"Again..."

Luciana can only let out a sigh while hiding from the herd of armored monkeys. These monkeys are almost 1m tall and extremely nimble as they travel on the trees. Only after Azathoth attracted the army of mosquitoes, and then jumping in the pool of mud, do they lose the pursue of those damn creatures.

It takes 3 days for her to fully recover till then Azathoth is lecturing her about the forest. The mountain ranges bisect the forest into an outer and inner layer. Though the outer layer is dangerous, the animals there can be defeated, but in the inner layer, they can't do anything but to hide from those beasts. They are already chased many times, even after covering her body with mud, mixed with some herbs. Azathoth had said that it is to avoid the army of palm-sized mosquitoes, to cover their odor, and to camouflage themselves.

She is now wearing leather armor, knee length boots, skull cap made from the leather of the snake which she had hunted.

At that time, she was surprised by Azathoth's sewing skills.

They are exploring the outer region of the inner layer of the forest. Their destination is the lake which can be seen from the cave. By judging the distance, it will take 1 full day to get there. Yesterday, during lunchtime, Azathoth had suggested their destination, but she had opposed it. As Azathoth had already explained to her about the horrors of the inner zone, she can't understand why they have to go there if they can just go to the outer layer and then out of this forest. After all this argument she only gets a reply that

"Juliana, I like eating fish so we can go and catch some."

"It's Luciana!!! And if you want to eat fish you can go alone."

"Aah! People are so selfish, after mouth feeding them for so many days and saving their life, they just forget their savior and can't even fulfill their savior's small wish."

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

After gritting her teeth, she had finally agreed. For her assurance, Azathoth had also given her, his iron dagger and he takes a dagger made of stone.

As soon as they had entered the forest, she felt feared due to the existence of various animals and their stares which always make her remember to hold her guard up.

At someplace, there are large leech shaped creatures, stuck on the bark on the trees sucking on it, some horse-sized spiders created a large web in which a bear-like beast got trapped and now they are feasting on him. A group of deer had passed through them but the problem was that they are even larger than 1.5 meters with large antlers and strong legs.

While on the journey, they came across the tree with large fruits. Some fruits were lying on the ground.

She swears, just because of curiosity she had lifted one of the fruits when Azathoth is not paying attention to her. As she inspects the fruit, something pierces in her hand letting her drop the fruit. Fruit began to vibrate and then exploded, 14-15 beetle-like insects, come out from the fruit, and attacked her. As she tries to dodge them, other fruits also exploded.

"Juliana! what are you doing?."

She heard Azathoth's scream from behind, but she doesn't get the chance to punch him and say that her name is Luciana.

As the insects started to attack her. Their overwhelming number had forced them to run away and lose their direction. Due to which they had mistakenly entered the area of those monkeys and again chased out by them.

While lying in the mud pool, she can't do anything but regret her decision to touch that fruit.

"Alas! It's my mistake, to not feed you properly. Then you hadn't picked up some random fruit."

Luciana can only grit her teeth while hearing the constant jab from him. After some effort, they able to move out of the mud pool. Cleaning themselves from mud and crawling insects, they decided to postponed today's journey and to find the way back home. From the sun they perceive the general direction and again started their journey toward the mountain range.

Learning from the previous time, she followed Azathoth like a shadow. As they are walking, suddenly a bolt of lightning has fallen on the tree, not much far away. Azathoth has given Luciana a meaningful look, and they both began to run toward that tree. They both understand just how abnormal it is for a bolt of lightning to fall out in the broad daylight.

It may happen that two beasts are fighting and if one of them died or even seriously injured than they can also reap some reward.