At that moment cursed himself for not paying mere attention to his surroundings. The Demon Bear wasn't the best at sneaking because of its massive size, so he should have noticed it coming closer sooner.
Also, the sudden retreat of the other beast would be a clue, as they had detected the large predator coming closer to them and fled.
The Demon Bear had clearly detected him and started charging toward him.
Zarin didn't waste any more time dressing, and he started making his escape. However, he knew that he still had no chance against this foe, as he still had not made much progress on his combat power.
'If only I could use my spells, things would be different.'
Even if [Burst of Frost] and [Wind Rocket] got referred to as Skills, Zarin thought of them as Spells since they used MP. From his understanding, there was no such thing as Spells, and the System considered everything Skills.
Zarin still had no MP to use his new offensive abilities, so all he could do for now was escape. He wanted to escape the sight of the Demon Bear so that he could use his [Stealth] Skills to escape the beast.
Since his [Stealth] had leveled up a few times, its cooldown and duration had changed. For example, its duration from 10 increased to 18, and the cooldown went from 2 minutes and 30 seconds to 2 minutes and 22 seconds.
It still had a weaker effect during combat mode, and it was still a 90% reduction. This meant he had to be careful when to use it, as he probably couldn't last long enough to use it again.
He opened his Status Window during his running and assigned his 5 unused stats points to Agility. Doing so increased his speed and the concealment effect his Stealth would have.
During his past tests on assigning points, and the information he had from the Journal and Ais, he knew that every five increments had the most effect. So, for example, his Agility was 14, and with the 5 points, it was 19, but a little more than half of the benefits that he got was for reaching 15 on it.
He could hear from behind him trees getting uprooted as they were in the way of the Demon Bear, which helped keep the distance from getting lower. Even if the Demon Bear wasn't too agile, its movement speed was decent. So it slowly lessened the distance between it and Zarin.
Zarin headed in a direction further from his base, as he had formed a plan to help on his escape.
Soon, he had exited the tree line and was in front of the foot of a mountain and a cave entrance.
Not long after he was out in the open, growls of Demon Wolves could be heard as three came out of the cave charging towards Zarin.
Before the predators could reach Zarin, the Demon Bear came out of the trees. The moment it saw the Demon Wolves, it charged toward them, ignoring Zarin. The same thing happened with the Demon Wolves, ignoring Zarin and focusing on the Demon Bear.
One of the Demon Wolves let out a howl, which Zarin knew was a signal to call for backup. This was his clue to leave, and so when he was far enough, he activated his [Stealth] Skill.
Fortunately, since none of the monsters targeted him, the System did not consider him in combat, meaning his Skill wasn't weakened. He had read about Skills with those restrictions and ways to go around them in the Journal.
Another knowledge that he had gained from the book was why Demon Wolves and the Demon Bear fought each other.
Apparently, different Realms existed in this world, which was still part of it, so they weren't the same as the other words that the rest of the Otherworlders could start their new lives.
One of those realms had the name Demon Realm and was why creatures like Demon Wolves and the Demon Bear existed in this Realm. In the Demon Realm lived the different types of Demons that differed from the demon monsters that Zarin had faced.
One of the most dangerous ones was called High-Demons, and they were the reason for the demonic type creatures in this Realm. Some of those High-Demons wanted to cause chaos in the other realms and had done so by corrupting some of its creatures, creating demonic monsters from them.
But High-Demon were creatures of chaos and hatred, and what they hated most of all was each other. So it seemed like it was for High-Demons to fight each other.
But a High-Demon could not kill another Hight-Demon no matter how they tried. This was a restriction put by the Demon King; otherwise, there would be even fewer High-Demons than usual.
Still, that didn't mean they couldn't mess with each other. That was why the creations of one High-Demon always would fight the creations of another no matter what if they were near each other.
Zarin was glad that he had gone through the whole Journal to learn those details, as it proved helpful in situations like that. For example, he had learned that there were a significant number of monsters created by the actions of individuals from other Realms.
Still, not all monsters came to be like that. Natural evolution created some in this Realm, or by the actions of individuals in this Realm, and some just existed since the beginning of time.
Lady Emlyn's father had mentioned lore parts like that in his Journal to describe the different monsters he had taken abilities from.
When his [Stealth] had ended, he had moved far enough to be safe to move without it.
He planned to go back to the lake to get his clothes, as he barely had time to put on his trousers before the Demon Bear started chasing him. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to grab all his clothes as he started making his escape.
He didn't go far as he started hearing some whistling. It looked to be in a rhythm like someone was doing so to repeat a song's music.
Zarin was curious about the source since he hadn't encountered anybody in the forest during those past weeks.
It didn't take him long to reach where the source of the whistling was. It was a figure that looked to be in the middle of cooking.
Zarin couldn't see the figure's face as it was facing its back. The figure had a hood up, and Zarin couldn't see any sign of if it was a human or not. To Zarin's eyes looked to be a humanoid figure, and the indication that it had clothes on meant that it was probably not a monster.
Still, it wasn't unheard of for monsters to wear clothes, but those were of the intelligent kind. Those were way different from the Demon Wolves and the Demon Bear and, most times, more dangerous.
"You know, it is rude to spy on someone like that."
The sudden sentence, which clearly came from the figure in front of him, surprised Zarin.
"You can come closer. I don't bite," the same voice suggested and then let out a small chuckle.
Zarin started getting closer to the individual but had his guard up just in case.
"You can use the fire, but not the meat," the figure said and pointed at a space at the left of the campfire. It was clear that the figure suggested to Zarin to sit over there.
As Zarin made his way over there, the moment he was next to the figure, he turned to take a better look at the face under the hood.
As he did so, Zarin froze in place for a moment. The figure's face was blank, like the 'Judge' he had met before meeting Ais.
Zarin was certain that this wasn't the same person as its head was a bit wider.
His freezing in place didn't last long. As he sat at the place, the figure pointed him.
After he did so, he started thinking of what to say next. He didn't know that this individual and the 'Judge' had any relationship, but it seemed at least they were of the same race.
By all he knew, this person could actually be an agent from that place or had nothing to do with it. The possibilities were endless, and he didn't know how to start.
Even if that figure had nothing to do with the afterlife, he was confident that it wasn't a typical race. There was no mention of them in the Journal, even if Zarin knew that it didn't have everything in there.
He was confident that if Lady Emlyn's Father wanted to write about every race and monster in this world, it would be a much thicker Journal. But instead, he seemed to have written down only the ones that looked to have an essential factor in its adventure days and abilities.
So Zarin gave it some thought before saying anything more.