In the middle of a dense forest, a silver-furred wolf and a boy were present in a clearing. The two were surrounded by trees that reached high into the skies and the wolf was constantly barking at the unconscious young teenager who was lying on the forest floor.
"Woof! Woof! Woof!"
"Ugh, wha?"
The boy woke up with a start after hearing the sound of the wolf barking anxiously next to him. When Cecil got up and looked around, he noticed that the barking was only from Silver, his pet wolf.
"I'm up Silver. What the heck happened?" He questioned while shaking his head in pain.
'I...what happ—that's right, the blinding light! I fell unconscious after I was enveloped by that light!'
The last thing that he remembered was looking at the white light that was enshrouding the city earlier. Then he remembered his mother screaming… After that everything went white and the ringing sound numbed his senses before he fell unconscious.
'What the hell happened?'
The boy looked around and saw only greenery.
"A forest?"
Taking a look around the area, he noticed that he was surrounded by huge trees that shot high up into the sky. This was something that he normally saw back when he was 8, but the only problem here would be the size of the trees.
Cecil felt quite minuscule when he compared himself to the size of the huge trees surrounding him. Training with his father and grandfather in the wilderness at the huge family island that they owned...this scenery wasn't unfamiliar to him so he didn't question it any further after he made sure that there wasn't any danger around.
"Did Father dump me back on the island after I fainted?"
As he spoke out his thoughts, he immediately started cursing in his mind.
'Damnit, is this punishment because I fainted because of the white light? That's too cruel! Is this seriously how you treat your son!?'
After his inner monologue, Cecil immediately calmed down and assessed his situation.
'Okay, calm down. Remember what to do to survive in the wilderness.'
"First, I gotta find a water source. Hopefully, they didn't dump me too far from the inland river or the shore."
Cecil got up and took another look at his surroundings. Looking at them closely, he finally began to question the size and lushness of the forest around him. It seemed like the forest he was familiar with but yet, he found it to be a little different. He found a tree that looked good enough to climb and began climbing. He moved agilely and before long, he was already far from the ground. With all his training, he was really adept at scaling trees, especially trees that had thick trunks and rough bark covering them. It made it easy since the rough bark acted as a good scaffold for him to use.
"Silver, wait here! I'll look around and find water," Cecil called out to his wolf just before he got too high up.
"Woof!"
'Yikes...did I really climb so far up?' Cecil inwardly thought after he had looked down earlier. He shook his head and mumbled, "At least they didn't leave me by myself on the island. Having Silver around will help me cope with plenty of situations since I don't have any sort of weapon on me right now."
After climbing for about 5-7 minutes, Cecil finally broke through the foliage overhead.
'Were the trees back on the island always this tall?'
Reaching the edge of a very thick branch on the tree, Cecil started looking around trying to spot the river he was familiar with. Soon he found a very beautiful, yet very disturbing scene.
"Wh-What the hell?!"
What he saw was vast greenery ahead of him. His vision had broadened but all he saw was greenery. He couldn't see the shore of the island he was supposedly on and the ocean that lay past that. The only thing that came into his view was a forest that seemed to stretch as far as his eyes could see. It wasn't just that, but in the distance, Cecil could also see what appeared to be the silhouette of a very enormous tree. Although it was only a shadow, it loomed far into the sky and even from a distance, it looked very huge.
"This… this isn't the island!"
He belatedly realized that this was not his family's island nor was he on Earth for that matter. How could he possibly be on earth? The huge tree over in the far distance easily trumped the tallest mountain on Earth! Everest had a height of around 8,800 meters, but the huge tree in the distance easily surpassed that by at least another couple tens of thousands of meters.
'Heck! Being called huge would be an understatement for this tree!'
From where Cecil was, he could only see the shadow of that tree's trunk, but the most important thing was that even if he looked up into the sky, he still couldn't see the branches of the colossal tree.
"Ohh man, where the hell am I?" Cecil asked no one in particular.
Well, the good news is that Cecil actually spotted a river from the branch he was standing on. It didn't seem to be too far away, about 500 meters or so away from his current position.
"Let's just head over there first, secure some water, and then try and make sense of this situation."
After arriving back on the ground, Silver greeted him with a bark. He took a quick survey of the area and after confirming that the area was safe, he sat down on the ground.
"I found a river around 500 meters to the north of here."
Well, north would be hard to say, since he didn't know the cardinal directions of this "world" yet, or where he was in the first place.
