"Fuck this forest!" Alex couldn't help but curse to the skies and making birds fly away.
He stood over a monster huffing and puffing while holding his, you guessed it, left arm. There was a long gash that ran down the length of it and revealed bone. He quickly strained and tensed his muscles to slow the blood, which he learned to do accidentally after trying to heal his fist a while ago.
The monster in front of him was twitching its legs as its beady eyes shone no light. He had finally killed the last 2nd Ring on his list! The monster gave him only one, but a nasty blow, that happened just as it was dying! Alex was pissed!
It had taken him so long to finally recover from his horrible wounds. It was now day 17 but on day 12, he had recovered enough to move around without jostling his organs everywhere. He was still sore, even now, but it just reminded him he was alive.
Alex clenched his jaw in pain as he ripped off the front legs of the giant mantis monster with his right arm and shoved them into his crowded storage ring. He had to take the duffle bag out with all his other stuff to make room for the body parts.
It was annoying to lug it around but he didn't have a choice. He glared at the monster still twitching and kicked its head with enough force to make it explode. Blood and brain matter flew everywhere but he ignored it and dashed away to his temporary base.
He thought back to how careful he had been over the last week, only to make a fatal mistake in his last fight before the big one.
'It's always the left!' Alex gritted his teeth and punched a tree with full force, a *boom!* echoed in the forest before he continued on.
Over the last week or so after recovering to the minimum, Alex started making more elaborate traps to catch his prey and deal a fatal blow. It didn't work well at first, but he soon got better at it and managed to kill all his prey this way.
One of the easiest monsters for him was the feline monster he trapped and suffocated in the cave. He thought it might now work since it was a 2nd Ring existence, but apparently, it had fought and lost to another monster who fought for the corpse of the Merebear. It was easy pickings for Alex, but it wasn't smooth sailing the whole time.
Unfortunately, this last monster had an active skill that allowed it to escape death at the bottom of a spike trap he set up. It then turned into a brawl on the surface where Alex managed to strike its heart, only for the mantis to pull its sharp forelegs back with unimaginable speed and shoot it back out at him.
He managed to dodge one arm, but could only turn his body and take the blow to his arm.
'Maybe I should have turned to the right...' He thought as he analyzed the last battle.
He went back to his base and began the painful process of dressing his wounds. He ran out of medical gauze two days ago and had to use a natural alternative that took the shape of a large palm tree that held fluid similar to Aloe Vera, but with a different effect.
There were many things he had gone through during this time, he got hit with a wave of loneliness on day 14, and was severely dehydrated the day before. He was also constantly attacked by little bugs at night that worked similar to mosquitoes.
This trip quickly turned out to not be fun.
Alex sighed as he had become a bit numb to the constant pain and quickly cleaned and sewed up his arm and put on temporary splints using tree branches. He had already called it a day after getting hurt so he laid down casually in his hammock in the trees as he thought about the purpose of this journey.
Alex had a feeling a while back that this wasn't really for food since Alan wasn't actually having him bring back the meat of monsters. It was just the best parts that could normally be used for potion crafting or weapon forging.
He also noticed that this really was a dangerous place for normal 1st and 2nd Rings after finding numerous mutilated human bodies throughout the outer ring. He hadn't seen any in the 2nd outer ring since nobody could survive long enough to get there.
His abnormal stats really helped him stay alive against so many enemies that constantly stalked him. If he was just like everyone else, would he be able to survive here? Most likely not more than a few days before succumbing to wounds or being eaten alive.
He clenched his left fist with difficulty and looked at the wounds on his hands. His fingers were still bent a little unnaturally and he could barely move them. He definitely couldn't feel it as his nerves were obliterated so he decided to keep it balled in a fist most of the time and only let it get air and stretch once or twice a day.
It would probably not be fixable, even with the help of Sharla. It was that bad.
He sighed and spent the rest of the day lazing about, thinking of Alicia and Kaya while he twiddled his good thumb. He was forced to wait another two days before he could move his arm properly again.
He then began to move further north and approach the border between the 2nd and 3rd outer rings of the forest. It was practically nighttime 24/7 since no light reached through the canopy. He cautiously moved through the trees and began looking for tracks of any kind.
The monster he was looking for was a type of lizard that was also quite famous from earth stories.
"What do Basilisk tracks look like?" He mumbled to himself.
Unsure if they moved on legs or slithered like snakes, he could only look for both and start there. With it being so dark, he didn't want to stray too far from the border between the outer rings of the forest, so he set up a base camp and decided to wait another day to fully heal before continuing.
In the night, he watched his surroundings like normal and tried to see any activity near the border of the outer rings. He turned to his right when he saw light out of his peripheral and saw dense smoke rising into the air.
The characteristic orangish glow from something on fire lay in the distance and it was much closer to the 1st outer ring which was quite a ways away. With nothing better to do since he had no clue how to really track this monster, he decided to run over.
Alan had mentioned bandits might be in the forest and found it odd that a fire would be glowing so brightly now. It seemed too big to be a campfire and could easily attract a lot of attention.
The closer he got, the bigger the fire grew and the louder the distant screams of people grew. He stayed hidden in the trees as he watched a little girl no older than ten running with tears in her eyes.
