Chapter 41 - The Wilderness (1)

After Ronald carried over Princess Sophia to a forest in the middle of the wilderness...

"Hey Princess, you better get infront of me and start leading the way so I can keep my eyes on you at all times, and don't even think about trying to do something fishy otherwise I'll make you regret it." After Ronald had placed the Princess down on the ground and took both his mask and hat off, he ordered the Princess to start paving the way.

Even though their visit to this forest seemed like something that Ronald had chose on a whim, Ronald was actually very familiar with this forest despite it being in the middle of nowhere.

And as for how he managed to become familiar with this forest in the first place?

It was because after he had to secretly save one of the heroines in this exact forest back during his previous life, he decided to explore this forest during his free time outside of the plot.

And the heroine he had actually saved in this forest before was none other than Jiang Yixin, the one who was also currently chasing him down right now.

Although Ronald didn't know how or why Jiang Yixin had managed to get into such a miserable state when he first met her in this forest, he knew that he had to save her in order for the plot to continue on normally, so he decided that he was just going to secretly knock her unconscious.

However, just right before he was about to render her unconscious, Jiang Yixin managed to somehow figure out that someone was secretly watching her, despite Ronald completely hiding his presence.

So Ronald quickly grabbed a ski mask he had in his pocket, and a pair of sunglasses in order to hide his identity, and then rendered her unconscious and sent her to a hospital after showing up in front of her and saying a few villainous lines.

Thinking about it now, Ronald felt like he should've just stayed quiet at the time and not say anything, however he knew that it was too late to regret it now.

"..." Princess Sophia didn't say anything but clenched her hands and reluctantly got infront of Ronald.

She knew that it was going to be almost nearly impossible to escape from the clutches of the person who had kidnapped her, and so she just decided it was better to cooperate with him for now.

Even though she had decided to cooperate with Ronald for now, that didn't mean that she had completely given up on trying to escape away from Ronald, and she even already had a plan in mind.

However, she has to wait for Ronald to fall asleep first before executing her plan.

"Great, since it looks like we're on the same page now, I'll tell you where to go from here." Ronald then started to tell Princess Sophia where to go.

Since Ronald was familiar with this forest, he obviously knew a few decent locations that the both of them could stay at for the next 12 days.

And so with that in mind, the two started to set off into the forest.

***

"Okay, stop here, we're going to be spending the night here. Go to that water stream up ahead and go hydrate yourself up a bit while I go set up the campfire for us. Don't go anywhere else otherwise I'll make your life a living nightmare." After traveling through the woods for about two hours straight and locating a water stream a few meters away from them, Ronald noticed that Princess Sophia was starting to get tired and dehydrated, so he decided to stop here and set up camp for the night.

"..." Princess Sophia didn't say anything and just silently walked over to the water stream in order to hydrate herself.

Not once has she even tried to mustered out a word to Ronald ever since she had arrived at the woods, and she planned on keeping it that way.

After setting up a campfire for the night and making sure that Princess Sophia hadn't ran off somewhere yet, Ronald grabbed a couple of sticks he found laying on the ground and hopped into the water stream in order to catch some fishes for them to eat.

When Ronald came back with a couple of big fishes, one on each stick, he saw Princess Sophia patiently waiting for him at the campfire.

"Haha I'm surprised you didn't decide to run off by yourself, although we have some enmity between us, I can't let you starve to death now, at least not yet, so here." Ronald then proceeded to hold out the fish that was on a stick and offered it to Princess Sophia.

After hesitating for a bit, Princess Sophia silently took the fish on the stick from Ronald's hand and started to cook the fish over the campfire.

Although Princess Sophia didn't want to get free handouts from her kidnapper, she knew that she wouldn't be able to execute her plan overnight on an empty stomach.

After both Ronald and Princess Sophia had finished eating, Ronald swiftly made two seperate beds that were made out of sticks.

"Alright Princess, this is what we'll be sleeping on tonight, although I know that you aren't used to these kinds of sleeping conditions, you better cope with it." Ronald pointed at one of the beds made out of sticks and silently stared at her until she reluctantly got onto the bed.

"By the way, don't try to run away while I'm sleeping." After watching the Princess hop onto the bed, Ronald gave her one final warning before hopping onto the other bed and closing his eyes.

***

About an hour after they had both went to sleep, Princess Sophia opened her eyes and slowly got off the bed and hovered over Ronald's face in order to confirm that he was sleeping.

After confirming that Ronald is still indeed sleeping, Princess Sophia slowly tiptoed away from the camping area that Ronald had made and then started to run away with full force right after she felt like it was safe to.

That's right, her plan all along was just to secretly sneak away from Ronald while he was sleeping and try to get back to civilization as fast as possible.

However, just as Princess Sophia was aimlessly running away in the middle of the forest, what she had stumbled upon next absolutely petrified her.

It was a full grown adult size tiger eyeing directly at her.

After seeing the tiger was staring directly at her, Princess Sophia couldn't help but slowly started to step back in total fear and prayed that the tiger would just ignore her and go somewhere else.

But contrary to what she had hoped to happen, the tiger started moving in closer and closer to her instead.

So Princess Sophia quickly turned around and tried to quickly run away from the tiger before the tiger could catch her, but unfortunately the tiger was much more agile than her and instantly leaped over her head and blocked her path.

Princess Sophia knew that the tiger was toying with her and her whole body couldn't help but start to shake intensely.

As she was slowly trying to back away from the tiger again, she had accidentally tripped and fell flat on her butt while staring at the tiger with tears in her eyes as the tiger slowly started to get closer and closer to her once again.

After she fell down, she tried to stand back up but for some reason her body just didn't want to listen to her.

That was when she came to the realization that she was on the verge of dying and so started praying inside of her head for someone to come save her.

'Someone please save me!'

'Please...'

'Anyone...'

'I don't want to die...'

However, even with all of the praying she was doing, the tiger still kept coming closer to her, and the white knight that she had hoped to come and rescue her from this desperate situation never showed up.

The moment the tiger's face was about half a meter away from her face, Princess Sophia felt that all hope was lost and she knew that there was nothing she could possibly do in order to survive.

'I'm sorry mom… I'm sorry for acting so selfish and ignorant...'

'I know that everything I've done over the past couple of years has significantly caused you guys so much trouble... and if I could travel back in time to change it all, I would.'

'I just wish I could see you one last time...'

''I'm sorry...'

However, just as she had closed both of her eyes and was fully prepared to get eaten up by the tiger...

BOOM!

After hearing a sudden loud noise vibrated right in her eardrums, Princess Sophia slowly opened up her eyes and saw the person who had originally kidnapped her looking down at her with the corpse of a headless tiger right behind him.

"What did I tell you about not running away from me while I was sleeping?"