Running around in the plain daylight, was a deer. Doing its daily business of grazing the grass before returning to its home. Peacefully standing under the sunlight, the deer ate a bit of grass before raising its head in alertness.
It's sight shifted to the side, and from some shaking bushes, out came a rabbit.
The deer acknowledged the rabbit and returned to eating grass before hearing a tiny squeal.
!?
The deer raised back its head but it didn't see the rabbit anymore. Just as it was about to walk away, its ears twitched at approaching danger. Before it could react to the danger, it had already been too late.
Deep inside the woods, two arrows were let loose at astonishing speed and force as they lodged themselves into the deer, pinning it onto the tree behind it. One arrow ran through its head and another ran straight through its neck.
Blood trickled down the wooden arrows as the eyes of the deer began to dim under the loss of its blood.
"Excellent," a young man with long hair tied in a ponytail walked out of the woods. His clothes were dirty and worn out. It had many tearings around it and the only thing on him was a dagger in his boots and a bow in his hands.
He had crudely made gloves made from the skin of a rabbit and pretty well made boots also made from rabbit skin.
"Bing'er!"
The young man called out and a cute small fox came from out of the woods with a rabbit in its mouth.
"Now with this much meat, we can easily survive for a whole month. It's enough for us to leave this forest safely," Yuan Tai grinned as he removed the arrows logged into the dear.
"Luckily the skin wasn't damaged much," Yuan Tai said. He ran his fingers across the body of the dead deer and looked at the little fox. "What do you think Bing'er? It makes good material for a jacket right?"
The little fox just stayed quiet as it looked at Yuan Tai with eyes filled with curiosity.
After collecting the arrows that had arrowheads made from the bones of rabbits, Yuan Tai half-carried the deer's body over to his cave.
Over the five months Yuan Tai had spent in the large forest, he had managed to improve his survival skills and learned how to become proficient in archery.
In the five months, Yuan Tai managed to become a master at setting up traps for animals. As long as he has the materials, he can complete a trap in little to no time and in order to be able to hunt rabbits without the use of traps, he learnt how to properly sneak without making noise and alerting his target.
Thanks to that, he also managed to learn how to hide his intent and obscure his own presence. Since after the World's Dungeon appeared, the animals' senses only grew stronger as time went on. Luckily they still fall for some traps.
With their senses growing, Yuan Tai felt that it was appropriate to use a rabbit as a sparring partner every single day.
As long as he finds one of course.
During the five months, he didn't stay in the forest to further improve his skills or learn how to hide his intentions. He stayed so that he could ensure his survival of getting out of the forest. He made sure to collect enough meat, smoke it, and then dry it so that he can make the meat last him long enough to get out of the forest.
Now that he was also feeding Bing'er, his time spent in the forest was longer than expected. With the deer's meat, he was sure that it would be enough to get out of the forest and find a village or a city.
If he was right, new years had just passed a couple of days ago and the only regret he has from last year is that he turned 18 already when he was 3 days in the forest. Now it has been five months and he is past the prime of his time to level up.
And until he kills a beast that grants him Experience, he won't have access to his job or the status screen. So he was very eager to leave the forest already.
After another couple of days of skinning the deer, cutting the meat, making a jacket from the deerskin, smoking the meat, and drying it, Yuan Tai was ready to leave.
Purposely leaving the organs out, Yuan Tai spread them around in the forest, hoping to draw in wolves and bears in the area before making a run for it with Bing'er on his shoulder. He needed to get away from the area, with the dried meat on him, he hoped the beasts will be drawn to the organs instead of him.
"We can do it Bing'er," Yuan Tai said with a nervous smile as he sprinted north.
AOOOO!!
Only a minute passed until howls were heard, signifying that they found the organs and were claiming the meat as theirs.
'It's working just fine,' Yuan Tai looked over his shoulder to make sure nothing was following them. Sure enough, they were in the clear.
Two hours passed by and Yuan Tai stopped running, he panted and walked slowly.
"Bing'er, stay alert," he whispered.
He had a nagging feeling in his heart that something was keeping close watch on them from afar. It was pretty recent, around the time he stopped running.
'Seems like it might be a bear. Can I take it on with my current skills?'
Remaining calm, Yuan Tai kept walking closer, but he kept a hand close to his dagger and another close to his bow. Depending on the range, he will pull whichever one first.
The nagging feeling didn't want to disappear after a couple of minutes of walking, and the suspicion of it being a bear disappeared. A bear wouldn't keep following a person for a couple of minutes without doing anything, there are some exceptions, but Yuan Tai is sure none like that exist in the forest.
He's sure that the being keeping a close eye on him is a human, but he wasn't too sure where they could possibly be in the forest. Wherever he looked, there were only bushes and trees blocking his view.
Night was approaching fast and he still hasn't found the one keeping a watch on him. Even the fox cub couldn't find the one hiding and stalking him. The only thing he could do now to draw out the stalker, is by pretending to lower his guard and 'sleeping'.