"Okay, let's go."
Cecil started jogging in the direction of the river that he saw earlier alongside Silver. After only jogging a few tens of meters, Silver started barking and growling urgently at him. Turning his head back, Cecil noticed that Silver's fur was standing on end.
"Grrrrrrr…"
"What is it, Silv?"
He immediately stopped and looked around. After which a hair-raising sensation crawled up his spine.
"?!"
"GROOOAAAARRR!!!"
A 4-meter-tall black bear with red glowing eyes appeared from behind a tree in front of them. It roared ferociously and started sizing up the human and wolf before it.
"B-bear? How?"
Although the huge tree already gave Cecil a reason to doubt if he was on Earth, this bear in front of him, pretty much convinced him of it. It was huge, but not only was it huge, but the 4 claws that retracted out of its paws, the meter-long blades that grew out of its elbows, and the menacing black horn-like blade on its head were also already convincing enough that it was not a part of the animal species of Earth.
'Seriously, how the hell did this bear get so huge?! It easily trumps all the bears from Earth! Now I'm convinced, this isn't Earth at all!' Cecil inwardly screamed before he composed himself and prepared for a fight.
"Prepare to fight, Silv!"
"Grrrrr…"
Receiving an affirmative bark from Silver, Cecil quickly took his stance. His form was from his family's martial arts. This particular stance was used for defense and counterattacks. Of course, he wouldn't even dream of fighting this monster bear head-on since it would be utter suicide. It was better for him to figure out its attack patterns and habits first before going on a counterattack. Right now, this wasn't training. This was the real deal and his opponent was out for blood and preferably a meal too.
'One wrong move and I'll be its dinner for the evening.'
"Come at me!" Cecil taunted.
"ROOOARRRR"
The bear roared and charged at him. It charged at him on all fours, just like how a normal bear from Earth would when charging and chasing after its prey.
'Hmmm, it behaves similarly to normal bears...in that case—'
When the bear got close, it quickly stood up on its hind legs and swiped its claws at him. Cecil easily predicted that and jumped back, moving out of the monster's attack range. He quickly calculated the monster's attack range from that attack and jumped back once more to avoid the monster's other paw.
It didn't take long for him to adjust to the monster's attack range so the second time it tried to attack him in that way, Cecil only used the minimum amount of movements to narrowly dodge the attack. Taking advantage of the gap the bear showed after swinging both of its paws at him, Cecil rushed in and slammed his fist into the bear's flank.
"DAMN!"
Cecil cursed and quickly jumped back and ran away.
'Damn, I can't win! What the hell was that?! It was like a punched an iron wall!' Cecil looked down at his fist and saw that it was red and throbbing. With the bear distracted from seeing its runaway prey, Silver took this advantage and pounced forward.
"Woof!"
Silver jumped onto the back of the bear and took a bite at the monster's neck. Blood splattered out to Cecil's surprise and a small chunk of meat and fur was bitten off from the neck of the bear.
'What?! When did Silver get so strong?' Cecil exclaimed inwardly.
"Nice! Keep at it Silv—no, Silv! Get away! Back off!!!"
Cecil's warning was too late. Sensing the nuisance on its back, the monster bear waved its arm around and the elbow blades sliced towards Silver. Silver was just about to jump away but the blades were already slashing towards him. Silver whelped in pain after being cut by the bear's elbow blades. It caused his fur to be dyed in red but fortunately for Silver, he had evaded right at the last second so only his left hind leg was cut by the blades. It was bad, but fortunately for him, the blades didn't chop off his leg. The wound looked deep, but he wasn't in any mortal danger.
Seeing his partner hurt, Cecil quickly charged forward and struck at the leg of the bear. His earlier attack was quite hopeless, but this time, he was only trying to make the monster stumble and hopefully divert its attention away from Silver.
After striking at the monster's leg, Cecil quickly took evasive action. Learning from Silver earlier, he knew that the bear had quick reactions despite being a bit slow, so before the monster's blades could reach him, he had already backed off from the range of the monster's attack. In the corner of his vision, Cecil saw Silver successfully landing and limping away quickly.
'We can't win, it's too strong! We have to get out of here!'
Just one of the bear's casual backhands nearly caused Silver to lose a leg. Without his mobility, the next attack from the bear might even kill him.
"Silver, stay back!" Cecil called out.
