That night I had trouble sleeping. In the end I ended up spending hours testing that pocket world. First of all I put everything that was useful to me inside.
'There is less metal than I thought…'
I gathered all the scrap we had collected and unfortunately it was barely enough to make a small ingot a little bigger than my fist.
"Well, it's better than nothing," I muttered.
I got out of the pocket world and started playing coin toss while wondering if I could get some other advantage out of this place.
There was no natural energy inside, so an emergency escape to recharge was out of the question, but time really flowed at an exaggeratedly slower pace than outside.
'In times of danger I could perhaps retreat inside to heal wounds... Why is the first thing I think of something related to battle?'
I caught the coin and sighed as I looked over at Raidha, who was sleeping near me.
'A feeling similar to when we traveled between worlds with Vurtalis... Oh…'
At that moment I realized something quite important… Raidha did not carry any weapons with her. She had her magic, but if she ran out of mana she would be completely unarmed.
"I guess I already know how I'm going to use what we find."
I quickly got up and pulled out the piece of metal… but in the end I just decided that using that wasn't worth it.
"I have no use for this," I muttered as I pulled out the box where we found the pocket world.
That metal was definitely a thousand times better than mere bits of iron. The only problem was the resistance it had against my power, but it wasn't immune to it... And so I spent a few hours fighting with that metal.
***
When I opened my eyes, the morning light was already entering through the stone windows.
"Ah… me dormí…"
"Sleeping on the floor is horrible… Huh? What's that?"
Raidha was also just getting up and quickly took notice of the sword at my side. Making it was exhausting, but I managed it. I couldn't help but smile slightly as I picked it up.
"This sword…" she muttered as her sleepy eyes widened.
"Your magic may be quite handy... but I thought you should have a real weapon just in case. Since I'm using your weapon, the least I can do is get you another one."
I didn't know very well what form I should give to the sword, so I ended up with one identical to the form Vurtalis had when we met. It was nowhere near Vurtalis' level, but I was quite proud of the result. I was sure that it had nothing to envy to any sword made by any professional blacksmith... although the way I made it could be considered cheating.
"Here, it's all yours." I handed her the sword decisively.
To my surprise, she took it with great care and affection. Her eyes seemed to sparkle as she looked it up and down. No, they literally glowed. There was no doubt, she really liked it.
"Thanks, I'll take good care of it!" She replied with a big smile.
She then hugged the sword without losing the smile on her face. I couldn't help but laugh ironically.
'I never thought that the first gift I would give a girl would be a sword…'
***
Anyway, with the sun back in sight it was time to continue through the jungle. I stretched my body and shook off sleep.
Thanks to lightening the load of luggage, the speed at which we progressed through the jungle increased a little, but the difficulty also increased. Without a doubt we reached the depths of the jungle.
We constantly heard noises of animals and insects crawling on the ground and the cries of birds flying over the trees. From time to time we came across some animals, but luckily they quickly escaped as soon as they saw us. Even so…
"There are more and more animals… Watch your back, I won't be surprised if another tiger attacks us."
I didn't feel comfortable. At the moment we had not received attacks, but everything indicated that it was only a matter of time. What's more, I constantly felt that we were being watched.
"I think we're surrounded."
Raidha also noticed. Well, it's not like whatever was following us was overly stealthy.
"Too noisy to be a tiger. The problem is… knowing what the hell it is!"
I took out the pistol and fired where I heard the sound of footsteps. The sound of something running at full speed grew louder.
"It seems I missed…"
And unfortunately the shot wasn't enough to scare those things away. Instead, the sound of footsteps and branches snapping increased all around us. We were definitely surrounded.
Little by little some strange animals similar to apes began to be seen. There were at least a dozen of them around us, blocking any visible escape routes.
"Guess we'll have no choice but to break through."
Those animals didn't seem to be very strong independently, but they attacked in packs. If we let them take the lead we would certainly be in trouble. The best thing would be to get rid of them as soon as possible.
I shot directly at the first ape I saw up in a tree. A short cry of pain was heard instantly... but not from the ape, but from a bloody Pyropo that was perched on the tree behind it.
"Did you do that on purpose?"
"No comment…"
That damned ape had jumped at us at the same moment I shot the gun, and others joined the attack.
I shrugged off a couple that lunged at me and kept firing as I backed away. They were really agile. Every once in a while I would hit a few, but most of them were moving fast enough that I wasn't able to land most of the shots... at least against them.
—I'm also beginning to believe that you do it on purpose.
"These birds really have bad luck…"
A couple of stray bullets had hit two more Pyropus squarely.
