The Fifth Day
The entire day turned into chaos.
It was almost as if the forest had heard Ethan's complaints from the day before, and she wasn't too happy about them. So, she decided to surprise him. A horde of surprise.
Instead of facing a few lone beasts, Ethan found himself staring down a whole pack, containing more than twenty-five Gloomhowler Hyenas.
At first, things didn't look too bad. He only saw four of them near a quiet stream. They were lazily drinking, occasionally letting out haunting howls like they owned the place.
For a moment, Ethan felt relieved. Excited, even. Finally—something to hunt. Something to fight.
But just as he reached for his sword, Mary's voice cut in, sharp and annoyed.
"And just where do you think you're going?" she asked.
Ethan gave her a confused look. He then responded in a sarcastic tone. "Oh, just heading to a wedding in the next town over. They have the best meat curry. Want to tag along?"
"Really looks like it, considering you're walking straight into danger with no plan." Mary shot back. "How many times do I have to tell you to be more careful?"
"And how many times do I have to say I'm fine? I know my limits," Ethan replied, eyes still on the hyenas. "These are just D-rank beasts. I can handle them. Besides, between the two of us, only one has more experience in fighting than you."
Mary let out a long sigh. "I swear, how is your intelligence stat a 48? You act more like a toddler."
Ethan didn't respond. More like he did not want to. He was still frustrated with how he could not fight a single beast yesterday. He couldn't afford to waste another day doing nothing. Not if he wanted to get stronger.
He tightened his grip on his sword. "Well then... let's get this party started."
With a quick step, Ethan rushed forward while Mary kept observing him with an annoyed look.
The first hyena didn't even get a chance to react. One clean swing and his sword cut straight through its throat. Quick, quiet, done.
The second one, now alerted, was faster. It growled and lunged at him from the side. Ethan twisted his body just in time to dodge. He then threw out his hand. Three spears of fire shot out and stabbed right into the hyena's shoulders and stomach, pinning it against a nearby tree.
The beast howled and tried to get out, but it was stuck in place. Ethan didn't waste the chance. He dashed in and finished it off with a clean slash across the chest. Down it went.
Then came the next two, howling together. Their howl echoed through the forest, as if calling someone. One went right for his face while the other went for his shoulder, but he ducked, barely avoiding the claw.
He rolled sideways and, while still moving, sent a wave of fire toward them. One jumped out of the way, but the other got caught in the flames and slowly burned alive, whimpering.
Ethan didn't wait. He charged and pushed Nightbane into its ribs. The blade slid in deep, splitting it into two.
The last one froze. It looked like it was having second thoughts about this whole fight. It started retreating backwards, however, Ethan didn't give it time to run.
"Too late," he muttered.
A swirling blast of fire shot from his palm, hitting the hyena head-on. It let out one last howl before collapsing into the bushes, its body smoking.
Ethan stood up straight, breathing hard. He wiped the sweat off his face. His heart was still thumping because of the fighting, but the frustration of yesterday finally started to ease up.
"Not bad," he said to himself with a small grin.
Ethan was just about to collect the bodies and hit Mary with a smug "Told you I could handle it" when he heard something.
Leaves rustling. Low, creepy growls getting closer every second. The kind that you hear in horror movies. His whole body tensed as he slowly turned his head towards the dense jungle.
Dozens of glowing yellow eyes stared at him from the dark forest. They were all around him, in the bush. Watching. Observing.
And that's when it clicked. Those four hyenas from before? They were just the scouts. Probably out looking for water. That's why they were howling. It wasn't random, it was a signal. They were calling the whole damn pack.
"...Oh, shit," Ethan murmured. These hyenas were not ones to be in a pack, so when he saw the four together, he simply thought that he hit the jackpot. He never even entertained the possibility that they were a part of a bigger pack.
"Forget the corpses, Ethan! We need to retreat!" Mary yelled, panic clear in her voice.
But it was already too late.
There was no time to think. No time to run. No time to breathe.
He was surrounded. After looking at the body of their pact mate, the forest echoed with sharp, angry growls from the hyenas. The pack closed in, circling him from every direction. And then, one massive hyena stepped forward, easily the biggest of the bunch.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," Ethan muttered after seeing the beast.
It was a B-rank beast. The pack leader. That's why there was such a huge pack of hyenas. The odds of running into one, though? Super rare. Like, one-in-ten-thousand hyenas ever broke through this limit. So… lucky him? Or maybe the forest just really hated his guts.
The leader, however, seemed uninterested in Ethan as he just passed all the commotion and went to the stream to drink water. But not before letting out a slow howl that made all the hyenas jump him.
"Alright, fine," Ethan grumbled, tightening his grip on his sword. "You wanna go? Let's go." Saying that, he headed right for them.
However, there were too many. He couldn't fight them all. He barely had time to react before the pack lunged at him from every direction.
The first few hyenas that jumped him, he was able to dodge. But it did not help that such a big and coordinated pack was attacking him. He dodged left, but a hyena slammed into him, knocking the air from his lungs. Another one raked its claws across his back. Then a third bit his leg.
Pain exploded through him.
Before he could even recover, another hyena crashed into his side, sending him flying. His sword slipped from his hand as he hit the ground hard, mud and blood mixing beneath him.
He may have been able to fight all this time because of his skill and experience from his past life, but that did not change the fact that his body was still just a bit better than average non-combatant. Meaning his body was still not combat-ready.
And he did not want to use the vials either because one, he did not have many of them left, and two, it would not help that much when there were such a large number of opponents.
