The nook in the tree was only big enough to hold his body. His weapons were laid out on the small ledge right in front of him. This little resting spot was thirty feet above the forest floor and was secure only in the fact that it prevented something from sneaking up behind him.

Currently, Nate sat looking out over the forest as the sun began to set. The sunlight cascaded through the tree canopy hundreds of feet up in the air. Despite having found a temporary place to rest, Nate didn’t expect to sleep much tonight. He had a pretty intense experience with the rodent type beast that had destroyed his tree hollow. With the limited time to find a place to spend this evening, he had resorted to going to one of the small resting spots that he used during his hunts.

Wiggling his body to get comfortable in the small crevice, he turned his head to look at the base of a tree off in the distance. He could barely see his backpack full of cooked beast meat tucked behind some branches he had piled up next to a tree a few hundred yards away. Even though the meat was wrapped up very securely in some leaves, Nate still had some concerns.

The reason behind his separation from his food stock was simple.

As he had hiked away from his destroyed tree hollow, Nate tried to reason through what went wrong. It did take much to realize that his food supplies were a constant source of his problems. That had lured in beasts more than once. They had even gotten him poisoned. While he didn’t worry about starving to death anymore, Nate felt like food might end up killing him if this trend continued.

So considering the threat, Nate made the decision that he was going to leave his food stock somewhere else while he rested. He could even make several stashes scattered throughout the woods in case one was raided by a beast. That way, he could always just abandon it and use another. And he wouldn’t have to worry as much.

As he sat hidden on his tree perch, Nate reached into his pocket and pulled out the beast core he had harvested from the monster that destroyed his home. If he was going to be up all night, he would at least use the time to absorb the energy from this new core.

****************************

After the incident with the acorn eating beast, Nate had spent three days wandering through the woods trying to find a more permanent residence. Each of his nights had been spent in one of his small hunting places trying to get some sort of sleep.

But with a continued feeling of insecurity, his sleep had been sparse.

Even though he was somewhat exhausted, he was using the experience to recognize the flaws in his previous approach to security. He needed to establish some layers of protection to give some more security against beasts. Ideally, he would have two secure locations, but that was easier said than done. After days of walking around the woods, he hadn’t found any good locations to utilize as a home.

“I need to move to some new areas to explore,” Nate said to himself as he overlooked the woods from a tree perch.

His food stock that he was toting around in his backpack would last him a week or two but he needed to square away his shelter first. Making a decision to begin investigating a new territory, he chose a direction to travel. Although he had been in this one area for weeks, he actually hadn’t traveled far during his daily adventures. He had never gone farther than half a day’s walk away from his tree hollow. Now since the security of that location wasn’t available, he felt his only option was to continue moving forward into the depths of the wilderness.

*****************************

On his fifth day of travels, Nate made a mistake.

Nate had been moving through the wilderness for about 2 hours when the sound of something crashing through the underbrush caught his attention. Nate had got excited at the prospect of getting another beast core. The noise sounded like a whole herd of pig beasts. Nate sat down his bag of supplies, readied his weapons and began creeping toward the sound.

He moved closer and closer to the sound but he began to grow hesitant. The noise didn’t resemble a herd of pigs anymore.

Despite the unknown source of the sound, Nate’s curiosity got the better of him and he continued to move forward. After a few minutes of creeping through the underbrush on the forest floor, Nate finally got a glimpse of the source of the noise and the scene caused fear to overwhelm him.

Only a 100 yards away, a beast that was almost twice as big as the monstrous beast that took down the transport was ripping into a tree about 200 feet off the ground. The beast’s thick brown shaggy hair did not allow for most of its features to be recognized but its size was unmistakable. What little Nate could see didn’t let his mind relax.

The beast’s short tail was about as long as Nate was tall. Despite the beast’s massive size, the animal’s claws allowed it to easily hold onto the bark of the tree. One of the beast’s paws was ripping at the tree repeatedly. Chunks of wood almost as big as Nate’s leg were flying towards the ground. The debris crashing into the ground was the source of the noise.

Nate was frozen in place as he watched the scene from the cover of the brush on the forest floor. Despite being hidden, he felt as if he was naked in front of this beast. His heart felt like it was going to break through his rib cage, but he couldn’t pull his eyes away from the scene in front of him.

Suddenly, a screech sounded from the tree and the beast’s head moved almost too quickly for Nate to see. The screaming noise blared through the forest as the beast twisted its head. Nate could see a full view of what was happening now.

