Chapter 15 On The Run

Wolf was covered in bruises and claw marks and looked like he had a fight with other wolves. Four bloody wolves showed up but they kept their distance. Wolf's mouth reached for her face with his open jaw and big fangs sticking out.

 When the beast tried to bite her face off, Suzuka clenched her fist and put in every last bit of strength she had, punching the wolf in the lower jaw and knocking him off of her. 

She broke the beast's jaw, leaving it dangling by the skin with broken bones sticking out. The other four wolves were flustered after seeing how a beast weighing over three hundred kilograms was disabled. The beast-eating plant wrapped its vines around the wolf and began pulling it toward its bud.

The tree wolves paid no attention to Suzuka as they went for a large pile of meat and attacked the bloody wolf with a broken jaw, who couldn't defend himself. One wolf sunk its fangs into his throat, another bit his leg, and the third one ripped his back. After killing the wolf, they shredded the Beast's eating plant, but Suzuka didn't wait to see how it all ended and ran when she had the chance.

 One wolf decided to follow her and chased after her. The beast nearly crushed her chest, the pain, preventing her from running at full speed, making it easier for the beast to catch up. With her hand pressed against her chest, she ran for her life, making her way through thick bushes, but she suddenly stopped after coming out of the bushes. 

She found herself standing on the edge of a cliff, and the beast was right behind her. She looked down the cliff, it wasn't too high, and there was a river flowing. The problem was she couldn't make the jump into the water, it was too far.

"Whoa!... Okay! It's not so high... it's like jumping off from a two-floor house roof... no! No! My legs gonna break! I can't..."

Suzuka looks around and realizes she can't go back because the beast is already behind her, trying to sneak up. When it sees her turn around, the beast lunges at her. At that moment, Suzuka turns her back to the beast and glances over the cliff, quickly considering her options.

"Okay! Okay! You need to jump! Your body can handle it! It's different from before. You will survive!"

As Suzuka gathered the courage to jump, the beast swung its large claw, cutting her back and pushing her off the cliff. She tumbled down, flipping several times before landing on her feet, causing holes to form in the ground. Her legs trembled and she fell on her butt, pulling her knees to her chest and hugging them. Lying on the ground, she whispered to herself and began to giggle.

"Hehehe! I'm alive! My legs and back hurt... but I am alive!"

Beast fell on a rock and broke his skull, once an aggressive predator now just a pile of meat for someone to eat. She got up as soon as the pain went away and scouted the area. Few small caves, a knee-deep river, a couple of trees, and lots of rocks of all kinds of sizes all over the place.

"Okay, Suzuka! Get it together... first, check the cave, you need to hide for a while and rest."

As she prepared to enter the cave, blood began to drip from the corners of her mouth. She tried to wipe it away, but it continued to seep from her gums. She pulled out an almost-empty bottle of water and rinsed her mouth, spitting the bloody water onto the ground. After spitting out the dirty water, she opened her mouth and probed her teeth with her finger, attempting to move them.

"By the holy Melwyn soul!... Some of my teeth... they about to come loose... What the hell?! I don't remember hitting them, so why?! I need a better picture of it I need to look at them in a mirror!"

Looking around for a minute, she found a big puddle with calm water which gave her some reflection. After looking at the reflection of the water she is surprised.

-"Oh! Come on! What happened to my cute face? I look so mean now! Narrow and thin eyebrows... my lips the same color as my skin? I'm not cute anymore, I become... beautiful... woman? How?! What kind of experiment do they do with me?"

She washed her face a few times but the image in the reflection stayed the same.

"I really look different now... I am taller, faster, stronger, my skin color and face different... even my fingernails can extend and retract, my whole body... body?"

She starts to touch herself, examines her chest, and finds no wounds. However, on her back, she discovers three cuts that have already closed and are almost healed.

"Woh! The wounds on my chest are gone and my back is almost fine! Not even a scar! I... I heal fast!? Well, that's cool."

