This chapter has been proof-read by: AnthonyL

-------------------

Weakened and exhausted, I didn't have time to marvel at how beautiful the landscape was and needed to prepare for the night. As safe as it felt, I couldn't risk to stay the night on the beach since I didn't know how high the tides reached in this region. My first priorities were to find something to drink, and find a place to shelter for the night.

With that in mind, the first thing I did was to kick one of the coconut trees and gather the few green coconuts that fell to the ground. Being insanely strong, I ended up piercing a hole through the hard shell simply by stabbing my finger through them. It was with a lot of expectations that I brought the familiar fruit to my mouth and drank the precious fluid it contained.

Coconut water was sweeter than I remembered, or was it the difference between one freshly harvested from the tree and one bought at the supermarket? Then questions began to pop into my head. How could this place feel so much different from the area we had been teleported to? How many more plants and animals from earth had made their way here and colonized this world?

With my thirst taken care of, came the urge to settle for the night. The sun was already very low and I only had a few minutes of sunlight left. It is with a regain of energy that I grabbed my backpack and began to climb the rocky cliff, hoping to get to a safer area. Being caught by the high tide seemed like something I should avoid. I had spent enough time in the water already and wished to find dryer grounds.

Normally, climbing this huge cliff would have been something difficult to do, but with red mist doping, it was nothing worth fussing about. Once on top, I arrived at the border of a dense jungle filled with the noises of insects and nocturnal creatures preparing to get out for the night. Nervous about the fact that I knew nothing of this area, my second priority was to light a fire.

Chopping small trees with my sword was child-play as the vegetation was so fragile, then lighting it afterwards was even easier since I was always carrying a few lighters with me. I didn't have time to build a shelter or find a proper place to establish one, but with a fire next to me, all my worries seemed to vanish.

All of my thoughts were aimed at what had happened. For the plane to suddenly stop working like that, it had to be sabotage. A frown appeared on my forehead as I guessed who could have done this, the answer to that was obvious. It was obviously Marc's doing. With my teeth and fists clenched, I sworn to kill him if I ever made it back home.

I didn't even care about becoming a murderer anymore. I wasn't a mechanic myself, but I believed I knew enough to detect if he ever tried to sabotage the plane, but it seemed he had taken his time and done it in a very smart way. He had most likely sabotaged the fuel gauge and only filled the tank halfway. This piece of shit was going to meet the devil in person when I get back.

I was sitting only a few meters away from the cliff, right at the edge of the jungle, sitting on cold rocks with only a small fire as company. My hands were wrinkled so badly that they looked like cauliflowers and I wouldn't even dare imagine what my feet looked like. I was reticent to take my body armour off at first but ended up stripping butt naked and placing my clothes and equipment on sticks next to the fire to dry for the night.

I was still feeling like crap, but at least now, I was a piece of dried crap and not a wet one. My poor feet looked like they could grow mushrooms by how moist and gross they looked. You could imagine what your skin would look like if you spent 2 days in a bath. An hour later, the said skin had returned to its normal appearence, allowing me to finally feel human again.

I opened my bag and pulled out a set of dry clothes that I had prepared for these situations. Not that I didn't enjoy the feeling of being naked outside, but I was somehow feeling vulnerable that way. I had a black shirt, blue jeans, black underwear and a pair of black socks. I also had some running shoes but decided not to wear them for now. From the way they smelled, my feet definitely needed to breathe some fresh air.

Hopefully my combat boots and armour would be dry by tomorrow. I was nervous and anxious because of my situation, but was also very grateful to have survived this ordeal. I was incredibly lucky in my bad luck when you thought about it. In this darkness lit only by the swirling flames of my camp fire, all I could hear were the sounds of the jungle and the sound of waves crashing against the cliff.

All these insects and animals were alien to me, so the noises they made kept me up all night. To reassure myself, I kept concentrating on my sensing ability and noticed something very interesting. I could precisely sense every living organisms in a radius of hundreds of meters around me.

