CHAPTER 34 - Starting from scratch?

I have been walking in the forest for a while, but with no luck for now. I am not looking for much, just a place where I can camouflage myself and keep dried just in case with little effort.

Not long after that, however, I find a good spot. There is a fallen tree that was before on top of a small rock formation, now making the perfect place to cover with a couple of branches and leaves to lay under.

I don't waste time and get to it and in no time I have a pretty good foliage going on. I go under it and get as comfortable and hidden as I can. As thirsty and hungry as I am, I fall asleep almost instantly, forgetting about my sore body, which more than anything craves the rest that I am about to give it.

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I wake up after what probably was a lot of hours of sleep. I have no clock or phone, but it was still early in the afternoon when I went to sleep and it is already morning.

I carefully get up trying to look around without making too much noise or movement just in case so as to not alert any nearby monsters. Yesterday I was in one of my worst states, and I am not proud of a lot of things that I did and weren’t the best of calls, but I am still fine, so I can just not repeat it.

Now armed with confidence and a clear mind yet empty stomach I start to look for anything that I can eat at the same time I keep an eye out for any landmarks that will give me a hint of where I am.

The river I fell upon is the only one there is in my city, so I shouldn’t be too far from the city for now. Maybe I could get even more lost if I start circling around the area while exploring and without a way to stay in place.

That’s why I focus on the surroundings of my newly built abode, or more likely a sheet made of leaves that works as covert, cause that's all there is to it for now at least. I remember where the river is relative to my hideout and then memorize some of the nearby locations.

If there is a pointy rock, I memorize it, if there is a bent tree, I memorize it, if there is a stream, I memorize it. All around my “base camp” I remember most of the landmarks.

I stay alert for any dangers and even anything edible in the area, but having no luck with that, I set off deeper into the forest to look for food or some hint of civilization.

I explore the forest at a slow pace, trying to not disturb any hidden threats. I had my rest, but I am far from being in good shape, I need food and water and I need it now.

I only focus on the things I need and keep looking. Sometime after, I arrive at a crossroads. There is a small road up ahead of me, it is not too wide, so probably a local one that will lead me somewhere at some point.

I take the road and start walking along its edge in one of the directions after marking the exact place where I left the forest. On my way,I get to know where I am more or less. I am around 4 to 6 kilometers away from where I fell.

I am near the city, just one of the surroundings that have small villages every once in a while.

One of the signs on the road points to me where the nearest one of these villages is, and even though I don't particularly know where that one is located, it seems like a good place to get some supplies.

I follow along the road for a couple hundred meters, and even though I see a few cars around, definitely drivable ones, I reject the option of making that much noise. I am not in the best condition to attract anything dangerous right now.

The moment I think of that I start feeling watched from somewhere. Under those eyes of an invisible predator stalking its prey, I feel my heart beating louder. I don't know what is following me, it could be a monster or it could be an animal.

I do feel the stressful sensation of being hunted, somewhere around me, there is at least a pair of eyes looking at me through the foliage.

I keep walking, not knowing where the enemy is located and trying to not show my awareness of it chasing me. I wouldn’t like to let whatever is chasing me right now know that I know I am being preyed upon, I can exert some of my strength just fine, but my priority is to get back on top of the food chain, not get pushed back down even more.

For my current goals, I need secure sustenance, somewhere to call home, and free time to train. From those three things, I feel that the second one will be going to prove some problems.

It is hard to secure a place where you don't even know what type of predators are in the area and what they are capable of. Thinking thus far, I am debating about going back to some other place or staying here. Something, that in retrospect, doesn’t even need that much thinking.

Returning back to the city is the perfect way to get myself killed by those vampire-like monsters, which doesn’t sound that appealing to me. Leaving for another location would be the kind of wasting time endeavor that I was doing till now if I get stronger.

Before I was looking for someone, but now that I have decided to focus on getting stronger, I need somewhere where I can stay safe for an extended period of time, just like the middle of the forest or this kind of small village that I already start spotting in the horizon.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

That being said, I need to somehow deal with whatever is stalking me right now. It probably saw that I was hungry and thirsty and then decided to wait for the perfect chance to strike.

In normal conditions, I would let my enemy expose itself by lowering my guard, but as of now I wouldn’t want to fight it head-on, much less expose my back to it.

Thankfully, I keep getting close to the village, which at some point makes the presence of the guy chasing me disappear. I have no idea if it left me alone because it showed no easy way to kill me or because it just didn’t like to follow me among the buildings and pavement.

