Seth dashed through the forest, moving silently like an assassin and jumping from tree to tree to avoid dangerous land predators.

  The journey to the village was treacherous and life-threatening after all, considering he had to go through the infamous doom forest to get there. Two days had already passed, and he hadn't arrived yet, which was a bummer for him. The village was located in the outer part of Doom, of course, but Seth had to go through the middle part of the forest to get there, which meant greater danger.

  Doom was divided into three sections: the Outer, the Middle, and the Deep.

  The Outer section had weaker beasts compared to the Middle section and as it name suggested was the outer parts of the forest, though the 'weak' beasts that were often found roaming the Outer could easily dismember a human being whole and even pose a challenge to adventurers, 'weak' beasts such as the mythical blood snake, silver gorilla and the wild pig king.

  It was easier for Seth to explore the Outer section as it didn't pose as much danger as it initially did five years ago. And as for the Middle and Deep section? Strolling through them willingly would be suicide for Seth, as Wung Dao had briefly told him about some of its unimaginable horrors and dangers.

  Thankfully to the map he had been given by Wung Dao, Seth had successfully managed to avoid beast encounters, which would have certainly lengthened the time taken to reach his destination, if not threaten his life. Middle Section Doom Forest wasn't dangerous for nothing after all.

  It was during this journey that Seth saw a large cave entrance from atop a hill, and when he looked at his map, he saw a rough outline marked with a red circle.

  Seth had figured earlier that places marked with red in the Middle section of Doom were danger zones, so he had made an extra effort to avoid them, but the cave had an emphasized red colour, which was almost scarlet, and an exclamation mark next to it.

  It must have been especially dangerous than the other red-marked places.

  'I wonder what's in there that could be so life-threatening?'

  He wondered nonetheless, and that was when he saw it -

  A creature that was easily twice Seth's size had wild spiky blue hair and sharp claws that seemed more than capable of rendering him helpless in just a single swing.

  Seth couldn't help but halt all movement and hold his breath at the sight of the majestic but dangerous beast.

  The beast was over ten metres away from him, but not further than twenty. Seth hoped the creature wouldn't be able to spot him, as some beasts were capable of various methods of detecting prey besides using their sense. Things would become ugly quite very quickly if he wasn't able to defend himself or escape, for that matter.

  The beast continued to eat what appeared to be a horned rabbit, and in just a few seconds, there was nothing left of the prey.

  And then the creature quickly disappeared in a flash. Seth saw a line resembling an electric flash dashing towards the cave before it disappeared inside.

  'System, what the hell was that?!'

  Seth could now breathe now that the loom of death wasn't hanging over him.

  'Clash against? I would never even think of such a thing! I don't have a death wish. System, I am starting to think you are underestimating how much of a coward I am."

  And Seth would continue to be cowardly, the cautious lived longer in Doom Forest after all. Only when he was at Wung Dao's level could Seth dare to explore the entirety of Doom Forest without fearing for his life. Actually no, he would still have his reservations.

  Seth glanced at the sun and noticed that it was just a few hours away from sunset. He could only seek shelter and not travel further at this point - he also needed to plan for the following day.

  So he began searching for any nearby abandoned caves or shelters on the map for a good 5 minutes.

  His efforts bore no fruit - there was no nearby shelter to take refuge in, unless he counted the cave marked in red which was the only nearby one. Seth would either be a madman or stupidly brave to dare venture into the lion's den.

  He sighed heavily and glanced up at the tree branches.

  'So will I have to sleep perched up on there like a monkey?'

  Seth could almost feel his back starting to hurt at the thought of sleeping there.

  He jumped up at the nearest large tree, settling on its largest brank which encompassed most of his body and effectively hid him from below. Wandering monsters wouldn't be able to easily spot him.

  The harsh bark was doing horrors to his back, but Seth really had no other choice. In the wild, survival obviously came first before comfort.

  He closed his eyes preparing for a half-sleep: a state where half his body slept but his brain with its senses remained active. He was currently exposed to all monsters without any traps, so he needed to be alert even while sleeping.

  Half-sleeping was one of the crucial abilities one needed to have to survive longer in Doom Forest, Seth had reached a mastery of it over the years.

