her ankle would inflate. She chose not to, as she would need to walk. She knew that the spears in her Inventory could be used for a makeshift support, but didn't have anything to attach them.

Having found the solution by looking at her pants, Nat took her dagger in hand and cut her jeans on her right leg until the knee. She cut the removed part in strips and made some crappy kind of support with two of the spears, she decided it would do for now.

Nat's stomach growled loudly, and she realised that she didn't eat and that without a way of telling the time, she forgot about it. It was probably around four o'clock in the afternoon, way over lunch time. Natasha ate voraciously some bread and water.

With her right leg now in a ridiculous bermuda-style, but her stomach filled, Nat walked slowly to the stream.

~~~

To her disappointment her Inspect skill needed a close range, and the deer-like animals runned away before she could use it.

After Nat had replenished her canteen of water and cleaned herself for a bit, she walked painfully toward the range of mountains, and more precisely towards the cavern in a cliff she spotted earlier.

Two hours of walk later, Nat attained the cavern which was few meters high up in the stone-wall.

Nat considered the height of the entrance of the cavern as a double-edged blade. The difficulty of reach would repel a lot of monsters that could be inerested in coming inside, and help her defend herself against invaders if she could make ranged attacks. Of course flying monsters were still a danger, likewise for monsters capable of climbing or jumping high enough, but the total number of threats was drastically lower than living on the ground in a makeshift house.

The big counterpart of those strategic advantages was that she herself would struggle to attain the entrance, as she would either need to climb each time, or create a easier way up.

It also meant that having a serious injury would prevent her to reach quickly the safety of the cavern, and that transporting big objects inside would be a total hassle.

Nonetheless, the cavern in front of her was a major finding in the hostile environment she was in. Now looking at the cave entrance, Nat hoped that it wasn't a dungeon or a lair of some sort, as all hope she had gained at the idea of having a home would crumple to pieces in a instant.

Nat decided that the event of the cave being a dungeon was unlikely, as the entrances of dungeons would rather be more evident, or more attainable. She didn't even know if dungeons existed in this world. In stories and games on Earth, a dungeon would either be created by a higher being, or a dungeon in itself was a kind of monster. But unless it was a undiscovered one, or no big enough civilisation existed, a dungeon town would likely be constructed.

Stopping her daydreaming, Nat looked more intensely at the stone-wall, in search of the easier way to climb up. Nat was bad at sports, and feared heights, but that didn't stop her to do a bit of climbing as an extracurricular activity in her childhood. So she had the "basics of the basics" she thought.

Luckily for her, the stone was not smooth and filled with little crevices and protuberances.

And despite her injury, Nat began to climb up, her dagger between her teeth. She tried to put her weight on her injured leg as less as possible, and rather used her arms to support herself when she needed to move her feet.

The climb was roughly three meters but it seemed like hours had passed as Nat sat on the entrance floor, breathing heavily. She had gained two skills with her ascension : Pain resistance and Climbing.

Turning towards the dark cavern warily with the dagger now in her hand...