Getting down had been easy enough, despite my worries. I’d eventually figured out that I could just jump from tree to tree with the increased stats I now had. Every tree I chose to land on was also lower than whatever I jumped off of. My dexterity still mostly carried me through the process by making it easier to find good footing on something as unreliable as a tree branch. In the end, it’d only taken me half a day to get down.

I had kept my eye out for any animals, but the few that I did see were all much higher level than I was, so again, I’d needed to stick to the food I’d taken with me. I only had a few days left in total, but I still wanted to save as much as I could as possible. And even if I didn’t, I’d have to find something to eat after it was all gone.

What was mainly on my mind was how refreshed I felt. I realized that I’d been in a constant state of… something bad. I wasn’t quite sure exactly what to call it. I’d been constantly stressed and upset, and was always either angry or sad about something. I’d even been brought to a point where I’d considered killing an innocent person. That wasn’t something I’d have done before, when I was still with Cyril and Lise.

Though, now that I thought about it, I probably would’ve if not for the memories interrupting me… It was something I needed to think about more. And soon, too. I didn’t want to just go around murdering people whenever things became difficult. At the very least, it was going to wait until I saw the glowing trees. I had too many things to think about, and honestly just didn’t want to think about them. I just wanted some time to enjoy life, before I had to figure out all the difficult stuff. ‘

Eventually, the ground smoothed out. There was still a slight incline, so I was walking downhill, but it was nothing compared to how steep the mountains of the valley were. Interestingly enough, there also seemed to be a difference in the trees on the mountains and the trees in the forest that had flatter ground.

The mountain trees were normal in every way. The forest trees were taller but thinner, with darker bark and completely different leaves. There even seemed to be a line where the mountain trees stopped, and the forest trees started. Something was very clearly going on there, but I knew far too little to even make a real guess. My best idea was that it all had something to do with the glowing trees, but it wasn’t like that explained anything. I still didn’t even know what was making them glow in the first place. It only made me more eager to see what was happening.

As I walked further in the forest, more and more animals started revealing themselves. Most of them were small rodent creatures that came up as FoxRabbits when I used Identify. They’d all been around my level or lower, but even then, they were all far too fast for me to ever hope to hit with an arrow.

By the time the sun was fully hidden behind all the trees, and the sky was turning shades of orange, I decided to stop. I’d caught a glimpse of a large animal, but I had no clue what it was, nor time to Identify it before the beast had run off. Part of the reason I decided not to go any further was because I was worried about running into something bigger than the FoxRabbits. I didn’t want to have to end up fighting for my life when I was tired and couldn’t see well due to the limited light.

So, I got up in a tree, and quietly ate some more jerky. My efforts at finding something I could hunt hadn’t been effective. In hindsight though, it hadn’t even been my main focus throughout the day. I’d been mostly focused on going to my destination, and barely even paid any thought to my upcoming food problems. Not to mention, I was really getting tired of working my jaw muscles out every time I ate.

Well, there was always tomorrow. I got as comfortable as I could in the tree, which wasn’t very comfy, but was still good enough for me to eventually fall asleep. At the rate I was going, it’d take me a couple weeks to get to the glowing trees. Luckily, I was already starting to get used to sleeping in a tree. My next destination after the trees was definitely going to be the closest place with a bed.

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The next day had started off just fine. I woke up, ate half of my remaining jerky, and started on getting to my next destination. WIth my current stats, I could jog at the same pace that my non-enhanced body could run without even breaking a sweat.

Admittedly, I was starting to get a bit bored. I’d pretty much been non stop traveling for days now, with nothing to occupy myself with but my mind. And with no one anywhere nearby to talk to, boredom was coming in hard. My list of problems was growing, but I had no clue what I was going to do about most of them.

My entire morning was spent running, while I thought about ways to keep myself entertained. Ironically enough, it was more interesting than nothing, which kept me interested in something for now. Most of the ideas involved me firing arrows at distant targets while I was running, but I didn’t want to run around wasting mana while I was in the middle of an unfamiliar forest. I hadn’t brought any real arrows with me, and didn’t want to be caught defenseless.

It was around midday when I just barely managed to catch the scent of blood. Were it not for my perception stat, I would have missed it entirely. It was dark and dry, but still fairly recent. I wasn’t quite experienced enough to know exactly how old the blood was, but I’d seen enough dried animal blood in forests to guess that it couldn’t have been more than a few days old. Looking around, I found some faint animal tracks. They weren’t anything I knew of, but whatever creature had made them was big. A lot bigger than I was, for that matter. But wounded, also.