  He soon fell into the half-asleep state in just a few minutes, travelling through doom forest for two days and only resting once for two hours had exhausted him.

  ***

  When Seth woke up the sun was rising from the orange horizon.

  In the night he had only woke up once to a green snake , which he had swiftly killed.

  Now he looked around the trees for any nearby danger and then below him.

  "!!"

  And he found it , for right below him waiting eagerly were a group of creatures that were easily twice his size just like the lightning-streak creature he had seen the night before.

  At a closer look, Seth noticed that these creatures greatly resembled wolves from Earth with their overall appearance, if he ignored their sharper claws and open mouth which had a set of extremely razor-sharp teeth.

  The wolves Seth named as Lycans seemed to be urging him to fall down the tree and fall right into their welcoming mouths already.

  'Shit, these Lycans must be related to the blue spiked one I saw yesterday, so that must mean they are more or less as dangerous as it. What is this shitty luck?!'

  To wake up to a predator waiting for you was bad luck, but to wake up to seven of them was really horrible luck, though Seth was thankful that these Lycans seemingly hadn't been able to climb the tree.

  He shuddered thinking about what would have happened if they could have managed to, as he wasn't confident in being able to escape if he was surrounded by these large creatures.

  'Now then, let me focus on escaping.'

  Seth looked over for the nearest tree, opting to jump to it as his escape. Jumping down would obviously lead to his demise - he would be lunged at mid-air and shredded in seconds.

  The nearest tree he could jump to looked dead and extremely dry , as if it had died hundreds of years ago and was just standing there through sheer luck.

  'Surely this thing will hold, right?'

  Seth didn't have the leisure to contemplate; he jumped to his best abilities.

  To his relief, he did land on the old-looking tree branch and didn't miss.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  However, a second later -

  Krrr

  The branch began cracking then breaking, rapidly.

  'Eh?'

  Krrrr! Crack!

  And then the branch completely dislocated from the tree.

  " Ahhhh!! "

  Seth fell to the ground in disgrace from a 6 metre height.

  He landed on the ground with a large thud. He, however didn't ponder on what had happened that led to him falling; he immediately set his sights on the Lycans that had oddly not begun pouncing at him.

  "Ah, hey buddies. Surely you aren't thinking of eating me right? I taste terrible and look, I am just skin and bones."

  Lycans: "....."

  The Lycans 3 metres away looked at each other then straight at him , mouths drooling and eyes portraying hunger, as if they were looking at a slab of meat. A human-shaped slab of meat.

  " You're saying you won't eat me? Ah, thank you... If you don't mind, let me take my leav- Ahhh!! "

  And the inevitable prey and predator chase began, the Lycans didn't even wait for him to finish his sentence and were on the chase.

  'Shit'

  " You foul beasts have no civility! "

  Regardless of his curses, Seth put all of his power into making a run for his life. 80% of his mana was pumped to his feet giving him a slight speed boost as he dashed through the forest with no particular direction.

  Whether he was or not taking a direction towards Grem was the least of his worries; all he needed to worry about was leaving the eager Lycans in his dust for the time being if he wanted to live.

  And surprisingly, he was leaving them behind. Rather easily too.

  While still on the run, He looked back after five minutes had passed. The seven Lycans that had been chasing him looked like blurs from a far, nonetheless still chasing him with passion.

  Seth stopped.

  'Eh? These guys are this slow?'

  In his mind , Seth had imagined the Lycans would have given him a challenge in speed as he mentally compared them to the lightning-streak Lycan he saw that had sprinted to a cave in the blink of an eye.

  But as it turned out , the Grey Lycans chasing him weren't even a quarter as fast as that blue Lycan.

  'Tch, you foul beasts made me expend my mana for nothing.'

  Seth was a little pissed that he had used a good amount of his mana into escaping when he didn't even need to put that much into it. He wasn't planning on settling the score though. The grey Lycans might have shitty speed, but that didn't mean they were any less dangerous up close.

  'Sigh, Whatever.'

  Seth continued his sprinting, finally leaving the Grey Lycans to bite his dust. The Lycans seemingly stopped chasing him after a short while seeing that they had no chance in catching him.

