Refocusing on the kid in front of me, I began to move around him.

“What are you talking about?” The kid clearly wasn’t happy with my sudden change of heart, immediately protesting the decision, “You already said you’d train me.”

“Guess I lied.” I shrugged and began heading westward into the forest.

This brat isn’t someone I care about impressing or respect. Nor is he someone important. Why should I care about lying to him? I’m not idiotic enough to have my policy of not lying apply to everyone, only those could call me out on it.

I walked for a distance, before I began hearing footsteps behind me. Turning around, I found the annoying teenager trailing around thirty meters behind me.

“Didn’t I tell you to buzz off?” I said, starting to get annoyed with this twerp’s persistence. “Unless you want to go the way of the dodo, screw off.”

The teenager stared quietly toward me before answering. “No.”

I rolled my eyes and continued moving forward deeper into the woods.

There wasn’t any traces or tracks from the monsters the teenager talked about yet. That’s probably should be expected, though. This is still pretty close to civilization.

Since it wasn’t necessary to have it out, I wrapped back up my spear.

Occasionally, I turned around and found the kid still following. His footsteps relatively constant noise in this otherwise quiet forest.

Hmph, whatever. I warned him. If the brat’s still there when I recover, I wouldn’t mind using him as fodder to bind my weapon of power.

Keeping my eyes focused ahead as I traveled, I began to spot signs of monster activity.

To be specific, there were black vines wrapped around the nearby trees. An indication that a nest of plant-type monsters was nearby.

Unfortunately, I can’t narrow it down to more specific than that. Still most plant-type monsters have certain characteristics.

Aggressive nature, slow movement, and tendency to utilize traps to attract prey.

Overall, that means it’s safe enough to travel and rest in their territory.

Normally, I’d avoid plant-type monsters. They have a tendency to be more powerful and are far more annoying than other monsters in similar environments... but, I’m currently injured. I doubt I could take on any monster in a fair fight.

For plant-type monsters, though, as long as I avoid obvious traps and move around relatively often, the risk is minimized.

On the other hand…

I glanced back toward the kid trailing behind me.

“There are monsters ahead. Stop making so much noise when you walk, or leave… Up to you.” I stated plainly before I continued forward, avoiding touching any unrecognized plants or their roots.

If the kid made any acknowledgement of what I’d said, I hadn’t noticed it. The noise of his footsteps decreased, though.

As I walked forward, I spoke aloud for the brat following behind me, “Don’t touch anything, especially the trees. Don’t slow down and have a sharp weapon ready.“

I gave him advise for two reasons.

First, having the twerp die to plant monsters provides absolutely no benefit to me.

Second… if he attracts monsters, I’ll be in similar trouble with my injuries.

If anything, I’d prefer that he left. I don’t think that going to happen, though. Probably thinks seems that persistently following me will change my mind about training him.

As we traveled deeper into the forest, I found various bright fruits that I avoided going anywhere close to.

Even in normal parts of the forest, eating unrecognized fruits or berries is a terrible idea. Unlike in Xianxia novels, in real life, eating unknown delicious looking plants or fruits is more likely to get you killed than a sudden power surge.

That fact is especially true in an area known to have plant-type monsters, eating random fruits would basically be asking for death. Even in the one in a million chance they do provide actual benefits, they’d definitely be guarded with extremely deadly threats.

Whilst traveling in the forest, beneath the countless black vine covered trees, I heard movement and searched the surroundings. It sounded like a low whimper.

An animal?

Raising my hand, I signaled for the kid behind me to stop. As I crouched down, I began searching for movements in the surroundings. I quickly spotted a lone wolf limping through the forest.

It didn’t seem to be monster. At least in appearance, it seemed to be a normal injured wolf.

Perfect! An opportunity to bind my spear without taking a large amount of risk.

I stayed back and watched the wolf limp around.

Still… wolves normally travel in packs. The fact this wolf is traveling whilst injured, and alone, is suspicious.

Interestingly, the wolf was also carefully avoiding touching the trees and the tree’s roots.

If it has learned to avoid dangerous parts of the forest, that explains how it’s still alive. Best guess is that the animals have learned to adapt to the dangerous environment.  

It doesn’t seem to be an illusion or trap…

Looking around on the ground, I found a rock nearby that was loose enough to pick up. Glancing back toward the wolf as I picked it up, I considered whether it was worth fighting it.

The advantage is potentially binding my spear, which the book stated was extremely important.

The disadvantage is obvious. In this plant-type monster infested area of the forest… if I’m not extremely careful, I could end up in an equally dangerous position.

Briefly frowning, I considered my options before finally deciding it was worth the risk.

Keeping low to prevent line of sight, I carefully threw a rock toward the tree nearest to the wolf.

The black vines around the tree reacted immediately, spreading out in a wild fashion and grasped the wolf that had immediately tried to escape.