This sensing ability of mine had never been this sensitive before but I already knew why it was now more effective. I had already noticed in the past how red mist interfered with my abilities and dulled them, and since there was no red mist in the air in this area, my senses were at their peak.

At least that way, I knew I could sense danger coming in advance. Knowing that calmed me down quite a bit so I decided to try and sleep after positioning some strategically placed twigs that should make a sound and wake me up if stepped on. This was far from a perfect plan, but this place wasn't giving me a dangerous vibe at all.

As I was thinking that, a presence felt by my sensing ability caught my attention. It was very faint, but felt different from the others. Even though it felt weak and unimportant, I couldn't shake this feeling deep inside of me. The feeling that whatever this was, it wasn't something to be ignored.

Worried, I grabbed my handgun and faced toward the presence which was a bit more than a hundred meter away from me, deep inside the dark and scary jungle. I stood up and gave a small burst of red mist to strengthen my body just in case, but as soon as I did so, the presence immediately vanished.

A creature capable of hiding its presence? This thing was more dangerous than I expected. My gut feelings were telling me to pack my things up and run away from there, and for once, I intended to listen to my hunch and do just that. I quickly grabbed my backpack and opened it but before I had time to put anything in it, the presence reappeared again. This time though, it was right behind me.

Startled, I abruptly turned around and pointed my gun at whatever this thing was, but what I saw was not what I had been expecting. Before me stood a dark cloaked humanoid silhouette, standing as tall as me. The flickering ray of light from the fire didn't allow me to clearly see, but the humanoid seemed to be wearing a black featureless mask with only two holes for the eyes.

I stood there in socks, with my gun pointed at a mysterious cloaked person in the middle of the night, in the middle of an unknown territory, in an unknown world. Useless to say that I wasn't feeling in control of the situation. What was I supposed to say. It's not like I knew what language the locals spoke.  

As I was waiting to see what this creature's intention were, it then decided to break the silence first. “Well~~ Hello me. Right on time like you were supposed to be. Not as glorious as I remember though...” Uh? Da fuq? It spoke English? Maybe not perfectly since what he said didn't make sense but... Was this thing a human? “Y-you speak my tongue?” I inquired, baffled.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“HahAhahHAhaha! Ho my god..... Mannn this is weird... Anyway, drop that gun already. It's useless against me anyway...” Said the cloaked individual in an amused voice. Wait what?? I could barely stand on my feet. The questions were flooding my brain and I couldn't do anything other than be confused. This was the voice of a mature man who spoke perfect English, and who knew about guns. Even his accent sounded familiar for some reason. I was really worried, I could clearly sense that this man was not someone I could fight on my own.

“W-who... W-what...” I blurted out in a barely audible voice. “Ghuaaa, you make me cringe so bad. How embarrassing. Sigh* seeing you made me remember unpleasant things.. Tch* Anyway, I don't have much time so let's get to it.” The man's voice had suddenly turned raspy, as if he had been smoking for decades.

While I was still confused, the man extended his arm toward me and sent a wave of what looked like red mist, but was black instead of red. My pitiful attempt to avoid it, ended up being fruitless as the 'black mist' collided with me and sent what felt like an electric current surge through my brain.

I fell to the ground, perfectly conscious but unable to move or feel my body anymore. It felt as if my consciousness had been detached from my body, and my control of it taken away from me. This feeling was emotionally distressing since I couldn't do anything, not even scream.  The cloaked individual slowly walked toward me, then turned me on my back before pulling out a giant syringe. “Now, let's wait for the residual effect of your dokari to fade, shall we.”

The man just crouched next to me with the syringe in his hand without saying a word for a few minutes. Dokari? Was that what he called red mist? Since he seemed to want to inject something into me, this had to be it. Since I had used red mist, or 'dokari' not long ago, he knew he couldn't pierce my skin with his needle, but he also seemed to know that he could simply wait for it to fade away.

Completely powerless, all I could do was repeating this question in my head. 'Who is this guy?' Five minutes later, the mysterious man finally spoke again. “The effect should be gone now. Alright, don't panic. This is a very expensive gift I'm giving you. These nanites have been especially programmed for your DNA and contain everything you'll need. I know that you are well aware of what nanites are, and I can guess what you are thinking right now. Science fiction right? Well let me tell you this. You have no idea what mankind can accomplish when faced with annihilation.”

