Chapter 3: trouble

Wow! As i started exploring the forest, "wow" is the only word to describe it especially for someone like me who live in the city all my life, i who can only see places with lots of trees in the movie or in the manga that I used to read,

this kind of environment is the first for me, even more so since this place is not your ordinary forest there are many plants and trees that only exist in this fantasy world,

for example have you ever saw a mushroom as big as a house? But here it exist.

It took all the restraint and self control not to climb and jump around on top of it, and use it like a trampoline,

and just not too far on my right there's a sunflower as big as satellite dish, I've estimated it around 20 meters tall, and the whole flower is around 10 meters wide in diameter, of-course its just a rough estimate so i assume it's even bigger after all there's quite a distance between me and the sunflower, unfortunately the space between me and the flower is filled with what look like a swamp, so i can only give up on getting close to in, darn i wish i can take picture of it. "sigh"

So i continue moving into the forest and the first animal i encountered is something that looks like a squirrel, only this one has three tails and it's quite big the size of a dog and around a meter long and two feet tall, it's sitting atop some branch from some gigantic tree its eating some kind of nut the size of volley ball, ah oh! I see! no wonder the squirrel is big the nuts are also big,

i didn't try to get close to it afraid of how it will react if i get too close to it, so as i leave it, and move on the forest, i was especially careful to not disturb it.

I saw lots of interesting things that doesn't or shouldn't exist in the world i knew, animals with deer like feature the size of a semi truck and pure white body, even its horns are white, it's so beautiful the horns is like branches of lightning that solidified,and it's also pure white...

its the most dignified animal i saw in my entire life really amazing, the way it's stood there in a clearing in the forest like a deity or something, i remember how it look when it saw me, as it looked straight at me, and maybe thinking like who the hell is this commoner that dares to stand in front of me, or something like that..

It really was an amazing experience.

The way it stand there like a majestic king, it gives me shivers every time i think about it, and how it looked at me for a good couple of seconds before it runs out in the opposite direction where i was, darn my heart stop the moment it looked at me, and i stood there like a statue looking at it, not daring to move a muscle,

Haaaa.. I sigh in relief, before it left the opposite of me i thought for a sec, is it going to attack me? and honestly i was so scared but at the same time I'm excited for some reason, i didn't understand, like the sleeping blood of an adventurer is boiling inside me, something a bookworm like me has never experienced before, and my heart keeps beating faster for a minute or so.

after the deer like monster left, i stood there my heart beating fast, and looking at the place where the deer use to be, it took me awhile to snaps back to reality.

and after moving to the place where the deer thing use to be, i notice a small flower, but this one is like crystal sculpture or something, looking closely "WOW"...

It really is a flower made of pure crystal, i mean it's a literal crystal flower, but the most amazing thing is that it's not hard or stiff or anything static, coz it's moving like a normal flower when the wind blew it moves along with it, it's quite a sight, i was thinking this must be a really rare flower, i'll be crazy stupid if didn't take it with me, so i gently dig around the flower careful not to damage any roots, then gently scooping it up, i noticed that even the roots is also made of crystal and bluish in color the whole flower from top to roots is bluish in color its very pretty.

So after securing the flower in my backpack, i started to move on...

I decided to move in the same direction as the deer like thing disappeared into, no particular reason why i decided that, so after that i saw lots of different kind of animals, or atleast i think they're animals, most of them has similarity to the animals in earth with a slight difference, like extra limbs and horns, and some has multiple extra eyes, things like that.

While some are totally different like the ball like thing i saw, its perfectly round and as it rolls, different kind of things sticks to its body and eventually sinking inside its body never to be seen again, but the thing is that not everything under it stick to it, some sticks, some don't, i don't really understand how it's doing it, i didn't see any suckers like you see in octopus or something, so maybe it can choose which one it want to stick to its body, hmmm...

well i didn't really think too much about it anyway, it's been over an hour since i entered the forest if i have to guess its about noon right now, but b'coz of the thickness of the forest you won't be able to notice it.

And so, i finally saw my first monster carcass, i mean it's not that surprising to find a dead body of an animals in the forest, i mean i saw quite a bit of small bones belonging to a small animals every now and then, so in a way i'm expecting to see some dead monster in this forest,

just not so soon...

it's quite big and it look like some kind of boar except it has no tusk and instead on its head a single horn about a foot and a half long, and its face look exactly like a pig.

Whew, just wow! almost half of its body is missing, like something huge takes a bite at it then left it to die, how can i tell? Easy, b'coz in exception to its missing body parts everything is intact no other visible battle wounds just that huge bite mark.

there's also blood everywhere, guts scattered around, it looks like something big fling it over side to side after taking a bite at it and just left, without finishing it off. its like it was just passing through and just so happen to see this pig, kill it, and left without a care in the world.

