Chapter 20 – Nightmare
I just froze and couldn’t move, I didn’t know what was going on. The feeling that I got currently resembled the one that I was getting every night from the shadow mark, but it was fundamentally different as if I was already caught and dying.
Nevertheless, I was sure that it was the panther, “The panther!” I screamed with fear, “I knew that the wolf was too good to be true.” I scanned and searched the area around me frantically just to find its location, but no matter how I searched I couldn’t find it.
All that happened in just a few moments, but for me, it felt like much more, then suddenly the terrible feeling of death just vanished in a flash like it never even existed.
*Experience reached the desired quantity “Ontopary bush” leveled up to Lv7*
“What? It’s gone?” I said as I continued to search for the panther with fear, I immediately returned to the small island that was located above the trap and stayed there for my safety.
An hour passed and only after being wary all that time I started to calm down, “I guess it was just in my head, maybe I just got too excited because of the big catch.” I tried to come out with an explanation of the weird event, but of course I knew that I was wrong.
I looked at the bodies of the wolf and the boar and said, “I need to hide the bodies there a good chance that a stronger night monster could destroy the trap, or even worse stay near it and use it as its dining table.” Currently, I really wanted to return back to my safe home, but I couldn’t because if there any chance that a stronger monster would fall into the trap, it would be disastrous for me.
“Ah.” I understood that I was in a pickle, there was no way I could get those carcasses out of a two-meter hole. ”Getting them out with ropes won’t do. Maybe? No, I don’t have that… If I… Or…” I started to mumble to myself as an old man, currently I tried my best to calm down my nerves and thinking about all the possible solutions for my problem was the best way of doing that, but nothing came to mind I was just too weak to do the job fast enough.
“Don’t tell me that I need to abounded the trap because of this.” That was the last thing I wanted to do. “I can dig a deeper hole in the ground and bury them there, but it was already so hard to dig the soil at the two meters mark, so that won’t do.” The deeper you dig the stronger the soil gets, I didn’t stop digging because I got too deep, I stopped because it would have taken me to much time to dig.
If I tried to dig the hole another half meter deeper it would take me at least another few days to complete the trap and if I didn’t dig deep enough there always a small chance that those huge monster like the bear lord would smell the carcass through the soil, and surely would destroy everything on their way just to get to them.
What I needed to do is to remove them out of the trap, but all the solution that I could think of would take days to complete. I scraped those ideas completely, it was possible but it would be easier to just dig another huge hole elsewhere and relocate the spears.
Until something came to my mind, “If I can’t dig down, why not dig to the side?” If I dug another tunnel for few meters into the wall of the trap, no monster be able to smell the carcass, as well it would be really easy to dispose of the bodies, I won’t need to move them so far away. Even so, if some monster will dig them out, all what I will need to do is close the tunnel and to dig another one.
So I started digging, the digging part was easy my hands went through the soil as if a hot knife went through butter. The harder part was the disposal of the dirt, if you looked closely near the trap there a new small hill that was formed recently because of me. So it took me more time to relocate all the dirt to that hill than digging the tunnel.
After completing the tunnel I moved the carcass to it and returned the spears to their original states, few of them were broken so I replaced them with the new ones.
In the end, the tunnel was close to five meters long and at its end, there was a small room where the corpses would be stored, it took much of my strength to move them there. I blocked the entrance to the tunnel with big pieces of bark and branches from trees nearby and tied them all together with strips of leaves.
After finishing that I didn’t even bother to check what stats I raised after the level up and immediately returned back to my safe house in a hurry. Only when I returned back to my room I could finally calm down and check my status.
*Self Awareness Status*
-Ontopary bush Lv7-
Experience: 3/55
Rarity: Common
Health: 8/8
Mana: 8/23
Stamina: 4/5
“Well, one level for the wolf and the crazy trip not worth it but I take it.” Looking at that way I should be happy for leveling up but I didn’t, ”I am still disappointed in my skills, few of them leveled up really fast but now barely not even one of them budge.” There were lots of skills that barely leveled up at all and that really worried me, it gave me a feeling that I was missing something.
