The Wendigo walked beside me as we traversed through the woods. Several times it had to correct my steps to keep me from stepping on something I couldn't see, and then after several miles of walking it spoke once more.

"Why do you wish to kill the gods?"

"Oh, I guess I never did tell you. I made a deal with a demon. In exchange for immortality I have to kill all five of them."

He stopped and turned towards me.

"There are easier ways to achieve immortality, human."

"Nope, not where I come from there isn't. Also, don't just call me human. My name's Marcus. Please call me that, or you could call me boss if you like that better."

The Wendigo grumbled.

"I'll stick to Marcus."

Suddenly its head shot towards the right.

"I smell smoke."

I grumbled, "Well, shit."

I didn't need to be told twice, we both immediately started to move in the opposite direction.

If there was a graph for what had killed me the most, dragons would be at the top, and every single fire I'd come across so far had been made by one of the bastards.

We moved with haste through the foliage of the forest, not wanting to get potentially spotted by the dragon, but after half an hour of moving David once again signaled me to stop.

"I smell smoke."

He motioned for me to move in the opposite direction."

"Dragons again?"

"Yes, their kind litter this land like a plague. It makes any significant travel difficult."

We quickly ran away, painstakingly moving through the forest, past deadly beasts and around fields of poison when we came eventually across a small brick house. It looked pristine, untouched by the nature that surrounded it.

But David didn't even acknowledge it.

I placed my hand on his shoulder.

"Hey hold up. Are we just going to ignore the random house in the woods?"

"Looks can be deceiving. We'll die if we enter that."

"That's a rather strong assertion, what is it?"

"I... don't know for sure. There're several houses just like it throughout the forest. I've seen plenty of creatures enter them. None ever come out."

"Well isn't that interesting."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

I began to walk towards the house when the wendigo blocked my path.

"What are you doing, human?"

I pushed past him, "Firstly, I told you to call me Marcus. We're going to have a problem if you just keep calling me human. Secondly, I wanted to test something."

I walked towards the house and stopped once I was about five feet from it, then I pulled out a small plastic vial containing a clear liquid.

I opened the vile and splashed the liquid against the house. Where it dribbled down the bricks and onto the forest floor.

"What do you think you're doing? This place is deadly, we need to leave, now."

"Oh pull that stick out of your ass. I know what I'm doing. Now get over here so you can take a look at this."

After a moment of hesitation he approached me and looked where I was pointing.

"The liquids turned black?"

"Yes, it has."

"Do you care to explain why this matters?"

"This is a liquid used to sense mana, specifically mana that's been imbued into objects. This means there's an artifact somewhere inside this building. The liquid darkens depending on how potent the mana is, and this liquid is rather dark wouldn't you say?"

David glanced towards the liquid that had turned as dark as a starless night sky and huffed.

"We'd still die if we entered."

"Perhaps, but that won't always be the case. For now let's just keep this place in mind. We'll come back here eventually."

He looked a bit uncomfortable with the idea of ever going into the house, but I didn't acknowledge his fear and simply motioned for him to follow as we moved past the small brick house and back in the woods.

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

We moved for several hours, traversing the forest with careful practiced steps. It was tiring work avoiding the many beasts that lurked just behind the foliage, but it was rewarding in the fact that I was still sitting at fifteen lives.

But nothing good truly lasts forever, and not long into our journey the Wendigo motioned for me to stop once again, his eyes narrowing.

"What?"

"There's more smoke."

"They're all over the place today huh."

"No, it's worse than that."

"What do ya mean?"

"Dragons are very territorial creatures, except towards each other. Their territorial nature is to a degree that's almost absurd, and right now we're experiencing that behavior to its fullest."

I could see where he was going but I gestured for him to continue anyways.

"Every now and then they decide that everything living in their territory doesn't deserve to be there. So the dragons burn everything in their path, and keep anything from escaping by closing in on all sides."

I nodded along.

There were birds that did something similar in my world. Although they only started fires to flush out prey. These things seemed to do it as a way to clean up territory.

"So what should we do?"

"What do you mean? We're going to die; nothing survives their purges."

I waved my hand dismissively, "Come on, what happened to that whole stealing god's skin and wearing it attitude. There's always a solution, and even if there isn't, there's no harm in searching for one."

The Wendigo seemed to calm down a bit.

"There...is something we can do, but we'd die."

"There you go speaking in absolutes again. We're brainstorming right now, that means there's no wrong answers."

"Well, we could go back to the brick house and hide inside of it. The dragons burn the forests periodically, but they always remain."

"Yeah, we could, but didn't you call them deathtraps?"

"I did."

"Any other options?"

…

"None that I know."

I took a moment to weigh everything out in my head before shrugging. "Then we'll go with a probable death instead of a definite one."

I began to move in the direction of the brick house, gesturing for the reluctant Wendigo to follow.

"This is a bad idea."

"Yep."

"And you still want to do it?"

I chuckled, "Weren't you listening when we first met, I'm immortal! Besides, there's something nice hidden inside that house and I want it. All we're doing is taking it a bit ahead of schedule."

The Wendigo hesitated for a moment before following me.

This world revolved around treasures, artifacts that could boost someone's combat potential far past what they normally would've been capable of. I'd given up on this particular treasure earlier because of the danger. Nothing worth anything was ever left unattended, and from the reports I'd read, that rule especially applied to this world. It didn't matter though, I always got what I wanted. The demon had marked me as greedy for good reason after all.