Chapter 4 The odyssey
Gray’s perspective
Gray: ‘’We… made it.’’
Immediately I looked up trying to see if there were any stars. All you could see in the sky were these dark-gray-looking clouds that just screamed terror.
My eyes must be deceiving me, haha, there is no way.
?: ‘’Yawn! What is this dark space?!?!’’
Gray: ‘’Jet, are you awake?
Jet: ‘’Where am I? Help me!!’’
Gray: ‘’It’s ok Jet, your safe with me.’’
Jet: ‘’Tell me that I was dreaming! Tell me that I just woke up from a really bad dream!’’
This must hit the hardest for Jet, seeing that grandpa sacrificed himself for Jet’s sake.
Gray: ‘’Everything you remember has happened. We are currently outside of the cave.’’
Jet: ‘’...’’
Gray: ‘’You know, I used to dream about going to the outside world, to see its beauty, but now look at this. We are in hell.’’
Jet: ‘’This landscape, what even is it? Everything is black and scorched, it's an endless desert, is this the world?’’
Gray: ‘’Well, if you think about it, we lived in a whole different biome, and seeing how there also is this black scorched desert biome. I would consider it unlikely if there are only those 2. So there must be more, and if there is more. Then that is where we should be heading.’’
Jet: ‘’That makes sense, it would be our journey.’’
Gray: ‘’Our journey starts here, no… our new life!’’
In what direction should we go, North, East, South, or West? North would make the most sense right? Since North resembles going forward, and if you wanna live you have to also push forward.
Gray: ‘’We are going North.’’
Jet: ‘’Hmm, okay.’’
This landscape just screams death, and don’t even get me started on this smell. It smells like rotten corpses, but there aren’t any nearby. Well, at least I can’t see any. The sound of the fermons is no more either. There are also no other new mabeasts around, it seems safe here for now.
But what now? Will this be our life? Traveling across the globe until we find a place to stay. Well, it's not like we have any other options, and you never know. Maybe this world will also surprise us with some good things.
We should make the best out of it. There is nothing to be done now, except push forward.
The rain started to pour down. As if things couldn’t get any worse.
Gray: ‘’Jet, once we see a place that is safe from the rain, let’s stay there and rest for a bit.’’
Jet: ‘’Sounds good to me.’’
Walking true the rain like this, while having no clue about what will be in the future, scares me.
—---later—---
Rain is still pouring while there is still no sight of a rest-place and no end to this biome. It couldn’t get any worse.
Gray: ‘’Jet, are you awake?’’
Jet: ‘’Like I could sleep in these circumstances.’’
Gray: ‘’Of course, how are your wounds?’’
Jet: ‘’Ehh, it still hurts all over my body, it won’t heal as fast as a normal dragon. Since they use zen to self-regenerate, and I don't have zen. I really am useless.’’
He is blaming himself for all of this. Although it’s my fault. If I didn’t run away at that time this wouldn’t have happened.
Gray: ‘’Don’t blame yourself for this, Jet. It’s my fault that all of this happened. So please blame me for it, and let me carry your burden.’’
Jet: ‘’I can’t do that either.’’
Gray: ‘’But it's my fault! So blame me!’’
Jet: ‘’I simply can’t.’’
Gray: ‘’...’’
Gray: ‘’If you won’t blame me, then what can I do for you?’’
Jet: ‘’Just be there for me.’’
Gray: ‘’Of course, I’ll be there for you.’’
Gray: ‘’Look over there! It’s like an overhang, we can camp there.’’
Jet: ‘’I’m still in your bag, how could I look…’’
Gray: ‘’Hehe.’’
Gray: ‘’Ahhh, finally I can sit down after walking for all those hours.’’
It’s weird how the temperature is quite nice. I’m not complaining though.
Let me check up on the Kongo egg first.
It seems to be doing alright.
Gray: ‘’Let’s eat some food.’’
Jet: ‘’Yess, I’m starving!’’
Gray: ‘’Let’s eat the mabeast meat first since that will expire the fastest.’’
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Jet: ‘’YUMMY!!!’’
Gray: ‘’Hahahaha.’’
—---later—---
Gray: ‘’That was delicious.’’
Jet: ‘’Ahh, I’m so full.’’
Gray: ‘’Same for me, I’m going to sleep for a bit, once I wake up let’s keep on going.’’
Jet: ‘’Sounds good, I’ll get some rest too.’’
Gray: ‘’Sleep well.’’
Jet: ‘’You too.’’
Howl!
Gray: ‘’Ahh!’’
What was that noise? A mabeast!? I should assume so.
Howl!!!!
While using our bond I said.
Gray: ‘’Jet, are you awake?’’
Jet: ‘’Now I am.’’