But all I could do is continued to try and level them up. After I checked my status I saw that only my mana was raised, “I am really turning to a magical bush, the only thing that left for me is to be on fire and the ability to talk to people with a deep voice.” I joked to myself a little, as I grabbed the last two branches that were left inside my tunnel.
As well I took few sharp debris and leaf straps from the storage area, then in my room I started to craft the spear with the sharp black head. This time around after finishing one of the spears I remembered the idea that came to my mind not that long ago, “Shouldn’t items have stats as well? Inspect *spear*.” From my understanding of this world, items should have stats as well, so there was only one way to check it.
*Simple Gravis Spear*
-Durability:3/3
-Damage: 5
-Defense:1
“Eh, it really appeared…” I was little surprised I already inspected few rocks and trees but it never showed me their status. “It’s basic, no it’s even worse than basic, what I expected? My crafting skill is really low and it was built from junk.” If I would have tried to sell this spear in this world, people would look at me with a strange look as at a madman, but for now, it didn’t matter at all because it was better than having nothing.
After that, I made another spear but this time it was just a normal spear from a branch without the black head, I wanted to see what was the difference between the spears so I inspected it as well.
*Simple Wooden Spear*
-Durability:2/2
-Damage: 2
-Defense:1
“Looks like the durability is coming from the weakest material and just barely increase if you add another one to it. Damage increase by three not bad, it would be nice at least to really know what that damage stat meant, inspect *damage*.”
*Damage* – The increase modifier of the damage that used with the weapon.
“What?” I asked in confusion, “Is there a simpler explanation? Ah, forget it.” I looked at the storage room that was in front of me and said, “I should fill the storage with more Gravis stones.” I completely stopped caring about anything else after that sentence and deactivated my magic perception skill and fastly fell into deep sleep.
My slumber wasn’t so pleasant, for the first time I dreamed about this world and for my misfortune my first dream of this world was a nightmare. In my dream, I was in the usual forest, but the forest was much more darker than I remember, most of the trees were withered as well and the sky was black with stormy clouds.
In it, I ran like with the best of my ability because the black panther was chasing after. But this time the black panther was much much bigger than I remembered and I was much smaller. I ran in all the smallest places that I could find, just to slow the panther at least a little bit, but not only the panther didn’t slow down he even started to speed up.
The panther crushed trees and rocks on its way as if they were made from a styrofoam and slowly but surely its size got bigger and bigger. I could hear its crazy roar that could shake mountains and split the sky coming from behind me, it made my body tremble and even my soul.
But just as I ran out of the woods, I was standing in front of a huge cliff where I couldn’t see its bottom, I didn’t even have the time to move as I heard the sounds of the panther paws stopping behind me. *Boom* *Boom* I turned around and saw the panther it was at least twenty meters high, its eyes were black as if two black holes took their place.
It gave out an enormous roar that shook all the ground around it, even the trees that were nearby started to fall. The pressure was endless forget moving I even couldn’t think, only despair and dread was present in my mind and all that I could do is shake in fear.
The huge monster that was in the form of a panther lowered it head while slowly opening its mouth, “I am… going to be… eaten…” I mumbled to myself, as I saw dark smoke coming from the huge mouth that was slowly approaching me. In a second the speed of the mouth increased from a slow pace to a fast one, I didn’t even understand what happened and with a sound of crushing ground around me, I found myself in the beast’s mouth.
Darkness enveloped around me, “NO I DON’T WANT TO DIE!” I screamed with fear, “*Magic perception*.” I immediately shouted as a habit as if I was in my dark world, I huffed and puffed while slowly regaining my sight. I found myself inside my room in the tunnel and immediately understood that it was just a nightmare, “It was just a dream, a bad bad dream.” I mumbled to myself as I tried to calm myself down.
Only after a long time, I somehow returned my composure back, the small room was only lit by the light of my leaves. I unrooted myself and slowly started to move to the tunnel that I started to dig and while being really gloomy I slowly reached my hands to the wall, while stones started to fall to the ground.
Fun fact: Nightmares are scary, till you beat the crap out of them.
One Of Many - Web Novel 