Chapter 13.5: Hunter.
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I apologize for being late, I fell asleep. From now, I will post about five hours earlier.

Carla walked through the deep forest, backpack slowly swaying with every step. Although it is annoying that she is not getting paid, she always loved nature, so she quickly accepted her predicament. She still had some boar wrapped in her backpack from the yesterday's hunt, so she doesn't need to worry about food for today. The temperature steadily rose, and while when she set out, there was still some snow in shaded areas, now the flowers were beginning to bloom, and birdsong filled the air once again. As she leisurely strolled, being careful that her backpack didn't get caught on some branch, she saw different insects slowly waking up. Although Roland said that the backpack wouldn't rip, she didn't want to test that, it was a gift after all. She slowly corrected her course to avoid a trail with bear markings on the trees, and pulled out the device the priest gave her. The arrow was slowly swaying side to side, but it was definitely faster than it was yesterday. She was getting closer, maybe a couple more months until in became a blur as she poked it into whatever was making it sway. As she was looking at it, it suddenly stopped. She paused in her walking and stared at it, it sometimes did that, and she hoped that it didn't start moving again, as that would mean that she can turn back. But alas, it slowly came back to life, as whatever was interfering with it continued its work. She slowly continued walking, looking at the device from time to time, in case it slowed down, and she was walking in a wrong direction.


Carla lay in her tent, wondering how everyone was doing. She was gone for two months at this point, and she missed everyone at the village. She listened as the clicking from the arrow on the device hitting the sides stopped, a spark of hope in her, but it once again started moving, uncaring of her feelings. It was quite fast now, and strong enough that it worked even if she put it on the side, so she was forced to wrap it in the sleeping bag during the night. Thankfully it was warmer now, and just the tent to keep out the wind was enough for her not to freeze. She would have to check the snares in the morning. She was running a little low on meat, so she would have to spend the next couple of days staying here, curing meats for the next leg of the journey, until she had to stop again to restock. Water was thankfully not a problem, with all the streams running from the mountains, even now, she could hear the quiet flow of water if she focused. Carla slowly wrapped up the device, covered herself with a blanket, and fell asleep, dreaming of not needing to hear that incessant clicking all day.


As Carla slowly walked, the device quietly clicking even through the puffy sleeping bag, warm blanket, and the cloth of the backpack, she felt watched. Her nerves were on end, and she was ready to spring into action, but considering for how long the feeling persisted, and the lack of hostility and noises, it was unlikely to be just a beast, and revealing that you know that you are being watched is stupid because as long as they think they have the advantage, you have the advantage, so she quietly talked, so it seemed like she was distracted. She noticed some movement at the edge of her vision, and stealthily looked at it. Her surprise partial overrode her trained instincts, as she stared at the off-brown box with a black lens and the front. It looked like something her friend would make, and not something that would just be in the middle of the forest. She stared at it for a moment, before slowly moving to the side and watching as it moved to look at her. She heard a quiet whirling noise when it moved, and she remembered hearing a similar noise when Roland showed off one of his bigger mechanical inventions. Her hearing was also trained, so she often could hear noises others couldn't, like that one time she heard the creaking of wood and saved Roland from his mechanism falling apart because of a rotten shaft. Then, she was suddenly assaulted from everywhere by a loud noise, and couldn't hear.

When she came too, and stood up straight once again, she head a weird voice. It was apologizing for causing her pain, and explained that it had trouble speaking. After a short, broken, and creepy conversation and discretely checking how strong the box is, she continued walking. She was sweating bullets, having a wizard focused on you is, dangerous to say the least. As she walked, she was on the lookout for more cameras, and there was a lot. She suddenly heard a weird sound behind her, that sounded like a weird flute, and turned around to look at where the sound came from. What she saw was a box that she missed. It seemed like this wizard was monitoring all the boxes at the same time, and that made her even more unnerved. She tried missing some more boxes, looking just near a box but not on it, and each time, without an exception, a tone sounded out as soon as she passed them by. She confirmed that the wizard was most likely looking out from all the boxes at the same time, but while that scared her, the fact that they notified her when she missed one almost felt... playful, believe it or not. As she continued walking and spotting the boxes, the voice suddenly came back, this time sounding more real.

She talked with this Sam, and slowly calmed down as she understood that he wasn't as bad as she thought. Although he seemed a little insane, and talked weirdly, if what he told her was true, then it was understandable. It seemed like he had amnesia or something similar, so she even felt a little bad for him, despite still not fully trusting him. She playfully offended him before she could stop herself, and was relived by the fact that he was not mad, it wouldn't do well to offend someone so powerful, no matter how friendly. The rush of possible battle slowly faded, and she felt like she hasn't slept in days, so she casually asked is she could rest in his home, and was pleasantly surprised to receive a yes. After setting some boundaries and receiving what seemed like a yes, she fell face first on the softest thing she could remember, and quickly fell asleep wondering who this Fred was.

I am currently out of ideas, so I am switching to a mandatory chapter every six days, and additional ones in between whenever I can write. If you have any ideas or suggestion on what you want to see in the story, or something similar, please leave a comment.

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