Gray: ‘’I just heard a howl, it might be a mabeast. Let’s get out of here!’’
Jet: ‘’Have they seen us?’’
Gray: ‘’No, but the sound keeps on getting louder, meaning it is also getting closer.’’
Jet: ‘’Hmmm, well let’s get going then.’’
Quickly I put everything back in my bag, but as I picked up my stuff. My dagger fell over the sand causing it to sparkle.
What!? The sand is explosive?
Jet: ‘’What was that?!’’
Gray: ‘’My dagger fell onto the sand causing it to explode.’’
Jet: ‘’Hmm, that's cool I guess.’’
Gray: ‘’Is it comfortable in there?’’
Jet: ‘’I wish.’’
Before leaving the overhang, I looked around to see if I could spot the mabeasts. Can’t see any. Let’s also make sure that we are going North again.
Yep, okay we are all set now.
While I was about to leave, I came up with the idea of attaching my compass to my wrist so that I could look whenever I needed to.
So I attached it to my wrist and left the overhang.
While calmly running North, trying to stay as low to the ground as possible I noticed the wolves there were 5 in total, 3 of them were far away, but 2 were close. They haven’t seen me yet, so I'm safe for now.
As I saw the wolves I couldn’t help but feel fear. They were 2 meters tall, and at least 5 meters long. Their fangs were so big and sharp that they could probably cut through rock, and their eyes were bright red. As if the devil looked true to those eyes. These mabeasts are way scarier than the ones at home.
They looked in my direction, although I don’t think that they know where I am exactly. They have probably found out about me being here. How? I didn’t make any noise or a sudden movement, they weren’t even looking my way.
Gray ‘’!!!’’
Did they sense my fear!? That must be it, right? What else could it possibly be?
Calmly I exhaled. Could I use my element right now? I might because I don’t feel that exhausted anymore, at least physically.
If something goes wrong I should focus on escaping with my power, wind is the best for escaping since you can just fly away.
But then while slowly going further away, one of them sprinted towards me. As I panicked trying to run away, it already stood before me. It just stared right into my eyes. But it doesn’t feel that way, it's more like it’s looking true to my eyes. As if it is looking at my soul.
Why can’t I break eye contact with it? How did it get here so fast? I’ve never seen anything like that, it got here in the blink of an eye.
That’s not the problem! What do I do now? It’s faster than me so flying away would be pointless because it could just follow me.
Gray: ‘’!!!’’
I have to blind them, not as in actually cutting their eyes, they could easily dodge that, but as in temporarily blocking their vision, and then flying away.
Immediately I thought back to my dagger falling onto the sand causing an explosion. If I use that to break eyesight, and then maybe make a tornado-like swirl with my element, then the sand would go up, making a big wall of sand, that would block their eyesight. Making them unable to follow me. But can I?? Can I really do that? There is no choice. I have to do it!
Quickly I reached for my dagger, and as fast as I could I slid it over the sand causing an explosion which had made the mabeast lose eye contact with me. Immediately I jumped backward, making some distance, and used my element to make a swirl in a circle around me. Yes yes yes, the sand was going upwards in circles, it looked like a barrier. You can’t even see through it.
Scratch!!
Oh no, the claws are going through the barrier. Let’s fly away! While using all the zen that I had left. I flew away as far as I could!
As I flew away launching up in the sky I was going like 20 meters a second. As I looked to the ground I was at least 80 meters high. Oh shit… I looked back to see if the mabeasts saw me fly away…
One of them saw me! Shit! While I’m still flying away. It for some reason stopped chasing me!? Huh? I’m saved. There is no way that I would have survived if he followed. Lucky me!
Oh no… How am I going to land!?!?!?
Gray: ‘’Ahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!’’
As my zen ran out I slowly fell to the ground. But right before my fall, I switched my backpack to my chest so that I wouldn’t land on Jet.
Boom!!
Everything is black! I can’t breathe! I’m in the sand, slowly I tried to crawl out of the sand.
While gasping for air I got out of the ground. I survived! Jet! Where is Jet!
Gray: ‘’Jet!!!! Where are you!!!’’
Jet: ‘’What the hell was that!!!! We suddenly went flying and fell from like 100 meters.’’
Gray: ‘’We got into some trouble so I came up with an escape plan! Hehe.’’
Jet: ‘’Escape plan!?!?!? You were trying to kill us!!!!!!!!’’
Gray: ‘’Well, anyways are you hurt?’’
Jet: ‘’Yeah! What did you think that my fragile body wouldn’t get hurt from a fall like that! At Least my wounds didn’t open up again’’
Gray: ‘’Thank god. Well, I was just focusing on escaping.’’
Jet: ‘’Idiot.’’