  Just as Seth was dashing through the forest after rerouting his path towards Grem, he saw a really large opening right into the middle of the ground.

  He stopped to look at it, then at his map.

  " That's odd , I don't see this hole in this map anywhere. Did Wung Dao forget to include it, or could it be new? "

  Seth took a closer look inside it from a distance , only a small portion of the hole was revealed. Seth hypothesized that it was because the hole was either diagonal or curved.

  He considered putting his head inside to find out.

  'Hmm, on second thought it's probably not smart to take a peek inside a suspicious-looking hole , what if something came out and bit my face off?'

  Seth took a glance at his map, then added the hole there. He named it 'Suspicious Hole 1'

  He resumed his journey , and three days later , he arrived in Grem.

  Or rather in front of a really large bush forest

  His first instinct was to use appraisal on the bush.

  'These guys don't play around, eh?'

  At that point Seth wasn't even surprised that a seemingly ordinary plant turned out to be actually lethal, Doom Forest would always be Doom Forest.

  'What if I jump over them?'

  Seth considered, but he realized he didn't know how far the poisonous bush spanned. It would be a tragedy if he did jump and landed right in the middle of an infestation.

  He looked at his map , was there no way over these little monsters?

  'Oh'

  It was only upon closer inspection that he noticed the poisonous bush was also drawn and included in the map. Further away from the centre and to the right of Seth the poisonous bushes gradually thinned , up to a point where there was a gap before the bushes gradually became more dense.

  'This must be the main entrance , after all a village cannot completely close itself off from the outside world. Though I wouldn't blame them if they decided to do so. '

  Seth walked around the Poisonous Bush infestation until he met a two metre gap in between the bush ring.

  Looking ahead of the gap, he noticed a hut a bit far away from the supposed entrance.

  'I was right! This is the entrance.'

  Seth didn't waste a second further and immediately dived in.

  As he stepped inside the gap of the Poisonous Bush perimeter, the ground below him sank and his feet were quickly submerged right below the knees absurdly quickly.

  Quicksand.

  Seth slightly panicked, quickly using his free leg to free himself from the sinking ground. He hadn't been expecting a trap to be placed right there at the entrance - it must have been strategically left as a trap for foolish monsters. Seth regained his calm after a few seconds, put some distance between himself and the swamp then ran and jumped over it.

  He succeeded and landed on hard land.

  'Tch, these villagers could have at least put a quicksand warning poster outside the entrance, it's not like the monsters in Doom Forest would be able to read it.'

  Seth felt wronged, he had almost gotten buried and suffocated in quicksand.

  He glanced around expecting to see one or two people roaming, but there weren't any. The place was deathly quiet and lifeless , absolutely there being no sign of people living here as if it was completely deserted.

  'I am not in the wrong place , am I? Or did everyone migra-'

  Whoosh

  Seth leaped to the side. An arrow struck at the position where he had been a moment ago.

  Three more arrows sailed at him as he dodged.

  He didn't get the chance to look at his attacker as he swiftly and craftily retreated towards the hut, intending to use it as a cover.

  He hid on the side of the hut.

  " What's the big idea?! Can't you tell I am not a monster? "

  An arrow struck right next to him. His attacker didn't seem to care enough to give him an answer.

  'Dammit.'

  Seth rolled over and stood at the front of the open hut. He didn't peer inside and instead looked all around the village - there wasn't a person in sight and all the doors in the houses made of clay and brick were barred and closed, none of them possessing a window but only small openings at the very top.

  Seth could try running away from the pursuit and go deeper into the small village, but he would be in an open field and basically become an easier prey to hunt for the unidentified archer.

  Suddenly a hand reached out to him from inside the hut and forcefully yanked him inside, his arms were restrained and he was in close proximity with the second attacker.

  A sharp object was laid upon his throat.

  " You are going to tell me your name and what you are here for. If you even attempt to escape from my hold or use fancy tricks to try and outmaneuver me , I won't hesitate to slit your throat open. Nod if you understand. "

  A rough and manly voice that belonged to his second attacker addressed him from inside the darkness of the hut. The voice sounded aged, with this, Seth deduced that his second attacker was most likely an elderly man or an early grandpa.

