Had the city guards known where he was going, they would have known how to stop him.

But they did not know, so no one got in his way, and no one stopped him. A cacophony of tintinnabulating gongs had sounded out from around the town initially - alarm bells, loudly declaring that a hunt was on - but the town guards conducting the search only had a description, and their quarry was one man among the crowds in the dark streets. The hour was not as late as Jiru had initially thought, and the city was still alive with activity, which worked in his favor. There was also the fact that, as an outpost at the Edge of the Wilderness, Everwatch had no shortage of people who were walking around armed and armored - who raided the Living Lairs and usually ended their day at a tavern or bar, not to mention all the ordinary busy hustle that any settlement had.

Jiru did not tarry, did not bother hiding, and was not stupid enough to draw attention to himself. He only made the briefest of stops at the Mayor's bungalow's stable to pick up the horse in question - a large draft animal bred for work and very different from the smaller, faster horses that he had learned to ride on. As promised, it had been saddled and readied for him, and a sign on the stall where the mare had been tied identified it as 'Rascal', which must have been one of those ironic names, because it was gentle-tempered and easy to control. By the time the bungalow guards had come looking both he and the mount were long gone.

He took out a hood from his storage and pulled it on - another normal thing, considering it was chilly outside - and rode with purpose at a steady trot. Zarhan's amulet he was relieved to discover inside the backpack, and Zar seemed even more relieved than he was.

"There you are!" The ghost exclaimed. "What hap - "

"Quiet," Jiru hissed at him. "We're being hunted."

To his credit, the warrior shut up at once. Jiru kept going.

In spite of being in a somewhat tricky situation, he could not help but notice his surroundings; it was fascinating to see new people. Most of them were human (Sarikot was a mostly-human kingdom but people from all over came to Everwatch, in search of the riches beyond it) with firasi being the second most common, followed by dark elves (pointy-eared and dark-skinned as their name implied), with various assorted other races in smaller numbers. He spotted six dwarves but only two of them had beards - as it turned out halflings were not a thing here; and neither did all dwarfs have big beards and funny accents. Some had facial hair and some didn’t, just like any other people. There were two minotaurs, both carrying huge war-hammers on their backs, and a more-than-six-feet-tall kobold in mage robes with four slanted horns on his head and wearing spectacles on his snout walked past him in a hurry to get somewhere. There was also a - what the hell was that?

An ogre, he answered his own question. At least it looks like one. The man in question was eight and half feet tall at least, and about the girth of a small refrigerator. All muscle though, armed and armored with a sword on his belt and leaning on a halberd ten feet long as he spoke to a tall human who looked like a child in comparison. He had a rather squishy face with a large prominent nose, and unkempt hair that hung down to his shoulders. According to Zar, ogres had naturally high stamina and needed very little sleep compared to other peoples, and were highly sought after as guards and mercenaries for their strength and prowess in battle.

Not knowing his way around town was a problem, but he paused ever-so-briefly at a streetside stall selling some kind of meat rolled in flatbread, bought himself one, and got directions from the stallkeeper. He ate as he rode, slowing the big mare to a walk and leisurely chewing while passing by a contingent of guards armed with spears who were rushing off in another direction. They haven’t even bothered to set up checkpoints. Had he been in charge, the immediate neighborhood around the mayor's residence would have gone into total lockdown, and every person would have been searched. Probably for the best then, that he wasn't being hunted by himself.

The city gates were not closed, which made it easier to get outside. Jiru chose a different way out from the one he had used to enter - which was only sensible because he was going out in another direction and not towards the road. At a certain point he thought he heard something behind him, but when he whirled the horse around there was nothing and no one to be seen.

I'm getting paranoid. Calm down.

The map marked his destination as about sixteen and half meadoways, which came out to just less than twenty kilometers. There was no unit of measure for 'foot' or 'meter' in this world, instead they used a hand (based on the length of a firasi forearm apparently), which was approximately fifty centimeters. Four hands made a length, five lengths made a furlong, and a hundred and twenty furlongs made a meadoway, which by Jiru's math rounded out at 1.2 kilometers. At least it was comparable to Earth measurement units, which was some comfort.

Rascal had an easy, ambling walk which was comfortable on the saddle, so he let the horse go at its own pace.

