Chereads / Maero Of The Forest / Chapter 3 - A Test?

Chapter 3 - A Test?

As Maero walked out of the cave and into the forest he recalled the paths and which ones to use to reach the watering hole. He believed that going there would be better than his usual ambush on the animal trail as the watering hole is necessary for all animals and would give him a bigger chance at encountering prey.

When he reached the watering hole after an hour of walking he activated his [Stealth] ability and tried to blend in while waiting behind a bush that covered his body. As his skin was a mottled green his stealth was very effective in the forest as it mimicked the leaves of the shrubbery. He stared into the clearing that contained the watering hole and kept a vigilant eye over his surroundings.

After waiting another hour he could see a group of seven wolves approach the watering hole looking like they owned the place. With the largest wolf standing guard all the wolves started drinking water. His memories told him that this one was an evolved wolf called a Warg with a much larger and stronger body and surprisingly higher agility than a regular one.

After watching the wolves for a while Maero thought of a plan and quickly put it into motion. He gathered as many rocks as he could carry and climbed into a high tree with his stealth active and none of the wolves managed to spot him because of the dense vegetation. Using his shooting skill he started throwing those rocks with impeccable form those rocks managed to kill two wolves and severely wounded two more until he ran out of them. Now ignoring the weaker wolf he lunged at the Warg trying to use his sharp claws to grab hold of its neck and jugular but before he could reach the War twisted it's body intercepting him mid-air.

with no room to dodge Maero was bitten in the side of the torso. he pushed off the ground and gained some distance to escape further attacks from the Warg. When he looked at his wound he could see the blackish blood meaning his liver was hit but he could also feel something worming in his insides repairing the damage albeit slowly. He thought he should probably remove the one variable so he could focus on the Warg.

Using his powerful leg muscles, he jumped back up in the tree. and seeing the Warg and remaining wolf unable to reach him there, he started setting up for his next attack. He soon lunged back at the warg but in the last second, he crammed his callused foot into its mouth instead of the claws the Warg had expected. And using his other foot and the Warg as a springboard he jumped at the other wolf and clawed at its neck leaving it twitching on the ground as the wound it sustained was 4 centimeters deep it could only bleed out as it lost all power.

With its last pack member dead the Warg was now alone with Maero and it felt very vulnerable as it had no more meatshields. But Maero gave it no time to recover as he jumped back up into another tree and activated stealth once more, and although stealth couldn't completely hide him as he was still in the Warg's field of vision it made it harder to follow his movements and track if his attack is a feint or not. With his high [Athletics] skill Maero kept eroding the Warg's defense with glancing blows and feints until he finally delivered a final Blow to its neck completely decapitating it.

With the battle finished Maero went up into the trees again and had some rest while watching over his spoils in case anyone tried to steal the cadavers. With his body rested he carried the wolves back to his cave in groups of three with the Warg being carried alone for how heavy and unwieldy its body was. At the cave, he started preparing the wolves using his claws skinning and gutting them one after the other. When he started gutting the Warg he noticed a red gem in its chest and extracted it thinking it might be useful.

When he finished skinning and draining the blood out of all the wolves he started a fire using some dry sticks and roasted a whole wolf which made him completely full. But as he had too many bodies he crafted a make-shift rack out of larger sticks and used it to smoke all the other wolves he cut up into jerky. He went to the back of the cave and stored the Jerky between two layers of leaves to stop humidity and mildew from affecting his food supply.

As he finally settled down he looked at the gem and Used [Inspect] to check it out.

Sys: *Low-Grade Skill Bloodstone G++: A gem that enables the User to learn one random skill from it's past User.*

Maero: "Oh, this seems to be useful! might as well use it now!"

Instinctually willing his energy to interact with the gem he suddenly saw a light coming from the gem and flowing into him, as that happened a warm burning feeling permeated his abdomen and then flowed through his chest and into his head.

Sys: *DING* *Ability [Tenacious G+]: Acquired*

*[Tenacious: unless the user is critically wounded ability to fight doesn't decrease as much]*