Composing himself, the youth slowly stood up and observed his surroundings. He stood on the sandy shores of the river and seemed to be surrounded by thick trees.

“Shit, am I still in the Yellowleaf Forest?” he mumbled to himself.

“Yeah, you’re probably in the inner regions of the forest,” Jian Gong informed him. “I’d suggest you exercise caution; in here, Qi Refinement Deviant Beasts live in fear. They’re at the bottom of the food chain here. Blood Condensation Deviant Beasts are prowling in the cover of the flora and Tendon Transformation ones have set their territory here.”

“Wha-?” he snapped his head and looked at Jian Gong in disbelief. “You waited until now to mention this?” since he didn’t want to attract too much attention, he spat those words out in a low voice.

“Hey man, I’m just relaying your knowledge back to you,” Jian Gong said nonchalantly. “You would’ve guessed it eventually; I’m just reminding you a bit earlier.”

“Fine,” the youth’s anger eased. He realized that this wasn’t the time to be angry. I don’t have to worry about the Deviant Beasts picking up on my scent since the river water might have washed it away to some extent. First, I need to find a safe place.

In terms of defending himself, he had done some hand-to-hand combat practice and learned some dagger skills. The youth looked in his robes and sighed in relief. The dagger he kept hidden was still there. The dagger was no Spirit Treasure but it was still better than nothing.

The youth touched his belt. Some of the pouches full of poison and medicine were still there but there were now ruined by the water. The medicines were probably fine if he sought to drink them but the poisons needed to be dried. There was only one gallbladder full of liquid poison. He looked at the mark on it and sighed helplessly. This poison was catered towards humans.

He decided to try and dry the poisons first. He walked a few steps towards the forest and stopped. Here, the sand was still beneath him and the water wouldn’t be able to reach here. He used his hands to dig into the warm sand and created three bowl-like holes for the three pouches he had left.

“That’s one step down,” he straightened his back and dusted his hands off. He then walked up to one of the trees and took out a bunch of leaves. He lined the holes with the leaves so that the liquid poisons don’t seep into the sand. After he tested it with water from the river, he nodded in satisfaction and dumped the sludge-like poison in the holes.

He picked up some branches and made a mark on the shore so he could remember the way.

“What’re you going to do now?” Jian Gong asked curiously. He had watched through the entire process and felt that it was quite a novel idea.

“Honestly, I’d much rather stay near the shore. It seems quite safe here. But, I don’t think it’ll remain that way. So, now I have to find shelter. Once night falls, the monsters come out.”

“You mean, find a cave?”

“What else?” the youth shrugged.

“But won’t those be normally be inhabited by Deviant Beasts?” Jian Gong started poking holes in his plans.

“Do you think I don’t know that?” the youth sighed exasperatedly and looked into the forest. “Wish I could find a Deviant Beast that got weakened after giving birth.”

“Damn, you can’t be that lucky!” his lips twitched. “You really want that action protagonist luck, don’t you?”

The youth started walking downstream with Jian Gong beside him. “Listen, dude, the luck of almost 80% of protagonists in the action genre is busted as hell. Having that kind of luck is a god-tier cheat.”

“Yeah, I agree. You see so many light novels with absurd titles but why don’t we have a title like, ‘I acquired the luck of a shōnen protagonist’. But in retrospect, that’d be quite the boring novel.”

The youth nodded in agreement. Though he didn’t know what ‘shōnen’ meant, he understood the context. They made idle talk as they walked.

After a while of chatting, Jian Gong stopped and asked, “Where are we even going?”

“I’m just going downstream hoping that the Deviant Beasts there are weaker.”

“What the fuck kind of thought process is that?” he felt speechless.

The youth explained himself hastily, “You know, the Tendon Transformation Deviant Beasts might be prideful and they might not want to drink the water that touched a weaker beast’s mouth. Something like, ‘I won’t drink the water downstream from those inferior scoundrels’.”

“I…” Jian Gong couldn’t even think of anything to dispute that. I-It was so dumb!

“And before you say anything,” the youth continued, “I know it’s a bit of a stretch to think that way but at this point, I have nothing to do. All I know is that in case you’re lost in a forest, you should first find a clean water source.” He pointed towards the river, “There I found it.”

“Motherfucker,” Jian Gong felt annoyed and cussed out loud.

“If I don’t find anything, I’ll just hide up in the trees,” the youth shrugged.