Gray: ‘’Is the egg okay?’’
Jet: ‘’It seems fine, it is really strong.’’
The egg is also in the bag where Jet is in so he can check on it.
It doesn’t seem like his wounds got that much worse, but on the other hand, I look like complete shit. My insides hurt, must be a broken rib, my wound on my stomach got worse and opened up completely. If I don't do something about it I’ll bleed to death.
Gray: ‘’Haha.’’
We ran out of bandages when I took care of Jet’s wounds. While blood was pouring out of my wound, I ripped off a big piece of my clothing that was big enough to cover up my chest and tied it around my wound, which stopped the blood from pouring out.
I feel dizzy. I'm gonna pass out, aren’t I?
Jet: ‘’Gray!? What are you doing? Don’t die on me too!’’
Gray: ‘’I’m falling unconscious idiot.’’
Jet: ‘’Well don’t cause we are still in this shitty place, we can’t stay here.’’
—-3 days later—-
Gray: ‘’Yawn!’’
Jet: ‘’You're finally awake!!’
Gray: ‘’How long was I gone for?’’
Jet: ‘’That’s hard to say, maybe a day or 3.’’
Gray: ‘’That long! Did you eat!?’’
Jet: ‘’I ate.’’
Gray: ‘’Thank god. I must have passed out because of the amount of blood that I lost.’’
Jet: ‘’Aren't you hungry?’’
Gray: ‘’I am really hungry!’’
Jet: ‘’Good, cause I saved the last bit for you.’’
Gray: ‘’Thank you! What do we have left?’’
Jet: ‘’All we have is some… some… uhh...’’
Gray: ‘’Don’t tell me that you ate everything!’’
Jet: ‘’But… I did save some for you. I might have eaten what was left when I was sleeping.’’
Gray: ‘’Are you serious!?’’
Jet: ‘’Sorry.’’
Gray: ‘’Don’t look at me like that with those cute eyes!’’
He kept on looking at me with the cutest expression.
Gray: ‘’Uhhh. What do you want me to say! It's fine… Even though you just ate all the food that we had. First, we almost die by fermons, then those wolves, when we fell out of the sky, then I almost bleed to death, and now I’m gonna starve to death!?’’ What’s next!? Drawn to death, or get poisoned!?’’
Jet: ‘’I really am sorry, I can’t control what I do in my sleep.’’
Gray: ‘’It’s fine, let’s just focus on getting food, and leaving this place.’’
Jet: ‘’Yay. Okay, I'll even help you scout for some food. You know I do still heal faster than normal mabeasts or humans, so my leg feels a little bit better, so take me on your shoulder.’’
Gray: ‘’Sure.’’
While standing up I looked at my compass to look if we were going North.
Jet: ‘’What is that thing on your wrist?’’
Gray: ‘’It’s a compass, it shows you which direction you are going towards.’’
Jet: ‘’Seems useful. Which direction are we heading to?’’
Gray: ‘’North. You have north, east, south, and west.’’
Jet: ‘’Hmm.’’
Gray: ‘’Anyways start using those eyes off you to scout for potential food or an end to this biome, instead of looking at my wrist.’’
Jet: ‘’I’m looking. I’m looking.’’
Gray: ‘’Good boy!’’
He hates to get treated like a pet or a child so I say that at times to annoy him.
Jet: ‘’Stop please!’’
Gray: ‘’Hahaha.’’
—-later—-
Gray: ‘’Oh no…’’
After walking for a couple of hours we didn’t come across any mabeasts but we finally started to see the border of this biome. But what is that beyond the desert??? Is that a wall? All you could see was a ginormous dark wall that went higher than the eye could see. At Least It looks like a wall? But what is it?
Gray: ‘’You can see that, right Jet?’’
Jet: ‘’...’’
He was vastly asleep on my shoulder. He must have gotten little to no sleep when I was unconscious.
Gray: ‘’Jet. Wake up.’’
Jet: ‘’Huh… Was I sleeping? WHAT IS THAT!?!? A wall????’’
Gray: ‘’That's exactly what I was thinking.’
Jet: ‘’Well, let’s get closer to see what it is.’’
While we were getting closer and closer to the border, approximately 500 meters away, we could finally see what it was.
Gray & Jet: ‘’A mangrove forest??’’
Gray: ‘’Well, that's a relief but also not a relief.’’
Jet: ‘’Exactly, thank god that it isn’t a wall. But a mangrove forest of this size, That might just be as bad.’’
As we arrived at the border of the desert, we looked up to see if there was an end to the trees, but it wasn’t visible to the eyes, and when we looked down into the green blueish water, there also appeared to be no visible end to it.
Gray: ‘’What even is this world.’’