After resting his head for a while, Darius returned to drink water after collecting all the items in an improvised travel sack. Darius looked around the quiet forest and weighed his odds of survival. Getting better gear and more food from the ruins of the village was a good idea, but in his current condition, a partially monster-infested village seemed risky. His other option was to leave the forest and start the journey back to the provincial city or even any other town or village.

*That would be damn suicide.*

Darius knew that there would not be anything for hundreds of kilometres that he could depend on. It might be all just rocks and uneatable grass plains, and he would need to survive for at least a month or two travelling by foot in these conditions. The third option was to stay in the forest for a while and gather meat, herbs, plant food, and roots for the travel. In the forest, you could easily hide and hide your tracks than outside, where vast seas of grassy nothingness awaited Darius. The biggest priority was finding food and collecting everything he could carry and eat during the trip. It was better to walk slowly and keep attention to plants and the environment rather than run around the forest and get the attention of monsters and predatory animals. For this purpose, Darius harvested several tens of leaves from sulktrees, the leaves were not only big, but these leaves also had an unusual smell that covered the smell of fresh meat. The villagers' hunters had taught this trick to Darius while he had been collecting wood and sometimes herbs to sell in the village. At some point, he would need to dry the meat because these leaves did not help to keep the meat fresh.

Darius barely found anything sensible in the forest to eat. And what little he saw, he just ate. He felt better, but the urgency to take control of his situation urged him to do something. But Darius was not in a hurry. *Hurrying just kills people.* Darius thought and was amused by his whims. He made some poor traps around the forest and fishing traps nearby the river and returned to gather his strength at the cave. At least monsters had not found the place, and Darius had a perfect source of clear water next to him and a cave to sleep and meditate. Although after the first day, Darius noticed that he did not need to sleep anymore if he meditated the whole night. He felt much more invigorated by meditating than sleeping. Also, his wounds continued healing at a slightly abnormal rate, so Darius gave his body some weeks to rest while gathering food. While preparing, he made some ceramic bottles from river clay to carry water for long distances. It might be that Darius could not find a water source for a week or two. He had to leave his trapped animals only a few times because there were monsters nearby. Darius noticed that any trap with sharp sticks was way worse than string straps for rabbits because they created the smell of blood and attracted monsters. For the same reason, he smoked all the meat he could get. Darius did not have the luxury of waiting for the meat to dry on its own, and the smell of meat would attract monsters.

The day came when Darius had food for a very lousy month of travel. The village had gotten his attention again. It might be that monsters would have left the village by now to look for other prey. At least they could not stay in one place as long as humans could with all inventions and food storage. His loaned boots were already almost torn to pieces, and there would be a need for more items on his journey. Darius had enough medical herbs but not needle and thread. He had water bottles but not alcohol for treating wounds, and he needed more shoes to travel far and a better blanket. It would also be nice to have proper clothes and not just bloody stained rags of clothing for long travel. With everything mentally listed in his mind, Darius thought going to the village was worth it. At least he could now run if the need arose. Darius left all the items in the cave and took only the empty travel sack. It was time to go on a very quiet raid. Darius left the cave while the sun was rising because most of the monsters were creatures of the night. For his security, Darius only had the axe in his right hand and a travel sack covering his back.

Return to the village was uneventful. The house of forest witch had burned to cinders like many other buildings in the village. There was nothing left from the witch now, and collapsed house did not permit Darius to go to the cellar underground. Luckily, he had taken those books earlier.

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*I could be dead by now without knowledge of meditation.*

While leaning on the burned wall, Darius watched the village in rumbles for a while. He noticed his eyesight had improved while watching the village from a distance. While

wondering what the mediation had done to his body, Darius walked into the village.

There was no time for sorrow. In eerie quiet, Darius could hear broken doors creaking on their hinges. Sometimes something collapsed far away. Otherwise, Darius only listened to the wind. After climbing back inside the wrecked home village, he avoided places where he had earlier been to find the maximum number of items and food. Darius found a bottle of strong liquor in a broken, half-burned tavern. In one blackened barrel, he found vinegar apples stored next to the remains of the tavern counter. They did not look very nice, but Darius ate half the apples and put half in bottles with vinegar.

Most of the food items were rotten, burned or half-eaten. Darius saw half moulded bread and took the mould part away, and ate the rest of it. Since he did not see any monsters nearby and it was mid-day sun shining in a blue sky, Darius ate ferociously whenever he found something edible. After eating, Darius carefully collected clothing and a new blanket from the merchant's house. The shirt was better than Darius had ever dressed in his life. Otherwise, the house was badly crushed, but he managed to squeeze himself into a partially collapsed house. Inside the ruins of a wooden house, Darius found some medical equipment, scissors, and a long knife without a sheath. After putting everything into his sack, Darius found a few smaller bags that he could tie to the robe belt. The best find was from the guardhouse, a proper grey cloak that covered Darius entirely. However, scissors had to be used to cut the extra length because the cloak was adult size. Otherwise, being inside the village was nerve-wracking. Darius stared at everything nervously, listening to any sounds. He didn't find much else than occasional food that got eaten immediately. Darius already had a flint and steel, but he chanced on a better one in the middle of a small market opening, presumably dropped by someone during the monster attack.

After a few scratches and a lot of nervous work, Darius heard the first noises that sounded growling. It was probably some houses down the street, but he didn't stop to listen. Slowly Darius started backing away with increasing speed to leave the place. In the last opening, he took some extra shoes from his legs. It seemed that the owner of the legs had been eaten already. Darius almost vomited right there but managed to keep precious food in his stomach. It was gruesome to get the brown leather boots swollen and half-rotten broken legs. After changing boots Darius absentmindedly cleaned his bloody hands into his fine new linen shirt and started running back to the forest. In the cave, he could rest his nerves again.

"haha, what a raid. I might even survive the trip now."

Darius was unsure how many monsters there had been in the village, but he decided to continue packing. Darius had to throw away all manner of dead weight. The old blanket had to go, and the magic book and alchemy book reduced their weight once more. He also cut all the book pages that he had memorized. Life was more important as the ability to carry food than pieces of paper. Darius also left all the letters and other miscellaneous items behind. But he still took the signature page with gold letters from the magic book and put it in his new cloak pocket. In the pocket, Darius found a small number of silver coins.

*lucky me* Darius was amused ironically but still stored the coins in his purse.

With teetering slow walk Darius started to go around the village in the forest. It took almost half a day to look for items. When Darius went to the other side of the large hill after the forest, the sun was already setting. He sometimes looked back, and finally, the hill swallowed the rest of the view into the woods. Now Darius was truly on his own.

He walked the whole day to use the better part of the food he had already eaten. Wearily Darius knew that it would last as a sumptuous meal for the rest of the month or longer. Occasionally he only stopped to refill his most used water bottle whenever he saw running clear water. It was a wonder why his stomach was not upset by different waters, thorny raw plants, and randomly picked old food.

*It might be part of my new meditated body.* Darius even tried to meditate while walking, but he did not succeed. Once, he had to stop because he heard metallic clanking noise from behind him. The sheetless dagger had fallen on the rocky ground. Darius sighed, patched it back onto his travel sack, and continued monotonous walking until his legs started to hurt in the evening.