I needed two things, at the moment. Food and levels. Food was obvious, but the sooner I got more levels, the sooner I would have two hands again. If this creature was hurt, I was willing to bet that I’d actually have a chance, depending on how many levels it had. I didn’t think I’d be able to take anything with over fifty levels on me, unless it was too injured to move entirely.

Regardless, the only way to find out was to see for myself. Staying as quiet as I could, I took out my bow, and started to follow the tracks. Most of the blood on the ground was right around where I’d first seen it, with less being visible the further I went. After a while, there wasn’t any more blood on the ground in front of me, only the tracks that the animal had left behind. That told me that whatever it was wouldn’t actively be bleeding, unless the animal found itself being attacked by something else between then and now.

I hadn’t been paying much attention to the sky, and found myself surprised and annoyed when I felt a drop of water splash against my forehead. Then another. And soon, the rain came down in earnest. My quiet following soon turned into an all out run. While I was worried about staying in soaked clothes, I was more worried about missing my chance to actually hunt something. Most animals I’d encountered so far were either too big and high-leveled for me to even want to chance fighting, or too small and fast for me to hit. But a creature that was injured? It was dirty, sure, but I needed food eventually. However, if the rain washed away the tracks I was following, then I’d be out of luck.

Even as the rain worked to try and prevent me from tracing this animal’s steps, I ran as quickly as I could. My clothes had pretty much instantly absorbed enough water to slow me down, but I did my best to power through.

A twig snapped.

At first, I hadn’t paid it much mind. But then, I realized that I definitely hadn’t been the one to break it. Quickly using Perfect Memory to remember exactly what happened, I was sure that it wasn’t me. Something was close.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I slowed down, but didn’t stop, and checked over my shoulder. There was nothing behind me. Nothing big, at least. I allowed myself to come to a complete stop as I looked around. I at least wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to be attacked by anything before I went off purposefully looking to get into a fight. I backtracked to where I’d been when I heard the twig break, and slowly made my way in the direction where I’d heard the noise originally come from.

I kept myself alert as I checked all around me, but didn’t find anything. Not even the twig, but I suspected that the rain making it hard to both see and hear had something to do with that. Once I was mostly sure that I wasn’t in any immediate danger, I went back where I was going. The tracks I was following were almost gone as dirt turned to mud. I still had time, though. They weren’t completely gone yet, I just needed to hurry.

Another twig snapped, this time much closer than it had been before. My body immediately turned in that direction, and I caught a glimpse of something before it hid its body behind the thick foliage of bushes and trees. Whatever it was, it clearly hadn’t been expecting me to shoot an arrow through a bush in the direction it went.

The beast let out a pained roar, before charging through the same bush. I barely had a moment to Identify it, before I would need to react.

(Giant MongooseBear - Level 41)

Maybe in a different situation, I would have found it funny that it literally said “Giant.” Large beasts that wanted to eat you weren’t very funny in the moment, though. It was already a few heads taller than I was, and that was still while it stood on all four of its paws. On its hindlegs only, I was pretty sure the beast

I did my best to jump out of the way, but a paw smacked my side, sending my flying in another direction. I screamed in pain as I hit a tree. I knew the entirely too familiar feeling of breaking a rib by now. But Victor had forced me to learn how to fight while in pain.

I only had a moment to think about how much I hated that something he’d done was actually becoming useful for me, when the mongoosebear came charging at me again. It had a longer body than any bear I’d seen before, and was much bigger in general, but otherwise resembled the bears I was used to seeing. That said, it was very agile, and moved gracefully, even as the beast lunged at me once more.

This time, I was a bit more prepared. Powering through the pain, I completely dodged this time, and got ready to retaliate. I took a short moment to aim, and fired an arrow. The mongoosebear wasn’t the only one who was more prepared. I watched as its body twisted and dodged the incoming arrow. This thing probably had more dexterity than I did, which was a scary thought, considering I was sure it was quite a bit stronger than me too.

I had 25 more attempts to take the animal down. If I wasted them all, I’d have no real way to fight back. Luckily, the mongoosebear already seemed hurt, and my arrow from early hadn’t done it any favors either. Mana Arrow always disappeared eventually. And because of that, the beast was bleeding out of a pretty nasty wound. A few more of those would see it slowed, and then I’d be able to finish it off.

