“Struggle#1

Objective: Survive

Sub-objective: Kill a saber tooth tiger – Meet with the jungle king – Exit the jungle”

A sub-objective? I almost got killed for this shit!

I have been here for 7 days, with almost no sleep and a never-ending fear of being eaten. I am so badly wounded I can see the bone on my right arm. This is… this is not fair!

That’s it! This is not fair. When I think about it, it’s like I’ve been playing a game without knowing the rules. No matter how I see it, this is unfair. Maybe this was intended from the start. Maybe someone enjoys watching me struggle.

Sigh.This is useless… No matter how much I speculate about it, the only thing I am certain of right now is that I am in danger, and my only way out is to follow this stupid book.

With my recently developed healing abilities, my left arm is already good as new. Unfortunately, the other arm will take way more time.

I don’t have time to gather the tiger’s material, nor the adequate tools. That’s a shame, but I have to leave, I have already spent too much time here.

I made a quick bandage for my arm and left the place in search of a good place to hide and plan my course of action.

The king of the jungle… I wonder what he is.

Maybe I should follow the sub-objective after all, it helped me a lot in the previous struggle. Well actually it didn’t, but it showed the action I made to complete the struggle, and that worked, so it should be the same here.

Moreover, I know that I don’t have to complete each of them to finish the struggle. As I have no clue who or what is the king of the forest, I decided to go for the last one: leaving the jungle.

In fact, it never occurred to me that the jungle had an end. Because I have been magically transported here, I thought this was kind of a jungle world or something, but it seems like there is more to it. I am a bit curious now.

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Fighting is still a problem, but after one week in this hell, I can detect and avoid most of those wild beast just fine. So, even with one useless arm, I managed to move pretty far without any trouble.

The bark of the trees was too tough for me to leave a mark with my dagger, so I gave up the idea of marking my way. I will leave as soon as the book allows me to, so it doesn’t really matter if I get lost anyway.

It has been 3 days since I killed the tiger. Looking back, it was foolish of me to expect an easy ending after only a week. Now, it wouldn’t surprise me if I had to stay for more than a year. During my travel, I found a lot of odd things. Some statues covered with moss, and other human-made structure, some ruin entirely covered by the vegetation. I have yet to found real cities and temple, but I think a whole nation lived here before, maybe centuries ago.

This is od. If I was the one making an adventure for someone else, with different places like here and the forest, why would I bother building realistic things like that? What is the purpose? In the end, is this real? Am I on Earth? If so, where am I? I never heard of bees than can pierced skull, and I’ve never been taught about the kingdom Lora talked me about.

Finally! I see the end of the jungle! Unfortunately, as I rushed to it, I only found a cliff, I was still in the middle of thousands of trees, on the edge of a canyon. The other part of the canyon was at least 20 meters away, so I can go there by myself.

As I was trying to find a way to go down, something caught my eyes. Further on my left, there was a wood bridge linking the two sides of the canyon. So I approach, and surprisingly, it doesn’t seem that old, at least, it looks sturdy enough. Maybe there are people here after all.

Excited about this news, I went on it. With a few slow and careful step, I confirmed that it was indeed robust and started walking on it.

I can see above the tree from here, I never saw them before but there were actually a lot of bird up there, and right now I can see their nest. Having a clear field a view after all this time is such a good feeling. I almost feel liberated.

Maybe that is because of this very feeling I didn’t see it before getting on the bridge.

Bzzzzzz

When I heard this sound, I froze.

Bzzzzzz

I turned my head in front of me.

Bzzzzzzz

I could hardly see it, but it was here. Around 10 meters away, a little bee, on standby.

Bzzzzzzzz

Images of a dead gorilla popped in my mind. This is it? This is the end? Am I going to die here?

Bzzzzzzzz

Sigh… I am going to die. This is the end. In a way, I knew it. I knew that I am no hero.

Bzzzzzzzz

Why hasn't it attacked yet?

Too late, I tried to dodge, but this bee’s faster than a bullet, and it pierced my heart…

BZZZZZZZ

Hum? Did she miss? I feel a sharp pain... on my shoulder! What happened?

Argh! My head! Image appeared in my mind, an image of me, pulling out my dagger, turning around and slashing the air with it.

Bzzzzzzzzz

Then nothing. I couldn’t think, everything was blank.

Bzzzzzzzzz

I couldn’t control anything, I wanted to run away, but instead, I grabbed my dagger.

Bzzzzzzzzz

My consciousness is fading. My body got ready for the strike.

BZZZZZZ

And I turn around, exactly as I foresaw.

I don’t know what happened.

There is no pain.

There is no sound. I feel… tired.

Then everything went dark.