Gradually pulling the wolf toward the tree, the black vines tied the wolf to the tree and wrapped around the wolf’s neck. The wolf struggled, but couldn’t break free.

I stared on coldly before glancing toward the nearby black vines on the trees around me. Quietly and carefully stepping away from the vine covered trees, before I fell deep into thought.

That hadn’t been part of the plan. I had only wanted to scare to test its reaction.

If it might have been an illusion, so I wanted to confirm its reaction to external stimuli. If not, the wolf might have run toward myself and I would have tried ambushing it.

I’d thought those vines merely a byproduct of monsters, allowing plant monsters to track the movement of animals entering the forest. Instead they themselves seem to be a type of monster and, even worse, this entire area is filled to the brim with them.

They’re on every other tree.

This is why I hate plant monsters. They’re near impossible to recognize, have varying impossible to predict abilities, and are even more difficult to kill.

Even worse is that I have a burden that could trigger their attack at any time.

Glaring back toward the kid trailing only ten to fifteen meters behind me who’d gone slightly pale, I grimaced at the thought.

I would repeat my warning to not touch anything, but even that might cause the black vines to react. I don’t know whether it was the sound or the vibration of the rock hitting the tree that had triggered their reaction.

Either way, with the wolf trapped, I should be able to finish it off… Although I’ll have to be extremely careful to not make noise or impact the trees.

Taking out my weapon of power, I placed the sheets wrapped around it into the backpack.

Moving forward slowly, avoiding touching any of the trees, I approached the wolf.

The wolf struggled and tried to escape the vines whilst barely managed to whimper. It gazed at me with pleading eyes and seemed to be begging for help.

In its eyes, I could feel the desire to survive. Unfortunately, it was pleading to the wrong person.

No way… I’m just an average person who needs to do everything possible to survive. Morally, I’d love to be able to save everything I came across.

That’s simply not possible, though… at least, not for me.

Sorry.

I mentally apologized to the struggling animal, before stabbing it through the heart. The wolf twitched and stopped struggling against the vine and I pulled back out the spear.

A strange feeling of connection began to form with the spear. I felt stronger, it felt like a clear cold liquid was spreading throughout my body.

Suddenly, I began to feel dizzy.

Imagines appeared in my mind and I found myself awakening in some type of grassland surrounded by countless monsters.

Horned rabbits, wingless birds, fiery tigers, and countless other beast-type monsters were surrounding me as I awakened.

No, wait… not awakening.

Is this remembering?

The entire scene seemed surreal, yet somehow familiar. More like a distant memory than something currently happening.

“Betrayal.” I heard myself coldly spit out. A cold, yet calm fury filling my mind.

From the fierce tigers to the tiny rabbits, all the beasts backed away slightly. Most growled furiously at me.

“I should’ve known better than to trust monsters.” I said with a cold collected voice.

Although I found myself speaking, I didn’t seem to be speaking to the monsters around me.

Once I’d finished speaking the countless monsters began to charge toward me. I easily slaughtered them as they arrived. Despite their utilization of various special abilities (elemental, speed, stealth, and other strange abilities), I seemed to predict and avoid them all.

There were too many of monsters, though. Even as killed more than I could realistically keep track off, there were still countless others.

Some attacks were completely impossible to avoid. Thus, despite the easy at which I was handling the monsters, occasionally I found myself getting injured.

Little by little the hordes of monster wore me down.

In a moment’s reprieve, I examined the surrounding horde of monsters before boldly yelling out toward the horde. “Hear me now! I will have my revenge. I’ll kill every last one of you involved in this scheme.”

The monsters seemed to understand and turned furious. The pace of attacks sped up considerably.

Whilst heavily injured, a plant-type monster surrounded by thick green vines burst out from the ground below and restricted my movements.

A cold light of disbelief filled my eyes as I stared at the monster, “Even you?”

The memory faded and I found myself back in the forest with the dead wolf grasped by black vines ahead of me.

I felt terrible, sick, and way more tired.

What exactly was that? A memory? A premonition?

Maybe… it has to do with ability granted by binding with a weapon of power?

I didn’t feel comfortable sitting around to contemplate the matter. Even if I did need to spend time thinking everything over, this wasn’t the time. There are plant monsters everywhere here, and I need to find somewhere to rest properly.

Backing away, I began to continue moving through the forest. The kid was still following behind me for whatever reason, but I couldn’t actually be bothered to drive him away.

I felt considerably less hostile against him with my spear bound. Thinking about it, driving him away might be a terrible idea. If the brat was spy or something, he could give away my exact location.

Although, in a place like this, I doubt anyone would even be able to come after me. It would be too easy to trigger various black vines and escape…

Keeping that in mind, I began to pick various rocks as I traveled and put them in my pockets.

In an emergency situation, I would be able to use them to trigger the vines and escape.