After giving Silver an order, Cecil started to quickly look around the area, trying to find a way out of the bad situation they were currently in. Running was impossible now since Silver was injured and he couldn't possibly limp his way out of the fight. Cecil always had the option to carry Silver away from the battle, but it was going to be a grueling task for him since his pet was rather large and heavy. He could abandon Silver here, but no way was that going to happen. He would never leave his partner behind.
'What should I–'
Cecil quickly spotted the vines that were dangling from the trunks and branches of the surrounding trees. He thought up a reckless plan that could kill this bear.
'Damn... it's do or die! Let's just do it then!'
After resolving himself, he quickly started executing his reckless plan. The first step would be attracting the monster bear's attention.
"Silv! Keep your distance! I've got a plan!"
Cecil quickly eyed the stones on the ground around him and started picking them up by the handful. After getting enough, he started chucking them towards the face of the monster bear.
"GROOOOAAAARR"
'Good, I managed to piss it off.'
After taking a glare at the slowly retreating Silver, the monster bear turned its attention towards Cecil who was chucking rocks at its face. This enraged the bear and it roared angrily at Cecil who didn't stop throwing rocks at its face. After chucking all the rocks he had picked up earlier, Cecil quickly bent down to pick up a couple more while running around. He quickly threw the rocks he picked up at the bear's face, obviously trying to annoy the monster and, hopefully, injure its eyes. The monster bear started charging at Cecil on all fours again.
Cecil took advantage of his terrain and began weaving in and out of the trees around him. Due to his action, he was able to stay away from the bear and quickly make his escape whenever the bear managed to catch up to him because he was dawdling around while picking up rocks to throw at the monster.
In the end, the monster bear was still just an animal. It wasn't smart enough to change its tactics when chasing after Cecil and only single-mindedly chased him. During this time, Cecil took his leisure time to collect rocks to throw at the monster while at the same time, he collected the vines he saw dangling close to the ground. This game of cat and mouse continued for quite a while.
*****
After about an hour of Cecil playing tag with the monster bear. The bear finally stopped due to its exhaustion from the chase. It was heaving, spouting out a white fog every time it exhaled its breath. Cecil was also breathing heavily, he was clearly exhausted but not as much as the poor monster bear since he could take small breaks every time he ducked behind a tree and let the bear charge past him.
In this game of tag, the person who was 'it' had lost the battle. Cecil grinned cheekily at the monster. All that running and charging around had finally made the monster bear utterly exhausted. He was elated and seeing that the bear made no notions in chasing after him, he quickly ran towards a particular tree that he had marked earlier and hid behind it. This particular tree had the largest trunk compared to the other trees in the surroundings. Its bark was also of a different color so it was easily noticeable.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The monster bear could only glare at Cecil, it had no strength or stamina left to chase after the annoying prey that continued to slip away from its claws. The bear was cautious of the tiny little thing that kept on chucking stones at its face.
Right now, the bear's face was no longer as pristine as it was before. He didn't know if it was him or not, but the stones he had been throwing earlier, especially the sharp ones that he had been able to pick up were able to injure the monster's face. Many cuts and bruises were present on the bear's face and there was even one injury that was rather close to its eyes.
Cecil matched the monster's gaze while slowly weaving the vines that he had gathered behind the large tree into thick braids. He had gathered a sizeable amount throughout his and the bear's earlier game of tag. After braiding the vines, he glanced back at the bear, making sure it was still lying at its previous spot in exhaustion. After confirming that the bear was just lying down on the ground with its eyes closed, Cecil slowly started to climb up the tree next to him, while still keeping his eyes on the bear.
'It's time to put phase 2 of my plan into motion.'
The first phase of his reckless plan was to exhaust the bear while the second phase was to try killing it by strangling the bear with the vines he collected from earlier. If he couldn't kill it with the vines, then at the very least, he would try to temporarily trap it until he and Silver could escape.
He already took into account the bear's claws and blades when he was developing his plan. He had tested the vines earlier on the bear and to his pleasant surprise, the vines were really flexible and sturdy. The monster's blades couldn't cut through the vines so easily. After confirming that, Cecil could only hope that nothing would go wrong when he executed his plans. Right now, he could actually take this chance to escape since the bear was exhausted, but all thoughts of that had flown out of his brain since he was focused on trying to take down the bear with his plan.
Cecil had crafted two braids of vines with both ends of the vines tied to a sizeable boulder that he found earlier. It was somewhat large and it weighed at least 40-50 kg. He had Silver slowly push it towards the tree he was at but he couldn't help but be surprised at the strength his pet wolf was showing. It did take a while since Silver was injured, but his pet was able to execute his order perfectly so everything went without a hitch for now.