  Seth nodded.

  " Now start speaking. "

  The man threateningly commanded.

  Seth cleared his throat.

  " My name is Seth and I am here under orders to deliver something to a woman named Mei Li. "

  " Mei Li? There is no such person in this village. How impudent of you to lie in the face of death, do you not fear for your life? Then again, you adventurers are quite the foolish bunch , looking for trouble wherever you go. I shall kill you now. "

  Seth shifted a bit under the man's hold.

  " Wait! I promise I am telling you the truth, my master sent me here... Oh right! I can show you what he gave me! "

  The old man mockingly laughed.

  " You don't expect me to let go of you now do you? What if you try to kill me the moment you get your freedom? "

  The man's point was valid, but if Seth was still restrained then he didn't have any other way of proving himself.

  As for being killed by the old man, that was the least of his worries, he had felt the sharpness of the blade that rested on his throat. It wasn't sharp compared to his Wyvern dagger, it could only be compared to an especially sharp kitchen knife.

  Of course that kitchen knife could be far sharper if it were mana-enhanced, Seth hoped his restrainer couldn't use mana. So overall, the weapon could barely scratch his skin, and he already knew it wasn't poisonous since he couldn't smell anything from it. There was no harm in playing the weak restrained hostage.

  He sighed.

  "If you don't let me go, then we don't really have a way of knowing if I am telling the truth now do we? And think about it, if I am an adventurer as you assume I am - what is there for me to steal in a village on the outskirts? And in a village in Doom Forest of all places?"

  The old man kept quiet, perhaps thinking of the reasoning behind Seth's words. After a moment had passed, he finally said:

  "I admit you have a point; however I still cannot let you go. At least not without knowing a few things first. " The old man said with finality in his voice, "Who sent you?"

  Just as Seth was about to answer, a silhouette appeared from the small entrance of the hut blocking the Sun. Seth could make out the figure of a man with long hair carrying a bow, its arrow drawn pointed at him.

  Oh, so this was his mysterious attacker from before.

  The man walked in, and as he got closer Seth realized he wasn't a man but more like a teenager quickly approaching adulthood. His clothes were shabby and crude, which was expected from a village completely isolated from civilization and those animal skin clothes covered only the most private of parts and the rest was left exposed.

  However, what stood out the most about the teenager was his golden blonde hair and his narrow-pointed ears.

  He was an elf.

  'What's an elf doing here in Doom Forest?'

  Though Seth had to admit he was a bit unnerved and in disbelief that he was actually seeing a living elf in person, a mythical race he had only seen and read about in manga.

  " Continue ogling me, won't you? Who are you? " The elf's voice was smooth and pleasing to the ears. Seth was sure a voice as amazing as his would quickly gain fans and adoration if he were ever to become a popstar back on Earth. The elf could even become an idol.

  'Oh right, how could I forget I am being held at knifepoint with a sharp arrow also pointed at my heart.'

  " My name's Seth, and I've been sent by my master Wung Dao to deliver- "

  " Wung Dao?! That old fart is still alive? " There was shock in the old man's voice, and Seth didn't miss how the old man's guard instantly relaxed as he lowered the knife further from his neck. If he wanted to escape the pincer attack, he wouldn't struggle to do so now.

  " Why didn't you start with that? " The old man let go of him and quickly turned him presumably to get a good look at him, "hmm, you've got the looks kid - you remind me of me when I was younger."

  Staring at Seth was an old man with grey hair in between the blacks, his face looked aged and wise with circles of blue appearing around his brown eyes.

  He raised a hand towards the elf behind Seth and made a gesture. Seth looked behind him just in time to see the elf drop his arrow and bow but kept it drawn. So, the elf didn't completely trust him.

  And then he felt the old man leaning closer to him, he had a strange expression.

  " Tell me, is your master still young and forbearing? That old fart used to draw all girls to him like moths to a flame despite his quiet nature. I still get angry when I think about how Zhong Li approached me with a love note to give to him! But that was thirty years ago, when I was just in my twenties - the last time I saw Wung Dao. And he hasn't dared visit not even once? Ah, forget it.

  Now tell me more about this Mei Li he sent you to. "

  NOTE!

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