Chapter 133 Inferior in Stealth (1/2)

The dream finished after 20 cycles and I woke up in my new shelter. I ate my breakfast and then carried on with my training. The part of the forest I lived in currently, was very quiet. I always thought why people feared north so much. It seemed to me that the further north I went, the quieter it became. 'This doesn't make sense. The guy who told me about north was a coward but didn't lie to me, I would be able to guess that much. He really feared the northern parts and even said that there are even more amazing or dangerous creatures and animals living there. Even stronger than the Flaming Silver Wolf or the Flaming Grey Bear' I thought.

But something didn't seem to add up. If my destination was so dangerous, why the hell was it so quiet here? Barely being able to find variants was something I never encountered outside of the scopes of villages. Something was fishy about this region. 'It's either the guy who told me all of this was lying and was the best actor I could ever find or he told the truth and something is not right' I thought.

'I never noticed any presence of strong animal or even people. The only people I encountered were the group that chased me up to here. They were already dead so why do I feel like something is not right here' I thought.

This was my current problem. Trying to figure out why this region was so peaceful? There were barely any strong animals, if calling the Black Bears or Black Wolves counts as strong. 'I lived in this place for so long and there is nothing here' I thought. Those thoughts started shortly after my senses awoke and improved. I was paranoid about it at first. I checked if anyone or anything was watching me but I felt no presence, saw no shadow and smelled no smell. Yet my mind never gave up about it. Always staying alert as if telling me ”Look out, there is something here!”.

I dispersed those thoughts. 'Maybe I'm lacking human interactions and my mind is starting to play tricks on me. When Shelly was here, I always had someone to talk to. Maybe I'm just tired' I thought. With that in mind, I took a day off instead of continuing my training. It might've been possible I was stressing myself too much and placed too much pressure on myself. I decided that some rest would probably fix that.

A week later, I still had those thoughts. I couldn't relax at all. I was able to sleep but doing nothing for a whole day was something I found quite difficult to do. When I trained, those thoughts were at least kept a bay. I had to focus on doing my exercises. I decided to get back to training. If resting didn't help then there was no point doing it.

I trained that day and tried to forget about everything. My skills improved with every day by a small margin but my strength stayed at a pretty much the same level. One day, I was training my Natural Path skill when I noticed something odd.

'Hmm? and what is this supposed to be?' I thought as I looked at a strange object on the ground. It looked like an arrow but it was completely green and didn't seem like wood or metal. When I picked it up, I noticed it weighed almost nothing. 'Even a child would be able to pick this arrow up, it's as if it weighs nothing at all!' I thought.

'Where did this arrow come from? Who or what left it here? I ran these routes many times, it would be impossible for me to overlook this. With my senses, it was simply impossible. Someone or something must've left it here' I thought. Then I remembered the feeling I had all that time, as if my instincts were telling me that something is here.

I called out loud ”Whoever is here, come out!” but there was no answer. I tried again using different approach ”I found your arrow! I know you are here!”. I waited for a while but still heard nothing. 'I'm sure this time it's not my imagination. Someone or something is watching me, this arrow is the proof' I thought as I started to head back to my camp.

When I arrived back at my camp, I heard some noises behind me. I didn't react instantly. I wanted to know what it was that tried to observe me. When I turned around, there was nothing. I called out again ”Why are you playing this game? Just come out and talk if you want to talk or leave if you have nothing to say”. I sat down near a place I used to make campfire and retrieved some sticks from my bag. Then I lit fire and waited.