It could be either one of those, maybe it was just some common animal trying to survive too, who knows. The chance still exists thought, that it ran into the territory of a bigger predator and decided to concede, so I should be even more careful from now on.

The fact that I have not explored much outside of the city itself is a little bit worrying. I don't think that it is going to be worse or more dangerous in the rural areas than in the areas where there were more people, but I can’t know for sure either until I investigate some more.

Messing around without information about the current situation doesn’t sound like a good decision to make, even more if you don’t have a plan b.

I end up carefully looking around the village, searching for food, clean water, and other useful things. I do find some water inside a few houses, but most of it hasn’t been properly safekeeped so I won't be risking it.

However, I do find a couple of bottles with the lid still intact from which I do take a sip. I do not waste a single drop, but I do drink my fill. I will need all the energy I can get for the time being.

In one of the houses I find a small stash of canned food too, it helps me quench my hunger for now, but not much. I keep two cans for later and leave again to hit the road, planning to loot the rest of the place before lunchtime.

Lunchtime arrives and I find myself a secure room in one of the houses to eat some more as I plan ahead of time my next move.

‘I searched the whole place and there is no clue about where the people in here went. Most of the houses seem ransacked, but there are not many signs of a confrontation or fight, so maybe it was the owners leaving hastily.’

With nothing else to take with me for now other than a normal ax I found in one of the houses and a few kitchen knives, I pack everything into a backpack that I too took from one of them and then leave the place. I did take some time to pack some other things that I wanted to bring with me, just in case.

I make my way out of the area and back to my little hideout, not daring to stay too much in one place for now. The place where I woke up can’t be that bad, in the end, I was out cold there for hours straight and nothing ate me. Well, if we don't count the attempt of the chubby frog…

I arrive at my temporary house/base with my small supply of food and water. I hide the backpack with the goods in a nearby area covered by some bushes after taking out the ax and I start chopping some wood.

I build an unexpectedly good-looking campfire next to my sheet of leaves for shelter and after doing some menial tasks to ensure my safety.

Things like spreading dried branches around the camp and setting up a makeshift system with a wire and empty bottle around.

I use a bottle to alert me, which hangs on the trees surrounding the area and will alert me with some noise if someone or something trespasses the perimeter. Rudimentary? Yes! Does it work? I am testing it at the moment and will use it for now.

I will definitely leave a good review of the mechanism to whoever I meet in the future who lives in the wild if I see it works. It will definitely come in handy if it works.

‘Let’s sleep now while I can with my full belly.’

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Morning comes and I finally am as good as new. I get up early in the morning beaming with energy and ready to get things done, and I have a clear goal for the day.

I start by using the early hours to get some much-needed practice with the sharp blade of qi that I am now able to create with my bare hands. Not only do I need a vast amount of it to make the usually intangible energy that is qi tangible for a second to attack with it, but it also requires a lot of focus on my part to keep the thing stable.

Now that my reserves of it have gotten a lot bigger I have a lot more of it to work with. Even better! I just discovered that even if it uses a lot of qi in comparison to the other uses, it doesn't cause so much damage to my body due to its nature of materializing by itself instead of using my body as a medium.

The attack is a lot better than any other I know for now, it is the strongest one I have right now, and even though it is quite inefficient in the amount of energy it wastes, I will get better.

Just the fact that it doesn't bite my back, by allowing me its use without harming my body, makes it all the more appealing.

These days I find my reserves of qi getting bigger, yet I do not have any use for it because it overcharges my body, forcing me to use only a smaller amount at a time.

Against weaker enemies, it’s all good. Against stronger ones though, I find myself in quite a pinch as it causes me to not have enough damage output.

My goal right now is to get better at controlling the strengths that I already have, like my improved body, now stronger, faster, and tougher, or my qi.

For my improved body, I will try to make some variations to my already-known martial arts. I have lots of ways I want to try to focus on with some of the techniques now that I have a superhuman physique that lets me do things thought to be impossible before.

While with my qi, I want to get better at controlling it, trying to look into my current problem in intensity and stress on the body. I want to try and see if it is possible to make it circulate another way or something to help its flow and efficiency while keeping the strain to the minimum.

I would love to practice something with the sensation I have when facing death threats to add it to my arsenal, but it is kind of difficult to do that without any monsters in the surroundings. It is not like I can fake that sensation on my own that I know of.

I did pick a little bit more of the sensation before when fighting the female orc before, I was able to react to one of her attacks only thanks to it, but I still don’t know how to control it.

So that’s the plan. I just need to put it into action, and then map out the nearby terrain to be able to develop countermeasures while I stay in here if I am attacked. I feel like I will be hanging around here for a while.