Chapter 21 – 021 Flood – Outskirts
Chwak- Dududuk.
Hwanin energized his arms and used a stone ax to slash the vine that hung like a curtain in the dark.
“Suck!”
Thud! Kwajak! Hot…….
And he also struck and cut off plants that appeared behind him, whether they were reeds or trees.
Pak, pak pak pak!
It makes a path by striking the bushes up to chest height dozens of times.
Hwanin, who struggled through the flora blocking his way, wiped sweat from his brow as the fatigue gradually accumulated.
I paused to examine the midnight woods, which seemed gray to my spirit vision.
‘I never thought the vegetation would be so different.’
Small trees about 4 to 5 meters high are densely covered on top, and bushes and vines are thickly intertwined below, reaching up to chest height, so that it is impossible to even step.
If you look up, you can see that the bushes are connected like the sea to the end where the view is blocked by the trees.
Pout. Kiruk-
Unidentifiable cries can be heard calmly, and small insects are annoyingly fluttering around, stimulating the nerves.
Quack!
I would have been even more annoyed than I am now if the emergency food hadn’t kept eating the bugs flying over my left and right shoulders.
“Whoa.”
Before crossing the river, I thought it was a jungle, but the real jungle is here, and the other side was just a flood.
It’s hard to believe, but if you think about it carefully, I even felt that the other side was tidied up by some invisible hand. There were sparse wild grasses, but there weren’t too many bushes that would not hinder running.
Let’s say it is a national park that has been touched by people.
On the other hand, this side was almost no different from the forest that is associated with jungle.
The temperature on the other side was kept a bit cool, so it wasn’t bad to be active, but on this side, it’s so hot that you’ll sweat even if you move a little.
And that wasn’t all.
After crossing the river, Hwanin felt the air change.
The flood had a unique atmosphere that made it impossible to let go of tension. I didn’t feel it when I was there, but after coming over here, I was a Hwanin who felt it clearly.
Over there, they struggled to survive several times a day.
At night, I couldn’t sleep well, and I woke up with a nap. He always walked around nervously with a weapon in hand.
However, this side, although it is hot and annoying with swarms of insects and dense bushes that rise above the waist, there is not too much tension.
On the other side of the unreal river. Realistic river side.
Is it because of the blue flame tiger that the river is divided into reality and unreality?
“…….”
Hwanin let out a tired sigh and swung the stone ax again, cutting the tangled bushes and moving forward.
It’s been 4 hours since I left the riverside. However, perhaps because of the overgrown vines and bushes that made it difficult to move, I had never seen a monster or animal.
There was no battle, but after crossing the river, he moved nonstop as if he were being chased, and his physical fatigue was accumulating to the point where he could not be ignored.
In addition, the things I’ve been through in the past 48 hours are absolutely not normal, so my mental fatigue is quite high.
I can feel the fatigue of both body and mind gradually grabbing my ankles.
“Well.”
There were still 5 hours left before sunrise and less than 3 hours left for the Frog Man’s Soul Orb.
Would it be better to take a break for about an hour and go, or would it be better to go further by finding a creature to replenish the soul?
After pondering for a while, Hwanin started climbing up the tallest and thickest tree in the area.
Perhaps it was because he had taken the two-tailed monkey’s soul twice, and he was able to climb the tree as he moved his arms and legs along the feeling of vaguely remaining knowledge from that time.
Like the zelkova tree, it spreads widely from a certain height, so there were many places to rest.
Hwanin, who was about to settle down and take a rest, saw the upper part covered by thick leaves.
The fatigued body urges you to rest as it is, but the head persuades you to choose a safer place even if you rest.
“…….”
Hwanin, who had been patient and climbed a little higher, thought that he had done well to climb up with the thickness and arrangement of branches suitable for resting than he thought.
Hwanin, who is positioned in a place where tree branches support his back like a chair, hangs the animal skin luggage he was carrying on his shoulder like a backrest, and also fixes his staff and spear so that they do not fall.
Then, as I leaned back against the backrest, the overworked spine screamed and a cold yet cool sensation covered my spine.
Suppressing the moaning that was about to flow out, Hwanin looked at his feet for a moment.
The leaves are small like maple trees and spread like fingers, and they are so thick that you can’t see the bottom even if you look closely. At this rate, even if a monster passes by, you won’t find it.
On the other hand, the front and top are clear, but this place is about 6m, the height of the roof of a two-story building.
A monster like the Blue Flame Tiger would be a meaningless height, but…….
