I sprinted through the forest for perhaps five minutes before I started to slow down. Coming to a stop, I hunched over and put my hands on my knees in order to catch my breath. But I was fighting something else that was making me breathe hard, and that was my own panic. My breaths came in harsh gasps even though I had recovered from my mad dash through the underbrush of this damn monster-infested forest. Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck.

Get it together, dumbass. You didn’t have time to have a panic attack.

Casting a wild eye up through the treetops, I tried to get a handle on the time. The canopy wasn’t too thick where I was, and I was still able to see sunlight. I couldn’t see the position of the sun though, so I could only guesstimate. Midday-ish? Maybe? So like Magnus had said, I maybe had six hours at the absolute most in order to find a high-level monster in this hellhole, survive its attack, and somehow lead it back to the back gate so that fucking psycho could kill it.

All right then. Work with what you got.

I was still wearing the traveling clothes that I had been gifted back in Rhoscara by Ely before I had left. They were higher quality than the slave clothes I had been given by Azarus. They included a good pair of leather boots, so that was a stroke of luck. Perfect for tromping through the brush.

But that was about it, other than my new ‘dagger’.

I hadn’t expected to need anything when we woke up this morning, and I’d been advised by Azarus to not wear anything fancy when we got back to Addersfield. Couldn’t have a slave wearing anything nice, after all. I didn’t have any food on me, and more importantly, I didn’t have water. I hoped my energy held up.

No other tools on me, either. I was lucky to have the spearhead, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to thank Magnus for that. My brief experiences in the scouts when I was a kid told me that having anything with a blade on it was a huge boon to survival. Thank fuck that Azarus had spoken up. I would have appreciated having the spear more, but at this point, I would take what I could get.

So, how was I going to do this?

First, I needed to find a monster. It had to be a strong one, too. I hadn’t thought to Observe Magnus to tell what level he was, but something told me it wouldn’t have mattered if I had. He was assuredly much higher than me, so it would have just shown up as question marks. So how strong was he, then? What would constitute a good enough monster? I wracked my brain to try and remember if Azarus had ever said anything. The only thing that came to mind was Azarus mentioning that he was over a hundred levels above me, and that Magnus was jealous of Azarus for being higher level than him. So, fucking anywhere between level four and one hundred and four? Great.

Last time we were in this forest, Azarus had told me that the further you went into the forest, the stronger and higher level the monsters became. We’d meandered not far from the clearing, maybe about fifteen minutes run from the clearing. That had netted us monsters that were around the level five to six range. I needed to go much farther than that if I wanted to find something strong enough. Damnit, I just had to hope I could survive long to reach that area, and then survive the stronger monster as well.

I needed to get moving, fast. I had no time to take it slow through this forest, and I didn’t have time to care if the weaker monsters around my level tried to attack me. Hopefully, I could just run from them. I let out a shuddering breath at that. I hadn’t done so hot, fighting a monster entirely on my own last time. This time, I had to suck it up. If I had to fight something, I had to make the first move. I had to be aggressive if I was going to survive this.

Standing up from the hunched-over position I’d been in while my thoughts raced, I slapped my cheeks to psych myself up. Luckily, I didn’t stab myself in the face with the spear blade I was still clutching in my right hand.

I could do this, I could do this, I could do this.

Digging my feet into the loam beneath me and getting into a runner’s stance, I tensed my whole body. At an unseen signal, I took off.

Deeper into the forest.

……………………………………...

I was running through the forest for maybe ten minutes, doing my best to dodge roots and branches in my path, when I ran into my first problem.

Something was crashing through the brush behind me. Chasing me.

Making sure there was nothing coming up, I risked a quick glance behind me. I made sure not to stop running, though.

Fuck. Yeah, that was a monster, all right. I couldn’t get a good look at it through the brush, but there was something audibly panting as it chased me. I threw out a quick Observe, hoping it could track whatever it was even though I couldn’t

Name Scrappy Warg Runt Level 8 Age 3 weeks Species Monster Abilities Lunge

Lunge?

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Seconds after I noticed that, a large wolf-like creature shot out of the brush behind me, like an arrow out of a bow. Its large, bearish jaws were wide open and dripping. My eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets from where I had been looking over my shoulder.

Something strange happened then.

As if I was moving in a daze, I stopped on a dime, transferring all my forward momentum onto my right heel. I spun around quickly, crouching slightly in the same movement. As the Warg flew through the air at me, it felt like the world had slowed to a crawl. I must have been the one moving, but it didn’t feel like it. I watched as my arm raised my dagger to point above me, and as the Warg descended on my position.

The world sped back up. With a crash, the Warg fell onto my blade. At the same time, I shoved the monster off to the side so it didn’t pin me. I stayed crouched for a moment, watching the monster that was lying off to the side. I needn’t have bothered though, as it was clearly dead. It wasn’t moving, or even breathing anymore. Like most monsters I had seen die though, it wasn’t bleeding. As if to punctuate my observation, the Warg puffed into greasy black smoke, leaving behind a tiny, grain-sized gem.