She was wearing what looked like a nightgown and didn't even have shoes on. She constantly looked over her shoulder but her vision was blocked by her light brown, almost dirty blonde hair, which caused her to trip over a root and stumble. Her face paled after taking a mouthful of dirt.
"Where oh where are you hiding little girl~" A creepy voice echoed in this part of the forest.
To the little girl, it felt like the devil was calling her, trying to devour her soul after tormenting it. While to Alex, he sounded like a pedophile.
He narrowed his eyes as he watched a skinny man carrying a knife haphazardly while looking around behind trees and rocks in the area. The little girl gasped and went to hide behind a tree. Her gasp alerted the creep in her direction and with a big toothy grin, slowly tip-toed to that area.
He was playing with his food, as he licked his butcher knife with a long tongue. It was already covered in fresh blood from who knows, and he smacked his lips enjoying the fear he tasted in the air.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are~" The pedo sang in a grainy voice.
He took his knife and ran it across a rock making an annoying metal grinding sound. The girl covered her ears and whimpered as she fought to keep her cries in. She had just watched her family get brutally murdered in front of her when she was supposed to be on a fun family trip touring the kingdom.
She wasn't able to keep herself completely quiet as the little girl had been through too much for someone so young and innocent. The pedo smiled as he slipped behind a few more trees to get to where she was.
Seeing things getting close to its climax, Alex decided to move as well jumping from tree to tree.
The pedo let out an evil laugh that seemed to echo in the girl's mind. She covered her ears with her hands and cried fully.
"This is just a bad dream! This is just a bad dream!" She kept telling herself as the creep for sure knew where she was.
He came over the rock next to the tree the little girl was at and climbed over it like an animal and an evil smile. He slowly leaned toward the girl with his butcher knife closing in on her neck. With his prey not moving, he reveled in this sight for a while longer before swinging his weapon back.
*CRUNCH!*
The little girl heard a muffled crunch, followed by a little bit of liquid splashing on her face. She flinched and curled herself into a tighter ball waiting for the inevitable... only it never came... or was late at least.
Unable to hold back her curiosity, she opened one eye, only to see no one next to her. She turned to the other side and no one was there either. She tried her best to be quiet again as she stood up and peeked around the tree.
On a rock behind her tree, she saw a figure and quickly ducked down. She didn't get a good glimpse of it and tried to pretend to be a tree again and hopefully, the figure would leave.
"I know you're back there." A slightly deeper, but much gentler voice than the creep earlier, spoke.
The girl widened her eyes and lifted her head before quickly turtling up again and shaking her head. Even if his words made her feel hopeful, she had lost her trust in humans in one night.
"I won't hurt you." The voice said again but she only doubted it more.
"I promise I won't hurt you. I even scared off the bad man that was chasing you." The voice continued and she uncovered her head a little.
It was true that he had taken care of the bad man, but did that make him a good guy? She wasn't sure, but desperate for someone to save her from this nightmare, she hesitantly got up. She peeked around the tree slowly and got a better look at the figure.
Her eyes widened at the handsome young man that sat causally on a boulder. He wore a torn-up blue jacket and no shirt to reveal his muscles, and torn-up pants as well. His brown hair blended slightly with the trees behind him but his icy blue eyes stood out to her the most.
Her walls broke down in an instant as he looked almost exactly like a prince that would ride in on a white steed to save the princess. Her eyes glittered as she approached him.
Her innocence made Alex smile. Alex had been surrounded by cruel people and death for what seemed like eternity here on Nova. His only saving grace was Alicia, and then a bit of Kaya.
After being stuck in this crappy forest for so long, he craved human contact. The roughed-up little girl suddenly started breaking down and ran over to him. Her tears went everywhere as she tackled his stomach.
He was surprised but didn't push her off. He only meant to check out the area, but it seemed like whoever this girl was with got ambushed by bandits. He stroked her curly brown hair gently. With his sensitive hearing, he heard people coming this way after her outburst so he slowly pulled her off.
"Can you stay behind that tree for a bit longer and cover your ears?" Alex asked, hoping she would just comply.
The little girl wiped her tears and snot off her face and not-so-secretly tried to wipe it on his jacket and nodded. Alex stood up when she was still holding onto the hem of his jacket. He looked down at her ruby red eyes that were moist with tears, and her quivering lip made his heartache.
"Are you going to kill more bad guys?" She asked hesitantly.
'This girl is pretty perceptive.' Alex thought.
He went down on a knee to her level and held her shoulders.
"Yes is that a problem?" He smiled at her. The little girl shuttered a bit from fright.
Although her prince charming smiled at her, it felt more like a monster looking down on her.
She put her head down and nodded before he let her go and she ran off to hide again. When she got behind the tree, she immediately curled up and covered her ears again.
Although it was muffled, she heard some voices.
"Hey! Who the hell are yo-GAAHHH!!"
"AHHH!!!! STOP! PLEASE! *gargle* h-help..."
The little girl made the sides of her head hurt as she tried to keep the sounds from entering her head. She bawled quietly as the wails of those bad men sounded eerily similar to the wails of her family and friends who accompanied her, just before their throats were sliced.