"Or maybe they really want to die? Maybe they jump directly to the bullets…"
"Don't get distracted now!" Raidha yelled as she slashed at an ape to my left.
"I'm don't!"
I drew Vurtalis in a reverse grab and sliced through the arm of an ape trying to grab me from the right. Despite being like apes they had huge claws.
"You better worry about yourself!"
An ape was approaching from behind Raidha, so I shot at it. This time I managed to get a direct hit, killing it. They weren't really strong or resistant, but they didn't stop attacking even after being hurt. We barely had time to defend ourselves.
—Better watch your back too.
"¡Ugh!"
A sharp pain ran through my back and just a moment later the head of one of those apes appeared on my left and bit me on the shoulder with all its might.
"Get off me, damn it!"
I flipped Vurtalis grip around and drove it squarely into the middle of its head. The animal went down like a dead weight instantly.
"This hurts… Luckily these clothes are really resistant."
Its fangs had barely managed to rip through my clothing. Apparently Raidha was not exaggerating when she said that my clothes would be much more resistant, but this was practically like armor. It might not be able to block a sword, but it didn't seem to have a problem against the claws and teeth of these animals.
I glanced at Raidha. Unlike with me, none of those apes had managed to lay a single finger on her. Furthermore, although the numbers continued to overwhelm her a bit, she didn't seem to have much of a problem getting rid of those who approached her. I sighed half relieved and half frustrated.
'I guess I need to try a little harder.'
I took a deep breath and let the natural energy flow through my body, letting it fill every part of it. I released enough to start noticing the changes in my body, but not enough to completely transform. At the same time, I also transformed Vurtalis.
'Okay, let's see how well I can control this.'
I swung the sword horizontally at another group of apes that were running towards me. The blade lashed out straight at them, who were cut down without even having time to react.
On my other side another jumped at me before I had time to return the blade. I channeled the energy directly to my feet and kicked up the earth right between me and the ape. I barely made a small wall, so the ape easily climbed on it and jumped back at me, who was already waiting for it with the gun pointed at its head. I just had to pull the trigger.
I let the air out of my lungs and retrieved the blade of Vurtalis. Raidha had managed to get rid of most of the attackers. My side was also cleaned up. The few remaining monkeys seemed to be starting to get scared. Some were even backing away.
We had managed to create a gap between them. Hopefully we'd have scared them enough to let us through. If they were even a little smart, they'd let us pass and run in the opposite direction.
"Raidha, let's take the opportunity to escape!"
We both started running towards the direction where there were fewer monkeys. One stopped in front of us and opened his mouth wide in a threatening way, as if to say: You will not pass from here.
I swung the sword at it without even stopping. The ape dodged the attack, but it didn't matter, my only intention was to push it aside and move forward. The other apes did not chase us and this one also moved away. We were finally able to get out of the area where they had surrounded us and they seemed to have no intention of following us…
¡Gyaaaaaaa! ¡Graaaaaaaaaaaa! ¡Gyaaaayaya!
…however, it didn't seem like they wanted to leave us completely alone either. Both Raidha and I stopped and turned around. All those apes had started screaming at the top of their lungs. They were screaming so loud that it even made my ears hurt.
"What the hell?"
¡Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! ¡Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! ¡Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! ¡Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! ¡Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
From the other side, other similar cries began to sound with greater force. The noise of animals running through the jungle at full speed also accompanied those screams.
"Raidha... run…"
"Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh?!"
"Just run!"
We both started running as if the devil were after us. From the noise it wasn't just a few apes , it was an army!
"That's why I told you I didn't want to go through the jungle!"
"You didn't even know it would be apes mafia territory!"
"I knew it would be dangerous!"
As we moved forward, I started rising earth walls in our path, trying to block anyone following us. Some apes got in our way. It was easy to get rid of a few, the problem were that every time one of them found us, they would start screaming, alerting the others of our position.
"Shit… it seems that we are not going to escape…"
"There are too many…"
Again they managed to surround us, but this time there were not just a few, there were more than twenty, and that was only counting the ones that had surrounded us. In the distance, a lot more could be heard approaching.
¡Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Raidha and I stood back to back, prepared to withstand the attack of all the apes attacking at once... but before the first one could reach more than ten meters from me, a ball of fire fell between us.
"What is this?!"
Another fireball had fallen between Raidha and the monkeys.
"Fire…"
"I know it's fire!"
"No, I wasn't responding to you.. I just…"
I looked up at the sky, a ball of fire was flying through the trees, shooting flames at every ape around us. Little by little the fire began to take shape while it continued to release flames. It was a bird, a bird that breathed fire like a dragon.