The only problem was hitting it. The mongoosebear was far too fast for me to get while it was far away. I needed to wait for it to come close, and strike then. Risky, since it definitely had the advantage in a close fight, but also the only idea I could think of.

It charged at me once again. I waited, drew my bow, and dodged, allowing it to fly past me as it lunged once more. Part of me had hoped the mongoosebear would stop with its lunges and just run directly at me, giving me an easy chance to take it down with an arrow, but I had no such luck. It was forcing me to dodge, rather than shoot, unless I wanted to risk another injury to myself. I wasn’t very confident in my chances of surviving one or two more blows from it, though.

While the mongoosebear’s body smacked against a tree, I quickly fired another arrow. And missed. It was quick, but not quick enough to dodge. The problem had been that my aim wasn’t even close to good enough. There was a very small window of time where I actually had the chance to ensure that an arrow of mine would connect, but that was useless if I didn’t have the time to aim it.

Another charge and lunge, and I was forced to jump out of the way once more. The mongoosebear didn’t waste much time, and kept charging time after time. In truth, its vitality was probably high enough that I’d have to worry about getting tired more than it did, even after the animal kept tossing itself all over the place.

I evaded its attacks three more times, and missed my shot every time. I was down to 21 tries, and feeling far less confident about my chances. At this rate, I was going to run out of mana soon.

I stopped using Mana Arrow, and started trying to come up with a new plan. The one from before was almost good enough, but I lacked the Skills and stats for it to work.

The mongoosebear dove, and I jumped to the side. Its head hit hard against a tree, but the beast shook it off and was charging at me soon enough.

Skills and stats… Skills and stats… Ugh, how could I have been so stupid. I literally had a Skill that I’d picked up for moments just like this one. When I couldn’t wait for the right moment to present itself. Focus.

Focus: At the cost of 85 mana per second, channel all of your attention into a single action for a short amount of time. For 6 seconds, your focus can not be broken. Any channeled Skills you use during this time can not be stopped by non-magical means, aside from death. (Increased time given and decreased amount of mana used per second per level.)

After a few uses in the past, I'd managed to get the Skill to level 4. The three levels after 1 had each reduced its mana cost by 5, and added a second to the time I could use it for. The downside was that I barely had enough mana for two seconds. But, honestly, the Skill was my best bet. Focus essentially allowed me to put all of my attention into something. And while it was dangerous to ignore my surroundings, it was also my only real chance to finish the mongoosebear off before it would finish me.

This time, when the bear lunged, I felt chills running down my spine. I was going to use up almost all of my mana here. If I failed, I’d only have a few more chances to kill the mongoosebear, and those hadn’t been going very well so far. I was betting everything on this. It flew toward me, but didn’t connect as I once again threw myself out of the way.

I activated Focus.

Immediately, the world felt cut off. My eyes worked as good as they did before, but all I was really seeing was the mongoosebear. All I felt was the bow in my hands. Time almost felt like it was moving slowly. I knew what I needed to do, and now I just needed to do it.

I calmly but quickly took aim. Then I released my bow string. The arrow whistled through the air, and connected with the mongoosebear’s neck just as soon as Focus stopped working.

Everything seemed to return to normal, and I found myself lying in mud. I hadn’t even felt the impact when I hit the ground. For that matter, I hadn’t even noticed the sounds of the rain.

I forced myself to stand, even as the pain of my broken ribs worsened. The mongoosebear was alive, but gravely injured. At this rate, it would bleed out soon enough. And while I could have just let that happen, I felt it was a bit cruel to just let the beast suffer while I rested. My arrow couldn't penetrate its skull, but a couple more through its neck had been more than enough to kill it completely.

System Notification: You have killed a mongoosebear (Level 41)

System Notification: You have leveled up Calamity Amnesiac! (Level 27 → 32) (+1 to all stats per level! +15 Free stats per level for having a rare Class!)

System Notification: You have leveled up Mana Arrow! (Level 5 →6)

System Notification: You have leveled up Focus! (Level 4 →5)

System Notification: You have leveled up Archery! (Level 20 →2nd Stage, Level 1)

System Notification: Skill Upgrade!

Archery - Begin mastering the art of the bow. (Increased skill with bows per level.).

2nd Stage - The wind no longer affects the path of your arrows.

Both physical and mana exhaustion quickly grabbed a hold of me. Rather than getting some place safe, I let myself fall to the ground. I was asleep before my body even hit the mud.