The road to the Wild was paved with the same white stones as the highway, but the stones grew fewer and fewer until the road kind of just vanished, leaving a wide and well-trodden dirt path. It wasn't abandoned though - there were lantern posts at intervals, and though few and far in between, there were people going both ways. Five dwarves stood around talking in a huddle, growing quiet as he went by. Fifteen minutes later a rider went past and after a while a different rider went in the opposite direction; the second one was riding a goat the size of a horse, its horns black and curled. Twenty minutes after, he saw a warband coming from the opposite direction - seven armed people on foot, three human men, two women and a firasi man and woman. One had a torch with that weird egg-shaped glowbulb on top. They only gave him the most cursory of looks before going on their way.

Smaller paths branched out and led into various directions while the main path got less and less path-like. The last sign of civilization was a long rectangular building - little more than a shed but well-constructed - that served as shelter and aid post. Jiru decided not to stop there and kept going. By now, he was truly walking through nature, nothing but plants and vegetation all around.

It was a beautiful night. It was strange seeing a second moon in the sky, though much smaller in size compared to the first, which was almost as big as Luna from Earth. It was stranger still to see so many stars, all easily visible without light pollution to block them, and all very different from the ones he had seen growing up. He made a mental note to learn about constellations and such, to make sure he could navigate by the night sky if he had to.

He took two breaks. One just three hours past midnight and another two hours after that, letting the horse rest and graze as he stretched his legs by walking in circles. Jiru half expected something to jump out at him from the darkness at any time, but nothing happened.

The sky was growing light by the time he neared the spot where he had to be according to the map. He decided to wait after dawn to make the final stretch, and took a final break in the shade of a rather big tree, taking a seat on one of its big roots. He watched the sunrise and made use of the time to store mana into Darkfang's battery, running the imbuing steel along the edge. The rhythmic, repetitive ritual calmed him down, helped him focus. The sword's gems had gone back to transparency; the blue liquid-thing sloshing around inside was now so much reduced in quantity it was almost depleted. The black smoky cloud still swirled within.

He ate as he worked, chewing on hardcake, a few dates, then some dried fruit and washing it all down by drinking water mixed with powdered fruit, which made a kind of juice.

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Once he felt the battery was full, he changed clothes and armored himself again in vest, vambraces and boots. The last stretch of the journey was a lightly wooded, rocky region with many boulders and obstacles; so Rascal was left tied up to the tree (with a big bowl of water and some feed).

The exact location marked on the map was a densely wooded area, at the center of which was an absolutely gigantic fig, with one of the largest canopies he had ever seen. It seemed like a smaller version of the Great Banyan Tree of India, and just like the Great Banyan, it had vines the size of small tree-trunks hanging down from branches, and many of them had taken root on the ground. They were so close together it was a tight fit to squeeze in between some of them. He had been trying go around to the other side, and so was pushing through said vines when it happened.

Something changed in the world.

He could not explain it, could not say how he knew, but he knew.

Magic.

Jiru paused, waiting to see if something else would happen.

"Did you feel that?" He asked out loud.

"Feel what?" Zar wondered from around his neck.

"Something's… different."

"Magic different, you mean?"

"Yes."

"If this is indeed the entrance to the Living Lair, then it's not surprising."

When several minutes went by without event, he slowly resumed going around the main trunk of the fig.

On the other side there was no more woods. Instead the vines ended and opened up into a rocky, grassy valley that was very different from the area he had just left behind. On a hunch, Jiru turned around and circumnavigated the tree once again, trying to exit from under the canopy back to where he had come in.

He couldn't.

He kept going through the vines, and somehow circled and ended up looking at the valley again. He tried again, and again, both times with the same result.

Somehow, the tree had transported him. Either that, or it had locked him inside somewhere, like a pocket dimension. In the stories, Dungeons were capable of spatial magic, not to mention powerful illusions that could simulate spatial environments... if that was true in this universe then hypothetically, there could be an actual valley in here; a closed system with the mountains around it acting as unpassable walls, and an illusory sky complete with sun, moons and stars.

With no choice, Jiru squeezed himself out from among the vines, and stepped out into the grass.

And just like that, he was inside a Living Lair.

He took a deep breath, and the air felt normal. The dirt under his boots felt normal. He walked around the tree and circled the entire canopy, vines and all, and was unsurprised to see that the valley stretched out in all directions around it. In the distances around the fig he saw some small forests with many different varieties of trees, some grassy plains, a lake, a creek, and few rocky hills. Lots of birds that could both be seen flying and heard chirping.