The clouds in the sky looked ominous, dark, and thick, with no end in sight. A bolt of lightning struck somewhere in the distance, sending a deafening sound across the forest. The loud noise startled Suzuka, who turned around and realized that the storm was approaching from behind.

"Oh no! Those are storm clouds... what to do now? If I go any further into the forest now, storm gonna get me... as if it wasn't dangerous enough. Then again, if I stay here and use one of these small caves as a shelter, I'll be safe from the storm..."

As Suzuka glances at the approaching clouds in the distance, she realizes she has less than an hour until the rain starts to fall. She turns her gaze back to the mountain she had been planning to hike and decides to stay put, given the distance still to cover. She opens her backpack, checks her remaining food supply and, as the river is nearby, refills her water bottle, dropping in a purification crystal to cleanse the water before drinking.

"Water, full bottle... three apples... two pieces of dry smoked meat and bread... Since I need to make a little bit more food, I better stay the night. Hmmm... I'll try to cook some bloody wolf meat... see how he likes to be eaten and would be a waste to just leave all that meat just to rot. Don't know if it's a safe meet though... oh well, better than starving. It's not like people in city markets sell better meat."

Saying that she approached the dead wolf but realized she don't have a knife or anything similar, even her sharp nails not gonna help her here.

"Tch! Can't cut him with my nails, gonna take too long... hmm... what to do? Need something sharp, that Alex sword would be nice right about now."

Suzuka walks to some rocks laying on the ground and thinks of an idea.

"Oh, I know! I just gonna cut his limbs off and cook them on fire! To do that I'll need to make some sharp edge rocks."

She picked up rocks in each hand, slammed them together, and one crumbled while the other cracked in half, but they were not sharp enough. After several unsuccessful attempts, she finally achieved something close to what she had in mind. However, before she started to butcher the corpse, she decided to check the caves to see what was inside. 

Carefully, without making a loud noise, she walked to the entrance of the first cave. She took a quick peek inside, but it appeared empty and didn't look like anyone had been staying there. The cave was small, but she had plenty of room to move around. The entrance was a little higher than her, making it easy to barricade herself from predators. After inspecting the caves, she decided to use the first one, as the entrance of the second cave was too wide to block. 

She then returned to the dead wolf and pulled its body off the rock it landed on when it fell off the cliff. She placed some rocks under the wolf's legs to make it easier to cut them off. Using the strength she gained from the werewolf, she was able to easily bash them off with a rock.

After obtaining some meat, she searched for dry wood to set up a fireplace. It didn't take long since there was a broken old tree nearby. She broke off some branches from the tree and placed them near the entrance of the first cave, where she would cook the meat. 

Then, she pulled a red amethyst crystal, also known as a "red sunstone," out of her belt pocket and infused it with mana to start a fire. As the campfire was set up, she skewered the meat on a stick and left it to cook. 

While the meat was cooking, she looked for a large boulder to block the entrance of the cave where she would spend the night. Although she found a suitable boulder quickly, it proved difficult to move it to the entrance and took her about twenty minutes.

The sky was shrouded in dark, ominous clouds. The thunder was becoming increasingly louder, rumbling like a stampede of horses. The lightning was flashing more frequently, illuminating the sky with brilliant strokes of light. A gentle rain began to fall, its drops tapping on the leaves like fingers on a wood. 

The rain was not heavy enough to extinguish the fire, but Suzuka decided to take her meat inside the cave before it got stronger. She carefully gathered her belongings and made her way inside, laying everything out on the ground. She then used a boulder to block the entrance, providing a barrier against the increasing downpour outside and any danger coming her way.

"Okay! That should do it! No wolf gonna get in now... I hope nobody bigger try's to get in. Please, no one bigger."

The rain got stronger, and the wind blowing through caves made a whistling sound. Suzuka takes a few bites to taste cooked meat but it doesn't taste very good without any seasonings.