“You know, for your own survival, you seem very nonchalant about it.”

“Do you want me to panic or whine like a bitch then?” The youth looked at him disdainfully.

“N-No, that’s not what I-”

“Then shut the fuck up.”

“…okay.”

The youth stopped talking with him and focused on finding a shelter. Suddenly, he heard a loud explosion and the loud shrill cry of a beast. The wind from the explosion made the trees sway wildly. It seemed to have come from upstream, opposite of where he was going.

The two looked towards the explosion then at each other. The youth had a triumphant smile and an ‘I-told-you’ expression while the other looked like he had given up.

“So, are you going to go see what happened?” Jian Gong asked that.

“Fuck~ that!” the youth didn’t even hesitate and continued his way downstream,

“Yeah, good call.”

Walking downstream, the only change was that the color of the leaves gradually became lighter. Now, it felt as though he was walking through a sunny forest full of life. As soothing as it may sound, the youth never once forgot that death lurks at every corner.

At least, he felt relieved that no Deviant Beasts were hiding in the river. The current was a bit too fast for them to stay still.

He and Jian Gong leisurely made their way downstream. At one point, the latter asked, “I know you don’t have to eat immediately but you still got to find a food source.”

“That’s been on my mind as well,” the former nodded grimly. “Even if following the river downstream is a viable strategy, I don’t know how long it will take for me to get out of this godforsaken forest.”

“So, what’re you going to do?”

The youth sighed resignedly, “I…probably have to head into the forest.”

“You have those arrows; wouldn’t hunting fish be a more viable strategy?”

“Are you talking about spear-hunting them?”

“Yeah, I a-ah, right!” Jian Gong slapped his forehead, “That wouldn’t work.”

“I probably have to-” before he could finish, both the youth and Jian Gong froze. The bushes a few meters in front of them rustled. Out of the thickets emerged a large rhino. It was bigger than a jeep and was brown in color. Its hide was coarse and looked thick. It had two white horns- the one big and the other a bit smaller though the bigger one was bigger than an adult’s leg. The peculiar parts about the rhino were that it had a large single eye in the middle of its two horns and three long tails with spikes at the end. Its brown eyes darted around before locking on the youth.

As the rhino was assessing him, something strange happened to the youth. In his vision, a tattered old book started flipping wildly before revealing a page with the drawing of the exact rhino. There were some notes written and certain parts of it circled out. The top of the drawing revealed its name- Mono-eyed Whip Rhinoceros.

“What the shit’s happening?” he rubbed his eyes.

“Haha! How do you like the reference?” Jian Gong laughed inside the youth’s mind.

“Motherfucker, is this the time for that!?” the youth was incensed. Before he could curse Jian Gong more, the rhino’s eyes constricted and his nostrils flared. It exhaled from its nose loudly and got ready to charge.

The youth quickly took an arrow into his right hand from the bundle of them he was holding with his left. He took a deep breath and calmed himself.

Meanwhile, the Mono-eyed Whip Rhinoceros had already charged at him.

“Shit!” the youth barely side-rolled out of the way. The rhino passed him by and kept on charging for a bit before stopping.

“Oi, what are you doing?” Jian Gong’s voice resounded in his mind. “You know you can just bait it into charging into the river. With that guy’s size, he’s sure to drown.”

“Yeah but then I lose my food source.”

“Ah~” the youth could almost see Jian Gong’s enlightened face. “Go for it then!”

Their chat took a few seconds and in that few seconds, the rhino had slowly turned around. It bellowed loudly. It lowered his head and made sure that its horns would skewer the pesky human before charging again. This time, the youth was ready.

As soon it was midway in its charge, he cocked his arm back and threw an arrow with his full strength. The arrow whistled in the air. Seeing the arrow coming for it, the rhino’s pupil constricted in fear, but it didn’t have enough time to stop its charge.

The arrow pierced its large eye with a wet sound as blood and vitreous gel squirted out. The Mono-eyed Whip Rhinoceros let out a pained roar and thrashed around blindly. The youth’s eyes lit up. He couldn’t miss this opportunity!

He ran forward and dodged the rhino’s horns as he punched. His punch was aimed at the arrow tail which was still sticking out of its now closed and bleeding eye. The punch landed on its intended target and the arrow penetrated the rhino further. With one last thrash, the rhino collapsed. The arrow was far enough in to have penetrated its brain.

The youth smiled as he wiped the blood off of his face. The food source problem was now resolved!