Yuan Tai wasn't too sure if it would work, but it was worth a try. He didn't want to die on the road from being backstabbed because he was too tired. So drawing him out now while he was still energetic was the only plan for now.
Just as he began making a fire, completely unexpected to him, Yuan Tai saw two men emerge from the darkness. One was wearing iron armor and the other was wearing leather armor.
Yuan Tai gripped his dagger, which was hidden out of view, and asked, "Who are you both?"
The two men stopped and smiled at each other, "Brother, my name is Jung Hook, and this is my brother Jin Hook."
"Yuan Tai." Not saying anything else, Yuan Tai coldly looked at both the brothers.
Chuckling in nervousness, both brothers were about to say something before Yuan Tai interrupted them and asked a question of his own.
"Why were you both following me?" Yuan Tai asked.
After seeing their armor, he knew that his chances at beating the two men was zero. With his chances of survival being zero, Yuan Tai had to rely on his cunningness to be able to escape the sight of these two.
The young man in iron armor chuckled and scratched his cheek, "Actually… we're lost. When my brother and I were walking in the forest, we saw you running and we thought you knew the way out, so we followed you."
"Then why come out now," asked Yuan Tai with squinted eyes.
"We thought you were a dangerous man since you were alone in Ghost Forest," said Jin Hook, the man with leather armor.
"Ghost Forest is dangerous?" asked Sora with dubiousness.
"Yes! Many have entered here, but they never return after spending more than two days here." Jung Hook looked rather nervous as he explained.
"Today is our first day here, but after following a wolf in too far. We got lost and we lost our way back out,"Jin Hook sighed and sat down with a downtrodden expression.
Furrowing his eyebrows at their story, Yuan Tai felt uncomfortable. If what they said was true, how come he never disappeared or got attacked? Was it because he had no level or…
Standing up, Yuan Tai quickly picked up everything of his and grabbed Bing'er before making a run for it.
"Brother! Why are you running?!" Jung Hook yelled as he followed closely behind Yuan Tai.
"We have to get out of here soon! Run!" Yuan Tai felt a sense of danger all of a sudden after he heard the stories of Jin and Jung Hook. He knew the feeling wasn't from the both the young men, he felt it came from his surroundings, and that's what alerted him. As soon as he felt that, he knew that he should be running away.
Planning to trust the man they just met, both Jin and Jung nodded to each other and ran next to Yuan Tai. They could run fast, but they were thinking that Yuan Tai was stronger than them and was probably running at a snail's pace on purpose.
If he could sense something that they couldn't, what does that say about his abilities?
Not being able to wrap their heads around it, they both just quietly followed behind Yuan Tai without a single word.
Screech!!
Hearing high pitched screeches, all four running away covered their ears. They didn't know what was possibly making that noise, but they knew it wasn't an animal, but a beast.
Still covering their ears, the group of four tried running quicker to get out of the area.
Yuan Tai wasn't sure how long it would last to get out of Ghost Forest, but he hoped that it wouldn't long before then. If it was too far away, he and the Hook brothers will be dead in just a couple of minutes.
The group of four covered their ears once more as another screech made its way into their ears, this time louder than the previous screech.
"Don't turn back and keep running!" Yuan Tai yelled as they kept running forward.
His adrenaline kept pumping through his heart and it made him run faster than many other times he had always run. Even when going against 5 wolves, he would never feel this much adrenaline.
His legs didn't feel like they were there anymore, even when he was conscious of them moving. It was a very strange feeling, like running on clouds, except you're being chased by something life threatening and unknown.
Not being able to withstand the pressure of curiosity, Jin Hook turned around and what he saw frightened him so much that he tripped.
"BLOOD BAT!" Jin Hook cried out in misery as the pack of blood bats swarmed in on him.
Blood Bats are three times bigger than the average bats. They are red in color and they only drain the blood of a living being until they turn into a husk. The worst part about the Blood Bats is that their fangs contain poison which increases the pain of being pierced by fangs and having their blood forcefully taken completely.
Blood Bats had an average level of 1-3. Their points were mostly on the constitution attribute, and only three or five points went into agility, this made them faster than the average animal. The Blood Bats traveled in packs of 30, so they are very dangerous to deal with for those under the level 5.
"AHHH!H!!! Save me brother!!!" Jin Hook let out a heart aching shriek for one last cry of help before turning into a husk.
Tears streamed down Jung Hook's face as he ran next to Yuan Tai. He couldn't do anything to help his own brother Jin.
Jin Hook was of a higher level than Jung and he had more points put in speed and constitution. If Jung really went back, they would have both died under the fangs of the Blood Bats.
"I'm sorry brother!" Jung Hook yelled out in pain as he looked back at his brother's husk from the corner of his red eyes.
A couple minutes after, Jung Hook and Yuan Tai escaped the big forest and the Blood Bats stopped at the edge of it.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, with the death of Jin Hook, Jung Hook and Yuan Tai were able to escape from the Blood Bats. Even with their very slow speed compared to the Blood Bats.