However, that did not mean he was giving up. Teeth clenched, he pushed himself up. Heat surged up his arms, wild and angry.
In the next instant, a massive wave of fire burst from his body, spreading in a blazing circle, momentarily shielding him from the attacks of the hyenas. The fire was so massive that the trees sizzled, and the air shimmered. The hyenas backed off, snarling and screeching as flames burned their fur.
For a second—just one brief moment—he was safe. However, his adversity was nowhere near over.
As he was thinking how to get out of this situation, blood filled his mouth. He dropped to one knee, his vision spinning.
His breath came in sharp, uneven gasps. Blood dripped from his nose, falling to the muddy ground below.
"Damn it... not now..." he muttered.
His body was giving out. He'd pushed too far, using his ability way too many times in a short succession. The earlier fights had already drained him dry, and now he was paying for it.
Then he felt a cold drop hit the back of his arm.
He looked up.
Because of all the fighting, he did not notice. Even though it was still daytime, the sky had gone dark, thick clouds covering the sky. One by one, water droplets fell. Rain started falling, slow at first, then faster.
Each drop hissed as it hit the flames. Smoke and steam filled the air.
His fire flickered.
The only thing that had kept the hyenas at bay... was diminishing.
He blinked up at the sky, rain sliding down his face, mixing with blood and sweat.
Around him, the hyenas were circling, waiting, pacing. Eyes glowing in the shadows as they danced in the rain.
"Hah. Just my luck," he muttered with a half-laugh, as if he came to accept his bad luck.
But no.
He wasn't done.
With shaking hands, he reached into his system storage, fumbling until his fingers closed around a dark blue vial. He popped the cork and drank, the taste being so bitter that it numbed his taste buds. But it worked.
Warmth spread through his chest. The bleeding slowed down. The scratches and claw marks began to heal. His thoughts cleared just enough to move. But that was it.
He was not healed. Not enough to win.
But maybe enough to run.
His left arm still barely moved, and his whole body ached, but he grabbed his sword and got back on his feet.
He took a deep breath, steadying his nerve. He then burst through the dying wall of flame, sword in hand, sprinting straight for the forest. The hyenas froze for a second, unable to process what had just happened, then roared and chased after him.
While he was running, he even bumped straight into a few of them as they were right in front of the forest.
He threw out weak bursts of flame, tiny flickers that barely held up in the rain, but it was enough to make most of them flinch. Not all.
Some charged through the fire and came at him, teeth and claws slashing. He uses his sword to parry the beasts as he makes his way through the trees.
Agony shot through his legs as he forced himself to run faster. His ribs screamed. His lungs burned. But he didn't stop.
Branches whipped across his face. Mud splashed up with every step. The world around him blurred into a mess of shadows, rain, and pain.
But he kept going.
Flames sparked from his fingertips now and then. Just enough to slow the fastest ones down. He slashed at anything that got close. His sword cut through fur and flesh, spraying blood across the trees.
They kept coming.
They didn't stop. At least for a good five minutes. But after five minutes of being chased, a huge howl was heard, probably from their leader, and they all started to head back.
The leader probably thought that it was a waste to chase a single person for so long, thus calling his men back.
Only after the hyenas were no longer in sight did Ethan allow himself to collapse against a tree, gasping for breath.
His clothes were soaked in Blood and rain. Blood dripped from his side, his arm, his shoulder. His wounds burned as the water droplet fell on them. His body ached in ways he hadn't felt in a long time. But he was alive.
"How about that, huh, you punks?"
He let out a half-laugh, half-sob.
He now climbed up the huge tree and hid himself among the branches as he took a vile from his storage and kept it in his hand. He leaned against the tree to shut his eyes for a couple of seconds to recover. But because of the damage, he fell asleep.
When he opened his eyes again, it was deep in the night. He saw Mary floating right beside him. She kept trying to touch the vile that was beside him, but was unable to do it. She cursed as she was not able to do anything to help him.
"Just what the hell are you doing?" asked Ethan in a weak voice.
Mary snapped her neck and looked at Ethan as if looking at a ghost. Her face quickly turned from sorrow to wrath.
"You idiot. This is exactly why I told you not to rush in! Why won't you ever listen?!" she shouted, voice cracking.
Ethan managed a weak grin. "I'm fine."
"You're not fine!" she snapped. "You're covered in blood, your arm's barely attached, and you fell unconscious!"
"Why did you not use the explosive vials like before? Just what were you waiting for?"
"Hahaha." he let out a small laugh. "It's not that I didn't wanna. It's just that I have a low supply of them. That's why I am using them sparingly. Besides-"
He winced as he tried to sit straighter. "This kind of stuff… It's normal for me. Even in my past life, it was a daily occurrence. You don't get stronger by playing it safe."
Mary's lips quivered. Her hands balled into fists at her sides.
"Well, I'm not used to this," she whispered. "Watching you like that, hearing you scream, seeing you bleed, I couldn't do anything."
She looked away, voice shaking.
"I really thought you would die."
Ethan froze.
That hit harder than any bite, any claw, any wound.
He'd been through hell. Pain was just part of life. Scars were just memories etched into flesh. He was used to it.
But she wasn't.
For her, this wasn't just another close call. It was a nightmare.
A living one.
Ethan swallowed hard.
Even in his past life, after Elise and Adrian died, he mostly fought alone. Always believed he had to.
But now… someone else was feeling his pain.
Someone else was breaking by seeing him in pain.
This was something he did not take into consideration.