He opened the last two options one after another, [Runes], [Misc]—but found nothing listed inside either of them. Their existence as categories must have meant that something would eventually appear there, but for now, both were useless.

August tried to focus on exactly what he was supposed to do here, but it just left him feeling overwhelmed. He glanced over at the quest list again—Food, water, shelter, and fire; if he forgot about everything else and just focused on that, it would at least give him time to think about everything else.

“Water is first,” August murmured, thinking about the timelines. “Three days until dehydration? Is that right?”

He’d heard stories of people surviving for weeks or even a month without food, but a lack of water always ended up killing within days. Shelter and fire were next; exposure to extreme cold would kill him in a single night, depending on just how cold the temperature got here.

It wasn’t at all cold right now, with the sun warming his back, but he couldn’t be sure it wouldn’t change. There had been fog here earlier as well, and while he’d been more focused on escaping the monsters inside the bamboo to really register the temperature, it had been somewhat cold in there.

Food was the least of the issues—he probably had three days before he’d start getting weaker from lack of energy, and that’s if he conserved it, which was very unlikely given the circumstances. Two weeks without food would likely render him unable to move around at all.

If he could find a way down to the ocean, it might be possible for him to figure out a way to fish, given the height of the cliff though it didn’t seem very likely to him. Plantlife seemed to be thriving here, so it might be possible for him to find some kind of fruit-bearing tree or bush somewhere here as well.

There was another method of getting food, but even considering it had him searching the treeline for movement. If he could make a weapon, he might have been able to kill that Otrogon to eat; it had been covered in fur as well, which would definitely be useful.

August really didn’t like that idea because he could vividly remember its massive maw crushing the thick bamboo shoots without any difficulty; If he tried to kill it… Now that he thought about it, rather than dehydration, exposure, or starvation, being killed and eaten was probably going to be his fate in the end.

Either way, sitting here waiting for the Otrogon to come to find him wasn’t useful; he needed to start searching the area for the things he needed to survive.

August pushed himself to his feet and then bit his lip—east would take him towards the cliff below, but west would take him higher, and he might be able to get a better look around his surroundings from a better elevation.

“West it is,” August mumbled.

He started forward, sticking as close to the cliff edge as he dared because falling to his death would probably be better than being dragged into the bamboo and eaten by some kind of monstrosity. The land sloped gently upwards, not really enough to notice with each step, but clearly visible when looking ahead.

The flattened grass along the cliff was still pulling at his mind, and he wondered if it hadn’t been the Otrogon that had done it. This might have been the path it had taken to get into the bamboo, to begin with, although the reason why it would walk along the cliff face eluded him. A toppled bamboo shoot caught his eye ahead, fallen out towards the cliff—was that where it had entered?

He spotted more of them the further he went, multiple pathways into the mess, heralded by broken bamboo shoots, both old and dead or young and dying. It brought with it the idea that the Otrogon hadn’t been a unique creature but one of many.

There might have been hundreds of them in Devil’s Nest—what a horrible thought.

August stopped next to one of the entrances, carefully approaching and ducking down to snag a piece of bamboo. He returned to the cliff afterward, carrying his prize—it was about as tall as he was and a bit thicker around than a pool cue. The end of it was blunt, and it wasn’t much of a weapon in truth, but having something with some heft to it in his hand comforted him.

That sense of comfort vanished when he saw a gap in the bamboo, easily as thick as a driveway. The bamboo there was flattened into the ground, not unlike the grass had been out here. Clusters of the plant were torn out of the ground completely, holes marking the path’s edges.

August wanted absolutely nothing to do with whatever had been big enough to do that. He quickly continued up the hill, leaving the broken bamboo pathways behind him. His quicker pace had seen the bamboo start to thin out, and some minutes later, he could see much further into it, the gaps now letting in much more light and illuminating the ground inside.

Ahead of him, he saw an actual tree, growing right on the edge of the cliff with its roots visible above the ground. It looked like it was desperately clinging to the edge, forever stuck in an oxymoronic position of precarious but enduring—He stopped next to it and opened his [Map].

His pathway had revealed a thin line through the fog of war following the edge of the cliff. The striking tree was detailed on it, and he noted that it made for a useful landmark. As far as distance was concerned, he’d manage to make it across the [B-12] line into the next grid. He wasn’t sure what kind of distance those marks were supposed to indicate, though.

Nothing new learned; he closed the Map and left the tree behind him. Less than ten minutes later, the Bamboo forest finally began to curve away from the cliff, leaving more and more open grassland between the two. He could see where it ended ahead of him, cutting away and beginning to slope downwards to the north; the grassy field met another forest, this time made of actual trees, and once more, his sight was blocked.

West along the edge of the cliff began to rise faster than before, high enough to block his vision of what was above the peak of the hilltop. It was possible that once he got high enough, he might be able to see far enough north that the landmass might be revealed to him in full.

He was still watching the trees to the north when the bamboo had receded enough that he caught sight of something black, and he came to a stop. It was another Otrogon, smaller than the first one he’d seen, although it might have been the distance. It wasn’t alone; at least four more of them were nearby, idling along the edge of the bamboo.

August lifted his eyes higher, looking beyond them, and felt his heart thudding in his chest at the sheer size of one of them. It looked as if it would look right at home standing next to an elephant, and each of its teeth was the size of August’s entire torso.

His mana bar dropped by a quarter as he used [Analysis].

Otrogon

Female

Level 132

Tame Progress – 0/1320

Tame Resistance – 52

Trait – Agile

August upped his pace again, now jogging up the hill, not at all willing to be caught out in the open with nowhere to run if it decided it was hungry. His breathing came out in pants as he continued his journey upwards.

He stopped at the top of the hill, hands on his knees and looking out over the landscape.