Chương 82: Hunting (1)

Rowan stretched under his blanket, rubbing his eyes. After a minute, he forced himself to get up. Then, with a yawn, he made his way out from under the strung-up tarp. His body already felt better than the day before, but it still ached all over, and he moved with a slight limp. The campfire was already blazing, and next to it sat Henry, who was making more of the oats that they'd eaten the day before.

"Hey, Rowan." Henry looked up at him and waved. Smiling, Rowan waved back at the bald man as he took a seat by the fire, watching him cook. A minute later, Henry grabbed two bowls and, with a large spoon, began scooping the porridge. Then, he handed one of the bowls to Rowan. As he ate, Rowan said, "I'm gonna leave the town for a bit." Henry raised an eyebrow.

"Really? It's dangerous out there, y'know?" He laughed.

"Never mind. I almost forgot how strong you were. Still, be careful, alright? You never know what's waiting out there."

"I'm just trying to get an idea of what the surface is like and maybe level up a bit. Everywhere we've been, the populations have already been wiped out by the Bloodspawn. If I were to go that way—" Rowan said, pointing in the opposite direction of where he'd arrived from.

"—do you think there would be more enemies?"

"Eh, I wouldn't count on it, at least not close by," Henry replied.

"If the bloodspawn reached here, I'm sure they went farther. Probably not too far, though; they all got called back just a few hours after they attacked the town. That was because of the ants, no?" Rowan nodded. The broodmother had called all of the bloodspawn back to defend the cavern, but in the end, it simply hadn't been enough, and the ants had taken over the area. Taking a bite of his food, he kept thinking.

He didn't like the idea of returning to the caves, but he thought there was a decent chance he might have to do so, anyway. If he did end up back in the caves, what would he do? He already had one idea: checking what was in the sarcophagus. Of course, this would all hinge on him actually being able to find it, but if he did, he wanted to check what was inside. Back when he'd first appeared in the Tutorial, he'd been weak and scared, making the decision not to look inside the coffin.

Admittedly, Rowan thought that it had been a wise move on his part. Still, he was far more powerful now, and he was curious. Thinking about it still brought a faint sense of anticipation and fear, but if the opportunity ever arose, he would do it. Aside from that, he didn't think there was much else for him in the caverns. Perhaps he could look for the ant queen and kill her?

"If you go too far, though," Henry interrupted his musing.

"Then you'll leave the safe zone and end up in one of the more dangerous ones. I'm not sure what's in it, but even you should be careful. There's a big difference between here and those more dangerous areas, y'know? Well, the caves we found you in were basically one of the danger zones, huh?" Rowan nodded slowly as he ate the last of his food.

"I'll keep that in mind. I doubt I'll go so far, though. At least not today." He sighed and set his now-empty bowl down. Then, with a stretch, he stood.

"You want seconds?" Henry asked, looking up at him. Rowan chuckled.

"Not this time, no. I'm gonna get an early start, so I won't be out too long."

"Really? This is the first time you haven't come back for another serving. You aren't getting bored of my cooking already, are you?"

"Of course not!" Rowan smiled.

"Oh, actually, when are we supposed to leave? If it's today, I'll try to make things faster so I don't slow things down."

"Don't worry about it; we'll be here for another day or two."

"Alright. Thanks, Henry." Rowan let out a breath, preparing for whatever he was going to face outside the walls. Then, turning away from the campfire, he made his way toward the nearest breach in the walls. … If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Rowan traveled through the forest, sword drawn. He'd been walking for half an hour already, and he was growing far from the settlement.

The only injury that truly bothered him was the puncture wound on his thigh, turning walking from an effortless task to a somewhat painful endeavor. He was already moving better than he had been earlier in the morning, since he'd gotten some time to wake his body up, but he didn't think the limp would go away until the wound was healed. Every once in a while, he would scratch an ex into a tree he walked by, marking his path.

He didn't think he would get lost, especially with how his memory had been improving since he arrived in the Tutorial, but he didn't want to take the risk. It took a bit of effort to cut into the trees, since the sword wasn't exactly sharp; the blade was already chipped and becoming dull, and he didn't have any way to repair it. There might've been some way to take care of the weapon without the proper tools, but Rowan simply didn't know enough to do so.