This large beast must have just had success hunting. The teeth set in the beast’s long snout held something that Nate very familiar with. A large fluffy furred acorn loving beast was struggling in the jaws of the beast. This wild animal was the same rodent type animal that destroyed Nate’s home. And this monstrous beast was gnawing it like it was snack.

[‘Fear Resistance’ has increased to Level 10]

A system alert brought Nate out of his stupor. Nate realized he was in a great amount of danger. Without any hesitation, he turned around and started to slowly move away from his current location. He didn’t even bother looking behind him. If this beast saw him, he was dead. There was no way he could survive an attack by this beast. His only option was to get away as fast as possible. Once he was far enough that the beast couldn't see him, Nate stood up and looked around the forest.

Then, as silently and quickly as possible, Nate ran away from the scene.

*************************

An hour later, Nate scrambled to his feet after collapsing to the ground. His adventure to find new territory hadn’t gone as planned. Nate knew that exploring new areas had considerable risks, but he hadn’t realized the full gravity of the situation until his recent beast encounter. Nate was now a hundred percent aware of the possible risks of exploring. He had gotten away safely this time, but he might not be so lucky the next time.

If such a beast existed in the woods, no place would be absolutely safe for him to rest. Nate’s naivety about the wilderness had put him at risk of dying again. He had always thought his previous tree hollow was a safe location. The massive beast would have destroyed the hollow and ate him without even exerting much effort.

He needed to find some sort of home base or find a way that could keep beasts from finding him. The incident had renewed Nate’s goals of finding a safe place to rest. Now, his selection criteria had advanced to a whole different level.

************************

Nate had wandered around the woods for two weeks now. He previously composed self was now a bedraggled looking existence. Even though he had found one or two locations that had the potential for a more permanent shelter, he had continued his search. The large beast ripping at the tree and eating the other beasts had caused him to up his shelter requirements substantially. The decision was mostly made out of fear and he had even passed on another tree hollow similar to his previous abode.

With no real knowledge of his travel distance, Nate did start to notice a gradual change in the wilderness’ terrain. The thick flat woods had always had rock outcrops present, but as he moved forward the terrain became much rockier with many larger sloping features.

The changes in the environment slowed Nate’s movement considerably. He had to continuously investigate his surroundings as he moved to avoid a beast attacking him from a small dark crevice in the rocky surface.

***********************************

After moving in this type of shifting environment for a day, Nate came across a large rock outcropping among the trees. After looking around the area to check for threats, Nate realized that a small cave was present nestled at the foot of the mound of rocks.

At the sight of the cave, an array of thoughts went through Nate’s mind. His life during the last couple of weeks had been a mix of constant wandering. He didn’t have a particular home and had made himself temporary resting places throughout the area. Also, his incidents with beasts had weighed heavily on his mind the entire time traveling.

With an interesting looking stone cave in front of him, Nate couldn’t resist the opportunity of investigating it to see if he had finally found a more permanent residence in this wilderness.

“It might just work,” Nate said to himself as he sized up the entrance to the cave, “unless there is something already living inside.”

Readying one of his spears, Nate approached the small entrance to the cave. Although he was ready for a possible attack, Nate paused for a moment yards away to inspect the cave entrance from the cover of the nearest tree.

After almost an hour of scrutinizing the area, Nate began to have high hopes for the small cave.

During his days hunting and traveling, Nate had learned a few things about finding traces of animals in the woods. The hunting experience was helping him analyze the situation now.

From what he could see, the bushes in front of the cave were whole with no sign of broken branches and the soil around the cave entrance had no sign of beast tracks. From all appearances, no beasts had been around the entrance recently.

But the lack of animal sign didn’t make Nate lower his guard as he moved forward.

With his spear pointing toward the entrance, Nate slowly moved into the vegetation at the opening. The vegetation at the cave entrance was thick and Nate moved along cautiously. His eyes were constantly surveying the dark interior of the cave for possible threats.

As he made his way through the vegetation, he felt a sudden stabbing sensation on his arm.

[You have been affected by ‘Poisoned’ status]

[All physical and mental stats have been reduced by half. Vision impaired.]

[Your health will decline at a rate of 5 for every minute until ‘Poisoned’ status removed]

[Health: 105/110]

[‘Calm Survivor’ class effects are active. All Stats are doubled. All experience earned is doubled.]