Chapter 14 Glimmer of Hope

Suzuka remembers that she saw two maps in Derrick's backpack.

"Oh, that's right, the maps... if only I could read them... and I left them there."

She went out of hiding and walked to where the beast attacked her to get her stuff. While coming back for her stuff she talked to herself, "Okay, good! The Beast is gone! So what now? Should I go to the road or stay the night here? Ah! What should I do? Wich way even is the road?"

As she walked to retrieve her belongings, she noticed a hole in the ground close to the rock plate she was trying to lift. Upon approaching, she looked down and saw a sizable cave inside. Without hesitation, she looked down but it was dark inside and she needed some light to see deeper. It was the same hole Jacob was hiding in after the werewolf tried to crush him with a rock plate.

 The girl checked the utility belt she had taken from Derrick's body and found several crystals. She found red amethysts, which could be used to light a fire by infusing mana in it. She also found some flashbangs, anti-corrupted magic stones, blue Lazulite crystals used for water cleaning, and eight crystalized pearls.

"Lucky!... a pearl... now I can have some light... well maybe not lucky... they sure did come prepared... wonder what went wrong."

She grasped a pearl in her hand and leaped into the hole. She infused mana into the pearl, causing it to glow and illuminate the tunnel. Despite the tunnel being only a few meters long with minimal room, she decided to spend the night there. She searched for a large block to cover the entrance, ensuring her hiding spot would remain undiscovered. It didn't take long for her to find an appropriate stone to conceal the hole.

As the sun set, the forest was filled with the cries of creatures in the distance and the day came to an end, casting dark and menacing shadows filled with glowing eyes. Fearing another attack, she decided to spend the night in a small cave. She picked up a broken block that was half her size, placed it at the edge of the hole on the ground, jumped down into the cave, and pulled the block over the hole, leaving just a small gap for air to enter. She sat a few meters away from the exit and created light by infusing a small amount of her mana into a pearl. Since she did not want to sleep yet, considering what had happened, she tried to remember why she was in the forest in the first place.

"I can't remember what happened... I need to think back... after School? Anton... yes Anton, I met him after school... then what? He took me to... a campfire and... we had a little talk, then he gave me something and I pass out? Wait... did he... have his ways with me when these guys come? And I got kidnapped? Ahh! It's all like through the fog..."

Suddenly, loud footsteps, like something big chasing someone, passed by, causing Suzuka to freeze in place. Once the noise outside subsided, she decided to take a look. Carefully and quietly, she pushed the block off the exit and peered outside. She saw two ogres standing guard, armed with big clubs and wearing self-made leather armor with iron scraps, along with a group of goblins jumping around a broken four-wheeler. Without hesitation, she pulled down a rock and hid in her underground cave. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her hand around her legs, and sit in a corner trying to remember the rest.

 "Jacob! Yes, him... he and... Derrick! They... oh... I remember I wasn't with them... they wanted to use me for some experiment... took me just for some kind of sick experiment? Maybe that's why I look so different... even my nails, they are kind of sharp and pointy... I could stab someone with them."

Suzuka closes her eyes and tried to sleep for a minute, little cave is cool and made her sleepy.

"Mmmm, it's so cool in here... so nice... I should have a little nap, catnap haha... wonder what Dad and Mom doing now... ah, morning is still far away. I should get rest."

Her heartbeat slows down, her breathing becomes light, her body relaxes and she falls asleep. She's having a nightmare about how a werewolf was chasing her, catches her, and had a big bite out of her shoulder. The beast leaves her and she turns to the werewolf, waking her up with a scream.

"Whoa! Nooo! Wait!... I... can't see... it's so dark... I turn blind!? Dark? Oh, I forgot, I'm in this little cave."

It was the middle of the night, the sky was cloudy and overcast as if it were about to rain, making the night as dark as it could get. Suzuka produced a dim light and pulled out a document with maps from Derrick's backpack. The first map had some marked locations on it, on the back, it was written, 'location of a legendary beast'.

"So the beast that impaled on spikes outside is this legendary beast..."

She put down the first map because it was covered in blood and was too damaged to read anything else. Then she looked at the second map but only the coordinates and location were still readable with a few words on the back that say 'After getting .... p.... get... beck... rendezvous point... '. After reading that, she had a thought.

"Maybe a meeting point? After they finished with the beast? It's not too far from here... oh god! I hope I'm reading it right... I may survive somehow if I get there. If I set out in the morning, right after sunrise I should reach this rendezvous point in about eight hours on foot. What else have we got here?"

She picked up the remaining papers, but most of them were covered in blood and unreadable. The only thing she could make out was something about discovering a new "Magic box." Two pages were stuck together, and one was still legible, but it looked different from the others, more like a memo.

"Okay! What do we have here... stuck pages... let's see what can we read here."

Derrick was writing a personal log of the events that had occurred, but there wasn't much written in there. He had recorded an encounter with the behemoth, the death of two men, the loss of one MPFW, several hours on the road, the discovery of tracks of the beast by the leading MPFW, and the decision for Jacob to go find the beast. That was all that was written.

"Oh! I remember now! These guys! They used me as a test subject and let that beast have its way with me. Jacob was their leader and Derrick was the client... but who killed them?... All I can remember... ah! Dam! Can't get my finger on it... wait! The beast bit me so hard... how come I am fine? Maybe a dream? Oh well, gonna think more in the morning, I should get some sleep."

After going back to sleep, she knows that a long forest trip awaits her in the morning. The destination is easy to find, she just needs to head straight to the mountain.

