Ray inwardly sighed in relief as he felt himself lifted up. Lying motionless, like enduring pain, was not a problem, but when the woman opened his eye, he involuntarily glanced at her. Scolding himself, he suddenly realized that she hadn't noticed.

It was a little surprising, but nothing more.

The guy heard the hunters say something, but did not understand anything. At this time, he tried with all his might not to move a single muscle in his body, which was not so difficult, because he had lain in the snow for almost an hour, having managed to freeze through. I even stopped trembling.

But Ray was sure that he would not die, because over the past three days he had managed to prepare quite well. A wound on his stomach he could partially heal with the help of souls. He discovered this property in the evening of the same day when he found the city.

Before the ability [Soul Master] had risen to the third level, the energy from the broken souls spread evenly throughout the body, but now he could direct it to a certain part of it. As confirmed by the experiment, it had some healing properties. Not too strong, but already something.

Upon discovering this, Rey once again tweaked his plan to make it more plausible. Now the souls of the 28 animals that he managed to kill while hunting near the city were stored inside him, not going to either strengthen or "food" for himself. They should have been insurance if the foresters hadn't noticed him. Rei wasn't sure they would be enough to heal such a wound, but they would have had some effect by preventing him from dying.

As the guy found out, this was the current limit of the number of souls that he could contain in himself. And he realized this about three hours ago, when another soul of a boar was not absorbed by his ability. This fact was a little frustrating, because he definitely did not know how to raise the level of [Many Faces]. His guess that it grows with the level of the human soul seemed logical, but was confirmed only by a single observation.

“Maybe in order to raise his level you need to endure pain?”

The prospect seemed rather bleak to Ray, but he noticed that he hadn't thrown it away... If it gives him the strength to take revenge, it's worth it...

Breaking his thoughts, the guy focused on the case. He had been listening to the conversations of the forest people he had been watching over the past few days. This group left the city every day at dawn and returned at about noon, only to leave again later, lingering until late at night. It was them, after three days of observation, that Ray chose as his target. And the snowstorm that began in the morning only simplified his task. True, everything went a little wrong and the group returned back in a slightly different way, because of which they were too far from the guy. Fortunately, everything worked out and the hunters were still able to find him.

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The wounds that covered Ray's stomach, he inflicted on himself in the form of a gsarkh. They have not disappeared anywhere and in the form of a forest, except that they have become a little smaller, in accordance with the size of the body. In this state, the guy had to lie for almost ten minutes, slowly feeding the body with souls, until the hunters found him.

The plan seemed simple, but it was dangerous and had several holes. For example, if it weren’t for the snowstorm, the foresters could understand from its tracks that something was wrong. After all, at some point they would simply disappear, becoming bestial, but heavy snow perfectly hid this.

The next and probably the main problem was Ray's inability to speak their language, which he was going to write off as memory loss. This variable in his plan was the most uncertain, because it aroused too much suspicion for him, but there was no other way out, so he resigned himself.

Hearing the loud sound of the gate opening, Rei did not dare to relax. It was impossible for his heart rate to increase too much, and if breathing was more or less easy to control, then the first one needed a lot of concentration.

The pace of movement of the foresters carrying him was quite high, but inwardly the guy praised them, because, despite the haste, they moved it as carefully as possible. A big noise arose nearby, and after ten seconds, Rei felt how they put him on some kind of cloth and covered him with something, continuing to carry him in this position.

After a few more minutes, Rey stopped feeling the violence of the elements, which meant that he was in the building. They put him on something soft. Judging by the height and rigidity - a pretty good bed. The guy heard several surprised and alarmed female voices. It's a pity, but he could only imagine the meaning from the emotions of the speakers.

"I hope their language turns out to be as simple as it sounds." Ray's thought was interrupted by a flash of pain in the area of the wound, not the stomach, which seemed to be rewashed.

This moment was another problem. Even though the guy was sure that he could withstand the pain of treating wounds without making a sound, he also needed to lie down, relaxing all his muscles.

Feeling a prick in the abdomen, and then another on the other side, Rei did not immediately understand what was happening, the injections were repeated and repeated. The pain was quite intense, but still within the range of what Rei could endure without moving. He felt that the two largest wounds, which had effectively opened his stomach, were slowly beginning to heal.

"What is it?"

Even though he was interested, he, of course, did not dare to open his eyes. The same thing happened with the other two wounds. After that, almost his entire torso was smeared with some kind of thick and warm substance.

The two pairs of hands that lifted him by the waist were very gentle and soft. Concentrating, Rei was still able to endure the moment when his stomach was tightly bandaged and covered tightly with some kind of blanket.

The guy lay silently and listened to the conversations of others. This way of learning the language was not the easiest, but quite effective. His memory in this world was actually perfect. He didn't know if it was another indulgence of the developers or something else, but ignorance did not prevent him from using this advantage. Even now, some words from the conversations seemed familiar to him, although devoid of meaning, but this is only for a while ...

For almost five hours, Ray lay without even moving a finger. Although his mind was tempered, he still had to feed himself with energy from the souls, otherwise he could involuntarily blink or twitch. Perhaps it would not be strange even for an unconscious person, but the guy did not know this, so he decided to lie absolutely still.