If it truly came to it, he thought he could probably sharpen it on a rock, albeit at the expense of the lifespan and integrity of the blade. He didn't think he would ever need to do that, though; he could make swords out of mana, too, and he could repair them with a mere thought. The only advantages the physical weapon had were that it didn't take energy to create and maintain, and it had more weight behind it. Rowan tilted his head as he thought about the weight. Could he recreate that with mana?

He knew the energy had weight to it, but he didn't really know how much it weighed. When he was making his weapons, he just went by feel, and their weight depended on the amount of mana in them. The denser it was, the heavier. Getting an idea, Rowan raised his hand, channeling mana through his pathways and to the tips of his fingers. As the blue wisps gathered in his palm, he began to compress the mana. Halfway through, though, he stopped.

Then, he began to channel a different kind of mana—the one he'd developed by observing the being within his chains. The semi-stable energy was a ticking time bomb, so he had to work fast unless he wanted to continue expending a constant stream of mana to keep his own creation from exploding. He formed it into a small ball before compressing it to the size of a marble. But he didn't stop there, still pouring more mana into it and compressing it at the same time.

And as the orb grew denser and denser, its color grew darker, going from a light blue to a dark navy. Still, he didn't want to expend too much of his stored-up energy on his experiments, so after a moment longer, he stopped. Then, taking the other mana he'd released earlier, he compressed it around the explosive orb he'd created, forming a shell around it. Then, adding a bit more mana, he formed the outer layer into the shape of a pyramid. With his projectile done, Rowan let it drop into his hand.

[Mana Manipulation lvl 21 → Mana Manipulation lvl 22] Rowan smiled at the notification before turning his attention back to the mana construct. It was heavy, far more so than he'd expected, but with his enhanced stats, it was more than manageable. Before he could do anything else, though, he snapped to attention as a roar echoed through the forest. Glancing around in alarm, Rowan found the source: there, standing a dozen yards away, was a massive bear.

It wasn't necessarily unnaturally large, but it still seemed larger than the vast majority of its kind. Rowan stared at the bear for a second before a small smile appeared on his face. He'd been intending on testing his newly formed projectile against a tree, but a perfect opportunity had just presented itself. First, though, he focused on the creature, bringing up its information. [Bear - Level 8]"Huh." Rowan frowned.

For some reason, he'd been expecting the bear to have some kind of special name like the thunderous jaguars. But it seemed that the bear was exactly what it seemed like: a bear. Did it need to have some kind of magical ability to have a special name? Rowan shook his head; now was not the time to theorize about how the System determined a species' name. He considered using his newly acquired firearm for a moment, before dismissing the thought.

He wasn't short on ammunition, sure, but he didn't have any way to get more, either; plus, he wanted to test the construct he'd made. If he ran out of mana or got into a truly bad situation, he would use it. If not, he was going to save his ammo. Preparing to take control of his projectile with [Mana Manipulation], Rowan carefully watched the bear. Then, as it charged at him, he threw it toward the beast with all of his might. As it left his hand, he boosted it with his skill, further speeding it up.

If it worked like intended, then when the unstable mana made contact with the creature… Rowan watched as the projectile crashed into the bear's upper chest, shooting right through the beast's flesh and bone. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, it exploded. He cringed slightly as he watched the bear explode, spraying gore across the forest floor. [You have slain Bear - Level 8] That had been… more effective than Rowan had expected. The beast was dead, just like that. There were two downsides to the method, though.

First, the mana cost was far higher than what he normally would've expended fighting against the bear, though he could fix that by making a weaker version of the projectile. Second, if he wanted to harvest the bear's hide or some other part of its body, well… he couldn't. It had exploded, after all. Shaking his head, Rowan turned away from the bear's corpse. The entire time he'd been trapped in the caves, he had been forced to constantly fight for his own survival. Now, he was going to fight once more.

This time, though, it was on his own terms.