Once the adrenaline from the battle wore off, I went to talk to the group. The really tall black guy is called Jerry, the redhead girl name is Molly and the voluptuous blonde is Kat.
There were two other men with them, apparently the five of them woke up relatively close to each other, and so did the dogs which lead to their dangerous situation. The two members missing tried to lure the monsters away so that the rest of the group could escape. Clearly, they failed and the dogs caught up to them.
At this point, I believe that for each person in the forest there is one dog relatively close to their position. I would need to meet more people to confirm my theory.
They asked about Nina and me, and how we could deal so easily with those creatures. I explained our previous encounters with them.
Those creatures are small, their most dangerous characteristic is their ability to go for critical hits, but as long as you are expecting them it's easy to avoid or block them. I think the easier way for me to deal with them is to take their attacks and use my stronger constitution to push them to the ground, once they are pinned down it is easy to finish them off.
I was surprised Jerry barely managed to deal with one of them, with him being at least 10 centimeters taller than me.
For some reason, the dogs would keep focusing their attacks on Molly, forcing Jerry to keep taking the hits to protect her. Not that they know each other, he is just a nice guy trying to protect a defenseless woman.
Basically, their group is in the same situation as Nina and me. Naked, no memories and vicious dogs attacking them.
Nina kept silent the whole time, she seems to be uncomfortable around Kat. I noticed while she took a peek at Kat's voluptuous chest and then looked at her own. I could barely contain myself from laughing.
They shared their map with us, their group came from a different direction. Meaning we now have more information to choose our which direction to go from here.
We decided to remain as a group for now, it feels safer for Nina. I wouldn't mind going around by myself.
We spend some time to rest and recover our health, which I spend checking my current status.
[Name: Charles Green]
[Title: -none-]
[Level: 3 – 25/75]
[Health: 31/35]
[Magic: 10/10]
[Strength: 6(+)]
[Agility: 5(+)]
[Vitality: 7(+)]
[Intelligence: 5(+)]
[Wisdom: 5(+)]
[Dexterity: 5(+)]
[Luck: 5(+)]
[Stats points: 3]
This time, I managed to kill three dogs, which game me 15 experience points and got me to increase one level. As I already made my decision previously, two stat points go to stamina and the remaining one goes to strength.
'45 health, not bad at all. At least I'm sure no dog can take me down easily.'
First two levels were easy, but now it's going to be a lot harder, 50 experience points are required, which means dealing with 10 of those creatures, so far we've seen 8 of them after walking around for a couple of hours, even if I wanted to kill 10 of them it doesn't mean I'm going to easily find them, at least I hope not to.
"Charlie."
Nina is sitting next to me, looking at her tablet.
"Nina got a level."
'Right, she has killed 2 dogs already.'
"What should Nina do with her points?"
"Uhm…"
'I wonder about that, I don't think she should follow the same route as me.'
"Nina, what would you like to do? Think about it very carefully."
She tilts her head while staring at me surprised, somehow her expression makes me feel dumb, as if she was saying 'isn't it obvious?' or something like that.
"Nina wants to be with Charlie, Nina doesn't care about anything else."
So I'm stuck with her. She didn't really give me a choice in the matter.
"HAHAHAHA"
Nina blinks her big eyes, looking confused. While the group of three stare at me as if they were looking at a crazy person.
For the time being, Nina should spend her points in speed. I want her to be able to run away if necessary, and for that she needs to be faster than the dogs.
"Nina, if you are going to be by my side you will have to listen to everything I say."
She keeps blinking her eyes, no change in her expression.
"Can you do that?"
Nina smiles.
"Of course, Charlie says Nina obeys, right?"
Then she stares at me while blushing.
"If it's Charlie, Nina doesn't mind."
'… …'
"Charlie?"
'I think my brain just malfunctioned, yup, definitively a brain problem.'
"Nina, you should add all your points to agility."
"Okay Charlie."
Then she start messing around her tablet.
"Nina is done, all points are in agility."
"Let's try it out, run from that tree to that tree."
I point towards both trees. Nina stands up and walks to the first tree, then she starts running.
The distance around both trees I'd say was around 20 meters, Nina took only a couple of seconds to go from the first tree to the second.
'Impressive.'
Maybe I should add some points to agility.
"How does it feel?"
Nina came back and sat next to me.
