Chapter 26: A rough day in the woods.

"GRAAAAAAAOU!"

God damn it.

"... Fuuuuuuu-!" I yell as I am attacked by a huge dark and orange tiger-looking beast that suddenly appears out of the foliage a half dozen meters away from me and promptly bounds straight for me, closing in FAST.

This thing must be 2 meters tall and and half that in width; Made up of sinewy and bulging muscles, as if it was a world class bodybuilder that is going up on stage today and is in peak lean condition. Its huge fangs that stick out from its mouth remind me of a sabre tooth tiger, only this beast's fangs are thinner and look a lot sharper and more dangerous.

'Shitshitshit! Lightning! Lightning!!' I scream in my mind as the beast takes a huge leap and practically flies the last 2 meters to me at incredible speeds. "Lightning!!" I yell in a desperate attempt to manage to form my spell before the cat on steroids mauls me to death.

Just before the giant cat reaches me, my spell forms and sends both the enormous cat and me flying from the sheer power contained in the lighting spell. A moment after being tossed meters in the air, the shockwave of the thunderclap hits me and sends my ears and mind into a painful ringing while also further increasing my backwards momentum.

I fly back a good 20 meters, but luckily the thick foliage helps me slow down by absorbing my momentum. It is by sheer simple dumb luck, that I somehow manage to not hit any of the enormous tree stems that make up the oversized woodlands around me.

As most of my backwards momentum leaves me, I come crashing down to the ground, hard, before the remaining momentum sends me rolling along the damp soil which the forest floor is made up of. The first contact with the ground pushes the air from my lungs, which is quickly followed by the second and then even quicker by the third and forth.

When I finally come to a stop, I feel like I've been tossed down a long set of stairs, I have trouble breathing and am bruised and hurting all over my body. Not a pleasant experience, 2 out of 10; Do not recommend.

After half a minute of painfully trying to get my breathing under control and the following half minute of gathering the willpower to force my bruised and battered body to stand up once again, I am once again up and standing, if slanted and somewhat limping.

Surveying my immediate surrounding, I see no hostile creatures; But as I've just learned, that doesn't say much at all, as not seeing doesn't equal them not being there.

So it is with heavy steps and careful lookout it is that I make my way deeper into the woodlands.

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After a good few hours of more or less limping along with my bruised and battered body, I come to a small clearing in the woodlands where I decide that I will be resting for today until tomorrow as continuing on is becoming increasingly difficult and painful so I figured it wouldn't hurt to stop and get some proper rest while I have the opportunity.

Deciding to make camp in the center of the clearing, to get as much distance from the foliage as I can possibly get; I ain't falling for the same shit twice.

That decided, I hurriedly gather firewood and gather enough firewood to last me until tomorrow, which is a substantial amount, I realized partway through.

With the firewood gathered and and stacked, I set to building a campfire and gathering the few decently sized rocks that I could find in the vicinity to give my campfire a better heat retaining abilities by storing heat energy in the rocks, so the campfire has a harder time to go out in the middle of the night.

With the campfire and all its preparations done, I conjure a wisp of flame to form in front of my index finger and light the campfire, which promptly takes fire as my flame touches the slightly damp wood.

"Man, magic makes all the difference. Nothing to it" I say aloud cheerfully as I watch the flames take and grow until all of the wood is alight and burning vigorously.

Once the campfire had properly taken, I brought out some of my rations and started eating them slowly as I searched my surroundings for dangerous beasts while also keeping an eye out for any critters that I could turn into a meal. It takes a few hours, but I do indeed spot a critter, a hamster-looking thing the size of a dog, which I promptly zap with a lightning bolt.

Once I manage to locate where it fell and I manage to drag it back to my temporary campsite, I start skinning it. Moving my body is painful and unpleasant, but I can only grit my teeth and work through it as I continue my work. Once the skin, fur and innards is off the critter, I skewer the remainings unto a wooden branch I took from a nearby sapling and start grilling it over the open flames of my campfire as I continue to survey my surroundings for hostile creatures while I wait for my new meal to finish cooking.

Half an hour later the critter is fully cooked so I break off one of its legs and start eating slowly as I keep a vigilant eye on my surroundings.

Thankfully, nothing more than the occasional critter passes my campsite quietly by as I keep a watchful eye on the immediate surrounding of my campsite while I sit by the campfire and rest my aching body.

The sun has started setting by now, so I start making preparations for the long night to come; I caught another critter, one that resembles the one from before but at the same time seemed different somehow.

I don't give it much thought though, as I carefully remove the skin from the critter and prepare it to be cooked over the campfire.

When I finally finish removing the skin, the sun has already set and the night has begun truly, so I skewer the meat onto a sharpened stick and stick the stick into the ground close to the campfire, but not over it.

It doesn't take long before the familiar feeling of sleep starts creeping up once again; This time, even more potent than before and it is making my head feel like it's stuffed with cotton candy. A few minutes of trying to fight the sleepiness off later, I give up and lie down close enough to the campfire so I won't be cold; But not so close to the campfire so that I may catch fire should an errant ember go flying in my direction.

Once I am laying down, it only takes a few moments before sleep has taken me away to the land of dreams.

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End of chapter 26