I blinked.

Slowly, I rose my crouch and furrowed my brow. Looking down at my hands and the dagger clutched in one, I contemplated what I had just done.

Well. That had gone way better than the first time I had fought a monster by myself.

Where did that come from? I’d never shown that kind of combat prowess before. It’s not like anything had changed since the last time I’d gotten into a fight, back when I’d gotten my ass kicked by the Blade-Rack Hart. The last time I’d checked my Status, I hadn’t noticed anything that could cause this.

Huh.

I shook it off. I didn’t have the time to be woolgathering. I only had a handful of more hours to get Magnus’s sadistic task done. I didn’t give much of a shit about the monster core that it had dropped. It’s not like I had anywhere to put them after all. These pants didn’t have pockets, and I didn’t have a bag on me. Casting one last puzzled glance back at the spot the Warg had died, I took off back into the forest again.

This time, I was more confident about my chances. Maybe I really could do this after all.

……………………………………..

I had several more chances to test that confidence, as I made my way deeper into the forest. Two more times I ended up fighting and killing monsters again, both of them Wargs as well. The first one repeated the same strategy of the Warg I had killed earlier. I’d killed it pretty much the same way, by letting it fall on my dagger during its lunge. I didn’t stick around to watch it puff into smoke, I just took off again after retrieving my knife.

The second one, I ended up being the one to ambush it. I had been sprinting along through the forest, when I saw another one of the Warg Runts directly in my path. I noticed it first and made a split-second decision to try and copy its own tactics. In moments, I was upon it before it could detect me. Taking a running jump, I had pretty much tackled the weird bear-wolf from behind. The Warg had been too stunned by my tackle and hadn’t reacted in time to save itself from being shanked. Unfortunately, I didn’t get off of the monster in time to avoid a face full of greasy, foul-smelling smoke. I barely avoided vomiting on the newly revealed monster core beneath me.

Lesson learned, I guess. Even if I had grown more confident in my combat ability, don’t tackle monsters unless you want to inhale smoke that’ll make you dry heave.

Other than those two, I didn’t hear or see any more monsters. I found it slightly odd that I didn’t fight anything other than Wargs, though.

I must have been outright sprinting through the forest for most of an hour when I finally noticed the changes in the forest around me. They’d been so gradual during my run that my adrenaline-flooded brain didn’t realize them until they were unmistakable. I slowed down gradually until I had stopped completely to take them in. Casting my head around, I couldn’t help a sense of foreboding from falling over me.

The forest had grown visibly darker.

I’m not just talking about the amount of visible light, although that had reduced significantly as well. While the canopy in this area was denser and blocked out more light, it still seemed darker than it should have. It was nearly dark enough in here to be poorly mistaken for nighttime. I say poorly, because the overall effect was as if there was a filter over the forest obscuring the visible light. The overall effect was similar to a terribly done effect from old movies back home called ‘day for night’, when the movie would be filmed during the day with blue filters in order to simulate actual nighttime.

Seeing something like that in real life was bizarre.

That wasn’t the only thing though, as the actual forest seemed…twisted somehow. The trees were gnarled, with darker and more vicious-looking foliage now. The brush was denser, and cruel as well, with far more barbs and hooks on them. It was quiet, too. As had been explained to me before, animals and monsters didn’t care about each other at all. This had resulted in the previous stretch of the forest sounding like, well, a forest. Distant animal sounds, bird calls, and insect noises blended into the background to make it seem natural, despite the bloodthirsty beasts. There was none of that, now. Hell, I didn’t even hear the sound of wind through the leaves, or the creaking of branches.

It was dead silent. Eerily so.

All right, I admit it, I was spooked. But on the other hand, I was guessing that I had reached the higher-level area of the forest. That had to be what this Halloween-esque landscape indicated.

I needed to slow down, then. Judging by the increased density of the brush before me, I don’t even think I could continue running through it if I wanted to. Even if it wasn’t too dense, I’d probably be torn to shreds by the thorns if I tried. I was going to have to navigate this part of the forest carefully, which didn’t speak well of my odds of leading a monster back through this mess.

If I was in the higher-level zone, then I couldn’t take the risk of blindly sprinting through this place, even if I could. Depending on how much higher level than me the monsters were, they might be able to kill me in an instant if I wasn’t careful. I was going to have to try and stealth this as much as I could, while simultaneously trying to track a monster.

Thankfully, I hadn’t forgotten about my ace in the hole. The Scintillant Blade had somehow managed to wound Azarus before we had left for Rhoscara, despite the massive level gap between us. I was counting on that skill saving my hide if I got into a fight that I couldn’t either escape from or lead back to Magnus.

Steadying my breath, I began to creep my way through the perilous thicket before me.