The damn bastard pushed and kicked me to the outside, not even that he also kicked Mirae out right after he kicked me. Before we could even register what he had done to us, he even stabbed our legs with the sharp stick that he snatched from us. He knew that when we were injured the beast would get attracted to us more.
As we tried to get up and go back to the cave, he kept stabbing and kicking us. That was when I knew we wouldn't die because of the beast if we kept trying to go back, but we would die because of him. So I grabbed Mirae's hand and dragged her away from the reach of his stick.
Now, our only choice was to distract the beast again and run from here.
Thankfully, the beast was still distracted by the howling of its pack. However, we didn't have much time until he focused back on us.
"Mirae, listen to me." I tried to keep Mirae's mind focused back first. We need to survive first.
"Humm… yeah…" she tried her best to calm herself down from the panic that she experienced.
"Yeah, now I want you to stab the beast as hard as you can when I give you the signal. Okay?"
"But.."
"No. I need you to do it. Come on! The beast already has its sight on us." I clamped her cheek with both of my eyes and looked into her eyes.
"Remember to listen to my signal, keep close behind me." I stood up and readied myself by taking out the perfume bottle and lighter.
I knew if I wanted to attack it I needed to stay focused on its movement. I couldn't be too fast or too slow. So, you need to focus Aerin!
I slowly crept closer to the beast. I prepared my weapon. The lighter raised to the height of my chest with my stretched left hand, and the perfume facing it.
That was when I saw the beast start to run towards us. Just then in a split second, I lit the lighter and sprayed the perfume onto it as the beast was just an inch from me. The alcohol in the perfume contacted the fire, creating an explosion of fire towards the beast. I kept spraying the beast until it moved back and was wrenched in pain.
"Now! To its head Mirae!" I signaled Mirae and moved to the side to give her some space to charge forward.
"Die!!"Mirae yelled as I could see her stabbing the head of the beast as hard as she could.
After that, I made the flame thrower again to ensure the beast had all he could get from us. The beast kept writhing in pain, black blood kept oozing out of its burnt and injured head. But, it could still howl at the sky.
"We need to run now!" I grabbed Mirae's hand which kept stabbing the beast. I knew that this was the best time to run because the pack of the wolf could come to us as fast at any time.
We ran to the opposite side of where the pack's howling came from.
We ran and ran. My feet kept moving as if it had a mind of its own. We passed through many lines of trees and bushes. We also passed by some rat beasts and weird spider beasts, but thankfully the DIY flame thrower could damage and scare them away from us.
Eventually, my feet weakened as we reached a weirdly open field with an immensely huge tree. When we stepped on the field, my feet gave out on me. I could hear the flying insect beasts that were behind us as we ran through them. However, the beasts suddenly stopped moving as if some invisible barrier around the field blocked them.
Is this the famous safe zone that I've read in the forum before?
I didn't know if it was in the safe zone or not, but it was a life savior beside the DIY flame torch.
I could feel how hard my heart was beating because of both fear and adrenaline. All of my limbs were also trembling because of them. As I was trying to catch my breath, I looked at Mirae who was also shaking and trembling like me.
We both sustained quite many injuries from the previous events, but we were fortunate enough to still have our lives and every single limb intact.
Now that we knew we were kinda safe, the next thing we needed the most was water, for both filling our stomachs and cleaning our injuries. So, I observed the surroundings of the safe zone area. If this place was a safe zone, it surely would have some water source, right?
The field is quite big an open grass field with only one enormous tree in the center of it. The tree was so enormous that it was like a 10-floor skyscraper. The leaves of the tree were so densely packed on many branches. The tree trunk was also very wide, the diameter was around the size of a tennis field.
"Let's just wait for a while. The rescuer might come not too long," I said to Mirae who was lying on the grass.
I couldn't help but still hold on to those naive beliefs, just to lighten up the mental burden in my mind.
While resting, I'm starting to check the injuries that we've had. Starting with Mirae's injuries, she had a, fortunately, shallow stabbed mark on her sides, stomach, and thigh. Not only that there were also some bruises from the kicking on her stomach, thigh, and calf. She had more injuries as she tried countless times more to go back to the cave.
While my injuries were not as bad as hers, I had stab marks on my thigh and some bruises around my thighs and calves. My left hand also had burnt marks from the DIY flame torches.
As we both rested, I could hear the soft and regular breathing of Mirae.
We rested for who knows how long, but it felt like an eternity. There was still no sign of any rescuers. And I could feel my body weakened from no water or food. Even though the non-awakened had been strengthened by the aeter, we still needed water at least once in 24 hours. This meant that we'd been here for around 24-30 hours now.
We need something, anything at least to fill our stomachs.
"Mirae, Mirae…" I nudged Mirae to wake her up.
"...Hmm... Yeah…" she finally opened her tired eyes.
"Mirae, I'm going to find water and something for us to eat. You need to stay vigilant for me. You need to come to find me if you observe anything suspicious outside the field area, okay?" I helped her sit down.
"Are you okay with going alone? I think it's better to stick together." She pulled my hand trying to stand up and go with me.
"No, you wait here. In case the rescuer comes when we try to find resources, but if you're here there wouldn't be a problem." I calmly pushed her down to sit again. "So, wait for me here."
After briefing Mirae to look out for both danger and rescuers that might come, I went towards the tree that looked so suspiciously big.
As I reached it, the size became even bigger. I tried to circle the tree because there was nothing in the field besides the tree. The diameter of the trunk was truly wide, along with how scaly and rough the bark was.
While circling the tree, it turned out there was some opening on one of the sides. The opening led to a sloped area into darkness.
I knew there was nothing else outside the tree, so if I wanted to find something my best bet would be in there. So I braved myself to step onto the opening towards the slope area, and step into darkness.