"Did you feel how fast you ran?"
She smiles.
"Was Nina fast? Nina did well?"
She looks at me expectant, like a puppy waiting to be praised.
"Yes, Nina was really fast, you were great."
Then she starts giggling like the little girl she is.
"Now Charlie can't run away from me."
'Again, I might be hearing things.'
A few minutes later we are all fully recovered, so we decide to start walking towards the direction opposite from where we came from. Molly and Kat were the only ones talking, sometimes they asked questions to Nina, and I saw her blushing while talking about me.
'Girl talk I guess.'
I decided to walk at the front while Jerry covered our backs, the three girls should be safer in the middle.
For a couple of hours we just walk, nothing out of the ordinary, trees and more trees. Then, I heard a gasp, while Molly shouted in fear. In front of us, a human corpse, or what used to be a human corpse.
It was missing a few limbs, its face was completely unrecognizable and there were multiple bites around its body. It was impossible to tell if it was male or female, it was that bad.
Both Molly and Kat started vomiting, whatever they had in their stomach. Mine was empty.
Jerry somehow managed to keep himself from throwing up, but I noticed how affected he was, it is not hard to notice a paler skin tone on a black man.
Nina kept close to me, trembling while holding my arm.
I remained alert, there must be dogs nearby.
'Should we bury it?'
Asked Jerry while looking at the rest of us.
"No time, it's dangerous here, the smell could bring more of those dogs and who know what else in this forest."
I decided to keep walking, Jerry looked reluctant but the girls just wanted to leave the corpse behind as fast as possible.
Sometimes I felt like I could hear howling or cries of pain, I asked the others if they could hear them but it was just me.
'Maybe, I'm a bit too paranoid.'
Then I saw one of those dogs hiding behind the trees, it kept following us for a while. I told the others, when the creature noticed that we saw it, it just ran away.
Maybe it didn't feel confident going against a bigger group. So we kept walking. About an hour later, there were two dogs stalking us.
'I'd swear one of them is the same from before. Did it go look for a companion?'
I turned around with my knife in hand and dashed towards the creatures. They ran away. I start to get worried.
'How many of them are going to come next?'
"We need to go faster, next time, there are going to be more of them."
Molly and Kat didn't even consider the idea of fighting against the monsters, while Jerry was worried about the girls. Nina was fine with whatever I decided to do.
So we started improving our pace, no one complained once I explained our current predicament.
Yet, I could hear the sound of the creatures following behind us. Somehow, the monsters didn't show up on the map. Maybe they know how to keep their distance and avoid being detected. Besides, only I can hear them.
I don't think it's paranoia, maybe it has something to do with being higher level, but there is no time to test that theory.
At some point more and more angry howls were added to their pack.
'Should we get ready to fight?'
The girls are getting tired of running, Nina is the only one who seems unaffected by our pace, she might be able to go faster.
I keep the tablet on hand, checking the map expecting to see the creatures approaching us. Until it happened, twelve red dots appeared from behind us while there were two of them in front of us.
'They are blocking our path.'
"Damn it"
My companions look at me, the sounds are getting closer and they can hear them.
"There are two of them in front of us, they are trying to surround us."
Realization hit them hard, they started to get pale, afraid of what is coming.
"Jerry come next to me, we are going to tackle those beasts blocking our path and let the girls keep running."
Nina turned to look at me.
"I'm going to stay with you."
I stare directly into her beautiful eyes.
"You said you were going to listen to me, so listen, you have to run as fast as you can, I'm counting on you Nina."
Tears were starting to form in her eyes, running down her small face, but she nodded.
Jerry started running next to me, and soon we came across the two monsters, they were waiting for us, staring with their vicious eyes while blocking our path forward.
"NOW"
I dashed towards one of them, I went with the previous tactic of pushing the creature to the ground using the weight of my body, Jerry copied me and threw himself on top of the other creature.
Kat and Molly kept running, Nina turned back for a second, hesitating while looking at me, until our eyes met and I smile.
"GO NINA"
She started running, following behind Molly and Kat, disappearing from our sight while Jerry and me killed the two monsters. Once their corpses disappeared, we both stood up, this time we were surrounded by them.
I take a peek at the tablet in my hand, they weren't following the girls.
"LET'S DO THIS YOU SONS OF BITCHES!"