"Phe! Should have known it won't be very tasty. But I guess, this will have to do for now... who knows? Maybe I run into some herbal plants and make some spice."

She placed her meat down and leaned her back against the wall while sitting on the floor. She closed her eyes and listened to the soothing sound of raindrops falling on the water and striking the rocky surfaces. The rain was coming down heavily, the droplets were large and splashed upon impact. 

The sound was a symphony of plops and splatters as the rain beat against the ground and the surrounding surfaces. The coolness of the rain could be felt even from inside, as a gentle breeze blew through, carrying the fresh scent of wet earth. She took a deep breath, letting the peacefulness of the storm wash over her.

"Mmm! Such a nice sound... makes me so sleepy... it's so warm today, I am not feeling cold at all. I am barely dressed after the recent attacks. My pants have been turned into shorts and my top is now a tattered cloth with many holes. My back is exposed, thanks to the wolf that pushed me off the cliff."

Suzuka takes another bite of meat but two of her teeth stay stuck in it and come out.

"Oh, come on! My teeth! What's this? And they were real ones too not baby ones! Why! Seriously, when did I got hit in the face?"

She rinsed her mouth to clean the blood and spat it on the ground. Although she lost two of her teeth, there wasn't much blood this time. She took some of Derrick's documents from her backpack and used them to wrap the meat. She then placed the wrapped meat in her backpack.

"It's a good thing I had my backpack in my hand when that wolf cut my back, otherwise, he would most definitely shred it to pieces."

She sat comfortably on the ground and began to touch and rub herself, trying to clean all the dirt off her body. However, without a good bath, she knew she wouldn't be able to remove all of it. As she touched her body, she thought to herself.

"My body feels stiff and toned, with hardly any fat. It's as if I've been starving for weeks and my muscles have bulged out. I was already in good shape before, but now it's just extraordinary. I'm glad my breasts haven't shrunk, and even my butt has grown. I wonder how long I was unconscious in that field."

Suzuka closed her eyes and listened to the sound of falling rain. The cold air cooled her hot body, making it pleasant for her to sleep. However, after more than two hours had passed, a noise outside woke her up. 

She peeked through the gap she left between the entrance and the boulder. She saw that the other three wolves were there, eating the dead wolf's body. 

With their dull fangs, they slowly crushed bones and minced flesh, and in less than an hour, they ripped the beast's body into pieces. The rain mixed with blood was all over the ground, giving off an unpleasant smell.

As the rain intensified, the wolves were forced to seek shelter, leaving behind a pile of crushed bones and bloody meat lying on the ground in a pool of blood. Without any hide to protect them, the cold rain was particularly unpleasant for the wolves, especially in such heavy conditions. With darkness falling, it was now impossible to see the wolves' bodies and the rain showed no sign of slowing down. Suzuka sat huddled in a corner, deep in thought.

"I wonder what my parents are doing now. They're probably tired from looking for me. I don't even know what day it is or how long I've been gone. And Anton, was I just an annoying brat to him? Did he sell me to these kidnappers for a few coins like I was nothing? It would have been better if he did what he wanted with my body after putting me to sleep. At least then it would mean he liked me. After six years, I wasn't even a friend to you, Anton."

While thinking about it, she starts to cry, silently, the pearl-shaped tears rolling down her cheeks from yellow luminous eyes, as she was betrayed by her first love, Antonio. 

After falling asleep, Suzuka woke up to a sharp stinging pain in her leg. When she opened her eyes, she saw slime eating her leg. In a panic, she stood up and tried to shake the slime off, but it hardened and wouldn't fall off. 

Suzuka kicked the wall, splashing the slime all over it. She then used her hand to clean the remaining slime off her leg. The slime didn't cause much damage, just melting a little bit of her skin, making it all red, like a light burn. However, it healed by the time she finished eating her breakfast.