Chapter 59 Camp

[15 Exp]x3

Jay woke up with a smile to some more experience point notifications.

The amount he was getting was slowly dropping, so there were probably not many leeches left in the forest and ravine.

It was quiet today, and still a little dark as the sky was overcast with dark clouds, though they were high up in the sky so it didn’t seem like it would rain.

“Hmm, the others aren’t awake yet…” he looked around the quiet campsite.

“Guess I’ll have a look around.”

Jay rolled up his swag and put it in his inventory before heading out into the forest.

The area they chose to camp was still quite far from Losla so he knew he wouldn’t be anywhere near the silk wood dungeon. Since they were not in a rush to save anyone and had Naria with them, they were travelling a little more slowly.

They had camped on a flat part of a hill at the edge of a valley. The forest was dark and quiet, wind slowly weaving through the trees was the only thing he could hear..

Jay decided to walk down to the bottom of the valley. He guessed there would probably be some small predators out here in the forest, as his skeletons killed some various wildlife when they were protecting them the first time they came through this forest, though they could have been defenceless animals. Nevertheless, Jay didn’t see anything at the moment. It was like the forest was still asleep.

Walking down the hill there was a large green-covered tree that stood out as it was covered in moss. At the bottom of the mossy tree there were some colourful mushrooms quietly growing, but Jay decided not to touch them since they looked menacing and were probably poisonous.

“I should probably warn Naria not to touch any of these” he thought as he kept walking down.

The valley flattened out at the bottom, the dirt replaced by flat stone with a shallow cut going through the middle of the valley floor caused by years of trickling water. Small ponds and pools had formed, going up and down the valley floor as the water flowed slowly from one to another.

He walked by the small trickling stream, seeing some crayfish scuttle themselves under a rock as he approached.

Suddenly, Jay ducked as a massive shadow went right over him, thinking he was about to be attacked.

Looking up, a giant grey bird with four wings flew over the skies. The feathers at the end of its four wings were ten times longer than the others, and they seemed more like ceremonial ribbons. It’s head had a long black beak which looked like polished obsidian with three large brown eyes on each side of its head.

The whole quiet atmosphere changed in the forest, replaced by complete tension. It’s size alone caused Jay to hold his breath out of fear; it was hard to tell but Jay thought it would have been at least three times as big as the adventurer association – including the courtyard.

Even as he watched it, he could hardly believe his eyes – that such a huge creature existed which he had never heard of. A single flyover would cause all seven races to stir, perhaps even new wars would be started because of such an event. If such a lifeform was sentient, it could rule over all the races – and they would have no choice but to bow down before it in fear and reverence.

Whatever this was, it was beyond his level. Living a quiet life in Losla, he had never seen anything like it.

It’s casual fly over caused Jay’s chest to feel tight. He could do nothing but stand before it and await judgement, yet the bird didn’t even acknowledge Jay’s existence as it flew by. Perhaps it didn’t even notice him. It seemed like Jay wasn’t even worthy of being a meal, he wouldn’t even make up for the energy required to fly back up into the skies again – due to the bird’s altitude and weight.

The majestic creature was leisurely gliding high above, just under the clouds, completely uncaring of whatever was happening on the ground; however it was still effortlessly travelling at least ten times faster than a horse.

Wherever it was going, or whatever it was doing, Jay wouldn’t know. He would perhaps never see it again. It was flying beyond the known world – all seven races had only shared a small part of this world which was called the known world, each of them slowly conquering monsters in the wilderness to expand their nations – though sometimes it was impossible as god-like monsters like this bird were present; this would result in war with other nations, fighting another race would sometimes be easier than dealing with a legendary monster.

The human race was just an ant among ants when compared to the horrors and powers that existed in other parts of this world. This kept them, for the most part, from splitting apart their own kingdom and having civil wars.

It took a few minutes before it disappeared into the skies, and Jay watched it silently in awe. He knew he would probably never see something like this again – something which made him stand in amazement.

He didn’t realise it, but this experience would become ingrained in his subconscious, driving him further – instead of aiming at becoming strong among humans, he would aim to become stronger than all, never satisfied or prideful about his own power.

The whole forest seemed to be quieter afterwards.

Jay looked around for a moment before grabbing a stick and piercing some of the freshwater crayfish which would become his breakfast.

Marching back up the hill to the campsite, he gathered some dry sticks on the way. Other than the bird, there was not much out of the ordinary down here.

Getting back to camp, he noticed the others were still sleeping, so he sat down quietly and prepared at the campfire. The fire was mostly white-grey ashes, but after some prodding he found some glowing red coals underneath.

Jay snapped up the smallest twigs and added some dry bark, scrunching it in his hand until it looked like a bird nest. He poked the nest into the coals and blew on them, causing them to glow brighter until the twigs burst into fire.

With the flame restored, he added slightly larger twigs and worked his way up to larger pieces of wood until the fire was stable again.

He took out the crayfish, some sausages and a metal skewer he had taken from his butchery, piercing the sausages and crayfish and began grilling them.

It wasn’t long before they were sizzling, and a delicious garlic smell wafted from the sausages, causing the others to wake up out of hunger.

Naria was the first to get up. It seemed that she was too shy to ask for some food, as she sat near Jay and watched the sausages cooking silently, however it was more likely that her trauma was still affecting her as she was still either unable or unwilling to talk.

After a little while the food was ready.

Jay planned to eat them all himself, but had compassion on the young girl and gave her a sausage, along with some trail mix. The trail mix was mostly made up of dried fruit and nuts.

He also checked her water bottle to make sure it wasn’t empty.

Naria tried to eat the sausage but it was too hot, so she picked at the trail mix slowly while periodically testing the sausage with her tongue. She was awkwardly holding it on the skewer since they had no plates or cutlery.

Jay was slightly amused as he watched her eating, she would get distracted by the trail mix and the skewer in her other hand would slowly lower to the ground.

He shook his head with a smile,

“Don’t let the sausage get cold” he would say before it got too close to the ground, needing to say this a few times so that it didn’t get dirty. He patiently did this a few times before it was cool enough for her to eat.

By now, the others had woken up and were preparing a meal for themselves.

“Thanks for starting the fire” Mark said as he pulled out a pan.

Mark had pieces of meat cooking on a pan, while Kel added some grey mushrooms to the same pan. Anya had a muffin, which somehow wasn’t stale; she ate it while boiling some water for a coffee.

They all chatted together as they had breakfast by the fire, and their conversation made the forest seem a little warmer because of it. Mark mentioned that he must have slept on a stone as he cracked his back, while Kel talked about a weird dream she had which involved all of them running a race around Losla.

Jay and Anya mostly talked about different tactics they could have used to slay the leeches if they had more time, but joked that tactics don’t matter when they could have just sent Mark in by himself – his spell sword was the perfect counter to their passive body skill, ending them in one hit.

Jay described the massive bird he saw earlier in the morning, but no one believed him.

Of course, he wasn’t offended that no one believed him, in fact he even expected this; he started the story by saying ‘you guys won’t believe this, but something crazy happened this morning…’

After a finishing breakfast and enjoying the fire for a while, they put it out and packed up their gear, beginning to stretch before starting their journey back to Losla.

“All ready?” Everyone nodded back in response.

“Good, let’s go. We should arrive a little after lunch time.” Jay said, taking the lead once again.