As he said these last words, the cloaked man appeared to stab me in the neck with the syringe, but I wasn't sure since I couldn't feel anything. “Cherish this gift. Hopefully you won't follow in my footsteps. Unlike me, you can still have a good ending. Good luck Nathan.” My consciousness then began to fade as the man disappeared back into the dark jungle.

“GUHAAAAaaaaaa! Pant* pant* pant*” I woke up the next morning drenched in sweat, next to my now extinguished campfire.  It was already morning and the sun was shining brightly over my head. My confused mind eventually returned to its usual calm state while being rocked by the sound of the waves and the songs of exotic birds singing their hearts out.

“S-such a vivid dream...” This dream had felt similar to that time when I dreamed of a giant dragon. Thinking back on it, didn't dragons actually begin to appear after I had that dream? Could these dreams be the precognitive type? Not that I believed in such things but, I never had such vivid dreams in the past.

Still feeling a bit on edge, I used my sensing ability and made sure there was nothing threatening around, then inspected my equipment. My boots and body armour were still humid but should quickly be dried under such a strong sun. What was I supposed to do now? After hesitating for a while, I then decided to focus on my immediate survival which meant food, water, and shelter.

I had a good amount of dried dragon meat but knew that for digesting food, my body would need a lot of water. With that in mind, I knew that my first priority was to find water but this meant that I needed to explore my surroundings. I didn't want to go exploring while leaving my precious gear behind, so I ended up lighting the fire again and waited for everything to dry.

After an hour of cleaning my guns and maintaining my equipment, I was already unable to battle my thirst and decided that my things were dry enough. I put on my armour, my ammo belts, handgun and knife all over my body then pulled out my ghillie suit out of my bag. This suit was one of the things I had wished to bring the first time I ended up lost in a jungle. Since then, I had been keeping this one in my backpack, precisely for this kind of situations.

This suit, beside making me look like the swamp monster, was also incredibly good at making me disappear in dense vegetation, as long as I remained immobile. The problem with that, was that I was now wearing clothes, armour and another suit on top of it all, and since this region was very hot and humid, the risks of heat stroke had become much greater.

Because of this, I needed to constantly remember to take breaks and drink plenty of water, but all I had to drink at the moment were coconuts that would give me diarrhea if I drank too much of them. Diarrhea would result in dehydration, which would bring the opposite effect from what I wanted.

Now looking like a bush, or a swamp monster depending on whether I was moving or not, I then attached my katana to my belt like a samurai and put on my backpack. I was now ready to go explore this new area and made sure to keep my attention focused on my sensing ability. This area was still a total mystery to me and the weird dream I had last night was possibly a warning from my subconscious.  

With light and careful steps, I walked forward and broke through the initial layer of vegetation leading to the heart of the jungle. The sounds and smells were all so strange, yet somehow familiar. This jungle didn't feel hostile like what I had known so far, but felt more like some kind of garden of Eden.

Most of the trees seemed to grow fruits of all shapes and colours. Some of them looked delicious, while some others looked scary. If I could eat fresh fruits, it would be very beneficial for my body but there was still the risk of getting poisoned by unknown plants. From past experience, I knew I was still vulnerable to poison in this world, so I decided to play it safe and concentrate on finding a lake or a river and building a temporary shelter next to it.

I had no idea where I was, so even if I built a boat, I wouldn't know precisely where to go. Also, I couldn't simply build a raft and hope to cross a sea. A seafaring ship was a major undertaking for me to build on my own. Judging from my compass, the shore I had be washed off at wasn't even facing north. So that meant that I could be anywhere.

I stealthily walked through the dense jungle in my camouflaged suit, and was fascinated by what I could see. Flowers were growing everywhere and what looked like colourful butterflies and other insects could be seen in all directions. There were many types of bird-like creatures flying around and no scary creatures were in sight.