The strong smell of blood permeates the air, making me almost puke on the spot, there's broken trees like something huge pass into it, looking at the situation i think the pig died right away, i think it didn't even know what attack it until it's too late.. just what kind of monster kill this thing? i asked myself.

the pig is around six to eight meters long and probably three and half meters tall and about two meters or so wide. to be able kill this thing fling it over, just how monstrous is the thing that kill it, this thing weighs a few tons, and to be able to do all that like like its nothing, just thinking about it terrified me.

the blood still looks fresh because fresh blood still flowing from the big wound on its body, but the pig is already dead so i immediately took some fresh meat from it, thinking and wondering how it taste like, Will it has the same taste as pork? Hehehe i cant wait....

and then i notice a gem like thing near its heart, a part of the gem is sticking out coz of the wound, after taking it out, it's about the size of a baby fist, dark green in color, is this the fabled monster core that i've only read in xanxia novel? If it is, did i just hit a jackpot? nice!!!

I hastily put the gem in my bag along with about a kilo or two of meat, i wrapped the meat with leaves to prevent it from staining the other things on my bag, with the help of duct tape everything is completed easily, While thinking, (i need to get out of here fast) before a monster comes here.

I was planning to leave immediately before the smell of blood attracts more ferocious monster, but when i saw the horn, i was thinking maybe i should get the horn too, i imagine it'll be good weapon to have if i combine it with my bat and duct tape ill be a good weapon, but i quickly discarded the idea, why you ask?

Its damned skin is too hard, my swiss knife can't even cut a layer of its skin, even after spending five minutes of cutting it, thats why, so after trying for five minutes without progress i quickly give up and left the area.

Looking at the dead body of this monster is like wake up call for me, i mean I'm aware there's monster in the forest but i try hard to deny it, mainly b'coz if i accepted that there's monster in the place I'm going into i may just choose to remain where i am, and stay there till i die of starvation or something,

but the carcass reminds me of the grim reality that the monsters here are real and very dangerous, so the way i explore the forest is greatly change unlike before that I'm just leisurely exploring the forest like my own backyard, now every step i make every place i choose to go i observe it first and see if there's any danger, after all in my mind monster here are all big, so how hard is it spot them right? I said to myself,

Hours passed and I'm thankful that i didn't encounter any monster so far, i saw some dangerous looking animals every now and then but as long as i carefully evade them it's not a problem, but right now the biggest problem i have is, it's getting darker and even though i can't see the sun where i am, coz of the thick canopy of branches and towering tree, make it impossible to see where the sun is,

so right now I'm looking for a safe place to spend the night, only an idiot would continue to explore a forest during the night, even in the earth i know, it's dangerous to explore unknown jungle during the night and that is according to "Bear Grylls" a famous explorer who eats almost anything that exist in the forest, even the most disgusting ones that you will never think of eating, he eat anything edible in the name of survival or so he says, so in other words its idiotic to explore the forest full of monsters during the the night.

Actually i spotted quite a few place that i think is a good place to stay the night with, but for some reason i didn't choose them, maybe it's intuition or instinct, i can't tell but for some reason i feel that it's not a good place to stay.

Few more hours has passed and the forest is getting more and more darker, as i continue to look for suitable place to spend the night I'm getting more and more nervous as times go by and I'm getting more paranoid as well, coz a lot of time i can hear creaking and breaking of branches on my surroundings like something big walking slowly or stalking me, its really nerve racking.

And as the range of my vision is getting smaller, my heartbeat is getting louder in return, and i didn't dare use the lighter in fear of attracting unwanted monster attention, secondly i felt like minute feel like hours. Yeah, its a same feelings when you are waiting for someone and he or she is late, and for every seconds you're waiting, it feels like hours, the same feeling except this time my life is on the line so yeah instead of being annoyed, What I'm feeling is, I'm very scared..

Finally a few moments later it's already quite dark, to my relief, i finally found a suitable place to stay the night, and very quickly i walked there while being careful at the same time, its a small opening in the giant tree near the a huge rock very hard to see, so i was very glad i was able to spot it even from a distance.

and what's more amazing is just in front of it there are several of what look like an apple trees, it has quite a lot of fruits as well so i'm very happy, as soon as i arrived in the burrow i immediately check if there's anything living in it, but i found that nothing was inside. so its all good,

i was expecting that there's some small animals living there but there's nothing so that adds to happiness i felt, after i secured the burrow i quickly check the apple trees in front of it intending to pick a few of its delicious apples, excitedly i started picking a few apples, i choose around five or six apple that look delicious and quickly put it the bag and pick another two that i plan to eat right away, so i took a quick bite, reaction? Delicious! far more than any apples i tasted before, it's very juicy and not too sweet, its just perfect, so as i happily enjoying the apple and walking slowly back to the burrow that i found earlier,

Creeaaak! I immediately stop walking and quickly turn to the direction of where the sounds are coming from, and what i saw is a huge head of the monster with fangs glinting, without thinking my body move on its own, i started to run without looking back...