It has already been ten days since I ran away from the village, during these days I woke up early every morning, walked all day long, slept in a hole of some sort or over a thick branch on top of a tree.

I had a few unpleasant experiences with fruits, some fruits were extremely sour, some were salty, pungent or spicy which is a weird taste on fruits.

But the worst fruit was a wonderful looking red and shiny little berry-like one, with a tasty smell that made my saliva drip like a rabid animal. The second my teeth scratched the outer skin of the fruit, a ‘pop’ sound could be heard accompanying explosions of disgusting smell and even more disgusting taste. I spluttered and gagged at the aggressively sickening flavor that assaulted my taste buds to the point my tears filled my eyes and streamed down to my cheeks. 

That fucking fruit can be used as a deadly weapon; I swore under the sun and moon that I will never touch that damn thing again unless I want to get revenge on someone and put it in his/her mouth and force him/her to swallow it.

While walking I also tried to use magic, I tried many methods, like stretching my hands in front of me and imagining some fireballs shooting out of them, or closing my eyes in an attempt to focus on my mana, but the result was that I bumped into a tree trunk which knocked some sense into me, that walking in the middle of the forest with closed eyes was a big mistake.

As a last resort, I decided to meditate like what martial arts cultivators do in other types of fantasy worlds and tried to locate and sense the mana that is supposedly flowing inside my body, but since I can’t do that during walking, I specified an hour every night before sleeping for meditation, and the results were disappointing, I couldn’t sense shit.

Until now the forest is still relatively safe, all the animals are still small in size and mostly herbivores. There are some dangerous rat-sized animals with big sharp fangs. They hunt in groups in which they surround their prey secretly before pouncing on it all of a sudden from all directions, biting and eating while the prey is still alive, and I think that they have some kind of paralyzing substance on their fangs because the prey couldn’t move at all after a few seconds, all it could do was screeching from the pain. A shiver crawled up my spine as I watched this scene unfold in front of me while sitting on top of a tree.

The biggest animal I saw was about a fox’s size but it was standing on its two hind legs whilst his front legs were shorter like a kangaroo’s, I tried to approach it to have a good look at it, and if I was lucky and managed to hunt it down, I could secure some meat. 

When this fluffy and cute little animal saw me, it straightened its back and raised its head with its mouth pointing toward the sky and screamed, a very high pitched, ear-piercing scream, I flinched and uncontrollably covered my ears with my hands, the scream kept going and my head started to feel dizzy, so I dragged my feet and ran away from this siren.

In a way, I’m disappointed but relieved at the same time, I’m disappointed because I really want to see some monsters and fantasy-like creatures, but relieved because I will definitely die if I encounter any real monsters with my strength as it is now.

I have the qualifications to be strong with time and some effort, and I’m planning to do that so I can go on more adventures and explore different places, but sometimes I can’t stop the urge of wanting to see all these things right now.

All in all, everything went well during the last ten days except for the lack of water; I can feel my body drying slowly every day more than the last, and that is why I took a little detour yesterday which will lead me toward a river.

I started to run when the flowing water’s voice tickled my ears. There is a clearing covered with grass and small bushes all around the riverbanks which made the clear water reflect the color of the sky perfectly, I took a quick look around me while still running towards the water and jumped into it.

The water level hardly reached my waist, I crouched in the water and cupped my hands and guided the cool water toward my mouth and gulped at it like there is no tomorrow.

After what felt like hours, my thirst finally subsided and my mind started to work again, so I scanned the area around the river carefully with my eyes to make sure that it was safe before I made my way to the riverbank.

I took my clothes off and washed them by scrubbing the fabrics against each other, and took extra care while cleaning the bedsheet so I can use it as a bag. When they looked clean enough, I squeezed the water out then laid them over a bush and took a bath to wash away all the dirt, grime and tiredness which accumulated over the past ten days.

After I finished my bath, I laid my back against a smooth rock and relaxed for an hour or two; I was far enough from the village hence I could afford the luxury to rest for a while.

My stomach growled to announce the arrival of lunchtime; I reluctantly obliged to my stomach’s order and climbed out of the river, I used the bedsheet as a towel to dry my body and hair before putting on my still damp clothes.

I laughed at myself as I put the bedsheet around my neck and over my shoulders as if it was a real towel, before focusing my attention at the small bushes near the river in the hope of finding some kind of fruits.

A flapping voice entered my ears and something in the back of my mind was screaming at me to run, I straightened my back and looked towards the forest trying to figure out what was happing, but before I could see anything, two strong feet full of talons grabbed me tightly from my shoulders and lifted me above the ground.

I snapped my head up only to see a big green bird with three meters long wings and black legs with big talons clenched at my both shoulders and flying at full speed to god knows where.

I looked down at the ground which was becoming smaller every second and mumbled “Thank god I was already dressed, otherwise it will be really awkward.”