A cool breeze kicked up and fluttered his loose shirt. The sun, illusory or otherwise, felt warm but not hot. It was the kind of weather that indicated a perfect day, which was freaking him out a bit. No monsters, no traps, no maze. Didn't that defeat the purpose of a Dungeon?

"Is this normal for a Lair?"

"There is no such thing as normal for a Lair. They can manifest literally any environment imaginable."

"Which way?"

"Don't know. Just - "

"Pick a direction and go. Fine."

Jiru did just that, and started walking.

His first encounter with the local wildlife was about half a kilometer from the fig tree, where he heard some sounds from behind a large boulder. A low but clearly audible krrrrr. Not a growl but not a hiss either but something in between. Jiru placed one hand on the sword handle behind his shoulder but before he could draw, a reptilian face peeked over the rock.

Velociraptor, was his first thought. Then he corrected himself, Deinonychus. Veociraptors were feathery reptilians that were small, about the size of a dog. The lizard-man dinosaur made famous by the movies is actually the Deinonychus. Then he corrected himself again: Wait a minute, it's probably neither of those things, because I'm in a different universe. And finally he yelled at himself internally, Focus, you moron, that thing could kill you.

The reptile scrutinized him with yellow snake-like eyes. It was about the height of a human, with dark green scales patterned with dark grey stripes, easily able to blend into its surroundings here. It tilted its head, making a strange chittering noise with its throat.

Then a second head popped up next to it.

And a third.

He took a step back.

The dino-things clicked with their throats again, and made another krrrr. One hopped up on the rock with a swift jump, its near-human size suddenly becoming menacingly imposing as it towered over him.

Jiru drew the sword.

Krrargh! Krrrargh? Two of the creatures looked at each other briefly as they vocalized, as though exchanging a couple of words in some tongue he could not understand. Now that he was paying very close attention to them, he saw that one had blood on its snout. They had been eating something, which had been the noises he had heard. Which meant - assuming they behaved like Earth animals - they would likely defend their kill.

A second one leapt on to the rock. The third one came around it in a chicken-walk, head bobbing up and down like a bird moving on the ground.

Well, since you're clearly being hostile and aggressive -

He attacked.

The one on the ground had been closest, and Darkfang sliced right through its shoulder, the glowing purple edge ripping through flesh and muscle. The beast screamed, an almost human (and highly disturbing) sound, and snapped its jaws at him as it backed off.

The two on the boulder leapt at him, moving in unison. He had been expecting it though, and deftly stepped out of the way while bringing up the point of the blade, which struck but he had misjudged the range and only scratched the lizard.

They split up and began flanking him, and the moment he realized this he charged again, targeting the one on the right. It surprised him by dodging precisely to avoid the sword not once but several times in quick succession. While he was focused in his attacks the other managed to surprise him, ramming into him bodily to join the fight, and then the whole thing descended into a close quarters melee, a blur of jaw and fang and steel and claws all pushing and slamming against each other.

When they broke away he was bleeding from several claw slashes on his arm and shoulder, but one of the two was down and dying with its throat cut, legs thrashing as it made choking sounds and whines of agony. The other was wounded - and weary; it had three cuts below its right eye where the dying one had accidently swiped at it with its hand. In any universe, a fight for survival was chaos.

The earlier one with the cut on its shoulder was also keeping its distance. Living Lair or not, they had a sense of self preservation.

Jiru waved his sword and yelled. "YAAAH! AAARGH!" He knew he sounded silly, but that was what you were supposed to do if confronted by a predator - make yourself bigger, make noise to scare it away (or at least that was what the books and the documentaries said - he had no way of knowing how true that was, and he was aware that this was a very stupid way of putting the theory to the test). Screw it, he thought, and went all in, taking a deep breath to fill out his diaphragm. Then clenching up his belly muscles for maximum volume -

He roared.

It was a good roar - could've been better, but it wasn't bad. And this time there was an effect. Both creatures shied away in fear.

The one in front of him turned and made a run for it.

The second followed suit.

Jiru put the dying one out of its misery, sinking the tip of Darkfang's blade into its brain.

Welcome to the Jungle, Jiru Vanchi Rama, he thought. Welcome to the food chain.