“There’s no way monsters like that are common.”
Relieved a little, Hwanin tilted his head back and felt a strong desire to fall asleep as he felt the animal skin pack properly supporting the back of his head.
The feeling that if you close your eyes, 8 hours will be easily erased.
After thinking for a while, Hwanin realized that he hadn’t rested the back of his head on anything in two weeks.
“…….”
Hwanin, who had been absent-mindedly with his mouth slightly open, felt like he would fall asleep, so he strained his back and sat upright.
Even if you take a break, you need to rest without relaxing so that you can prepare for an emergency.
Kyung.
Food good.
At that time, the emergency food that was going back and forth from the branch came flying with a few cherries-like fruits in its beak.
As for the emergency rations that landed on Hwanin’s thighs, they threw the fruit into Hwanin’s palms, which were arranged appropriately as if telling him to eat, and flew away again.
I watched for a while as the emergency food pecked at the fruit grown high in the tree, checked the fruit with my spirit vision, put it in my mouth and carefully chewed it.
The color system was edible green, but I was going to spit it out immediately if the taste was strange, but this…….
“Sugar?”
It has a soft jelly-like texture, but the taste is sweet, like pouring a spoonful of sugar into your mouth.
When the sugar was replenished, Hwanin smiled bitterly at the feeling that his fatigue had subsided a little.
To feel such an immediate fatigue relief effect, how much sugar was lacking.
Hwanin, who ate all the remaining five items of emergency rations, inhaled and exhaled evenly, with the intention of resting for an hour or so.
Exactly one hour later, Hwanin, who rested comfortably by stretching his legs on another tree branch, immediately descended from the tree and moved forward again.
After taking a break for an hour, the fatigue went away quite a bit.
Hwanin, who scratched the head of the emergency rations that flew in and landed on his shoulder, and scratched the bottom of his beak, said.
“Thank you.”
Skewer?
“This is it.”
Quack!
White fruit overflowing with sweetness. Emergency rations continued to bring white berries.
I don’t know if he meant to eat it together because it’s delicious, but he was surprised that the bird directly rewarded him in this way.
Mysterious stories and the story of a bird that has repaid the favor in traditional fairy tales are common staples, but I never thought I would experience it myself.
Thanks to this, about 17 white berries gathered. I don’t know how long the shelf life will be, but if you eat two at a time, you’ll be fine…….
Puss seats- Pusssss.
“…… !”
Hwanin, making a path out of the sea of thickets with a stone axe, took one step forward and stopped in shock at the sight of a rabbit that suddenly appeared in front of him with the sound of rustling grass.
It’s a rabbit
White, fluffy fur. Long ears. Round black eyes with a cute nose and a cute S-shaped snout.
But it’s big
Very big
A white rabbit standing on its hind legs and eating a vine the size of an adult’s forearm like a sprout.
Hwanin, who had a momentary brain freeze at the fact that he was 50 cm taller than himself, stopped his movements and looked at the giant white rabbit.
Its appearance is that of a harmless 3-month-old rabbit, but its size makes it unguarded.
All the creatures over a certain size that I encountered in the forest over there were aggressive. There’s a good chance that rabbit is also belligerent.
He was holding a stone ax in his right hand and a cane in his left hand and carrying a spear on his back as he made his way through the messy grass.
Thinking of using Soul Explosion if the situation arises, I put strength in my left hand holding the staff, but the rabbit looks at Hwanin.
Rude. Crisp, crunchy.
Soon after, Hwanin felt his thirst intensify as he saw the rabbit approaching, crushing the bushes with a harmless face.
Those bushes aren’t just bushes. Basically, it’s tough, and it’s a beast with sharp, pointy spines.
I push it with my body like a willow leaf, but there is not a single scratch on the white fur.
He thought about running away, but Hwanin, who was crazy about the fact that rabbits had hind legs suitable for running, gave up running.
Even if I turned my back and ran away, I wouldn’t be able to run much before being caught.
Even if he could escape, the area where Hwanin was standing was also surrounded by such bushes. The only place I can move is the narrow road I made along the way.
Seeing the rabbit gradually approaching, Hwanin made up his mind.
Before the giant rabbit gets closer, he stretches out his left hand staff to reveal the threat.
“Do not approach.”
At Hwanin’s action, the giant rabbit stopped approaching and flinched. In the meantime, Hwanin wore a stone ax around his waist and quickly pulled out the spear on his back and grabbed it.