 The mountain in the distance is about one hundred kilometers away if she travels in a straight line through the forest, which is very dangerous. However, if she takes the forest road, the distance becomes more than two hundred kilometers as it deviates too far from the road. 

She was awakened when a corner of the block she used to seal the entrance caved in. She jumped out of her sleep and listened for any activity outside, but after a while without hearing anything, she decided to investigate the cause.

She slowly pushed the rock aside and stuck her head out of the hole. After taking a quick look around, she emerged from the hole. She saw that no one was there. She went to check the remains of the four-wheeler, but it was gone. As she walked around, she saw that Derrick's body had been torn apart - his arm and leg were missing from the previous night. She turned around and couldn't see Alex's body either.

"So... beasts must be eating corpses... four people were here... and now only... half are left? I remember there were three four-wheelers. Two here and one by the forest road... but I guess goblins took them apart by now."

She walked past where Alex's body was supposed to be and looked at the chest bone with broken ribs, then remembered something.

"That messy bone... it's Jacobs's chest bone... I... I remember... he was about to... about to stab me with a sword. Than I... I ripped his chest open."

But she got interrupted by noise from the forest, something was running loud in the distance, something not human. She opened her bag to see if everything was inside and decided she needs to move, after all, it was a long way to that point on the map and it was getting dangerous.

"Okay! Looted everything I could... just my clothes... rather revealing after getting ripped so much... hmmm, it's a claw and bite marks, so how come I don't have even a scratch on me. It doesn't make any sense... putting that aside, I better get going fast, before whoever is making that noise, shows up."

Right after she was done talking to herself, she heard heavy footsteps behind her. Suzuka got fear-struck, her body got covered in a cold sweat, her eyes began to throb, loud footsteps ringed vibrating in her ears, heart started to thump against her chest. She curled her fingers into a fist, her sharp nails cut deep into her palm making it bleed. 

After feeling the pain, she come to her sense and hesitantly looked back. Fear overwhelmed her body, eyes wide open and she thought that her heart was about to explode when she saw what was behind her.

After slowly turning her head, from the corner of her eye, she saw two bloody wolfs. Her body wants to run but her mind is scared to move because the beast was ready to jump her if she was to make a move and a thought crossed her mind.

"This is it?! This is where I meet my end!... In the middle of nowhere! No! No! Move! You have to do it! Move! Just move! Dam legs... stop shaking and move!"

As if the situation wasn't bad enough already, from her left side three more bloody wolves show up, making five wolves pray on her meat. Realizing how bad the situation is, her eyes started to water and tears rolled down her cheeks, she started to cry without making any noise.

The beasts growled, not at Suzuka but at each other, as they were greedy and did not want to share the meat. As Suzuka desperately searched for a way out, she noticed this and with all her might, she began to run straight for the mountain she was supposed to go to. The beasts chased after her but were no match for her and she quickly left them behind, covering a significant distance. Suzuka ran into the forest, leaping over any obstacles in her way. Only after 15 minutes did she realize she had covered a good distance.

"Wow! How come I am so fast!? Looks like I could cover one hundred meters in five seconds!... But at city guard training my top was fourteen seconds. Wait a sec... didn't I cut my palms with my fingernails? Blood is there but no wounds... I need to wash the blood off my hands."

She looked around to see if there is any water but couldn't see any. "Oh well! That's the least of my problems right now, maybe I find water along the way."

Believing she had lost her pursuers, Suzuka walked carefully, scanning the area ahead. After about thirty minutes of walking, she encountered no enemies, only normal birds, and bugs. As time passed without any encounters, her courage returned, and she decided to pick up the pace. The deeper she ventured into the forest, the thicker it became. At first, there were only trees and small grass, along with some berry bushes, but the further she went, the more it resembled a jungle. Trees were covered in vines, and huge mushrooms of all types grew everywhere. The tall grass scraped her uncovered legs, making it uncomfortable to walk.

"Dam wolfs! Didn't have time to pick up a sword... it sure would come in handy right about now! This tall grass sure makes it hard to walk and it cuts into my skin. How come this grass is so sharp?"

As she was struggling to get past bushes and tall grass she didn't notice the beast-eating plant right in front of her. Plant felt how she stepped on one of his vines which quickly wrapped around her leg.

"Ahh! What is this? No! Let go!"

As the beast-eating plant launched more vines at her, wrapping them around her hand, waist, neck, and leg, she realized that there was no safe place in the forest. The plant squeezed tight with its vines, choking and pulling her towards its huge bud. 

Remembering her fear, she spread her fingers, making them look like animal claws, and extended her nails a few centimeters. She sank her nails into the tree bark, gripping it as hard as she could and causing the thin tree to crack. She pulled herself away from the plant and realized it was not as strong as she had feared.

 Though she had not yet realized the strength she had gained from her transformation from a werewolf bite, she thought the beast-eating plant was weak in comparison. However, this plant could eat anyone smaller than an ogre and be in no way weak.

 She unwrapped her hand, waist, neck, and leg from the vines, and turned to walk away, but was abruptly hit by a large paw belonging to a Bloody Wolf, slamming her to the ground and pressing her back against the ground.

"NOOO! Leave!... Me!... Alone already! Get... off... me... you beast!"

The bloody wolf stepped on her chest with all his weight making it almost impossible for her to breathe, let alone speak. His sharp, thick claws penetrated her already shredded clothes and sunk into her chest, cutting into her skin and making her bleed.

"Ouch! It hurts... get off me!"