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ch 25. the Darkness Lizard

Forest of Patience, is one of the Danger Zones similar to Prairie of Illusion. Both are places that posses magical properties that can affect the mind. The difference between the two is that the Forest of Patience will affect its victim mentality, make them feel agitated and push them to rush things.

Forest of Patience is also one of the few natural places with no Magic Beast. It is almost devoid of any energy, which means it is also a bad place to train. Unless it is necessary, there is no one willing to go to the Forest of Patience.

Timothy has arrived for a few hours and is in the middle of preparing his base. He put his bag and tools behind a big tree near the border of the Forest of Patience. Timothy makes sure that he is not too close to the forest range, but even at the distance, Timothy can already feel a tug in his heart. It is like an agitated feeling, as if there is something urgent waiting at the corner of your mind and your body is demanding you to go there.

Timothy easily ignores the feeling and continued organizing his stuff. Unfortunately, there is no building nearby, so Timothy has to make sure that his stuff is well hidden before he starts his hunt.

It took a while, but finally Timothy is done hiding his stuff. When he is done, the day has turned to the evening. Hunting a darkness magic beast is way too dangerous at night, but since it is still evening, there is still time to walk around and look for some clues. Timothy started his scouting by walking along the border of the Forest of Patience.

Timothy spends about two hours looking around and then he goes back to the place where he hides his stuff before it gets too dark. Timothy built a campfire for himself before he built his tent. It took several hours, but finally Timothy had a good place to sleep, a hot fire and a warm meal. After finishing all that, Timothy spent his time training a bit before finally going to sleep.

*****

In the pitch black night, a huge lizard is walking around slowly. Its step is slow and steady, its eyes are ever vigilant to anything that moves around it. Its tongue licks the air, tasting the smell in the air to find any potential prey. The deep darkness and a cloak of dark magic that covered almost all parts of its body had made anyone that saw it question its real size.

The darkness lizard then stumbles on a fire, one that is made by people. It also find a tent where a human sleeps soundly inside, ignorant of any danger of the night. The darkness lizard looked at the tent and felt tempted. This human is an easy food for them.

The darkness lizard's mouth becomes watery as it can imagine how delicious the human would be. but then, the darkness lizard shook its head. The darkness lizard is thinking, that it has been living in the Forest of Patience for years, hidden away from humans and their adventurous activities. It has long learnt to be patient and control its carnivorous nature against humans to choose a more peaceful life. it will eat only, and precisely only, when it needs to eat. no more or no less than that.

Following its trained thought, the darkness lizard decided to enter the forest and wait inside, hidden under the shadow and influence of the forest. The darkness lizard decides to watch over the human, trying to find out what it is that this human is trying to do in this place. The darkness lizard has realized that it had been targeted since the last time it felt the presence of a human that was eyeing him a few days ago. The darkness lizard knows that it is being hunted but it is thinking about something else. Maybe, there is a way to achieve peace.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Maybe, it can continue to live in peace and co exist with human.

*****

Timothy wakes up at the first light of the day. He quickly prepared a simple food and had his breakfast while looking around.

At the edge of the Forest of Patience, trees have become quite sparse and small. There are only a few shrubs and bushes around, followed by a wide grass field and then followed by a forest that is not too dense. The Forest of Patience can be said to be a forest inside a forest.

done with his breakfast, Timothy breakdown his tent and cleaned up the remains of his campfire before he picked up all his stuff and began to walk. Timothy's plan was to find another resting place to use as a base and continue his search from there.

Timothy walked for a few hours without finding anything. no Magic Beast, no clues, nothing. Instead, Timothy finds lush flower fields filled with many small herbivores and beautiful insects. Timothy had never heard about such a place from any of his reading and decided to just take a few pictures using his phone, just as a reminder that such a beautiful place exists near a Danger Zone.

Timothy then walked around the flower field, trying to not step on anything and continued his search. Not too far from the flower field, Timothy found some big stones placed in quite an intriguing way. Timothy decided to check on it and found remains of human activity. dried campfire, plastic trash and footprints can be found in the middle of the stones. Timothy can only laugh alone, as he remembers how some citizens protesting about natural perseverance, how plastic waste can ruin the world and all. Meanwhile, here in the wilderness, the same plastic waste can be found as a prove that people do come around and help Timothy to feel less alone.

Timothy decided to use the place as his next base. He cleans up the place first with any plastic trash and piles it on one side. Timothy then set up his tent and went to find fire wood while scouting around. Timothy came back to his base at midday with a stack of fire wood. He cannot find any clue about the darkness lizard but manages to find a good dry wood for a fire. Timothy kept the wood for the night and decided to eat package lunch that didn't need fire to prepared.

After a nice lunch, Timothy started to move around again and this time he tried to get closer to the Forest of Patience. Timothy is trying to train his mental fortitude while looking for a clue, thinking about the probability that the darkness lizard might be hiding inside the Forest of Patience. wild and unaffected by the forest effect.

*****

The darkness lizard is watching over the human as he gathers up his stuff and moves away. From inside the Forest of Patience, it followed the human as he looked around to find any clue. The darkness lizard is amused by human behavior as it knows the humans will never find anything that way. The human is like a new born baby, oblivious to the way of the forest.

The darkness lizard followed the human as it walked into the flower garden. It is the darkness lizard's personal garden, a place where he can relieve the stress from the forest pressure. The darkness lizard personally prepared the land, seeded it and nurtured it so it became a beautiful flower garden. The darkness lizard had decided if the human tried to ruin it, the darkness lizard would not hesitate to attack and kill. There is a limit to its patience after all.

To the darkness lizard's surprise, the human carefully walked around the flower garden after enjoying the view for some time. as the human reaches the other side of the flower garden, he walks away and leaves the flower garden without doing any damage. The darkness lizard was quite surprised as that was the first time it saw someone who appreciated beauty like it did.

The darkness lizard keeps following the human, now feeling curious about what the human was trying to do. The human appeared to find the stone group and he began to look inside. The darkness lizard cannot see the human when he is inside, but when he comes out once again, the human appears to leave his stuff inside the stones and begins to look around once more. After the human looked sure that his surrounding was safe, the human began to walk further away again.

The human appeared to walk near the forest edges and as the forest magic began to affect him, his face changed from calm to afraid. but the human kept on walking and entered the forest, alone and firm. He walked into the forest with his face wincing, trying to fend off the influence of the forest. The darkness lizard has now become interested. it decides to approach the human when the time is right. I really want to know, who is this human that somehow has a similarity with it.