If the giant rabbit showed even the slightest sign of attack, Hwanin would launch a spirit explosion and run after it. If you run away, you will only die, and if you want to increase your chances of living even a little, you have no choice but to fight.
Sensing Hwanin’s fighting spirit, the giant rabbit stopped and sniffed the tip of his Y-shaped nose.
Fit in
Then the Giant Rabbit swung his head sideways and left, crushing a bush and leaving.
“Under……. Thank you for your support.”
It was a hwanin who muttered quietly, considering it lucky that the giant rabbit had quietly left, but the truth was different from the hwanin’s thoughts.
The giant rabbit was one of the guardian beasts that guarded the forest in its own way, and it got out of the way because the invisible traces of the tiger beast that Hwanin called the blue flame tiger were on his body.
If the blue flame tiger hadn’t met, and if the blue flame tiger hadn’t passed Hwanin by now, Hwanin would have been split into dozens of pieces by the guardian’s hidden claws and hidden front teeth, but Hwanin, unaware of that, would have been nervous. I grabbed it and started walking quickly along the path the giant rabbit had made.
The road made by the bulky bodies to the left and right was moderately wide.
As if to make up for the slow movement up to this point, Hwanin moved at a high speed.
A forest that could be called a sea of thickets. And the giant rabbit that opened the forest to the left and right like Moses’ miracle.
Hwanin, who was walking down the path of broken and crushed bushes and creating a simulation in his head of how he would fight if he ran into another giant rabbit, felt that the duration of the soul orb was running out.
‘Come to think of it, even Necromancer knew the remaining duration without looking at the clock.’
I didn’t know much when I first made the soul orb or the first time I did the necromantic, but after gaining experience, I could naturally know the duration of the necromancy or the remaining duration of the soul orb.
Wondering what the principle was, Hwanin spread the doctrine with the soul of a frog man and started running slowly.
‘There really aren’t any monsters.’
Until he consumed all the frog souls with the code, he ran like a light jog for over 20 minutes, but he didn’t meet a single monster.
I couldn’t see the small animals because of the bushes, but I knew they were there by sound.
But why can’t I see any monsters? Is it because there are so many bushes? Or because the giant rabbit slaughtered other monsters?
As I was running while thinking about this and that, the sun slowly shone through the trees and the surroundings became brighter.
“Well.”
In the jungle across the river, the trees grew so high and the leaves were so thick that even in broad daylight, the ground looked a bit greenish.
But here, the sun is shining abundantly, blinding the eyes.
Quack!
The emergency rations that flew in behind him made a pleasant cry. I love the bright sunlight.
‘I wonder if the reason he stared at the Great Lake was simply because he liked the sunlight.’
Hwanin was lost in thought for a moment when the necromancy effect of the last frog’s human soul disappeared and the trail of the giant rabbit, which had been meandering like a snake’s road, turned sharply to the left.
“…….”
Looking around, Hwanin put down all his other belongings in front of a tree that grew as low and wide as an oak tree and climbed up the tree carrying only a stone ax and a black club at his side.
Hwanin, who climbed the tree until it was so thin that it couldn’t bear his weight, checked the location of the tallest tree in the vicinity, descended the tree, moved there, and climbed the tree again as if twisting like a pine tree.
And after repeating similar actions several times, I was able to put the upper part of the forest in my field of vision.
If it were any ordinary forest, it would have been difficult to look around like this because of the average height.
However, this forest was possible because the tallest tree was about 7 to 8 meters high and the average height was 4 to 5 meters, and the trees were in full swing.
“…….”
Hwanin, who looked around 360 degrees with only his head sticking out above the forest, frowned.
It was because I was faced with the worst situation I feared.
‘There’s not a single low hill.’
There is no place to take it as a milestone.
If there was a relatively high hill or low mountain, I would have aimed for it, climbed to the top, and looked around, but all I could see was the blue sky and the forest.
In the direction the sun goes down, you can see the forest that has grown exceptionally high and the floodwaters that have left.
‘Is it because of the mood? It seems to be enveloped in a blue mist’
Hwanin, who was staring at it, came down from the tree and let out a frustrated sigh.
It is a very stupid act to wander around in a forest like this without a destination.
And he himself committed such an act.
No matter how much I tried to get out of the jungle quickly, weighed down by the blue flame tiger’s intimidation, it was too stupid.
‘After crossing the river, I had to go upstream and move along the Great Lakes. Come to think of it, the direction the giant rabbit turned was also toward the Great Lakes.
There is no choice.
Hwanin packed his things and started to retrace the road.
