Trees were flashing by his vision, bushes were scraping his knees. The two moons seemed to be sympathetic with him as a trail through the trees could be seen lighting the way. Drake was running as fast as his aching body could carry him. Sprinting an untold amount of time in his still physically weak body took a toll on his endurance faster. With death looming, as if the grim reapers scythe was waiting to chop off his head, Drake, for the first time since arriving was having trouble organizing his thoughts on what he should do.
'Howl~'
With the beasts closing in on his tail, Drake felt that his heart was about to burst out of his chest, his vision was getting clouded by large amounts of sweat, and his mouth had no moisture remaining due to constantly breathing in the dry air of the high altitude mountains. When the wolves finally reached within sight, they were about a 100 meters away quickly catching up. Drake took a quick glance behind him which he severely regretted doing.
'SHIT, the Grade A wolf is on my ass!'
With Drake being easy prey for the wolves, the Alpha, which is the Grade A wolf, decided to personally chase Drake leaving the group of others in his party behind. The wolf knew that it would continue to lose its pack from chasing after them. When Drake thought that his luck was about to run out and death would embrace him a second time, he stumbled upon an open area devoid of flora where a cliff looking over a large, raging river was flowing down the valley of two mountains.
'The water looks deep, I'll have to float in the river until the wolves are off my tail...hopefully that happens'
A deep growl came from behind Drake, his crimson eyes flashed with determination and the gritted together before he looked back once more. The Grade A wolf was coming at him full speed and was no more then a few meters away. It jumped, brandishing it's claws to swing when it deemed itself in range. In defense Drake did a forward stab while taking a step backwards and ducking to avoid a full confrontation with the claw of the wolf. The wolf missed its swing just barely cutting off some of Drake's hair that was flowing in the wind due to his quick movement and was pierced through the neck and stumbled on top of Drake pushing them backwards.
With a tumble, the wolf and Drake fell off the cliff together. Drake, still holding onto the handle of the sword, used his remaining strength to turn the wolf underneath him so its body would hit the water first.
'Splash~!'
With a large 10 meter splash of water shooting into the air both bodies sunk for few seconds before remerging on the water.
'Phew, that gamble paid off well...'
Drake knew that if the wolf survived then it would fiercely chase after him. To lower the chances of the pack coming after him, killing the Alpha Grade A wolf was his best chance. Putting his life on the line he created space while stepping back and ducking so he could plunge the sword upward into the neck of the wolf.
'It seems Lady Luck favors me tonight, if my sword didn't stab its throat I'd be a late night snack for the wolf pack.'
Cold sweat formed on Drake's back when he thought about the close encounter and his luck which he definitely did not like betting on. His crimson eyes squinted as he observed his surroundings while floating on top of the wolf's body.
The river was relatively large, 50 meters wide with an uncertain depth due to the night, the two moons blessing of light could not help him in this regard. A slight river bank on the other side of the river parallel to the large cliff which should have 20 to 30 meters high. Due to the large wolf's durability, most of the fall and pressure were transmitted into the wolf's body.
The river was relatively fast moving where Drake currently was floating. Not knowing how long it'd take to reach the end, which Drake assumed was the ocean on the other side of the mountains, he decided to sleep. After the adrenaline rush and racing heart from life and death encounter ,his body felt extremely fatigued. It became harder and harder to keep his eyes open. Knowing that the wolf body gave him a decent raft for the time being he fell asleep.
'Swoosh...swoosh...swoosh'
Drake groggily opened his eyes to a magnificent view of a deep blue sea. The constant push and pull of waves caressing his body were bone chilling, arousing him from his weary state. It seemed to be early morning as the mountains were blocking the sun and letting few rays of light through. Only the red glow in the sky to the east gave away that morning had arrived.
Facing the sea which seemed as vast as the universe Drake turned to his left and saw a beach being lightly battered by waves along the seaside. To his right the first thing he saw was the wolf with his sword still stuck in its throat which had dried blood coating it and the wolf's fur. Its eyes were white, devoid of any life, and the fur was caked on top by the dry blood, sand, and dried sea water while the fur near the ground was being soaked by the constant push and pull of waves.
Pass the wolf was a large delta, with many streams of water slowly making its way into the sea. A beautiful sight of sea water and fresh water were thinly divided by a line clashing between light blue from the river and dark blue from the salty sea water. The river disappeared 100 meters into the distance where large inclines of rocks occurred signaling the start of the lowest part of the mountains. The inclines prevented little growth of trees within the valley where the river resided. On the other side of the delta which wasn't very large, smaller then when he jumped into the river higher up in the mountains, the rocky incline waned off into a forest which stretched along the beach line for miles. A slight curve could be seen the farther up north you went, continuing the beach line bordered by the forest.
Hunter Mountain Range could be seen in the northerly direction and on the south side face of the mountain the greenery of the forest crawled up its low incline. The tops still snow-capped due to ice chilling air and precipitation could only be occasionally glanced at through thick pillows of clouds.
Drake, after taking in a good look at where he was, realized the he indeed had made it to the other side of Hunter Mountain Range. Taking stock of what he had, which was the clothes on his back, the sword, and the dead wolf he was alone with no resources.
'Well, it could be worse...'
Drake began to think about what he should do.
'For now, there is no way I can safely travel through the mountains to the other side. I am not proficient with the sword, and this was my first time for a trip like this expedition. I don't even know if there are any other towns on this side but from what the map showed, the mountain range goes all the way to down to the sea in the south. So for now I can cross off returning. I could train for a few weeks with the sword play John taught me but that won't work against higher grade beasts that can use Aether Energy. Thankfully the alpha wolf figured I was an easy target and didn't use magic against me. For now I can only stay put. The wolf will provide me meat for awhile to live off of.'
Reaching this point of thought, Drake picked up his sword and started skinning the wolf. Blood flowed into the sea water as Drake cut his way through the body of the wolf. His crimson eyes never showed a sign of disgust or revolt for the sight he created. His black hair billowing in the wind, body covered in sand, and arms covered in blood, Drake felt like a scavenger.
'I need a way to preserve some of the meat, it will go bad since I can't eat it all in one sitting.'
Drake paused his work as he thought about what to do while gazing on the sea.
"OH! Salt in the sea, that might be possible. Although it may take a few days at least I can get some salt to dry out the meat and preserve it."
As he started to plan where to make it he realized that maybe it would take more then a few days.
"Even though its hot during the day, it might actually take longer then that...hmm well, for now I will eat when I can. I'll have to make traps of some sort and catch game in a few days. A salt evaporation pond is not efficient right now."
Drake sat back down on the beach and began to think about what he needs to do.
'First, most importantly I want to make a gun. Even if it's a basic steel handgun. To do that I would need steel and gunpowder. I don't know where I can get the ingredients for gunpowder around here but I will worry about that later. Hmmm...now that I think about I wonder if gunpowder could be replaced by Aether energy...well, I need to make the gun first and I don't have any Aether crystals so that is not possible right now. I need steel for the gun body first though. To make steel I would need iron and coal...iron shouldn't be too hard to find because of the ocean but coal is different. I might be lucky in that regard due to the river and lush forestation. Caves would be a great find. Both iron, due to the ocean, and coal, due to the delta could get me what I need. If I succeed in finding those two things I would need to create bloom furnace.'
"Sweet, it may be crude but I can do this if there are the correct resources, too bad the expedition ends here for now, but I want to get back and to do that there are things that need to get done. I'd rather not be stuck in the middle of no where for a long period of time. Ive already done it once in my past life for a year and it sucked ass."
Drake glanced at his surroundings once more before looking up at the mountain. The first place he would scout for the time being was the rock formations near the river.