I went up the current to retrieve the bear corpse and bring it back to my shelter, distancing myself from the "Frozen Hell."

Recently, I've come across a lot of magical beasts, such as the bear, and it appears that they are waking up from their slumber, as unexpected encounters with them are becoming more and more common.

High beast has literally become a common occurrence, and while it's usually that same wolf-like monster, I was once attacked by something slightly different.

A feline-like monster was difficult to fight because it was the sneaky type; if there was an advantage in fighting wolf-type monsters, it would be their tendency to be so loud, whether it was from their footstep or their breath, it was fairly easy to guess their position.

Given that it was almost completely silent when attacking, it was difficult to pinpoint where that one feline monster was at the time.

It was only after it launched a physical attack on me that I was able to bring it down.

That fight reminded me of my current biggest weakness: I am no match for monsters who are even remotely agile or use their dexterity to their advantage.

I was only able to survive because all of the enemies I've encountered so far were monsters who mostly relied on brute force, and it’s only for that reason that I’m still here breathing.

I reached the place where the bear corpse was, I then dragged its body following the opposite direction of the current, it would directly lead me to my new shelter;

I was dragging this big carcass not only. for its meat but also for its bones.

Reaching my waist, I felt my ax, it was made of bone, more precisely from the bone of that ash wolf that attacked me.

I realized that chucking my fist into something I could not even see was a bad idea. At first, all I had was a wooden stick to use as a stake, but after that fight with the ash wolf, I was able to craft something resembling an ax with its jaws.

To avoid direct physical contact with monsters, I also thought of something else,

I remembered when I was younger. When I had just discovered aina when I had sent that punch that knocked all the books under the library table away.

I was already capable of sending a gust of wind from my fist at the time, so I reasoned that I currently should be also capable of doing something similar if not more powerful.

When I tried it out, it did work, it was strong. But not strong enough to even faze a magical beast like that bear and that wolf, but on high beasts like those wolves, it was very effective.

If I wanted to survive here, I needed to be more vicious, those little punches of mine won’t work forever.

I need to get stronger, quirkier, smarter…

Everything reachable should be able to help me in that goal.

While deep into thinking, I reached the entrance of my shelter, I was able to enter without any problem through the entrance but it was a little bit too narrow for the bear corpse, but it nonetheless passed through once I applied enough effort into it.

Once in, I started to clumsily and blindly eviscerate the beast.

It wasn’t something practical to pull especially with only one hand and no visual to speak of.

I remember that one time when I eviscerated a wolf, upon cooking it tasted bitter like nothing I’ve ever tasted.

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I continued what I was doing until I’ve separated its innard, the bones, and of course the skin.

I had no idea, how long it took me, but it took me a lot of time and effort.

After that, I simply went to start a fire and sat in the corner of the room, covering my body with monster skin in guise of blanket.

It stank, smelled rotten, and was disgustingly dirty, but at least it was warm.

It was all the luxury, I could offer myself right now.

It's laughable how low I've sunk, back when I was in the Rosetta, believing that I deserved all the luxury I was raised in.

If I had known I would be like this, I would’ve prepared myself better instead of just waiting for things to happen.

I wonder how Maa is doing,... Why I’m I even wondering that, I’m sure she’s doing well. None of the fourteen ever mentioned her when attacking us, so I suppose she’s doing well.

I'm sure she's somewhere on the human continent, looking for a way to assist me. I think it's better if she believes I died in that incident and that she's decided to move on.

But needless to say that deep down, I knew that it wasn’t what I really wanted.

I don’t want Maa… them to forget about me… because if they did.

Mael … Ramia

I wonder how they are doing now, how did they react to my sudden disappearance, By now their coronation must be approaching if not already been done.

I didn’t even have the proper opportunity to say goodbye. At this rhythm, I’m afraid I won’t ve able to visit the lower district once again as we wanted.

“I need … to get stronger… faster….” I muttered before falling asleep.

As always, It didn’t take me long, to be immersed in another dream

Instead of having my usual lucid nightmare, I was this inside a dream, at least nothing happened yet to make it enough to be qualified as a nightmare.

My body… well… can… I really call this a body…

I couldn’t see anything, yet I felt that I was torn into microscopic particles, I didn’t hurt but I felt like it was very discomforting to felt so scattered.

I don’t know how it happened, but I slowly felt the tiny particles slowly clutching together to form back my entire body.

Having my body back, I could finally open my eyes, and I finally saw my surrounding.

I was hovering in the air, beneath me on the ground was nothing but desolation and chaos, in miles in a round, all that could be seen was death.

The ground was scorching with fire, cities were burned down to ash, no life could be seen, only death.

I could imagine the mourning cry of those beneath those rumblings without even hearing it, but deep down I knew that there wasn't anyone left to grieve anything beneath those rumblings.

Suddenly, I heard an earth-shattering growl from behind me, I turned back and saw it.

Upon turning back, I noticed that I was shaded by a Titianesque figure.

Behind me was a gigantic dragon.

Not just one but two- or to be exact it was a two-headed dragon.

That's right, a black dragon of titanic proportions was lurking behind me. Instead of being entirely covered in scale, each of its heads bore two pairs of great curved horns, and its body was covered with a pitch shiny black armored scale and pointed ending spikes. His back was adorned with a pair of crimson red wings that were larger than his entire body, and his body was capped by two long barbed tails.

Up until now that two-headed dragon had eyes completely closed, but as if aware of my presence their eyes slowly opened up, and I felt like their gaze was solely focused on me.

Each of the heads was similar but different in a way that I can't quite put into words, but their eyes...

Their red eyes shone with the same hatred, the same thirst for utter destruction.

I knew it was all a dream, but the realism of what I was seeing kept tricking me into believing it was real. I didn't need to be told that that thing was inarguably to blame for all of this widespread destruction.

Given its appearance, it made sense that the dragon was for me, and I believe it would be for anyone who saw it, the purest and most raw representation of destruction.

I remained there floating, completely unable to move, when suddenly they rushed over me, to bit onto me in one go.

I was immediately startled awake by their sudden but not unexpected attack.

Strangely enough, my heart was throbbing like crazy. “What was that dream? … It was so-” I was cut short by the hearing of a monstrous noise coming from the upper entrance of my shelter.

A growl… a hissing … No… It was something between the two.

It was a noise, I’ve heard before, twice in fact.

The first time was that night when I went retrieving my daggers in the forest,n before departing for Beaufort.

And, the second when I was running away from the fourteen.

On my first interaction with it, I couldn’t identify from what monster the noise came from but on my second encounter, I clearly to what kind of monster these growls belonged to.

A DeathSeeker, a monster powerful enough to induce difficulty for one of the seven.

It was also the monster, whose simple spike caused me to lose everything related to my sight.