Pretty was walking without any specific direction in some part of the forest when she found another trail. There was another fallen tree in it and she sat at its protruding root to rest for a while.
She regretted not getting hold of that person but she could not do anything about it. If she was the person and she saw a person covered in dirt and mud in the middle of forest then she would also run. Even without her face, she still looked like a creature that just crawled from a marsh.
While she was taking a rest, she looked around her for potential food.
Sadly, she could not find anything that she could eat. She had been looking for potential food since a while ago but she had not seen any fruits or fruit bearing trees on her way.
There were only trees and bushes around that were all leaves. She knew some recipes that used leaves as its ingredients but all of them were soup, and she needed cooking tools and water for it. Besides, what she needed now was water and carbohydrates, not a herbal soup.
She had a hunch that the same trees around her did not bear fruit at all. It was because there were only little animals she could see around, except for the occasional birds and small animals she heard squeaking but never got a glimpse of. She could go hunting but even if the forest was full of animals to hunt, she did not know how.
The space between trees were also spaced apart from each other. If they bear fruit, they should have more saplings around them from the fallen seeds. But the undergrowth was mostly frequented by bushes and a type of blade grass.
She also noticed the forest was weird. Just by looking at the sun. temperature, humidity and the state of plants around her, it should probably be in the middle of summer or a hot climate. This was usually the time where the flora and fauna thrive but there’s hardly any activity.
After a few minutes of resting, she continued on her way.
She still saw some fallen trees in her trail, but after climbing the third fallen trunk she had not seen any fallen trunks anymore.
She continued walking with the thought that she should be near a civilization but another ten minutes passed and she noticed something that brought dread to her.
The forest seemed to grow denser.
A forest could only grow dense the more you went near the center.
She was going the wrong way all this time.
She looked at the sky and her dread increased. The sunlight that was beaming hours ago was lessening in its intensity. It was not morning like she hoped it to be, it was afternoon.
Now that night was coming, she needed to look for a place to stay.
Staying in the middle of a forest would be fine for her as the weather was warm. She had spent a lot of time camping in the wild before so she had a lot of experience and could cope up well. But that was when she had her storage ability. She may have experience, but all those experiences were accompanied by her storage. She could not even make a fire out of nothing as she always had a lighter and a match with her.
She had nothing with her right now. No camping equipment, no food and no clothes. She had a trailer in her storage, equipped with living equipment where she could cook for herself, take a bath and sleep on a bed. But she could not access any of those. She was not sure if she still had them. She did not even know if she could use her ability anymore.
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She stopped on her tracks and the dread that she had been keeping at bay washed on her. What if Simon had extracted her ability while she was in her rentom form?
She did not know if it was possible. Rentom abilities were abilities that were etched onto a person's rentom. Etching an ability was complicated enough, taking it was a concept she could not fathom where to start. It was like growing plants in outer space, how could a person even approach in starting to accomplish that.
But Simon attempted to get it from her, fully convinced that he could do it. What if he was successful at it?
That could explain why she could not use her ability right now, just like when she was ten year old when she did not have an ability yet and she could only use her renisas.
How could she use something that was not there in the first place?
She forcefully calmed herself down and did some breathing exercises. It was not sure yet, it was just a theory. It could be because she was weak, or something happened that she just did not know. Even if she really lost her ability, she could just get the same ability again.
But she knew the chance of getting the same ability would be like finding a needle in the whole universe
Though it was not impossible, it was not reachable either. Even for a normal renisas user in the Summit, getting a simple ability was impossible to them. Even Simon did not have one.
She also needed two important items for her to contemplate getting an ability in the Repository both of which were in her storage.
She pulled her hair in frustration. She realized she had taken her storage for granted. It was a rare ability. She had never heard anyone in the history of the Summit to have the same ability, and there were people in it who had amazing abilities. But she realized now that nothing could probably top a storage ability.
Her food, clothes, gadgets, medicine and basically her whole house was there. She was a portable Doraemon but without it she was just an ugly girl with nothing to defend herself in the middle of nowhere. She was never scared of nowhere before, but now she could feel the onset of a panic.
She toned it down again and whisked any negative thoughts in her head.
The worst that could happen to me was to die.
That thought helped her calm down greatly.
The only worst thing that could happen to her was to die. She had died once, what was another one? Besides, it was just a forest, it was not immediately a bad thing.
She stopped pulling her matted hair and inhaled and exhaled a good whiff of air. She looked at her hair and the green forest around her and her mood got a little better.
It was just a matter of perspective.
At least she was breathing fresh air in the middle of a beautiful forest, and she had hair, a full one at that. Her situation could not be that bad.
She turned around and went back her way but her long skirt was snagged on some thorny bush beside the trail. She tugged it up and freeze when she realized something.
Skirt.
Why was she wearing a damn skirt?
She checked twice and it was really a skirt.
She remembered she was wearing flexible black cargo pants, a t-shirt with an image of Sunoo of Enhypen in it and a black hooded jacket when she was at the Summit. But now, she was wearing a rag-like dress (she could not think of a better name to call it) with a long skirt below. It looked like it was a type of dress before, but it was now blackened and soiled to such an extreme degree that calling it a rag would be generous.
She tugged the skirt a little bit harder and it ripped. She did not mind.
She could think of countless reasons why her clothes change, but she chose not to. She just has to add it to the mystery of her life.
She just wanted to find something to eat or drink. She would think after that.
As she was bending down to pick the ripped cloth from the bush, in her peripheral vision, she saw something in the distance behind the tree that stood beside the trail. She would not have seen it if she did not bend down as it was hidden out of view from the tree. It was just at the rounded corner of the trail ahead.
She immediately ran towards it and when she was near it, it was indeed something that was at odds with the forest.
There, on another tree beside the trail, was a wooden board nailed on it. It was a sign post. There were some symbols carved on it that she could not understand. It was a writing system of sorts and it was not written in the roman alphabet or writing system that she was familiar with. The only thing she could make out of it was the arrow pointing towards a trail leading to her right.
She gladly followed it thinking it led to some place. An arrow could only mean a place to go, and probably where people were.
But she did not know that a certain village head had paid a high amount of money to carve in a wood a warning sign that said ‘MAD GRAY FOREST’ to warn any wooder or stray people about not going to that forest.