'Alright, let's do this!'
Cecil quickly climbed up the tree he was next to and slung one end of the vine onto a thick tree branch while the other vine was still on the ground. From the top of the branch, he slowly pulled up the boulder and placed it on the branch of the tree.
'S-shit...I-I don't think this boulder only weighs 50 kg!' Cecil inwardly cursed.
He didn't know whether it was because of the gravity of this new world he was in but from the size of the boulder, Cecil had judged that it was around 50 kg in weight. However, when he had pulled it up earlier, it was clearly not just 50 kg.
"Who cares... the heavier the better!"
Cecil had Silver keep an eye on the bear resting in the clearing while he continued his work setting up the trap he had prepared for the monster bear. After a couple of minutes, he was ready and quickly made his way down from the tree.
'Okay, it's time...I've rested enough. I have to start now since I don't want that stupid animal to regain its strength!'
With his preparations ready, Cecil turned his eyes toward the monster resting in the clearing ahead of him. The monster was still resting with its eyes closed and this time, thoughts about making a quick getaway surfaced in his mind but he wouldn't have it.
'Runaway? No way, I can obtain a few sharp weapons if I'm able to kill this thing!' Cecil insidiously thought as he eyed the blades protruding from the monster's body.
Silver slowly started limping his way towards Cecil, in its mouth was a bundle of vines that he had gathered and put behind the other trees in the vicinity. Silver was smart enough to help his master so he did his fair share of vine collecting. After reaching Cecil's side, Silver put down the vines and started keeping watch on the bear once again.
Cecil took the vines and started braiding them again. After he finished braiding them, he slowly moved to the tree adjacent to the tree with the trap he had set up and began wrapping the vines tightly around this tree's trunk.
After securely wrapping them around the trunk, he laid the vines down. This vine he would use to tie up one of the monster's arms. Since the tree was a bit far away from the trap, he hoped that it would somehow keep one of the arms of the bear stretched out so it couldn't wave it around to try and cut the vine that was strangling it later.
As for the other arm, he would try and draw its attention by repeatedly throwing sharp rocks at its face and eyes and hopefully make it raise its other arm to defend against these attacks. This wasn't a foolproof plan—heck, it was a totally naive plan, but this wasn't something the 13-year-old Cecil would understand because this was his first genuine life-or-death battle.
It was a battle that wasn't in a controlled environment, and Cecil didn't have his father or grandfather around to protect him if things became too dangerous for him to cope. So thinking that things were okay, he proceeded with the plan, not knowing whether it would work or not. Cecil only hoped that it would go without a hitch and didn't think about anything else.
"Okay, everything's ready. Silver, get ready, and be on standby to pull the vine when I tell you to."
"Woof!"
After giving his orders, Cecil started picking up bigger sized rocks and gathering them around the area near the trap. After getting a sizeable pile of rocks, he began picking up some smaller rocks before walking towards the clearing where the monster bear was resting. He picked a sharper-looking rock and aimed. He took a stance and slowly drew back his arm. It was hard for him to locate the monster's eye under all the thick fur on its face, but eventually, he managed to roughly pinpoint its location.
Cecil started storing power in his arm making the muscles on his arm visibly swell. After accumulating enough strength in his arm, he threw the rock at the bear's face, towards the area where he thought the eyes would be with all the might he could muster. The result was a repulsive-sounding impact accompanied by an enraged roar.
"ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRR"
The bear was rudely awakened! It started roaring and thrashing around due to being woken up by the intense pain coming from its face. When Cecil took a look again, he found that the bear's eye was actually punctured by the sharp rock he had thrown earlier. It looks like he busted its eye since it was bleeding profusely with no signs of stopping. He was surprised at first, but then he quickly regained his bearings and started yelling at the bear while throwing more rocks at its face.
"HEY! HEY!! OVER HERE, YOU STUPID FURBALL!!!"
When the bear took another rock to its face and heard its prey shouting, the monster turned towards Cecil with its remaining eye, it only took a second for it to recognize the pesky little creature before it started charging in fury.
"ROOOOOAAAARRRR"
"That's right. OVER HERE!!!"
'Good, the bear is moving according to plan.'
