Chapter 24 - Winter

Two months had passed since Raven had left Kao, he was currently walking through a snow covered meadow. He was wearing a large fur coat over his Black robe and white pants and a small brown bag.

Winter had started last month and it was nearing the harshest time of winter , Raven knew he would probably have to stop somewhere for a brief time and wait out the harsh winter.

Snow was slowly falling down from the sky.The meadow was already covered in thick layer of snow making it extremely difficult to walk through.

Raven wanted to quickly leave such a open field, where he would be easily caught in a blizzard , it would be too dangerous to walk into a blizzard.

"Just a little bit more"

Raven had seen a forest earlier and was heading towards it , it would definitely be better than staying in such a open field.

"seems like i am not close to any city what so ever"

With a tiny bit of regret , Raven had left without any map or anything that could help him know where he was.

He was depending solely on instinct to find a city he could stay in for a while.

Travelling during winter was something most people avoided. Winter in the Dhados continent is extremely harsh and if people got lost during a blizzard , it was better to assume they were already dead.

Merchant, adventurers all stopped during winter the reward is too insignificant compared to their lives.

And Raven was currently heading away from a city , the way he was heading there weren't any cities or civilisation for that matter.

It's all monster's owned land , Where even veterans adventurers would avoid it at all costs.

Without even knowing it , Raven was going to a very dangerous place.

It is called the Dark Forest.

Many animals , creatures and monster go into hibernation during winter but not all of them....

"Finally"

Raven had finally managed to leave the open field and was immediately relieved , in the forest the snow wasn't falling as heavily and the ground had a lot less stacked snow , making moving around much easier.

"This is much better"

"Walking in snow, sure is exhausting"

"Now i should probably find somewhere i can rest"

Raven had been relentlessly walking for the past five hours to leave the meadow and find a more secluded place where the snowfall wasn't as heavy.

"Maybe I should have waited for spring before leaving"

Raven let out a sigh, he regretted having rushed things. This past two months he had being walking around aimlessly without any clue as to where he was going. That was one of his flaws that had stayed with him all through out his past life and plagued him in this life too,He was too eager and sometimes didn't think things through.

Old habits really do die hard(that's what poisons for....)

Walking through out the forest , Raven was carefully checking his surroundings. The trees had all completely dried up and it was completely silent.

"This is weird, there aren't any animals"

"I guess they all must be hibernating"

Raven felt it was strangely quiet, but decided he couldn't afford to waste any time worrying about it. It was already beginning to get dark , and if Raven didn't find a cave or a good place to set a fire to warm himself up and to protect himself from the heavy snow fall during the night, he could seriously die.

After a few more hours of walking around without any result , It was already dark and the snow was really starting to come down hard.

"This is bad, no this is really bad!"

Raven said as he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat, he was really in deep waters now, it was already freezing and a blizzard seemed to be arriving soon The fur coat that Raven had bought from a fellow adventurer he met in his travels was incredibly warm but he was starting to feel cold, the wind was much more fierce now and carried a devasting degree of coldness.

After walking for more 30 minutes , Raven was barely able to stand , he could feel the snow pilling up on his back but he couldn't stop otherwise he would collapse and that would of course lead to death.

Then he found a big dried tree, that had quite the big space underneath it's dried roots. Raven immediately pounced on a chance to finally rest, He sat down beneath the roots , almost no snow fell in this space. Raven then took out from the small brown bag some wooden sticks and two rocks.

He failed a few times due to his numb hands but he eventually got a small fire going.

"I am saved"

"That should also keep anything dangerous away"

Raven then rolled himself like a armadillo close to the fire and tried covering all his body with the fur coat.

"I really don't wanna ever again go through something like this"

Raven silently murmured to himself , the small fire helped but he still felt like his whole body was freezing.

SHUSH SHUSH

Raven heard a faint sound, he didn't want anything to do with monster at this moment , so he pleaded that this thing that caused this sound didn't bother him

After a while the sound stopped, Raven released at sigh of relief.He didn't even feel like moving around and was just there trying his best to keep himself warm.

The fire was growing weaker and weaker , Raven noticing it quickly added more firewood.

And after a few minutes when the fire had finally stabilised again, Raven drifted off into sleep.

Raven suddenly opened his eyes, It was still dark and the fire was long gone.

Raven decided to stay put where he was for the time being, It had snowed a lot last night, the space Raven was currently was in was filled with snow , there was only a small gap which just about fit him that wasn't covered in snow.

It was actually much to Raven's surprise much warmer than yesterday, the snow and the closed off space made the little heat the place had be trapped inside.

Raven feeling a lot better let himself drift out into sleep again.