Cecil continued chucking rocks at its face while running towards the trap he had set. Once he chucked the last rock in his hand, Cecil slid and caught the vine that was on the ground before ducking behind the large tree. Once he was out of the bear's line of sight, he quickly started scaling the tree post-haste. Reaching a part of the tree trunk where there was a protrusion of what seemed to once be a branch, he waited for the bear to come around.
"ROOAAR"
Seeing that Cecil playing the same tricks as earlier, the bear smartened up and slowed down, it turned around the tree but couldn't find the tiny little bug that busted its eye. A pair of black eyes glared down at the monster from above, before Cecil jumped off the tree with the vine in hand, he heard Silver roar at the bear.
"GRAAAAAHHH!"
The attention of the bear was momentarily directed towards Silver who came out of his hiding place and this slight diversion was enough to give Cecil an edge. With the bear's attention shifted onto Silver, Cecil immediately jumped down and landed on the bear's broad shoulders.
Having something heavy slam onto it, the monster bear was startled. It roared and tried to slash at the bug that landed on its back, but before it could do so, Cecil had already wrapped the vine in his hands around its neck and slid off of its back. The loop that was only dangling loosely around the monster's neck started to tighten and by the time Cecil slid to the ground unharmed, the noose had firmly tightened itself around the bear's neck.
"SILV!"
Silver quickly got the message. He picked up the braided vine that was on the ground with his mouth, pulled on it, and started to run in the opposite direction of the bear while Cecil started to sprint towards the other set of vines that he was going to use to wrap around one of the monster bear's arms. With Silver running back, the boulder that was on top of the branch that Cecil had set up earlier fell to the ground. When Cecil reached the vines he had set up not far away, the monster bear's roar abruptly cut off.
'Great! It worked!' Cecil inwardly rejoiced.
He quickly slid and picked up the vines before kicking off the ground and rebounding towards the bear once again. With it being strangled, Cecil was able to find a gap and wrap one vine around one of the monster's arms before quickly dashing past the bear. The monster behaved just like he hoped it would and instead of trying to cut away the vine that was restraining its other arm, it tried to swipe at him who was dashing by.
'Nice!' Cecil inwardly cheered.
The bear's arm passed through the air and struck a few vines that were dangling in the area just beside it where Cecil had passed by. These vines were the second trap that Cecil had set up and it was triggered by the monster. The vines fell down and messily tangled up the bear's other arm. It tried to pull away, but it couldn't so now, both arms of the monster were held in check. So far, everything was going great. Cecil quickly sprinted towards the pile of rocks that he had gathered earlier and he began chucking the rocks at the monster's face.
'Damnit, the good eye is exactly at the opposite location where I gathered these rocks...'
It was the first blunder in his plans, but Cecil didn't take this to mind and continued chucking the rocks while slowly moving towards a better location where he got a better angle to aim at the monster's other eye.
"Haha, it's protecting its face with the other arm!"
The monster's half-restrained arm that Cecil was worried about earlier was now being used by the bear to try and protect its face from Cecil's rock attacks. He had wanted to fully restrain both of the monster's arms while he freely attacked its face with rocks so that he could make the monster panic and struggle to hasten its strangulation, but this was okay. It was pure luck that the first rock he had chucked at the bear had penetrated its eye. The pain in its right eye reminded it of the injury that caused the current situation where the bear was instinctively trying to protect its face from the projectiles launched by Cecil.
Cecil kept throwing rocks at it while waiting for the vine to choke the bear to death. Everything was going as planned, but as the saying goes, when man proposes, God opposes. He didn't think it was possible, but the bear had suddenly jumped up in the air.
"What the–"
The monster bear landed back down on the ground, causing a large quake that upturned the ground around it. The jump surprised Cecil and the resulting quake caught him off guard, making him stumble and fall on his butt.
"OH SHIT!"
"WOOOF!"
The vine was still wrapped around the neck of the bear, but it was no longer strangling it. From the looks of it, the monster had managed to snap the vine after it fell to the ground.
"DAMN!"
Cecil scrambled to his feet, but the bear had already turned towards him and started roaring.
"ROAAR!!"
While he was panicking, not knowing what to do, the sounds of breaking and cracking were heard from above.
"Eh?"
"Rah?"
In the next instant, blood and flesh flew across the air landing just in front of Cecil's feet.
"Eh?"
A thick tree branch landed on the area where the bear was standing earlier, crushing the poor thing under it.
"What...happened?"
Although it didn't really turn out according to what Cecil had planned, the subjugation of the monster bear was completed, somehow.